BOOKS BY DAN DAVIS

CHAPTER ONE

“Resurrection,” Rama Seti said, looking at his hands. “That’s what this is.” He glanced down at Milena. “Resurrection all over again.”

“You’re a lucky man,” she said, face tilted up at him.

“Is that what I am?” he asked.

Ram had died during his victory over the wheeler champion in the Orb’s arena and was now on his second, gigantic cloned body. His mind overwritten on the brain of an artificial person bred for that purpose. An artificial person genetically identical to his last body, as well as the one he had been born in.

Now, he was alive and kicking and still on the UNOPS Victory, ready to drop to the surface of the planet Arcadia and defend humanity’s only extrasolar outpost against an alien attack. He and Milena were in a corridor of the massive ship’s forward ring, outside the door to the forward observation deck. He looked around the bare corridor, trying to detect if there was a chance he was dreaming or, perhaps, in the afterlife. Not that he believed in that sort of thing but he did recall, quite distinctly, being ripped to pieces fighting that alien.

And yet. Here he was.

“Resurrected,” he muttered. “Just to get dropped from orbit straight into a battle?”

“That’s a fair point,” Milena said. “We don’t have any more of your clones for you out here in the 55 Cancri system, so if you get killed down on the surface of Arcadia, it’s permanent.”

Milena seemed the same as the last time he had seen her. Raven-dark hair pulled back behind her head, black fatigues, black boots. Dark eyes that seemed to always see more than he did, despite her only normal human height. Hard to believe it had been ten months since he was last conscious. Did she still have feelings for him? Had she ever truly had any beyond affection and a physical attraction?

“I’ll try to not get killed,” Ram said. “Not right away, anyway.”

“Come on,” she said. “We need to get to the shuttle, quickly. It’s been ready to depart for a while and Captain Cassidy was already pissed a couple hours ago.”

Ram grinned. “But I’m the savior of humanity. Doesn’t that buy me some leeway?”

She sighed, looking uncomfortable. “With Director Zhukov, yes. He’s very enamored with the idea of you fighting on the surface. Our UNOP Marine Captain, on the other hand, is a different matter.”

“But Captain Cassidy likes me,” Ram said. “Doesn’t he?”

Milena chewed her lip for a moment, then jerked her head down the corridor. “Let’s head aft to the shuttle bay.”

“Sure,” Ram said. “Why savor the moment when I could be rushing toward permadeath?”

Ram towered over Milena, striding along beside her while she hurried through the corridors of the enormous ship. The Victory had a crew of well over a hundred but there was no one around and their voices echoed through the hallways.

In the primary mission, the ship had transported the crew first to Orb Station Zero, where Ram had defeated the wheeler champion. After he had died, the Victory had journeyed through the artificial wormhole created by the Orb, and then traveled halfway across the 55-Cancri System to Arcadia.

“I can’t believe they gave us a whole star system,” Ram said.

“It’s more like a conditional lease,” Milena said. “And the term is up in less than thirty years. We have that long to make our mark, get humanity well established here. Secure, well-defended bases spread across the whole system.”

The system was a reward to humanity for Ram’s victory. Milena explained that Arcadia appeared habitable, whatever that meant, and the system had a gas giant further out with a moon that might also be a future home for humans. Two other, smaller, terrestrial planets closer to the sun were suitable for underground or enclosed colonies, and there was plenty of other real estate in the thousands of asteroids and who knew how many dwarf planets.

“In time, hundreds of years in the future, we could have millions of people living here. Billions, eventually.”

“Well then, what the hell are the wheelers still doing here?”

They carried on through the seemingly-empty ship, traveling from forward to aft through the ring sections toward the shuttle bay for the descent to the surface.

“We traveled a third of the width of this system in seven months to rendezvous with Arcadia,” Milena explained, “which we did sixty-two days ago. We had probes shooting throughout the system before that, sending back data while we approached so we knew it would be the best place to set up the outpost. When we got here, we dropped landers, UAVs, GPATs, exploring the surface. A landing site was selected, we spent weeks dropping supplies and structural sections for the outpost. Cutting off pieces from the Victory to do it. Engineers went down and welded sections together to make the structure, then we took lab equipment and the scientists. While this was happening, we detected the enemy ship swinging in from the other side of the system. A very big ship, designated the Wildfire. Coming this way. Everyone worked their asses off to get the outpost built but it still took weeks, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And no sight nor sound of the aliens on the ground for the entire time.”

“Until they attacked you.”

“The wheelers were there the whole time. Our outpost on the surface has been attacked by the wheelhunters living on the surface twice in the last four days,” Milena said to Rama Seti as they hurried to the UNOPS Victory shuttle bay. “We lost people in those attacks. Marines and civilians and we believe the last attacks were merely probing ones. Certainly, they withdrew when they might instead have pressed further. But why did they attack when we had the structure built and not before? When we had only a few people on the surface living in tents? Or why not wait until their comrades in the Wildfire attack us?”

They paused at a closed security door and waited while Milena unlocked it.

“I give up,” Ram said. “Tell me.”

Milena heaved the door open. “We have no idea. And now, our satellites show the wheelers massing in the hills a few kilometers to the east, quite possibly for a full-out assault. By the time we get there, the outpost may already be under attack. I hope it’s not too late.”

“I’m glad they brought me back and everything,” Ram said, following her through the next empty corridor. “I swear, I am. But it would have been good if I had some time to get used to this new body before going into a warzone. You know?”

“It’s not a new body,” Milena said, brushing her fingers against the back of his hand. “Not really. It is genetically identical to the last one, and to the one you were born with.”

“But with more augmentation.”

