March Upcountry

Roger had dealt with that problem by ignoring the targeting carets—first by using the simple holographic sights on his rifle, and then by firing into a melee where he knew the Marines weren't on the theory that that was where the enemy had to be. Of course, the burst radius of the grenades had caused a few problems, but still...

He spun on the ball of one foot, carrying the heavy sword through a vicious butterfly maneuver. It wasn't fair. He'd personally broken the back of the ambush. So the method was a little drastic. It had worked, and whatever Pahner might think, his actions had stemmed from neither panic nor stupidity nor arrogant carelessness.

Now if someone besides the ever-worshiping Dogzard would just realize that, he might even—

He froze at the sound of a cleared throat and turned gracefully to face the interruption. His face settled into a practiced, invulnerable mask of hauteur as he placed the point of the sword on the toe of his boot. It was an incredibly arrogant pose, and he knew it, but he didn't really care just at the moment. Screw 'em if they didn't like it.

"Yes?" he asked Despreaux. He hadn't heard the soft-footed squad leader approach, and he wondered what she wanted.

The NCO regarded him carefully for a moment, taking in both the attitude and the picture. The prince had changed into a pair of shorts to work out, and the heat and activity had raised a heavy sweat. The greater moon, Hanish, was breaking through the clouds, and the reflected fire and moonlight dappled the sweat on his body like patina on a bronze statue. The image sent a stab of fire through the NCO's abdomen which she firmly suppressed.

"I just wanted to say thank you, Your Highness. We probably would have cut our way through the ambush, but we were in the tight, no question. Sometimes you have to do things that seem crazy when it drops that far in the pot. Blowing the shit out of the Company isn't the dumbest thing I can think of, and it worked. So, from me, thanks."

She didn't add that the Mardukan who'd been blown all over her by one of the grenades had had her dead to rights when it hit. Another second, and the big bastard would've taken her head off before she could reload.

Since it was exactly what he'd wanted to hear, Roger couldn't understand why the statement caused him to flare with rage. But it did. He knew it shouldn't have, but it did. He tried hard—really tried—to swallow his contrarian reaction, but his i

"Thank you for your input, Sergeant," he replied tightly. "In the future, however, I'll try to think of a more... elegant solution."

Despreaux didn't have a clue what it was about her comment that had pissed the prince off so badly, but she was smart enough to back off.

"Well, thanks anyway, Your Highness," she said quietly. "Good night."

"Good night, Sergeant," Roger said more naturally. His intense flare of anger was already fading, and he wanted to apologize for his earlier tone, but he couldn't find the words. Which only made it worse, of course.

The rebuffed NCO nodded calmly to him in the moonlight and headed back into camp, leaving him to swing his sword and rage... now at both the world and his own stupidity.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

"I brought everyt'ing I could pocking pack," Poertena snapped. "How tee pock was I go

Captain Pahner had decided the company needed a day or two to repair and reconsolidate. His initial reaction had been to push on, trying to deprive the Kranolta of time to concentrate more warriors on their position. But although all the pack beasts had been recovered, many of them were injured, and the mahouts insisted that some of them needed a few days rest. Pahner had to admit that it would help the Marines as well, so the company had spent the next day improving the camp's defenses and recovering from the contact.

Well, most of them had. Julian and Poertena had a different mission.

The sides of the hide tent which had been turned into an ad hoc armory were rolled up, but they were still unpleasantly hot under it. Not as hot as the Marines digging stake-pits, perhaps, but at least the diggers didn't have to make bricks without straw.

"Tee pocking high-capacity tester for tee M-98 is a pocking tabletop pocking unit," Poertena went on sharply. "How tee pock was I go

"Tell me something I don't know, Poertena!" Julian shot back. The two experienced armorers had already stripped down and inspected twelve plasma rifles, front to back. None of them had exhibited any sign that they would detonate like the late Na

Pahner walked into the tent and glanced at the disassembled rifles and parts strewn across its interior.

"Any luck?"

"No, Sir," Julian admitted tiredly. "Other than expected faults, we can't find anything. There's nothing to indicate a malfunction that would cause a blowout," he went on, and Pahner nodded.

"I heard you talking about capacitors. Nothing there?"

"No," Julian said. "Bad capacitors are the most common cause of breech detonations, but—"

"But we don't have tee pock... I mean, I couldn't hump tee test module, Cap'n," Poertena put in. "It was too po— It was too big."

"Oh." Pahner smiled. "Is that the only problem?"

"Yes, Sir." Julian gestured at the torn down weapons. "We've got a general meter, but we can't stress charge the capacitors. The charge exceeds the meter's capacity."

"Okay." Pahner turned to the Pinopan. "Poertena, go rip the system pack out of a suit of armor. Better make it Russell's." The grenadier had been one of Third Platoon's few casualties in the ambush, and would no longer require her powered armor.

"Roger, Captain."

The small armorer trotted off towards where the armor had been stored, and Pahner turned his attention back to Julian as he extracted a precious stick of gum and popped it absentmindedly into his mouth.

"Julian. Go get me a plasma rifle that's been positively deadlined, a section of twelve-gauge superconductor, and a cyber-pad."

"Yes, Sir." Julian stepped into the bowels of the tent to find the required items. He wasn't sure what the captain was up to, but he knew it was going to be interesting.

Pahner held the charge-couple ring steady in one hand and applied the edge of his combat knife to the base of the contact points.

"Essentially, the tabletop tester for these things is identical to the built-in system in the armor." He sheared the contact off cleanly and caught it in midair. "But the contact points are different. The old Mark Thirty-Eight used different contacts, too, but it had a field service kit. You should have heard the bitching and moaning about not having a portable tester when these Mark Ninety-Eights came out! But this trick had been around for a long time, so we just kept using it."

"Why didn't they specify the same design?" Julian asked. "Or a field tester?"

"You don't know much about procurement systems, do you, Julian?" Pahner smiled crookedly and wiped a trickle of forehead sweat off on the shoulder of his uniform while he concentrated on lining up the superconductor and the contact.

"The same company that supplies the plasma rifles supplies testing equipment. Naturally, they want to sell the equipment with the rifles. If they say 'Hey, you can use the same testers as you use on your armor,' there goes the sale. Not to mention the fact that the tabletop model is about three times as expensive as the field tester. I never have figured out why; it does exactly the same thing."