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Happy?”
    â€œYeah.”
    His smile made her fumble a rolled pair of socks, and she called herself a sentimental ass as she bent to pick them up.
    â€œHappy unless,” he continued as she straightened, “you’ve got a bad feeling about this fight and you think this may be it.”
    She flicked an eyebrow in his general direction. “I’m going into combat. Of course this may be it.”
    â€œDamn.” One corner of his mouth twisted, turning the smile into a parody of itself. “I wasn’t expecting you to agree with me.”
    â€œDon’t worry.” She stopped herself before she could touch her fingertips to his on the screen, knowing that whatever the impetus for the cliché, no matter how much Craig would appreciate the gesture, she’d hate herself for it later. “I’m not that easy to kill.”
    He snorted. “Everyone’s easy to kill, Torin.”
    Moving a full GCT of fifty-four officers and 1,178 enlisted Marines from the station out through the lock tubes and into their packets on the Hardyr called for split-second timing and some inventive profanity. As all three GC companies, the recon platoon, and the engineers waited to board, the masses of black uniforms surging back and forth across the main loading bay looked, at best, like barely organized chaos. The chaos was unavoidable, but Torin had made damned sure that Sh’quo Company’s part in it at least was organized. Their armory had been loaded, their packets checked, their mess adjusted—Supply had its collective head up its ass if they thought Marines could survive a four-day Susumi jump and an indefinite time fighting on their idea of coffee rations.
    Slate in hand, she watched as C’arden Company moved its first squad over the lip and into the tube and grinned as Sergeant Perry, a distinct enough of this shit tone to his voice snapped out, “Double time, people! I’ll be right pissed if we miss the rest of the war!”
    First squad in set the pace, and double-timing half a kilometer with full gear should be no one’s idea of a rough time. They might even get all three companies loaded before the Marines on the short-list claimed their contracts were up.
    With Captain Rose and First Sergeant Tutone huddled up with their counterparts, Torin calmed Second Lieutenant Heerik, who was not handling the waiting well, broke up a shoving match between a pair of heavy gunners by threatening to link their exoskeletons to a dance biscuit, and joined Sergeant Hollice watching Corporal di’Merk Mysho repack her pack.
    â€œShe says fussing kills time,” Hollice said without being asked.
    Torin shrugged as Mysho smacked Sam Austin’s hand away from a bag of high-calorie chews. “She’s right.”
    â€œShe also said fukking would kill time.”
    â€œShe’s right again.”
    â€œExcept that we’re in ranks and I wouldn’t excuse her.”
    â€œBastard.”
    Hollice snorted. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she expressed an opinion on my parentage, too.”
    â€œYou need to learn more di’Taykan, Sergeant.”
    He snorted again. “Safer not to know, Gunny.”
    â€œIs Private Padarkadale praying?” His eyes were closed and his lips were moving, and a circle pendant dangled from one pale hand.
    â€œProbably,” Hollice allowed, rolling his eyes in the greenie’s general direction. “But we needed a religious one to complete the set.”
    Mashona was asleep, head on her pack, KC-7 cradled against her chest like an infant, long, dark fingers gently cupping the sniper scope. Boots off, slate held in prehensile toes, Ressk worked the screen with both hands—nose ridges clamped shut, lips drawn back off his teeth. Whatever he was working on, he was finding it a challenge. Given that he’d broken through station security so cleanly they’d remained unaware of the breach for almost six