“Refusing your nervous system lost you a milliseconds reaction speed so you will never compete on the Orb again. That meant Dr. Fo and his team were free of any restrictions in terms of upgrades and Zhukov and the UNOP High Command ordered a fully integrated suite of military-grade augmentations so you would be combat-ready. Biological, cybernetic and neurochemical, you got it.”

“And I got no choice in the matter,” Ram said, feeling the power of his new-but-familiar body as he walked.

“Legally, they own you. And morally? They brought you back to life,” Milena said, glancing up at him. “It’s not fair but are you really ungrateful?”

“Not in the least,” Ram said, although he did feel a profound sense of his subjection to a mighty authority. Then again, he was alive when he should be dead. When he was dead.

Am I the same me as I was before?

He shook off the thought as one that was too disturbing and made himself grin. “Anyway, I feel ready to go kill some more aliens.”

Milena was not impressed. “Don’t get too excited yet.”

“What do you mean?”

She hesitated for a few strides until they stepped up to the last airlock which had SHUTTLE BAY stenciled above the doorway. “Here we are.”

A crewman scowled at them as he let them through and Ram ducked in to the familiar sight of the massive room. It was an entire ring section, with the doors under foot that would open the entire deck area to space when launching and docking the enormous shuttle.

The massive, shining white shuttle sat above the closed bay doors, filling the interior space of the shuttle bay with just meters to spare. The top of the shuttle was attached to the shuttle bay ceiling by a huge docking clamp.

The shuttle itself—the Lepus—was a beast. Big enough to hold thirty people or more in the passenger compartment and the hold below could handle all their gear with room enough to spare for a ground vehicle or two. The body was fat and the wings little more than stubby appendages sticking out up high but the lines over the cockpit were smooth and pretty sleek. High over the cargo hatch at the rear, the massive engines looked powerful enough to blast the monstrous thing halfway to the sun. Smaller engines were tucked under the wings, tight against the fat hull, for powered atmospheric flight.

“Why don’t they order an evacuation of the surface?” Rama asked, following Milena through the shuttle bay, past deck crew that swarmed all about the shuttle, performing final checks. The huge landing gear rested on the bay doors, which were plastered with yellow and black warning chevrons and stenciled text suggesting in the strongest possible terms that one should avoid standing on the doors whenever they slide open.

The shuttle engines hummed high over his head. It was the same shuttle that Ram had boarded the Orb Station in and he remembered it being packed with the boarding party. “Surely, Milena, they could bring everyone back up here safely with just two or three trips with this beast. Keep our people away from the aliens on the surface until the reinforcements arrive on the fleet?”

After bringing him back to life a couple of hours ago, Executive Director Zhukov had shown him how the UNOPS Victory orbited high above the planet they had named Arcadia. That planet orbited the star 55-Cancri, part of a system forty-one light years from Earth. Access to the system was a gift to humanity from the Orb Builders, following Rama Seti’s victory in the Orb Station Zero arena.

Ram had seen the planet through a transparent hull section in the observation deck and he imaged it again, through the closed shuttle bay doors. Beneath bright, swirling clouds, the surface of the planet was largely water, with many island chains and archipelagos of black rock stretching across the world-spanning ocean. On the largest land mass, Zhukov had explained, was humanity’s first extrasolar outpost. An outpost that struggled to find a foothold on the edge of a vast plateau on the edge of a chain of jagged upland hills.

“We will evacuate the wounded and sick for practical reasons but it’s not going to be any safer up here on the Victory,” Milena said over her shoulder as they headed beneath a stubby wing to the side entrance of the shuttle. She paused to demonstrate what she was saying by pretending her hands were spaceships. “The wheelhunter ship, codenamed Wildfire, is decelerating towards our position, coming in to orbiting the planet, we think. It is surely coming to reinforce the aliens on the ground and to do that, it needs to destroy the Victory. Depending on the rate of deceleration, it will arrive within a matter of days. Our orders are to hold against the wheelhunters on the ground while the Victory holds in orbit until Admiral Howe’s battleship Stalwart Sentinel arrives to defeat the enemy ship. There is a small fleet trailing the Sentinel. These are the frigates Ashoka and the Genghis but they are at least days behind the flagship, all heading this way straight from the Orb’s wormhole out at the edge of the system.”

Ram followed her up the ladder to the door high on the side of the shuttle, behind the cockpit.

“The Sentinel is that much better than the Victory?” he asked, watching Milena’s backside as she stepped above him.

“It’s a warship,” she said, over her shoulder. “The greatest warship ever built. Hundreds of crew, short range fighter complement, many more UNOP Marines than we’ve got.” She waited for him in the doorway while he climbed up. “And the armor and weaponry on it will be enormously powerful so, yes, it might prove a match for the enemy ship. But we don’t really know what they’re capable of and then there’s the main problem with all of that.”

He reached the top and she moved inside. “The Sentinel is going to get here too late.” Director Zhukov had told him as much.

“Very likely to be after the enemy ship engages us, yes. Until then, the Victory must stand alone.”

“Why don’t we all just run?” Ram asked. “Get everyone back on the Victory and head for safety while the Sentinel fleet deals with it?”

Ram squeezed his massive body through the human-sized doorway just behind the cockpit.

“Because we’re bait.” Milena watched him elbow his way in. “We keep them where the Sentinel can come and mop up, if need be.”

“Oh,” Rama said, straightening up as far as he could when he got through, still bending down with the back of his shoulders almost touching the ceiling. He’d been in one of the shuttles before and he recalled that the cockpit was to his left and the seats were to his right. “That doesn’t seem very fair on—”

He broke off, looking through to the passenger compartment where the semi-reclined reentry chairs were packed in like on a commercial airplane. About thirty of them. Other than a handful of civilians, every passenger was a UNOP Marine, all in their sleek combat helmets and close-fitted armor. Every one looking right at him through their enclosed visor.

