Colony Lost Page 6

  “Sir?” someone asked with a raised hand. “Are the freighters dropping pre-fab walls and structures for us? Or are we building with native materials?”

  “Good question. Titan and Kenya are dropping pre-fab units for habitation and facilities. The Marines will supply all labor required. We won’t have walls as there doesn’t appear to be a need for them.”

  Dustin’s hand shot up and his mouth followed suit. “Sir, isn’t that short-sighted? What if there’s some kind of dangerous wildlife? Like a rhino, or elephant or something to that effect? Balashov said there were some big things they’d seen. Anyone remember reading about the first few encounters on Pacifica with the barrier-reef seals?”

  The room laughed as one. The Pacifican seals had a decidedly strong affinity for procreation, even with species that were incompatible. If it moved, they wanted to make love to it. Injuries were sustained at a rapid rate until walls were built to keep them out of the original camps and settlements. People found humor in the story now but, in truth it had been horrifying.

  The major couldn’t help but laugh. “I hear you Sergeant First Class. The two freighters will have walls on board suitable for two fifty-square-meter enclosures. We won’t start building them unless there’s a reasonable concern for safety. Don’t forget, the habs themselves are tough nuts to crack. Besides, a marine’s best defense is already installed at birth.”

  The major held up his index finger and tightened it as if he were pulling an invisible trigger on a gun pointed at the ceiling.

  “Ooh rah, Major,” Dustin said, his curiosity sated for the moment.

  “Now, you heard the brainiacs yesterday talking about the scientific nonsense of Selva, and a lot of it won’t pertain to us. Weather is weather to us. We work rain or shine. We will need to be vigilant in the extreme for plant life and potentially venomous wildlife. Full skin cover will be expected at all times when out of the habs, as well as hazardous duty boots.”

  The major accepted a flimsy paper cup of coffee from a staffer and took a sip. He winced from the taste of it, but sipped it again. Rain or shine. “Our real problem will be with those magnetic fields. I’ll let Captain Kingsman speak on this. She’s far better educated than I.”

  The woman with the wine-colored hair stepped forward from her spot against the wall and came front and center. She had a gravelly voice, husky and almost masculine to Dustin’s ear.

  “As Dr. Maine told you, during periods of high magnetic activity, the mission flight abilities are for the most part down.

  “To elaborate further, we need to do experiments after we land to determine what effect the magnetosphere has on our electronics suites. We can’t risk the crash of a ship, so when the fields flare back to Selvan normal, we will abandon all flight activities. No ifs, no ands, and no buts.”

  “So we’re going to have to walk everywhere?” an obviously pissed-off platoon sergeant asked.

  “Armored personnel carriers are shielded more adequately against what we’re expecting. Our ships are good, but a tank doesn’t crash like a transorbital freighter does if its systems shit the bed,” Captain Leah Kingsman responded, deadpan. “You’ll be able to ride in one of those, sergeant. Furthermore all comms will be minimally disrupted at best. Laser-based information should work fine if the weather is clear. Satellite systems will be useless, so start practicing your overland navigation skills and leave the GPS units in your bunks.”

  “Are we planning on more durable communication systems?” the medical officer, Anna Castellano, asked.

  Captain Kingsman deferred to Major Duncan. He answered her with a nod of his head. “We’re planning on installing underground communication wires. Wireless communication will be a roll of the dice on many days, we think. We’ll know more as we figure it out on the ground.”

  “When will that happen?” Castellano asked, concerned. “The hard lines?”

  “Manufacturing the cables required can’t happen on Selva. The factory doing it for us is on Sota, and they are on it,” Major Duncan replied.

  Anna grinned. “That doesn’t answer my question. When will the factory get the cabling to Selva for us? If it’s not the first trip we’re on, is it the second? I feel like reliable communication needs to be a priority.”

  Duncan downed his disposable cup of rotgut coffee and put his hands up in surrender. “I can’t tell you anything beyond that they have assured the expedition will have two thousand meters of cable for us on the second journey, barring production delays.”

