Rione paused, looking around with a bleak expression. “None of you have mentioned this yet, but what about the two officers? They will not be inside armor. They will have been exposed. A single bacterium would be enough, I heard. How do we deal with that?”
Dr. Nasr grimaced. “What we can do is bring extra armor and seal the officers inside. With any luck, if the fools on that ship have not gone outside or otherwise exposed themselves too much, there will be no contamination inside except anything our Marines might bring despite their own efforts to minimize the risk. But we must face such a possibility of contamination, so even after their armor is sterilized, the two officers will have to be placed in total medical isolation long enough to be certain that they have not been infected. It is the best we can do, and it will ensure that even if the officers are… as good as dead… the infection will not spread.”
“I understand the need for solutions that are only the least awful compared to the possible alternatives,” Rione said. “Thank you. That option offers our best chance and does not compromise our safety measures.”
“My people will be careful to get those officers into the spare armor as fast and clean as they can,” Gunnery Sergeant Orvis assured Rione.
“After that, you have to get everyone back up here,” Geary said to Orvis. “Are you certain that you won’t need one of the shuttles to land you on the surface and pick you up again?”
“We’ll need one on the drop, Admiral, from high up, but not on the pickup. If we used a shuttle then, we’d be using it up. There’s no way to fry the inside and outside of a bird the way the doc is talking about and have anything worth keeping.” Orvis tapped his pad, and images appeared above it. “Europa’s not a big moon at all. Not much gravity to worry about. A little over a tenth of a standard gravity. We’ll need the shuttle on the drop to bring us down as low as the quarantine allows, then we’ll jump and brake our landing with strap-on thrusters.”
Tiny animated Marines in battle armor jumped from a tiny shuttle, falling down toward an image of Europa’s surface.
“After we do the job,” Orvis continued, “we get off by jumping and using what’s left in the strap-on thrusters to kick us into orbit. The power assist in the armor combined with the thrusters should do the job.”
“You can literally jump into orbit around Europa?” Rione asked skeptically.
“With the help of the extra thrusters, yes, ma’am. My Marines and I will have to jump as hard as the armor allows,” Orvis conceded. “But we’ll be highly motivated. About all you could do to motivate us more would be to dangle some beer out of an air lock. That’ll give us something to aim for.”
“Leaving out the motivational effects of the beer,” Geary said, “what’s your margin of error on reaching orbit?”
“Ten percent safety margin, Admiral,” Orvis admitted.
“Not great, but big enough. Can the ice support being used as a jump-off platform?”
This time it was Desjani who nodded. “That’s not a problem. Dauntless’s sensors have studied the surface. The stealth craft landed in an area where the ice is very thick and very hard. It might as well be solid rock as far as we’re concerned.”
Dr. Nasr tapped his own data pad. “The weapons on this warship can be recalibrated to an output that is sufficient to sterilize the outer armor but not deadly to the men and women inside it. We will be destroying the outer layer of the armor to ensure that nothing can get inside the ship.”
Senior Chief Tarrini smiled. “The crew will get a kick out of shooting at Marines floating in space.”
“I’d rather you hadn’t brought that up,” Gunnery Sergeant Orvis observed. “We’ve got exactly three spare suits of battle armor, but one of those is down hard because we had to pull some parts to keep another suit going. All we need is two, though. Once we get into the craft, the lieutenants can get into the armor, then we all leave.”
Dr. Nasr sighed. “Can you send fewer Marines and try to rescue some of the others on the craft?” he asked.
Geary looked at the others, but they all looked back at him. One more unpleasant benefit of being in charge. I have to answer that. “Doctor, we have no idea how many people are on that craft. From the size of the craft, it could be as few as six or as many as thirty. If it’s thirty, even if I send all forty Marines aboard Dauntless, the odds will not be very good for an assault.”
“But if it is six?” Nasr asked.
“You understand, Doctor, that what Envoy Rione said earlier is all too accurate. Even if we get some of those people off Europa, the locals will very likely insist on executing them.”
Nasr nodded, his eyes on the deck.
“But I will see what can be done,” Geary promised. “Envoy Rione, Master Chief Gioninni, when you talk to the people on that craft, see if you can find out how many of them there are as well as what kind of deal might be possible.” If it served no other purpose, knowing how many criminals were on the craft would be very useful information for the Marines to have.
“Speaking of the locals,” Desjani continued, “how do we deal with them? From the looks of Commander Nkosi and Lieutenant Cole, those two, at least, won’t let our Marines just drop onto Europa, jump off, then sail away on Dauntless.”
“Can we keep them off?” Rione asked Geary. “Prevent the locals from interfering with our operation?”
He could see the answer in Desjani’s eyes. “No,” Geary said. “Not unless we shoot them full of holes.”
“Which I would prefer not to do in this case,” Desjani added.
Senior Chief Tarrini mumbled something that sounded like “that’s a first,” then looked around as if trying to see who had spoken.
“I don’t know how to handle the locals,” Geary said. “Fortunately, we have four politicians aboard.”
“Fortunately, we have four politicians aboard?” Desjani repeated. “That’s one sentence I never expected to hear.”
“I’m going to have a meeting with them. You, too, Doctor. I need to brief them on our plan, get their approval—”
Desjani made an inarticulate sound of protest.
“Get their approval,” Geary repeated, “and work out how to do this without causing an incident that will be heard all the way to Kick territory.”
“You’re asking a lot,” Rione cautioned. “But I can’t disagree. We need governmental approval to do this.”
Orvis looked to both Desjani and Geary. “Should I prep my people or wait for more word?”
Geary nodded. “Begin your preparations. You know what the mission will entail. We’ll notify you when we get a start time.”
Orvis stood and saluted. Many fleet salutes were still fairly sloppy since the practice had fallen out of use during the last decades of the war before being reintroduced by Geary. But the Marines had stubbornly clung to the practice all along, so Orvis’s salute was a model of crispness. “I will require specific guidance on the hostage-takers, Admiral. Though from what I understand, maybe it would be a mercy to kill them all during the hostage-rescue operation.”
“Maybe,” Geary said in a low voice, not looking toward Dr. Nasr. “But for now your orders are to do what you need to do to rescue our people. If any hostage-takers get in your way, take any necessary actions to deal with them but do not kill anyone you don’t have to. If those orders change, I will let you know.”
“Understood, Admiral.”
“Do you anticipate any problems getting all of your Marines to volunteer for the mission, Sergeant?” Dr. Nasr asked.
Orvis smiled. “When I brief my Marines on the task, I’ll let them all know that they volunteered. Saves a lot of time that way.”