Worse, the station was far enough out from Gryphon, the inhabited planet of the Manticore Binary System's G2 secondary component, that the light-speed transmission lag between them was very noticeable. At the moment, it ran to just over twelve minutes each way, and it was growing steadily longer as the relative motions of Unicorn Eleven and Gryphon took them further and further apart, which made it impractical for station personnel to tie into the Gryphon planetary education net as they would normally have done. The Hauptman Cartel had set up an excellent school system within the habitat, and Ranjit rather enjoyed the novel experience of having direct, physical access to his human instructors. But the lack of any real-time link to the planetary net meant Susan had been denied even the electronic friendships with classmates she might have enjoyed under other circumstances. She'd made a couple of long-distance friends aboard Unicorn Nine and Unicorn Ten, the closest pair of Hauptman habitats to their own, but that was it, and Ranjit knew his sister had grown increasingly lonely. She hadn't needed her own big brother making it worse, but that was exactly what he'd done. Which was the reason he had assured his parents that if they allowed Susan to come along on the field trip Mr. Gastelaars, Unicorn Eleven's chief administrator, had arranged, he would keep an eye on her.
His father, especially, had been hesitant to let her go, for several reasons. For one, she would be the youngest student on the trip, and it would be the first time she had ever been allowed to make such a lengthy trip unaccompanied by at least one of her parents. For another, the Hibsons were natives of Manticore itself, and the capital planet was a warm world where skiing opportunities were rare. Susan had been only a beginner-level skier (on snow, anyway) when her parents were assigned to Unicorn Eleven, and she'd had precious little opportunity for practice since, but Kalindi Hibson had a pretty shrewd notion that his headstrong daughter would insist she was more experienced than she actually was unless someone sat on her firmly. And for yet a third, he knew that all of Ranjit's friends would also be along—including Monica Gastelaars, the chief administrator's strikingly attractive daughter, who also happened to be seventeen years old—and questioned just how much time Ranjit would truly devote to keeping an eye on Susan.
Their mother had come down on Ranjit and Susan's side, however. Liesell had insisted that Susan was old enough for the trip and pointed out that the group would be accompanied by six adults, most of whom were child care professionals and all of whom were experienced skiers. Moreover, the Athinai Resort, the largest and best known on Gryphon (which meant in the Manticore Binary System) was accustomed to this sort of field trip. That was one of the main reasons it had been chosen when the outing was planned, and the Hauptman Cartel had arranged for the resort to provide full-time instructors, all experienced with young people, to ride herd on their youthful charges on the actual slopes. It was unlikely that even their inventive daughter would be able to put much over on that many veteran kid-watchers, she'd suggested. And if Susan could, then her parents needed to find out about it now so that they could take proper precautions—like locking her in her room until she was twenty. Besides, it was past time Susan got a chance to meet some other youngsters her own age. Then Liesell had sealed the deal by unscrupulously extracting an explicit promise from Ranjit that he would not allow his own interests to distract him from maintaining a close watch on Susan. He'd given her his word, but not without a certain sinking feeling which suggested to him that he had, in fact, been planning on spending just a little less time with his sister than he'd originally tried to allow his parents (and himself) to believe he had in mind.
Which was how he came to find himself looking out Susan's window and mentally kicking himself for raining on her parade.
"I mean they look a lot like the ones on this side," he told her now, waving a hand at the peaks beyond the armorplast and making his tone an apology for his earlier dismissiveness. "They're pretty spectacular, but—"
"I didn't mean the mountains," Susan said. "Look! See the pinnaces?"
"Pin—?"
Ranjit unlatched his seat harness and crossed the aisle to kneel beside Susan's seat in order to get a better look through her window, and his eyebrows rose. She was right. Those were pinnaces up there—six of them, in fact, all in Navy markings. They were headed in the opposite direction at what appeared to be (barely) subsonic speed, with their variable-geometry wings mostly swept, and their shadows raced across the snowy summits beneath them.
"What are they doing?" he wondered aloud.
