"I think the codpiece is too big. You need to go smaller." Edwards smirked at me as he floated nearby, one hand holding onto a support strut. We were on the mobilization deck, deep in trooper territory on the Torchbearer. He had apparently decided that I was OK, despite being an officer, and so felt free to offer "constructive" criticism.

Kouvaras had anchored himself to the deck between my feet, floating in something like a crouch, staring up at my crotch. "Well, you certainly don't want any gaps that would allow you to rattle around in the suit, but I think this will work." He shoved the codpiece into place at my groin and smashed it closed with the heel of his hand.

I hung in the air spread-eagle, arms and legs pinioned by industrial looking equipment, wearing only a black polymer-skinned sensor net while machines measured my body, selected pieces of equipment from its stores and assembled my own suit of Multi-Environmental Combat Armor. Kouvaras assured me I'd only have to undergo this indignity once unless I started putting on weight. My legs and lower torso had already been assembled, and as I hung there more mechanical manipulators brought out modular armor components and began attaching them to my chest and back.

"You know, I'm beginning to regret questioning your zero-G training techniques."

"It's too late now," Kouvaras replied grimly. "You seemed to think our techniques couldn't stop a single unarmed girl so now you need to find out why we train the way we do."

"I told you, I wasn't thinking about combat armor when I asked that."

The corner of Kouvaras' mouth twitched as he continued inspecting my armor's seals. "What? You being an officer, I thought they paid you to think."

"Well, you know what they say," I laughed nervously as machines snapped more armored pieces into place leaving only my neck and head uncovered. "Behind every good officer is an NCO making him look good."

"So you can be taught."

Edwards moved over to a control panel and pressed buttons. "And soon you'll learn why we don't bounce around a lot in these suits."

"Bouncing around in these things is a good way to get yourself hurt or hurt someone else," Kouvaras added. "If you're not careful, you could even bounce your way right through the hull which isn't good for anyone."

I bit my tongue, hoping they'd soon forget this whole bouncing thing. I had adjusted to the call sign "Zoomer" as long as no one knew how I'd earned it. I didn't want to be known throughout the fleet as "Bouncer."

"OK." Having finished checking the seals, Kouvaras slapped my armor. "Let's button him up and do a quick systems check."

Edwards punched a button and the helmet attached to the back of my collar clamped down over my face. My ears popped as it equalized the air pressure. The heads-up display lit up in cool green and amber lights and a faint current of cool recycled airb rushed my face. In some ways, it was like being back in a fighter's cockpit.

"Com check. Can you hear me?" Edwards' voice came over the speakers in the helmet.

"I hear you."

"Stand by while we run a quick check." Edwards continued poking at the control panel then turned to Kouvaras. "Life support systems are good, control systems are good and the myocells are all powered."

"Are the safety governors on?" Kouvaras asked.

Edwards hurriedly tapped at the panel without looking at it. "Yes."

"Then activate the setae and let's turn him loose."

"Gecko powers activated," Edwards chuckled.

The restraints thunked open and I flexed my arms and legs for the first time in several minutes. I snatched at one of the restraints as I started to drift, the suit responding slowly to my movement.

"Just press your foot to the floor," Kouvaras said. "The setae in the soles of each foot piece are billions of sub-microscopic filaments that will grab onto the atoms of the decking by way of the van der Waals force. If you knew what you were doing, you could safely walk around the hull of the ship in a total vacuum without a tether."

"It feels kind of funny," Edwards warned, "like walking upside down on the ceiling. You have to pull the floor up to you with your attached foot."

With Kouvaras' help, I was able to stick my foot to the decking. I swung forward and managed to get my other foot out and attached to the floor. "I hope it knows when to let go and when not to."

"The suit's AI is pretty good at anticipating your intentions," Kouvaras said.

"I'm noticing a lag between when I start to move and when the suit responds."

"You can adjust the suit's response under the master control settings."

I looked at the settings icon in the upper corner of my vision, but the menu didn't appear. "Um, I'm not getting a menu."

"Oops, we forget the cybernetics calibration," Edwards said. He tapped his panel and a white screen with a large black arrow overrode my helmet display. "Try to move the arrow in the direction it's pointing."

"I've done this before," I said, feeling like a slow child and growing irritated. The arrow remained unmoving. "Of course it's been a while. My devices usually pass on my user settings to each other."