  “So until then . . . ?” the silver-haired doctor asked with a worried tone.

  “We do our jobs, Captain. I’ll lead, you patch up the injured and heal the ill. Look people, I’m not saying this will be easy. It won’t be, not by a long shot. This will be the most difficult mission in Gharian history. Possibly human history, and that’s only based on what we know about Selva looking at it through a telescope. It will be dangerous. People will die, and that’s all part of the human experience. Selva is a treasure of a world that we are now ready and able to put a toe on, and damn it, we will. If we have to shout at one another or go back to using Morse code with flashlights to talk to each other, so be it. We have a large array of tools to bring to bear. Some high-tech, others not. We are blazing a trail here, and come hell or high water, we will get it done.”

  The marines applauded their commander and his tenacious attitude.

  “Easy for him to say,” Hauptman said to Waren and Dustin under the noise. Ping-Pong, Stash, and their leader, Wendell, leaned in to listen. “He hits any kind of roadblock and we get the shaft. Mark my words, boys. He says ‘jump,’ and we say ‘how high.’”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, L-T, but that is our job,” Waren said.

  Hauptman smiled. “I do love me some jumping.”

  “Ooh rah,” poster boy Wendell said.

  Chapter Five

  Skyview Resort atop the Darrows Mesa, thirty kilometers outside Scoville, Ares

  29 March 163 GA

  Dustin’s hands were tacky with sweat. He would be married within minutes and the approaching moment grew in his mind until he felt overwhelmed. He rocked back and forth on his heels as his anxiety grew. He looked at the rows of happy guests chattering away, oblivious to his near panic attack.

  Most of the guests seemed happy, though he saw a few who struck him as annoyed or bored, giving themselves away with subtle rolls of their eyes or distant stares into the gorgeous valley that surrounded the plateau on which the resort sat. They sought out a place they’d rather be, and he had to admit to himself in shame . . .

  A part of him wanted to be anywhere else but right there in that moment.

  “It’s pretty here, isn’t it?” Hauptman said from his side.

  Hauptman, Waren and Dustin stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the front of the crowd in full gray dress uniform, awaiting the arrival of Dustin’s bride. Opposite them, on the other side of the golden-threaded runner dividing the room, stood three of Melody’s friends. One, from her hometown nearby on Ares, wore a lilac-colored dress. The other two were Marines, in uniforms that matched the men’s.

  “Yeah. Melody and I toured this place months ago when we knew we had leave. She loved it.”

  Lionel looked over the carved limestone railings toward the endless vista of the stone mesas the winds of Ares had etched over countless eons. The slab-like sections of land jumped from the simple sandy bottom of the valleys into a rainbow of earthen tones. Deep russet reds marked deposits of one form of stone, while yellows, oranges, and chestnuts indicated others. Layers of glimmering blue and green crystalline specks of minerals flashed the light of the setting sun. They couldn’t have chosen a location more beautiful.

  The media had to have been invited, of course. The wedding of the daughter of a senior senator was news enough, but this event took the prize for biggest fish in the derby. Dustin and Melody had become the darlings of the Selva expedition. The couple’s marriage was the champagne bottle being smashed on the prow
of the voyage. Every news agency from across the four moons was present. The cameras and microphones didn’t make Dustin feel any better.

  “How much did this place cost?” Waren asked.

  “I don’t know. Melody’s dad pulled some strings and made it happen. Someone owed him a favor, I imagine.”

  Waren chuckled and leaned into Dustin’s ear. “Now you owe him a favor. You know that, right?”

  Dustin looked over into the crowd and tried to find the man who would soon be his father-in-law. Daron Courser was not in the crowd.

  “Where is he?” Dustin asked.

  Hauptman patted Dustin on the shoulder. “Dusty he’s going to be walking Melody down the aisle. I imagine he’s where she is. Use your brain.”

  “Right. Sure. Like my brain is working right now.”

  The string quartet that had been playing in the background paused and Dustin’s heart skipped a beat. Then he heard the first notes of “The Lady in White,” the classic song to which Melody had chosen to walk down the aisle.