"Making a drop," Susan said promptly. She didn't—quite—add "of course," but he heard her anyway and jabbed a "sure they are" sideways glance at her, then darted his eyes back to the pinnaces.
He could see more details of the sleek, hungry-looking craft now, and his pulse went just a bit faster as they scorched over the peaks. They were paralleling the valley's long axis, heading down it on a direct reciprocal of the air bus's course, but at a considerably higher altitude to clear the four and five thousand-meter summits of the valley's walls. They were also flying a nape-of-the-earth profile that was much tighter than they could have managed in pure airfoil mode, because they were bouncing up and down over peaks as if they were tennis balls. Ranjit was pretty sure they had to be riding their counter-grav hard to pull off some of those maneuvers, and his stomach lurched in sympathy as he tried to imagine what it must be like for their passengers. Some of the other members of the ski group had seen them now, and he heard other voices repeating his own question about their intentions. And then, suddenly, the pinnaces turned to sweep out across the valley. Their flight path angled well astern of the air bus, but the bus pilot obviously knew they were back there and had decided to give his youthful customers a little extra treat. The vehicle turned sharply, then went into hover, offering a magnificent view down the snow-and-stone vista of the deep, narrow river valley which also kept the pinnace flight in clear sight.
No, Ranjit realized. Not just a single pinnace flight. Another half-dozen of the sleek craft must have been coming down his side of the valley at the same time without his even noticing their presence. Now they came shooting out to meet the ones Susan had spotted, and as their vectors crossed, all twelve of them slowed abruptly and distance-tiny figures spilled from them. The figures were too far away for Ranjit to tell whether or not they wore battle armor, but he felt a thrill of excitement as they plummeted towards the valley floor. Then they slowed magically as their grav canopies popped, and he watched raptly as they continued drifting downward with deceptive gentleness.
"Told you they were making a drop," Susan said with exasperating complacency, and Ranjit gave her another, sharper look. She only smiled sweetly, then batted her sea-green eyes at him and, despite himself, he felt his own lips twitch in an answering grin.
"You were right this time," he conceded, "but I think it was a lucky guess."
"Lucky guess?" Susan repeated, then tossed her head with a snort. "If you'd been paying attention," she told him pityingly, "you'd've noticed that those were the new Mark Twenty-Six Skyhawks. Didn't you see the extra pulser under the nose and the ventral and after gun turrets? Or the extra underwing hard points?" She snorted again, harder. "I bet you didn't even notice the new chaff dispensers or the ECM pod on the vertical stabilizer!"
"Ah, no," Ranjit admitted. "I must have missed those somehow."
"Well you shouldn't have," she said severely. "Because if you'd happened to recognize what they were, you might have recalled that according to my last issue of the Royal Marine Institute Record, the Mark Twenty-Sixes've been specifically optimized for the Marine Corps' use."
"They had Navy markings, Sooze," Ranjit pointed out, but there wasn't much hope in his voice. Susan was only an average student in most of her courses, but she had a mind like a docking tractor when her interest was truly engaged, and she was seldom wrong about anything to do with one of her pet obsessions, however trivial her information might have seemed to any normal person. In fact, if he wanted to be honest about it, h
e couldn't actually recall the last time she had been wrong about one of them. Not that he intended to bring that up at this particular moment.
"Well of course they did," Susan said, turning to give him the full advantage of her pitying expression. "Every pinnace and shuttle in inventory belongs to the Navy . . . officially. But the Corps were the ones who really wrote the requirements for the new Skyhawks, because they wanted a better combined delivery and fire support platform for space-to-ground assaults; the Navy just paid for 'em and built 'em. Well, they provide the ships to carry them around, too, of course, but that's what chauffeurs are for." She wrinkled her nose in tolerant contempt for such useless sorts, then shrugged. "But if a bunch of pinnaces designed to double as light assault shuttles are flying around in the middle of the Attica Mountains playing NOE with mountain peaks, what do you think they're up to? Photo mapping for a new spaceport?"
