| |
Aboard the mini-sub, Kelley’s face had taken on a sickly sheen in the glowstick’s light; funny that the Eden Plague didn’t seem to cure seasickness. Some people got it, and some just didn’t.
“Oh, please don’t puke, MG,” pleaded Gunnery Sergeant Jill “Reaper” Repeth. “It stinks bad enough in here already. The air scrubber system can’t handle it, and neither can I. You want to set up a Stand By Me chain reaction? Doc, we got any compazine?”
Doc opened up his medbag, dialed the pressurized injector for a medium dose, handed it to Kelley, then pulled another one out. “Here, and some diazepam to take the edge off.”
Kelley shot himself up, then leaned over with a groan and pillowed his head on Major Muzik’s massive thigh. The major rolled his eyes, ignoring the amused looks. If you couldn’t take some invasion of personal space on this mission, you were in the wrong place.
Repeth smiled at Muzik’s discomfiture, then looked around at the team, checking them off in her mind.
Colonel Tran Pham “Spooky” Nguyen, commanding: a legend in the special ops community even before the Eden Plague rejuvenated him. In the field, you had better be looking right at him or he’d fade from your vision. She’d heard his English used to be bad, but there was no trace of that anymore. He sounded like a Brit now. Claimed the Eden Plague had cleared his brain.
Major Roger “Rock” Muzik: deputy lead, deadly with or without any weapon. Big, perfectly muscled, an Adonis in the shower. She’d looked. While Jill knew she was as dangerous with her hands as any other FreeCom trooper, Muzik made her – and everyone else – look like a flailing child in the dojo. Everyone but the colonel, anyway. They all loved to watch those two go at it.
Master Chief Petty Officer Owen “Doc” Fitzhugh, Master Corpsman. Pale skin, black hair, eerie green eyes, what they called “black Irish” descended from transplanted Iberian stock. Even with the Plague, it was always good to have a skilled medic along. He was also gifted with machinery and electronics, a true tinkering polymath.
Chief Petty Officer Michael “Machinegun” Kelley: incongruously café-au-lait Creole mix. UD, underwater demolition, which combined with his studies this last year meant he knew how to take apart and put together just about any system on the submarine, as well as use scuba and welding gear.
Petty Officer First Class Sean “Bitzer” Bonnagh: ruddy and ginger. Bubblehead, formerly of the Royal Navy. If the mission didn’t crash and burn first, his task would be vital - driving the boat. She hoped he’d studied the Ohio class subs well enough to transfer his knowledge from the UK’s Vanguards.
Lieutenant William Harres: nuclear engineer – powerplants and weapons both. Slim, tall, black, fine-featured, of Maasai descent: He didn’t have a nickname with this team, as it was his first mission.
Ditto Commander Ann Alkina, liaison from the Free Australian Navy. Wide-set cheekbones and a squashed nose betrayed her Aboriginal blood, but her eyes and petite build spoke more of Asia. If the colonel was spooky, Alkina seemed a dark spirit. She seldom smiled and her eyes missed nothing. If Doc hadn’t assured them she was a Plague carrier and had passed all the psych tests, Repeth would have worried about her being...well, off. But the Aussies had insisted on one of their own coming along, and had assured the colonel she could keep up. The team’s four weeks of hard training in Venezuela had proven that.
Finally, herself. Both feet lost to a mortar round, now regrown by the blessings of the Plague, contracted just before Infection Day. With nothing better to do but think, she cast her mind back ten years.
On leave aboard a cruise ship, she’d woken up one day to find the amputated feet and shins had started regenerating. All over the vessel, medical miracles proliferated - cancer, blindness, even old age seemed to be disappearing.
But the ship was held at gunpoint by the US Navy with no explanation. When food aboard began to run out, Jill had decided to escape and find out for herself what was happening.
She’d eventually escaped to the new Free Community of Colombia, where Spooky Nguyen had put her to work as a part of his special operations teams, rescuing prisoners and attacking logistical targets in what eventually became the fascist United Governments of North America.
She still remembered the many jackbooted thugs she’d taken down - infected if possible, sometimes killed. It was the price of doing business, and on the rare occasions that her conscience bothered her, she reminded herself of Jimmy McConley, and Python, two men who had loved her and had died at the hands of the fascists. That seemed to drive the guilt away. It balanced the scales, somehow.
Jill opened her eyes from her half-dream to the bilious green glow of the chem-light and the stench of unwashed bodies, not sure whether she had fallen asleep. She wished she had, just to bring her a few more hours closer to go-time. Closer to begin, closer to finish. Wrinkling her nose, she rolled over and pillowed her head on her combat ruck.
