March Upcountry

CHAPTER TWO

Well, at least he's an athlete. Watching the prince drift out of the free-fall and flip to a lithe touchdown on the padded landing area, Company Sergeant Major Eva Kosutic had to admit that she'd seen experienced spacers handle the maneuver worse. Now if he'd only grow a spine.

First Platoon of Bravo Company, Bronze Battalion, The Empress' Own Regiment, was drawn up at attention in serried ranks on the forward side of the shuttle boat bay. The platoon's turnout was better than the Fleet's, which was only to be expected. The Bronze Battalion might be the "lowest" in the hierarchy of The Empress' Own, but they were still among the most elite bodyguards in the known universe. And that meant both the deadliest and the best looking.

It was Eva Kosutic's job to make sure of that. The thirty-minute Guard Mount had been, as always, precise and painstaking. Every centimeter of the uniform, equipment, and toilette of the individual Marines had been minutely inspected. In the five months she'd been Sergeant Major of Bravo Company, Captain Pahner had never found a single fault after she'd checked over the troops. And he never would, if Eva Kosutic had anything to say about it.

Admittedly, there were very few "gigs" for her to find. Before winning assignment to "The Regiment" all candidates went through an exhausting washout course. The five-week Regimental In-Processing, or RIP, was designed to remove the wannabes and combined all the worst aspects of commando training with intense inspections of uniform and equipment. Any Marine found wanting—and most were—was sent back to his unit with no hard feelings. It was understood that "The Regiment" accepted only the best of the best of the best.

Once a recruit survived RIP, of course, he found another hierarchy to deal with. Almost all of the recent "Rippers" were assigned to Bronze Battalion, where they had the inexpressible joy of guarding an overbred pansy who'd rather spit on them than give them the time of day. Most of them suspected that it was just another test. If they stayed hardcore and professional for eighteen months, they could either take a promotion to stay in Bronze or else vie for a position in Steel Battalion and protect Princess Alexandra.

Personally, Eva Kosutic was counting down. One hundred and fifty-three days and a wake-up, she thought, as the prince stepped off the landing mat.

The last notes of the Imperial Anthem died, and the ship's captain stepped forward and saluted.

"Your Royal Highness, Captain Vil Krasnitsky, at your service! Might I say what an honor it is to have you with us on the Charles DeGlopper!"

The prince gave the ship's captain a languid one-handed wave, and turned to look around the boat bay. The petite brunette who'd trailed him out of the tube stepped forward and around him with an almost unnoticeable flare of her nostrils and took the captain's hand.

"Eleanora O'Casey, Captain. It's a pleasure to be aboard your fine vessel." Roger's former tutor and current chief of staff gave the captain a firm handshake and looked him directly in the eye, trying to project some semblance of leadership since Roger was in one of his sulks. "We've been told there's not a crew in this class that can touch yours."

The captain glanced sideways at the distant nobleman for only a moment, and then turned back to the chief of staff.

"Thank you, Ma'am. It's good to be appreciated."

"You've won the Tarawa Competition two years in a row. That's proof enough for this poor civilian." She gave the captain a blinding smile and nudged Roger lightly with her elbow.

The prince turned to the captain and gave him a thin, remote, and fairly meaningless smile. The captain, blinded by the sight of royalty, gave a sigh of relief. Presumably, the prince was pleased and his career would avoid the shoals of royal disfavor.

"May I introduce my officers?" Krasnitsky asked, turning to the line of waiting personnel. "And if His Highness wishes, the ship's company is prepared for inspection!"

"Perhaps at a later time," Eleanora suggested hastily. "I believe His Highness would prefer to be shown to his cabin."

She smiled at the captain once more, already rehearsing her future explanation that the prince had suffered a slight case of motion sickness in the free-fall tube and that was why he was distracted. The excuse was weak, but having "spacephobia" would go over better with the ship's crew than explaining that Roger was being a pain in the ass on purpose.

"I understand completely," the captain said sympathetically. "Changing environments can be stressful. If I might lead the way?"

"Lead on, Captain. Lead on," Eleanora said with yet another blinding smile. And another elbow jab to Roger.

Just let us make it to Leviathan without Roger embarrassing me too hideously, she thought earnestly. Surely that isn't asking too much!

"Oh, Christ on a Crutch. It's Mouse."

Kostas Matsugae looked up from the day-jackets he was unpacking from their traveling containers. The equipment bay was rapidly filling with Bronze Barbarians... and from the way they were putting their own equipment into lockers, it looked to be a permanent arrangement.

"What is the meaning of this?" the diminutive valet asked, in a precise, spare voice.

"Oh, don't get your titties in a wad, Mouse," the first speaker, one of the longer service privates, said. "There's only so much space on one of these assault transports. I guess you're gonna have to shoehorn into the space heavy-weapons would take up. Hey, all," the private went on, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the conversations and clatter of equipment. "Mousey's in the compartment. So nobody start doin' the nasty on the benches."

One of the female corporals sashayed past the middle-aged valet, stripping out of her dress uniform as she went.

"Mousies, how I love them. Mousies is what I love to eat."

"Nibble on their toesies, nibble on their tiny feet!" the rest of the platoon chorused.

