Intrepid

''Everything has a price. We're learning our freedom has a price, and we ain't been paying our dues. Now we'll pay full price tomorrow. What's your old fart asking?''

Kris took a second to scratch her ear. Think. Then she shrugged and gave her usual answer. ''Representatives from a hundred and twenty planets, maybe thirty by now, are meeting at Pitts Hope. I don't know what they'll decide. If you're interested, I suggest you get some reps there to listen up, say a few words. Decide for yourself what you'll give up and hold on to.''

''That may be what we have to do,'' Bobby Joe said.

It was Gunny who stepped forward. ''Ladies, gentlemen, who's going to win tomorrow and who's going to be surrendering isn't something we can figure out tonight. But if we don't get some sleep, it sure ain't gonna help us.''

''Spoken like a true topkick,'' Bobby Joe said, and followed Gunny in heading for someplace to bed down for the night.

''You find your roll, too, if I may say, Your Highness,'' Gunny whispered as his mouth passed close to her ear. ''Tomorrow will come soon enough.''

Kris must have been getting too experienced with times like these. She actually did sleep.

32

Cortez waited until the ever-seeing eye in the sky had passed below his horizon before he formed his troops. He'd woken them before the ship came over but left them in their bedrolls, showing the ship warm bodies just where they belonged.

As the troops made their way out of camp, the dozen stay-behinds began feeding wood into the campfires. They and the busted-ankle detail, along with the hostages, would keep the fires burning. Maybe that Longknife girl wouldn't get any warning that Cortez's little army was on the move until it was too late.

It would be nice to have luck break his way for a change.

But luck and hope couldn't pass for a strategy.

Cortez assigned Major Zhukov command of the reinforced company of Guard Fusiliers from Torun. They'd take the wet road and come out of the swamps at the rear of the ditches. Their sudden appearance would be a major surprise for those hayseeds.

The psalm singers would take a more direct route, but they'd have to keep to cover and spread out. No matter how much Cortez pushed them, he doubted he could have them ready to assault the ditches before the next orbit. No, he'd have to spread out, stay cool in the morning dark, and do his best to be out of sight.

Nobody had ever told Colonel Cortez that soldiering was easy. He doubted he'd have taken the job if they had.

No, he had a tough leadership challenge and, to tell the truth, he was enjoying it. That Longknife brat had been calling the shots for too long. Now he'd name a few tunes and see how she liked dancing to his music.

* * *

Sergeant Bruce found the island he'd picked out for his observation post. It was little more than a tree and a couple of bushes holding on to a scrap of dirt to keep their trunks above water. But it would do.

The water flowed fast and deep around his little island OP, giving him a good place to retreat to if he needed to hide out awhile. And it gave him a bit of a view if he was reduced to using the old Mark I eyeball for intelligence gathering.

For the moment, what with the range and endurance limit on Nelly's nanos, he chose to use the eyeball. Unless he saw something exciting, he'd keep the nanos huddled around his computer, conserving energy.

It would be nice if Nelly talked Kris into getting the Marines some decent personal computers. Not that the one on his wrist didn't do all the Corps expected. But what the Corps expected and one princess demanded were not even close.

But wish in one hand and spit in the other, and see which you get the most out of. Bruce did not ration himself a laugh at his own joke. He was busy studying what lay before him in the light of a quarter moon. Panda's only moon was a bit bigger than Wardhaven's, so the light was fine. And he could smell and hear.

What he heard were small animals making nice if not familiar noises. They had fallen silent at his arrival; now they were back to full volume. The smell was something all its own, no hint of man or his things. Bruce kind of liked that.

What he saw was marsh grass, mirror-flat water, unbroken by wind. No, something just flopped into the shallow water. There was some thrashing about before silence returned. Some small hunter had gotten breakfast.

Bruce smiled grimly. Some much larger hunters would be making a whole lot more noise real soon now.

Flat on his back, under a bush, ready to push his face mask down and himself silently into the water at the first sign of business, the Marine sergeant lay like some primal beast at the water's edge. A Marine was patient.

Matters would get lively soon enough. The Marine waited.

* * *

Kris roused her task force and had them mounted up and rolling as soon as Captain Thorpe dropped below the horizon. Outside, it was still night, but ahead of them was one last pair of farms that would hide them from Thorpe.