"Nash! I have a visual on lights! What's on the instruments?"

"Volcanoes, Sharl," Hudson stated quietly. "Showing moderate to heavy seismic activity. We could be in for some interesting shore leave."

"Get off the deck, Sharl," Quinn ordered abruptly. "This is my watch."

"Aye, Commander," she replied dryly, separating from her station and pushing through the pressure iris. She took the first junction and descended onto the mess deck, stopping at her locker to stow helmet and battle suit. Helmet off, she could once again feel and hear the ambient drone of the circulation systems, the vibrations and whispers of the ship's power systems. The confined and recirculated odors of life in space, stale and antiseptic, assaulted her sensibilities.

The mess deck was congested with the off-watch. Sleep cells were vacant, everyone more nervous than tired. As usual, spacer Marines floated around the game tables, although the magnetic dice were still. The hulking, forest-green clad men watched her, their demeanor uncharacteristically subdued. It had been two days since the emergency sortie, and the rugged warriors, particularly the darker ones, displayed resurgent stubble on their normally hairless bodies—an inevitable result of foregoing twice daily depilatories and skin scrubs. The air in the corvette was pungent, especially in the vicinity of the Marines.

"What's the deal, Lieutenant?" Corporal Tatum asked, orienting his lanky body to Buccari's vertical and assuming a respectful, if loose, position of attention. "MacArthur says we're going to inject." All conversation stopped.

"That's the plan," Buccari replied.

"Injection!" Gordon exclaimed, thin-framed and youthful. "Hope Mac tags me."

"Don't be so anxious to die, Boot," admonished O'Toole, a high-browed private first class. "But don't worry; there's only six fun plugs. You can ride down with the rest of the women.. er, excuse me, Lieutenant. I didn't—"

"No problem," Buccari yawned.

"Sir, what's it like—the planet?" Chastain asked. He was huge—a giant—his cow eyes wide with innocent alarm. "Can you breathe the air? What we going to do, huh, sir?"

"Got no choice, pea-brain," said Petit, heavy-bearded, barrel-chested and lantern-jawed. "What else we going to do—hold our breath?"

The giant hung his head, embarrassed.

"Easy, Petit," warned Tatum. "Let Jocko ask his questions—"

"Good. It looks real good," Buccari replied. "We got a breathable atmosphere. We know that much. Survey systems are still in bad shape. We should have a reasonable planet profile in a few hours, but Private Petit is right—we don't have much of a choice." She was tired, hungry, and thirsty. Too excited to sleep, she could not ignore her stomach. She pushed by the Marines and aimed for the galley.

"Where's Corporal Mac?" she asked as she grabbed a squeeze container and drew off some soup. It was hot, deliciously warming her hands.

"Lander bay, Lieutenant," replied Tatum. "Him and the sergeant-major are helping Jones configure penetrators." As Tatum spoke, the afterhatch yawned open. Lander Boatswain First Class Jones, Corporal MacArthur, and a senior enlisted Marine floated onto the mess decks.

"Lieutenant, checking good!" the boatswain roared. "Heard the skinny from Ensign Hudson. You whupped up on those bugs. Burned three of them! Flamed butt!"

"Not sure whose butt got flamed, Boats," replied Buccari. "Let's worry about getting everyone down, shall we? Everything ready?"

"You bet, sir. Checking good, with you steering and me flapping," Jones crowed. "Been telling Sarge Shannon here how good you are. These boot chewers don't believe you're a legend."

"Throttle back, Boats," Buccari said, smiling weakly, "and stop spewing."

"She's superwoman, er… excuse me, Lieutenant," Jones persisted. "Lieutenant Buccari and me've won the fleet EPL competitions three years running. No one's ever even won it more than twice, 'cept us."

"Don't believe it," Buccari smirked, "especially the part about him being the reason why. I could have done it with Fenstermacher."

"Aw, Lieutenant! Hurt me sorely," Jones groaned.

"Everyone knows the lieutenant is the best pilot in the fleet," Laser Corporal MacArthur said. The lithe, square-shouldered Marine stared squarely into Buccari' s eyes, his own pewter-gray eyes alert and clear. Buccari looked down at the deck.

"Mac thinks you're pretty, too, sir," Chastain said. The Marines hooted and banged their boots on the deck.

"Why, Corporal!" Buccari declared, pivoting sharply to confront the squad leader. "Thank you. I bet you say that about all the officers."

"Eh…" MacArthur stammered, blushing as he pushed the hood from his wide forehead. "Hardly, sir—er…I mean, you're welcome, sir. No disrespect intended." He shot Chastain a withering glare, his fine features revealing determination more than anger.

"You can't be denying your fame, Lieutenant," interrupted the sergeant-major, a chesty, square-jawed, broken-veined space veteran. "Sergeant-Major Shannon, sir."

"My pleasure, Sergeant-Major," she said, turning to meet the newcomer. "I've seen you around the mothership. Sorry we didn't get introduced earlier, but we've been busy." Buccari put out her hand. Shannon enveloped it.

"I would agree, sir," Shannon said. "Very busy."

"You were evidently caught on board by accident?" she asked. "Yes, sir," the sergeant said. "I was inspecting MacArthur' s squad when GQ sounded. Just my luck."

"I hope your luck gets better, Sergeant-Major."

Chapter 5. On the Ground

Buccari moved into the lander bay and found Boatswain Jones, slickly burly in his silver pressure suit, floating at the EPL hatch. "All strapped in. All injection units checking good," he told her.

"Let's hustle," Buccari said, "before they get claustrophobic." She made final adjustments to her pressure suit and then dove into the open lander hatch. With practiced agility, she moved forward in the craft, pulling herself into the single pilot station. Positioned in the acceleration seat, she donned her helmet, connected harness and comm fittings, and commenced pre-flight checkout of the Endoatmospheric Planetary Lander—the apple.

"Compute! Systems status—initiate," she barked. "Pilot Buccari."

Ladder lights on the power console sequenced and the EPL's control computer replied with a machine-generated voice: "Pilot Buccari. Control authorizations check. Pilot has command."

"Launch sequence," she ordered, adjusting to the snug cockpit.

"All systems checking good, sir," Jones reported from his station.

"Boats, I'd be surprised if they didn't," Buccari acknowledged. They ran through prestart and start checklists. The lander was in good order; the injection systems displayed green lights. Buccari felt anxious for the Marines stuffed into their penetrator casings—human artillery shells.

"Stand by to jettison EPL!" Buccari announced.

"Apple cleared to launch," Hudson responded. "Report clear. Rendezvous will be launch plus ninety-three. One orbit. Control set to button four. You copy?"

"Roger, launch plus ninety-three; button four. EPL retros in two minutes. Counting down." Buccari settled into the pilot's seat, anticipating the launch of the lander, to separating from the larger corvette, which was itself launched from a mothership—a spawn from a spawn, each with diminishing purposes, powers, and ranges. But this was her ship. She was pilot.

To starboard the bay doors yawned smoothly open; an overwhelming blackness crept through the widening aperture. Buccari cut the lights in the cockpit, cursing herself for waiting to start night vision adaptation. Red light bathed the cockpit, and a constellation of reflections fell back at her from the umbrella of the canopy. She palmed down the intensity. The white brilliance of genuine stars blossomed.