"Master Chief Warshaw gave you an order, and you chose to ignore it. He did give you the order to draw up a blockade? Is that correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you decided against it?"

"I can draw up the plans and have them to you within the hour," Fahey said.

"That would be acceptable, Senior Chief," I said.

I turned to the other men in the room, and asked, "Do any of the rest of you have concerns that I need to know about?" When none of them said anything, I ended the meeting.

Watching the various NCOs file out of the room, I took stock of my situation. My fleet was stranded in s.p.a.ce, my first lieutenant was openly mutinous, and the captain of my Marines had a Fallzoud habit. The only planet my fleet could reach wanted nothing to do with us, and I wanted to start a war with the nation that had created me. I wondered if things could get any worse.

I soon discovered that they could.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

"You need to bust that p.r.i.c.k down," Thomer said, once the sailors left the room. "Slam his gay a.s.s in the brig."

"He isn't gay," said Hollingsworth.

"What do you mean he isn't gay?" Thomer asked. "The son of a b.i.t.c.h comes to staff meetings wearing makeup."

"Why do you think he wants to get to Norristown so bad?" Hollingsworth shouted the question. "Thomer, you don't know how good you had it."

As always, Thomer received that last comment with a certain lethargy. In an unnaturally subdued voice, he said, "We were ma.s.sacred by aliens and locked in relocation camps."

"That's not what I meant. I know they ran you through the wringer." Thomer's slow demeanor had a calming effect on Hollingsworth. He lowered his voice.

"The enlisted men on this ship have not seen a woman for four years. Until you guys came with plans to retake Terraneau, we had no reason to think any of us would ever see one again. Do you know what that does to a man?

"They're clones, Thomer, not eunuchs. If anything, their gonads are too active.

"Given a choice between a few months in a prison camp and a life sentence on a ship with nothing but men, which way would you go?"

"What about the makeup?" I asked.

Hollingsworth shrugged his shoulders and said, "Most clones would much rather give than receive. Men who are a little more, er, uh, flexible wear makeup to identify themselves."

"You thought you would never see a woman again?" Thomer asked. Sympathy showed in his eyes, but the downturn at the corners of his mouth made it clear he found the whole thing revolting.

"Wait, now . . . You and Fahey didn't . . . you know?" I asked.

"No," Hollingsworth said. "We weren't even on the same ship."

"Did you . . . you know?"

"Thomer, I didn't think I'd ever see any scrub again."

"Yeah, I guess so," Thomer said, sounding unconvinced.

It was time to put my cards on the table.

I looked over at Thomer and said, "Sergeant, I need to have a private chat with Sergeant Hollingsworth." He left without saying a word.

I could not trust Fahey and probably not Warshaw. Lilburn Franks seemed more interested in running the fleet than politics, but he was the only one. Because of the normally adversarial relationship between swabbies and sea soldiers, I thought I could count on Hollingsworth and the other Marines who came with the fleet. I hoped I could.

Now that it was just me and Hollingsworth in the room, I turned to him, and said, "Do you know what happens if you kill all the rattlesnakes? You get silent snakes instead.

"The only reason I didn't bust Fahey on the spot was because I always know where he stands. He's an a.s.shole, but he telegraphs his punches, and that makes him useful. Warshaw's a different story."

"Warshaw's all right," Hollingsworth said. Nervous that I had asked Thomer to leave, Hollingsworth went into full-fledged fight-or-flight mode. He paced the floor, rapped his knuckles on the table, and spoke in an unnecessarily loud voice. "I know Warshaw much better than I know Fahey, we've been on the same ship for six years. He's all right."

"You thought Fahey was cool, too," I pointed out.

"I still do," Hollingsworth said. "He's a good sailor. He just . . ."

"He practically declared a mutiny," I yelled. "He's trying to pick a fight with me. Do you know what would happen if I let him goad me into a specking war? Which way do you think his sailors will go?"

Hollingsworth sat down. He leaned back in his chair and considered the question but did not answer.

"Right or wrong, every sailor in s.c.r.o.t.u.m-Crotch is going to side with Fahey if I bust him," I said. "Think about that . . . and while you mull it over, I have another question for you. Where are your loyalties?" I fixed Hollingsworth with an angry glare.

He met my eyes and did not look away. "You know where I stand. I'm a Marine."

"Good," I said.

"So if it comes down to a fight between me and Warshaw, I have you at my back?"

"Yes, sir," Hollingsworth said.

"What if they accuse me of going against regulations?"

"Then I guess we both go to the brig."

"How about Unified Authority law?" I asked.

This time Hollingsworth took longer to answer. "What are you talking about?"

Now I spoke slowly and very clearly, making sure he caught the significance of every word. "Hollingsworth, if you have any questions about where your loyalties lie, you need to speak up. You are either all in or you're out."

"I'm in," he said. "I'm all in."

I took a deep breath, then I said what I had been hiding. "I want to declare war on the Unified Authority."

A heavy silence hung over the room like a storm cloud waiting to burst. I was not joking, and he knew it. "Does Thomer know what you have in mind?"