"You know, you can be amazingly irritating when you put your itty-bitty mind to it," Ranjit observed, and she grinned.
"You only say that when I prove you're a doof," she shot back. "Of course, that does seem to happen a lot, doesn't it?"
"Just take your victory and go home with it while you still can, kid," he advised her, and punched her shoulder lightly.
"Ha! One of my many victories, you mean!"
Ranjit smiled again, but he also let it drop. He'd had too much experience arguing with her to do anything else.
Much as he loved his sister, he was convinced that her genetic code must have dropped a stitch somewhere. She was a slight, slender child who shared with Ranjit the dark complexion they'd both inherited from their father, but unlike her brother, she had their mother's green eyes to go with it, which made for a startling contrast even (or especially, perhaps) after so many centuries of genetic homogenization. That was what people always noticed first about her; it was only later that they realized her design schematic included nothing remotely resembling a reverse gear. Susan Hibson had a whim of steel and absolutely no idea of how to give in—gracefully or otherwise—to anyone, anywhere, over anything, and Ranjit couldn't remember the last time she'd truly set her mind on a goal and failed to achieve it.
It was, perhaps, unfortunate that she persisted in setting those goals to suit her own idiosyncratic interests. Devoting just a little of that determination (one might even say obstinacy, if one were careful to say it quietly enough that she couldn't hear one) to academic endeavors might have produced a radical improvement in her grades, for example. But that simply wasn't an area of particular concern for her. No, all of her attention was focused, for some reason no one else had ever been able to fathom, on the Royal Manticoran Marines.
It had to be something genetic, Ranjit mused. Some previously unsuspected mutation which had been nurtured by the Star Kingdom's ongoing military buildup against the People's Republic of Haven. Certainly no one else in the family had ever been especially interested in a military career, and if Susan simply had to be bitten by the military bug, why couldn't she at least have decided she hungered for the Navy? The Marines, even more than the Royal Army, were one of the areas of military service in which size and physical strength still mattered, and Susan was never going to be a big woman. Kalindi Hibson was wiry and muscular, but he also stood just under a hundred and sixty-three centimeters tall. Ranjit, who favored their mother's side of the family more than Susan did, was already over one-eighty, but Susan took very much after her father when it came to size and bulk, and he doubted she would ever break one-fifty-five. Yet where Ranjit had no particular desire to embrace the rigors of a military lifestyle—especially not if, as the alarmists insisted was likely in light of the Peeps' expansion in the Star Kingdom's direction, he might also someday get to enjoy the experience of having ill-intentioned strangers actually shooting at him—and found the very thought of boot camp revolting, Susan actually looked forward to the experience.
It was all profoundly unnatural, Ranjit thought, settling back into his own seat and fastening his harness once more. And if he were honest, it was a little frightening, too. He was young enough to have trouble truly believing in his own mortality, but the thought of having those ill-intentioned strangers shooting at his kid sister instead of at him was a chilling one. Which was probably one reason he didn't let himself consider it very much.
At least it'll be another four-plus T-years before she can legally enlist, even with parental approval, he thought now. In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to go along with Dad and hope that it's a "phase" she'll grow out of. Of course—he grimaced out his own window—I don't recall her ever having grown out of any other phases, but hey! There's always a first time, right? Yeah, sure. Right.
He snorted to his reflection in wry amusement and returned his attention to the craggy mountain walls.
"I thought it went better than last time, Ma'am," Lieutenant Hedges said.
The young, blond-haired lieutenant smiled hopefully at HMS Broadsword's tall executive officer, but his smile faded as the Exec returned his look dispassionately. The prick-eared treecat on her shoulder cocked his head, whiskers quivering as his grass-green gaze joined his person's chocolate-brown, almond eyes in their contemplation of the heavy cruiser's boat bay officer, and Hedges fought an urge to swallow. Lieutenant Commander Harrington had been one of the Star Kingdom's first third-generation prolong recipients, and the later generations of the life-extending treatments had a pronounced tendency to stretch out the physical maturation process. As a result, she looked almost indecently young for her present rank, especially with the close-cropped hair style she favored, and she was also a quiet, soft-spoken sort. He had never heard her so much as raise her voice or use even the mildest profanity, and he supposed some unwary souls might have added that to her youthful appearance and decided she was unsure of herself.
