Battlespace. Ian Douglas

      “Huh? Well, when I first enlisted, I had this idea of going on someday and becoming a doctor. I figured what I learned in Corps School would give me a leg up, know what I mean? And then there was the fact that my dad was a Marine. He used to tell me stories about the company’s ‘Doc,’ that special relationship between the Marines and their corpsmen. I’d always been interested in biology, physiology, stuff like that, and I was good at them in school. It just seemed like the right choice.”

      Damn it, he wanted to go Space Marine Force. As a Navy Hospital Corpsman, the equivalent of an Army medic for Navy and Marine personnel, he’d enjoyed working with the Marines already. Going SFM simply took things a step or ten farther.

      A century or two back, the equivalent of today’s SMF had been assignment with the Navy’s FMF—the Fleet Marine Force. The force included Navy doctors and corpsmen who shipped out with the Marines, sailed with them on their transports, and went ashore with them in combat. It was a long and venerable tradition, one that went back at least as far as the Navy pharmacy mates who hit the beaches in the Pacific with the Marines during World War II, and arguably went even further back to the surgeon’s mate’s loblolly boys of the sailing ships of a century before that.

      He’d volunteered for SMF almost two months ago, just after the completion of his six-month deployment to LEO.

      Just after the divorce became final.

      Damn it, the hell with Earth. He wanted to go to the stars.

      “Gunny, the Navy … and, well, now the Marines, if I go SMF, they’re my family now. I’ve been taking overseas and off-world deployments for the last four years, since I joined up. It’s time for me to re-up. I want to re-up. I’ve always wanted the Navy to be my career.”

      Eckhart grinned. “A lifer, huh?”

      “Yeah, a lifer. And it’s my life.”

      “The government might point out that your life belongs to it.”

      “Okay, but in so far as I do have a free choice, this is what I want to do with my life. ‘Join the Navy and see other worlds,’ right? So why can’t I re-up with a shot at really seeing some new territory?”

      “How does Sirius sound to you, son?”

      “Sirius? I thought there were no planets there?”

      Eckhart grinned. “There aren’t. But there’s … something. An artifact. A space habitat. They didn’t tell me much in the report I saw, but there’s something. And the word is, a full MIEU is being sent out there. And they need Corpsmen. A bunch of ’em.”

      An artifact. Another remnant of one of the ancient civilizations that had been kicking around this part of the galaxy thousands of years ago. Maybe the An. Or maybe it was something really special … something left by the Builders at about the same time that Homo erectus was in the process of making the transition to Homo sapiens.

      “Sirius sounds just fine, Gunny.”

      Okay, there wouldn’t be a planetfall. But a chance to see a high-tech artifact left by a vanished, starfaring civilization? And whatever the thing was, it would have to be damned huge if they were sending a whole Marine Interstellar Expeditionary Unit—a force that would number over a thousand men and women, all told. What the hell had they found out there?

      “Does that mean I’m in?”

      Eckhart grinned. “You’re in, Doc.”

      I’m going to Sirius! I’m going to another star! …

      He almost didn’t hear what Eckhart said next.

      “You’ll continue your training here for the rest of the month,” Eckhart was saying. “After that, you and the other Corpsmen from this class who make the grade, the ones who’ve volunteered for extrasolar deployment, will ship for L-4 for your XS training and final assignment. And just let me say, Doc … welcome aboard!”

      “Thanks, Gunny! Uh, does that mean you’re coming too?”

      “Yes, it does. The brass is doing some scrambling right now, looking for famsit ones and twos.” He grinned. “I figured you damned squids’d need me to keep an eye on you!”

      “That sounds decent, Gunny.”

      “Now get your sorry ass down to debrief. We’re gonna want to hear, in exacting detail, just what you did wrong on that last field exercise!”

      Vacation over. “Aye aye, Gunnery Sergeant!”

      “For one thing, you could’ve used a thermalslick.” He grinned. “Chief Hart is gonna tell you all about that!”

      Lee blinked. He hadn’t even thought of that. Thermal-slicks were part of each corpsman’s field kit—a tough, polymylar sheet like aluminum foil on one side, jet black on the other. It could reflect sunlight or absorb it and the black side had the added trick of a layer of carbon buckyball spheres that made it almost frictionless—great for dragging the dead weight of an injured man.

      But then, he hadn’t even thought about the problem of sunlight melting the wound’s clot until it was too late.

      At the moment, none of that mattered.

      I’m going to Sirius. …

       Alpha Company Headquarters Office Star Marine Force Center Twentynine Palms, California 1535 hours, PST

      “Comp’ny … atten … hut!”

      Sharply dressed in newly issued green utilities, Garroway and his five fellow Marines came to attention. They were standing in Captain Warhurst’s office at Twentynine Palms, a fairly Spartan compartment made warm by the desert sunlight streaming through the transparent overhead. Staff Sergeant Dunne had marched them in; Warhurst himself was behind his low, kidney-shaped desktop, hand on a palm reader as he downloaded a report in his noumenal space.

      After a moment, his glazed expression cleared, and he looked up. “Staff Sergeant?” he said.

      “Sir!” Dunne rasped. “Corporals Garcia, Lobowski, Vinton, Lance Corporals Womicki, Garroway, and Eagleton, reporting for captain’s nonjudicial punishment, sir!”

      “Very well, Staff Sergeant.” Warhurst folded his hands and looked at the six, studying each of them in turn. “Will all of you accept nonjudicial punishment? You all have the option of requesting formal courts-martial, at which time you would be entitled to legal representation.”

      “Sir,” Garroway said. They’d agreed earlier on that he would be their spokesperson. They’d been invited to the party by his friend, after all. “We accept the NJP.”

      “Very well. We’ll keep this short and simple then.” He leaned back in his swivel chair. “What the hell were you young idiots thinking, getting into a brawl ashore? Were you, each of you, aware of the delicate nature of the relationship between Marines and civilians here just now?”

      “Yes, sir,” Garroway replied.

      “What about the rest of you? You all downloaded the spiel before you went on liberty? The one about being good ambassadors for the Corps while ashore?”

      All of them nodded, with a few mumbled “Yes, sirs” mixed in.

      “I didn’t hear that.”

      “Yes, sir!”

      “Right now, ladies and gentlemen, the Marines can not afford a major firefight with the civilian sector. Brawling in a bar in downtown San Diego is one thing. Smashing up a condecology in the high-rent district of East Side LA is something else entirely.”

      As Warhurst spoke, Garroway wondered what was in store for them. Warhurst had told them they were on report when he’d bailed them