"He does," I said. On the flight back from Terraneau, I'd told Thomer exactly what I wanted to do.

"What kind of war? They're a trillion miles away," Hollingsworth said. "Don't waste your breath if you're planning to declare independence; they won't care. You'll just give Warshaw more ammunition to shoot you down."

"What if we can take the fight to Earth?" I asked.

"Attack Earth?" Hollingsworth mostly mouthed the words.

"Attack Earth," I said.

"Take my word on this one, Captain Harris, you can't hit them without a self-broadcasting fleet. Every man on this ship has spent the last four years of his life trying to figure out a way to get out of here. There is no way out."

"Would you come along for the ride if there was a way out?"

"You're serious about this?" Hollingsworth asked. "You're really serious about this?"

"Sergeant, you know why we are out here. How do you feel about being abandoned on the outer edge of known s.p.a.ce?"

"Have you discussed any of this with Warshaw? Sooner or later he's going to need to hear about this," Hollingsworth pointed out.

"Yeah, I know."

"So how do we get back to Earth?" Hollingsworth asked.

I told Hollingsworth something that I had told to only one other person-Thomer. I told him about a self-broadcasting fleet that was even larger than the Earth Fleet. The only problem was that all of its ships had been destroyed.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

Three days after we returned from Terraneau, I called Hollingsworth over the ship intercommunications system. "Sergeant, I hear you know how to fly a transport."

"I haven't logged many hours, but I had the training," he said. "There's not much to it."

"I have an errand I need to run on Terraneau," I said. "Think you can take me?"

"Yes, sir," he said.

"It's a private matter, Sergeant. Do you think you can keep a lid on it?"

"Yes, sir, I won't discuss it with anyone, sir," he said.

"Meet me in the docking bay, in thirty minutes. I already have a transport signed out."

Ava seemed excited to leave. I took this personally, of course. In my mind, she wasn't leaving the ship behind, she was leaving me. When I asked her why she was so excited to go, she talked about "solitary confinement" in my quarters and days spent hiding in the shower.

I watched her dress in her combat armor. She stepped into boots that made her three inches taller. Then she strapped on the various plates, rigid scales that camouflaged her sensuous curves and contours.

"Are you going to miss me?" I asked.

"Of course I will miss you," she said, examining herself in the mirror. I sounded needy and hated myself for it. She sounded unaware of me, and I hated her even more.

"Are you nervous?" I asked.

"Not at all." She combed her hair with her fingers, spreading the silky strands out, then twisted it into a knot so that it did not fall below the base of her helmet.

"I'll talk to Doctorow. I'll explain everything."

"Of course you will," she said.

"He'll take care of you."

"I'm sure he will, darling." She fitted the helmet down over her head. I had hoped she would kiss me before she sealed herself in her helmet, but I suppose it did not occur to her. She turned to me, and asked, "How do I look?"

"Like a Marine," I said.

"We should get going," she said, as she started for the door. Then she stopped. I hoped she would take the helmet off and kiss me. Who knew what might have happened if she did, we could afford to be a few minutes late. But she looked back, and said, "Maybe you should go first, Harris. You know, just in case someone's in the hall."

I stepped out the hatch, looked up and down the corridor, then brought her out.

The docking bays were on the same deck as the Marine compound. It only took a few short minutes to walk to the bay. Hollingsworth had the transport open, and we walked in.

He met us in the kettle. Hollingsworth and I wore our Charlie service uniforms. Ava, of course, had needed to keep her armor on. She looked out of place, like a man in a suit and tie on a beach.

"Sergeant Hollingsworth, this is Corporal Rooney," I said.

Ava knew enough about Marines etiquette to pa.s.s. Trained actress that she was, she used body language to convey a lack of interest in Hollingsworth. She walked up the ramp, leaving Hollingsworth and me in the bay.

As Ava moved away, Hollingsworth asked me. "Why is he dressed in armor? Is he on some kind of field mission?"

"Don't ask," I said. "Everything dealing with Corporal Rooney is on a need-to-know basis."

A grim expression crossed Hollingsworth's face, and he acknowledged this with a nod. "Yes, sir," he said. "I'll take us out."

It only took fifteen minutes to fly the three thousand miles from the Kamehameha to the airfield. Ava and I spent the time in the dark and silence of the kettle, sitting side by side on the wooden bench that ran along the walls. She kept her helmet on in case Hollingsworth came down. We did not hold hands, and we spoke very little. I did not want to risk Hollingsworth's overhearing us. How could I explain hiding a woman aboard the ship to a man who had not seen a woman in years?

Moments after the transport touched down, and the kettle doors opened, Hollingsworth slid down the ladder and asked me if he should "keep the meter running?" I told him that I needed to drive Corporal Rooney into town and asked him to inspect the engineers' progress around the airfield while I was gone.

"Is Rooney coming back to the Kamehameha with us?" he asked.

"I don't see how that is any of your specking business, Sergeant," I said. He saluted and left to inspect the airfield.