The Girls From Alcyone by Cary Caffrey

variety of smart ammunition of the lethal and non-lethal varieties.
    Sigrid pulled the two pistols out and gave them a quick twirl before depositing them back in their clips. "They're my babies," she said, rather pleased with herself. "Besides, it's not like you're not packing." She reached under Suko's shirt and dug around, pulling out one of the balisong butterfly knives she kept tucked in her trousers.
    "This? Why, this is just a simple, practical tool." Suko took the little folding knife and flipped it open with a practiced flourish before handing it back to Sigrid, who tucked it back in Suko's pants. "Now," Suko said, "get your boots on or we'll miss it all."
    Sigrid had barely pulled on her boots when Suko grabbedher hand and hurried her outside. Little had changed in their morning routine since they'd first met.
    A light flurry of snow fell from the overcast sky. The peaked roofs of the Academy were already covered with a thick, white crystalline blanket. The ground was muddy and slick where the plows had worked to clear the training area. The Academy grounds had changed quite a bit during the past year. Outside the walls, several temporary structures had been erected to house the company of eighty-five Mercenary Marines who had been commissioned by the Kimura Corporation to guard the girls from further attack. Kimura had initially considered the remote location on Alcyone sufficient to keep Dr. Garrett's research—and their investment—safe, but the attack had demonstrated how vulnerable they were.
    Sigrid and Suko walked hand-in-hand through the crowds that now occupied the training grounds. Stacks of the giant hundred-meter-long intermodal cargo containers took up much of the northern corner of the grounds. Even more stacks lay outside. The girls had to step carefully to avoid the traffic as work crews busied themselves offloading and organizing the supplies that always seemed to be arriving these days. Sigrid knew that Dr. Garrett hated all the mess and chaos, but most of the equipment in the compound would be moved into the new annex in the near future.
    The Kimura Corporation was impressed with the girls progress and had tripled their investment in Dr. Garrett's operation. A brand new annex for the Academy had been built higher up in the mountains and was three-times the size of the existing facility. Soon, the girls would move there, and a new group of students would take their place in their existing dormitory.
    The girls had grown accustomed to their isolation on Alcyone—having so many people around felt quite strange. Stranger still were the looks they got from the cargo handlers, who had a tendency to stop and stare. The Marines exercised a bit more self-discipline, but Sigrid could still feel their eyes on them as she walked by, hand-in-hand with Suko. Having grown up in isolation with nothing to compare themselves to, the girls didn't realize they looked little like normal school girls. Years of harsh training had fashioned them into a lean and lethal bunch; all the girls carried themselves with a certain predatory grace. The modifications Dr. Garrett had provided had enhanced virtually every aspect of their biology, giving a healthy extra push where nature left off.
    For years, Sigrid had fretted as she watched the other girls develop ahead of her. She'd been self-conscious about her own body, often wondering if she'd ever catch up. Her growth-spurt had kicked in late; and while she'd been disappointed when her height peaked at five-foot one— and a half , she insisted—at least the rest of her had filled out nicely. She was finally starting to feel like a young woman instead of the adolescent schoolgirl she'd felt like for so long.
    One of the cargo-workers, a young man in his twenties, fell into step beside them.
    "Hello, Sigrid," he said; he hadn't bothered to acknowledge Suko. "Where you headed?"
    Sigrid greeted him with a polite smile. "They gave us the morning off. We're going up to watch the