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Back to the mission at hand, Fleming runs his eyes over the screens,
like eight black static-filled windows with an ocassional smear of
white light cutting across. Everybody's starting to show the effects
of the cold, dry environment: increased dehydration, lowered heart
rate, slower response. Everything's heavier and harder to handle in
the cold, he knows. He'd been a Wisconsin farm boy. Movement will
keep them warm, he thinks. The area looks clear. "Proceed on zero-zero axis, crew section. Get to the bridge."
The squad transmissions were fuzzed with interference. Cargo, heavy
bulkheads, thin air. The last few transmits were almost indecipherable. They know what they're doing, he thinks.
Halfway down the tunnel, Moore gets instructions from Fleming. He
whistles to get his squad's attention. "Everybody stay loose," he
says, then raises his voice to announce, "US Colonial Marines. Is anybody in here?"
The squad walks on in the silence that follows. Sound doesn't carry very well in here. It's muffled, as if by wind, but the air is still and weightless. The echoes are especially strange: too soon, or too
late, with too much of the original sound missing. Like a child screaming back from out of the ether.
A very fine mist in the air scatters the light from everyone's lamps, so that their beams are well-defined columns of yellow-white, disappearing into the fog. Morrison leads the squad toward the door
at the far end of the tunnel, and finally spots it at the perimeter of his vision.
Closed. The control panel set into the wall next to it looks unpowered. There's a small rectangular window set about chest-
high in the door. Morrison peeks through, but sees only black.
The he tries an emergency code on the control panel, and finds to his
surprise that it works. A few small diodes set under the translucent
keys slowly come to life.
"Ready when you are," he says, finger hovering over the OPEN key.
Moore gives a nod, his rifle aimed.
"Wait," says Berliner. He pulls the tracker again. It begins to give
a tone. Something's moving on the other side of the door. "Seven meters, to the right," he says, which alarms Morrison and the
sarge. "It's okay. It's staying in one place, moving in place.
Something in perpetual motion?" he ventures.
"Let's find out," says Moore.
Behind the others, Patwardhan crouches against a wall, trying to keep
an eye in both directions. Beneath her heavy fatigues, she sweats despite the cold. Her lips are beginning to crack and peel. Her
breath erupts in hot plumes before her. Hyperventilating. She cups her hands around her mouth, warming them. Gotta calm down, she thinks, taking up her shotgun again.
Focused on the door, Berliner sets the tracker on the floor and kneels behind the sergeant. He raises his smartgun to his
cheek. "Crack this fucker open, Morrison," he huffs.
Grabbing his shoulder lamp with his left hand, and a pistol in his
right, Moore prepares to meet the darkness. He moves in tight behind
Morrison. "Open it, soldier."
"Fuck!" Booths' gaze falls on the crates as he scans the bay. "No wonder they pulled us out of cryo," he complains, sneering
openly. "It would've cut into their profit margin."
"That's enough, trooper," says Fleming, his signal small and weak from inside the APC.
Booths gives him a mental "up yours," but keeps scanning with his eyes. The lids feel sticky, the cold is drying them out.
Brimstone appears, pulse rifle at the ready. She glances out, around, up, sees the faint impression of a kind of scaffolding all along the
ceiling, probably strung with lights, electrical conduits. Back to business.
"Quit gawking and fall into position," she says. The squad begins to assemble around her: Booths out front, the smartgun pulled a little high to facilitate a quick move laterally. He sets a slow pace, but one which gives everyone a good look around them before moving on.
Vitelli keeps a close eye on the tracker, glancing out to the sides from time to time to check crate labels. Sonic Plastics Enterprises, Fowler Construction. Finally spots a goldmine. 5000 COUNT MARLBORO
CIGARETTES T-FREE PACKS OF 20 USA. That's ten thousand cigarettes, he
thinks.
"What are you reading on your tracker, private?" asks Brimstone, in full squad leader mode.
"There's nothing to see," he says.