"This is all military hardware," Kouvaras said. "It's designed specifically not to inter-operate with civilian equipment."

The arrow lurched forward and I willed it to move again.

"Good," Edwards said when it had reached the edge of my visual field. "Again." The arrow vanished, replaced by another one in the center of my vision pointed the other way.

After a moment, I got it moving as well. It was soon followed by up and down arrows which were, in turn, replaced with a ball and circle.

"Move the ball into the circle," Edwards said.

I had to move the ball at about a thirty-degree angle to get it inside the circle at the edge of my vision. The display reset with the circle at a different angle.

"That's enough for now. We can fine-tune the interface later if necessary, though the AI will continue to adapt to your input through normal use." Edwards cleared my helmet's display. "Try your menu now."

I opened the master control settings and found the input sensitivity slider and moved it from the median setting to the maximum. "OK," I said and took a step forward. The suit lurched forward and I would have flown up and bounced off the ceiling had the suit not waited until my left foot was anchored to the floor before releasing my right foot.

"Whoa there speedy," Kouvaras said. "I think you might want to dial that back before you bounce off something important."

"I'm just getting a feel for the suit," I assured him, glad he couldn't see me blush. It took me a few minutes to get the hang of walking, then Kouvaras taught me how to control the setae through the cybernetic interface. This was necessary in order to learn how to jump. Half an hour later, I was making small leaps across the room and sticking to the walls and ceiling."

"You know, if this fleet officer thing doesn't work out, I could always use another pair of boots," Kouvaras said. "I figure I could get you rated in the assault armor in three or four days. What do you say?"

I laughed. "As soon as they figure out that I've been faking this whole fleet officer thing, I'll be lucky to get a clerk position with you troopers." Then I glanced down at the time display. "Uh, oh. Is it 18:30 already? Help me out of this thing, I've got to catch the next shuttle to the Blaylock."

"Oh? Got a date or something?" Edwards asked.

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"I don't believe it. Who?"

"Cathrine Kacsmaryk"

"The girl who kicked your butt in the zero-G combat ring?" Kouvaras sounded incredulous.

"Well..."

Kouvaras helped me walk the suit back into a storage locker and popped the seals. Edwards shook his head as I climbed out. "Going out with a girl who can beat you up is never a good idea."

"She didn't beat me up."

"I'm guessing he's looking for a rematch under more favorable conditions," Kouvaras said.

"Perhaps some form of wrestling," Edwards suggested.

"Sorry to spoil your speculations," I pulled my flight suit out of a nearby locker, "we're just checking out a new restaurant." I hurriedly slipped it on and left their leering smiles behind.

I made it to the hangar deck just in time to watch the shuttle leave without me.

"Crap!" I slammed the bulkhead as the small craft accelerated away.

"Is there something wrong, sir?"

I glanced back down the corridor. The trooper, Cruze, drifted towards me, fingertips lightly brushing the handholds on the wall as he passed.

"Oh, I just missed my transport."

"Where was it headed?"

"The Blaylock."

"Headed out for a little R&R?"

"I was."

"That's unfortunate. Me, I'm stuck on maintenance duty on the breaching pods for the rest of the shift. Sometimes I even have to take them out of the hangar for testing. It's a shame you don't have access to something like that."

I looked at him with renewed hope, tempered with irritation. I still wasn't in the mood to banter. "Are you saying you could get me over to the Blaylock?"

Cruze shrugged. "We'd need an officer to authorize it. Think we could find one?"

I pointed at the transport master's office door. "Don't just drift there, get going!"

"Hey, Lori. I need to take out one of the suicide barrels," Cruze said as we entered.

Lori Seaward, the spacer on duty in the flight attendant's office, sat back in her chair staring into the distance, obviously streaming some entertainment through her netpiece. "Which one?" she mumbled.

"Number sixteen."

"Log it out."

Cruze kicked over to a data panel and punched in the info. He gestured me over to thumb my approval, but I got the impression the deck master wouldn't have cared if an officer had authorized it. She didn't even seem to notice one was in the room.

"Thanks. Later." Cruze called out as we left the room. Lori only grunted in reply.

The breaching pod didn't seem any bigger despite the empty seats. I grabbed one near the pilot's controls, hesitated, then remembering my last high-G trip in a breaching pod, decided to strap in. "We're not going to be doing more than one G are we?"

