Free Trail of Evil - eARC by Travis S. Taylor Page B

football?”
    Rondi laughed out loud and then covered her mouth hoping she didn’t wake him up. “I don’t know what you’re dreaming about but it sounds like a whopper.” Rondi looked at the clock on the nightstand. For whatever reason, she never could sleep before a mission, not even after sex.
    Rondi leaned over and kissed Joe lightly on the head and then eased her naked body out from under the covers. She quietly made it into Joe’s bathroom and started pulling on her UCU thinking to herself that she hadn’t had the heart to tell him that she was on the mission on the shuttle. She’d leave him a note through his AIC.
    Rondi brushed her teeth and then spit the little disposable robot out into the sink and rinsed her mouth out. She only half smiled at herself in the mirror thinking that she didn’t look near as old or tired as she was feeling. The UCU sucked to her body as she tapped the membrane panel under the neckline to display bulkhead blue-gray which was the standard uniform color for onboard a ship. She slapped the 1st AEM Recon patch onto her left shoulder then twisted her torso to pop her back and force the air bubbles out of the shirt. The patch and shirt fabrics meshed together and hardened into a seamless decoration. She then slapped her nametag atop her right breast with similar results and then decided she needed to pee before she donned her digicam pants. She had a few minutes before she really needed to be in the AEM corridor for mission prebrief. She hoped the toilet rinse cycle wasn’t loud enough to wake up Joe. Rondi pulled up her padded and armored pants and melded the fasteners. The pants quickly shimmered and then tracked the color scheme of the top and changed to the same blue-gray base colors. Marines always wore base color camo that matched their environment.
    Rondi picked up her socks and boots and slid out the door before putting them on. She stood and ran her fingers through her close cropped blond hair and then tucked her cover in her pocket.
    “See ya later, Joe.” She kissed her hand and then touched his door.

    “Quantum membrane panel adjustment!” Joe jumped straight up out of the bed and ran to the door and almost opened it before he was awake enough to realize he was naked. “Shit. I need some coffee.”
    Joe, his AIC said into his mind. Good morning. You have a message from First Sergeant Rondi Howser.
    Play it, he thought.

Chapter 8

    November 7, 2406 AD
    27 Light-years from the Sol System
    Monday, 6:35 AM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time

    The shuttle had been retrofitted as best Buckley could manage. DeathRay certainly hoped that the CHENG had done a good job. He had no reason to believe he hadn’t. The CHENG had been through a lot with the crew of the Madira , and DeathRay had confidence in him. The mission was simple: use the QMT system to teleport into an unknown system and gather intel as to where in the galaxy the other side of the quantum membrane teleportation was. With only the address, all they knew was that they would teleport to another pad somewhere. The pad could be four kilometers away or a trillion kilometers away. According to the eggheads, there was just no way of knowing without going there.
    Once there, the first order of business would be to analyze the local stars with hopes of determining its celestial location. The second order of business, was to gather recon on the system. It always helped if you knew how many uglies there were before you came in with all guns a-blazin’.
    Buckley had given the ship a once-over, looking for transmitters and automated systems, but you never knew when it came to Artificial Intelligence Counterparts. Those things could be hidden almost anywhere. In fact, the more modern ones that humans used were about the size of a sunflower seed without the shell and were implanted just behind the ear canal inside the skull.
    DeathRay turned to his copilot and wife, and gave her a wink. “ Madira , this is Recon