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Majanita. He skidded his chair back to give him space to perform his best rendition of the Gallic shrug that Del-Marie had taught him. Del-Marie Sandure was no more French than Arun, but most people who’d survived this far into Marine training had adopted a personality weirdness or two. Everyone understood the need for a coping mechanism. If Del wanted to pretend he was French, his Delta Section mates were happy to indulge him.
    “Oh, c’mon. Top fives are always fun,” Arun insisted. His grin faded. “Or were until you all lost your sense of fun. Anyway, it’ll give us something else to think about during inspection. I’ve got a feeling we might need distracting.”
    Lying on his bunk – or rack as they were learning to call them now they were cadets — Del-Marie sighed. “Arun, you’re becoming tiresome.”
    “Oh, am I?” said Arun cheerfully. “You’re only saying that because everyone already knows your list. Your favorite is Bernard. He’s your number 2, 3, 4, and 5 too.”
    “His name is not Bur-nerd. It’s Berr-narr.” Del-Marie rolled his r’s in a way Arun had never managed to imitate.
    Madge reached over the dorm table and placed a well-manicured hand over Arun’s. “Darling, Arun,” she said in her breathy voice that some called flirtatious, and others called dumblitted, “I don’t like to generalize but listing one’s top vulley-buddies is such a boy thing. And an obsession strongest in the least mature of your gender.”
    Arun smiled, not minding the ribbing from Madge. Her vampish act had all but disappeared in the last few weeks, smothered under a heavy cloak of seriousness.
    Springer snorted derisively, flashing her violet eyes at Arun — literally. Scattered through the Marine cadets were many unintended consequences of the genetic manipulations the Jotun scientists had engineered in their ancestors. The vibrant color of Springer’s eyes, and the ability to illuminate them, was one of the more obvious. And attractive.
    Madge steamed on. “A more useful topic for discussion is whether we’re entering any teams in the Scendence competition this year.”
    “You’re getting boring,” Springer told Arun, ignoring Madge. He was shocked to see real anger in her eyes. “All you ever want to do is invent excuses to spout off about that skangat girl. For frakk’s sake, why don’t you ask Xin if she wants you to prong her? Then she’ll shoot you down in a ball of plasma and–” Springer rolled her eyes “– we won’t have to listen to you prattle on about her ever again.”
    An impish grin came to Brandt’s face. “Springer’s only saying that because she wants you in her rack all to herself.”
    “Shut up, Brandt!” shouted everyone else in the room. He’d been assigned the section leader role in the tunnels, but his temporary rank vanished the moment the exercise ended.
    Brandt seethed.
    Cristina emerged from the head. “Did I miss something? What’s going on?”
    Several pairs of eyes glanced at Brandt and rolled in their sockets.
    “The question remains,” said Zug, ever the one to steer a conversation back on course, “how many Scendence teams are we entering?” He paused from cleaning the personal locker at the foot of his rack. “Alistair LaSalle will want to team up with Alice Belville. They’ll take Gunnery and Deception and pick the best players in Charlie Company for the other positions. That’ll probably include Hortez. Del-Marie we can trust to keep our secrets, but will be playing Gunnery in a team with Bernard. Am I correct, Del-Marie?”
    Del nodded. “If I play this season, it won’t be with any of you.”
    “Forget Alistair,” said Madge. “As for Hortez, if our temporary squad leader thinks he’s too good for the rest of us then let him play with Alistair. I don’t care what they do, I intend to play Gunnery in a Blue Squad team.” Madge’s tone was serious again now. Cadets from other units often used to underestimate Majanita as