Parker's Folly (25 page)

“Yes, I'm familiar with the story. Something about ‘a dragon on the limb of the Moon.’”

“Yes, Sir. And Captain,” JT added, “the crater is estimated to be about four million years old.”

“Well that all fits,” the Captain said to no one in particular and then turned to his First Officer. “Lieutenant, I believe it's time to familiarize the Marines with our spacesuits. Include Mr. Taylor and Dr. Saito as well.”

“And for the Marines, weapons as well, Sir?”

“Yes Lieutenant, weapons. By all means, weapons.”

Ludmilla entered the dayroom to find Yuki talking with Ivan, Susan and one of the crew, the cowboy they called Billy Ray. Yuki seemed quite animated, fairly bubbling with excitement.

“Good day, everyone. What is all the excitement about?” she asked, joining the group near the coffee and tea service bar.

“Dr. Saito was just telling us that they have found something strange on the Moon,” Susan replied excitedly. “Repeat what you told us, Yuki.”

“From the results of the subsurface mapping survey we have found an anomalous chamber beneath a crater on the moon. The Captain is going to land the ship on the surface and we are to take a look.”

“You mean you are going to go outside the ship, Yuki? After our rescue from the space station I hope to never walk in space again.” Ludmilla shuddered slightly at the thought.

“It will be on the surface, Dr. Tropsha. There will be ground underfoot and as much gravity as we are feeling right now. I can't tell you how exciting this is, to stand on another world is an astrophysicist's dream come true. Now I must go and prepare.” With that the excited scientist hurried aft.

“Well that explains why Gretchen called me in sickbay and said that we would need to be standing by a few hours from now. Is the Captain leading the expedition?”
Maybe we can lock him out of the ship,
she thought wickedly.

“No Ma'am,” replied the crewman. “Lt. Curtis will be leading the shore party. Dr. Saito and Mr. Taylor will be taking care of the science.”

“JT is going?” asked Susan. She was surprised that they would draft him for such a dangerous mission, at the same time realizing that he would jump at the chance to walk on the Moon. She looked to her new found friend. “Are you disappointed not to be going too, Billy Ray?”

“No Ma'am, both me and Bobby will be at the helm with the Captain commanding from the bridge. We only do dangerous stuff with the ship, never outside it.”

There seems to be something going on between this Billy Ray and Susan, Ludmilla noticed. “Is anyone else going outside?”

“I'd imagine there will be some of those Marines tagging along. Lt Curtis has got them in the cargo hold suiting up and gettin' familiar with some of our firearms.”

“Not the ray guns you shot them with?”

“No, Doctor. These would be the lethal ones. I wouldn't be surprised if Lt. Bear goes along as well.”

“Why would the Captain send an armed party out to look at a crater on the Moon?” asked the puzzled Ivan. He had been spending most of his time trying to access technical documents on his cabin's workstation and drinking tea. He had only learned of the excitement when he heard voices coming from the dayroom, which was next to his cabin.

“The Captain is a cautious man, Colonel. Never know what you might find pokin' around an anomalous cavern beneath the surface of the Moon.”

“Perhaps he will find some of his space aliens there,” scoffed Ludmilla, then realizing that she had just spoken ill of the Captain in front of one of his crew quickly apologized, “I'm sorry, Billy Ray. I did not mean to insult your Captain.”

“No offense taken, Ma'am. Susan and I had been discussin' that very subject a bit earlier. I understand you think that the Captain might be a bit tetched in the head?”

“Tetched?” repeated the confused Ludmilla.

“Sorry, colloquial English. It means crazy.”

“In that case, yes Billy Ray, I think your Captain might be tetched.”

“We'll see, Ma'am. Bobby said he overheard the Captain telling Lt. Curtis to ‘bring back a live one’ if they found anything.”

“Everyone on this vessel is insane!” exclaimed Ludmilla, eyes wide.

“Yes Ma'am, wouldn't have it any other way.”

Lt. Curtis had JT and three of the Marines suited up and standing in front of her in the cargo hold, where an impromptu target range had been constructed using a large crate filled with self-expanding foam insulation. The Gunny was looking on but not wearing a space suit because her arm was still in a sling. Not being able to go with the shore party was not sitting well with the sergeant.

