“Oh shut up, Brindle,” Fitzpatrick said, annoyed that the young black man would take sides against him. Robb shook his head. “Your stupidity is more dangerous than those aliens are.”

With exaggerated patience and a steel-hard smile, Tasia touched Robb on the shoulder. “Thanks, Brindle. It’s nice to have a shining knight, but I have my own suit of armor—and it’s pretty damn tough.” She stepped around him toward the sarcastic trainee. “You have two choices, kleeb: Either apologize, or go to the infirmary.”

Fitzpatrick just laughed at her. Therefore, he had chosen the infirmary.

Tasia used the low Mars gravity to her advantage and launched her full body weight at him, swinging simultaneously with both fists to hammer his jaw and the top of his head. She sent him into the metal wall, kicked off from Fitzpatrick’s chest and heard a few ribs crack as she bounced away and rebounded from the ceiling. Tasia didn’t waste her breath, concentrating all of her energy into knees, elbows, feet, and fists.

The sarcastic young recruit fought back ineffectively, as if he’d always had other people around to protect him. Tasia smacked him hard in the nose, a choice blow that caused blood to spout from his nostrils. The gushing scarlet seemed to strip all the bravado from Fitzpatrick.

As if Tasia were a matador waving a red cape, his friends joined in against her, punching from behind, landing a hard blow across the back of her head. Outnumbered, she whirled to face the new antagonists, never backing down.

So Robb Brindle was drawn into the fray after all.

Both Tasia and Fitzpatrick ended up in the infirmary with bruises, contusions, cuts, and a few cracked bones. She found it ironic that she was tended by her own compy, who had been upgraded with first-aid programming to make her more useful at the base.

Both recruits received disciplinary censures—which meant nothing to her, but she could see from the squirming uneasiness on the spoiled trainee’s face that he was more afraid of his rich parents than of any damage it might do to his military career.

Tasia was released from the infirmary two full days ahead of Patrick Fitzpatrick III. Both of her brothers would have been proud of her.

81: BENETO

81BENETO

Because Corvus Landing was so far from any heavily populated Hansa colonies, Beneto’s roundabout passage took more than a month. The time gave old Talbun the opportunity to tidy up all the matters in his life.

Carrying a small potted treeling so that he could remain connected to the worldforest on the long journey, Beneto traveled on three different ships, transferring from a passenger vessel to a merchant ship and then to a freelance explorer, before he finally arrived at his new home.