Matsugae sniffed and went back to unloading the prince's accoutrements. His Highness would want to look his best for dinner.

"I'm not going to take dinner in the damned mess," Roger said petulantly, pulling at a strand of hair. He knew he was being a spoiled brat, and, as always, it drove him crazy. Of course, the whole situation seemed expressly designed to drive him mad, he reflected bitterly, and gripped his hands together until the knuckles went white and his forearms quivered.

"I'm not going," he repeated adamantly.

Eleanora knew from long experience that arguing with him was probably a lost cause, but sometimes, if you ground away at one of Roger's sulks, he came out of it. Sometimes. Rarely.

"Roger," she started calmly, "if you don't take dinner the first night, it will be a slap in the face to Captain Krasnitsky and his officers... ."

"I'm not going!" he shouted, and then, almost visibly, gathered control of his anger. His whole body was shivering now, and the tiny cabin seemed too small to contain his rage and frustration. It was the captain's cabin, the best one on the ship, but compared to the Palace, or even the regal ships of the Empress' Fleet that Roger had traveled on previously, it was the size of a closet.

He took a deep, cleansing breath, and shrugged.

"Okay, I'm being an ass. But I'm still not going to dinner. Make an excuse," he said with a sudden boyish grin. "You're good at that."

Eleanora shook her head in exasperation, but had to smile back. Sometimes Roger could also be disarmingly charming.

"Very well, Your Highness. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

She took the single step backward to open the hatch and stepped out of the cabin. And almost ran over Kostas Matsugae.

"Good evening, Ma'am," the valet said, skipping aside despite an armful of clothing and accoutrements. He had to dodge again to avoid running into the Marine standing guard outside the door, but the Marine remained utterly expressionless and motionless. Any humor she might have felt at the frantic hopping about of the valet was quashed by iron discipline. The members of The Empress' Own were renowned for their ability to remain stone-faced and still through virtually anything. They occasionally had contests to determine who had the most endurance and stoicism. The former sergeant major of Gold Battalion held the record for endurance: ninety-three hours at attention without eating, drinking, sleeping, or going to the bathroom. It was the last, he'd admitted, which had been the hardest. He'd finally passed out from a combination of dehydration and toxin buildup.

"Good evening, Matsugae," Eleanora replied, and fought her own urge to smile. It was hard, for the fussy little valet was so bedecked with outfits that it was almost impossible to find him under the pile. "I'm sorry to say that our Prince won't be taking dinner in the mess, so I doubt he really needs those," she continued, gesturing with her chin at the mass of clothes.

"What? Why?" Matsugae squeaked from somewhere under the pile. "Oh, never mind. I have the casuals for after dinner, so I suppose that will do." He gave his neck a little twist, and his balding head and round face rose like a toadstool from the pile of clothing. "It's a terrible shame, though. I'd picked out a lovely sienna suit."

"Maybe you can calm him down with some clothes." O'Casey's smile took on a tinge of resignation. "I seem to have set him off, instead."

"Well, I can understand his being upset," the valet said with another sharp squeak. "Being sent off to the back of beyond on a pointless mission is bad enough, but to send a prince of the Blood Royal on a barge is simply the worst insult I can imagine!"

Eleanora pursed her lips and frowned at the valet.

"Don't go making it any worse than it already is, Matsugae. Sooner or later, Roger has to begin taking up his responsibilities as a member of the Royal Family. And sometimes that means sacrifices." Like maybe the sacrifice of enough time to get a staff to go with the "Chief," she added silently. "He doesn't need his sulks encouraged."

"You care for him in your way, Ms. O'Casey, and I will care for him in mine," the valet snapped. "Push a child around, despise him, revile him and cast out his father, and what do you expect to get?"

"Roger is no longer a child," she retorted angrily. "We can't coddle, bathe, and dress him like he is one."

"No," the valet replied. "But we can give him enough space to breathe! We can make an image for him and hope he grows into it."

"What, an image of a clotheshorse?" the chief of staff shot back. It was an old and worn argument that the valet seemed to be winning. "He's grown into that one beautifully!"

The valet stared back at her like a fearless mouse confronting a cat.

"Unlike some people," he sniffed with a glance at her painfully plain suit, "His Highness has an appreciation for the finer things in life. But there's more to His Highness than a 'clotheshorse.' Until some of you begin to acknowledge that fact, however, you'll get exactly what you expect."

He glowered at her for an instant longer, then gave yet another sniff, hit the latch for the hatch with an elbow, and stepped into the cabin.

Roger leaned back on the bed in the tiny cabin, eyes shut and tried his best to radiate a dangerous calm. I'm twenty-two years old, he thought. I'm a Prince of the Empire. I will not cry just because Mommy is making me angry.

He heard the blast-door of the cabin open and shut, and knew immediately who it was; the cologne that Matsugae wore was almost overpowering in the small compartment.

"Good evening, Kostas," he said calmly. Just having the valet present was soothing. Whatever anyone else thought, Kostas always took him at his face value. When that value was below par, Kostas would tell him, but when it had merit on its own level, Kostas would acknowledge it where no one else would.