“Hi everyone,” Rama said. “How you all doing?”

“Sit down, Seti,” Captain Cassidy bawled from the front of the compartment, stomping a couple of steps toward him and Milena. The captain was dressed in his armor, with a sidearm and combat knife on his chest, but without a helmet. A mean-looking Sergeant loomed behind him, glaring at Ram with open hostility. “What the hell took you two so long?”

“Sorry I’m late,” Ram said. “I was dead.” At the front of the compartment was a reentry chair designed for subjects like him who were two and a half meters tall and muscled like a professional bodybuilder. “This is my seat, right?”

Milena edged forward, as if to put herself between Ram and the captain. “Director Zhukov demanded to speak to Ram before we— “

“Yeah, yeah,” Cassidy said, scowling at them both. “Save your excuses and strap yourselves in. We have a battle to fight.”

While Ram did as he was told, Captain Cassidy marched forward and banged on the cockpit door. One of the pilots helped close and seal the outer door while the shuttle vibrated as the humming engine noise rose in volume and in pitch.

Cassidy stood at the front, looking back at his Marines. “We have a two-hour flight until our reentry window. In-flight entertainment will consist of me going over the briefing one last time and final equipment checks. Remember, if the enemy ground attack begins during our transfer and descent, we will be landing under fire and deploying into a combat zone. Hold tight for shuttle launch.”

The shuttle shook and buzzed, the hull clanging as the atmosphere in the shuttle bay turned to vacuum, the doors opening beneath the landing gear and the docking clamps unhooked from the ceiling.

“Feels like I was just doing this,” Ram said to Milena. “Fighting on the Orb. It really does. But that was almost a year ago for you?”

“I know,” she said, not looking at him.

“There’s so much I want to ask you about, Milena,” Ram said over the noise.

“There’s so much to tell you,” she said, adjusting the harness over her shoulders. “Just leave it for now.”

“I can’t believe I was dead for a whole year,” he said, half-laughing at the absurdity. “Again.”

“Not dead,” Milena said, pinching her bottom lip between two fingers. “Just unconscious.”

“Unconscious and transferred to a new clone body. Again. I died, Milena. I felt myself dying. In the arena, my guts hanging out and my face all torn to—” he broke off, throat constricting at the memory of it.

She still would not meet his eye. “Try not to think about it right now. We’re heading into another dangerous place, okay? And you need to survive it. Just focus on that.”

Rama opened his mouth to answer but instead, his stomach lurched and his head felt light, as if he was in an elevator, then his arms floated up all by themselves.

“Hey, check this out,” Ram said to Milena, grinning. She was not amused. “I’m sorry, am I not responding appropriately to the gravity of the situation?”

She shook her head, looking closely at him. Searching his face with concern. “Jesus, Ram. You’re hyper excited. Try to relax.”

His heart was indeed racing and he took as slow a breath as he could manage. It did not help much. “You’re right. What’s wrong with me?”

“We can talk about it later.”

“Milena.”

“Dr. Fo and his team made a few tweaks to your brain chemistry so that you would find the prospect of combat, and combat itself…” She gestured while searching for the word. “Exhilarating.”

“Those motherfu—”

A woman’s voice sounded in Rama’s embedded comms. The shuttle pilot spoke.

“This is Lieutenant Xenakis. We are now clear of the Victory and ready to initiate our first engine burn. Just a nice, gentle kick but please keep your hands and arms crossed over your chest for three, two, one, ignition.”

It was as if normal gravity was switched back on for half a minute, then it eased off back to weightlessness again over a few seconds.

“Alright, fellas,” Lieutenant Xenakis said in his ear, “sit back, relax and enjoy the view. We will enter the upper atmosphere in approximately two hours, fifteen minutes.”

Rama turned to Milena. “So what happened when—”

“Mr. Seti,” Captain Cassidy called as he floated past, heading forward. “Come with me to the cargo hold.”

Unbuckling from his chair, Ram pushed himself up, floating in the air over his seat. It felt great.

“You not coming?” he asked Milena, holding the seat back and twisting himself around.

Her lips pressed together for a moment. “I’m not going to be babysitting you anymore, Ram. You’re a military man now.”

“Oh.” Ram paused, holding himself to his chair while his legs floated up and out behind him. “Alright. I’m glad you’re here, obviously but why are you coming down into a war zone, then?”

She shrugged. “All non-essential personnel were shipped down to the surface to help establish the outpost. Now you’re delivered back to the Marines, I can move on with my other duties.”

“Non-essential?” Ram said. “You got to be kidding me.”

She pursed her lips. “It’s alright, I still have value, supporting the new mission. I have many skills.”

“You sure do,” he said, grinning.

She shook her head, fighting a faint smile on her face. “You’d better go. Captain Cassidy is not as indulgent as I was.”

“I sure hope not.”

Ram pulled himself forward, propelling his huge body with the lightest touch. Stopping required catching himself on the forward bulkhead. A sign said the cargo hold was down a square hatch in the floor and he pushed himself down it, feet first and squeezed his shoulders in.

He’d never been in the cargo compartment, that he recalled. From the bottom of the ladder, looking toward the rear, the long space was packed with crates and stacked carry cases. Down by the rear cargo ramp, it looked like there were wide, squat dune buggies or something.

Closer to the front end near to the hatch was an open area surrounded by stacked crates where Captain Cassidy held himself in place beside another soldier, a sergeant called Wu, in front of a row of open weapon and armor cases. The officer and NCO were arguing about something.

Captain Cassidy looked over his shoulder. His rugged, bony face was deeply lined, with a weathered ruddiness undiminished by years in space. The man exuded confidence that bordered on hostility, especially, for some reason, when speaking to Ram. “Jesus Christ, Seti. You want to play at being a Marine then you got to work on that hustle.”

