March Upcountry

CHAPTER TWELVE

"What else do we need?" O'Casey asked, thumbing through the list of supplies the Marines had loaded.

"Whatever it is, it better not weigh much," Kosutic replied. The sergeant major was doing a recalculation of fuel use, and she looked up with a grimace. "I don't think we have much margin."

"I thought you could glide one of these things in," Eleanora said uncomfortably. It was hardly her area of expertise, but she knew that the shuttles' swing-wing configuration gave them a tremendous glide ratio.

"We can." Kosutic's tone was mild. "If we have a runway, that is." She gestured at one of the monitors, where the small map from the Fodor's was displayed. "Do you see many airports? In glide mode, one of these things needs a nice, old-fashioned runway. You try to land without one, and you might as well give your soul to His Wickedness."

"So what happens if it were running out of fuel, then?"

"Well, if we were headed in for a standard atmosphere insertion, we could correct at the last minute and do some atmospheric skipping to slow down. The problem is, if we do an orbit, we'll be detected. Then the whole plan goes out the airlock, and we have a cruiser and the garrison hunting us dirtside.

"If, on the other hand, we do a steep reentry—which, by the way, is what we're planning—and run out of fuel, we'll just pancake."

"Oh."

"Make a hell of a hole," Kosutic snorted.

"I can imagine," O'Casey said faintly.

"I imagine that this is about where we should be detecting the Saint, Sir," Sublieutenant Segedin said.

"Understood." Captain Krasnitsky looked at the helmsman. "Prepare for course change. Quartermaster, pass the word to the Marines to prepare for separation."

"They should have detected us by now," Captain Delaney said. "Why are they still decelerating for the planet?"

"Could they still intend to land their Marines?" the chaplain asked, leaning over the tactical display beside him.

Delaney's nose wrinkled at the sour smell of the chaplain's unwashed cassock. Washing among the faithful was an occasional thing, since it used unnecessary resources. And such harmful chemicals as deodorants were, of course, right out.

"They must," Delaney mused. "But they're still too far out." He smiled as the display changed. "Ah! Now we have a feel for their sensor damage. There's the course change."

"Prepare for separation. Five minutes," the ennunciator boomed.

Roger looked up in surprise from his conversation with Sergeant Jin. The Korean was surprisingly well versed on current men's fashions, and after Roger had circulated briefly around the compartment (doing his best imitation of Mother at a garden party), he'd settled down for a long talk with the sergeant. Better that than a long talk with the fascinating Sergeant Despreaux. Something told him that getting "interested" in one of his bodyguards in a situation like this one probably was a bad idea. Not that it would have been a good idea under any circumstances, he reflected with a familiar moodiness.

"You'd better get your armor back on, Sir," Jin said, glancing at the chameleon suit Roger had changed into. "It'll take you at least that long."

"Right. Talk to you later, Sergeant." Roger had become accustomed to walking the transom, and now he sprang lightly onto it and skipped forward, swinging gracefully from pillar to pillar.

"Show off," Julian muttered as he shifted the rucksack across his knees. It wasn't particularly uncomfortable, since it was supported by his armor, but the confinement got to him after a while.

He'd been awakened by the prince's circuit, and hadn't yet gotten back to sleep. He realized that his responses to the fop's rote questions had been a bit surly, but the prince hadn't seemed to notice.

"I don't think he was showing off," Despreaux said tartly. "I think he was hurrying up front."

Julian raised an eyebrow. Since Despreaux was seated across from him, it gave him the perfect opportunity to needle her, and it would have violated his most deeply held principles to pass it up.

"Ah, you're just jealous because he has better hair than you do."

She glanced sideways to get a glimpse of the rapidly undressing prince.

"It is nice," she murmured, and Julian's mouth dropped open as the realization dawned on him.

"You like him, don't you? You've got the hots for the Prince!"

Her head snapped back around, and she glared at the other squad leader.

"That is the stupidest thing— Of course I don't!"

Julian started to tease her further, but then the full implications hit him. There was no way the Regiment would allow one of the guards to carry on with a member of the Imperial Family. He looked around, but all the other troopers seemed to be asleep or had earbuds in. Fortunately, no one had caught his earlier outburst, and he leaned forward as far as the packed equipment permitted.

"Nimashet, are you nuts?" he hissed softly. "They'll have your ass for this!"

"There's nothing going on," she replied just as quietly, fingering the gray chameleon cover of the rucksack on her knees. "Nothing."

"There'd better be nothing!" he whispered fiercely. "But I don't believe it."

"I can handle it," the sergeant said, leaning back. "Don't worry about me. I'm a big girl."

"Sure you are. Sure." He shook his head and leaned back as well. What a cock-up, he thought.

On the opposite side of the transom, Poertena managed to turn a laugh into a cough. He rolled his head around as if half-asleep, and coughed again. Despreaux and the Prince, he thought. Oh, t'at's pocking funny!

"What's so funny, Sir?" Commander Talcott asked. The XO had just returned from a survey of the ship, and the news wasn't good. Four of DeGlopper's eight missile launchers had taken enough damage to put them out of play for the next bout, and the dead cruiser's fire had gouged deep wounds into the ChromSten-armored hull. Some of them threatened loaded magazines, and although the laser-pumped fusion warheads wouldn't detonate from impact, the power systems of the missile drives would... and take the entire ship with them.

But at least the phase drive had suffered no further damage. In fact, it was actually in better shape than for the last encounter, so they'd have a few more gravities to play with and more time on the power. And while they'd lost launchers, they'd also used less than half the total missile inventory against their first opponent, so the next fight would be nearly even.

Except for the cruiser's ability to dance rings around them.

"Oh, I was just thinking about our ship's namesake," Krasnitsky answered the question with a grim smile. "I wonder if he ever thought 'What the heck am I doing this for?'"

Roger watched the external monitors as the giant docking hatches opened. The perfect blackness of space beckoned as the tractor moorings cut loose, and the shuttles drifted forward. As they cleared the ship's field, DeGlopper's artificial gravity fell away, and they were in freefall.

"I forgot to ask, Your Highness," Pahner said tactfully. "How are you in microgravity?" He carefully avoided any mention of the excuses O'Casey had made to explain the prince's "indisposition" the first evening aboard.

"I play null-gee handball quite a bit," the prince said in an offhand manner as he swiveled the monitor around to watch the ship disappearing in the distance behind them. "I don't have any problems with freefall at all." He smiled evilly for just a moment. "Eleanora, on the other hand..."

"I'm gonna diiie," the chief of staff moaned, clutching the motion sickness bag to her mouth as another wave of wracking nausea washed over her.

"I've got a Mo-Fix injector around here somewhere," Kosutic said with the half-malicious chuckle of one who possessed a cast-iron stomach. Even the smell of the ejecta was survivable; it wasn't like she hadn't smelled it before.

"I'm allergic." Eleanora's voice was muffled by the plastic bag. Then she leaned back and zipped the bag shut. "Oh, Goddd... ."

"Oh," Kosutic said in more sympathetic tones. She shook her head. "We're going to be out here for a couple of days, you realize?"

"Yes," Eleanora said miserably. "I do realize that. But I'd forgotten these shuttles don't have artificial gravity."

"I don't think we can rotate, either," the sergeant major told her. "We're going to do a long, slow burn. I don't think we can do that and rotate at the same time."

"I'll live... I think." The chief of staff suddenly ripped the bag open and buried her face in the contents. "Arrggg."

Kosutic leaned back and shook her head.

"I can see this is gonna be a great trip," she said.