Itâs just damned hard not to believe theyâre all connected somehow.â
âWell, the Peaceforcer cruisers are in place,â she said. âTheyâll be watching every Chinese launch, you can be sure of that. And theyâll be positioned to act if the Chinese ships make a move in either direction. Beijingâs only hope at this point is to play the game our way. Join the CWS, make nice, and take a cut of the profits.â
âBeijing,â he replied, âisnât exactly known for how well they play with others. Especially barbarians like us.â
He was right, of course. A struggle was shaping up, a struggle that might well determine the nature of humanity for the next ten thousand years.
And Kaitlin and Jack and the rest of the U.S. Marines were going to be at ground zeroâthe proverbial eye of the storm.
As usual.
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Squad Bay
1 MSEF Barracks
2135 hours Zulu
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âBumfuq!â Lucky exploded. âWeâre beinâ sent to Bumfuq!â
Bumfuq, Egypt , was an old, old expression current throughout all branches of military service, referring to a place, a duty station so far removed from the civilized amenities that you might as well be on another planet.
Which, in stark, cold point of fact, was exactly where they were going.
âAw, câmon, Lucky!â Staff Sergeant BA Campanelli said, laughing. âHow bad can it be? Anyway, you always said you wanted to go to space!â
âShit,â Lance Corporal Dick Wojak said. âHe just doesnât want to lose access to his virtual girlfriends!â
âHell,â Sergeant Dave Coughlin said. âHe should just download one of âem into his PAD and bring her along! Then we could all share in the wealth!â
âWhy donât you like girls, Luck?â Kelly Owenson said. âReal ones, I mean?â
âI like girls fine!â
What he didnât like talking about was the fact that virtual relationships just didnât fucking hurt as much as the real ones. Damn, Becka. Get out of my headâ¦.
He took another swallow of the drink BA had mixed for himâa pineapply something that was quite good. What had she called it?
Sergeant Sherman Nodell was weaving a bit in his seat, despite the fact that he outmassed Lucky by a good twenty kilos, and he didnât seem interested in discussing Luckyâs sex life. âJust give me another one of those⦠things you were talkinâ about a little bit ago,â he said. He was being very careful how he enunciated his words.
The nine of them, all members of First and Second Platoons, Bravo Company, were sitting at a folding table in the barracks squad bay. The huge and otherwise bare room which had once been an aircraft hangar was decorated with green-painted concrete floor, steel storage lockers, a display case near the entrance with trophies and battalion honors, and a wall-sized flatscreen on one bulkhead that was displaying the Marine Corps emblem at the moment. Normally, they all would have been out tonight, hitting the bars and sensies in Lompoc, but the 1st Marine Space Expeditionary Force had been restricted to the base ever since word had come down of the early deployment to Europa.
Staff Sergeant Campanelli had come to the rescue, though. Sheâd been a bartender as a civilianââin a former life,â as she liked to call itâand she occasionally hauled out a small, portable bar-in-a-suitcase that was her prized possession and entertained the others in the platoon with some of her strange and wonderful concoctions. Mixing drinks in a nondesignated area probably violated half a dozen different regs, but she hadnât been caught yet. There were rumors to the effect that she had been caught, once, but gotten off in exchange for a bottle of scotch.
Her full name was Brenda Allyn Campanelli, so inevitably sheâd picked up the handle âBA,â for Bad Ass, even though she claimed