Netlink by William H Keith

out.
    “I can and I do,” she said. “I suppose it’s a necessary part of my mother’s role as a senator. And it’s not surprising that I’m… expected to make a showing at these things. But I gokking sure don’t have to like it. Especially when she damn near makes the invite an order.” She reached across the seat and touched his thigh. “I’d much rather spend the time with just you.”
    He grinned. “Well, I can’t argue with that. I’ve been to a couple of these whirls of your mother’s, remember. They’re lots more boring than you are.”
    She arched one eyebrow. “Thanks a lot!”
    He laughed, teasing. “I do wonder why you hate the things so much.”
    “I’m not sure, really. Somehow… well, especially when there’s a mission coming up. The closer the op gets, the more tedious Mums’s parties get. And the shallower and stupider her guests get.”
    “Sounds like the problem’s in you, not the parties.”
    “Of course. But it doesn’t mean I have to enjoy them.”
    “Well, all we have to do is put in a showing, right? Maybe we could odie someplace private afterward.”
    “I’d like that, Ran. I think I’m going to need it.”
    Conventional military wisdom insisted that sexual liaisons with other members of your unit weren’t a good idea, and Kara was aware of any number of good reasons for that prohibition. Jealousy could wreck a unit’s effectiveness… as worry about a sexual partner could wreck an individual’s effectiveness. There were no rules against sex with someone else in your unit, though, and everybody did it. Her mother and Dev Cameron had been deeply involved with one another, Kara remembered, involved enough that her brother had been the result. As she’d been the product later on of Katya and Vic Hagan.
    But Kara was beginning to understand the reasoning behind the nonrules. By accepting the Skymaster role in Operation Sandstorm, she’d taken the 1/1 out of the fight—and put the 1/3 into it. If she’d kept her mouth shut, if First Squadron was still riding the ascraft down to the shores of Noctis Labyrinthus, Ran and the 1/3 would still be slotted to stay in reserve.
    Safe…
    She found herself fighting against the urge to use her influence to keep Ran out of the Kasei expedition. It was going to be a damned hairy op…
    “I can’t wait for this thing to get going, though,” Ran told her. “We’ve been training long enough. It’s time to go do it!”
    “The opsims are coming back sixty- and seventy-percent plus success,” Kara said. “Skymaster is going to make a difference, I think.”
    “I’m going to be worried about you up there,” he told her.
    She smiled, or tried to. “And I’ll be worried about you. Damn, I wish the one-three wasn’t being pulled into—”
    “Whoa, there,” he said in mock warning. “I thought you were the one who got mad when your parents tried to keep you out of the action, tried to keep you safe. You wouldn’t be pulling the same stunt with me, would you?”
    Kara laughed. “I don’t think I’d dare. Not now. Just the same, I’ll sure be glad when this is over.”
    “You and me both, Kara.You and me both.”
    Her parents lived in a somewhat remote estate in the forest Outback, looking across a lush valley to the ice-glint beauty of the Silverside Cascades. The region was dotted with the homes of other high-ranking military and government types. Vic Hagan had named the estate Cascadia.
    The floater’s AI banked the vehicle and extended its varigee wings. They were in free flight for several moments, and then Cascadia’s gaussfield caught them and gentled them in to the estate’s landing deck.
    Guests had been arriving for some time. The parking area was half full, and the approaches to the house were cluttered with small groups of people, some in formal dress or military uniform, others—the women especially—in displays of skin, holoprojection, and nano expression that managed simultaneously to be imaginative