Vorpal Blade

17

“Excuse me, miss,” Berg said, then froze in his tracks.

He was headed up to supply to pick up some parts for Drago’s Wyvern, which had developed a cranky streak about running the right arm, when the girl… teenager entered the same passage. His first thought was that she was about the first member of the science team he’d seen; the “mission specialists” tended to keep to their own section of the package. His second thought was that she was awfully young. His third was that she was awfully cute. He was working up to a fourth thought along the lines of the problems with mixing cute and young when the puppet on her shoulder moved and he froze, realizing it wasn’t a puppet. Then he froze more when he realized who he was blocking.

“Err, uh,” Berg said insouciantly. “That’s… uhm.”

Fortunately, the hydrogen had finally bled out of the submarine so his last “uhm” came out as a normal squeak instead of a hydrogen induced one. So much more manly that way.

“He doesn’t bite,” Mimi said, grinning up at the towering Marine. If she was intimidated, it wasn’t apparent.

“I know,” Berg said, clearing his throat. “You must be Mimi Jones. That’s… uh, that is… how is Tuffy?”

“Fine, as always,” Mimi said. “How are you…” She paused as if accessing a memory. “…Two-Gun?”

“Fine, ma’am,” Berg said, suddenly remembering his protocol. The lowliest of the mission specialists rated as an officer. You made way for officers in the corridors. Berg turned to the side and flattened against the bulkhead. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“That’s okay,” Mimi said, walking past. She paused, though, and turned back. “Why do they call you Two-Gun?”

“That’s a long story, ma’am,” Berg said.

“Maybe another time, then,” Mimi said. “Later.”

“…And Tuffy’s on board,” Berg said, excitedly. “Tuffy!”

“Oh, God, Two-Gun, not again,” Drago said, yanking the arm module out.

“But it’s Tuffy!” Berg explained to his satisfaction.

“My sister has one of those dolls,” Crowley said. “So what?”

“Tuffy’s an alien, right?” Hatt asked.

“Nobody really knows what Tuffy is,” Berg said. “Big explosion. The Chen Event.”

“I’m from Florida,” Jaen said, his jaw flexing. “I had family in Boca Raton.”

The entire area for fifty miles around Boca Raton was still a no-go zone. One of the Looking Glasses had, apparently, let through something. That was all anyone could determine about it. But the something had driven everyone for fifty miles around incurably insane. Most had died in the zone since it was impenetrable. Scientists were still, cautiously, trying to determine what was going on in the Boca Zone but so far had come up with nothing beyond… something.

“Sorry,” Berg said. “Didn’t know.”

“It’s okay, I didn’t really know them all that well,” Jaen admitted. “But I know about the Chen Event. We all know. It’s a toss-up which you remember better, 9/11 or the Chen Event.”

“Chen Event,” Drago said. “I was in school on 9/11. I never even heard about it till I got home. The Chen Event, though, I was over at my buddy Tom’s house, playing Counter-Strike. Guy pinged in on us and we spent the rest of the day watching TV.”

“You didn’t stay up long enough,” Berg said. “Who survived the Chen Event?”

“Oh, lots of people,” Jaen said. “I mean they were pulling survivors out of the rubble…”

“No, I mean up close.”

“Nobody,” Drago said. “No, wait…”

“One person, Mimi Jones,” Berg said. “She lived less than a half mile from the explosion.”

“Oh, I remember her,” Jaen said. “That’s her? I never believed it. No way she could have lived. I mean that’s not inside the primary blast radius, but it was totally flattened. No way to live.”

“But she did,” Berg said. “No question about that. No other way for her to get where she was when she turned up. And she turned up with Tuffy. Nobody, absolutely nobody, knows who or what Tuffy is. The speculation is that Mimi got sucked out of the universe and Tuffy came back with her.”

“A stuffed doll?” Drago said. “Pull the other one, Two-Gun.”

“I got real interested in all this stuff,” Berg said. “I figured we were going to be fighting the Dreen forever and I already knew I wanted to be a Marine. So I was going to be fighting the Dreen. I wanted to know what I was going to be fighting.”

“Hell is what,” Top said. “You’d be fighting hell. Got that T-shirt.”

As usual the first sergeant had appeared as if teleporting.

“Sorry, Top,” Jaen said. “We’re working.”

“I know,” Top said. “What’s this about Tuffy and Miss Jones?”

“I…” Berg paused and shrugged. “I’ve got one of those Google search things set up for Tuffy. There have been at least six breakthroughs in technology in the last two years credited to Mimi and Tuffy. There wasn’t anything on them for a few years; they just dropped off the radar screen. Then they start turning up fixing tech issues. Now they’re here. I’m sorry, Top, that’s just damned cool.”

