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  "I hope so," Taylitha said.

  There were over a hundred trails up the mountain, more than enough for each pair to use alone; most of them converged at the mountain's top and the canoe rental cabin, and some of them had merged checkpoints with first aid and communication facilities. Taylitha stood in line with Alysha and watched their hapless lieutenants attempt to organize the assignments. The officers in charge of the ensigns' retreat were chosen by lot from the lieutenants on participating ships; it was considered a proving ground for their organizational skills. Coordinating the movements of roughly a hundred ensigns through a nature reserve sounded like fun to Taylitha, but she was considered odd by most of her friends, and the men and women at the head of the line looked tired and stressed.

  "Your assignment," one of them said when she and Alysha finally reached the table. They received paper maps along with their data tablet loads. "You'll be meeting up with group four over there at your checkpoints. Go talk with them."

  Taylitha studied the map as she followed Alysha over. It looked like a gentle route: four days up the mountain and two to three down, depending on the river they chose. She gazed up past the buildings at the tree-blanketed slopes and lifted her shoulders in a long, pleased breath. "This is going to be fun."

  "It should be," Alysha agreed.

  Which was before Taylitha saw the ensign holding forth in their group. She didn't recognize him, but from his pompous expression and tense stance she knew the type. As they drew near, the conversation—if it could be called that with the man giving orders—only confirmed her misgivings.

  "So, we'll all wait at the checkpoint until the last group arrives before we keep going," he said. "Then I'll lead us to the cabin. We're supposed to be up the trail in a little under four days. I'd like us to get there first."

  "Why?" Taylitha interrupted.

  The human rolled his eyes. "Haven't you been reading the briefs, fur-for-brains? The first group to make it to the bottom of the mountain gets a commendation. It's good for those of us who want to make captain."

  Taylitha bristled, but found a gray hand on her arm. She glanced at Alysha, whose calm seemed to counsel patience. Taylitha set her ears back but forced herself to relax, and Alysha nodded before resuming her read-through of their new tablet material.

  Apparently emboldened by Taylitha's dissent, one of the others asked, "Why should you be the leader?"

  "Because I grew up in the mountains," he said. "I know my way around."

  "That's not going to help any of us who aren't your partners," the dissenter, a stubborn-looking Aera, said. His long ears telegraphed his disgruntlement even in the crowd, they were so big. "You won't be around to guide us while we're actually doing the hiking."

  "Why do we need a leader anyway?"

  "All groups need a leader, or else how do things get done? By committee?" The human sneered. His name tag read 'Mike Beringwaite.'

  "Sometimes committees work," an uncertain girl said.

  "You obviously haven't sat on any committees," the man said with rolled eyes. "Besides, that's not how we do things in Fleet. Have you seen a ship with a team for a captain? No? Didn't think so. Now, how many of you have mountain experience?"

  The group had grown to twelve members during the discussion, but no one raised their hands.

  "You see? You'll need me if you want to know how to do this the fastest way possible."

  "I see there are other goals we can receive commendations for other than 'First Group Back,'" Alysha said into the uneasy quiet. "There are several based on bringing back certain specimens of plant; at least one for capturing footage of a rare bird. One for least use of Fleet resources. Given the inexperience of the group with moving quickly through this kind of terrain, wouldn't it make better sense to try for one of these other goals?"

  Beringwaite folded his arms and guffawed. "Right. The inexperience part will apply to people tramping through woods trying not to scare birds away as well as not being able to hotfoot it through the hills."

  "But they don't involve the same level of time pressure," Alysha said. "That gives us a greater chance at success."

  "Plants! How much trailfood we eat! We're Fleet, not some mewling group of civvies," the human said with scorn. "Do we want to win this for the honor of the Fleet, or do we want to just grub around in the forest? We're tougher than that. We're better than that!"

  "Now would be a good time to give that speech about needing all sorts in Fleet," Taylitha said sotto voce to Alysha. The woman flashed her a small smile, then shook her head and indicated the other members with the tip of her chin. The same people who'd seemed so uncertain before were now wearing prideful looks to match their would-be leader's.

