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  “This,” he said. “Whatever we are right now.”

  “Whatever we are right now,” she repeated. “We’re crewmates, Aden. Crewmates who find each other attractive enough to duck out for a little fun together on shore leave. Let’s not overthink it.”

  He wasn’t sure whether to feel relief or disappointment at her assessment. But before he could think of a response, his comtab back in the room let out a cheerful little chirp, the notification of an incoming private message. A second later, Tess’s comtab did the same. She transferred her food box to her left hand and pinched a screen projection into existence with thumb and forefinger. Aden did likewise and made a new message window appear above his palm. He smiled when he read the name of the sender.

  “Tristan?” she asked, and he nodded.

  “Same here,” Tess said.

  The message just had an address link and a door access code, followed by a directive to Bring drinks at 1600.

  “Guess we’re getting together at his place,” Aden said.

  “There’ll be food. Lots of it. He likes to go all out with fresh stuff when we’re home on shore leave. Don’t eat lunch. You’ll need your appetite later.”

  He checked the time.

  “That’s still eight hours away. What are you doing until then?”

  Tess shrugged.

  “I haven’t thought about it yet. Maybe I’ll go race some tube pods at the subsurface track out on the eastern leaf. What about you? Want to come?”

  “I don’t know the first thing about pod racing.”

  “I’ll show you. Come on, get a bit of adrenaline into your system.”

  “All right,” he said. “Let me rinse off and get dressed.”

  He got out of his chair and turned to walk back inside. When he was at the door, Tess let out a low whistle. He turned, thinking that she had directed it at his backside, but she had her hand above her eyes to shield them from the sun, and she was looking out at the water. Aden followed her gaze to see the Oceanian hydrofoil cruiser he had spotted earlier. It was heading back out to sea, and now it was moving at high speed, standing up on its foils and spewing a hundred-meter rooster tail of water spray from its propulsion jets.

  “They’re really hauling ass,” Tess said. “Two hundred klicks per hour, at least. Wonder what the trouble is.”

  “Probably just an exercise,” Aden replied. “Or maybe some leisure craft needs rescuing.”

  The assertion seemed to satisfy Tess, but it didn’t quite tamp down the discomfort the sight of the warship had stirred up in Aden’s own mind again. It was a visible reminder that armed strife had returned to the system, that conflict had been rekindled. And small fires had a way of growing out of control and turning into conflagrations.

  Today, the hydrofoil cruiser off the coast was probably just making a high-speed training dash. But there was a chance that tomorrow or the day after, those missile silos in its hull would start to ripple-fire their payloads at unseen attackers or incoming ballistic missiles, and the anti-air ordnance on that ship would paint bright white trails across the sky with dozens of exhaust plumes. The possibility was small, but the presence of that warship was a reminder that the odds were greater than zero again, just five years after the system had almost burned itself up. Adrasteia was well protected, but Aden knew that it needed to have strong defenses because it was the only city on Oceana with a fixed location, the only one that could be reliably targeted with a ballistic missile or a kinetic impactor from millions of kilometers away.

  At least I’ll be at ground zero if that happens, Aden thought. I won’t have time to care.

  Tess yawned and stretched out in the sun, and the sight made him shake off the dark thoughts. Tomorrow was just that, and he had no control over what happened in the system. But Tess and Tristan and the rest of the crew were today, and he reminded himself to pay attention to the here and now, the things that were in his power to influence.

  “You going to rinse off or what?” Tess asked. “If we’re going to hit the track, we need to get there before the noon crowd. Early in, early out.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said and returned her smile. Out on the ocean, the hydrofoil cruiser had disappeared, leaving only a long wake of disturbed water that was slowly dissipating in the gentle currents. He turned to walk to the wet cell.

  CHAPTER 2

  IDINA

  Being around generals and politicians gave Idina more anxiety than being on a battlefield, and in the mornings, the streets of Sandvik’s government quarter were full of both.

  It wasn’t the custom to exercise in fatigues, but the current security level required every Pallas Brigade trooper to be armed at all times, and the one-piece exercise suit had no provisions for a holster. So she did her runs in boots and combat dress, which earned her more than one reproachful look from the Alliance officers she passed along the way.

  It was late summer, and the mornings had turned a little chilly, which suited her fine. Seasons were still strange to her, but after experiencing all of them over the course of several deployments, she had decided that summer was her least favorite, a wretched succession of sweltering days that were good for nothing except seeking refuge in climate-controlled buildings and vehicles, too hot to comfortably exercise. Autumn felt perfect to her, and the late-summer morning felt enough like a preview of that season to put her in a good mood as she ran, despite her discontent at being pulled off joint patrol duty with Dahl and the rest of the Gretian police. But the Joint Security Patrol cooperation had been suspended in the wake of the attack on Rhodia, and the powers in charge had decided to use the JSP for shoring up security for the Alliance commissioners in the diplomatic quarter. She had started this tour of Gretia as an infantry soldier, then they had turned her into a military police officer, and now she was a glorified gate guard.

  At this rate of regression, I’ll be serving tea in the general officers’ club in another month, she thought sourly.

