“Later,” he said. “After the exercise. It’s going to be a longer conversation.”

“All right.” As he stopped to check his uniform in front of the mirror, she rolled her eyes. “You’re pretty enough for both of us, Brightwell.”

“Charmed you think so, Squad Leader. You’re quite handsome yourself today.” Handsome was a good description. Glain had chopped her dark hair closer for convenience; it suited her, he decided, and fit well with the solid curves of a body made for endurance and strength. There was no attraction between them, but there was respect—more now than before, he thought. Some, like Oduya, might mistake it for something else. She might be right to be concerned. Jess met her eyes in the mirror. “That compliment stops at the doorway, of course.”

She nodded. It seemed brisk, but there was a look in her eyes that he thought might be some form of gratitude. “Stop preening and let’s go.”

They left his room together, but, thankfully, no one was in the hall to see it. The squad had gathered toward the end, talking casually, but all that stopped as Glain approached. Jess silently took position with the rest of the squad, and Glain led them out at a fast walk for the parade ground. Despite his sweaty weariness, he looked forward to this; it was a chance to let a little of his anger out of that locked, chained box. There wouldn’t be any real surprises. It was just an exercise, after all.

He was dead wrong about that, and it cost him.

They were in the tenth long hour on the exercise ground when Jess saw a flash of movement from the corner of his eye and tried to turn toward it, but he was hampered by thick layers of cloth and the flexible armor, and just simply too slow, too tired, and too late.

A shot hit him squarely in the back.

Then he was on the ground, looking up at a merciless Alexandrian sky scratched white by the heat, and he couldn’t breathe. The pain crushed all the air out of his chest, and for a split second he wondered if something had gone badly wrong, if all the safety measures had failed, if he was going to die . . . And then his frozen solar plexus unlocked and he gulped in a raw, whooping mouthful of air.

A shadow blocked out the burning sun, and he knew her by the short-cropped halo of hair that bristled up. After blinking a few times, he saw that Glain was holding out a hand to him. He bit down on his pride and took it, and she hauled him to unsteady feet.

“What the hell did you do wrong, Brightwell?” she asked him. There was no sympathy in her voice. He shook his head, still intent on getting breath back in his lungs. “I told you all to watch your backs. You didn’t listen. If these weapons had been loaded with real ammunition, you’d be a mess to clean up right now.”