  "It's settled then," he said. "We're getting up that mountain and down it first. And I'll lead you there!"

  Amid the cheer that followed, Taylitha looked at Alysha with wilted ears.

  "The guy's an idiot," Taylitha said, tail lashing as she rooted through the supply shed. "He's going to get us all killed. Why didn't you say something?"

  "You expected me to say something?" Alysha asked in a curious voice. She picked up a walking staff and examined it.

  "Well, yes!" Taylitha exclaimed. "You'd make a better leader any day than that overstuffed ego. "Fur-for-brains" my backside!" She tossed a few packets of K-plus rations into the mound with their backpacks. The groups had been sent to the storage sheds to choose their equipment; the larger sheds were well-organized, but rumor intimated that the sheds no longer maintained by the storekeeper contained more interesting items for those willing to paw through them. "Seriously. Why didn't you challenge him?"

  Alysha put the walking stick on their pile and pushed past a stack of hiking boots into the next aisle. "Because he's my learning experience."

  "How in the twenty midnight hells can that pompous bratling be your learning experience?"

  Alysha looked over the aisle at her, laughing. "Besides giving you an opportunity to increase my vocabulary?"

  Taylitha glowered at her, and Alysha chuckled. "Sorry. Look, Taylitha, we're not always going to be able to work for people we agree with or like. That doesn't change that we'll be expected to carry out their orders to the best of our abilities . . . and that sometimes, doing so will require us to stretch what we already know, or require us to do things we don't have the first clue how to accomplish. I'm not a speed-hiker, and I certainly don't know how to canoe down a mountain. But I'd like to see if I can learn. Quickly."

  "What about the rest of us?" Taylitha asked. "Don't we have a right to a safe commander?"

  Alysha paused.

  Taylitha's ears perked. "Ha! You don't have a ready answer for that one, do you?"

  "No," Alysha admitted. "I have feelings about it, but I haven't spent enough time with them."

  "So you should have been leader," Taylitha said, investigating what appeared to be a bundle of tents of various types. She plucked one of the M-rate collapsibles from the mess and tossed it into their pile. "So you could have that time to think about what it means to have people under you."

  "I've already thought about that part," Alysha said, her voice growing quieter than usual. "It's whether we've waived some of our rights by joining a military organization that I'm still considering." When Taylitha opened her mouth, Alysha said, "And yes, I know all the arguments about Fleet not being a military organization, despite our trappings. But if something threatens the Alliance, we're going to be the best thing, probably the only thing, between it and its enemies. Maybe we shouldn't lose sight of that."

  "I'm partnered with a philosopher," Taylitha muttered.

  Alysha stepped around the corner and looked down at their tiny pile of supplies. "And I, apparently, with a logistics specialist. Did you choose all these things for a reason, or are you operating on instinct?"

  Taylitha joined her. "Oh, no. While I was in the Academe I worked Stores part-time. We deprecate a lot of supplies every year. Sometimes because they're not as good as t
he things that are becoming available . . . but just as often because what's available now is cheaper, or not as heavy, or not the right color, or not from a manufacturer we have a contract with at the time." She pointed at the rations. "The vitamin-plus rations went out of fashion for logistical reasons . . . each species gets a different spread of vitamins, and keeping track of how many of every species was in a group was too much trouble. The M-rate tents get too hot in desert conditions, so they should keep us pretty warm on a mountain. The gel is good for Pelted with foot pads . . . we'll probably do better hiking without boots in this terrain, but unless you've done a lot of walking we'll need something to keep the pads from cracking. That kind of thing."

  Alysha shook her head. "Amazing."

  "It's not really that special," Taylitha said. "It's just about keeping details in your head."

  Alysha chuckled. "I see. Are you done?"

  Taylitha glanced over her shoulder. "Yeah. We should have enough time for our last shower for a week."

  One of Alysha's ears drooped, and Taylitha chuckled. "Me too."