"Keep watching it," she snaps.
McKenzie doesn't have to hide his grin in the darkness. He follows the squad, cannon scanning left to right and back again, feeling more confident by the minute.
Passing enormous shipping crates, some as big as train box cars, the soldiers begin to feel the bite of the cold. The passage through the cargo hold is slow going, but unimpeded. They pass a six-ton construction vehicle gleaming with a bright orange paint job beneath a patina of glittering ice flakes.
Now approximately twenty meters from the crew section hatch. Huge forms loom in the shadows beyond the range of the squad's shoulder lamps. Cargo boxes.
"Yo, Stone," says Booths. "Should we go to IR? Anything hot's gonna stand out in this weather."
Brimstone nods. "Anyone who wants to go to infrared can do it, but keep sharp. Not everything gives off heat."
Vitelli sniffles, wipes his nose on his sleeve. "It's fucking freezing in here," he complains, then suddenly changes gears. "Man, oh, man," he says, reaching out to touch the cold surface of the
cigarette crate. "Tell Fleming we're taking this box home with us."
He wipes his nose on his sleeve, changes gears.
"Keep moving, team," says Brimstone.
Vitelli stays a step behind Booths, keeping a close eye on the tracker. "Still clear," he reports.
McKenzie covers the squad from behind, sweeping his smartgun in wide
arcs, scanning from side to side with his shoulder lamp. He makes ghostly "ooh" noises until the coporal tells him to shut up. He
studies the mute, flat cliffs of stowed cargo. His light falls on a two-ton crate of industrial strength ammonia. "Big waste of time," he mutters. "I figure I could serve this unit better by confiscating a crate of champage. I'd spend a couple of hours briefing that pretty little captain."
"I'll help you there," says Vitelli.
"That is, unless the bogey man got to her," continues the smartgunner. "But I got a feeling I'm not that lucky. She's probably
in cryo right now, dreaming about somebody just like me."
"Hey Nino, Mac," says Booths. "Shut your holes for a minute. Stone, can you hear anything over the comm?"
She takes the time to test it. "Fleming can you hear me?"
A short burst of static is the reply, a voice so baffled by interference as to be unrecognizable.
"Okay, that's a negative," Brimstone says. "Just keep moving."
Using the eyepiece to get the smartgun's infrared perspective, Booths
rotates at the waist while still moving forward. Behind him, the
lamps of his team burn bright over their left shoulders, and the warm
shapes of their bodies blur with his motion. The rest of the room is
cold, blue and grainy on the tiny monitor next to his eye. Vertical
black creases define the frosted angles of shipping crates. A doorway
appears straight ahead, the port side crew hatch. The door itself
glows blue-green.
The command module in the APC is freezing, with the transport's side door open, a row of remote sentry gun cases piled inside.
"Goddamn it, can anybody hear me?" curses Fleming into his comset in vain. He taps a comm switch, tries to raise the squads again, and fails. Just louder static.
Outside, the dropship crew puts the finishing touches on a second
sentry gun unit. It begins to rotate in a standard scan pattern. Low
threat, non-firing, tracking mode. And so far, there's been nothing to shoot at. The two men move back toward the APC and each grab another case.
"Deploy those units further out, flanking the main corridor," orders Fleming.
"Yes, sir," they reply, Sabo naturally a moment late. Duarte, next to him, grunts as he takes up one of the bulky sentry gun boxes in both hands. He moves back toward the other units facing down the wide
corridor toward the dropship, its yellow standby lights appear as a tight constellation in the far distance.
Duarte says a quick prayer, too faint for the comm to pick up, and staying far enough ahead of Sabo to avoid conversation with him.
Taking the hint, Sabo decides to set up this next gun on his own. He volunteers for the right side of the tunnel, and lets the box drop to the ground. He feels a little exposed out here in the dark, and
barely has enough light to see what he's doing. He works the latches of the sentry gun, and starts to assemble it by rote.
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