Free Scattered Suns by Kevin J. Anderson

couldn’t tell if the Listener model was actually seeing and absorbing details, or just imitating her owner.
    Buzzing ramjet flyers soared through the thin Martian atmosphere, deploying a squadron of parachute troops that leaped out of cargo bays in the low Martian gravity. As they dropped, the troops unfurled gigantic batwings, tough films with sufficient surface area to provide resistance in the thin air. The unexpected parachute assault troopers were landing close to the objective.
    “That’s an unorthodox trick from Team Jade,” she said to EA.
    “It is a twist that will probably allow them to win the day’s challenge,” the compy said. The fact that EA would make such an observation made Tasia hope the Listener compy was at last thinking for herself.
    Tasia smiled through her helmet faceplate. “I’ll have to commend those soldiers for ingenuity. Doing impossible and unexpected things is the only way the EDF’ll make headway against the drogues.”
    She knew that the large rammer fleet would soon be completed: extraordinarily armored kamikaze battleships to be crewed by Soldier compies. The rammers would tackle the drogue warglobes head-on, one for one. An exceedingly expensive defense, but one that would hurt the hydrogues without a cost in human lives. So far, nothing else had worked. As soon as the big rammers were ready, they would look for the right opportunity. As long as the new vessels performed up to expectations, the Eddies would have a proven new weapon against the drogues. Maybe, if they began to win against the hydrogues, they would finally stop picking on the Roamer clans as a surrogate enemy...
    The EDF was having a difficult time convincing people to enlist, and each batch of kleebs seemed worse than the last. That was why the battle groups depended more and more on Soldier compies to fill out their crews.
    And Tasia had to groom the rest. What a waste of time! Why should she be forced to train more soldiers who might one day turn against the clans and cause more destruction?
    The glider troops landed, stripped off their giant flexible wings, and took up their positions to meet the oncoming second team. Tasia watched them, paying attention only because she would have to submit her own report and analysis of the day’s results.
    From her observation site, she scanned the teams of trainees running through drills. Most of them were impossibly slow, reacting with clumsy book-learned responses that were a long way from becoming swift instinct. Their lives had been too easy, too comfortable, and their mistakes had rarely had serious consequences. They were not accustomed to a daily awareness that any botched move might bring catastrophe.
    Because she hadn’t joined the military to fool around, Tasia had risen swiftly in rank. She hadn’t coveted medals or promotions, and she didn’t play political games, but she worked damned hard and excelled at each tested skill. Though she claimed no political or career ambitions, the advantage to having a higher rank, as she saw it, was that she could do more important things. That was the idea, at least.
    But now, thanks to their Roamer boondoggle, they’d pulled her from her Manta command and placed her in cold storage on Mars while the EDF picked on the clans. Couldn’t they at least have given her something useful to do?
    She clicked her helmet transmitter. “Team Sapphire, what are you doing down there? Looks like you’re trying to light a campfire!” Despite the lack of oxygen in the air or any form of burnable material, she wouldn’t actually put it past them.
    “Hadden has a leak in his air tank, Commander. He fell on his back during the last cliff descent, and now we’re trying to swap out with a spare tank,” said one of the kleebs.
    “Pressure’s dropping fast!” Another voice, with an edge of panic.
    “The speed you’re going, you may as well start planning Hadden’s memorial service. I could fill out the forms and requisition an EDF