Or maybe it was just that Mark XXI Special Units had generated intense debates in both military and political circles almost from their development. Screwball programming, it was whispered, odd behavior patterns, almost incestuous relationships with their crews--relationships a Mark XXI crewman would cheerfully hospitalize a man over if he were stupid enough to speculate about them in a crewman's presence. Just what, exactly, a Mark XXI's programming might be, to inspire such loyalty and widespread controversy, Willum didn't know. Secrecy surrounded just about everything connected with the Mark XXI Special Units. Whatever it was, Willum figured he'd find out soon enough.

If the Deng let him live so long.

Which reminded him to be scared all over again.

A glance at the other officers brought no rea.s.surance. The MC, a grim-faced guy named Hart, didn't look frightened, exactly; but the pallor around the edges of his lips wasn't natural, either. If a combat veteran like Hart who'd partic.i.p.ated in multiple successful missions was spooked . . .

The man everyone called "Banjo" was the only member of the original crew Willum felt might tolerate him. a.s.sistant Mission Commander Aduwa Banjul, with only a year in this crew himself, had given Willum a whirlwind orientation after he'd climbed through the open personnel hatch- They dropped away from Bonaventure with a lurch. Freefall . . . Willum swallowed bile. He'd never been s.p.a.ce sick, but battle sick . . . That was a possibility he hadn't yet tested. Don't be sick, DeVries, don't be sick. . . .

He knew what was going on around him--theoretically. An infiltration force of two ships would be blowing Deng satellite systems, stripping away the enemy's...o...b..tal monitoring capability as part of a decoy operation with longer-term benefits. Meanwhile, two LRH Bolos and several hundred similarly coc.o.o.ned decoys dropped from orbit toward BFS-3793-C's pitted, canyon-scored surface. . . .

Willum tried unsuccessfully to loosen his grip on the drop harness. He glanced at the vid screen which gave the Command Compartment a view into the Crew Compartment. Willum wanted to see how the other crewmen were holding up. Dismount Team One was in harness on the left. "Gunny" Hok.u.m, the crew's gunnery sergeant, was whistling under his breath. Eagle Talon Gunn's dark eyes met Willum's in the vid pickup. The Amer-Ind grinned briefly, teeth gleaming white against bronzed skin. "Great ride, huh, tekkie?"

Despite the veiled insult, Willum tried to smile back. At least someone had talked to him, making an effort to include him in this mission. "Yeah."

"Icicle" Goryn eyed the vid lens with open hostility. His silent glare seemed to say, "You're not Honshuko Kai, d.a.m.n you. Who gave you the right to talk to us as an equal?"

He held Icicle's gaze long enough for the veteran to shrug and glance away. It wasn't Willum's fault their friends had been killed; but that wouldn't help a d.a.m.n bit when they hit the ground running and had to work together.

DT-2 had harnessed in to the right. He'd never met the man whom Danny Hopper, a Bonaventure shipboard Marine, had replaced. The Bolo's crew had called him Specter. They'd spoken the nickname with reverence even before his death. Hopper looked more nervous than Willum, swallowing so often he reminded Willum of a bullfrog in full song. Sergeant "Milwaukee" Petra, harnessed to Danny's left, was DT-2's team leader.

Crazy Fritz, a lean, hollow-eyed man hanging in harness on Hopper's other side, glanced at the ship's Marine as though to say, "We needed Specter. Not a G.o.dd.a.m.ned fancy-pants Marine." But he didn't quite voice it aloud. Hopper, a courageous twenty-year-old who'd spent most of his duty tour as a ceremonial guard, returned the older man's look levelly--but he lost a few shades of color and did a good bit more swallowing.

Great. We're screaming toward Enemy lines and the whole d.a.m.n crew is rattled before we even leave orbit.

Willum had a desperately bad feeling in his gut, and it wasn't called s.p.a.ce sickness.

