View source for Vignette:Relief Patrol

[[File:Vignette Red Shift 7.png|center|800px]]
{{Vignette Start|Relief Patrol|Lock Item, USAF Battery Blue, Henson Crater SW Rim, South Pole, Luna|''Guardiamarina'' [[Alejandro Navarro|Alejandro Navarro]], Mexican Navy|November 27th, 2062}}
{{drop|N}}av hopped off of Lock Item's checkered aluminium patio onto the fine grey regolith. Private First Class Schuster stumbled out right after into a drawn out fall, taking four full strides to catch himself. As the new guy and technically the platoon’s junior radiotelephone operator (RTO), he hefted the patrol’s long-range radio—a large backpack encased in a white tarp to keep the dust out and mounted over his already large life support system. Quite top-heavy.

{{Indent vig}}"You need help, Shoey?" Nav asked.

{{Indent vig}}"No, sir. Just a bit dizzy."

{{Indent vig}}Nav didn’t know what to expect a real space suit to feel like, but he never got used to it. Operating the U.S. Air Force’s “Field Security Full-Pressure Suit, Limited Actuation, Type A/P22S-9” felt less like a suit and more like a tin foil balloon filled with vaseline. Each step had a slosh to it as the shin gradually compressed the gel-lined walls into motion. There was a lag and rubberbanding to every motion as the gel queued “actuation assist”. The wearer’s movements were multiplied at the joints to make action more deliberate and squeeze out any dexterity they could out of what was essentially a man-sized spaceship. However, the assist was usually half-a-second to a full second late in the older models. That combined with one-sixth gravity and no air resistance often led to very sharp overcorrections and frequent falls. While the Marines had to go out to service remote sensors and calm the installation commander's unrealized fear of Soviets infiltrators, protection against the ground was a much bigger priority than stopping incoming rounds.

{{Indent vig}}Nav hopped over to straighten Shoey out and wipe off some of the powder. Greying was inevitable over the course of the patrol, but you didn't want to let it start caking—especially around the joints. Shoey was Nav's partner for the shift. They'd rarely be fully alone together, but if one had to carry a sensor back to the patrol's handcart the other would be fixed by the hip. Tripping over unseen rocks was an extreme hazard. Shoey had just arrived from Infantry Training Battalion the previous month so was new to the patrol depth chart. Nav wasn’t much of an English conversationalist, but even he noticed Shoey’s eyes pinned to the ground in the suit-up room. He was apparently still in the aftermath of a thrashing the senior Lances gave him once they discovered he packed his high school yearbook to the Moon. Shoey spent his 18th birthday sleep deprived at a Recruit Depot, so the Friday night lights were just yesterday for him and Battery Blue was as remote as deployments come. However, some aspects of youth were desirable to the Marine Corps while others were not. At least that’s how the Sergeants justified letting it go. Boredom and the universal past-time of boys beasting those barely their junior were the more convincing reasons. 

{{Indent vig}}Nav flicked the radio mounted to his hip. Its cable fed into a flexi-electrical panel embedded over the small of his back, which connected to his Snoopy cap’s microphones and earpieces. He was meant to do a comms check before leaving the suit up area but the scared Private suiting Nav and Shoey up was too rushed to run them through the entire checklist. 

{{Indent vig}}“Whippet 1-7, this is Whippet- Eh… 1-6. Eh… Radio check, over,” Nav said. His enunciation was a bit drawn out and still shaky as he remembered back to the abridged English radio etiquette course some tired old 1/24 Marine gave the 12 foreign exchangees back at the Detroit armory in June. Nav barely ever talked on these patrols so never really got good at it.

{{Indent vig}}“Whippet 1-6, Whippet 1-7. Roger, out,” Platoon Sergeant Romano replied, humoring him a bit. 

{{Indent vig}}On patrol they just called Nav “sir” or “L-T”. He had become 1st Platoon’s de facto Assistant Platoon Commander in the realm of office work and going out on patrols—basically everything First Lieutenant Afonso didn't want to do and couldn't get Romano to do. Nav’s main jobs other than being an extra body for patrols were investigating squad bay incidents that made it up to the Series Commander’s desk and chasing up lost property.

{{Indent vig}}“Whippet Main, this is Whippet 1-7. Red shift is departing for RV Keller. Over.”

{{Indent vig}}“Whippet 1-7, this is Whippet Main. Roger, over. Break. All stations, Whippet Main. Blue to red changeover is in 15 minutes. Over.”

{{Indent vig}}Nav and Shoey joined Romano and Corporal Salamanca out on the dusty courtyard leading out towards the perimeter fence. White walls and steel catwalks towered over them on three sides, while the fourth—straight ahead—faced straight into the black-white horizon. Their well-used white “mobility kits” were stained grey from moon dust.  Salamanca towed a cart stacked with replacement batteries for the remote sensors that Red shift would come across on their eight hours of walking. Their bulbous helmets were shrouded by mesh bags to break up their silhouettes, although it did nothing for their conspicuous amber visors that caught the sun at every angle. Anything less and their field of vision, especially up close, would be cut from terrible to nil. Their backs were also all draped in neon orange signal panels safety, but no one was bring up a uniform contradiction to the Detachment Sergeant Major. The suits ''were'' a bit more “tactical” than those worn by their civilian counterparts in that they had they could kneel and probably wouldn’t tear anything from a low speed fall, but seeing and moving was still a frustrating affair.

{{Indent vig}}Each of the Marines carried a rifle specially designed to be operated with bulky pressure suit gloves and interface with their suit’s gel system to ease the trigger pull. It handled like a hollow plastic toy in lunar gravity. Radiator fins protruded far from the barrel to disperse the heat as best as possible, although the amount of sustained fire they could get out of them was still not stellar. In theory they could take advantage of a barrel-change system when stationary, although the armorer at Battery Blue pinned the barrels in place. The only shots that had ever been fired on the installation were negligent discharges and each patrolman only carried two magazines anyway. Nav though, not yet qualified on the American rifle when wearing a full-pressure suit, only carried a holstered sidearm.

