Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 87
“All right,” Idina said to her JSP gaggle. They were a dozen strong, eight of them Pallas Brigade troops from First and Fourth platoons, and the other four from the Rhodian and Oceanian companies, with a single Oceanian marine in the mix. They all looked like they were expecting nukes to fall out of the sky any moment, looking around as if they were a herd of goats about to bolt from the scent of a predator. A brisk run would help channel their barely suppressed panic and give it a release valve.
“Form up in three-abreast running formation,” she ordered. “Corporal, you take point. We are moving out in this direction.” She indicated it with her hand.
“Yes, ma’am.” The corporal stepped onto the roadway outside of the transfer center. Overhead, two combat gyrofoils roared into the sky and away from the airfield. Her JSP stragglers looked up at the war machines as they got into formation as if they were expecting the gun turrets to start thundering any moment.
“Today, people,” Idina prodded them along. “Corporal, move ’em out, double-time.”
She caught up with the formation as they started their run, then kept the pace alongside them. If she had intended to turn off the minds of the young troops and get them focused on something other than their anxious thoughts, it worked on her just the same. It was good to do something physical, to move with a goal and a purpose.
“Corporal, how about a cadence?” she shouted.
The Palladian corporal took up the challenge and began to belt out a popular and highly bawdy brigade running cadence. The Palladians in the formation picked it up after a moment, and Idina could hear their boots hitting the road surface with a little more authority. The Rhodians and the solitary Oceanian in the group didn’t sing along because they weren’t familiar with the language, but tuning into the rhythm required no understanding of the words. Within a few moments, the whole formation was running along in perfect time, the Palladians sounding off loud enough for a platoon instead of a squad.
Maybe we are both exactly where we need to be, Idina heard Dahl’s voice in her head. Ten minutes ago, she wasn’t at all sure about that sentiment. But right now, she knew with certainty that she was at least where these young troopers needed her to be.
Another pair of gyrofoils roared overhead, then another right behind it. The craft took up a staggered formation and roared toward the distant skyline of Sandvik. On the road in front of them, a company of personnel carriers appeared, wedge-shaped chunks of armor with autocannon mounts on top, rolling on heavily studded honeycomb wheels. They turned onto the road in the direction of the main gate and dashed off at high speed. The vibrations from their nearby passage made the surface under Idina’s boot soles shake. If war had a smell to Idina, it was the scent of fuel in the air that heavy combat machines left in their wake. She was glad that the red alert hadn’t come five minutes later while she was already on the way to orbit, that she had been on the right side when the portcullis came rattling down. Whatever happened next, she’d be facing it with a gun in her hands and a platoon under her guidance, not witnessing it from afar while condemned to observer status.
As they ran along the road that would take them back to the JSP complex, Idina realized that the bone-deep fatigue she had felt earlier had lifted from her completely.
I guess the brigade museum will have to wait for now, she thought. There’s a war coming up. And gods help me, I am glad not to miss it.
CHAPTER 22
SOLVEIG
The dinner with the Hanzo directors was a boring affair that didn’t even really loosen up when the formal part ended and the Acheroni plum brandy bottles came out. Solveig made a mental note that a dull corporate drone continued to be a dull corporate drone even after seven shots of high-strength liquor, and that the alcohol just removed the self-restraint from the dullness and gave it an aggressive quality. She had nursed one small glass of the stuff all evening, never letting it drop to below half-full because she was aware of the Acheroni custom to always refill an empty glass for a guest. Gisbert hadn’t been aware of that custom, and he had toasted himself into a near-catatonic state by the end of the dinner, studiously avoided by even the most hospitality-minded Hanzo people. Solveig had observed a long time ago that alcohol didn’t bestow new personalities on its consumers but merely amplified the existing ones—or in Gisbert’s case, the lack of one.
They returned to the hotel just before local midnight. Gisbert had his assistant on one side of him and his security agent, Lanzo, on the other as they maneuvered him the short distance from the skylift platform to the door of his suite. Solveig hoped he’d be sick enough in the morning to bow out of the first round of negotiations so she wouldn’t have him hovering just behind her right shoulder for hours, alternating between looking at her compad screen and dozing off.
“If there is nothing else, I will see you in the morning, Miss Ragnar,” Cuthbert said when they had reached the door to her suite.
“Good night, Cuthbert. I wasn’t planning on any nighttime excursions, but I will let you know if I change my mind and decide to go to a nightclub or something.”
“Of course, Miss Ragnar. Good night to you.”
The smile he gave her had a slightly pained quality to it, as if the thought of