The old King smiled gravely, then bowed his head. “I will do whatever is best for my people.”

Basil gave him a grim smile. “You will do whatever I tell you to do.”

64: TASIA TAMBLYN

64TASIA TAMBLYN

When the greenhorn military recruits were faced with a real-time emergency decompression drill, their panic was so palpable that Tasia Tamblyn had to laugh. Three stern drill sergeants hustled the new EDF trainees into a domed hangar bay in the lunar military base. Then the doors hissed shut, and a timer appeared on the wall, its numbers ticking inexorably down. Klaxons and rotating magenta lights heightened the sense of dire emergency.

Tasia was completely at ease with the standard decompression stuff, and she offered to help the wet-behind-the-ears Eddies, but they distrusted Roamers on general principles. So she stood back and watched their comically earnest efforts to do the things she had done all her life.

The soldiers, mostly young men, scrambled about, unaccustomed to the low lunar gravity, tripping and racing to the suit lockers. With the clock running down, they rummaged through the assortment of mismatched gloves, helmets, and silvery bodysuits. Many panicked recruits spent more time staring at the timer than securing their suit components.

After growing up as a Roamer, Tasia could slip on a space-suit with her eyes closed, though these EDF models were unnecessarily thick and clunky, lacking the convenient streamlined Roamer modifications. She reminded herself that the Earth Defense Forces had other priorities beyond the comfort of their soldiers. Still, they should at least have been concerned with efficiency. Maybe she could modify her own equipment later; she knew a thousand ways to fix the things that bothered her about the design.

Two recruits squabbled over a single helmet that matched the red-colored striping of their suits; Tasia selected a bluemarked helmet, knowing that with a simple twist of a knob and a collar adjustment, the pieces would all fit together anyway. With a slow shake of her head, she watched their antics. Let the kleebs suck vacuum. It might pull some of the disrespect out of their throats.

She’d had valid reasons for answering the call to enlist, unlike these spoiled show-offs. After the Oncier attack, a few losers had gotten drunk and talked each other into signing up for a stint with the EDF. They’d probably wet their pants if they ever came face-to-face with a true enemy, and Tasia would have to figure out a way to clean up the mess. If the alien attack on the Blue Sky Mine weren’t so vivid in her mind, the situation here would have been funny.