"Good evening, Your Highness," Kostas said, already laying out one of the light gi-like chambray outfits the prince preferred to lounge in. "Will you want your hair washed this evening?"

"No, thank you," the prince responded with unconscious politeness. "I suppose you heard I'm not taking dinner in the mess?"

"Of course, Your Highness," the valet responded as the prince rolled upright on the bed and looked sourly around the cabin. "Pity, really. I had a beautiful suit picked out: that light sienna one that complements your hair so well."

The prince smiled thinly. "Nice try, Kosie, but no. I'm just too frazzled to be polite at dinner." He slapped the sides of his head with both hands in frustration. "Leviathan I could take. Net-Hauling I could take, grumbly oil and all. But why, oh why, did Mother Her Regalness choose to send me on this goddamned tramp freighter?"

"It isn't a tramp freighter, Your Highness, and you know it. We needed room for the bodyguards, and the alternative would have been to detach a Fleet carrier. Which would have been a bit much, don't you think? I will admit, though, that it's a bit... shabby."

"Shabby!" The prince gave a bitter laugh. "It's so worn I'm surprised it can hold atmosphere! It's so old I bet the hull is welded! I'm surprised it's not driven by internal combustion engines or steam power! John would've gotten a carrier. Alexandra would've gotten a carrier! But not Roger! Oh, no, not 'Baby Roj!' "

The valet finished laying out the various outfits to be chosen from in the limited space of the cabin and stood back with a resigned expression.

"Will I be drawing a bath for Your Highness?" he asked pointedly, and Roger gritted his teeth at the tone.

"So I should stop whining and get a grip?"

The valet only smiled very slightly in return, and Roger shook his head.

"I'm too worked up, Kosie." He looked around the three-meter-square space and shook his head again. "I wish there was someplace I could work out in peace on this tub."

"There's an exercise area adjacent to the Assault Complement Quarters, Your Highness," the valet pointed out.

"I said in peace," Roger commented dryly. He generally preferred to avoid the troops that filled the compartment. He'd never actually worked out around the Battalion, despite being its nominal commanding officer, because he'd had his fill of weird looks and sniggers behind his back in four years at the Academy. Getting the same treatment from his own bodyguards would be hard to take.

"The majority of the ship's company is eating at the moment, Your Highness," Matsugae pointed out. "You would probably have the gym to yourself."

The thought of a good workout was awfully attractive. Finally Roger nodded his head.

"Okay, Matsugae. Make it so."

As the dessert was cleared, Captain Krasnitsky looked significantly at Ensign Guha. The mahogany-skinned young woman blushed a darker hue, and stood up, wine glass in hand.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said carefully, "Her Majesty the Empress. Long may she rule!"

After the chorused "The Empress," the captain cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry His Highness is unwell, Captain." He smiled at Captain Pahner. "Is there anything we can do? The gravity, temperature, and air pressure in his cabin are as close to Earth normal as my chief engineer can make them."

Captain Pahner set down his almost untouched wine glass and nodded to the captain. "I'm sure His Highness will be fine." Various other phrases crossed his mind, but he carefully suppressed them.

After the completion of this voyage, Pahner would move on to a command slot on a very similar ship. But larger. As with all COs in The Empress' Own, he was already on the promotion lists for the next grade, and at the completion of his rotation, he would take over as the commander of the 2nd Battalion, 502^nd Heavy Strike Regiment. Since the 502^nd was the primary ground combat unit of Seventh Fleet—the Fleet usually found in any face-off with the Saints—he could expect to see regular action, and that was good. He had no love of war, but the heat of battle was the only possible place to truly test whether a person was a Marine or not, and it would be good to be back in harness.

With over fifty years in the service, enlisted and officer, the two commands—Empress' Own and Heavy Strike—would be as good as it got. From there on out, it would all be downhill. Either retirement, or else colonel and then brigadier. Which was as good as saying a desk job: the Empire hadn't fielded a regiment in a couple of centuries. It was a somber thought that he could see a light at the end of the tunnel and it was a grav-train.

Captain Krasnitsky waited for further elaboration, but decided after a moment that that was all he was getting from the taciturn Marine. With another frozen smile he turned to Eleanora.

"Has the rest of the staff gone ahead to Leviathan to prepare for the Prince's arrival, Ms. O'Casey?"

Eleanora took a slightly deeper gulp of wine than was strictly polite, and looked over at Captain Pahner.

"I am the rest of the staff," she said coldly. Which meant that there had not been anyone to send ahead as an advance party. Which meant that once they got there, she would be running her ass off trying to set up all the minor details the staff should be handling. The staff that she was apparently chief of. That mysterious, magically invisible staff.

The captain was now well aware that he was wandering through a field of landmines. He smiled again, took a sip of wine, and turned to the engineering officer at his left to engage in casual chitchat that wasn't going to tick off a member of the Imperial Household.

Pahner moistened his lips with his wine again and looked over at Sergeant Major Kosutic. She was chatting quietly with the ship's bosun, and caught the look and simply raised her eyebrows as if to say, "Well, what you want me to do about it?" Pahner shrugged millimetrically in reply, and turned to the ensign at his left. What could any of them do about it?