We fall. Encased as I am in a sphere of foam-form heat-repellent tiles, I am blind during the initial stage of drop. Inertial sensors transmit a phenomenon I have never shared with my Commander: I am dizzy. Drop always does this to me. I wonder if humans experience the same sensation. Speculation along such lines is not productive. I devote my attention to the mission at hand.

Ablative foam tiles begin to shed ma.s.s. We have reached atmosphere. I am aware when the ribbon drag deploys, slowing our speed. My crew is unharmed by the change in velocity, although I detect higher-than-normal levels of stress chemicals in the bloodstreams of my two replacement crew members. Danny Hopper, in particular, suffers during this drop. I will suggest corrective medication once we achieve landing. The ribbon drag functions perfectly. More heat-resistant tile boils away. A series of seven small parachutes deploy, slowing our velocity further. An outer sensor array tip clears. I am able to see. Dizziness disappears instantly; inertial sensors match visual input perfectly.

We are still high in the atmosphere. I am able to track one hundred forty-three of the decoys as well as my sister LRH-1327. She is encased as I am in a glowing sphere that shrinks with each pa.s.sing picosecond. Her drag chutes have also deployed. Deng weapons discharge from the planet's surface. Missiles arc upwards. One decoy explodes. A second decoy is destroyed. We drop lower. LRH-1327's main chute deploys. Her descent slows sharply. Decoys deploy main chutes and some begin sensor scans. These broadcast their findings back to Bonaventure Royale, reporting terrain features and Enemy activity in order to provide good data for the landing force as well as make themselves higher priority targets. Two seconds before I drop below the horizon line, LRH-1327 explodes.

I mourn.

"Doug," I say in my softest voice, "mission parameters have changed. LRH-1327 has been destroyed. I am sorry."

My Commander does not respond for 0.89 seconds. An eternity of grieving. "Understood, Red. Delay deployment of main chute."

I execute the command, overriding automatic settings. "A wise decision, Doug."

I wait to deploy the main chute which will slow us to speeds at which our para-wing can be deployed. A slower drop provides too great a risk of destruction. We are humanity's last hope for reconnaissance of Hobson's Mines before the main invasion fleet arrives. Thousands of human lives will be spared or destroyed depending on the success of this intelligence-gathering mission. We cannot risk being shot down.

I wait until sensors tell me we have reached the critical edge of our margin for error. I deploy the main chute. The shock of drag slows us. My crew members jerk in their harnesses. I check their vital signs for injury, but detect only expected mission-level stress. We drop. Deng weapons destroy five more decoys still visible to my sensor array. I search the terrain below for potential landing sites and coordinate visual data with on-board maps.

My maps of BFS-3793-C, nicknamed Hobson's Mines, are excellent. This was a human mining colony until the Deng invasion two months and four days ago. We cannot allow the Deng to hold this world. It provides critical war materiel that would give the Enemy a strategic advantage over humanity. We must retake the mines. I note that we drop toward a large river. Preliminary scans reveal that it lies at the bottom of a canyon 0.82 kilometers wide. Water depth varies. The deepest spots are more than adequate for a camouflaged landing site, particularly if Bonaventure Royale's efforts to neutralize the Enemy's satellite reconnaissance abilities have been successful.

I blow all remaining heat-ablative tiles with a small charge. They continue on the original trajectory and smash into the ground. They will look like a crashed decoy when found. I deploy our para-wing on schedule. I am unenc.u.mbered and vulnerable. I want to get down. Using controls on the para-wing, I spill air to change course toward the river as best I can. I cut the starboard lines to my trailing chutes and reel them in with the ribbon drag, leaving only the para-wing outside my hull to slow our descent.

We head for the river. We sway and drop. The course I hold takes us directly toward the target I have chosen, a spot that sensor scans indicate is the deepest available. At twenty-seven meters in depth, this is a good landing site, although I am constructed to withstand a drop onto bare rock if that is required.

At extreme sensor range I detect Deng airborne scoutships. My intelligence data on such scoutships indicates we are not yet in their sensor range. I have 3.88 seconds in which to disappear from their sensor sweeps. I activate Chameleon screens, taking on the outward visual, radar, and infrared signatures of an airborne Deng scout. It is the best I can do. We drop into the canyon. The walls are 321 meters high on the near rim.

