• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“How’d the ship even get here?” MacCraw asked. He just wouldn’t shut up. “They just happened to randomly guess the slipspace coordinates? I mean, we don’t even know where we are, and we’re supposed to be here.”

“Don’t try to be smart, MacCraw,” Lopez said. “That’s not what you’re paid for.”

“No,” Benti and a couple of the others chimed in, “you pay us to be pretty.” A tired old joke, a necessary one. One Mac-Craw might not’ve heard before.

“Damn straight,” Lopez said. “How’d that haiku go? ‘Something, something, something . . . something, and then comes ice cream.’ ” Something they’d eaten far too much of, last R & R.

“You missed a ‘something.’ ”

“You kids play your cards right and after this comes ice cream. Don’t ever say Mama Lopez does nothing for you.”

Some grins, a couple of comments about “Mama” Lopez, and then a near-ritual silence.

Lopez began the count. Not required, but she liked to name each person under her command right before any mission that might turn hot: Benti, Clarence, MacCraw, Percy, Mahmoud, Rakesh, Orlav, Simmons—currently pulling double duty as Burgundy’s copilot—Rabbit, Singh, Gersten, Cranker, Sydney, Ayad, Maller, and Tsardikos. Standard equipped with MA5B assault rifles, HE pistols, and ye olde frag grenades. Among flares, food rations, water, medic kits, schematics of the ship, the usual.

A bunch of jokers, lifers, and crazies. Benti, Clarence, Mahmoud, and Orlav were the best of the lot. MacCraw was, well, raw, so who knew? A few were average, and she’d deploy them that way. Without remorse. Singh and his engineers Gersten- and Sydney were an unknown, really. Two loaners from another squad, Ayad and Maller, she didn’t know at all. A lot of the rest of the best had been left back on the Red Horse. Because, you know, the ship needed them. Or something like that.

All of them were rosary beads to her now anyway, already counting and hating herself for it. Mystic bullshit. But she did it every time. Had to. It was how she rationalized putting herself in danger. Perform this ritual and luck will follow. Don’t, and it won’t. And that’s the difference between life and death. Between a scar and a wound that won’t stop bleeding.

“We good, Sarge?” Benti whispered.

“You should have gone before we left, like Mama Lopez told you.”

Benti smirked, stopped at the last second from reaching out and smacking Lopez on the shoulder.

Pelican drew close, the battered and scarred skin of the Mona Lisa filling the view. As they all braced for that slight lurching shudder that meant arrival, Lopez tried not to think about the noncoincidence of who had been chosen for the mission and who hadn’t.

Because, to a person, her squad consisted of everyone who had come into contact with John Doe on board the Red Horse.

>Benti 1315 hours

Benti watched as the soft seal locked on and they had compression. A shiver ran through the Pelican as the hatches disengaged, maw ready to open and disgorge them into the Mona Lisa. Benti had never seen a real live pelican except in videos, but it amused her to think of them erupting out of the gullet of a giant bird. A Trojan Pelican, almost.

This silent moment, right before combat, before she had to use any of her bandages and blood bags, this moment always made her regret having given up smoking.

“We’re solid, Sarge, and I can go ahead and set you free whenever you want,” Burgundy said, voice coming over the headsets now, which somehow made Benti think of Rebecca’s What do you mean, you won’t come back?

Good old Clarence and that dumbass MacCraw knelt to either side of the gangplank, rifles at the ready, the rest of the squad behind them, hunched over, waiting. Clarence was chewing gum ferociously, about as worked up as Benti had ever seen him. Docking a Pelican wasn’t a stealthy business. Whoever was on board the Mona Lisa would know they were here.

What kind of greeting would they get? A big party celebration, or one candle stuck in a cupcake?

God, she wanted a cigarette right now.

Lopez gave Burgundy