March Upcountry

transom again, preparing to retrace his route.

“Wait!” Roger said. “I have a uniform packed up in the command compartment. I just need help getting out of the armor.”

“Oh, well then,” Matsugae said, climbing back down. “If Captain Pahner could give me a hand? I don’t actually know all that much about armor, but I’m willing to learn.”

As they disconnected the armor’s various latches and controls, Roger became curious.

“Matsugae? Am I to understand that you have spare uniforms for me in your pack?”

“Well, Your Highness,” the valet said almost shyly, “Sergeant Despreaux told me that you weren’t able to bring all your clothes. And why. I didn’t feel it appropriate that you have only one suit of armor and a single uniform, so I packed a few extra outfits along. Just in case.”

“Can you carry it?” Captain Pahner sounded skeptical. “Of course, if that’s all that you’re carrying . . .”

“I will admit, Captain,” the small valet said in a pert voice, “that I’m not carrying the weight of ammunition most of your Marines are. However, I am carrying my full equipment load and a share of the squad load for the headquarters group. His Highness’ gear is, so to speak, my ammunition allotment.”

“But can you carry it?” Pahner repeated darkly. “Day after day.”

“We shall simply have to see, Captain,” Matsugae replied calmly. “I think so. But we shall have to see.”

He returned to his task of peeling the prince, and Roger soon found himself once again standing in the midst of scattered pieces of armor.

“I’m forever putting this stuff on and taking it off.” He brushed an imaginary fleck of dust from the singlet he’d worn under the armor as Matsugae scrambled up the steps to the command compartment.

“Not for much longer, Your Highness,” Pahner pointed out. “Once we land on the planet, it will hardly ever be used. But if we need it, we’re really going to need it.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“What else do we need?” O’Casey asked, thumbing through the list of supplies the Marines had loaded.

“Whatever it is, it better not weigh much,” Kosutic replied. The sergeant major was doing a recalculation of fuel use, and she looked up with a grimace. “I don’t think we have much margin.”

“I thought you could glide one of these things in,” Eleanora said uncomfortably. It was hardly her area of expertise, but she knew that the shuttles’ swing-wing configuration gave them a tremendous glide ratio.

“We can.” Kosutic’s tone was mild. “If we have a runway, that is.” She gestured at one of the monitors, where the small map from the Fodor’s was displayed. “Do you see many airports? In glide mode, one of these things needs a nice, old-fashioned runway. You try to land without one, and you might as well give your soul to His Wickedness.”

“So what happens if it were running out of fuel, then?”

“Well, if we were headed in for a standard atmosphere insertion, we could correct at the last minute and do some atmospheric skipping to slow down. The problem is, if we do an orbit, we’ll be detected. Then the whole plan goes out the airlock, and we have a cruiser and the garrison hunting us dirtside.

“If, on the other hand, we do a steep reentry—which, by the way, is what we’re planning—and run out of fuel, we’ll just pancake.”

“Oh.”

“Make a hell of a hole,” Kosutic snorted.

“I can imagine,” O’Casey said faintly.

“I imagine that this is about where we should be detecting the Saint, Sir,” Sublieutenant Segedin said.

“Understood.” Captain Krasnitsky looked at the helmsman. “Prepare for course change. Quartermaster, pass the word to the Marines to prepare for separation.”

“They should have detected us by now,” Captain Delaney said. “Why are they still decelerating for the planet?”

“Could they still intend to land their Marines?” the chaplain asked, leaning over the tactical display beside him.

Delaney’s nose wrinkled at the sour smell of the chaplain’s unwashed cassock. Washing among the faithful was an occasional thing, since it used unnecessary resources. And such harmful chemicals as deodorants were, of course, right out.

“They must,” Delaney mused. “But they’re still too far out.” He smiled as the display changed. “Ah! Now we have a feel for their sensor damage. There’s the course change.”

“Prepare for separation. Five minutes,” the ennunciator boomed.

Roger looked up in surprise from his conversation with Sergeant Jin. The Korean was surprisingly well versed on current men’s fashions, and after Roger had circulated briefly around the compartment (doing his best imitation of Mother at a garden party), he’d settled down for a long talk with the sergeant. Better that than a long talk with the fascinating Sergeant Despreaux. Something told him that getting “interested” in one of his bodyguards in a situation like this one probably was a bad idea. Not that it would have been a good idea under any circumstances, he reflected with a familiar moodiness.

“You’d better get your armor back on, Sir,” Jin said, glancing at the chameleon suit Roger had changed into. “It’ll take you at least that long.”

“Right. Talk to you later, Sergeant.” Roger had become accustomed to walking the transom, and now he sprang lightly onto it and skipped forward, swinging gracefully from pillar to pillar.

“Show off,” Julian muttered as he shifted the rucksack across his knees. It wasn’t particularly uncomfortable, since it was supported by his armor, but the confinement got to him after a while.

He’d been awakened by the prince’s circuit, and hadn’t yet gotten back to sleep. He realized that his responses to the fop’s rote questions had been a bit surly, but the prince hadn’t seemed to notice.

“I don’t think he was showing off,” Despreaux said tartly. “I think he was hurrying up front.”

Julian raised an eyebrow. Since Despreaux was seated across from him, it gave him the perfect opportunity to needle her, and it would have violated his most deeply held principles to pass it up.

“Ah, you’re just jealous because he has better hair than you do.”

She glanced sideways to get a glimpse of the rapidly undressing prince.

“It is nice,” she murmured, and Julian’s mouth dropped open as the realization dawned on him.

“You like him, don’t you? You’ve got the hots for the Prince!”

Her head snapped back around, and she glared at the other squad leader.

“That is the stupidest thing– Of course I don’t!”

Julian started to tease her further, but then the full implications hit him. There was no way the Regiment would allow one of the guards to carry on with a member of the Imperial Family. He looked around, but all the other troopers seemed to be asleep or had earbuds in. Fortunately, no one had caught his earlier outburst, and he leaned forward as far as the packed equipment permitted.

“Nimashet, are you nuts?” he hissed softly. “They’ll have your ass for this!”

“There’s nothing going on,” she replied just as quietly, fingering the gray chameleon cover of the rucksack on her knees. “Nothing.”

“There’d better be nothing!” he whispered fiercely. “But I don’t believe it.”

“I can handle it,” the sergeant said, leaning back. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a big girl.”