She wasn't the only one annoyed that their leave had been postponed. Arcturus had planned to return to Korhal to see his mother and Little Dot. He hadn't been back to see them since he'd joined up, though he had written to them plenty of times over the Confed-network.

His mother had eventually answered, though her words didn't have the same openness and warmth as did the letters she had sent him at the academy. Her correspondence was filled with news of his sister and of Korhal (and its troubles) but made little mention of his father beyond his continued good health.

Dorothy hadn't replied to him at all, and he knew she was probably still smarting with annoyance at his sudden departure. Hopefully, once this mission was over, he'd have a chance to patch things up with his family, as the last year and a half had made him realize how much he missed them.

Even his falher, which surprised Arcturus immensely.

Of course, (here had been a greal deal of correspondence between Arcturus and Juliana, and it seemed she remained interested in him though light-years separated them.

They had arranged to meet on Tyrador IX before he headed onward to Korhal when his next period of leave eventually came through, and he was forced to admit he was looking forward to seeing her again.

Arcturus's reverie ended when Yancy nodded his helmeted head toward him and said. "I'll bet you anything LT already knows where we're headed. Yeah, a hundred credits says he already knows."

"Hell, I'd take that bet if I thought you had the damn cash," said Chuck Horner, his broad, fringe world grin robbing the comment of malice. Horner was what Arcturus's father would have disparagingly called "a good ol' boy," a thick-shouldered, broadfeatured hayseed from one of the outlying worlds in the Confederacy where they counted themselves lucky if they had electricity throughout the day.

On the surface, that's exactly what Charles "Chuck" Horner was, and Arcturus had been surprised to find a sharp mind and quick wit behind his "aw shucks" exterior.

"But you ain't got two cents to rub together," continued Chuck. "Leastways not after me and Chun Leung won everything but your panties the other night at poker."

"You got lucky," said Yancy.

"Lucky?" drawled Chuck. "My daddy and his daddy before him was playing army poker before you was a glint in your mama's eye. Taught me everything I know, son."

"Oh yeah?" countered Yancy. "Wanna try your luck again tonight?"

"What you got to bet with?" put in the aforementioned Chun Leung. "I already got your money and your chocolate rations for the next week. You don't got anything else the Big Dog wants to take off you."

"I'll clean Mayumi for a month," offered Yancy.

"Boy wants to gamble," de Santo said with a laugh.

"No way," said Chun Leung, hefting his Impaler rifle across his lap to stroke the gleaming, oiled barrel. Mayumi was the name Chun Leung had given to his rifle, his pride and joy. He kept the rifle obsessively oiled and cleaned, and where everyone else's gun was battered and scratched, Leung's weapon looked as though it had come straight from the factory.

"I'm the only one who handles my weapon," said Leung.

"Yeah, that's what the girls on Pridewater said too," quipped de Santo.

Leung flipped her off. "You want a piece of me?" he said. "I'll show you why they call me the Big Dog, little girl."

Arcturus listened to the banter, sensing the undercurrent of fear behind their easy back-and-forth. Thus far, the commanders of the 33rd hadn't seen fit to post them anywhere too dangerous, but even though his soldiers had only mess tent scuttlebutt to go on, they could sense this assignment would be different.

Only one member of the section didn't join in on the banter, and Arcturus knew that if there was a God somewhere in the heavens, he had a strange sense of humor.

Toby Mercurio, another graduate of Styrling Academy, sat across from Arcturus, his face downcast and his shoulders slumped. Having spent the last six months trying to brine Mercurio up to the standard of the rest of the section, Arcturus knew that the life of a soldier was not for his fellow alumnus.

Though Mercurio's parents had been wealthy enough to send him to an expensive school, the boy wasn't really Styrling Academy material. He'd scraped by academically, but it had been his above-average performance on the padball courts that had allowed him to graduate.

But above average didn't cut it in the professional circuit and without the safety net of any real qualifications, Toby had floundered in the real world. A series of meaningless, paper-shuffling jobs at one of his father's plants had ensued—all of which he'd spectacularly failed at—followed by a drunken afternoon that had seen him wake with a crushing hangover and a sheaf of signed enlistment papers.

In the eighteen months since Arcturus had joined up, he'd found that a soldier's life consisted of long stretches of boredom, followed by frantic periods of deployment and shouting. Which, in Dominion section's case, had been followed by yet more periods of boredom.

This assignment looked as though it might involve some action and, as surprising as it was to him, Arcturus realized he was looking forward to the prospect of combat. He'd trained to fight in combat armor and could fire a gauss rifle with a reasonable degree of accuracy, but it was his understanding of battlefield tactics, combined with his talent for inspiring those around him and making the impossible sound plausible, that had seen him rise to the level of lieutenant. Senior officers had their eye on him to ascend the promotions ladder, but before he could really embark on that climb, he needed some real combat under his belt.

Hence Dominion section's deployment to Sonyan.

"So come on, LT," said Chuck Horner. "Is the kid right? You know why we're out here?"

Arcturus felt the eyes of his section turn on him, their faces blurred slightly through the low-grade plasteel of their helmet visors.

"Yes, Charles," said Arcturus, knowing the others got a kick out of his using Chuck's full name. "I do know why we're out here. I'm an officer—it's my job to know."

"So what's the skinny?" asked Yancy, leaning forward. "Pirates? Rogue merc bands terrorizing helpless colonists and their pretty daughters?"

"Something like that," agreed Arcturus.

Whoops and hollers echoed over the comms at the prospect of actually putting their training into practice. Arcturus held a hand up to quiet his section and said. "We're dropping on a planet called Sonyan, specifically Camp Juno, where we're to rendezvous with other elements of the 33rd and facilitate the evacuation of personnel involved in illegal deep-core mining operations."

"We gonna get to kill anyone?" asked Chun Leung, patting Mayumi's muzzle.

"I hope not," said Arcturus, "but it's likely many of the people on Sonyan aren't going to want to leave their holdings."

"Well, damn, we got to show them the error of their ways," said Chuck Horner, highflying with Chun Leung. Yancy and Dia looked excited at the prospect, but, as usual. Toby Mercurio didn't join in.

"I bet I kill more than you, Dia," said Yancy.

"Sure you will," sneered de Santo. "Boy, you barely know which end of that gun to point at the enemy. We get into a fireflght, you make sure you stay in front of me, you hear?"

Lines of scrolling text flickered onto the HUD of Arcturus's armor and the red light of the compartment began flashing.

"Quiet down," he said, his voice easily cutting through the good-natured sparring. "We're coming in to land, so look sharp."

Before Sonyan, Arcturus had seen precisely three other planets. Growing up on Korhal, a lush, temperate world of balmy summers and mild winters, he had assumed that most other habitable worlds in the Confederacy would be much the same. His training on the colossal orbital shipyards of Dylar IV and his first tour on Pridewater had quickly disabused him of that notion, emphasizing the point that humans could live pretty much anywhere with enough perseverance.