"Newbie team. All clear on top." I cradled my Remington and watched the deck. Nothing was moving except for the French flag flapping in the breeze. Since we were standing in broad daylight, and worried about creatures that burst into flame when they got too much sun, there was not a lot for the Newbie team to do other than keep a sharp eye on nothing. The Hind circled lazily above.

"How come Chuck got to go inside, and we're stuck out here?" Albert Lee complained. He was a small-statured man of Asian descent. He had been a librarian once upon a time, before a colony of giant mutant spiders had taken up residence in his archives and started sucking the fluids out of his clientele. Unlike your average librarian, however, he had put himself through college on the GI Bill, and had been a demolitions specialist in the Marine Corps. His giant spider problem had met a fiery end, thanks to diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Sadly, the library had burned down as well. He was sharp, and unlike many of the Newbies had already known which end of the gun was the dangerous one. I was glad that Harbinger had picked him to come along.

"Chuck has more CQB training," I answered. CQB stood for close quarters battle, and Mead had a lot more experience in it from his Ranger days than the rest of the Newbies. Lee just shook his head and we went back to waiting. Time passed slowly except for the occasional radio check-ins. The two assault teams were converging on the engine room from separate corridors.

"This is Harbinger. Galley's clear. Buckets of blood on the floor. There was a struggle here."

"This is Boone. We're above the boilers. More blood. Lots of shell casings. This must be where the French bought it."

"This is Julie. Deck is clear."

"Newbie team. All clear on top," I said again.

"This is the 'support' team. I've got stupid sailors trying to hit on me and this damn boat smells like fish guts," Holly reported.

I checked my weapons again. The 870 had an 18-inch barrel and a two-shot mag extension, giving me seven total shots in the gun. It was a personal favorite of mine. I had owned this particular unit since I was fifteen. I had replaced the fore end with a Surefire high intensity flashlight, mounted a glow in the dark XS bead sight on the rib, attached a side saddle that held an extra six shells, and added a nylon butt cuff that held six more. My load-bearing gear was heavily laden with extra shells: silver buckshot, silver slugs, flechettes, armor-piercing quadrangle shot, internally suppressed buckshot, Milo's special magnum breaching charges, and even a couple of Penguin tear gas rounds. I had strapped on everything but the kitchen sink, and I'm sure that they had a specialty round for that as well.