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How come I didn’t notice this stuff before?

After Jack and his four-Marine fireteam deployed to the surface of the planet that would be later named New Eden, we see the following. Jack is chest deep in a river sampling the water and Robyn is on the bank monitoring the comms. She tells Jack that Rodas, the team scout and the only one operating alone, didn’t report in.

Jack keyed his helmet radio and called the two most reliable of his enlisted troops…

“Two most reliable”? The only humans on the planet are Jack, Robyn, Robyn’s co-pilot Cpl. Shimura, Rodas, Ahiga (the heavy gunner), Jabari (the sergeant) and Girish, the sharpshooter. Shimura stays with the dropship at all times, and I’m gong to say Ahiga (who I’d actually forgotten about in this scene) is guarding the dropship since that’s their only way out. That leaves the two officers, the missing scout and two other Marines, who happen to be the most reliable. That’s also it, because I’d established in issue 1 that the most Jack could swindle onto Envoy was a lone fireteam, not even a platoon (eight Marines to a platoon, 2 fireteams to a platoon, do the math).

Oy.

This is an artifact of eariler drafts, when there were a lot more Marines planetside and Jack had more of a selection. I dropped that down to a more manageable number in serial drafts, but I still screwed up. Because later on in Issue 2, I introduce the team medic, Honir Bersi! That’s seven!

And there’s nothing I can do about it, because this is a serial, and both of these issues have been published and are on sale at Fictionwise (however, this will be cleaned up for the paperback version). Serials are very much like walking a tightrope without a net because there’s no Undo button. What seems like a good idea today can write me into a corner tomorrow.