Who said I want to be a Marine?

“Alright,” Ram said, attempting to ignore the deep irritation he felt at being spoken to like he was an underling.

Cassidy scowled while the sergeant next to him turned away to hide a smile. “You say, yes sir, Seti.”

“I do?” Ram said, looking between the captain and the sergeant. “For real? Zhukov told me I was here as a military adviser. You know, a consultant.”

In the low light, Cassidy’s face seemed to glow red and his eyes bulged. “Are you fucking kidding me? The day I need military advice from you, Seti, will be a sad day indeed. Military adviser. You’re a goddamned liability, that’s what you are. I had to wait for them to finish working you over while the rest of my reinforcements sat waiting in that shuttle bay for hours. As if it matters if they bring you round gently. Yeah, you’re a liability. I don’t need your advice but I have my orders and that’s why Gunny Wu is going to get you in your armor while I go and deliver the final briefing to my people. You good, Wu?”

The sergeant nodded, eyes on the officer, and spoke a soft acknowledgement. “Sir.”

Ram half raised his hand. “Shouldn’t I be there for the briefing, too?”

Cassidy stared, open mouthed. “You need to understand something and you’re not getting it. You beat that wheelhunter in the arena all those months ago and that was just great. You sacrificed your life for all of us and it was goddamned heroic. But since then, what good have you been? I don’t care how much you trained to fight, unarmed and one to one with those things, and I don’t care how much virtual military experience you had playing your little games over the years and I don’t care what they pumped into your brain since they resurrected you. You’re dangerously unpredictable, unable to control your emotions. You are not a Marine. You’re gigantic, slow, you’re not properly integrated and I have no use for you. All you accomplish by being here is getting in my way. We’re going to be landing directly in the shit, most likely, and I’ve already lost people in the previous attacks. I have had to assign resources to look after you, people that I would rather have doing something useful, like unpacking boxes. As far as I’m concerned, you’re nothing more than a newborn baby on his first day in boot camp. You’re the lowest ranking creature this side of Neptune. All I want from you is to put on your armor and do as you’re told. If you can avoid getting any of my people killed when we land, or killing them yourself, I’ll consider it a miracle. Understand?”

“I think you’ve made your point pretty thoroughly.”

Cassidy nodded once at Ram, then addressed Sergeant Wu. “Get him stitched up tight, Jim.”

“Sir.”

Cassidy, still scowling, bounded away and pulled himself up through the hatch into the crew compartment without another word.

“Shit, sergeant,” Ram said. “I always thought that guy liked me.”

“You’re a hero, sir,” Sergeant Wu said. “The Captain just has other priorities.”

Yeah, am I not supposed to be the savior of humanity? Why the hell is he treating me like that?

“It’s fine, I get it,” Ram said. “So, you’re our Gunnery Sergeant, right?”

The man looked confused. “How did you know that?”

“I don’t know,” Ram said but he pointed at the shoulder of the man’s armor. “That’s a Gunnery Sergeant insignia.”

Sergeant Wu looked surprised. “That’s right, I didn’t know that you would know that, sir.”

Ram thought about it. “Upstairs, there’s a First Sergeant named Gruger. He works with Captain Cassidy, right?”

Sergeant Wu seemed uncomfortable but Ram had no idea why. “That’s right, he’s Command and I’m a guy who works for a living. Now, sir, we have to hurry. The Sergeant opened a huge crate behind him. “We don’t have much time and getting this suit on in zero-g is a nightmare if you’re not used to it.” He called for assistance and two Marines bounced down to help him unpack the gear. “You have to brace yourself while we pull the armor round you, sir. Do you know our standard Mark XX armor? Well, this is based on that, just made to measure. We’re going to go boots first, legs up to the ass and then gloves, arms and shrug the back plates on, swing round the chest plates and seal it up. The hardened sections fix in place but it’s essentially one single piece joined together with flexible armor up to the neck with an unbroken seam. The life support backpack is a sealed unit with armor on the outside. Onboard batteries here around your lower back and waist but you have accessible battery slots on the outside so you can swap new ones in to stay fully charged without needing to plug in. Don’t worry, though, the mission is a static defense and we will all be regularly topped up with power, air, coolant. Trickiest bit to get on, obviously, is the waste system but we’ll help you fit that if you don’t, you know, if you can’t do that. Then the helmet, which I’ll give you after, is mostly an armored faceplate with a close fitting cranial section which seals at the neck. Alright, sir?”

“Sure,” Ram said, heart racing a little at the thrill of it. “Kind of like pulling on overalls.”

Gunnery Sergeant Wu shrugged. “Kind of like the most effective combat armor ever designed that also works as a vacuum capable space suit and hermetically sealed hazmat suit. Kind of like billion dollar overalls, sure, sir. Come on, let’s do this quickly but let’s do it right.”

Rama followed the precise instructions he was given and they got him suited up incredibly quickly. It was a highly intuitive process.

“Fits perfectly,” Rama said, while they were closing up his seals. “Like a second skin. Did you fit it to my body when I was dead?”

The Marines looked awkwardly at their sergeant.

“No,” Sergeant Wu said. “Well, it was designed from scans of the artificial person body, months ago. The backup clone, before your mind was… you know.”

A chill ran through Ram. “Right. Of course. Guess I’m wearing this body as much as I’m wearing the armor.”

Ram turned as Milena propelled herself down to the cargo hold and called out as she moved over to the open area between the stacked crates. “Good,” she said. “You’re suited up.”

“Almost,” Ram said. “Just need my helmet and my weapons.”

Milena and the sergeant exchanged a look and she cleared her throat. “Where’s my EVA suit?”

