On Charon, the platoon practices moving about in their armored suits while Captain Stott gives them practical survival tips. Back inside the billet, McCoy, “the littlest one in the company, a waspwaist doll barely five feet high” (22), suggests she and Mandella “sack,” or have sex. He agrees. After the suits have warmed enough, they plug them into charging stations, get dressed, and wait in line for “soya,” a concentrated, high-protein foodstuff. 

While digging holes—a laborious procedure involving boring into the ice and rock with a laser and dropping a tachyon grenade into the hole—one of their platoonmates dies. After dropping a grenade into her freshly lasered hole, Private Bovanovich is caught in a rockslide while climbing out of a deep crater. She frees herself, but the delay costs her precious time. The timed grenade goes off before she puts enough distance between herself and the crater, and a fragment of exploding rock decapitates her. Her death casts a sobering pall over the platoon.

The platoon practices a simulated attack on an enemy bunker. Mandella, the “grenadier” for A Team, launches salvos at the target while B Team is pinned down in a crater. While gauging his accuracy, he is “hit” by an enemy laser and is officially “dead.