“OK, people. Listen up,” said Lt. Curtis. “This is a combination electromagnetic flechette rifle and grenade launcher. You will notice the compact bullpup design. You will also notice an absence of ejection ports, since it fires caseless ammunition. In fact, it really doesn't fire projectiles so much as launches them.”

“It has two barrels in an over-under configuration—a 5mm flechette rifle above a 20mm combination grenade launcher and shotgun. In the stock there are two removable magazines to feed the launcher. For this mission we will be carrying 5 canister rounds—sort of like shotgun shells, only they are all shot and casing—and 5 high explosive grenades.”

“All right!” exclaimed an excited PFC Sanchez.

“Cut out the chatter, Sanchez, and listen to the officer,” snapped the Gunny. She might not be able to go on the mission but they were still her responsibility, still her Marines.

“As I was saying,” resumed Lt. Curtis, “the controls are all sized and positioned to make operation easy while wearing a space suit. This forward selector switches between the two magazines, with the middle position being the safety. Oddly enough, without any air to carry the shock wave the HE rounds are probably not very useful, but one never knows. Do not take the 20mm off safety unless I call for it, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes Ma'am!” came the response from the Marines and the attentive JT.

“The generally more useful part of the weapon is the upper barrel. It shoots 5mm flechettes, which are fed from the transparent double row magazine located on top of the barrel, here.” The Lieutenant clasped the indicted item with her left hand.

“Each magazine holds 200 rounds, which is possible mainly because they consist only of the flechettes themselves—no shell casings, no gunpowder, just the bullets as it were. As I stated, these are electromagnetic weapons. They use intense electromagnetic fields to accelerate the rounds out of the barrel.”

“You mean these are like personal rail guns, Lieutenant?” asked JT, eying the weapon like it was his own true love.

“They are exactly like that, Mr. Taylor. The motive power is carried in a battery in the hand grip here. A single power pack is capable of firing all ten of the 20mm rounds and five or six magazines worth of the 5mm. You will be carrying two extra 200 round mags in your suit pockets.

“That's a total of 600 rounds, plus five grenades and five shotgun shells. That does not mean you can just spray and pray if we do find something that needs shooting. The rate of fire and the muzzle velocity of the 5mm are adjustable. This selector on the side next to the trigger chooses between single shot, three round burst and full rock and roll. Rate of fire can be set for 300, 600 or 1200 rounds per minute. On 1200 it is very easy to run through a whole mag before you realize it, so keep the rate low and watch your ammo.

“The muzzle velocity is also adjustable using this thumb wheel here on the back of the hand grip. Full up is around 4000 fps, full down is 800, sub-sonic under Earth normal conditions. I have found it best to keep the setting low—around 1500—since that uses less juice from the battery.”

“Why would we up the muzzle velocity, Lieutenant?” asked Cpl Sizemore, who would be the ranking Marine on the expedition.

“If you shoot something and don't get penetration you can jack up the velocity and hit it again. The other thing that the muzzle velocity changes is how much recoil you will get when discharging the weapon. Because you are unfamiliar with low-g conditions in general and these weapons in particular, we are going to fire a few rounds each into this impromptu backstop.”

“All right!” said Washington and Sanchez together.

“We will start out with several single shots and then a few triple bursts. You will notice that every third flechette is a tracer round so you can see where your fire it going. Under this low gravity the bullet trajectory will be very flat. The optical sight will automatically calibrate for local gravity but that can be turned off if you are firing in variable G conditions. OK, Mr. Taylor, you first. You used to be a Green Beret, right?”

“Yes Ma'am, that I was.” JT stepped forward to the firing line.

“OK Army, show me what you got.” Gretchen passed JT the futuristic looking weapon and stepped back behind the firing position. As she did she couldn't help but notice that the handsome cameraman had kept himself in great shape despite being out of the service. The skintight spacesuit highlighted every aspect of his musculature.
In fact,
she mused,
that ass would not look out of place on an NFL tight end.
“Everyone else behind the firing line! Folly, please secure the aft doors to the cargo hold.”

“The doors are now locked, Lt. Curtis,” replied the ship's computer.

