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

railing, listening to the clerk call the mail list: “Irthing … Bassas … Fleam …”
    He pared his nails with his combat knife, wondering what it’d be like to get a letter from someone, tried to pretend it didn’t matter that he never had.
    “… Bayle …
Alt
Jaansma …”
    Njangu looked up with a bit of surprise. Garvin got no more mail than he did, and Yoshitaro wondered who it could be from. Probably a dun from a tailor — Jaansma insisted on dressing like the illegitimate son of a Star Marshal that he occasionally claimed to be.
    He idly watched Garvin as the clerk finished the rest of the mail, handed out a few packages. Jaansma opened the small envelope, pulled out what appeared to be a card. His face reddened, and he looked around to see if anyone noticed. Njangu was busy with his nails.
    Garvin read the card once more, crumpled it, tossed it into a waste container, and went down the steps into the company area, bootheels thudding hard. A new troopie went by at the double, as required of all potential I&R recruits.
    “Hold it, soldier,” Garvin snapped.
    The striker broke stride, almost fell, froze at attention.
    “Yessir!”
    “There’s this thing called saluting,” the officer said.
    “Sorry,
Alt
Jaansma. Sorry, sir.”
    He saluted, Jaansma returned it ill-temperedly.
    “Carry on!”
    “Yessir. Sorry, sir.”
    The soldier watched Garvin pace away, his expression worried, as if this might be enough to get him returned to his parent formation, then ran on.
    Njangu went to the waste can, took out the crumpled card Garvin had tossed away, unwrapped it:
    LOY KOURO
    &
    JASITH MELLUSIN
    REQUEST THE PLEASURE AND HONOR
    OF
    YOUR COMPANY
    AT THEIR POST-NUPTIAL
    BEACH BACCHANAL …
    “Well, Jesus in lace,” Njangu muttered. “There are some
evil
humpers out there a lot worse than I ever thought of being.” He wondered who sent the invitation — the worthless Kouro or his bride-to-be. Yoshitaro’d never had much of an opinion of Jasith, other than the general disdain anyone growing up without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of had for the rich.
    He made a note to stay out of Garvin’s way until some days after the reception.
    At least
, he thought,
they didn’t invite him to the wedding. Probably afraid he’d strafe it with a flight of Griersons, which wasn’t that bad an idea. Get rid of a whole
flock
of Rentiers …
    • • •
    Two days later, an ebullient Ben Dill ricocheted into Garvin at the I&R Company’s landing field.
    “Kiss me,” he ordered.
    Garvin gave him a hard look, which Ben was oblivious to.
    “I just got my license ticked for deep space! I’se a real piloter! C’mon to the O Club and help me drink it in.”
    “Sorry,” Garvin said shortly. “I’m running late on the company report. Maybe another time.”
    He nodded, walked away.
    Dill stared after him.
    “Well excuse the
hell
out of me,” he said in a hurt tone. “And what’s the matter with my perfume today?”
    • • •
    Jon Hedley considered the aircraft park, then the camouflage nets, which blocked infrared and heat signals as well as sight.
    “We could have us,” he told
Mil
Angara, “a flipping good shipping company if we wanted.”
    Angara nodded.
    “Six freighters, eight yachts, a skedaddle of lighters, six converted customs patrol craft, all the Griersons and Zhukovs tested for out-atmosphere deployment … what more could we need?” Hedley said.
    “A destroyer, a cruiser, a battlewagon, a fighter-launcher for openers,” Angara said.
    “You surely know how to rain on somebody’s flipping parade. You’d think you were expecting, oh, say, the flipping Musth or maybe Alena Redruth.”
    “I expect everything, I expect nothing,” Angara said. “I am an open vessel.”
    “But you gotta admit we’re as ready as we’re able to be.”
    “We are,” Angara agreed. “I just wish we had more stuff to get more ready. At least we’re pretty well dispersed, so all there is to do is