I squeezed into a waiting Mark 10 hanging on the rack, sealed it off, and accepted a helmet from Thomason. “Thanks, Staff Sergeant,” I told him. “What’s going down?”

“Some of our people are on the ice,” he said. “Trapped … by one of those things.”

Wiseman handed me a Mk. 30 carbine. I checked the safety, wondering if a half-megajoule laser pulse would even register in a cuttlewhale’s consciousness. I might have better luck throwing snowballs at the things.

“Open the hatch!” Hancock called. The dim red-dish light of Abyssworld spilled into the lock as the ramp lowered in front of us.

Haldane had touched down on the ice perhaps a kilometer away from the spot where the cuttlewhale had lunged up through the ice. Thirty Marines and two Corpsmen were out here, converging on the ship as quickly as possible. I could see several of them using their meta-thrusters to make low, bounding leaps across the pressure ridges, their combat-armor nanoflage making them almost invisible in the dim light. In the distance, the snaky silhouette of a cuttlewhale weaved against the swollen red face of the sun.

“Perimeter defense!” Hancock called. “Dalton! Set up your weapon to put fire on that thing!”

We spread out, creating a broad circle around the grounded Haldane. Visibility sucked. The wind from the west had picked up, and we were staring into a layer of blowing ice crystals and freezing fog perhaps two meters deep. I dropped to the ice alongside Bob Dalton, helping him unship his M4-A2 plasma weapon.

Chapter One

There’s an old, old expression in the military, one that can probably be traced back to some platoon sergeant in the army of Sargon the Great: hurry up and wait.

In fact, it’s been said that 99 percent of military life ranges from tedium to unbearable boredom, with the remaining 1 percent consisting of stark, abject terror. A lot of that tedium comes with the waiting … especially if what you’re waiting for is that few moments of crisp, cold terror.

“Doc Carlyle!” the gunnery sergeant’s voice called on my private channel. “You okay?”

“Yeah, Gunny. No problems.”

“Remember to breathe, okay?”

I swallowed, trying to center myself into a calm acceptance of whatever was to be. “Aye, aye, Gunnery Sergeant.” As the platoon’s Corpsman, I was supposed to be monitoring all of the Marines inside the tin can … but Gunnery Sergeant Hancock had been watching my readouts, and noted the increase in pulse and the unevenness of my respiration.

I was packed in with the forty-one Marines of 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company, inside the cargo deck of a shotgun Katy. That’s the Marines’ name for the KT-54 orbital cargo transporter, a big, chunky tug with meta-thrusters on one end and a blunt-ended cylinder on the other. We were in full armor—a KT’s cargo can isn’t pressurized—strapped upright to ranks of backboards … and waiting. They hadn’t opened the can yet, so we were in near total darkness. A maddeningly calm voice inside my head, an extremely sexy woman’s voice, said, “Five mikes.”

“Ah, copy that,” another voice said. “Crack ’er open and let’s see what we got.”

In front of me, beyond the lined-up helmet backs of nine Marines, the end cap of the Katy split in two and began to swing open. If we’d been riding in the throat of an alligator, that’s what we would have seen when he yawned. Light blasted in from a slender horizon to my right, silhouetting the closely packed Marines and illuminating the utilitarian interior of the can.

“Four minutes. Brace for course correction in three … two … one … fire.”

I felt a short, sharp kick along my back. The Katy’s

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