I warn my crew: "Brace for landing!"

At the last possible moment, I attempt to climb in an effort to stall my para-wing, as I need to kill as much forward movement as possible and reduce speed to minimize any splash. When we enter the water the sharp slap recreates dizziness in my motion sensors. We slow. I reel in the trailing para-wing while still descending. My crew has suffered another jolt but appears to be in good health. I am relieved. Drop is a dangerous time. Even during a perfect drop, a crewman can suffer sprained neck muscles or dislocated shoulders. My crew is safe.

We touch bottom. My treads rest on clean-scoured stone. Water temperature is 2.7 degrees centigrade. Current flow is 0.6 meters per second. A swift current. The chilly water disperses our heat signature in a short-lived downstream plume. We are hidden from Enemy eyes.

"Doug, we have achieved a safe landing. I would recommend that we remain in this position for another twenty-four hours."

"Agreed. Okay, you heard the lady. Time to break out the playing cards. We're here for the duration."

I am pleased. My Commander is satisfied with my performance. He calls me "the lady" when I have done particularly well. My crew and I are safe. That is all that matters for the moment.

"Brace for landing!"

Willum jumped at the sound of an astonishingly human female voice-then shut his eyes and hung onto the harness. To his shame, he yelled. . . .

The remaining fall wasn't a long one. The shock of landing jarred everything, despite the harness that held him suspended. Webbing dug into flesh. He'd bruise in crisscross stripes--if he lived long enough to bruise. After that first, terrible jolt, they slowed to a gentle, eddying descent.

Water, Willum realized with a blink. We've landed in water.

They b.u.mped a hard surface.

"Doug, we have achieved a safe landing," that same female voice said out of the air. It's the Bolo. . . . "I would recommend that we remain in this position for another twenty-four hours."

Up in the Mission Commander's chair, Doug Hart nodded. "Agreed. Okay, you heard the lady. Time to break out the playing cards. We're here for the duration."

Willum sagged in his harness. Thank G.o.d . . .

"All right, everybody unstrap," Hart said, unsnapping his own harness. His boots thumped against the deckplates. "Good job, Red. Anybody hurt?"

"No, Doug," the Bolo responded.

It gave Willum an odd feeling to know that his vitals were being monitored by his transport system. FTL ships weren't equipped with that invasive feature. Dammit, I should've done more careful reading on those specs like we were told. He was certain the Bolo could provide him with whatever data he needed; but his incomplete information was dangerous. He'd fix that, p.r.o.nto.

"That's great, Red. You did a fabulous job getting us down in one piece. Run a complete systems check on yourself and report."

Hart didn't look nearly so grim, now that they were down. In fact, he had a nice, friendly smile. "You all right, DeVries?"

Willum poked a tongue at his teeth. "Yeah. I think they're all intact."

Hart laughed. "Unstrap. You have work to do. I want Red checked stem to stern."

"Yessir," he said, struggling with the harness release. Either he was fumble-fingered or it was stuck. He flushed, caught his breath, and tried again.

Hart glanced at a sensor eye. "Status, Red?"

"Systems check in progress. Chameleon screens reconfigured to match color and texture of surrounding sedimentary bedrock and water. Probability of detection by Enemy 0.093 percent unless tight-beam search sensors touch the Chameleon screens. My systems are functioning normally except for an alarm in my food-processor unit. I would like DeVries to look at it when there is time. Hopper--do you prefer Danny?--may I suggest breathing slowly and evenly through a fine-mesh cloth? Report to Medi-Unit, please, and I will a.s.sist you. Yes, Danny, that's the console in the forward starboard corner next to the head.

"Doug, Target Prime lies 91.3 kilometers northwest of our current position. That would place it upriver of our landing site. A good map in my data banks suggests a direct route is available once we leave the confines of this canyon. According to my on-board colony maps, the canyon walls open onto a broad river valley 61.7 kilometers upstream. A boat landing for rented pleasure craft should provide excellent egress from this river. From there we can take a dirt access road to the main highway. I would suggest travelling during the day with Chameleon screens modified to approximate the heavy farm and mining equipment in widespread use on this world."

