Earthfall by Stephen Knight

Andrews sighed. He knew why she was pissed, but there was nothing he could do about it.
    “Good night,” he said.
    She didn’t answer.

7

    “W e seem to be spending more time here than usual,” Jim Laird said when Andrews stepped into the vehicle ready bay. It was already full of people, most of them standing around and waiting. Spencer looked agitated, and it didn’t take a social scientist to figure out why. When Mulligan had said the rigs were frozen, he hadn’t been kidding; armed guards had kept the SCEV maintainers and crews away from the waiting rigs.
    “Okay, what’s the SITREP here?” Andrews asked.
    Laird pointed at the waiting SCEVs. “Rigs are frozen, and no one goes near them until you give the word. You’re the mission commander, so both assets are under your operational control.” He sniffed and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “They wouldn’t accept my authority to grant the crews access, so we were waiting for you. I was about to have you paged over the intercom, actually.”
    Andrews checked his watch. “Hey, I’m a half hour early.”
    “Yeah, I’ll make sure you get a commendation for that.”
    Andrews ignored Laird’s slightly pissy tone. “Oscar, are you in charge of the guard detail?” he asked one of the sentries. He was a tall, broad-shouldered staff sergeant of Hispanic extraction, and his dark skin was covered with a slight sheen of sweat.
    “Yes, sir,” Oscar said.
    “We’d like to access the rigs now, and start the pre-launch checks. Any problem with that?”
    “Negative, Captain. You’re good to go, sir.”
    Andrews waved to the waiting maintainers. “Let’s get it done,” he said.
    “About fucking time,” Spencer groused.
    “Orders, man. I got orders,” Oscar told him. “Major Alexander gave ’em to me, but you know where they really came from? Mulligan, man.”
    “Ah, screw him,” Spencer said testily.
    “Yeah, good luck with that,” Oscar said. “He’ll rip your little wiener out by the roots and slap you across the face with it.”
    “Spencer, knock off the shit and do your job,” Andrews told him. He asked Laird, “All essential personnel present?”
    “Waiting on Mulligan. And your wife, actually.”
    “She’ll be here in fifteen. We don’t need her or Mulligan for the vehicle checks, so let’s get started.”
    “Hooah.”
    The maintenance crews went to work making the final checks. Andrews made a quick walkaround of SCEV Four, checking the various sight gauges and ensuring the fluid levels were right on the line, the tires were in proper condition for an overland hike, the infrared turrets were clean, and the heavy duty shock absorption system was in good repair. He had no problem shouldering maintainers aside so he could crawl into the inspection spaces and put his own eyes on target. Getting his hands dirty was never something he’d been afraid of, and within minutes they were covered with grime and grease. He removed several axle bellows and checked them for any residual grit from the rig’s last trip, and he was happy to see they were as clean as if the rig had just rolled off the assembly line. Crawling out from beneath the vehicle, he glanced over at SCEV Five and saw Laird doing the same thing, and just as aggressively. Good. While he’d known Jim for as long as he’d known anyone, he’d never crewed with him before, and he was glad to see the broad-shouldered officer was as dedicated to mission prep as he was.
    Andrews took some time to clean as much of the grime from his hands as he could before climbing the short stairway to the rig’s interior. There was no need to make it any dirtier than necessary just yet; there’d be plenty of time for it to get messed up during the mission, and he preferred to keep the living and working spaces as pristine as possible.
    Inside, Tony Choi and Leona Eklund were already conducting functionality checks of the environmental systems, and another technician still had the floor