March To The Stars

measuring you for your uniform.'

After a moment, they winked off.

'And if you'll step down,' the corporal continued as she removed a piece of plastscrip from the console, 'this is your number. Stickles is in the other room, and he'll show you where to pick up your gear.'

'That's it?' Fain asked, waving for Erkum to climb up onto the platform.

'Yep,' the Marine said. 'Back there, there's a big machine that's going to turn everything out. It's got imported material for the base on the uniform, and various imported and local materials will be used to make the helmet. It's just like the machines in K'Vaern's Cove,' she finished, 'only—'

'Much more sophisticated,' Fain finished as Pol stepped down from the platform and accepted his own piece of plastscrip.

'Yes, Sir,' the human said with a grin. 'We've got a few thousand years of technology on you, Sir. Don't take it badly.'

'I don't,' the captain said as he left. 'I'm just glad you're on our side.'

'Well, it's not always perfect,' Aburia admitted. 'And just being able to make stuff doesn't always mean it works the way you planned.'

'Oh?'

* * *

'Look, you stupid beast. If you want to go with me on the ship, I have to get this on you.'

Roger appreciated the time it must've taken Julian to design and build the custom-made suit for Dogzard. He considered that the sergeant's efforts were a nice compliment, especially considering all the other duties he'd fitted it in around. Dogzard, however, failed to share his appreciation for the final product.

The Mardukan beast hissed as Roger tried to force one talon into the suit. Then she jerked suddenly backwards, twisted away, and darted into a corner.

'It's state-of-the-art,' Roger panted as he leapt across the compartment in an effort to pin the monster down. 'It's even got little thrusters, so you can maneuver in zero-g, and ...'

Dogzard writhed in his grip until she managed to twist loose, then raced for the door. Showing a startling level of sophistication, she hit the door release and dashed out.

'Well,' Roger said, sucking a cut on his hand. 'I think that went well.'

CHAPTER THIRTY

'I think this is going pretty well,' Pahner said as he watched a Vashin cavalryman try out his new plasma cannon. For any human not in powered armor, the heavy weapon was a crew-served mount, but the Mardukan stood on the range, holding the cannon and firing it 'off-hand.' Not only that, he was putting a round a second down range. Then he stopped for a moment, flipped the selector to 'auto,' and began putting out bursts of plasma that ate into the cliff being used as a backstop until the power magazine discharged itself and automatically popped out. At which point, the cavalryman used a false-hand to pop a new one into place ... and resumed fire in under a second.

'We still can't use them inside the ship,' Kosutic said, grinning as the hillside started to smoke from the target practice. 'They do too much damage.'

'Agreed,' Pahner said, and cut himself a fresh slice of bisti root. It had struck him that Murphy was working overtime when it turned out that there wasn't a single stick of gum left in the entire compound. He'd nearly shot one person who was chewing his last stick when Mountmarch's personnel were rounded up.

'We can't use them on shipboard if we want it intact, at any rate,' he continued as he began to chew. 'Although ... when we load them, we'll outfit most of them with bead cannons. Maybe one plasma cannon in three. And instead of loading with beads, we'll load flechette packs. That way they won't be a cataclysm just waiting to happen.'

'You're thinking you might actually use them?' the sergeant major asked with a frown.

'I'm thinking that if you're going to have a backup, it might as well be a backup you can use,' the captain replied with a sigh. 'And it's the little details that are crucial.'

He was right about that, the sergeant major reflected. And it had been a fortnight for details. Besides refitting and rearming all the Marines and their Allies, there'd been a billion other 'details' to handle, all of them as quickly as possible.

The first order of business had been to determine just how deeply the Saints actually had their hooks into the planet. As it turned out, the governor had partially covered himself by getting permission for 'occasional welfare and socialization visits' from passing Saint warships. His request had pointed out that he was on the backend of nowhere, with no naval backup, and that refusing requests might be a good way to start a war.

But his personal files, helpfully cracked by the ever-useful Temu Jin, had revealed the other side of the story. The steadily growing accounts in New Rochelle banks would have been hard enough for Mountmarch to explain, but the electronic communications records were damning. It was clear that he'd been in the Saints' pocket almost from the day he arrived on Marduk. Indeed, some references in the correspondence raised the very real possibility that he'd been a Saint operative even while he was a centerpiece of court intrigue. One reply from his Saint handler—identified in the messages only as 'Muir'—indicated that the Saints had used a combination of money and blackmail, probably about his illegal predilection for young boys, as a means of control. When the Bronze Barbarians returned to Old Earth (and assuming they managed to both survive the trip and then get the various warrants against them dropped) the database would make interesting reading at IBI.

For the moment, however, what was more important was that the data gave them a good read on Saint visits, and the next warship wasn't scheduled for over two months. Furthermore, it indicated that activity overall would be cut back for the foreseeable future. Prince Jackson's coup had all the other star nations surrounding the Empire on high alert, and the majority of the Saint fleet had been pulled to more important systems.

While Julian and Jin had been tickling the electronic files, a team made up of Third Squad and augmented by Eleanora O'Casey for political interaction had been sent out to cover their back trail and pick up the shuttles. Harvard Mansul had requested and been granted permission to accompany them, and they'd visited most of the Company's waypoints. They'd retraced their entire six-month journey in less than a week, and insured that the various societies they'd passed through had survived. Mansul, in the meantime, recorded interviews with many of the Mardukans who'd experienced the Company's passage. Besides laying the groundwork for a series of fascinating articles and one heck of a docudrama, his records were intended as evidence for Roger's defense when the time came, since they made it clear he and Bravo Company had been far too busy surviving to be involved in any plots against the Throne.

K'Vaern's Cove's was well on its way to a major industrial revolution, and dragging Diaspra kicking and screaming along behind it. The flotilla's ships' captains had returned, and the Cove had been very much in two minds about precisely what to do about Kirsti. Public attitude had been hardening towards sending a follow-up military expedition, but O'Casey had been able to inform them that by the time a fleet could make it back to Kirsti, the Fire Priests would have had their attitudes adjusted and be waiting for a friendly visit.

Marshad was experiencing some political instability, and had been mauled in two minor wars. The team 'counseled' everyone involved, but O'Casey recognized that it would take a full soc-civ team to get the city-states cooperating, rather than competing for territory. Marshad did still have control of the lucrative dianda trade routes to Voitan, however, and the revenues from that were helping it recover from its near demise at the hands of its former overlord.

Denat had accompanied the team, but rather than return to his home tribe, he had decided to remain in Marshad until their return trip.

Voitan was in a renaissance, as well. It had developed a lively merchant class that traded wootz steel ingots and finished weapons to Marshad for dianda, then shipped the dianda south to the city-states. New trade routes had been opened all the way to the Southern oceans, and the market in the south was hungry for both Voitan steel and Marshad cloth. Voitan was