First Platoon of Bravo Company, Bronze Battalion, The Empress' Own Regiment, was drawn up at attention in serried ranks on the forward side of the shuttle boat bay. The platoon's turnout was better than the Fleet's, which was only to be expected. The Bronze Battalion might be the "lowest" in the hierarchy of The Empress' Own, but they were still among the most elite bodyguards in the known universe. And that meant both the deadliest and the best looking.
It was Eva Kosutic's job to make sure of that. The thirty-minute Guard Mount had been, as always, precise and painstaking. Every centimeter of the uniform, equipment, and toilette of the individual Marines had been minutely inspected. In the five months she'd been Sergeant Major of Bravo Company, Captain Pahner had never found a single fault after she'd checked over the troops. And he never would, if Eva Kosutic had anything to say about it.
Admittedly, there were very few "gigs" for her to find. Before winning assignment to "The Regiment" all candidates went through an exhausting washout course. The five-week Regimental In-Processing, or RIP, was designed to remove the wannabes and combined all the worst aspects of commando training with intense inspections of uniform and equipment. Any Marine found wanting—and most were—was sent back to his unit with no hard feelings. It was understood that "The Regiment" accepted only the best of the best of the best.
Once a recruit survived RIP, of course, he found another hierarchy to deal with. Almost all of the recent "Rippers" were assigned to Bronze Battalion, where they had the inexpressible joy of guarding an overbred pansy who'd rather spit on them than give them the time of day. Most of them suspected that it was just another test. If they stayed hardcore and professional for eighteen months, they could either take a promotion to stay in Bronze or else vie for a position in Steel Battalion and protect Princess Alexandra.
Personally, Eva Kosutic was counting down. One hundred and fifty-three days and a wake-up, she thought, as the prince stepped off the landing mat.
The last notes of the Imperial Anthem died, and the ship's captain stepped forward and saluted.
"Your Royal Highness, Captain Vil Krasnitsky, at your service! Might I say what an honor it is to have you with us on the Charles DeGlopper!"
The prince gave the ship's captain a languid one-handed wave, and turned to look around the boat bay. The petite brunette who'd trailed him out of the tube stepped forward and around him with an almost unnoticeable flare of her nostrils and took the captain's hand.
"Eleanora O'Casey, Captain. It's a pleasure to be aboard your fine vessel." Roger's former tutor and current chief of staff gave the captain a firm handshake and looked him directly in the eye, trying to project some semblance of leadership since Roger was in one of his sulks. "We've been told there's not a crew in this class that can touch yours."
The captain glanced sideways at the distant nobleman for only a moment, and then turned back to the chief of staff.
"Thank you, Ma'am. It's good to be appreciated."
"You've won the Tarawa Competition two years in a row. That's proof enough for this poor civilian." She gave the captain a blinding smile and nudged Roger lightly with her elbow.
The prince turned to the captain and gave him a thin, remote, and fairly meaningless smile. The captain, blinded by the sight of royalty, gave a sigh of relief. Presumably, the prince was pleased and his career would avoid the shoals of royal disfavor.
"May I introduce my officers?" Krasnitsky asked, turning to the line of waiting personnel. "And if His Highness wishes, the ship's company is prepared for inspection!"
"Perhaps at a later time," Eleanora suggested hastily. "I believe His Highness would prefer to be shown to his cabin."
She smiled at the captain once more, already rehearsing her future explanation that the prince had suffered a slight case of motion sickness in the free-fall tube and that was why he was distracted. The excuse was weak, but having "spacephobia" would go over better with the ship's crew than explaining that Roger was being a pain in the ass on purpose.
"I understand completely," the captain said sympathetically. "Changing environments can be stressful. If I might lead the way?"
"Lead on, Captain. Lead on," Eleanora said with yet another blinding smile. And another elbow jab to Roger.
Just let us make it to Leviathan without Roger embarrassing me too hideously, she thought earnestly. Surely that isn't asking too much!
"Oh, Christ on a Crutch. It's Mouse."
Kostas Matsugae looked up from the day-jackets he was unpacking from their traveling containers. The equipment bay was rapidly filling with Bronze Barbarians... and from the way they were putting their own equipment into lockers, it looked to be a permanent arrangement.
"What is the meaning of this?" the diminutive valet asked, in a precise, spare voice.
"Oh, don't get your titties in a wad, Mouse," the first speaker, one of the longer service privates, said. "There's only so much space on one of these assault transports. I guess you're gonna have to shoehorn into the space heavy-weapons would take up. Hey, all," the private went on, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the conversations and clatter of equipment. "Mousey's in the compartment. So nobody start doin' the nasty on the benches."
One of the female corporals sashayed past the middle-aged valet, stripping out of her dress uniform as she went.
"Mousies, how I love them. Mousies is what I love to eat."
"Nibble on their toesies, nibble on their tiny feet!" the rest of the platoon chorused.
Matsugae sniffed and went back to unloading the prince's accoutrements. His Highness would want to look his best for dinner.
"I'm not going to take dinner in the damned mess," Roger said petulantly, pulling at a strand of hair. He knew he was being a spoiled brat, and, as always, it drove him crazy. Of course, the whole situation seemed expressly designed to drive him mad, he reflected bitterly, and gripped his hands together until the knuckles went white and his forearms quivered.
"I'm not going," he repeated adamantly.
Eleanora knew from long experience that arguing with him was probably a lost cause, but sometimes, if you ground away at one of Roger's sulks, he came out of it. Sometimes. Rarely.
"Roger," she started calmly, "if you don't take dinner the first night, it will be a slap in the face to Captain Krasnitsky and his officers... ."
"I'm not going!" he shouted, and then, almost visibly, gathered control of his anger. His whole body was shivering now, and the tiny cabin seemed too small to contain his rage and frustration. It was the captain's cabin, the best one on the ship, but compared to the Palace, or even the regal ships of the Empress' Fleet that Roger had traveled on previously, it was the size of a closet.
He took a deep, cleansing breath, and shrugged.
"Okay, I'm being an ass. But I'm still not going to dinner. Make an excuse," he said with a sudden boyish grin. "You're good at that."
Eleanora shook her head in exasperation, but had to smile back. Sometimes Roger could also be disarmingly charming.
"Very well, Your Highness. I'll see you tomorrow morning."
She took the single step backward to open the hatch and stepped out of the cabin. And almost ran over Kostas Matsugae.
"Good evening, Ma'am," the valet said, skipping aside despite an armful of clothing and accoutrements. He had to dodge again to avoid running into the Marine standing guard outside the door, but the Marine remained utterly expressionless and motionless. Any humor she might have felt at the frantic hopping about of the valet was quashed by iron discipline. The members of The Empress' Own were renowned for their ability to remain stone-faced and still through virtually anything. They occasionally had contests to determine who had the most endurance and stoicism. The former sergeant major of Gold Battalion held the record for endurance: ninety-three hours at attention without eating, drinking, sleeping, or going to the bathroom. It was the last, he'd admitted, which had been the hardest. He'd finally passed out from a combination of dehydration and toxin buildup.