"Ah," Jack said. Yes, that was definitely something from Uncle Virgil's old bag of tricks. "Anyway, I'm sorry. I'm glad you didn't take offense."

"I did not say I did not take offense," Draycos said. His voice was still calm, but there was a thin layer of ice on it. "I merely said I understood. Either way, though, the fault is not yours."

Jack swallowed. "Okay," was all he could think of to say. "Well. Let's get back to the party."

The transports left the camp at precisely oh-seven-hundred the next morning, bright and shiny and efficient.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said of their passengers.

Most of them, to quote one of Uncle Virgil's favorite phrases, looked like death warmed over and stuck to the pan. Most were pale and limp, some looked like they'd just done a twenty-mile hike, and a few were practically sleepwalking as they stumbled aboard the transports.

Amid such company, Jack knew, someone as fresh and un-hungover as he was would be a little too noticeable. He picked a role somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, hanging his head as he shuffled along. Occasionally, he made sure to bump into the person on either side of him.

The transfer to the various spacecraft that were waiting for them an hour later wasn't much better, but at least no one got accidentally left behind. As far as Jack ever heard, none of them fogged their way aboard the wrong ship, either.

The trip to Sunright took seven days. Tango Five Zulu was one of three squads from their training group going to this particular world. Sergeant Grisko and Lieutenant Basht were along, too, though Basht made it clear he would only be staying long enough to write up a report on the current situation there.

There were also two hundred regular Whinyard's Edge mercenaries aboard, heading in to reinforce the eight hundred troops already there.

The numbers struck Jack as rather ominous. A twenty-five percent increase in ground forces meant the Edge was either making a major push for victory or scrambling madly to avoid defeat.

Either way, it was likely there was going to be shooting. Possibly a lot of it.

Starting with the second day of the flight, after everyone had recovered from their hangovers, Basht had Tango Five Zulu start their equipment preparation. They now had the actual fold-top computers they would be taking up to November Six with them, and it took the better part of two days to load the various codes and data onto them from the ship's main system.

The rest of the time was spent practicing the computer drills they'd learned back on Carrion. They would continue practicing, Basht declared several times, until they were able to run them in their sleep.

Jack wasn't sure they ever got that good at it. But he had to admit that Basht pushed them at least halfway there. By the time they reached Sunright, the whole squad was dreaming about the drills.

Finally, yet all too soon, they had arrived.

The town of Mer'seb was nestled into a narrow river valley, its tightly packed buildings surrounded by tall, thickly forested hills. A slow river wound lazily through the center of town from the east, taking a sharp southern turn a half mile or so beyond the western edges.

Between the town and the river curve was a large area of mostly flat stone. It was on this natural landing pad that the Whinyard's Edge spaceship set down.

The adult Edgemen had obviously been through this routine before. They lined up at the airlock hatchway in full combat gear, rifles and machine guns slung for marching.

When the hatch opened, they strode out and down the ramp, forming quickly into six-man ranks. Marching in step, they headed into the city along a typically Parprin straight-as-an-arrow street. At Grisko's direction, the three teenage squads fell in at the back end of the column.

"Well, this is fun," Jommy muttered under his breath from beside Jack as they marched past the first row of houses at the edge of town. "They planning to walk us the whole way to the outpost?"

"Probably just to the main Edge HQ," Alison said from Jommy's other side. "It's on the far side of town."

"How do you know where it is?" Jommy asked suspiciously.

"I saw the flag from the top of the ramp," she said mildly. "You really need to pay more attention to details, Randolph."

Jommy muttered something inaudible under his breath. "Oh, come on," she chided him. "Frost up, okay? It can't be more than a mile or two."

"Yeah, but what's the point?" he growled.

"They're probably showing us off," Alison said. "Look at the people."

Keeping his face forward as he'd been taught, Jack threw a sideways glance at the Parprins lining the street. Quite a few of them had come out to see the parade, all right. Mostly females and their children, though there were also a few of the taller males mixed in.

He frowned, taking a second look. The thin Parprin face always seemed sad to him; but these Parprins looked even sadder than usual. The children huddled close by their mothers, and the males tended to stand in groups of two or three, talking softly together. "They don't look very happy to see us," he pointed out quietly.

"Maybe they don't know we're here to help them," Jommy muttered sarcastically.

"Or maybe they think this whole thing has gotten out of hand," Alison suggested slowly. "Maybe they don't think their mine is worth all this."

"Isn't worth what?" Jommy scoffed. "Defending from poachers?"

"Not worth completely scrambling their lives for," Alison countered. "My father used to say that lawyers and soldiers came out of the same expensive box. If you couldn't settle things without them, you weren't going to like what it cost to settle things with them."

Jommy grunted. "Your dad must have been a real kick to grow up with."

Alison didn't answer.

They continued on in silence. Jack kept his eyes moving, wishing he knew how to read Parprin faces better. Maybe he was only imagining their discomfort.

Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that they looked like people watching an occupying army march through their town.

They reached an area of three- and four-story buildings, obviously the town's main business district. Here the females and their children were replaced by Parprin males, many of them wearing the brightly colored robes of shopkeepers or the only slightly drabber sparkle-cloth of businessmen. There were also quite a few aliens of different species represented in the crowd, and even an occasional human. Apparently, Mer'seb was a trading center for many of the alien enclaves and colonies scattered around this region of the planet.

Again, it seemed to Jack that a lot of the Parprins were whispering together as the mercenaries marched past. The rest stood in silence, watching the procession. The other aliens, in contrast, mostly glanced at the spectacle and then moved on. No one cheered or waved.

"I got it," Jommy said suddenly. "They just don't realize it's a parade, that's all. We should have brought a brass band with us."

"That's funny," Alison said scornfully. "Personally, I was just thinking about how much I was enjoying the silence."

And at that instant, almost as if on cue, the silence of the crowd was abruptly broken. From all around them, the city erupted in noise: the distant thunder of small rockets, the closer rattle of machine gun fire, the shouts and screams of the injured and the dying and the terrified.

The Whinyard's Edge was under attack.