Gabriel's Redemption (7 page)

Gabriel studied Brevik’s face, but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. His neuretics did detect faint signs of upgraded mil-spec rets in Brevik, but nothing too out of whack for a combat-rated officer. And one that apparently knew his way around armor and weapons.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I appreciate you ceding team command to me without any problems,” Gabriel said carefully, again watching for reaction. Brevik nodded, not giving anything away.

Gabriel turned back to the group. “I’m looking forward to working with all of you. I know you’ve gotten the overview of the mission. Looks like a piece of cake on the surface, an undefended colony filled with a bunch of stoners, but pieces of cake never seem to work out as planned.”

He walked over to the food dispenser unit and punched in codes for a ham sandwich. “Like I said earlier, we can hold off on mission details until after launch. Right now, I need someone to point me in the direction of an actual cup of coffee.” He looked down at what emerged from the dispenser. “And a decent meal.”

Chapter 6

“Have you flown in the new
Panther
-class, Commander?” St. Laurent asked over her shoulder.

Gabriel sat in the fourth row of the launch transport, a stripped-down utilitarian version of the luxurious Constellation that had driven him to the barracks the day before. No leather couches, no tinted windows to block the blinding New Mexico morning sun, and far less in the way of shock absorption.
 

“No, Chief, it’s only come on line since I’ve been…away,” he replied, gritting his teeth as the transport bounced over another uneven section of ceramacrete. The facility is starting to show its age, he thought.
 
Like a bankrupt airport. He only hoped the spaceplane was truly “new” as St. Laurent had termed it.

Jimenez bared his teeth next to Gabriel. “It’s a beast, sir. Almost twice as fast as the
Meteor
-class, plush seats, plenty of room to stretch out, and a huge head for those of us,” he said with an nod of his head towards Takahashi, who sat directly in front of him, “who can’t handle zero-G.”

“Yeah, but no drink service!” Takahashi shot back.

Sowers chimed in from his shotgun seat next to the driver. “You, zero-G, and beer? That’s the
last
thing any of us want before a mission!”
 

“Hey, screw you Galen! The last time I checked…”

Gabriel listened to the banter continue, noticing not just the camaraderie of a team that had worked together in the past, but the odd silence from Sabra and Lamber, who sat in the second row together behind the driver and Sowers. Nothing too out of the ordinary; he’d been on plenty of missions that started in a library-like hush as men and women prepared in their own way to face combat. But the two of them…he wasn’t sure. Almost like their silence fed off each other, some type of unspoken agreement. The lack of chatter from the massive Brevik in the rear of the truck, his bulk requiring its own row, didn’t bother him nearly as much. Gabriel already had him pegged as a shoot first, ask questions later type of leader.

The transport turned a corner around a fueling facility and crunched to a stop at the edge of the tarmac. Gabriel looked out the dusty window and got his first glimpse of the spaceplane that would be taking his team to orbit.

The NAFN
Panther
-class orbital transfer vehicle, or OTV, sat on four massive sets of tires on the edge of the runway, its white fuselage gleaming in the rising sun behind its twin tails. A tumbleweed bounced its way along the edge of the ceramacrete next to the plane, making the entire scene appear straight out of an oil painting one might find in the Monterrey Museum of Modern Art. Gabriel had a few minutes before they’d be cleared to board, so he accessed his military vehicle database and pulled up the plane’s stats and history.

 
The Panther-class was based on NASA’s original Blackstar project back in the mid-twenty first century, a project that was mothballed due to drastic budget constraints during the South American War, and tabled permanently with the dissolution of NASA in 2062. Recently, the NAFN restarted the project, something Gabriel had heard rumors about before he left the service, and apparently this was the result.

Travolta II
, it said in black letters on the nose, just below the smoked cockpit windows. Gabriel accessed a history of the name: some actor-turned-pilot-turned-senator from the early twenty-first, so it seemed. He moved on to the specs.

