“Whoa,” Sergeant Norman said as the first real wave hit. The drive could be felt through the walls of the bunks and it was apparent it was straining. “What the hell was that?”
“Standing gravitational wave,” Lance Corporal Seeley said. The effect was somewhat nauseating but if it was bothering Seeley it wasn’t apparent.
Norman looked across the compartment towards Lyle’s bunk and was surprised to see the former armorer asleep.
“This happens on every system?” Norman asked.
“Yep,” Seeley said. “And they’re really bad on the bigger stars like A and B class.”
There was a slight increase in the tenor of the drive as it kicked into a higher warp and a sharp feeling of movement where none existed.
“What the pock is going on?” Sergeant Portana asked over the general platoon freq.
“Grav waves,” Sergeant Bergstresser replied shortly. The Filipino armorer was still playing his salsa full blast.
“What de pock is a grab wabe?”
“It’s a made up word in Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky,” Berg replied. “But if you’re attempting to pronounce ‘grav wave’… Look it up.”
“They’re not getting along too well, are they?” Norman said over the internal team freq.
“Portana had better watch out or Two-Gun’s gonna kick his ass,” Seeley agreed.
“This grav thing,” Norman said. “How many times you go through it on the last mission?”
“I think we surveyed something like thirty systems,” Seeley replied. “And that didn’t count some of the other weird shit. This time, at least, we only have to go through it a couple of times. And we shouldn’t be messing with binaries.”
“Binaries are bad, I take it?” Norman asked, chuckling.
“They mention anything about an astrophysics survey, get ready to lose your lunch.”
“Clean system exit,” the XO announced as the waves fell off.
“Course?” the CO said.
“Heading Three-two-five, mark neg dot four,” Weaver said. “That heading has us well away from stars and other known anomalies. Maintain that heading for about two days, then we’ll adjust.”
“Works for me,” the CO said, getting out of his chair. “XO, make it so, then regular movement watch. Secure from quarters.”
“Aye, aye,” the XO said. “Going on a cruise.”
“All Hands, All Hands. System exit complete. Secure from Emergency Quarters.”
“Everybody out of your monkey suits,” Berg said, rolling out of his bunk and starting to strip off his skinsuit. “We’re up for Wyvern simulation in thirty minutes.”
“Thirty grapping days,” Himes muttered. “What the hell are we going to do for thirty grapping days in space?”
“You’ve seen the training schedule,” Berg replied, grinning. “Lots o’ training. Not to mention unscheduled drills, cleaning up the compartment, maintenance on the Wyverns…”
“Don’t forget pre-mission physical,” Corwin added from down the compartment.
“And we all have to go through pre-mission,” Berg added with an evil grin. “You’re not real Space Marines until you’ve gone through pre-mission physical.”
“Are we there, yet?” Smith moaned.
“You’ve been awfully quiet the last couple of days.”
Brooke looked up as Ashley Anderson sat down across from her. The lunchroom was, as always, loud to the point of hearing loss. So the statement was spoken loudly enough for the other girls at the table to hear.
“She has been, hasn’t she?” Clara Knott agreed. The skeletally thin brunette cheerleader had often been accused of being anorexic. Anyone looking at her heaping plate would have been disabused of the notion. Nor was she bulimic; she simply had a metabolism more commonly found in shrews. And somewhat the same personality. “And from the faraway look, there can only be one reason.”
“Has the ice-maiden, like, thawed?” Ashley asked. Like Brooke, she was a long, leggy blonde. Unlike Brooke, she could barely complete a thought. “What are you wearing to Winter Formal?”
“I’m more interested in who Broke is going to the formal with,” Clara said. “Come on, Brooke, give it up. We need a name.”
“I’m not going,” Brooke said, picking at her food.
“What do you mean?” Ashley squealed. “You have to go! You’re a cheerleader for God’s sake! Don’t tell me you don’t have a date!”
“She’s not going because her date’s not around to go,” Craig Elwood said, setting down his tray across from Ashley. “Mind if I sit here?”
“Yes,” Ashley replied, then paused. “Unless you really know something.” Craig was the school’s terminal geek. A member of the physics team and the math team, he was also irrepressible. Despite having spent most of his school years being hammered on by the “names” in the small school system.
“Someone, not naming any names,” Craig said, drawing the words out, “was seen canoodling with a former star of the physics team on Sunday.”
“I was not canoodling,” Brooke snapped. “Whatever that means. And it’s none of your business, Craig!”
“You mean you were just sitting in his truck for three hours?” Craig asked, aghast.
Brooke snarled. “What were you doing, following us?”
“No, but when I went into the theater you were sitting in his truck,” Craig said. “And when I came out of the theater you were still sitting in his truck. If you weren’t canoodling, which is an archaic term for necking, what in the heck were you doing?”
“Whose truck?” Clara asked, fascinated. Brooke almost never dated. She always had a date if she needed one, if there was a party or a dance. But she never dated. And she certainly had never, as far as Clara could figure out, necked with anybody. Well, she’d gotten caught kissing Jeffrey Brodie in the fifth grade. That seemed to have put her off the whole… canoodling thing.
“Eric Bergstresser, okay?” Brooke said, still picking at her food. “And he was also captain of the track team, Craig. So he’s not exactly a geek. And he lettered in football.”
“And he’s in the Marines,” Craig said. “And he got the Navy Cross. And he’s in some super-secret special operations group. And I hear he’s got the life expectancy of a mayfly.”
“What does that mean?” Ashley asked, fascinated. “Wait, you mean The Berg? Tall, dark and dreamy Eric Bergstresser? Not that little twerp Josh, right? Brooke, you wouldn’t date Josh Bergstresser, would you? You wouldn’t, right?”
“Go back to the mayfly thing,” Clara said. “What do you mean the… what you said…”
“Eric’s unit has a high casualty rate,” Brooke said softly. “Very high. I don’t know what he does but they lost most of their Marines on the last mission. Eric was one of the few survivors.”
“He’s probably in a Dreen clean-up unit, then,” Craig said knowingly. “There are outbreaks you never hear about. Special operations black teams clean them up quietly so nobody finds out about it. I didn’t know it was that dangerous, though.”
“And you went and fell for him,” Clara replied. “Well, I can kind of understand that. He sure is cute.”
“Cute?” Ashley squealed, again. “Cute? He’s gorgeous. He’s got those great eyes and those awesome hands and legs that go right up to… Did I mention that really great ass? Where’d you meet him? I thought he’d gone off to… somewhere. College?”