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to them go back and forth. She put her hands on her hips. “Well Haisha. Should I leave you two kids alone with your books?”
    All three of them laughed. “Hey,” Jonny said. “Let’s float over to my cold stash and have something tasty.”
    “Sure thing,” Miranda-Naero said.
    When they got to a coded storage hatch, Jonny punched it open with his thumb. “I got three bottles of ice cold Spacer poteen,” he bragged.
    Naero nearly fainted.
    He also had about six four paks of Jett behind that.
    “Make mine Jett, please,” she nearly stammered. “In fact, I’ll pay you top market price for one of those four paks, and be your goddam friend for life.”
    Jonny Fox took out one of the cold four paks and tossed it to her straightaway. “No, charge, Allen. Consider it a gift…friend for life.”
    By then Miranda-Naero had snapped one open and guzzled it down.
    Chime laughed. “Haisha, I think she likes that stuff.”
    “I do, too,” Jonny said, and grabbed a pak for himself. Chime still took a bottle of poteen for herself, holding it protectively.
    “Dang, that was good!” Miranda-Naero exclaimed, chucking the empty borbble into the recycler. “I sure as hell needed that. Guys, I’d get transfusions of this stuff if I could. I love it that much.”
    Jonny closed and secured his stash, and smiled. “Well, if anyone blasts my cold stash open, I’ll know who the hell it was, Allen. I hear they call you Brighteyes now.”
    “Oh, they’re just being generous.”
    They wandered into the ship’s gallery to play some vidgames. Other Marines joined them there, and they had a great time goofing off.
    Jonny Fox pulled her aside at one point. “Hey, Allen. Do me a favor and help me look after my cousin Chime. I worry about her.”
    “Why is that? She seems as competent as any other Marine, just like the rest of us.”
    “Yeah, I know she can handle herself. But it’s a long story. We’re the last two surviving kids our great-granny has. Everyone else died off during the wars. And sometimes, I just have dreams about something bad happening to her. Not me. I’m a survivor. But I keep worrying something bad is going to happen to Chime. She was always greatgran’s fave.”
    “Friend for life, you have my word. I’ll look out for my gungirl Chime. Good enough?”
    “Thanks, Allen. Very glacier of you.” They clicked Jett borbbles together.
    They sat up bullshitting, drinking Jett, while Chime sucked down Poteen and fell asleep between them with her head on first Naero’s and then Jonny’s shoulder, smacking her lips in her sleep. Chime looked very pretty like that.
    A Marine named Peter Cooper came by to return a book to Chime. Naero took it and assured Pete that she’d tell Chime how much he enjoyed the hell out of that historical thriller she gave him.
    Miranda-Naero went to sleep in her bunk that night, after putting Chime to sleep and dodging Acer’s stupid advances again.
    She was going to have to kick that dumbass Romeo silly at some point.
    She sent a quick report to Klyne, coded through normal channels, noting that she had not revealed her special status with Company 36 as yet.
    Somehow, she had a feeling that it was going to come out at some point on Ptolemy-5. On this system, it was a full-on, planet-wide war that they were jumping into.
    And as usual, the local landers were slowly losing. The Ejjai invaders had only been onworld for ten days. The entire local population of two billion Joshua Tech humans had done their best to fully mobilize to resist them, and continued to take heavy losses. Only their superior numbers were holding the enemy off, but they were clearly no match for the invaders on their own.
    Intense fighting raged around and throughout all five of the major gigacities. Hot did not begin to describe what Bravo Command and Company 36 would be storming into. They had been lucky on Ovedar-3. Bravo had caught the invaders before they could do their worst.
    But the meatships and the