Sharon Lee: - Prologue

What she thought was harder: if this whole thing was some weird part of training she had an idea why pilots washed out. A more stupid way to . . .

The canopy stopped resisting as she hurled some off-mic invective at the world, and then she was too busy keeping dust out of her face to think—

A new sound assaulted her as she tumbled out of the plane: a chunking noise like one of Father's old auto engines gone wrong, then a whoosh and another round of chunking noises.

A bright sidewise flash caught her eye: aircraft in the sun. Not just one, but a group of three or four. Now five. They were nearly as high as she was! She wondered if they were there looking for her, but then—

The chunking noise came again and she saw bright streams of fiery dots blast from one of the jets, and then from a second; there was another bright flash then and the lead plane roared low overhead, trailing smoke and debris, while the others . . .

Understanding rushed through her: this was the emergency!

She flung herself between two boulders as the other planes flashed by, and from the corner of her eye she caught a multiple flash, turning her head in time to see the lead plane, already well on the other side of the mountain ridge, explode in a brilliant flare of metal and flame, and fall out of her line of sight.

* * *

"Do you know what they've done? They've stolen my safety! They ransacked my security! They've . . ."

Theo stood stock-still, and closed her eyes against the noise. She'd been interviewed three times by officials. Her bona fides had been checked at least three times. She'd had very little to eat for the last half-day, she was tired, and she needed to put her day bag down before she used it as a weapon.

Chelly's door was closed. Theo strode past it, wondering what was going on now. She'd anticipated being asked questions, not being beset—

"I told you! I told you these people weren't good at security! Did you think we needed a Checksec? No. Does our senior leader think we need a Checksec? No. So what are we going to do about—"

Theo barged by Asu, swept into the bedroom and swung her bag to the top bunk.

"I mean, here they call a campus security alert and ask everyone to stay in room and then they won't even answer a simple theft call . . ."

Goaded, Theo turned, and Asu stepped hurriedly back.

"He's right, you know?" Asu gasped "Chelly's right! When you do that, you do look like you're looking for a fight . . ."

Asu started, backed against the door.

He stood there in person suddenly, gingerly stepping in from his room, his face an uncertain mask of tight muscles under blotched skin, framing tired eyes. Uncharacteristically he wore a sleeveless workout shirt—he'd been doing his best to keep the formal edge on his attire ever since he'd been invited to join the—

Theo couldn't remember what it was called right now; it was a bunch of gonna-be commanders, all at work being official.

His hands were carefully neutral, as were his shoulders.

"I just got word that you'd been released, Waitley," he said quietly. "The rumor was that you'd been shot down, or crashed on the mountain. Is there anything we can do for you?"

"The rumor was what ?" Asu demanded. "Why didn't you tell me? What is going on?"

Theo moved, slowly, hands also carefully neutral, only half suppressing the sigh she felt weighing on her.

"Yes, Chelly, you can do something for me. Break out some cheese and biscuits, make some tea. I'm not gonna take this stuff they gave me, if I can help it; I got math first thing in the morning and I need to stay sharp."

"Tea. Tea." He said it like it was an alien concept.

Asu shut up and looked between the pair of them as if she just now recognized that Chelly and Theo were both distressed, and not about the Checksec.

"Yes," she said then, "I see!" She hurried out of the room, calling out, "I know your tea setting, Theo. Chelly, you get the biscuits down; if you need to, you may open my cheese."

Theo sat on Asu's bunk and slowly pulled off her shoes and her socks. Who knew that the ancient wooden floor in Erkes would feel so good to bare feet?

Five

Combined Math Lab

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

Math 376 was a relief so far, even with a drill. Eight students and an instructor stand-in were in the Math Lab already; soon they'd be joined by an assistant and the lab section from Math 366, all students who weren't taking an atmospheric component in their training, and maybe even by the instructor herself.

Surprisingly, the drill had helped settle Theo; this time it didn't involve any of the head-spinning dual-reality arithmetic in which numbers had to be solved for both real and imaginary components at the same time they were solved for string expansion and entropy resistance.

She still wasn't sure she wanted to risk her life on her computations, but just to be busy without having Chelly's quiet grief hanging over her head was good, not to mention being free of Asu's sulky nattering about her confiscated Checksec. Asu's paranoia hadn't been helped by Chelly keeping his secret until the second cup of tea—

"What kind of a senior are you if you don't keep us informed? Especially when one of our own . . . well, no, just because he'd slept in our pod doesn't make him ours—this Hap Harney—but Theo's ours and you didn't even tell me and she sleeps right over my head?"

"Chain of command," he'd said quietly. "You always have to remember chain of command, Asu. Suppose I'd told you everything and then they'd come for your Checksec instead of the other way around? You might have been in big trouble. And yeah, I think it's good that you didn't know Hap Harney's name until just now: again, think what it would look like if I'd have said something earlier and then you'd gone talking to those youngsters you've been coaching in bowli ball? The whole of Erkes could be under a cloud then. Now the news is out."

Asu'd fumed and fretted; it had taken Theo explaining her view of the whole thing. "I think he was trying to lose them," she'd said, from her new, in-depth understanding of the wind shear problems right there. "I think he knew the mountain from when he was at the academy and was figuring he could break away, gain time—for whatever he was trying to do."

She hadn't explained that one of the planes had strafed the falling pieces, nor that she'd noticed that none of the military guys who'd landed with the copter had their sidearms on peace-bond. She'd come out from between her boulders when they landed, identified herself, and then had to listen . . .

"She's got guts and the goods, bringing that thing down in here with no auxiliary," one had said, and then another, "Right convenient it could have been, too, for Harney, heh? Drop himself off here, then glide off with a cutie while we're looking for his body?"

" You run the gonsarned thermal, then. There's nothing here but her and a cold ship. All pure."

Volunteer nothing to an official, she'd remembered Father saying then, as he had several times when listening to her retelling of her time on Melchiza. When you're in their power, bureaucrats can be more dangerous than a loaded gun. A gun hits the target you aim at. Bureaucrats are another story.

She'd kept quiet, then, and was startled when the copter pilot asked if she'd like a turn at the controls once they'd left Slipper Fourteen and the mountains well behind. She'd been watching—what else was there for her to do?—and taking in the whole process, but . . .

"No, sir. I mean, yes sir—I would. But I don't have any power hours at all and probably I shouldn't."