Cruze powered up the craft and sealed it. "Not much more, no." He fired the thrusters the second he got clearance to leave and pulled smoothly away from the ship, never doing more than two or three Gs.

"Ever thought of being a transport pilot?" I asked, thinking he had the skills of one.

"Only when I think about the pay." Cruze kept his eyes on the flight path. "I don't know. I'd think it'd be pretty boring flying fixed routes on regular schedules. Besides, they don't get to play with guns."

The Blaylock's hangar was busy, but our craft was small enough for us to slip into a non-commercial bay. As we left the pod, I turned to Cruze. "I'm going to order you to have a good time, but stay sober," I said. "I may need a ride back."

"Aye, sir." Cruze grinned and made an elaborate salute. "Just as long as I get the suicide barrel back sometime around end of shift."

"I'll let you know one way or another." I tapped my netpiece as I turned to leave.

* * *

Fortunately, I found The Commander's Mess before Cathrine arrived. It was a new restaurant with ambitions of class. Real cloth tablecloths were clipped firmly to the sides of dozens of tables which crowded the small room. Overhead, live images of the local star system spun slowly across the dim ceiling. The only other lights in the room came from the flicker of simulated LED candles and the glare of the menus. As I scanned the well-dressed people waiting in the antechamber, I wondered if I should have made reservations.

I walked up to the head waiter; a tall, skinny, middle-aged man with gray hair combed back from a high brow and an elevated nose. "Is there any chance I can get a table for two?" I asked.

He looked down at me with a hard cold expression. "Tonight?"

"Yes?"

He glanced at his datapad resting on a traditional simulated wood podium. "For whom shall I reserve the table?"

I got the distinct impression that he thought I couldn't possibly be the person who would dine in his restaurant and that I must be seeking a reservation on behalf of someone more significant. I decided to pull rank. "Fleet sub-commander Kenneth Phon and fleet sub-commander Cathrine Kacsmaryk."

At the mention of my name, the corner of one eyebrow twitched slightly and without seeming to move, the head waiter's expression changed from icy disdain to cool subservience. "My apologies for not having a table right away, sir." He tapped at his datapad. "I believe I will have a table for you in just a moment." His eyes flickered across my MDF flight suit from which I had removed my old pilot officer rank tabs but kept my old unit patch. I suddenly felt very underdressed. I could only hope that others might take my casual appearance as a sign that the unknown guy in the flight suit was so important that normal social conventions didn't apply.

"That's OK," I assured him. "I'm still waiting on my party." I tried not to stare at the other customers as I waited and worried about my dress. Within a couple of minutes, Cathrine arrived looking like a beautiful if somewhat short fashion model. Dresses were out of the question in space, even with ships possessing spinning habitat modules. She wore a Chinese cut tunic and pants which appeared to be red silk embroidered with bird wing designs in golden thread. The colors emphasized the pale skin of her neck and the dark hair which she wore pinned up.

She arrived, scanning the other guests and looking uncertain. She saw me, smiled nervously and came over. "I almost didn't find this place," she said.

"I almost didn't make it to the Blaylock."

The head waiter returned. "Ah, good. Your table is ready. Follow me."

Cathrine took my arm and we followed the waiter into the room. "This is beautiful," she murmured, staring up at the ceiling.

"Yes," I agreed, watching her admire the ceiling. I tapped off my netpiece, clearing my visual space of distractions so I could admire her. The waiter showed us to our table, took our drink order and handed us old-fashioned (smart) paper menus. I scrolled through the displays, skipping the "cultured" (vat grown) beef and pork items and selected a teriyaki chicken dish (real) while Cathrine chose a curried tilapia (also real) rice pilaf. The menus transmitted our orders and kept a running tab. After the waiter brought our drinks and some freshly baked bread, we sat munching while I tried to find a way to break the suddenly awkward silence.

"So...," I began, remembering some off-hand advice from Dr. Powers that if one found themselves in this sort of situation the best thing to do was to get the other person to talk about themselves. It seems your interest in them makes you interesting to other people. "Tell me about yourself. A world-class athlete, blackbelt in mutan-idou, graduate from the prestigious war college on New Sparta, what else should I know about you?"

Cathrine turned aside with a nervous smile. "That pretty much sums me up."

