Steve Perry by Earth Hive Aliens 01

Author:Earth Hive Aliens 01 [Aliens 01, Earth Hive]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-08-12T18:31:20+00:00

17

Billie stood in front of one of the "viewing ports," watching the streams of light strung like thin, crooked tubes of bright neon across the dark background. She hadn't spent much time in space, not since she had been a child, and this kind of travel was new to her. She stared, trying to remember her parents during happy times, but their bloody end kept jamming itself into her thoughts. Since Wilks had come to see her that first time, the reality the doctors had tried to wipe kept bobbing to the surface like floats on a pond. The truth was rising and would not be denied. All the dreams that had been real...

"That's an illusion, you know," came a voice from behind her.

Billie turned and saw one of the marines, Bueller, standing there.

"The improved gravity drive means we can spend less time in hypersleep, but the multidimensional matrices of the butterfly field turn dots into lines. Something to do with some esoteric particle, chronons, or impiotic zuons or some such."

"I wonder what Easley saw in his last seconds?" she said.

It was a rhetorical question, but Bueller shook his head. "I don't know. I can't imagine why he would have gone EVA and taken a grenade with him. "

"Some kind of depression, the colonel says. Maybe Easley was running from monsters."

Again Bueller shook his head. "I don't think so. We were pretty close. It doesn't make any sense that he would suicide. Besides, there are a lot easier ways."

Billie nodded. Blowing yourself to bits in deep space was not her choice of an entry to the final chill.

"I don't trust Stephens," Bueller said. "He doesn't have any command experience in the field and I think he wanted to hush the whole thing up. If we're successful in our missionwhatever it is exactlythen up-levels will overlook a few bodies. But if we fail, then the little things will count."

"I hate to disillusion you, Bueller, but if this mission doesn't succeed, we'll get eaten by things with big teeth, or else turned into puppy chow for the baby things with little teeth. We'll all end up on the cold ground as lumps of alien dung for the bugs to fight over."

"How colorful," Bueller said.

"Telling it like it is. I've seen these things work."

"You sound like Wilks." He stood there for a second and she could see he was uncomfortable.

"Come on," Billie said. "I'll buy you a cup of what passes for coffee."

"Okay. Yeah."

In the mess hall, Ramirez was waiting for a self-heating meal packet to cook. He grinned at Billie and Bueller when they came in.

The two of them sat at an expanded plastic table with their paper cups of the vile ship's brew.

"Wilks must really think a lot of you to bring you along. You know Stephens will hang him out to twist when we get back, no matter what face-saving shit he's telling us now."

Billie sipped the coffee, made a face. "Yeah. Wilks and I, we understand each other."

"I'll bet," Ramirez said as he put his tray down on the next table.

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