Abyss Deep by Ian Douglas Page B

wondering who was behind it, what government. Neo-­Ludds couldn’t get to orbit without help. Who had helped them?
    There were probably netbots—­electronic agents on the Net programmed to listen for certain key words and phrases. Hijack. Marines. Terrorists. DNA. That kind of thing. When they picked up something of interest, they would start probing, looking for more information. That tag I’d sensed had been a netbot shooting down the open radio channel and into my in-­head, copying my personal contact data, and slipping away again. With my name, rate, rank, and number, they would be able to figure out who I was, know I was with Deep Recon 7, the Black Wizards . . . 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 1MARDIV, and that was news . It would be all over the Net; hell, it was probably all over the Net already.
    And Deep Recon really hates that kind of publicity.
    In short, I was now in a world of shit.

 
    Chapter Four
    A t least I wasn’t under arrest, or even restricted to base. Twenty-­four hours later I was up-­El, 35,800 kilometers above Earth’s equator at the Cayambe Space Elevator’s Geosynch Center. The place is a bustling hive of space industry, communications, orbital hotels, and offices. From the Universe View of the sprawling Hilton Orbital Wheel, I could look down at the shrunken Earth with the nearby elevator cable vanishing with perspective into the blue planet’s center. She was a little past full at the moment, spanning just twenty degrees. If I held up both hands side by side at arm’s length with fingers outstretched, I could just about block half of her from view. Off to one side, several of the big, free-­orbiting solar reflector mirrors and microwave antenna arrays hung in open space, angled to reflect sunlight onto Earth’s northern hemisphere. Bit by bit, in tiny steps, we were winning against the grinding southward advance of the ice sheets.
    At least that’s what the newsnets told us. Sometimes I wasn’t sure I believed them. A good third of the planet’s northern hemisphere was locked in ice, gleaming in the glare of daylight. I stifled a small, cold shudder.
    â€œWhat is it, E-­Car?” Leighton asked, looking at me askance. “You okay?”
    Sergeant Joy Leighton, U.S. Marines, was a friend . . . a very dear friend. Military regulations frowned on enlisted personnel becoming sexually involved, but military regulations rarely acknowledged that personnel are human , not machines. Joy and I had been in combat together, out on Bloodworld, and that counts for a lot. I’d patched her up and dragged her ass out of a firefight. That counted for more. And as long as we didn’t go around flaunting the relationship, rubbing it in the brass’s collective face, no one was going to say a word.
    â€œI’m fine, No-­Joy,” I told her, lying through my teeth. “Just fine.”
    â€œI think they’re going to let that whole security-­breach thing drop,” she said, knowing I was lying, but misunderstanding the reason for it. “Everything is too public now. They don’t want to be seen as punishing a genu-­wine hero.”
    I didn’t answer right away, watching the Earth instead. The Hilton’s viewing lounge counter-­rotated to the rest of the habitat, providing a half-­G of spin gravity but cancelling the dizzying spin of the rest of the universe.
    â€œWhat hero?” I asked after a moment. “Taking down Capricorn Zeta? We all did that.”
    â€œActually, I was thinking about the Hero of Bloodworld, the doc who brokered peace with the Qesh. You’re still a highly newsworthy commodity, you know. GNN probably had a whole army of newsbots programmed to follow you, sniff you out as soon as you popped onto an unsecure channel. In any case . . .” She leaned over and kissed me. “You’re still my