Incursion Vector

034

[▲] RM Prospect 857-G, Alliance System K-521, Scutum-Centaurus Arm

"I should've joined the goddamn Navy."

Vincent continued his daily check of the targeting systems on his armor, barely registering the man's complaint. His patrol partner had been harping on the same thing since news of the First Contact Incident hit the public newsfeeds and he had learned fairly quickly to tune it out. It was barely a month ago that he was whining about not having joined the Planetary Vanguard, though that had been, rather ironically, far less annoying to hear about on a daily basis.

"You win some, you loose some." When his checks came back green he flashed the younger man a mocking smirk. "Your shitty quals mean you lost some."

"They weren't shitty," muttered Waite. To punctuate his frustration he slammed the three-meter survey stake into the dusty crust of the lifeless satellite circling the cerulean ice giant overhead. A blanket of tan and aluminum gray particles bounced up into the low-gravity atmosphere to form a small mushroom cloud around the matte black three-toed feet of their powered armor suits. "I wasn't even there for them."

"Well there's your fucking problem." The man laughed as he shook his head. "Should've kept your pants on. Messing around with daughters of Colonial barons only moves you up the food chain in the private sector. Should've learned that one from your pops."

"Ha-ha." Slamming the stabilizing legs to the ground the private sent a signal back to the survey team they were babysitting, informing them that the sensor net was up and ready to go. "Dustball in the middle of goddamn nowhere hauling around fancy sticks because... why, again? Oh yeah! Couple of these scientists have their heads so far up the communal sphincter of the Senate you can smell the shit through an exosuit. Totally desirable station. Real prestige here, sarge."

"Save the bitching for the barracks and calibrate that thing properly, private," ordered Vincent when the sensor told his VTI it was off level. "You got one job on this rock and you're damn well gonna do it right."

"Yes, sir!"

While Waite went through the process of leveling the survey pole the sergeant called back to the man responsible for their being out on the unnamed moon in the first place. "Team Two to base, all poles are up and green."

"You sure 'bout that, Salz?" asked Lieutenant Demir. "We're getting some weird ghosting back here on the tertiary line."

Vincent sighed and opened up a view of their sensor net on his helmet's screen, hating playing tech support for crap he could care less about. Three of the survey sensors they had set out the other day were indeed showing up as being in two or three different places at the same time. They weren't incredibly far off where he knew he and Waite had placed them, but he knew it would tick off the surveyors and their anal need for perfect accuracy.

"This is a rare metal prospect, right?" Vincent called back. "Sure there's not some heavy element screwing them up LT?"

A cynical laugh crackled over the channel. "It look like I know a damn thing about this dustball's exogeology? Think all our surveyors went out to take their communal piss break. I'll see if I can track 'em down."

"Great." Vincent looked back over his shoulder. "You leveled the tertiary line, right, Waite?"

The private's head bobbed up and down as he finished calibrating their last sensor. "Yessir, primed and ready to do whatever those ass-kissers do."

"Great." He looked at his map of the surface. It was a sixty kilometer trek back out to the line that was malfunctioning and once the moon moved out of the gas giant's shadow the surface temperatures were going to skyrocket. The Lieutenant wasn't going to call down their dropship just to give him a ride out to fix a sensor net, either. "Guess we're in for another long hot night."