  “Savor this moment, brother,” Hauptman whispered.

  Dustin trembled with a combination of fear and absolute adoration for the woman he was about to marry. This was the right decision; there were no two ways about it, but the moment felt like stepping off a cliff with nothing but the air below to catch you.

  And loving it the whole way down.

  The crowd stood as Melody and her father appeared at their backs.

  Dustin suddenly understood the meaning of the phrase “takes your breath away.” Every single thing about Melody was resplendent. The way the aqua-blue ribbon threaded through her braided hair, which was pulled up and over her head, and cascaded down the other side like a flowering lily fed by water. Her skin glowed, her natural beauty accented by the barest amount of make-up. He admired the way her dress hugged her body, showing off her curves, while the train moved behind her like a boat’s wake in a calm ocean. He loved the low cut of the fabric at her shoulder that showed the slightest bit of her cleavage, but somehow still managed to capture all of her dignity and purity.

  Most of all, he loved the way she looked at him, and that feeling made the world fall away until the only thing he could think about was his future with her. A few minutes later, the two became one.

  With eyes fastened shut, and his mouth spread to its widest limit, Dustin braced for impact.

  The spongy and sweet cake layered with raspberry filling and topped with an old Earth creamy frosting the consistency of whipped clouds crashed softly into his mouth–instead of his face–and he bit down into it, feeling his wife’s fingers poke the piece a bit further in playfully. He opened his eyes and looked at her as she winked at him. She’d told him she would smash their wedding cake into his face, and she hadn’t. This was love.

  Dustin swallowed the bite, and fed his wife her portion. Just as she had, he delicately slid it into her open mouth with its upturned corners, and let her take it away. Cameras snapped with their flashes on all sides as the gathered crowd clapped with joy at the open air wedding beneath the Aresian sky. Dustin looked to the orange and blue vista of clouds caught in the sunset above and thanked the universe for bringing him to this place, and this time.

  “I love you,” Melody said and planted a kiss on him.

  He kissed her back. “I love you too.”

  The crowd applauded, the cameras flashed, and the wedding continued.

  The string quartet had departed with their instruments packed away in cases, and a DJ had taken over on the stage off to the side. The fervor to celebrate had grown with the tempo of the music and the party had begun in earnest. The cameras were escorted away, the drone jamming had been turned on, jackets had been abandoned, shoes kicked off, and the liquor flowed freely, feeding the sweat that poured from hot bodies. Relief would come soon; the sun had almost departed for its nighttime sabbatical.

  Daron sat with Waren, Lionel and Dustin at a round table on the edge of the celebration away from the speakers and their pulsating beat. To a one, they were drunk or well on their journey to get drunk.

  “You boys. You boys,” Daron Courser said after great deliberation.

  “To us, and to Melody and Dustin,” Hauptman said, lifting high a pint glass of dark, rich beer. The marines and the senator saw the lieutenant’s toast and raised their glasses, clinking them together and spilling a mouthful or two onto the satin white tablecloth in the process. They gulped down what remained, and were happy. After a few seconds Waren lowered his face to the table and gently sucked the wet pool of spill from his drink out of the fabric to recapture a bit of the beer he lost. No one at the table thought this was unusual.

  “Melody and Dustin,” Daron said with sudden reflective seriousness. He turned to his new son-in-law and put a mitt on his shoulder. Dustin looked up with an expression somewhere between sheer horror and childlike adoration. Daron held firm for a few seconds then let rip with a belly laugh out of nowhere. The absurdity of it triggered a similar response in the others, and the table devolved into stupidity.

  Many minutes of watching Melody dance with her friends later–wedding gown hiked up high and the smile of a toddler on her face–Dustin looked back, pretending to be stone-cold sober.

  “Yeah, Mr. Courser. Melody and Dustin. Pleased to be your daughter’s husband.” He snickered at the statement and Waren did too.