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Remember," Beringwaite said, "We all wait at the Chapel Grove checkpoint for everyone to arrive so I can lead us up the last leg. It should only take most of you two days to get there, so don't stop just because you're a little tired. We're going to win this thing!"

  "It's not a competition," Taylitha muttered.

  Alysha shouldered her backpack. "It is to Mister Beringwaite," she said as Beringwaite called out their trail assignments. "So it is to us."

  "You two cats . . . you're on trail A-33."

  "That's us," Alysha said.

  With a sigh, Taylitha picked up her pack and followed Alysha through the slowly parting group. She'd rubbed cream into her paw pads earlier, but the moment she set foot on the dusty path she winced. Getting used to the pebbles and scratchy grass and broken nut shells would take some time. She'd also spent a few minutes in the shower stretching her back and arms, but even so it didn't take long for the weight on her back to become burdensome. Nor, she thought as she followed Alysha, was she as in perfect shape as she had been in the Academe.

  But oh, the air was the perfect temperature, the crisp cool of spring. The breeze offered the perfume of new flowers. Fresh leaves on the trees rustled as their branches swayed. Taylitha forgot her tender feet and aching back.

  They wound up the path in companionable silence. It led them over a thin stream, its murmurs barely audible as it trickled over its leaf-choked channel. They stopped in a hall of intertwined trees.

  Taylitha wasn't sure which of them paused first. "It's beautiful," she said after a moment.

  "It's a pleasant change," Alysha said, touching the flaking bark of one of the trees. "We're used to the manicured walkways created by most landscapers. This is how it should be."

  Taylitha looked up and down the hall. Several kinds of trees of varying ages were unevenly staggered along the path. The leaves that leaned on one another overhead were tri-peaked, or oveate, or serrated. The branches were gray and brown and pale green. She could smell the mingled sap of a dozen types, spicy and sweet and green and sharp.

  Alysha stepped up behind her and smiled. "What do you like best about it?"

  "Is this a test?" Taylitha asked with a laugh.

  "A question. Just a question." Alysha's eyes sparkled with a warmth that dispelled the effect of their light hue.

  "The variety," Taylitha said finally. "The diversity of colors, of kinds. It's invigorating."

  Alysha's brows rose. "Interesting," she said, and headed back up the path.

  Taylitha blinked, then hurried after her. She drew abreast of the other woman, noted the quirk of her smile. "Well? What about you?"

  "I like that the path came after the trees, not the other way around."

  Taylitha frowned. "Does that mean you prefer nature over the works of people? That you like us to respect nature and are glad we're capable of it? Or that you're proud that we're resourceful in making our way around obstacles?"

  "You are reading a lot into this," Alysha said with such a straight face Taylitha almost mistook the tiny smile.

  "And you're not?" Taylitha asked. "So which is it? And no, don't ask me which one I think you think is true."

  Alysha stopped, both hands tightly gripping the straps of her pack. For a moment Taylitha thought she'd upset her until she noticed the tiny quivers running through Alysha's shoulders.

  "Oh, go ahead and laugh," Taylitha said, grinning. "That way you can catch your breath faster and we can concentrate on meeting that fool Beringwaite."

  Alysha leaned against one of the trees and laughed until she couldn't stop. Taylitha watched her, still wearing a broad grin. She liked putting people at ease, and making them laugh was even nicer, particularly when they laughed with such candor.

  "I'm done," Alysha said after a moment, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm not used to people reacting to me the way you are."

  "Which is how? Noticing that you're doing what you're doing, turning it back on you, both?"

  "Add 'not being offended when you notice' and I think you'll have covered the list," Alysha said. She resumed trekking up the path. "And for your honesty and good humor I tell you what my answers are, without prompting. But I won't explain what they mean, any more than you do. What they say about me I'll leave you to puzzle over."

  "I guess that's fair," Taylitha said. "Though if this is the way you normally do things, I probably haven't had the experience you have in interpreting people's answers."

  "You don't study people?" Alysha asked.

