“What do you want?” I asked. Okay, I was being less than welcoming, probably even less than civilized . . . but I really didn’t want to see anyone right now.
“Doob and McKean and Chief Garner and a few others are headed down-El,” she told me, ignoring my poor manners. “We’re celebrating!”
“Celebrating what?”
She shrugged, the movement doing delightful things to the light hugging her skin. “Getting back from Abyssworld? That new treaty with the Gucks? A formal long-term mutual-assistance protocol with the Deep? I’ll bet that makes your dad happy!”
“I suppose.” I’d shot off a file to him while we were still inbound, with as many details as I was allowed to share. The military would be looking for civilian corporations to follow up our contact with the Deep. General Nanodynamics stood to make a lot of money with the work out there . . . especially when full communication was established with the Deep and it began to share with us everything it had been thinking about for the past billion years.
There was also talk of using Gödel encoding with the Medusae at Europa.
“Damn it, Elliot, you’ve made a real difference on this voyage.”
“I suppose. But Joy . . .”
“You couldn’t have helped her, even if you’d been there with her, okay? And she knew the risks when she raised her hand and swore in as a Marine.”
“But I’m alive, and Joy . . . the real Joy, the Joy I knew . . . she’s—”
“Fuck you, Carlyle!” The profanity on her lips startled me. “Get a grip, okay?”
“What . . . ?”
“You lost your friend. I’m sorry about that, I really am! But you have other friends who love you and care for you and want to help! Damn it, you’ve pulled off the coup of the century and saved all of our lives in the bargain, and we’re going to celebrate with you if it kills you! You hear me?”
I knew what she was doing, of course—trying to shock me out of the doldrums. Maybe distract me from myself. Maybe even remind me that life was still worth living.
I didn’t want to be jollied along, no . . . but she wasn’t jollying me. She was metaphorically giving me a swift, hard kick in the ass.
I sighed. “Okay, okay. Let put on some civvies.”
She watched while I dissolved my utilities and then slapped on a conservative black skinsuit. I wondered what Doob would say about his girlfriend watching me dress, then decided it didn’t matter. He . . . they . . . we were friends, with a bond forged in blood.
“Ready?” she said. She reached out, grabbed my hand, and yanked me toward the door. “You’ve been healing so many other people, E-Car, it’s about time you had some for yourself! Let’s go!”
I went. And . . . she was right.
I felt myself starting to heal.
About the Author
IAN DOUGLAS, one of the many pseudonyms for writer William H. Keith, is the New York Times bestselling author of the popular military SF series The Heritage Trilogy, The Legacy Trilogy, The Inheritance Trilogy, and the ongoing Star Carrier series. A former naval corpsman, he lives in Pennsylvania.
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By Ian Douglas
Star Corpsman
BLOODSTAR
ABYSS DEEP
Star Carrier
EARTH STRIKE
SINGULARITY
DEEP SPACE
The Galactic Marines Saga
The Heritage Trilogy
SEMPER MARS
LUNA MARINE
EUROPA STRIKE
The Legacy Trilogy
STAR CORPS
BATTLESPACE
STAR MARINES
The Inheritance Trilogy
STAR STRIKE
GALACTIC CORPS
SEMPER HUMAN
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Fred Gambino
ABYSS DEEP. Copyright © 2013 by William H. Keith, Jr. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780062198099
Print Edition ISBN: 9780061894770
FIRST EDITION
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Table of Contents
Dedication
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
About the Author
By Ian Douglas
Copyright
About the Publisher