Sergeant Wu got her a civilian version of a space suit and she unselfconsciously stripped off her outer clothes before donning the gear. The Marines busied themselves but Ram watched her twisting her beautiful body like a gymnast in the zero-g to slide into the close-fitting suit. Watched until he realized she was about to fit the waste extraction sections and he turned away until she was all done. The suit was not like the UNOP Marine Corp Mark XX armor. There were no plate sections.

“How come she doesn’t get armor?” Ram asked, irritated. “What the hell? What if she gets shot or whatever?”

“It’s okay, Ram,” Milena said. “All the civilians wear these. It’s the Marines’ job to protect us so that we don’t need armor. I plan to stay well away from the fighting. Anyway, these are extremely tough, the material is essentially bulletproof. Just flexible and without all the extras in the combat version.”

“Right,” Ram said. “Well, I’ll protect you, anyway. Where are my weapons? Zhukov told me you made me a sword?”

Sergeant Wu exchanged more knowing looks with his men and they nodded and went back to work further down the hold.

“What’s going on?” Ram said but not even Milena answered him. She pursed her lips and looked away. The woman was subdued and Ram realized why. She had not seen him for a year, he had been dead, ripped apart and now he was in a clone’s body. For Ram, it had been just a day or two since they had been intimate with one another but for her, it was a completely different situation. His easy familiarity with her was misplaced, it was making her uncomfortable. He had watched her undress like she was his girlfriend but she had never even been that, really. For her, they were colleagues whose closeness had become friendship and that friendship had been briefly physical. He knew he had to give her some space. I’ll protect you, he’d said. Tone it down, Ram, you idiot.

“This is your helmet,” the sergeant said. “It fits close, it’s as small and streamlined and light as possible, providing almost complete peripheral vision but open enough inside for you to be able to speak and breathe without restriction. It works with and enhances your biological augments to provide higher powered comms and battlefield data. And if you turn your head all the way to your left or right, up or down and need to see further than it will allow, the AugHud integration will keep scrolling the image, overlaying your real-world vision.”

“Just like in Avar. What about my weapons, Sergeant?”

Wu flipped open a crate and took out an enormous rifle. It was almost as big as the Marine but when Ram took it, the weapon felt perfect in his hands. “This was custom made for you, sir. It uses the mechanism from a light machine gun, firing large caliber rounds, but we reduced the rate of fire and converted it into a weapon that you can use like a battle rifle. The grip and trigger guard and stock and everything is the same as a standard issue rifle, which I know you used in Avar, only everything is scaled for a man that’s eight feet tall. As much as possible we’ve kept the handling and rate of fire similar. It’s called the XRS-101.”

“RS for Rama Seti?” He was half joking.

“Yes, sir. And X for experimental so that no one can blame me if it blows up in your face. I’m just kidding, it works just fine.”

“But the designer, Ian, wants it to be called the Handspear.”

“The… oh, because of how I killed the wheeler?” Ram had cut off his hand and used the chisel-pointed bone ends to stab the alien champion to death in the arena.

“Yes, sir. And because Ian thinks it sounds badass.”

“I guess I do, too.”

“Let me show you the operation of the XRS-Handspear, sir.” He took it back and Rama reluctantly allowed him to do so. “Fire selection is here. Safe, single shot, burst, and full auto. Please avoid the full auto unless you need it. We’ll have to swap out the barrel much sooner if you fire like that and then there’s the ammo situation. The magazine release is here and you’ll see how huge this thing is.” He removed the oblong, bottom section of the rifle and showed Ram. Without the enormous magazine, the rifle looked strange. “The cartridges are very small, the propellant is just a fraction of it, it’s almost entirely the projectile. And considering how big you are and the weapon is, we’ve packed five hundred and twenty rounds in each magazine.”

“Five hundred round mags, okay.”

“Now the first of the bad news, sir. They take a long time to load and we have a limited supply of all ammunition. Anyway, you have just five magazines, including this one.”

“That’s still more than two thousand rounds.”

“Two thousand six hundred. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it, sir. The fire rate for this weapon is eight hundred rounds a minute. Pretty standard. Full auto and you’re permanently out of ammo in just over three minutes.”

“Yeah but I won’t—”

“Course you won’t, sir. But firing bursts, at maybe sixty a minute? You’ll only have forty-five minutes of shooting.” He nodded at Ram’s expression. “No resupply and we might have to hold out for weeks. Days, certainly.”

“Alright, message understood, Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir.” Wu held out his hands and Ram handed the XRS-Handspear back to the Gunnery Sergeant. “But the real bad news is that the Captain won’t let me issue it to you.”

“What?”

“Yes, sir. Captain Cassidy has ordered that we cannot issue your rifle or sidearm to you. Not with ammunition. And not until you’ve practiced and demonstrated that you can use it properly and safely. And we have to hold on to your sword. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Come on, Gunny. How am I supposed to defend myself?”

Gunnery Sergeant Wu looked unhappy. “The Captain’s opinion is that arming you with a weapon would be more risk to the rest of us.”

“Like I’m some kind of incompetent?”

The Sergeant glanced at Milena, a pleading look in his eyes.

“Ram,” Milena said. “I know it doesn’t make much sense right now but—”

“No, it’s alright, I get it. Captain Cassidy doesn’t trust me. But I can’t even have the sword?”

“It’s in this case here.” Wu banged the case beneath the one holding the magazines for the Handspear. It had a graphic of a sword printed on it. “I can issue it once you are signed off, sir.”

“We’re heading into a warzone, right?” Ram knew that arguing with a Marine who was following orders was an exercise in futility but he could not help himself. It was idiotic to deny him weapons.

“Come on, Ram,” Milena said, tugging on his arm. “Let’s get back in the reentry chairs before it’s too late. Hear the end of Cassidy’s briefing. You have a lot to catch up on.”