"Very good, Red. We'll let the furor die down before we try getting closer to Target Prime. A few days underwater will help convince the Deng they got all their incoming targets."

Willum was all for that.

"Para-wing stowed. I'll drain the water out of my tummy after we've come up for air."

Out in crew quarters, several crew members chuckled. Willum paused in his battle with the stubborn harness buckle and stared at the nearest speaker grill. The Bolo's voice was remarkable. She sounded like his grandmother. He could almost imagine a living surveillance tech reporting from a sensor-array display room in another compartment somewhere. Except there weren't any other compartments: just the cramped Command Compartment and the jam-packed Crew Compartment. The reaction the Bolo's voice set up in him was eerie, disturbing. He knew the Mark XXI was nothing more than a machine. Self-aware and fitting most definitions of sentience, perhaps; but a machine, nonetheless. Yet already he found himself wanting to think of it as her.

And why not? You think of your ship the same way.

Bonny's programming wasn't nearly as complex as a Mark XXI's, yet Willum was deeply attached to Bonaventure Royale. He began to understand a little better why Mark XXI crews reacted as they did.

Hart had opened the bulkhead door between Compartments. The Mission Commander glanced his way. "DeVries, quit hanging around in harness and get busy on that food-processor alarm. Then break out your gear and double-check Red's operational status. It'll help familiarize you with her systems. Banjo, let's perform a complete weapons check. Hopper, you especially, listen up. DeVries, move it!"

The Marine officers left him alone in the Command Compartment, still struggling with the unfamiliar drop harness, and closed the bulkhead door with a hiss of pneumatics. He finally unlatched his harness release. Willum sprawled ungracefully onto the floor. At least none of the crew had seen that embarra.s.sing display. He made it back to his feet and willed rubbery legs to hold him.

"Wonder where this food processor is I'm supposed to look at?" he muttered aloud, mentally reviewing what he'd studied nearly a year previously.

"Move aft," the Bolo responded. "It's in the port corner of my Crew Compartment, aft of the seats."

He jumped at least eight centimeters off the deckplates.

"I'm sorry, dear. I didn't mean to startle you."

"Uh-" He glanced around and found the camera lens that marked the Bolo's video pickup. "Hi. Didn't realize you were . . ." He trailed off and felt his neck grow hot. He sounded stupid and green.

A remarkably human chuckle issued from the speaker. "Don't feel embarra.s.sed, Willum. You've never been a.s.signed to a Bolo before. Welcome aboard, by the way."

"Uh, thanks. You're, uh, not what I expected."

"My programming provides for a closer simulation of human dialogue and verbal interplay than an FTL ship's programming. My duty is the welfare of this crew. I do my best to perform that duty."

"What happens when you lose a crewman?" Willum asked, thinking of the two men killed aboard Bonaventure.

The long pause surprised Willum. He'd never had a psychotronic unit delay an answer. "I grieve for them," the Bolo finally said. "Giurgiu Galati--although he hated that name; I always called him Specter, too--and Honshuko Kai were my boys. Specter and I had been together for seven years, three months, twenty-one days, six hours, five point seven minutes. Honey Pie and I were together from the day I was commissioned. The Enemy has robbed me of their company. May we discuss my damaged food processor instead, please?"

In that moment, Willum DeVries stopped thinking of her as the Mark XXI or even as just the Bolo. She became real to him, someone who'd lost friends same as Willum-same as anyone in the military since the coming of the Deng invasion fleet.

In that moment, she became "Red"--and, possibly, the only friend he would find on this mission.

"Sure. We can talk about something else. And . . . I'm sorry. I've lost friends to spodders, too." Willum cleared his throat. "Now, let's see about this processor."

"Thank you, Willum."

