“Geo-sync?” Milla asked when she managed to get Savoy’s attention.

He responded over the radio link, still examining her equipment along with his own. “Geosynchronous orbit. She’s getting us in position for insertion.”

“Ah…” Milla responded, her tone making it quite clear that she had little idea of what he meant. Savoy didn’t take the hint; he finished checking her suit and equipment and then bent to his own equipment with cool professionalism. Milla let it drop.

Lieutenant Savoy looked around at everyone, noting that some of the faces were still visible within their armored helmets. “Combat standards, people.”

Milla blinked at the odd words, glancing up just in time to see the clear faceplates of the armor soldiers around her suddenly shift and blacken until she was looking at a rank of faceless men in alien armor.

“You too,” Savoy said, turning to her.

“H…how?” Milla asked in confusion.

“It’s not difficult,” he told her, opening his tac-net HUD as he did.

Milla jumped as a bank of lights and diagrams lit up inside her helmet, following the sweep of her eyes.

“Calm down,” Savoy instructed her. “Watch the center of the screen. You see the highlighted square? It’s red.”

“Y…yes, I see it.”

“Eyeball the screen. Watch for movement.”

Milla did as he told her and watched as the square turned blue and another beside it turned red.

“Third square over…the one with the picture of a shield.”

“S…shield?”

Savoy sighed. “The blue thing with the white star. Highlight that square.”

“Oh…okay,” she said when she had done it.

“Say ‘activate.’”

Milla spoke hesitantly. “Activate.”

To her, nothing seemed to change, except that the pictures grew smaller and lined the bottom of her screen.

Similar to, though less sophisticated and versatile than, the cam-plate armor technology that protected the Odyssey and the Archangels, the personal armor used faceplates designed from a hardened transparent aluminum originally created for the windscreens of military Hummer assault vehicles.

Since then, the material had been improved several times with nanoscopic-level upgrades, allowing it to change its molecular structure between a default clear mode and a laser-resistant opaque mode that required a constant power feed to maintain.

The power trickle was minute, but its requirement kept soldiers from being totally blinded on the field if, for one reason or another, they found themselves without power.

“Green in sixty!” the pilot announced. “Lockdown in five! We’ve got enemy fighters inbound! Prepare for combat maneuvering!”

Five seconds later, the hatch between the command deck and the troop section slid shut, sealing tightly. Milla jumped at the loud, metallic clang that echoed even through her suit. Around her, the troops snapped to their feet, or as close to it as they could manage in zero-g.

“Snap in, boyos!” Savoy yelled over the common tac-frequency. “I’m blowing the hatch!”

A soldier beside her grabbed a safety line from her belt and clipped her onto an overhead railing before doing the same to himself. “Hold on,” he said, not unkindly.