“Yes, it is,” Top said. “For general information, it was Miss Jones who pointed out that there might be problems with exiting the system and helped with figuring out how to overcome them. Bright young lady. Emphasis on young. You don’t joke with her, you don’t chat with her, you sure as hell don’t flirt with her. And remember that the abilities of that thing on her shoulder are unknown but are known to include defensive capabilities. Frankly, Tuffy could probably kill you by looking at you. In other words, keep your dicks in your pants where they belong. Are we all clear here?”

“Clear, Top,” the group chorused.

“Drago, what are the characteristics of a fermion?”

“Fermions are subatomic particles with half integer spin and follow Fermi-Dirac statistics — whatever the hell that is.” Drago said.

“What is important about fermions other than mesons?”

“A fermion particle composed of three quarks is a baryon,” Drago spouted. “A baryon cannot form Bose-Einstein condensates and under normal conditions has a high… breakdown rate.”

“The term you were looking for is degradation,” Top said. “But breakdown shows you understand what it means so that’s good enough. If you detect these fermions what are the possible indicators… Hatt?”

“It means that fermion production is occurring in the immediate area,” Hatt said. “So there’s something making fermions.”

“What could make fermions?” Top asked.

“Uh…” Hatt said, blinking furiously. “Well, Top, a quarkium drive. But then you’d probably get pentaquarks, too. And… neutrinos. Just fermions? I’m not sure, Top. I’d have to kick that one up.”

“I’d probably kick it up, too,” the first sergeant said. “But one answer is a properly tuned Higgs boson. They can generate tuned fermions. They’re where we get the quarks for the quarkium drive and the mesons that power the warp drive.”

“So if we detect fermions there’s a Higgs boson nearby, Top?” Drago asked.

“One that’s been tuned to produce them,” Powell said, nodding. “In their normal state they mostly generate a stream of muons. Primarily in the direction of the nearest unlinked Higgs that matches their spin-state. So if you get a sudden stream of muons—”

“There’s a steady state Higgs that is trying to link,” Jaen said. “I’m beginning to see why we’re studying this stuff, First Sergeant.”

“Because you’re Space Marines,” Powell said, grinning. “It’s a lot more than just hitting the beach shouting ‘Oorah!’ But you’ve got to be able to do that, too.”

“Okay, who knew Top had a physics degree?” Crowley said as soon as the first sergeant was gone.

“He doesn’t,” Jaen said. “He’s got a masters in international relations.”

“You’re maulking me,” Lujan said.

“Straight up,” Jaen replied. “Now ask me where it’s from.”

“I’ll bite,” Berg said.

“Sorbonne.”

“No grapping way,” Berg said, shaking his head.

“What the grapp is a Sorbonne?” Drago said. “It sounds like a pastry.”

“Close,” Jaen said. “It’s a university in Paris.”

“One of the oldest in the world,” Berg said. “I mean, it makes having a Harvard degree look like old news.”

“What in the grapp is he doing as a first sergeant?” Crowley asked.

“Welcome to the Space Mushrooms,” Jaen, Hatt and Berg chorused.

“How do I get out of this egghead outfit?”

“God almighty I’m grapping bored,” Sergeant Lovelace said, lowering the weights slowly.

PT was a requirement every day. The ship’s reduced gravitational level had a tendency to cause loss of muscle mass, fast. Working out was even more of a necessity than in a normal duty station.

“Don’t let Top hear you say that,” Jaenisch replied. “He will find a way to keep us occupied. Got it.”

“I’d kill for a good run,” Berg said, grunting as he thrust down on the lifters. “Weights just don’t do it for me.”

“You can run around the missile compartment,” Crowley said, curling right then left.

“Third’s down there doing Wyvern sims,” Berg pointed out. “I’d sort of be in the way.”

“Do the third level,” Drago said, wiping sweat off his face.

“What? And deal with missile watch? I swear the guy that’s on most of the time is gay.”

“Well, you know, Two-Gun,” Crowley said, grinning. “You got a real pretty mouth.”

“Go suck duck dicks, Crow,” Berg said as the door to the small gym opened.

“Good morning, Marines,” Runner said, grinning. “Mind if I join in?”

“Certainly, Master Sergeant,” Staff Sergeant Summerlin said.

“Runner or Steve will do,” Runner said, walking over to the Nautilus, just about the only machine not in use. “I was supposed to be here last night but the eminent Dr. Paul Dean had me analyzing Saturn data.”