  “You fucking well should be,” Daron said and proudly puffed his white-shirted chest, his bowtie and tuxedo jacket having been abandoned five beers and a shot of vodka ago. “She’s amazing in every way. I didn’t deserve a kid as good as her. But kid, you’re good too. I mean it. I know I can be a prick sometimes, and that sucks, but you’re a good kid. Melody loves you and that holds a lot of weight with me. I never had to scare boys off with her. We raised her to pick good men only. We trusted her.” Daron leaned in, sliding a meaty hand around the back of a beaming Dustin’s neck and pulling him in for a kiss on the forehead.

  “She’s all I have left. You know her mom died when she was a kid? Cancer. I see my wife when I look at her. Today more than ever. Same eyes. Same hair. They walk the same, you know? Like they know you’re looking and they don’t care what you think. She doesn’t really remember her mother. All she knows is me. You take care of her on that planet, right? I protected her as long as I can and she don’t want me anymore. Now it’s your job. Can you do that for me? Can you protect my little girl?”

  Dustin felt overcome by emotion and felt tears on his cheeks. “Yes, sir. Yes, I can. I will. There isn’t a world that’ll harm her in the universe if I’m there to protect her.”

  Daron seemed pleased. He turned to Waren and Lionel. “You two marines . . . You two are now in charge of protecting him and my girl. My family. Famiglia. You take care of them, and when you get out of the Marines, I’ll take care of you.”

  “Absolutely, sir,” Waren saluted the retired officer.

  “Our pleasure,” Lionel said. He swirled his drink and downed the last of it.

  Daron became serious. “You know we’re Italian right? Old Earth Italian. Kept the blood pretty pure during the Pioneer 3 voyage. Paid off some people, I think. Almost all Italian still. Do you know what that means? It means I am a man of my word, and that you’re my mafia now. My family. We take care of our own. You do this for me, and I will make the moons turn for you.”

  “Thanks Mr. Courser. Thank you as well for bringing my parents in, too,” Dustin said as he watched his father and mother dance on the smooth floor. They looked elated. They danced with arms swung wide wearing clothes that cost a tenth of what the high society posers near them wore. His family had grown up poor in a mining town several thousand kilometers away from the Scoville region, and Daron had foot the bill for their trip to the wedding without a second thought. He treated them like he’d known them since childhood.

  Daron looked at them the same way Dustin did. “I can’t imagine missing my kid’s wedding. I’m glad I’m in a spot that allows me to make sure they
didn’t either. The reason to work hard. Right there.”

  He tipped his beer bottle up and drained it.

  Dustin looked again to the dance floor and saw a dancing Melody approach. She still had her gown hefted up in clenched fists as she circled Dustin’s parents, planting wet kisses on their cheeks. She shuffled sideways across the dance floor, and crashed heavily into his lap, almost tipping them over. He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her as Waren, Lionel and her father cheered them on. His heart raced with joy, and in his arms he could feel hers beat like the wings of a hummingbird.

  “Hello, husband,” Melody said with a moderately drunk lilt.

  “Hello, wife,” Dustin said back in a less moderately drunk fashion. He kissed her cheek and reveled in the feel and taste of her sweaty skin on his lips. This was the dream. His dream. The one he’d had since he was a boy.

  “Whatcha talkin’ about?” she asked as she leaned over and stole his fresh beer out of his hand. After tipping it up and chugging it dry she returned the empty bottle back to his hand.

  Daron laughed at her generous gesture to her husband. “I was telling your husband it was now his job to take care of you, and I told these men that it was their job to take care of him.”

  She made a sour face. “That’s unfair. When did I become a damsel in distress? Who do I get to take care of?”

  “I’m your father,” Daron said in a dramatic baritone, puffing his chest out to appear patriarchal. “I do what I must to protect mine.”

  “Take care of me?” Dustin offered her.

  “Ooh. I can do that,” she said then kissed him on the forehead. She see-sawed back, skeptical. “Wait. How will I take care of you from my shuttle? You’ll be on the surface, and I’ll be grounded during the storms, or back in the colonies waiting for the better weather to arrive.”