Battlespace by Ian Douglas

longer…so the restriction and even the fine didn’t hurt him that much.
    The principle of the thing still burned. He and his friends had been insulted and attacked. Worse, the damned watchdog nano had then incapacitated them, rendering them helpless.
    At least they hadn’t also been fined for the loss of their uniforms. Those were cheap enough—they were grown right on the spot from raw synthewool to spec—but they’d expected to be gigged for the thefts as well.
    Mostly, he kept remembering his conversations at that party…his difficulty even understanding what was being discussed. Oh, sure, there were translation programs that could be run in his implant, but the attitudes he’d seen seemed as alien as the language, or more so.
    It was a bit disconcerting to know that he’d come home…and not to feel at home after all….

5
    10 NOVEMBER 2159
    Alpha Company Barracks
Star Marine Force Center
Twentynine Palms, California
1420 hours, PST
    â€œAll right, Marines. Listen up!”
    Garroway looked up from his LR-2120, partially disassembled on the table before him, to hear what Staff Sergeant Dunne had to say. Around him, the steady buzz of conversation among other Marines in the company died away.
    â€œGentlemen, ladies,” Dunne went on, “first off… happy fucking birthday !”
    The announcement was met with cheers and shouts of Ooh-rah! and fists pounding on tables. The tenth of November was the anniversary of the creation of the U.S. Marines—originally the Continental Marines—by an act of Congress in 1775, a date celebrated by Marines around the world and far, far beyond.
    â€œFestivities begin at 1900 hours tonight at the mess hall. Cake, ice cream, and pogey bait will be the order of the day.”
    He waited for a fresh round of cheers to die down. “Okay, okay, simmer down. Next order of business. The waiting is over. The Nergs are going to war.”
    That raised a low-voiced murmur of excitement. Nergs was a new battlename for the Marines, another in the long list of nom d’guerres bestowed by enemies and friends alike—devil dogs, leathernecks, jarheads, gyrines. Nerg, or Nergal may-I, was from the phrase, identical in both An and in ancient Sumerian, nir-gál-mè-a , which meant something like “respected in battle.” The Fighting Forty-fourth had won that accolade from the Ahannu warriors on Ishtar immediately after the desperately fought action that had ended in Ramsey’s Peace.
    â€œNow,” Dunne went on, “the really good news. Authorization has come through for promotions for all personnel who were on the Ishtar op. You have all received an automatic advancement by one pay grade. Personnel advancing to sergeant or higher will still be expected to take the test for your new rank, but the time-in-grade requirement has been satisfied.”
    There was some more cheering and a rattle of applause at that. Garroway grinned. He’d just made corporal. Decent!
    â€œA new download is available,” Dunne went on, “coded White Star-one-one. Please open it up and take a look.”
    Garroway brought up the code phrase and thought-clicked it. Immediately, he was in a noumenal space….
    Visual: Star-strewn night, gas clouds, a pair of intensely brilliant pinpoint-stars, and the vast and enigmatic loom of a ring-shaped structure, obviously huge….
    â€œThe ring is our objective,” Dunne went on, his voice sounding in their thoughts as they studied the alien construct. “It is located in the Sirius star system, 8.6 light-years from Earth. We believe it to be a stargate, a device floating in deep space that allows instantaneous travel between stars. Those patterns of light along the rim suggest that it is inhabited. We do not know by who.”
    Sirius . Garroway felt the word strike hard, like a blow to the stomach. Lynnley !
    The Marine company watched in silence as the golden