One Good Soldier

boat as a volunteer a few hours after that. Soon after, she had managed to get herself lost in the aftermath of the tidal wave impact zone of East Plantation Island.

East Plantation Island, according to public data records, had thirteen hundred inhabitants and more than three times as many tourists at any given time. Needless to say, Nancy found plenty of casualties to work with. Allison scanned for other AICs broadcasting casualty locations. The CIA super-AIC hacked those AICs for personal bio information, looking for just the right profile. After a couple of hours of this she found one that fit her needs on the far side of the island. The casualty had lived on Tau Ceti since before the Martian Exodus and was about sixty years old. The lady had no known relatives on Tau Ceti, although she reportedly had family still alive on Earth. And, to top it off, she had recently been rejuved to a very young appearance. Nancy and Allison found her drowned and broken body trapped inside what was left of her home. Allison had no problem copying the data files from the commercial AIC that poor Bella Penrose had in her skull, even in its nonfunctional, damaged state. Then Nancy removed the AIC from the lady's brain and crushed it. The unlucky artificial intelligence was just a casualty of war, and Nancy had little remorse about it. Allison had long since given up such emotional hang-ups about killing other AICs as well. They had a job to do—for the betterment of the United States of America. They disposed of the body and AIC remains with a couple of incendiary chemicals that Nancy had brought along with her, and then she went about addressing her appearance and plan for being rescued. She scratched herself up with some broken glass and changed into the clothes that the real Bella had been wearing. She climbed atop the roof of Bella's small beach house and waited for help as Allison mimicked the AIC help broadcast. Eventually, she was rescued by a group of volunteers and was flown to a makeshift hospital for treatment.

Following her rescue, Bella Penrose moved to the other side of the planet Ares to Madira Beach and quickly made it through NROTC and college with a double load of courses that she, along with her super-AIC, had no problem with. After two years of college and NROTC, she was selected—with a little hacking help from Allison—to the Aviation Preflight Indoctrination (API) program. After fourteen weeks of API she did six weeks as a student naval flight officer, and then she had twenty-two weeks of training at the Navy Flight Officer Training Command at the Madira Valley Beach Spaceport Armored Mecha Flight Training Grounds, and then another thirty-six weeks in mecha combat tactics training.

Following that she had a pip 'pinned on,' and she became U.S.R. Navy Ensign Bella Penrose. Although the process and military structure was very, very similar to that of the United States military, there were some cultural differences. One difference was that call signs didn't stick with the person, they stuck with the job. And as soon as she was assigned to the USR Deborah Sampson Flight Wing 1, Group 2, Tiger Squad, she became 'Tiger 5.' Of course, the other cultural difference was that everything was done in praise of Elle Ahmi. Although Ahmi's tactics had been extremely bloody to the American people, the Separatists were now free of the U.S. government and had a planet of their own, a very nice planet. The Separatist people viewed that fact as being solely due to Ahmi herself. It wasn't hard to understand why they followed the charismatic terrorist. But then again, most of the Separatist people had never met the crazy bitch. It took all of her training to mask her hatred for the Separatist leader and to appear as a loyal servant of the U.S.R. Navy, but Bella managed. After all, that is what she had done all of her adult life—pretend to be somebody else.

So, after escaping from the QMT facility over six years prior and lying low for several months, after about six months of goldbrickin' on the beach, after a few weeks of rehab from a natural disaster, after two years of college and NROTC, and about another two years of mecha training, Ensign Bella Penrose found herself staring out the viewport of the USR Deborah Sampson while trying to stomach the galley food, figure out just what Elle Ahmi was up to, and how she was going to kill her. Well, killing Ahmi hadn't been part of her original orders, but Bella was going to do that one for herself. It would be good therapy.

As Bella let her mind wander, something caught her eye. Actually, it caught