“Why’s he still analyzing Saturn’s data?” Berg asked when nobody responded. “I mean, we’ve been to one world and I’m pretty sure we’ve surveyed several more…”

“We’ve collected at least spectral data from over ninety worlds so far,” Runner said, adjusting the machine and rolling into position. “Dropped probes on four more that looked interesting. And, of course, picked up all that data on Dean’s World. But we’ve just started on ‘serious analysis’ of Saturn’s data. That will, according to Dr. Dean, occupy us for the better part of a year. At least, occupy him. As soon as we’re back on Earth he can spend all the time in a lab he wants.”

“You sound unhappy, Master Sergeant Runner,” Crowley said, grinning.

“Dr. Dean is a classic California Liberal One Each,” Runner said, grimacing as he slammed the Nautilus pads together. “One who quite detests jingoistic myrmidons. That would be us. Or anyone else who has ever worn a uniform in anything other than the Red Army.”

“Jesus Christ,” Drago said. “What the grapp is he doing on a Navy ship?”

“He is, in case I hadn’t mentioned it, a quite brilliant planetologist,” Runner said, finishing his set and moving over to the leg machine. “A revolting son of a bitch of a pinko communist, but a great planetologist.”

“Maulk, I thought we had problems,” Jaen said. “All we’ve got to do is figure out what the potential implications of a baryon are.”

“Okay, I did not just hear a Marine say that,” Runner said, sitting up and looking over at the sergeant.

“You’re right, you didn’t,” Jaen replied, lying back and lifting up the weight bar. “You heard a Space Marine say that.”

“Point,” Runner said, grinning. “You guys have been studying particle physics?”

“More like memorizing some of them,” Berg said. “We don’t even touch the math. I don’t even touch the math.”

“Two-Gun’s the platoon’s tutor,” Staff Sergeant Sumerlin said.

“Two-Gun?” Runner asked.

“He’s the master of two-gun mojo,” Drago said, grinning.

“Two-gun mojo doesn’t work,” Runner said definitely.

“I only did it once,” Berg protested. “And it was on orders. I don’t do it in combat.”

“But he did it magnificently,” Jaen said. “Blew them little centipedes away.”

“You really two-gun mojo?” Runner said, interested.

“No, I don’t,” Berg replied. “I hold one gun in either hand, but I only fire one at a time. Empty that, switch to the off-hand while I holster, reload and switch.”

“That actually sounds doable,” Runner admitted.

“I’ve only really mojoed once,” Berg said bitterly. “It’s not like I make a habit of it.”

“Wait, you really mojoed,” Drago said. “Like firing two at once?”

“I am not talking about this!” Berg said.

“It’s okay, Two-Gun,” Jaen said, grinning. “Jeeze, he’s worse about this than he is about Weaver.”

“What’s he got against Commander Weaver?” Runner asked. “Bill’s a pretty good guy.”

“Wait,” Berg said, sitting up. “You’ve met him?”

“Yeah,” Runner said. “Pretty good guy for an egghead. Hell of an accent, though.”

“Oh. My. God,” Berg said, theatrically, slumping back down and grabbing his weights. “He has met William Weaver…” he sang.

“That’s right, Two-Gun, ham it up,” Drago said. “We all know you want to have his babies.”

“Commander Weaver’s an interesting character,” Runner said.

“We’ve heard,” Summer said. “At length.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m reciting the biography of Linda Sweet,” Berg said. “I mean, he was up close and personal with the Dreen.”

“And fighting the Dreen is a stone bitch,” Runner said. “Got that T-shirt.”

“You were in the Dreen War, Master Sergeant?” Jaen asked.

“I’ve been in seventeen years,” Runner said. “Do the math.”

“Sorry, Master Sergeant,” Jaen replied.

“Ah, that’s okay,” Runner said, moving to the next machine. “It’s just not something I like to talk about. We lost most of my team doing a recon of a Dreen infestation the first time we hit one. I’ve done… Maulk, I don’t know how many entries I’ve done on them since. We got detailed to do a lot of internal recons after the gates were closed. Did one on the Bekaa Valley infestation after they dropped the nukes. That was grapping hairy. Think ‘radioactive insane Dreen.’ ”

“Grapping ouch,” Drago said.

“Didn’t lose a man that time,” Runner said. “But it was… ugly. Really grapping ugly. Maulk I’m not ready to talk about. So, yeah, I was in the Dreen War. So was Chief Miller and, of course, Commander Weaver. Both of them got some pretty serious rad damage from it. And I think they’re the only two survivors with the SEAL team that put the bomb through the gate in Kentucky. Still fun guys to have a beer with. So, you guys are the Space Marines, huh? That anything like Space Cadets?”

“Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert! Second Platoon to Wyverns! First and Third to ground mount!”

“More like mushrooms,” Berg shouted as he headed out the door.