The spaceplane was a combination lifting-body/wing design, 190 feet long, slightly shorter than a mid-sized supersonic passenger plane, and was shaped like a squat wedge. It reminded Gabriel of an axe blade lying on its side, edge forward. Just aft of and slightly lower than the cockpit windows, the spaceplane mounted canard wings that sprouted 11 feet from the fuselage. Further towards the rear, two main delta wings, 36 feet in length each, added to the lift provided by the wedge shape. Combined with the 40-foot wide body, the wings gave it an overall span of 112 feet. Twin tails pointed skywards from either side of the blocky end, and although Gabriel could not see the rear from his angle, the database specs showed six massive 20,000 horsepower Rolls Royce ion ram/scramjets as main propulsion, able to accelerate the spaceplane to escape velocity in under three minutes, plus eight additional hydrazine jets for orbital maneuvering. All in all, as Jimenez said earlier, an absolute beast of a spaceplane.

Closing the neuretics file as the doors to the transport opened, he noticed the spaceplane was completely unmarked except for the name. No tail numbers, no registration. Obviously this entire mission was black, he said to himself.

The hot, dry New Mexico air greeted Gabriel once again as he stepped from the transport, he being the second to last out. Brevik muttered profanities as he unfolded himself from the rear seat behind him.
Most I’ve heard from him since yesterday,
Gabriel thought.

Unlike himself, each of the team members carried small personal items with them, he noticed. St. Laurent had a flexscreen tube and stainless steel coffee mug. Sowers had a basketball under his right arm, although Gabriel had no idea where or when he’d be able to use it. Jimenez had a shoulder bag with a guitar sticking out of it. Sabra had a hardcover (actual paper!) book, which seemed out of place for her hard disposition. Lamber had a floppy straw hat similar to those worn in Southeast Asia, along with a ten-inch long combat knife sheath (Gabriel knew it to be empty, as any and all weapons are always secured in the cargo hold for launches). Takahashi struggled carrying a duffel, zipped shut and giving no indications of its contents. Brevik had the oddest item of all - a tiny harmonica case. Gabriel shook his head at the last. On a man that large, he thought, he may as well be carrying a whistle.

Empty handed, Gabriel followed the team to the spaceplane, stirring up dust with each step. As the team stepped onto the ceramacrete, the door to the spaceplane swung open and the steps automatically unfolded, revealing Renay Gesselli standing in the hatchway.

“Oh, shit,” Gabriel heard coming from the front of the team. Sowers, it sounded like.
Can’t really reprimand him for that
, he thought with a wan smile.
Same reaction I just had.

“Don’t get your hopes up, ladies and gentlemen,” Gesselli called from the top of the steps as she started to make her way down. “I’ve just been loading the mission data into the system for you. I won’t be joining you,” she said as she reached the bottom. “But I’ve given you enough information to go over that you won’t miss me at all.”

Gabriel’s neuretics caught a faint trace of a burst from Sabra to Lamber, so short he had no chance to intercept it.
Again with the two of them,
he thought. He ordered his snoop program to maintain a passive watch on their bursts; maybe he could pick up what they’re talking about.

“Your combat gear and all personal weapons are stowed in the hold,” Gesselli continued as she walked up to Gabriel. She held the code-locked plasteel case she had brought from Toronto, the lid now opened. “And Commander, I’m uploading an additional secure command file, please open a channel.”

Gabriel opened a secure neuretics file storage, and he watched as a compressed file flashed from her case through his system, too quick to even get a whiff of its contents. “Locked?” he asked.

“It will autoflash to you at a predetermined time in the mission. Please be prepared to receive it,” she replied drily.

She snapped the case shut and turned on her heel and faced the rest of the team. “Good luck to all of you. Admiral MacFarland sends his best wishes,” she said, ignoring an anonymous snicker. She strode to the transport without another word.

“Well,” said Sowers. “That was a pleasant sendoff. No kisses?”

“Saddle up,” said Brevik in a low voice. “Sir,” he said to Gabriel, almost apologetically.

“Absolutely Lieutenant, let’s get this show on the road. Haze gray and underway.” Gabriel stepped onto the metal steps and climbed towards the hatch. The rest of the team followed as the Rolls Royce jets spooled up in the background.

Santander woke up in a fantastic mood, but not entirely sure why. He rose from his bed, stretched, and looked out his picture window across the city and over Pavonis Plain. He slept alone last night; that couldn’t have been it.
Oh right, the plant. Satisfying.