As they floated up the hatch, the shuttle vibrated and shook, rattling around. Rama’s stomach lurched and he bounced back down to the bottom of the floor of the crew compartment.

“Get to your seats,” Cassidy growled at them, breaking off from his briefing. “We’re entering the atmosphere, slowing down.”

Rama helped Milena back into her own chair before he took his own, guiding her as easily as if she was a small child.

“The environment on the surface around the outpost seems at first to be completely benign,” Captain Cassidy continued as Rama and Milena strapped themselves back in. “Surface temperature, both day and night, pressure, and humidity will be familiar to anyone from a temperate climate back home. And I keep hearing you people saying the air is breathable. Yes, there is enough oxygen in the atmosphere but that air isn’t something you want to be breathing. Initial tests suggest the alien bacteria on the planet is probably benign but until the scientists know for sure, you will be following the proper procedures or you will be spending your entire time on the surface locked in the quarantined zone of the outpost. And if you’re in quarantine, then you’re no good to anyone. You have been warned. Any questions?”

Ram raised his hand and waved it.

Captain Cassidy scowled. “What?”

“Is there a presentation to go along with your talk that I can download, or…?”

Cassidy’s top lip curled as he turned back to face the rest of the compartment. “Any real questions?”

Ram looked at Milena. “I was serious about the presentation.”

“Initiate your AugHud,” she said, her voice calm and familiar in his ear, in his head. “You should be tapped into the network.”

Ram felt around inside his head until he found the glaring activation node and concentrated on it. Control of the implants came to him easily, despite being in a new body, and the AugHud flickered into life over his vision, linking to the Company network.

Data streamed, unfiltered. Information about the shuttle’s airspeed and altitude, lists of names for the Marines and their assigned fire teams, individual competencies, text and audio orders and informal conversations flying back and forth between them all.

For the briefest moment, it was like being back on Earth, logging into his Avar server and speaking to his cooperative. But the craft lurched and he forgot his nostalgia, selecting exterior cameras on the shuttle and expanding the images to fill his vision.

He was astonished to see how high up they still were. High enough to perceive the curve of the planet and the infinite blackness above. Below, swirling cloud covered the globe and the sunlight reflected off water. What little land he could see was black and dark gray, in the shape of chains and clusters of islands, glimpsed through the swirling ribbons of the cloud layer.

Cassidy stopped and tilted his head, listening. “Alright,” Cassidy said. “Lieutenant Xenakis says we’re having trouble raising the outpost. We’re coming into thicker atmosphere now, people. Make sure your straps are tight and your suits are sealed.” Cassidy grabbed hold of the seat backs and pulled his way to his own place, front and center.

Ram’s stomach lurched again and a noise like a distant monsoon sounded around the hull of the craft.

“This is crazy,” Ram said to Milena, or tried to. His teeth chattered in his head and he barely heard himself over the sound of the atmosphere outside. She nodded all the same, no doubt understanding something of his sentiment.

It felt like the shuttle was diving down, then levelling out and occasionally turning, over and over. They passed through the cloud layers so quickly that he barely noticed. Perhaps such maneuvering in a descent was perfectly standard or perhaps the pilots were attempting to avoid ground fire or enemy fighter craft.

“There are weapons on this thing, right?” Ram asked Milena during one of the relative lulls. “Rockets and lasers and stuff?”

Milena clutched her straps tight with her gloved hands. “It’s a shuttle, Ram. A single stage to orbit transport shuttle.”

Ram nodded. “Is that a no?”

On the exterior view, he could make out an enormous plateau of black rock extending for hundreds of klicks. On one side, it ended in a jagged coastline. Opposite that, a curving line of peaks and rolling hills that disappeared out of sight.

“Are we heading for those mountains?”

“The outpost was established just beneath them,” Milena said. “Strong winds over most of the surface. This position shelters the outpost from the prevailing wind. And that’s why they changed the layout into a four-sided box shape instead of separate buildings spread out in a complex, as originally intended. Lucky they did. We accidently built ourselves a fort.”

They jerked downward, violently, and the rattling and banging grew louder and more intense. The whir of large motors sounded and a short series of bangs sounded on the hull. The shuttle banked, violently and went into a dive.

“What’s happening?” He asked Milena, using the comms system. “Is this normal?”

His AugHud told him to prepare for hard landing, on screen and by a simulated woman’s voice in his ear.

It told him to assume the crash position in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. His screen flashed the word BRACE at him and he knew to check his helmet was locked into the seat back, his boots were clicked into the foot rest and he hooked his crossed arms into the straps over his chest.

Close your mouth, his suit said in his ear, close your—

A mighty bang and the impact of the hard landing jarred his spine. His head bounced around inside his helmet but the suit and seat kept him secure. The deceleration pulled him forward, so hard against the straps that he couldn’t get a breath. Landing, landing, his suit said.

No shit.

The shuttle vibrated, shaking around while engines roared outside and the deceleration continued while the suit spoke in his ear, urging him to brace for landing. As the speed bled away, the suit spoke again, in that infuriatingly calm computer-generated female voice.

“Please remain harnessed until-”

“All units.” Cutting her off, Captain Cassidy’s order came in loud and clear. “Prepare to disembark under fire.”

CHAPTER TWO

Lieutenant Kat Xenakis eased the shuttle downward to the smooth, black surface of the outpost landing strip, flaring back to bleed off every ounce of speed she could.

Coming in fast over the outpost she had descended quickly through the last layer of light cloud cover and dropped to the planed-flat black rock below. Every time she saw the fledgling outpost through the external camera feeds, she was reminded of flying over mining operations in her native south and west Australia. Instead of clusters of buildings perched next to vast open-pit mines gouged with step-sides deep into the earth, this outpost was a single square structure sitting on the surface of a plain, in the shadow of hills.

