Read Generation Warriors for Free Online

counseling, hours spent in a variety of cubicles resembling cold-sleep tanks of various types, even a couple of cold-sleep inductions, with the preliminary drugs taking her briefly .into unconsciousness.
    She thought at first she would simply go crazy, but the Venerable Master had been right: she could endure it, and come out sane. Valuable knowledge if she needed it, though she hoped she would not.
    By the time her other instructors approved her skills, her mind had found a new balance. She could see her past uncertainties, her flurries of worry, her bouts with envy and guilt, as the struggles of a creature growing from one form to another. Most people had some emotional turmoil in their thirties; at least some of hers was probably just that: growing out of one stage of life. She had been that person; now she was someone else, someone who no longer envied Sassinak's power or Aygar's physical strength. Her life made sense to her, not as a tragic series of losses, but as challenges met, changes endured and even enjoyed.
    The memory of her stuffier descendants no longer irritated her—poor darlings, she thought, they don't even know what fun they're missing—and Sassinak's potential for violence now seemed the appropriate foil for her own more pacific abilities. She could cherish Sassinak as a descendant, and respect her as an elder, at one and the same time, with a ruffle of amusement for the odd circumstance that made her both.
    Her last sight of the Mountain was of that same quiet pool, that same boulder, the door opening now in the hands of another novice. She knew her own face expressed nothing but calm; inside she could feel her heart smiling, feel the excitement of another chance at life with all its difficulties.

    Now the medical personnel in the corridors looked more like potential colleagues, and less like fortunate strangers who would never accept her. Lunzie checked into the Transient Physicians' Hostel at the first open terminal, and then entered the callcode the Venerable Master Adept had given her. The screen flashed briefly, then steadied as a line scrolled across it.
    "Lunzie... good news. Level 7, Concourse B, 1300 tomorrow," And that was that, and she was on her way.
    The Hostel, when she arrived at its door, gave her the clip to a single room with cube reader and datalink. She put her duffel on the single bed and touched the keypad. A menu of services available filled the wallscreen. She could find a partner for chess or sleep, purchase goods or information (to be included, with a service charge, in her hostel total), or roam the medical databases, all without leaving the room.
    She was tempted to send a message to Sassinak; Fleetcom, the public access mail system for all Fleet personnel, would forward it. But that might bring attention they didn't want. Safer to wait. She had almost a full standard day before meeting someone (the Venerable Master had not said who) the next day at 1300. She would use that time to make predictable inquiries, things anyone would expect her to want to know.
    She treated herself to a good meal at a cafe that occupied the space where, years before, she'd known a bar. The music now had a different sound, lots of chiming bells and some low woodwind behind a female trio. Back in her room, she fell asleep easily and woke without concern.
    Level seven of Concourse B still sported the apricot striped walls that made Lunzie feel she had fallen into a layered dessert. Various names had been tried for this section, from Exotic Epidemiology to Nonstandard Colonial Medical Assistance. None had stuck; everyone called it (and still called it, she'd found out) the Oddball Corps. Its official designation, at the moment, was Variant Medical Concerns Analysis Division... not that anyone used it.
    Lunzie presented her credentials at the front desk. Instead of the directions she expected, she heard a cheerful voice yelling down the corridor a moment later.
    "Lunzie! The legendary Lunzie!" A big