Intrepid

''Kind of makes you wonder why he was the only one champing at the bit to go with us,'' Weapons said.

''Show me Cortez's announcement,'' Thorpe ordered, and reviewed the video. It would be nice to have something as entertaining as the broken-down trucks or the ''shoot the white hats, not the armored troops.'' Still, Cortez, snarling into the camera threatening to shoot ten of them for any one of his they shot would surely get attention.

Thorpe glanced at the clock. Hardly time before they fell below the horizon. The Longknife announcement had been when they were almost directly above the settled lands. Somehow that brat and her team had produced a better product in less time.

Of course, she didn't have to deal with Whitebred. And once the fighting started, neither would Thorpe.

He shook his head. Let Longknife think she'd won something this time. When the bullets started flying, she'd discover that she couldn't count on a slow decision. Not from Hernando, and not from her old captain.

''Broadcast the video,'' Thorpe ordered, then settled back in his chair to study the main screen. It showed all that he'd learned from the latest pass. North of Bluebird Landing there was that nebulous cloud of something. His troops would drive into it while he was on the other side of this troublesome planet.

Now there looked to be three clear paths moving south from the lake they'd lased with such interesting results. Three!

Two went along opposite sides of a wildening creek. No, call it a river. The third started off from the farmhouse they'd burned and stopped just short of another homestead.

For a moment, Thorpe considered hitting that one with an eighteen-inch beam, then dropped it. Whoever was bossing the Longknife ship had let him get away with being empty last time. He would not trust that he could get away with that again.

You had to wonder where the financiers had gotten this ship. Two weak reactors. Two eighteen-inch pulse lasers that took forever to reload. A pair of long popguns that could hardly cause a dust devil two hundred klicks below.

But I took the command. Jumped at it. God, I hate the beach. I'd have chewed my arm off if that was what it took to get back to space.

The settled area dropped below the horizon. Thorpe would have more than an hour to wonder what was going on back here. ''Sensors, are those microsatellites still hanging out there?''

''Yes, sir. They juggle their orbit and come into view for a few seconds, then fire a burst and they're gone again. It can't be very easy keeping them in orbit.''

''No, it can't,'' Thorpe agreed. But a rich brat like Kris Longknife would have toys like those around. Thorpe had nothing like that. Nothing he could make into them.

He swore to himself. Still, he kept a confident look on his face for the crew and waited for the next chance to get that Longknife girl.

* * *

Kris viewed the martial-law announcement with Gramma Polska, the elder of the Polska clan. The old woman might or might not have had a few years on Gramma Ruth … it was hard to tell. The years seemed harder out here.

What Gramma Polska didn't lack was steel in her backbone.

''One of my boys was in Deverton when they landed. We ain't heard from him since. Told him he was a damn fool for going, but there was this girl. He said he'd talk her into moving out here in no time at all. Xanadu girl. You'd have thought she was already used to the idea of moving on.''

''Gramma Polska, we didn't come here to start a bloodbath.'' Kris found it easy to say the half-truth, half lie. It didn't pass muster under those old gray eyes.

''So I heard about you Longknifes. You say you never start a fight, but holy Mother of God, do they find you. You want to tell an old woman what you are planning on doing with the dozen of her boys that are champing at the bit to go along with you and your Marines?''

Kris shook her head. ''It's not that I know and won't tell you. Simply put, I really don't know how this thing will go down. It looks like most of their soldiers are headed north. I'm heading south. We're going to meet somewhere in the middle, and a meeting engagement is one of the most slippery things we do in my business.''

''And you ain't interested in counting your chickens before any of them takes up playing the harmonica.''

''That's what my Gramma Ruth would tell me,'' Kris agreed.

''Smart woman. She a farm girl?''

''Was before she married a Marine.''

''So, you going to use my kids, grandkids as … what do you call it? … cannon fodder. Yeah, I heard in the Iteeche wars your Grampa Ray used up a lot of cannon fodder.''