{{Indent vig}}“Alright gents, be on the lookout for ghosts and don’t fuck with the wildlife,” Romano said. “And Salamanca, if you flip the cart again we’re shooting you in the knees.”
Big Sar'nt, I’d pay you to do that right now.”

{{Indent vig}}Romano hopped and spun around, lofting a bit in the low gravity, and locked on Nav. The helmet was fixed to the torso of the suit so there was no head turning. Nav couldn’t see anything past the glass, but he knew the Platoon Sergeant’s stare was behind it. 

{{Indent vig}}“It’s the long route again, sir. No tapping out,” Romano said. 

{{Indent vig}}“Aye, aye.”

{{Indent vig}}“L-T, you’ll be amazed by how sweaty your legs and dry your eyes can get,” Salamanca chimed in.

{{Indent vig}}“Sally, I’ve been out three times a week for the past 6 months. You’ve been there for a third of them.”

{{Indent vig}}“And yet I’m amazed everytime, sir.”

{{Indent vig}}The four set off with Henson Crater to their backs and the perimeter fence to their left. Every step felt like stepping in marshmallows as the gel layer under the soles of their feet redistributed. The muffled crunch of fine powder lightly vibrated suits, like walking on the beach with your ears plugged. It wasn’t so demanding, although they’d be standing for 8 hours and everything below chest level became terribly sweaty inside the skintight body glove. 

{{Indent vig}}A red pennant frozen mid-flap gradually came into view—the RV Keller marker. Another four figures, positively caked in grey dust, approached from the other direction, towing their own cart full of drained batteries. They were actually quite about 5 miles away from the main facilities of Battery Blue on Henson’s rim—an elevator and tram brought the perimeter patrols to an annex at the base of the crater to cut down the walk.

{{Indent vig}}“Our relief, took you long enough” the lead approaching figure said.

{{Indent vig}}It was Sergeant Molina from 3rd Platoon, which manned Blue shift in covering Item Zone south of the crater. They liked having 3rd Platoon (Blue) take the mornings and afternoons, 1st Platoon (Red) take the evenings, and 2nd Platoon (White) everyday to keep everyone's sleep schedules consistent.

{{Indent vig}}“Yeah well Yates said you guys were late to changeover this morning so couldn’t let you get off easy,” Romano said. “Anything going on?”

{{Indent vig}}“We couldn’t remediate the sensor issue at Item-Five-Able, so you might need to stick around there for a while. But other than that, same old nothing.”

{{Indent vig}}“Alright well, hurry back and link up with Top so they can maybe send out a replacement with White tomorrow. You might be able to catch him in the shop if you get back before 1730.”

{{Indent vig}}“Fat chance, you know it’ll be a month of walking around in circles over there. Top is allergic to actually maintaining past 1200 and First Sarnt will be up ''our'' asses over it.”

{{Indent vig}}“I believe the response you’re looking for is, ‘Aye, aye, Big Sar'nt.’” Romano brought his wrist to eye level to check the watch built into his gauntlet. “Now get the fuck out of here. And fill out the goddamn patrol journal correctly this time. Last time it looked like it was filled in by a four year old.”

{{Indent vig}}“Aye-”

{{Indent vig}}The radio squelched. “All stations, this is Whippet Main. Hold position, over.” 

{{Indent vig}}“Whippet Main, Whippet 1-7. Wilco, over,” Romano said. He swept his arm down and to the side. “Everyone get in cover and heads up.”

{{Indent vig}}“Man I just want to hit the sack...”

{{Indent vig}}Molina trailed off and visibily craned his entire body upwards to look towards the crater. Everyone else turned to face something none of them had ever saw. Five interceptor missiles were climbing skyward from Battery Blue, fanning out to the north. Two purple laser beams fired after them, rapidly flickering and changing angles. 

{{Indent vig}}“Does bluff do test launches?” Nav asked.

{{Indent vig}}“What the fuck-" Molina's visor lit up and he leaped backwards. "Woah!” 

{{Indent vig}}One of the interceptors exploded almost directly over the crater. Surely they weren’t actually intercepting something? It must have been some sort of accident and a programmed self-destruction.  

{{Indent vig}}But then another interceptor exploded. Behind it Nav could just make out the glint of something tearing through the sky, but it was gone in an instant, lost in the black backdrop. Suddenly, the crater erupted in a blinding flash. The Marines cowered, tripping over themselves to get behind the handcart and a nearby rock while shielding their visors. Even in their suits there was an intense heat and a shock wave shuddered the ground beneath their feet. Romano's dosimeter alarmed as its dose-rate and absolute dose limit were immediately surpassed. The fan in Nav's helmet began to hiss as its outer-most layer singed. His chest was bitten with a sharp cold as a reactive mixture was automatically injected into his gel layer to try and counteract the heating. As they looked backed up they were transfixed on the battle that was apparently raging without them. Another impact immediately followed, but seemed to penetrate the ground because instead of a fireball it ejected a column of dust high over the horizon. Battery Blue's last interceptor tried launching, but instead of elegantly shooting into the heavens it clumsily veered off, degenerating into a violent spiral and detonating on the farside of the crater. 

{{Indent vig}}“Whippet Main, this is Whippet 1-7. Mushroom Echo, Mushroom Echo. I’m seeing multiple explosions at Battery Blue and getting radiation alarms. Please advise, over.”

{{Indent vig}}Silence.

{{Vignette End}}

[[Category:Mexican vignettes]]
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