Upon better acquaintance, however, those individuals would quickly discover that her triangular face, with its strong patrician nose and severe, sharply carved features, made an excellent mask for whatever she happened to be thinking at any given moment. It could also freeze the hardiest malefactor in his tracks without so much as a word, and if Hedges had never heard her raise her voice, he had heard that same, calm soprano sound as if it were shaving off slivers of battle steel while its owner . . . discussed some unfortunate's shortcomings. Captain Tammerlane, Broadsword's commanding officer, was a genial, almost paternal soul. No one who'd ever served under him could doubt his competence, but he was definitely considered an easy-going CO. Which was what made Harrington the perfect exec for him. She was patient, just, and fairminded, and she would go light-seconds out of her way to help or support anyone whom she was convinced was genuinely trying to do his job. But she had zero tolerance for fools or gratuitous stupidity . . . and somewhat less than that for anyone she considered a slacker. She had Broadsword running like a fine chrono, and no one would ever dare let himself become part of a problem the Exec had no choice but to bring to the Captain's attention.
Now those level brown eyes continued to consider Hedges for several short eternities, and he felt his hands try to flutter nervously, as if to check for some minor flaw in his appearance—like an open trousers fly or a large, crusty blotch of dried egg on his tunic—which he'd somehow failed to notice for himself.
"Well, yes," she said finally. "I suppose it was better. At least there were no mid-airs, were there?"
Her voice was perfectly conversational, but Hedges winced. The barely averted mid-air collision between one of Broadsword's pinnaces and two from HMS Cutlass which had been the focal point of yesterday's exercises had been almost entirely his fault, and he knew it as well as the exec did.
She let him reflect upon that for several more seconds, then smiled slightly.
"In fact, I believe every one of our birds got home without a hull scratch or even a single last-minute evasion maneuver, and Halberd and Cutlass report the same."
"Yes, Ma'am." Hedges winced again, but only inwardly this time, and her smile grew.
<
br /> "Not only that, but every one of Major Stimson's squads hit within fifty meters of its exact drop point. In snow, in the Attica Mountains, in winter, no less. I wouldn't want to suggest that we're establishing any trends here, Mister Hedges, but I suppose we could call that an improvement if we really wanted to." She paused one more beat, and then her smile became something suspiciously like a grin as she added, "The Captain certainly called it that when he discussed the drop-ex with Commander Nouaya Tyumen, at any rate."
"He did?" Hedges couldn't keep himself from blurting out the question, and his face went magenta as Harrington chuckled. Her 'cat's cheerful bleek of laughter echoed her amusement, and Hedges blushed even darker before his own sense of humor came to his rescue and he grinned back.
"Yes, he did, Johnny," she said, and gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder. She didn't do that often, and he beamed at her as he savored the rare sign of approval.
"On the other hand," she added more warningly, "we've still got another week of exercises. Plenty of time for us to screw up thoroughly if we put our minds to it. So let's not do that, right?"
"Aye, aye, Ma'am!" Hedges assured her, still grinning. "I'll have those birds running as regularly as Andermani air buses, Ma'am. And my coxswains will put those Marines down anywhere you want to aim them—guaranteed!"
"Good, Johnny. Very good." She patted his shoulder again, then reached up to scratch her 'cat's chin. "But you've got a lot to do to make good on all those boasts, I imagine. So let's be about it, shall we?"
"The beginners' slope," Susan Hibson said in tones of profound disgust. " `Kiddy Hill!' Can you believe that?"
Her breath smoked in the morning sunlight, and she kicked viciously at a bank of piled snow the maintenance remotes had swept from a walkway. A chunk of ice exploded into the air and disintegrated into a rainbow-spray, and she glowered at it angrily.