LITMIR.BIZ

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that bonds with the respirocytes all FMF personnel carry in their bloodstreams. It temporarily makes us stronger, faster, more alert, with better endurance. It’s also tightly controlled, and you do not use it casually. The Freitas respirocytes in my blood had boosted my strength a little, of course, by improving the efficiency of my oxygen metabolism. But no, I’d not been Boosting.

      “You’re sure?”

      “Absolutely, sir! It will not happen again, sir.”

      “It had damned well better not!” He gave me a sour look. “Okay, you have a choice. Accept my NJP here and now … or you can request to see Captain Reichert.”

      Shit. I hadn’t realized I was in that much trouble. NJP meant non-­judicial punishment. The Marines called it being NJP’d, while the Navy referred to is as captain’s mast, and military slang called it being booked. Lieutenant Singer, as my immediate CO, could impose any of several punishments on me. Reichert was the Bravo Company commanding officer, and next up the command ladder from Singer. If I asked to see him, he might throw it out—­fat chance—­or he could give me more and worse than a mere second lieutenant could hand out, including, if he thought it serious enough, a court-­martial, and that’s when things got really serious.

      It wasn’t a real choice. Getting NJP’d was definitely preferable to a court, and having Second Lieutenant Singer come down on me was better than the company commander.

      “Sir, I will accept whatever punishment you think fit. Sir.”

      “You have any excuses for your behavior? Extenuating circumstances?”

      They drilled the correct and acceptable reply to that question into your head in boot camp. “No excuses, sir.”

      Yeah, the more I thought about it, the more I knew I’d screwed up big-­time. It hadn’t seemed that way at the time … but laying hands on a civilian like that, tossing him across the compartment? If he’d missed the net he might have gone on to hit the rotating deck hard enough to hurt himself, especially since he obviously wasn’t experienced with low-­G.

      “Okay, Doc. I understand your problem with the newsies, so I’ll go easy on you. Fourteen days’ restriction, fourteen days’ extra duty.”

      This was going easy on me? Singer had hit me with just about the hardest punishment he could manage as a lowly O-­2 imposing Article 15 punishment.

      But then, if he’d chosen to hand me company-­grade punishment, I could have lost seven days of base pay, taken a reduction in grade, from HM2 back to HM3, and had a written reprimand put into my personnel folder. And if I’d gone up in front of the Old Man, I could have been slapped with restriction and extra duty for forty-­five days, forfeiture of half my pay for two months, reduction in grade, a written reprimand—­hell, even bread and water for three days if he was feeling real generous.

      So maybe I was getting off light after all.

      “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

      “I also want a written letter of apology to Mr. Ivarson on my desk by oh eight thirty tomorrow.”

      I started to bristle, and I almost said something like “I’m so sorry you’re an asshole, Mr. Ivarson,” but bit my tongue. This wasn’t the time to try to win points with insulting comments that could only make things worse.

      “Aye, aye, sir.” I hesitated. “Uh … will this be going on my record, sir?”

      “Do a good job, keep your nose clean … and no. No it won’t.”

      I sagged with relief. A downgrudge letter in your file will pursue you to the end of your naval career. “Thank you, sir.”

      “Okay. That takes care of you and your reporter friend. Back to what happened at Zeta Capricorn. Damn it, Doc, do you have any idea what kind of a firestorm you’ve released around here?”

      “I wasn’t aware of any firestorm, sir.”

      “Jesus, Doc! Where’s your head, up your ass? To start with, we just might be looking at a shooting war, and all because you released information about the ethnic and political identity of our prisoners onto the open Net! Half the world wants to nuke or railgun Dushanbe into a kilometer-­deep crater right now. And Dushanbe claims we’re lying, that we set the whole thing up to discredit them, to create a causus bellum.”

      Well, they would claim something like that, I thought. But I didn’t say so out loud.

      “Captain Reichert has been ragging my ass, asking me how I plan to tighten my operational security in my platoon. What the hell am I going to tell him?”

      “Sir. You can tell him that the man responsible has learned his lesson and promises not to open channels directly to the HQ Net again.”

      “Why’d you do it, Doc?” The anger evaporated, and he seemed friendly again … a bit puzzled, perhaps, at why I’d been so careless. Or maybe the anger had all been a put-­on, a bit of drama designed to show me he cared.

      “I saw a chance to gather some useful intel, sir. This is Deep Recon, after all.”

      I didn’t think he could fault me there. “Deep Recon” is the designation used for elite Marine units normally operating in deep space on interstellar deployments. They’re supposed to be the first ones in, usually, to scout out the terrain and the ecology, determine what and where the enemy is, and, if necessary, pin that enemy until heavier forces can be deployed. Our primary business is gathering intelligence.

      That doesn’t mean we’re not occasionally tapped for other missions—­like taking down a bunch of terrorists holed up in an orbital mining facility. We’d been the closest available assault force when the bad guys stormed the mining facility the other day. We are FMF—­Fleet Marine Force—­and we go where we’re told. But above all else we’re trained to gather intelligence, any intelligence that may be of use to someone farther up the chain of command.

      And the Black Wizards, Deep Recon 7 of the One MarDiv, were the best.

      When Singer didn’t respond right away, I added, “Sir, I really didn’t know the channel had been compromised. How the hell was I supposed to know?”

      “Ahh … you couldn’t know, Doc. Hell, I didn’t know either. The damned newsies slipped their netbots in to spy on the operation. I should have known they’d be keeping an eye on you, especially.”

      “I’m nothing special, sir.”

      “Maybe. But they know your name, and they have your ID tagged so they can track you on the Net. They remember you from the Bloodworld affair, so the second you go on-­line with a query or a message, they’re going to be swarming all over you. You been getting harassed by the sons-­of-­bitches at all?”

      “My secretary tells me I’ve had a lot of calls, requests for interviews, requests for bios and backgrounds, that sort of thing.” I managed a grin. “I haven’t been answering them. In fact, that’s why Ivarson came looking for me.”

      “Good. And in another ­couple of days, they won’t be able to find you.”

      That made my blood run cold for a moment. “Sir? You’re shipping me out?”

      “That we are, Doc. Your new orders just came through.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Between you and me, I think General Craig just wants to be rid of you.”

      Major General William Craig was the commander of One MarDiv. Shit. It’s never a good idea for a lowly enlisted man to attract the attention of a general.

      “Yes, sir.” I desperately wanted to ask where they were sending me, but knew better than to appear anxious. He would tell me, but he’d tell me in his own time.

      He must have read the worried expression on my face. “Don’t worry, Doc. You’re not going alone.”

      “I’m pleased to hear it.”

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