Read Firemask: Book Two of the Last Legion Series for Free Online Page B

and the com man, moving in easy rhythm, as he’d done in many, many training patrols since taking over I&R, wondering why the hell he’d allowed himself to be talked out of being a nice quiet gunner on a Grierson, riding around high over this muck, letting his mind forget Mahan, Leggett, and people who were going to get married.
    • • •
    “ ‘Kay,” the wedding coordinator said briskly. “Now, imagine music … bumpbumpadump, bumpbumpadump … and the bride, that’s you, Jasith, will come through those doors, that’s right, no, more slowly, dear, you’ll lose your flower girls, and go to the center aisle, where Loy will be waiting.
    “You’ll hold the moment for the coms which’ll be up there, remote from the rafters, another one in this pew, a third from behind you, at the main entrance.
    “You bridesmaids, don’t pay any attention to the cameras, don’t wave, or play the fool, or you’ll get no champagne at the reception.
    “Now, let’s run through it … bumpbumpadump, bumpbumpadump, pause, turn, now start up the aisle, bumpbumpadump, bumpbumpadump, and here comes little whatsisface holding your train and what the hell do you want?”
    The portly red-faced woman was scowling at a slender woman with a com.
    “Florist, ma’am. I need to go over just where you’ll want the wreaths, and where the flowers from guests will go.”
    “For the love of … all right, girls. Take a break.”
    Jasith Mellusin slumped into a pew, wiped sweat. Mellusin was not quite the richest woman on C-Cumbre, heir to her murdered father’s mining empire, but close. She was just twenty, medium height, with a slender model’s body, black hair she kept long, and a pouty, provocative face.
    “This rehearsing is hot and stupid,” she said.
    “Not as hot and stupid as it’s going to be on The Day,” one of her bridesmaids, Karo Lonrod said. “Aren’t you glad you decided to get married, ha-ha-ha?”
    Lonrod was a year younger and a few centimeters shorter than Jasith, red-haired, with a slight tendency to chubbiness that her fanaticism for sports kept under control. She, like all the other women in the huge temple, was a Rentier, wealthy, and most aware of it.
    Jasith hesitated for a bare instant, then said, “It’s better than the alternatives. And I could use a drink.”
    “Who said it’s better?” Lonrod said. “I don’t plan on hitching to anyone ‘til I’m an old maid, maybe twenty-five, no matter what Daddy wants or what rich prick he tries to shove down my throat.”
    She giggled. “I didn’t mean what I said to come out like that.”
    Jasith managed a smile, looked around, saw no one was in earshot.
    “Karo, can I ask you something?”
    “Surely. Perhaps I’ll even give you an answer.”
    “You went out with Loy.”
    “I did.” There was sudden caution in the other woman’s voice.
    “What’s he like in bed?”
    Karo blinked at Jasith.
    “You mean you don’t know?”
    “No,” Jasith said, not looking at her friend. “I wanted to, but he said he wouldn’t, not with the woman he was going to marry.”
    “Oh boy.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “I don’t know what it means,” Lonrod said. “But I didn’t know there was anybody in our group that won’t screw anything that comes in range. Did he say why?”
    “No. He just said it was real important to him.”
    “That’s weiiiird,” Karo said. “But ‘kay, if that’s the way he thinks. He’s ‘kay in the rack. Isn’t as creative as some, but he stays there ‘til you go off, at least.
    “But he isn’t one of those go-all-night wonders like a couple you and I could remember.”
    Jasith’s serious expression dissolved, and she giggled.
    “As long as you asked me,” Lonrod said. “What was that soldier boy you were going out with like? And why’d you dump him?”
    Jasith’s laughter stopped suddenly.
    “I don’t really want to talk about him,” she said. “But I’ll tell you why I couldn’t stay with Garvin. Just