The Price of Peace Read Free Page A

dangerous when you took it. But college kids? Lora controlled her wailing. " Franny loved gaming. We joked she was addicted, but I never thought... Izzy, there's this new drug going around. They say it makes VR real, that you forget there's a real world, that it makes every pleasure ten times better. She and her roommates hooked themselves up to a game and plugged themselves into a drug bottle."
    Izzy slammed her fist down on her desk. "Not dehydration," the professional in her choked, the anger of foreknowledge almost overriding Lora's final sob.
    "They died 'cause they never came out for a drink of water. Oh, God, if I'd only called. Just dropped by. I'd been meaning to. Honest, Sis, I'd been meaning to."
    Izzy hit the close button. The pleading in her sister's eyes faded to blank as Izzy collapsed into her work chair. What was wrong? What was missing? How could Franny have done this? How could Lora have missed the signs? Izzy shivered; the world was crazy. She'd just risked her life to burn a pirate, and Franny had thrown her life away on a thrill.
    Izzy sat slumped in her chair until the computer reminded her she had a meeting to run. Lora's message could wait for an answer. With a wrenching sigh that could not fill the void in her heart, Izzy went to do what duty demanded.
    Lieutenant Terrence "Trouble" Tordon was troubled. He was not used to that. Trouble to his enemies. Trouble to his friends, even Trouble to himself, and regularly in trouble, he wasn't often troubled. Now, he sat at the captain's conference table a very troubled man. His back was as ramrod-straight as the world expected a marine's to be, his face a study in military blandness, but behind the exterior, his mind was spinning. What have I gotten myself and the platoon into ?
    He'd worked with Izzy before. He knew she was a bit wild, but as a card-carrying member of the "Who Wants to Live Forever Club," Trouble expected no problems. The joke was that after twenty-five years with the defense brigades, Izzy asked for marines for the Patton because she didn't want to go anywhere without her security blanket. Since Trouble's choices were between a paltry exit bonus or taking a cut to second lieutenant and a platoon when what he wanted was a promotion to major and his own battalion, he'd jumped at the chance to staff six of the Patton’s secondary guns with his marine detachment.
    After today's live fire exercise. Trouble wondered if he'd jumped right. The commander had bet her ship and their lives on some pretty crappy equipment, savvy moves, and a lot of luck. She'd won. Had she learned anything? Or would she be chasing the same thrill tomorrow? Trouble eyed her without staring.
    She was strangely subdued. Still, her first question was a good one. "Chips, what's wrong with my ship?"
    Lieutenant Chippanda Eifervald shook her head. "I told you before, skipper, and I'll tell you again. There ain't nothing wrong with this tub that couldn't be fixed by parking it alongside a pier and combing every square inch of it. I bet we'd find seven or eight good subassemblies to put back in stock to help the spares crunch. The rest, we sell by the pound."
    "Yeah, Chips, but if we do that, what'll I command?" "One hell of a beer bash," the exec offered.
    The skipper took a deep breath. The stale, processed air was no different from what she'd breathed on a dozen stations. The gray walls around her could be any of a score of offices she'd worked out of or cubicles she'd lived in. But the proprietary twist to her lips told Trouble all there was to know. This air and that wall were her ship's. The skipper would give them up over her dead body. "Okay, crew, enough jokes. Start with the most important gear in your areas and make sure it'll work next time we need it. Guns, that means those six-inchers. Chips, that means maneuvering. Engineering"—Izzy glanced at Vu Van—"we got any problems?"
    "If I had any failures, we would not be here to discuss them." The old Buddhist