March Upcountry

"Two minutes," the Navigator reported, and smiled evilly. She'd successfully fooled the Saint captain for hours, playing the role of a panicked merchant skipper while he reviled her parentage, knowledge, and training. Now let him suck laser!

"Hit!" Segedin called. "At least one direct missile hit, Sir! She's streaming air!"

"Understood," Krasnitsky replied. "How are we doing on the computers?"

"Rotten, Sir!" Segedin snapped, euphoria vanished. "I had to shift resources to the defensive systems. Most of the birds are flying on their own at this point."

"Well, this will be over soon," the captain said, just as another salvo of Saint missiles came streaking in. "One way or another."

CHAPTER TEN

Roger grabbed the arms of the command chair as another concussion rocked the shuttle like a high wind.

"This," he remarked quietly, "is not fun."

"Hmmm," Pahner said noncommittally. "Check your monitors in the troop bay, Sir."

The prince found the appropriate control and tapped it, turning on the closed-circuit monitors in the troop bay. What they revealed surprised him: most of the troops were asleep, and the few who were awake were performing some sort of leisure activity.

Two had electronic game pads out and appeared to be competing in something with one another. Others were playing cards with hard decks or, apparently, reading. One even had a hard copy book out, an old and much thumbed one from the look. Roger pa

Poertena was asleep, with his head thrown back and his mouth wide open. Gu

The monitor stopped as if by its own volition on the face of the female sergeant who'd summoned him from the armor fitting. It was a face of angles, all high cheekbones and sharp chin with the exception of the lips, which were remarkably voluptuous. Not a pretty face, but arguably a beautiful one. She was looking through a pad as well, and for a reason he wasn't sure he would have cared to explain, he hunted until he found a monitor that would permit him to look over her shoulder. He pa

Flipping back over to the original monitor, he zoomed in on the sergeant's chameleon suit. There it was. On the right... breast. Despreaux. Nice name.

"Sergeant Despreaux," Pahner said dryly, and the prince hit the trackball and pa

"Yes, I recognized her from when she crashed my fitting," he said hurriedly. "I was just realizing how few of these guards I know by name." He cleared his throat uncomfortably, happy, for some reason, that the captain couldn't see his face.

"Nothing wrong with getting to know their names," Pahner said calmly. "But what you might want to catch is their attitudes," he continued, as another salvo slammed into the ship.

"We just lost Graser Four and Nine, and Missile Three. We're down twenty-five percent on our countermissile launchers. More on the laser clusters," Commander Talcott said. He didn't bother to add that DeGlopper had also suffered severe hull breaching, since everyone on the bridge could feel the draw of the vacuum around them. The executive officer had just turned toward the captain, when there was a crow of delight from Tactical.

"There she blows!" the sublieutenant shouted. The Saint cruiser had come apart under the hammer of the missiles, without even having come to grips at energy weapon range.

"Put us back on course for the planet—and shift to Evasion Able Three!" Krasnitsky snapped to the helmsman. "We're not out of the woods yet. There are still incoming missiles."

"Yes, Sir," Segedin agreed with a triumphant grin. "But we still got her!"

"Yes, we did," Talcott whispered so quietly that only Krasnitsky could hear. "But what about her mate?"

The tac officer shut down the guidance cha

"So that's it, Your Highness," Captain Krasnitsky finished, looking up from the pad in his hand. His skin suit was sealed, and the orange vacuum warning light behind him was clearly visible. "We used less than half our missiles in this engagement, but the other cruiser has already broken orbit and is accelerating towards us. We'll drop your shuttles in two hours, and it will take us longer than that to get patched up and restore pressure again. So I would suggest that you stay where you are, Your Highness."

"Very well, Captain," the prince said. He was aware that all the captain was seeing was the distorted ball of his powered armor's helmet-visor, and he was just as glad. He was begi

Pahner's company, at least, were official bodyguards for the Imperial Family, with the tradition of taking rifle beads to protect their charges; "catching the ball" as it was called. But the company's perso

"I suppose we'll talk again before separation," he said after a moment, awkwardly. "Until then, good luck."

"Thank you, Your Highness," the captain said with a tiny nod. "And good luck to you and the Company, as well. We'll try to do the DeGlopper name proud."

The communications screen blinked out, and Roger leaned back and turned to Captain Pahner. The Marine had doffed his helmet and was scratching his head vigorously.

"Who was DeGlopper, anyway?" the prince asked, fumbling with the controls and latches of his own helmet.

"He was a soldier in the American States, a long time ago, Your Highness," Pahner said, cocking his head at the angle Roger had begun to recognize as a subtle sign that he'd stuck his foot in it. "There was a plaque right outside the cabin you were in, listing his medal and the citation for it. He won their equivalent of the Imperial Star. When we get back to Earth you can look up the citation."