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down.
    Barencoin blew out a long breath. “Well, hurrah for the Boss, but we might have got home sooner without her.” He was a good bloke, but he wouldn’t say a cheery word even if his nuts were clamped in a vice. “We’re still fucked.”
    â€œOkay, Mouth Almighty, that’s down to me,” said Ade. “I could have sorted a deal for you before we embarked, but there was the small matter of not being able to hand over Rayat, remember? Anyway, I’ll bet they wouldn’t have honored the deal. It’ll be easier now we’re back.”
    â€œWhat if we’ve changed our minds?” said Jon Becken.
    â€œWhat do you mean, changed your minds ?”
    â€œMaybe we want to be civvies now. Jesus, it’s going to be hard going back to the FEU now that it’s almost at bloody war with Australia. You think we want to be fighting on different sides?”
    â€œWho said Ade was going to be fighting?” said Chahal.
    â€œEsganikan’s got her army.” Ade didn’t want to think about allegiances. His was clear: he didn’t belong on Earth, and he was here solely to keep an eye on Shan. “She doesn’t need me when she’s got that psycho bastard Kiir, does she?”
    The rest of the detachment—Qureshi, Chahal, Becken, and Sue Webster—dropped the subject and occupied themselves tidying the remnant of their uniforms. It was that awful limbo period when the fighting was over and the euphoria of going home was tarnished by frustration at delays in disembarkation. But this time there was no familiarity to rush back to—no partner waiting at home, no pubs to stroll back into and regale the regulars with tales from the front, no relief at the return to normality, because normal was gone for all of them, forever.
    It was the first time Ade had really felt that. It wasn’t just him; he wasn’t the only one permanently displaced. Even without his vastly altered genome, the other marines were now almost as alien as he was.
    We were fucked as soon as we left Earth. We knew that. But it takes awhile for the reality to bite.
    â€œWell, at least we’ve all got unique extrasolar experience of alien relations,” said Chahal. “Five distinct species, and lived to tell the tale. Good ad-quals, eh?”
    â€œChrist, you’ll have a career ahead of you in civvy management,” Barencoin muttered. He’d read international law at university and seemed completely unwilling to use it beyond being the proverbial barrack-room lawyer. “But you and Sue are all right. You’re engineers. Engineers are never out of work, even if you have to build lavatories.”
    Webster played with the focus again. The Eqbas ship was almost like a fairground attraction at times, and they were bored. “Mind your manners,” she said. “I build brilliant latrines.”
    â€œYou can live off the fees for media interviews,” said Qureshi. “You built a crapper on another planet. That’s got to be good for five minutes prime-time.”
    They were way behind on Earth technology—as if that mattered now—but they had a story to tell if nothing else. Ade suspected the story would first have to be told to the intelligence corps. They’d want details. Maybe that was the way to open the batting and get them reinstated. They want to be Royals again. And so did he, he really did, and he knew it now he was back on Earth: it was over for him, but it would only break his heart if he let it.
    â€œIt’s all right for the bloody navy,” said Becken. He meant the remaining crew of the unlucky Actaeon, the FEU warship blown apart in reprisal for the bombing on Bezer’ej. “They’re all squeaky-clean frigging heroes. They get welcomed back into the fold and debriefed, but we’ll be told to fuck off.”
    â€œCheer up, you miserable sod,” said Qureshi. “You don’t know that. I bet