“All right, the range is hot! You may take your weapon off safety, Mr. Taylor. Single shots to start, use the center target.” Three standard silhouette targets were mounted on the backstop.

There was a loud crack as JT squeezed off his first round, not from gas expanding explosively out of the barrel but from the flechette traveling faster than the speed of sound, its expanding shockwave echoing off the hard surfaces of the enclosed cargo hold. The first shot was a bit high. JT corrected and put the second shot near the middle of the target's 10 zone.

“Kicks about as much as an M4,” he remarked, “and I see what you mean about the recoil being more noticeable in low gravity.”

“Lean into it, particularly on burst or full auto. Go ahead and try a few three shot bursts.”

JT switched the selector and verified it visually. Then, re-shouldering the weapon he fired a single burst. The impact points walked up a bit on him. He leaned into the weapon and the second burst was all in the kill zone, the target's center of mass.

The ex-Green Beret paused for a few seconds and then fired three more bursts in quick succession, one to the head of each silhouette. He put the mini-rail gun back on safety and, keeping the muzzle pointed downrange, he half turned with a big smile on his face. “I like this weapon, let's see what the Gyrenes can do with it.”

“I'm glad it meets with your approval, Mr. Taylor,” Lt. Curtis was also smiling as she took the weapon back from JT. “All right, Corporal you're next.”

“Yes Ma'am,” Sizemore said, stepping up to the firing line.

As Gretchen passed the plump Marine the weapon she thought sadly,
now this guy's ass is more Pillsbury Doughboy than NFL.
“OK, Corporal, same drill—start with some single shots to get the feel of it...”

The Captain decided he should look in on the recovering Marines in sickbay—and possibly check on Ludmilla's state of mind while he was at it. When he arrived at sickbay he found Ludmilla and Betty talking with a couple of the Marines, both of whom were standing  and clothed in green jumpsuits.

“Good afternoon, Doctor,” the Captain began. “I thought I would check on the status of our recovering Marines, but I see a couple of them are already up and around.”

“Good afternoon Captain. Yes, LCpl
Feldman and
PFC Kwan are ready to return to light duty. No heavy lifting or strenuous exercise for the next five days, however.”

“LCpl Feldman, I understand you have some aptitude for computer gear and electronics?” Both Marines came to attention as the Captain took notice of them.

“Yes Sir, Captain.” Feldman replied.

“Great! You will come forward to the bridge with me. PFC Kwan you come along as well. I think we could use an extra pair of eyes on the scopes while the shore party conducts their search.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” both Marines answered and quickly withdrew to wait by the sickbay door. Enlisted ranks in any branch of the service learn early on that it is best not to be noticed by officers, the commanding officer in particular.

Jack turned to face the Doctor. “That's excellent news Dr. Tropsha, We can use the extra hands. And what about the remaining three?”

“PFC Davis needs to stay off his broken leg for a few more days before he can hobble around on his own. LCpl Reagan, the boy who got mauled by your polar bear, is healing nicely but I want to hold him until we are sure there is not infection in his wounds.”

“If you think it would help, I can have Lt. Bear come and apologize to the young man about using a bit too much force in disarming him,” answered the Captain, rising to the bait.

Ludmilla's eyes flashed angrily. “No thank you, I would prefer that he stay away from the sickbay.”

“Fine. And how about the Marine Lieutenant?”

“Lt. Merryweather is still sedated and under traction. I have seen no sign of internal bleeding, which is a bit of a miracle. His fractures seem to be healing straight and without complications. The ship showed me this fantastic imaging equipment built into the beds that allows me to view the patient's body in place, in real-time, on my own computer tablet—like a window into the body. It is not using x-rays but other non-ionizing radiation that shows the soft tissue better—but you probably do not care about this.”

“I care about every piece of equipment and every person on board my ship, Dr. Tropsha.” Jack admonished her, then in a less stern voice, “how is Corpsman White working out?”

“Betty is a great help to me, and she did excellent work on the wounded before I came on board. She is to be commended, Captain.”

Smiling in agreement, he turned to the obviously embarrassed Betty. “Consider yourself commended, Hospital Corpsman White, and keep up the good work.”