March Upcountry

“There’s an exercise area adjacent to the Assault Complement Quarters, Your Highness,” the valet pointed out.

“I said in peace,” Roger commented dryly. He generally preferred to avoid the troops that filled the compartment. He’d never actually worked out around the Battalion, despite being its nominal commanding officer, because he’d had his fill of weird looks and sniggers behind his back in four years at the Academy. Getting the same treatment from his own bodyguards would be hard to take.

“The majority of the ship’s company is eating at the moment, Your Highness,” Matsugae pointed out. “You would probably have the gym to yourself.”

The thought of a good workout was awfully attractive. Finally Roger nodded his head.

“Okay, Matsugae. Make it so.”

As the dessert was cleared, Captain Krasnitsky looked significantly at Ensign Guha. The mahogany-skinned young woman blushed a darker hue, and stood up, wine glass in hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said carefully, “Her Majesty the Empress. Long may she rule!”

After the chorused “The Empress,” the captain cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry His Highness is unwell, Captain.” He smiled at Captain Pahner. “Is there anything we can do? The gravity, temperature, and air pressure in his cabin are as close to Earth normal as my chief engineer can make them.”

Captain Pahner set down his almost untouched wine glass and nodded to the captain. “I’m sure His Highness will be fine.” Various other phrases crossed his mind, but he carefully suppressed them.

After the completion of this voyage, Pahner would move on to a command slot on a very similar ship. But larger. As with all COs in The Empress’ Own, he was already on the promotion lists for the next grade, and at the completion of his rotation, he would take over as the commander of the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Heavy Strike Regiment. Since the 502nd was the primary ground combat unit of Seventh Fleet—the Fleet usually found in any face-off with the Saints—he could expect to see regular action, and that was good. He had no love of war, but the heat of battle was the only possible place to truly test whether a person was a Marine or not, and it would be good to be back in harness.

With over fifty years in the service, enlisted and officer, the two commands—Empress’ Own and Heavy Strike—would be as good as it got. From there on out, it would all be downhill. Either retirement, or else colonel and then brigadier. Which was as good as saying a desk job: the Empire hadn’t fielded a regiment in a couple of centuries. It was a somber thought that he could see a light at the end of the tunnel and it was a grav-train.

Captain Krasnitsky waited for further elaboration, but decided after a moment that that was all he was getting from the taciturn Marine. With another frozen smile he turned to Eleanora.

“Has the rest of the staff gone ahead to Leviathan to prepare for the Prince’s arrival, Ms. O’Casey?”

Eleanora took a slightly deeper gulp of wine than was strictly polite, and looked over at Captain Pahner.

“I am the rest of the staff,” she said coldly. Which meant that there had not been anyone to send ahead as an advance party. Which meant that once they got there, she would be running her ass off trying to set up all the minor details the staff should be handling. The staff that she was apparently chief of. That mysterious, magically invisible staff.

The captain was now well aware that he was wandering through a field of landmines. He smiled again, took a sip of wine, and turned to the engineering officer at his left to engage in casual chitchat that wasn’t going to tick off a member of the Imperial Household.

Pahner moistened his lips with his wine again and looked over at Sergeant Major Kosutic. She was chatting quietly with the ship’s bosun, and caught the look and simply raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Well, what you want me to do about it?” Pahner shrugged millimetrically in reply, and turned to the ensign at his left. What could any of them do about it?

CHAPTER THREE

Pahner tossed the electronic memo pad onto the desk in the tiny office of the Assault Complement Commander.

“I think that’s about all the planning we can do without actually seeing the dirtside conditions,” he told Kosutic, and the sergeant major shrugged philosophically.

“Well, frontier planets full of rugged individualists rarely spawn assassins, anyway, Boss.”

“True enough,” Pahner admitted. “But it’s close enough to both Raiden-Winterhowe and the Saints to have me twitchy.”

Kosutic nodded, but she knew better than to ask most of the questions that came to mind. Instead, she fingered her earlobe, where the sun-painted skull and crossbones glittered faintly, and then glanced at the antiquated watch on her wrist.

“I’m going to take a turn around the ship. Find out how many of the posts are asleep,” she announced.

Pahner smiled. In two tours with the Regiment, he’d never found a post other than fully alert. You just didn’t make it this far if you were the type to even slouch on guard duty. But it never hurt to check.

“Have fun,” he said.

* * *

Ensign Guha finished sealing her ship boots and looked around the cabin. Everything was shipshape, so she picked up the black bag at her feet and touched the stud to open her cabin hatch. Somewhere in the depths of her mind a little voice was screaming. But it was a quiet voice.

She stepped out of the cabin, turned to the right, and shouldered the ditty bag. The bag was unusually heavy. The materials within would have been detected in the security sweep of the ship which was standard operating procedure before a member of the Imperial Family took transit . . . and they had been. And then accepted. The assault ship was designed to take a full Marine complement, after all, which included all of their explosive “loadout.” The six ultradense bricks, formed out of the most powerful chemical explosive known, should do the job perfectly. The thought was a pleasing one, and, of course, her own position as logistics officer gave her full access to the material. Even more pleasing. Taken all in all, she practically scintillated with pleasure.

Her cabin was on the outer rim of the ship, along with most of the personal quarters, and she had a long trip to Engineering. But it would be a happy trip . . . despite the quiet little screams within.

She strode down the passage, smiling pleasantly at the few souls about in the depths of ship-night. They were few and far between, but no one questioned the logistics officer. She’d been taking deep-night strolls for her whole tour, and it was put down to simple insomnia. And that was fair enough, for she did suffer from insomnia, however far from “simple” it might be on this particular night.

She traveled the curved passages of the giant sphere, taking elevators to lower levels on a circuitous route that brought her closer and closer to Engineering. The route was designed to avoid the Marine guards scattered at strategic locations around the ship. Although their detectors wouldn’t spot the demolitions unless she got very close, they would easily detect the fully charged power cell of the bead pistol in the same bag.

The horizon of the gray painted passages shrank as she neared the center of the vast ball. Finally, she exited one last elevator.

The passage beyond was straight for a change, the far end sealed by a blast-door. To one side of the blast-door, covering the controls, was a single Marine in the silver-and-black dress uniform of the House of MacClintock.

Private Hegazi came to attention, one hand sliding automatically towards his sidearm as the elevator