The seat straps bit into his body as the drop shuttle blew its clamps and accelerated away from the side of the Peregrine. Miles glanced up over the pilot's shoulder for a quick check of the planet's curvature sliding across the window, and a glimpse of his two fighter-shuttles peeling away from the mothership to cover them. They were followed by the Peregrine's second combat-drop shuttle, the other half of his two-pronged attack. His faint feint. Would the Bharaputrans take it seriously? You hope. He turned his attention back to the glittering global data-world supplied by his command headset.

He was not stuck with a squad leader's helmet after all. He'd commandeered Elena Bothari-Jesek's downside-team captain's gear, while she rode the tactics room back aboard the Peregrine. Bring it back without any unsightly holes through it, damn you, she'd told him, her lips pale with unexpressed anxiety. Practically everything he wore was donated. An oversized nerve-disruptor shield-net suit had its cuffs turned up and held with elastic bands at wrists and ankles. Quinn had insisted on it, and as nerve-disruptor damage was his particular nightmare, he hadn't argued. Sloppy fatigues, held ditto. The plasma-mirror field pack straps cinched the extra fabric around his body reasonably well. Two pairs of thick socks kept his borrowed boots from sliding around. It was all very annoying, but hardly his greatest concern while trying to pull together a downside raid on thirty minutes' notice.

His greatest concern was their landing site. On top of Thorne's building would have been his first choice, but the shuttle pilot claimed fears that the whole building would collapse if they tried to set the drop shuttle down on it, and anyway the roof was peaked, not flat. The next closest possible site was occupied by the Ariel's dead and abandoned shuttle. The third-choice site looked as if it was going to be a long walk, especially on the return journey when Bharaputra's security would have had time to set up countermeasures. Straight up the slot was not his preferred attack style. Well, maybe Sergeant Kimura and Yellow Squad in the second drop shuttle would give Baron Bharaputra something more urgent to think about. Take care of your shuttle, Kimura. It's our only backup, now. I should have brought the whole damned fleet.