Those hills had been thrust up by some volcanic process in the past, and were now cracked and broken into long gorges with overhanging sides that tumbled billions of tons of scree down toward the plateau in undulating piles that zigzagged into the distance for hundreds of kilometers.

It had just been dumb luck, or bad planning, to site their outpost so close to those gorges and cliffs that sliced their way into the uplands. It meant no direct lines of sight for the people in the outpost and even aerial drones had to be almost directly above the enemy position to see them when the aliens attacked.

Erosion of the land was so rapid because, unlike Australia, the surface was wet and cut with hundreds of streams and thin rivers that rushed down the gashes in the hills where they spread out and mingled and broke apart again as they flowed toward the sea in the west. There, many of them fell from the great shelf of rock in waterfalls toward the ocean below where the waves boomed ceaselessly against the basalt walls. Others flowed so lightly that the waters were caught in the updrafts off of the ocean and blasted up into a spray of water that reached hundreds of meters into the air.

It was a new surface, less than a million years, so Kat had heard, formed through some huge volcanic outflow and being eroded almost as quickly as it had formed.

It’s nothing like Australia. I must be homesick if this water world makes me think of the ancient desolation at home.

She had to concentrate on the task at hand.

The Lepus was heavily laden with people and cargo and the gear hit hard, crunching the suspension on the rear wheels with a series of juddering bangs. Kat grimaced and forced the front gear down while the brakes slammed on.

Kat’s pilot’s seat dampened the impact but it was a hard landing. In the seat on her right, her copilot Flight Officer Mehdi Moreau grunted and swore.

“Enemy detected,” Sheila the shuttle’s AI said through the comms in Kat’s ear. “Approximately two thousand kilometers northeast.”

“Not now, Sheila,” Kat said to the AI while she reversed thrust on the atmo engines. “Let’s just land this thing, shall we, sweetheart?”

“We’re too fast,” her copilot Mehdi Moreau said in the chair next to hers, his voice clear in her helmet comms. “Firing retros.”

“Wait, Mehdi,” Kat shouted at her copilot as the Lepus bounced its way along the outpost landing strip.

Mehdi hesitated, staring out the front window, then back at her. She watched his indecision with her peripheral vision while the view of the planet poured in through the cockpit’s front windows.

Below the blue skies and wispy cloud, the peaks of the jagged, black volcanic horizon ahead were more like foothills than they were mountains but they were not her main concern. The airstrip under her wheels had been planed clean but even a rock the size of a molehill could take out their landing gear, stranding them on the surface for hours. That was assuming they could repair the damage before an alien army overran their position.

“The strip’s too short, Kat,” Mehdi shouted, the comms system reducing the volume of his voice so it did not blow out her ear drum. “It gets rough in less than—”

“Leave it,” she snapped. “And be quiet.”

Kat Xenakis had no need for anyone to tell her about the situation. She had data streaming on her control consoles, at arms’ reach in front and to either side of the pilot’s seat. She could see the planet out of the front window. She had data overlaid on her AugHud. They were eating up the length of the strip and the flight AI and Kat’s human copilot Mehdi were both panicking, in their own ways. Panicking that the shuttle was destined to smash nose-first into the rough ground beyond the end of the prepared ground if they did not fire their retro rockets and release the drogue chutes.

“Recommendation,” the AI said, in her perfectly clear tones. “Reduce braking, thirty percent. Immediate.”

Warnings flashed on her panels that the brakes on the landing gear wheels were over maximum recommended temperature. But Kat knew the maximum temperatures were conservative ones, set in part to prolong the life of the braking system. A system that could be replaced, if they ever made it back up to the Victory.

“Leave them, Sheila,” Kat said. “We’ll be okay.”

The AI was able to keep up with Kat’s decision-making speed. Rather, Kat’s nervous system had been surgically enhanced with the ERANS to speed up her physical reaction time, reduce her decision-making time and generally decrease the subjective passing of time.

Beside her, Mehdi seemed to Kat to be moving with painful slowness. Every move he made was like the man swam through invisible treacle. The bouncing of the gear suspension on the rugged surface was for her more like riding a sine wave than the boneshaking roughness the Marines in the back had to be feeling.

And Lieutenant Kat Xenakis had something that neither the AI nor her copilot Flight Officer Mehdi Moreau had.

With the adrenaline pumping, her enhanced mind ran almost as quickly as the AI and she could read the data streams almost as seamlessly but Kat had a greater risk tolerance than an AI did. But a tolerance tempered by her experience and her professionalism.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Mehdi, take your hand away from the retros. Don’t need them.”

“What about using RCS?” Mehdi said. “We got tons of fuel.”

“What’s the point?” Kat said. “You know they won’t do anything in-atmosphere, for God’s sake.”

“Twenty-five seconds until impact,” Sheila the Shuttle AI said.

The Lepus was slowing but the projection said they would overrun the landing strip by twenty meters, assuming the shuttle did not flip or roll immediately when it hit the unprepared area.

“Don’t say impact, sweetheart,” Kat said. “It’ll just be a tiny bump, if it’s anything.”

“A tiny bump straight into those mountains,” Mehdi said, through gritted teeth, hands hovering near the switches for the chutes and engines. He was exaggerating because the Lepus would certainly break apart before it hit the rising ground of the black hills.

The shuttle banged and swerved, hitting rough ground.

Warning lights flared: main engine fuel lines, battery compartments 4-6, and the rear right gear motors.

“Leave retros,” Kat said. She had no time to explain why. “We don’t need them to stop in time.”

“Overriding pilot control,” Sheila said, in her perpetually calm tone and perfect voice.