"I admit those are quite amazing accomplishments, but I suspect there's more to you than just a pile of accomplishments."

"Oh?" she laughed. "You want a list of my failures as well?"

"You know how we mere mortals are—always trying to bring others down to our level."

Cathrine held up one hand and begin counting off items on her fingers. "Well, I'm a terrible painter. I failed at the piano and every other instrument I've tried. I am, at best, a mediocre cook—."

"You cook?"

"Only a few dishes."

"I'd like to see that."

"I've never learned to dance. In fact, I've never even been to one."

"Now, that I cannot believe," I said. "You must have had the whole war college asking you out."

"You know nearly half their enrollment is female, right?"

"I doubt that would deter many of them."

"Now stop that." She laughed and slapped the back of my hand playfully. "That's just a myth."

"Still, no one asked you out?"

"One guy. Once. But he canceled on me, said he had a school project come up and couldn't go out."

"Well, some guys may be intimidated by a beautiful and accomplished woman, but we can take care of your dance situation tonight. There must be a half-dozen dance clubs on the Blaylock. How do you feel about pac-rim-mixed diss-oriental skip-beat?"

A frown flickered across her face. I don't think it related to my choice of music, rather I got the impression the idea of dancing made her uncomfortable.

"So." Cathrine leaned forward across the table and changed the subject. "Tell me about Kenneth Phon. As the son of the wealthy and famous inventor and spaceship designer, I'm sure you have a pile of accomplishments of your own."

I sighed. "Actually, no. When I discovered my math wasn't good enough for trans-geospace engineering, I changed my major to a double in philosophy and xenology. Of course, I was a disappointment to my father long before that."

"Not enough light to flourish in your father's shadow?"

I shook my head. "I grew up knowing the world—and my father—expected great things of me, but no one could tell me what that was. Total strangers thought they knew me because they knew my father, but none of them were interested in who I really was. I don't think I ever figured out who I was either."

An awkward silence followed, broken only by the waiter's arrival with our food. We concentrated on the meal, the clink of tableware against our plates the only sound between us, as I mentally kicked myself for my surprising eruption of bitterness. I watched the other couples chatting happily then exchanged apologetic looks with Cathrine.

"You can't tell me," Cathrine began, apparently trying to resuscitate the conversation, "that the handsome playboy didn't have women fawning all over him."

I shrugged. "Up until I left for school, the only women I saw were family members or the ugly daughters of father's business associates. My parents lived in mortal fear that some unscrupulous woman would latch onto me and use me for my fame or fortune. "That didn't change until I went to New Athens and got out from under their collective thumb."

"Oh?"

"Well, there were incidents." I hesitated, but she egged me on with raised eyebrows. "I and my Alpha Tau pledge brothers sort of kidnapped our sister sorority and commandeered a spaceship that had been donated to an alumni organization. It had been refused, for complicated legal reasons, and the actual ownership was still in legal limbo.

Cathrine gasped and her eyes widened. "The SS Bacchanal!"

I winced. "Most of the stories you hear about it on the converse are fabricated."

"They made a movie of that!"

"Three, actually. But father's lawyers sued them to keep the family name out."

Cathrine laughed. "Wow! When you decide to cut loose on your own, you don't mess around."

I laughed with her, feeling a little self-conscious. She held up her glass as if proposing a toast and I did the same.

"Here's to future adventures," she said.

"May we retain the media rights," I finished.

We laughed together and, having confessed our failures, the conversation flowed more easily. I was just beginning to get to know her likes, dislikes, hopes, and fears when the room lights came on full bright and a warning siren sounded.

"Attention all military personnel. Please report to your ships immediately." The diners all looked up with stunned expressions as the message repeated. There was a three-second pause as if the whole room were sucking in its breath at the same time, then two-thirds of the room rose and raced for the exit.

Cathrine watched them, then gave me a puzzled look as I leaned back in my seat and tapped my netpiece back on.

"It's going to be a moment before we can get out of here."

She tapped on her own netpiece.

The Blaylock being a civilian ship, I couldn't get on the mil-net, but as I jumped on the local converse node, I saw that everyone had plussed-up a live feed from Blaylock's external cameras. I opened the feed and watched as dozens of massive Cack jump ships materialized just outside our orbit and began disgorging fleets of heavy battlecruisers.