  By now, she knew the area well enough to not have to think about her route or consult her wrist comtab. She turned the corner by the Rhodian embassy, which put her back onto the central axis, a fifty-meter wide avenue that was lined with tall, ancient-looking trees. This was her favorite part of the run, which was why she always went counterclockwise to save it for last. The trees shaded her from the morning sun, and the air underneath their leafy canopies felt clean and pure.

  On the roadway, a steady procession of transport pods hummed along, Gretian government functionaries and Alliance military personnel on the way to their offices. Idina ran to the little park that was right across the road from her destination, then stopped and waited for a gap in the pod columns on the road to cross. There was an official crosswalk just fifty meters ahead, but she didn’t like to take those precisely because the Gretians seemed to have a natural aversion to crossing a street any other way than the designated method.

  “Color Sergeant!” a voice called from behind. “Could you wait a moment, please?”

  Idina turned around to see a Pallas Brigade trooper trot toward her across the little park. He was in combat fatigues, and he carried a deployment bag on his back. She looked for rank insignia and didn’t see any. He huffed a little as he made his way toward her. When he halted in front of her, he dropped his bag and began a salute, and Idina waved him off with a sharp, dismissive motion of her arm.

  “Belay that. We don’t salute around here.”

  “Sorry, Color Sergeant.” He dropped his hand. To Idina, he looked impossibly young, a good-looking kid with the sharper-than-usual jawline that was the hallmark of someone who had finished the grueling brigade training not too long ago and was still recovering from the caloric deficit.

  “You go around saluting, you give the insurgents an idea who’s worth shooting,” she explained. “Not that they’re picky with their targets. What’s your business, Private?”

  “Private Khanna, ma’am. I just got assigned to Fifth Platoon. But I don’t know where to report. I was
hoping you could tell me.”

  “You’re in luck today, Private. I’m Color Sergeant Chaudhary. I’m the NCO in charge of Fifth Platoon. So you’re supposed to report to me.”

  She looked at his uniform more closely. He had no rank sleeves, no armor, and no weapon except for his kukri, which looked like it had been issued to him just yesterday.

  “Where’s your sidearm, Khanna? We’re in Condition Two security posture right now. You need to be armed at all times.”

  “I just got off the shuttle an hour ago, ma’am. They didn’t issue me one yet. Or armor. They just put me on a ground transport and told me to report here.”

  Idina stopped herself from muttering a curse out loud.

  “Is this your first deployment to Gretia?”

  “Yes, ma’am. First time off the planet. If you don’t count Pallas One.”

  “Have you had your occupation force training yet?”

  “We got that before we left,” he said. “Back on Pallas.”

  “Well,” Idina said. “You’re going to have to throw out a lot of what they’ve taught you. Things have changed in the last few weeks.”

  She sighed. The brigade had started to bring its strength up to wartime level, and they had begun to funnel every available trained trooper to Gretia. The emergency buildup had saved her from having to take a shuttle home for medical leave, but she wasn’t quite sure if having to integrate green troopers into her JSP platoon was worth the trade. Inexperienced young privates belonged in a line company out in the field, not in a security platoon tasked with the protection of dignitaries and installations.

  “First things first,” she said. “See that building over there?” She pointed at the Palladian embassy across the street.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Report to the gate guard, then go straight down to the armory in the first sublevel and have them issue you scout armor and standard light armament. They know the routine. When you are done, go to the security detachment briefing room on the ground level and claim a seat. Team briefing is in twenty-five minutes. I will be there in twenty-three. And stop at the dining hall on the way and grab some portable food.”

  “Armory, first sublevel, standard-issue kit. Briefing room, ground level, briefing in twenty-five. Understood,” he repeated in the by-the-book form that was particular to troopers just out of training. He straightened his spine for a salute, then caught himself and relaxed the hand he had started to raise.

  “Quick learner,” she said. “That will serve you well around here. Off you go.”

  Idina watched as the young trooper crossed the roadway. The heavy gear bag on his back seemed almost as tall as he was, but she knew that brigade members just out of training were in the best shape of their lives, stronger and fitter than any other demographic in the entire system, and that he could carry that bag around all day if someone gave him an order to do just that.

  I was that young and strong once, she thought. And just as fresh-faced and eager.

  She waited for another gap in the flow of pod traffic and followed Private Khanna across the street toward the embassy.

  When she walked into the briefing room on the embassy ground floor twenty-two minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in clean fatigues, her platoon was already present, eschewing the chairs as usual and standing in neat rows by section. The senior NCO, Sergeant Noor, called the room to attention with a raspy clearing of his throat, and all of Fifth Platoon’s troopers snapped to attention in perfect synchrony. It was a point of pride for her section leaders to spot her and call the platoon to attention before she could get out an “as you were” as she entered, and she was happy to let them have their little contest with her every day.

  “At ease,” Idina said. All the troopers switched to parade rest. She scanned the room and saw that Private Khanna was standing with Red Section next to Corporal Shakya.