Dust devils were just starting to form outside the dome in the morning light. No cars on the street, barely any windows lit in the prefab condos. Far below he could see the local coffee vendor cranking open his stall’s awning.
 

He walked around the bed and had his neuretics flick on the holowall to catch last night’s baseball feeds from Earth. No sports on Mars, another nail in the coffin. Not even a decent golf course, just some broken-down arcade with a three hole putt-putt course down the block. Didn’t even sell beer.
What’s the point of golfing without a beer?
he wondered, not for the first time.

He dropped his shorts near the bed and was just about to step into the air shower when his neuretics signaled an incoming call relayed from Earth. As he was about to dismiss it, the ID popped up and he paused.
Dredge MacFarland, Christ.
He shut off the shower and put on a robe, went back into the parlor, and opened his balcony doors. The neuretics signaled again. He sat on a wicker chair and wished again he wasn’t here…ten floors up, but no oceanview. No damned ocean at all. He sighed and took the transmission.

It was delayed, of course. Mars’s current position put Earth at one of its closest approaches, but it was still a six minute lag each direction. He took the transmission in Mindseye.

An avatar of MacFarland popped up in his vision, appearing to float on the edge of the balcony railing. “Santander, it’s MacFarland. This is a Blue Four encryption, we’re secure. I’ve got a new mission for you. I know you’re on delay, so just listen and send me an acknowledgement when it’s done.”

Santander sat back in his chair and wondered where this was going. He did feel a slight sense of optimism about the “mission” that was mentioned.
 

“Here’s the deal,” the avatar continued. “I’m sending you a ship. It’ll be there in three days. I need you and five of your best men on it, no questions asked. You’re going off-world on a possible cleanup run.”

After playing with a new railgun toy and hearing the words “off-world,” Santander’s spirits hadn’t been this high in weeks. He walked back into the parlor as the transmission continued and ordered the espresso machine to pour a double, extra black. He pulled a bottle from a cabinet above the machine and popped the cork, sniffing the scotch inside. He took a swig right from the bottle, savored the warmth, and swallowed. The espresso machine beeped. He poured a few ounces of the booze into the steaming cup, and went back out onto the balcony to enjoy his morning coffee.

“The ship is the
Yongsheng
out of China,” the avatar went on. “Don’t worry about registry, she’s ours. She’ll be fully loaded with all the gear you’ll need…”

Santander leaned back and propped his bare feet on the railing, holding a saucer delicately in one hand while sipping his espresso from the other. Yes, things are looking up. I’m getting out of this hellhole, perhaps once and for all. The avatar’s voice went on, a sing-song melody he enjoyed more and more.

Chapter 7

The team settled into the soft seats.
Jimenez was right
, Gabriel thought. Very plush. And very unlike most missions where he sat in webbing on a cargo shuttle, or maybe lay on a gurney in the back of a medevac jumper.
 

The spaceplane reminded him of a luxury suborbital passenger plane, and he half-expected a flight attendant to begin speaking on an intercom about how to fasten a seat belt. The craft had a capacity of 64 passengers arranged in sixteen rows of four wide seats with an aisle down the middle. Rows of cargo compartments lined the walls between the fuselage and outer seats, making a window seat only a suggestion - if it actually had windows. As Gabriel had seen from the outside, the only viewports were in the cockpit; otherwise the plane was completely sealed.
Shame
, he thought. On some orbital transfers he’d been on with Aerospace Force pukes, he’d had some spectacular views. This cabin only offered a wallscreen at the front and small individual screens mounted on each armrest.

Heading for an aisle seat about halfway back in the spacious cabin, he saw that Lamber and Sabra sat together near the back and had begun playing cards right away. St. Laurent was several rows away, face buried in her flexscreen, reminding Gabriel of Gesselli for a brief second. Across the aisle from her sat Jimenez, who plucked at the strings on his battered guitar. Now that it was completely out of the carry bag, the guitar appeared to be an original from a nineteenth-century western movie.

Sowers sat in the very front row, bouncing the basketball off the bulkhead wall, and whistled some off-key show tune loudly. Brevik was opposite him, and having raised the armrest between the two seats on his side of the aisle, seemed to be as comfortable as Gabriel had seen him so far.