  Taylitha resettled her pack. "I don't think so. At least, not consciously. I don't test them, anyway."

  "I don't test people either," Alysha said. "I just want to know what they think. It was only an accident when I discovered that most people aren't used to being asked for their opinions."

  "And that most people like to talk about their opinions?" Taylitha said with a chuckle. "You must make a lot of friends."

  "I learn a great deal, anyway," Alysha said.

  Taylitha wrinkled her nose. "You make me feel young."

  Alysha glanced at her, amused. "Do you always say what you feel?"

  "Only around you," Taylitha said with a grin.

  Alysha laughed. "So you've tested me already, and decided you know everything you need to."

  "I guess so," Taylitha said, and though she'd never thought of it that way she liked the idea. She straightened. "So, how old are you, anyway?"

  "I've been an ensign almost a year," Alysha said. "If that answers the question."

  "It doesn't!" Taylitha exclaimed, then laughed. "But I guess it's a rude question. At least I know which of us has seniority. I've only been star-and-pierced for three months."

  "Does that matter?" Alysha asked.

  "It does to some people," Taylitha answered.

  Alysha glanced at her. "But not to you."

  Taylitha hooked her fingers beneath the straps of her pack and looked up at the interwoven boughs. "You'll have to work harder than that."

  Alysha laughed in delight.

  They climbed together, sometimes talking, sometimes in a silence Taylitha could hardly believe, it was so comfortable. The soil beneath her feet cooled her toes, and the sun on her shoulders warmed her, and the taste of the water in the canteen was certainly fresher than anything she'd had since she'd left Burbage Township. They crossed broad meadows dotted with lavender and pearl-poppies; stands of pines redolent with the sharp resin scent of evergreens and strewn with sienna-brown cones; wind-ruffled glades encircled in brush and washed with sunlight. Mountains framed the bits of sky Taylitha could see through the eaves of the trees, and the pellucid blue seemed more breathtaking because of it.

  "This isn't so bad after all," Taylitha said, hushed.

  Alysha smiled at her.

  An hour before sunset, their path reached a plateau. The trees remained dense on their left, but to their right they petered out compl
etely to a cliff. As Alysha began to set up their camp, Taylitha edged out to it and peeked over its edge, resting her hands on a boulder that formed a hump along part of its edge. Fifty feet down a beautiful meadow collected purple evening's shadows, and she gasped at the sight of a family of deer grazing. "Oh, wow!"

  Alysha joined her. "Ah! That's lovely."

  "Real deer," Taylitha said. "I've never seen any." She watched, holding her breath, as they wandered back into the brush and out of sight. "This is wonderful. We're stopping?"

  "It seems a good place," Alysha said. "The checkpoint's not too long a walk from here, but we should probably take it while we're fresh. Some of these trails skirt long drops. Once we get there, we can rest while we wait."

  "Wait?" Taylitha asked.

  Alysha nodded. "We're one of the lucky ones to have company most of the way up."

  Taylitha glanced at her. "Ah! And you're not happy about that, are you?"

  Alysha smiled, brows lifting. "And what makes you say that?"

  "I don't know," Taylitha said. "Your word choice, I think. Am I right?" She followed the other woman back to the trail crossing, where she started to dig a pit for the fire.

  "When you see who our company is, you'll know the answer," Alysha said. "Should we have rations for dinner? Or be brave and attempt to forage?"

  Taylitha pulled out her data tablet. "No bravery required . . . just patience and attention to detail. Let's go look!"

  "Okay," Alysha said, taking out her own. "But let's stay within earshot. The brief didn't mention anything about wildlife, but I can't imagine these mountains don't have their share."

  "Things more dangerous than deer," Taylitha mused aloud.

  "Things more dangerous than deer," Alysha agreed.

  Taylitha found several handfuls of edible mushrooms, a stand of tan onion shoots, and a selection of old nuts that hadn't already been scavenged by birds. She returned with her booty to find Alysha coaxing a fire from the kindling it was just beginning to crisp. Their tent had already been pitched.