  “Good morning,” she said. “Before we get to today’s section assignments, let me introduce our new platoon member. Private Khanna over there joined us this morning fresh off the shuttle from Pallas. It’s his first time off-world, so I expect you to fill him in on how things are done here on Gretia and in this regiment. Useful information only, please. If you send him to the quartermaster to fetch red shower tokens for hot water like you did the last new trooper, we’re going to have words. Stern words.”

  From the platoon, a mixture of smiles and low chuckles came in response. Hazing the new troopers was a time-honored tradition, and she knew they’d let him have at least a little bit of that. But all Pallas Brigade troopers were brothers and sisters for life once they got their kukri, and she also knew that they would take Khanna under their wings and get him up to speed quickly and thoroughly. Today, he was the new blood, but this afternoon, the life of anyone in the platoon might depend on him. Making him an efficient member of the team as quickly as possible was in everyone’s best interest.

  “All right,” she said when the moment of levity had passed. “The current security situation is unchanged. All Alliance forces remain at Condition Two planetwide. You all know the routine. Nobody goes off base, nobody walks around unarmed. We’re having daily run-ins with the civilian protesters at the Green Zone gates, but the insurgency hasn’t popped up since the IBIS intercept three days ago.”

  IBIS was the new Ballistic Intercept System, a network of sensor-controlled point-defense energy emitters that protected the Green Zone against attacks from insurgent munitions. It scanned the airspace around the government quarter continuously, and if it detected an incoming projectile, it blew it out of the sky with megawatts of directed energy. Until three days ago, IBIS had only worked in theory and at the test range, but then the insurgency had taken a few shots with a rail gun from the top of one of Sandvik’s tall buildings. The ability of the insurgency to aim direct fire at the government quarter had unnerved a great many people, but the ability of the IBIS arrays to shoot down tungsten slugs traveling at several thousand meters per second made Idina feel a little less like she was walking around in a shooting gallery whenever she stepped outside in the government quarter.

  “Patrol assignments,” she continued. “Red and Blue, you are on perimeter patrol. Shakya and Noor, work out your own team schedules. The fence is all yours from 0800 until 0800 tomorrow morning. Green Section, you have the main gate today. Yellow Section, rooftop overwatch. Purple is with me for close protection detail. The Quick Reaction Force team is on standby if we need them. Don’t get jumpy out there because we can only ring that bell once. But I trust the section leaders to know when things get too hot for us to handle alone. Any questions or concerns?”

  She looked at the assembled platoon for a moment. When nobody raised a hand, she nodded.

  “All sections, draw weapons and armor up. Final gear and comms check out front in fifteen. Let’s get it done.”

  The platoon stirred, and the low din of conversation filled the room again as the sections coalesced around their leaders.

  “Corporal Shakya,” Idina called out, and the corporal came trotting over.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I know they assigned you the new private to fill in the vacancy in your section, but I think I am going to take him with Purple Section and keep him close on his first day. Why don’t you take Lance Corporal Bodhi in his stead for today?”

  “Affirmative, ma’am. He’s all yours,” Shakya said. “Khanna, over here. You get to stick with the color sergeant.”

  Khanna stepped up and stood in front of them, obviously a little nervous and unsure. Around them, the members of the platoon streamed past and out the door on the way to armor up and receive their weapons.

  “To the armory, Khanna,” Idina said. “Get what everyone else is getting. Go where everyone else is going. Just like in Basic.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Khanna said and joined the throng.

  She waited until the entire platoon was out of the room, then followed them to bring up the rear. The security situation had det
eriorated in the last few weeks, and the streets were now more dangerous than they had ever been since the very beginning of the occupation. But she was profoundly glad that these new circumstances had kept her with her troops on Gretia instead of putting her on a slow transport home to Pallas, to spend the rest of her service time in a desk job. The troop buildup would end sooner or later, and then she wouldn’t be able to avoid the attention of Major Malik anymore. But for now there was soldiering business to be done, and she was happy for the purpose.

  Outside, Idina watched the section leaders go through their last-minute equipment and comms checks. All the sections were wearing soft spidersilk armor instead of the hardened composite plates of battle armor, as a compromise between adequate protection in an attack and what Alliance command had determined to be a gentler and more “de-escalating” appearance here in the administrative heart of the planet. The sections on guard duty were armed with universal combat rifles, set up with both lethal and crowd-control modules. Her Purple Section, the group tasked with the protection of the Palladian high commissioner, was equipped with personal defense weapons, small automatic machine pistols that were less capable than the standard rifles but easier to handle in the confines of vehicles and hallways. They were also far more discreet, and better suited to environments where dignitaries and government functionaries got together for meetings and social events.

  “Purple Section, listen up,” she said when the other sections had marched off to their respective duties. “There’s nothing on the PHC’s schedule for the day as far as travel is concerned. That means we’ll have a quiet day staying in reserve for the principal protection team. But that doesn’t mean we let our guard down. I know it’s not the most exciting duty in the world to stand around and wait for trouble to come to us. Stay sharp, keep alert. Remember, watch hands and pockets. You see anything out of the ordinary, you call it out. Got it?”

  They nodded their affirmations.

  “All right. Section, move out,” Idina ordered.