He gathered up his equipment packs and headed aft to the so-called galley, a tiny corner of the Crew Compartment where an automated food processor battled for s.p.a.ce with a refrigeration unit and a waste disposal unit. Either the crew ate off their laps or some kind of table could be raised between the seats. The crew's seats were bolted to the deck. Behind him, the men and their commanding officers were going through a very thorough weapons check. n.o.body paid him the slightest attention, except to grunt when he had to step over them to reach the "galley."

Willum dug out equipment and began to investigate circuitry he understood. "Ahh . . . Yeah, I think I see the problem. . . ."

It felt good to finally be useful again.

2.

Harry "Gunny" Hok.u.m closed the access panel which shut off the Command Compartment from the rest of Red's interior. Banjo glanced up, nodded, then went back to his screens, monitoring everything which came in via Red's sensors, packaging it for easier a.n.a.lysis, noticing any tiny anomaly that might mean danger to Red or her crew. Doug Hart, busy working with Red replanning their mission parameters now that they were the only surveillance unit left, swivelled around in his command chair.

"What's up, Gunny?"

He leaned his back comfortably against the closed door. "Got the men settled in. Everything looks fine; nothing damaged in drop."

"Good. What else? You look like a man with a problem."

Gunny scratched his elbow. "Yeah. Well, maybe. What can you tell me about the Frog?"

"Hopper?" Hart frowned. "Problems?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. He's green, scared pretty bad. The boys are shook up, losing Specter the way we did, and Honey Pie, too, and even though they're smart enough not to say it, well . . . It's pretty clear they don't have much faith in Hopper. That boy's rattled. I've got him working solo right now, doing maintenance on his weapons. Figured he needed something familiar to settle him down. But I gotta know what he's made of before we Dismount."

Hart nodded. "I glanced at the file Ish gave us before drop, but I haven't had much time to do more than glance. He's been a shipboard Marine since joining the service. He's never seen combat--but how many of 'em have? G.o.dd.a.m.n fuzzy spiders . . ." Gunny and Banjo muttered agreement. Hart pulled at his lower lip. "I remember reading he graduated well in his cla.s.s, so they haven't stuck us with a stupid replacement. Red? What can you tell us we haven't already covered?"

"Danny qualified expert with all weapons for which he is rated. He is seventh-generation career Marine. His grandfather was decorated for valor in the Halloran Campaign. He studied xen.o.biology, so is pa.s.singly familiar with the physical and psychological profile of the Enemy; as familiar as a Marine private with no field experience can be. I suspect this is one of the reasons Ish selected him, Doug. He has scored well on all field-combat tests and has hearing two points above the norm for human males his age.

"He has been nervous since boarding, potentially because his first combat mission is a dangerous a.s.signment with strangers rather than his shipboard comrades; but blood chemistry and pulse rate suggest he is calming down nicely. That was a good idea, Gunny, putting him to work cleaning his rifle. I would suggest making an effort to include him in group activities very soon. He needs to become part of this crew."

Hart nodded. "Yes, the sooner the better. We'll have a couple of days underwater for you to work on that, Gunny. Get him involved. Work on the others. How's Fritz?"

Gunny grimaced. "Crazy's spooked. h.e.l.l, you know how he and Specter were. d.a.m.n finest team I ever saw work together. He's got a bad feeling about this mission."

Hart didn't speak. From the tightening of his jaw muscles, Gunny knew his commander shared Crazy Fritz's feeling--maybe because of Crazy's gut reaction. It didn't make sense; but some men just seemed to know when trouble was coming, like a weathervane pointing the path of a storm front.

"Do what you can to loosen him up," Hart said at length. "We need him on edge, but not paranoid. How about you, Gunny? We had a bad start." Hart met his gaze squarely and held it.

Gunny didn't hesitate. "I got confidence in you, sir. We'll complete the mission."

Doug Hart grunted. "Good. I know I can count on you."

Banjo looked up from his screen. "And you, Doug? While we're baring our souls? Personally, I'm scared spitless."

Hart grinned suddenly. "You would be. You always did hate spiders."