Semper Mars. Ian Douglas

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СКАЧАТЬ dreamed of riding ships into space. The Martian artifacts, the discoveries at Cydonia, in particular, in the shadow of that huge and enigmatic Face, were the reason humankind had at last ventured to the red planet in person.

      They were also, unfortunately, the reason the Marines had been sent to Mars.

      “Storm Cellar”

       Cycler Spacecraft Polyakov

       1602 hours GMT

      “All right, people,” Colonel Lloyd bawled. “I’m gonna have mercy on you poor slimeballs. Report back to the barracks hab and get squared away. You have one hour before I pull personal inspection. Then chow. Right? Gunnery Sergeant, take over this detail.”

      “Aye, aye, sir!”

      “Dismissed!”

      Lance Corporal Frank Kaminski looked at his buddy, Corporal Jack Slidell, and grinned. Slider grinned back, then reached above his head to one of the white storage modules strapped to the storm-cellar bulkhead and gave it a loving pat. The readout on the module said BATTERIES, GERMANIUM-ARSENIDE. “Hey, Ski!” Slidell called out. “Wanna quick charge?”

      “Shit, Slider!” Kaminski said. He glanced toward the hatch, where Gunnery Sergeant Knox and Staff Sergeant Ostrowsky were ushering Second Section through to the transport pod. “Ice it, huh?”

      Slider just laughed. “Yeah, I’ll ice it. I could use a nice cold one.” He rotated in the air, catching Ben Fulbert by eye. “How about it, Full-up? Ready to party?”

      Kaminski glanced at the other Marines still in the storm cellar. Sometimes, Slider could be just a bit too brash for his own good…and if he screwed things for them now, just a few days out from Mars…

      “Hey, Slider!” Ellen Caswell said, floating up next to them and catching herself with one hand on the bulkhead. “You and Ski got extra duty tonight, capische?”

      “Aw, fuck,” Slider snapped back. “Again? Fuck this shit….”

      “Fuck it yourself, Slider. You two can clean out the head cubicle before taps.” She reached out and thumped his breastplate, right above the garishly scrawled Mange la merde. “The Man didn’t like your graffiti. Especially with a French national present.”

      Slidell grinned at her around the wad of gum in his mouth. “Yeah? And what was that Frenchie civilian doin’ up here, anyway? Diggin’ for buried treasure?”

      “The head, shithead. Make it shine. And scrape that shit off your shell.”

      He tossed her a jaunty mock salute. “Aye, aye, sergeant, sir, ma’am!”

      Kaminski sighed. After seven months, he was getting to know the tiny lavatory facility in the enlisted barracks very well. Slidell was his fire-team partner, and Corps discipline held both men responsible for infractions that reflected on the fire team as a whole. Hell, Fulbert and Marchewka were probably giving silent thanks that the shit detail hadn’t hit the entire squad. Slidell had a peculiar talent for drawing fire.

      “Ice it down, Slider,” Kaminski said. “We’re in enough trouble already.”

      “Shee-it,” Slidell drawled as Caswell flexed her knees and launched herself across the compartment toward the hatchway. “What’re they gonna do, send us to fuckin’ Mars?”

      Hang on a little longer, he told himself. Things’ll be better when you hit dirt. Space was short, and tempers frayed in a situation where, paradoxically, there were too many people for the available space and too much work for the available people. The current TO&E for a Marine weapons platoon called for five-man squads—a pair of two-man fire teams and a squad leader—organized two squads to the section, two sections to the platoon. Kaminski was in First Squad, First Section; Slider, Sergeant Marchewka, and Lance Corporal Ben Fulbert were his squadmates, while Sergeant Ellen Caswell was both First Squad leader and First Assistant Section leader. Gunny Knox also wore two hats, as First Section leader and as Lieutenant King’s assistant platoon leader.

      With so small a force—a weapons platoon of twenty-three men and women, reinforced by a headquarters element of seven more—there was lots of double-hatting going on, and the Marines, rather than being mere passengers on the cycler transport, were expected to do their share of maintenance, cleaning, and general scutwork. The real problem, though, was the fact that the MMEF platoon was so damned top-heavy in the ranks. The lowest rank aboard was E-3—lance corporal—and there were lots of corporals and sergeants, more than was usual for a typical weapons platoon. And when shit flows downhill in the military, it lands on the low man on the pole.

      Part of the deal, in fact, was that all personnel in the MMEF would keep their current ranks until the end of the mission, which was expected to last the better part of two years, a measure designed by some desk-flying bureaucrat Earthside to keep the platoon from getting even more top-heavy than it was already from sheer time-in-grade attrition. Where they were going, there were no replacement depots or work pools to replace the lucky SOB who made E-4. That wasn’t really as bad as it sounded. All of them were getting flight pay, hazardous-duty pay, and hardship pay enough to more than make up for the financial shortcomings of the arrangement. When they got back to Earth, most of the guys on their first hitch, Kaminski among them, would have their four in and have the choice of accepting a double promotion—Kaminski would have a shot at sergeant—or returning to civilian life with one hell of a nice separation pay packet.

      Kaminski knew what he was gonna do. Four years for him was a great plenty. He would put in his hitch, and in another 745 days he would be out of here, out of the Corps and back to being a carefree civilian.

      With lots of money waiting for him, too. Surreptitiously, he reached up beneath his breastplate, tugging at his BDU blouse to make sure the flag was still wrapped around his waist. Slidell saw the gesture and laughed. “Still there?”

      Kaminski nodded. “Good thing, with all these damned PIs.”

      “You just keep it there, Ski, out of sight. Ha! Man, we’re gonna clean up when we get back, right?”

      “Aw, fer…” Kaminski shook his head. “Why don’t you tell everyone, Slider?”

      “Tell us what?” Sergeant Witek, one of the HQ element people, asked.

      “Nothin’,” Kaminski said, a little nervous. There wasn’t anything wrong with what he was doing. But the other guys probably wouldn’t understand….

      As far back as the Mercury program in the early 1960s, astronauts had carried small and easily transported items with them into space—toy space capsules, coins, even stamped envelopes that could be postmarked in space…items that would be worth a hell of a lot to collectors upon their return. This was a joint venture. It had been Slidell’s idea to take something that might serve as a souvenir…and Kaminski’s idea that the souvenir should be a flag, an American flag. He wore it day and night wrapped around his waist beneath his T-shirt, because if Knox or one of the other senior NCOs found it in his gear locker during an inspection, he’d be cleaning that lavatory cube all the way back to Earth, and likely they’d confiscate the flag, which would be worse. The idea was to have everyone sign it after the mission was over; Slidell claimed he knew a guy in San Diego who could put an artifact like that up for auction. God, a flag signed by fifteen or twenty of the Marines who’d actually been to Mars ought to fetch thousands….

      “All right, First Section!” Knox called out. “Hit the СКАЧАТЬ