Once he had completed his report the Colonel entered the lift from the Comms Centre that would take him below ground. If Comms was the eyes of Camp Foster then the below-ground facility was its heart and guts. It had taken the engineers almost two months to carve out the 5 sublevels below the unforgiving surface of LV-426. This was where Harp and his Marines spent most of their time, along with the civilian science team.

He got off at sublevel 2 and headed down the narrow, twisting corridors to his office. Despite all the time he had spent cooped up in hypersleep couches in starships, Harp was mildly claustrophobic; another reason he liked to get topside as much as possible. Living in these cramped below-ground conditions was doing nothing to help his temper.

Although his office was the largest in Camp Foster it still felt cramped to Harp. A simple chair and desk, a computer terminal, a bookcase of military history books. In one corner was a cheese plant he had brought all the way from Earth – it was one of the few green things living on the planet and the Colonel cherished it like an only child. He lifted a small plastic watering can from a shelf and gave the plant a drink, then wiped some dust from its glossy leaves. As he finished there was a rapid rap on the door leading from his adjutant's office.

"Come."

The door opened. "Good morning, Colonel. How did you sleep last night?"

"Terrible, as usual. What's for breakfast?"

"Eggs, I think, Sir. And this." His adjutant proffered the Colonel a stack of reports at least three inches thick.

Harp waved the reports away. "Give me the Reader's Digest version, Mark."

Second-Lieutenant Mark Wong was an easy-going, affable junior officer, easy to smile and with boyish features that made him look younger than he really was. He'd been the Colonel's adjutant for almost three years now, and although he was occasionally on the receiving end of Harp's nasty temper he knew it was (usually) not really directed at him, and had learned to shrugged it off.

"Right Skipper, Reader's Digest it is." Wong flicked through the papers. "Okay, Maintenance says that APC seven is fixable, but they need some parts delivered on the next shipment from Earth. Broken guidance computer, apparently."

"Fine, fine, requisition whatever they need. Command think this operation is so important it shouldn't be a problem."

"Yessir. Next, Chief Thompson says he has two Marines in the brig, and another one in the infirmary."

Harp slammed his fist onto his desk, rattling his terminal. "Goddamnit! What now?"

"Another fight, Sir. Privates Lakes and Sanders. Corporal Andersen got his nose broke when he tried to intervene."

The Colonel was livid. "I'm telling you Mark, this is no way to run an operation. What the Hell does Command expect? Keep men cooped up like this, with nothing to do but go on wild goose chases, and tempers will flair. We've got one of the finest combat machine here living like sewer rats with nothing to fight."

This was the third brawl in as many weeks. What made it all the more infuriating was that there was not a thing Harp could do about it. The radioactive fallout topside meant that his Marines couldn't be out for more than a 24 hour period, even with the protection offered by the hardsuits - and after that they required a downtime of 4 days below to ensure their roentgen count stayed low.

Worse that that, despite Charlie Company's extensive patrols of LV-426 they had failed to find a single living thing, much less the supposed xenomorph the brass thought they would be up to their necks in. Marines are trained to do one thing – fight – and if you don't give them something to fight after a while they would fight amongst themselves, thought Harp.

"What was the argument over? In fact, never mind, I don't care. Give them both 20 days confined to quarters on starvation rations. And dock their pay. Maybe that will discourage the others."

"Very good, Sir," said Wong, and he made a notation on the paperwork.

---

It took the best part of an hour for Harp and Wong to go through the remaining morning reports. The galley would be closing soon, so the Colonel had them send his breakfast up. When it arrived it was cold and the eggs tasted of grease, but he ate them anyway.

Wong had come to the last page of the report. "One last thing, Sir. You're not going to like it either."

The Colonel rubbed his eyes. It was only just after 10 am but he felt like he had been on the go all day. "Ok, Mark, make my morning."

"Dr Sebastian says if you don't meet with him today he's going to go directly to the Admiralty and make a formal request for your replacement. Sir."

Harp sighed. There was no way around it; he'd been avoiding that pompous ass all week but he knew he would have to see him eventually. "Ok Mark. Tell him I'll see him this afternoon. Schedule something and let me know."

"Very good, Sir." Wong returned to his office next door and left the Colonel to his thoughts.