“No, you’re not,” Kat said, outraged. “Back off, Sheila, you traitorous bitch.”

Mehdi shouted over the noise of the warning alarms. “No point saving the retros if we rip the hull open on the surface.”

“Calm down, Mehdi,” Kat said. “Just keep your eyes out for those bloody aliens.”

It wasn’t about saving the retro rockets. The Lepus, her faithful shuttle was over its weight capacity yet again and the strain was beginning to tell. The shuttle was a marvel of engineering but it had never been tested for so many descents with such rapid turnarounds over the previous few weeks while the outpost was built. Just now, pulling out of the dive on the way down, she had put stresses on the frame that had threatened to rip off an engine or a wing. But the Lepus had held together. Now, she just had to ease the deceleration along the four-kilometer landing strip. Stopping too abruptly with the retros might finish the old bird off, break something structural that could not be easily fixed on the surface of this alien world.

Still, she had run out of landing strip.

The atmo engines gimballed fully into reverse position and she fired them up again, ten percent thrust for two seconds. The engines roared and the hull groaned.

Hold together, old girl.

Kat slammed hard into her harness and the shuttle vibrated hard with the stress, wheels sliding over the gravelly stone of the landing strip.

Sheila compensated automatically for the drift, behaving like a good AI for once and the shuttle straightened out as it came to a rolling stop.

Right at the end of the strip. A few meters ahead, the ground was uneven and strewn with boulders.

“Coolant leak, wheels five and six on rear right gear,” Mehdi said. “Sheila, reroute additional coolant to—”

“She knows her job,” Kat said. “Leave her to it and you do yours.”

“Alright, boss,” Mehdi said, slapping his quick release and scrambling out of his copilot’s chair and to the back of the cockpit where he shimmied up the ladder to the observation airlock on the roof of the shuttle.

“Sheila, love, get the doors open.”

“Confirmed, beginning equalization sequence.”

“Captain Cassidy,” Kat said into the command channel. “We’re about get the doors open. Ten seconds. You may disembark your people.”

“Acknowledged,” the Marines Captain said, as calm as an AI. “Can you raise the outpost?”

“No way,” Kat said. “You should see the electromagnetic spectrum out here, Cassidy. It’s like pea soup.”

“Enemy forces?”

With all the interference, Kat could not get a clear reading. But Sheila had seen the enemy massing on the shuttle’s approach.”

“Still on the far side of the outpost, in the hills,” Kat said into the comms while she checked her systems. “But they would have seen us coming in to land and I’m willing to bet they’ll be rolling this way. Mehdi’s heading up to take a look.”

She had come in as low over the horizon as she’d dared and had to use the air breathing engines to boost them to the landing strip but the wheelhunters, approaching the outpost in their vehicles from out of the hills beyond, could not have missed the enormous human shuttle roaring out of the skies.

“Lieutenant Xenakis,” Cassidy said, “I’m sending up a couple of my guys with the copilot to provide overwatch while we unload the shuttle.”

“Alright,” Kat said, “I’ll try to remember they’re up there when I’m ready to take off.”

“ETA on your turnaround time?” Cassidy said.

“Sheila, what do you think? How are we doing?”

“No significant damage, turnaround time rated unsupported optimal.”

“Alright, Cassidy, I can be in the sky before your gear is out of my hold.”

“Glad to hear that, Lieutenant,” Cassidy said. “We’ll get the evacuees to you asap.”

“I’m heading back to help unload,” Kat said to Sheila while she unstrapped herself. “Keep an eye on things.”

“Affirmative,” Sheila said. “Taking full pilot control. Resisting urge to flee for orbit.”

“Hilarious,” Kat said as she climbed out of her chair. “Sometimes I think you’d be happy if I didn’t come back. Don’t bother to deny it, just keep your engines warm, alright, darling. Won’t be long.”

Checking her helmet was sealed tight, she let herself out of the cockpit door, heading for the cargo hold. Instead, the way was blocked by the most gigantic person to ever wear an armored combat suit. He was a little hunched over, ducking his head, and even so the top of his helmet grazed the ceiling. She’d not spoken to him much ever and she had barely seen him in person. Like all the subjects, the man was ridiculously huge but he was the biggest even of them. Kat tried to remember the standing orders about what she could say to him and what she had to avoid. She couldn’t remember clearly. She had drugged herself quite heavily during that briefing.

“Rama Seti,” Kat said. “You’re humanity’s most famous living hero. What the hell are you doing just standing there?”

He jumped, turned and peered down at her like she was a child underfoot. “Oh yeah. You’re the pilot, right? I was going to help but they told me to keep out of the way. Captain Cassidy, Sergeant Gruger. They said to keep out of the way until my team was deployed.”

Some hero. I don’t have time for this shit.

“Well, Mr. Seti,” Kat said, putting her hands on the armor plates at his hip and pushing him back from the cargo hold hatchway. “I have a shuttle to unload before I can take off again. My deck crew is up on the Victory so you can help me, come on.”

“Alright.”

“No time to waste. The aliens are coming,” she said and leapt down the ladder to the hold. The hero was surprisingly nimble, for an eight-foot giant in an armored combat suit.

The rear cargo hatch was fully open, exposing the black surface of the landing strip beyond, the wind of Arcadia tugging at the straps and cargo nets. That wet wind was endlessly gusting across the plateau, colliding with the nearby hills and tumbling in chaotic eddies around the outpost. She imagined what it would be like to feel that cold wind cutting into her exposed skin. Wet spray whipped up from the surface into her hair.

One day, maybe. Not today.

The floor of the cargo compartment was covered with omniroller conveyors and crate stack after crate stack was moved from a stowed position and rolled down the ramp to the surface. Gunny Wu and a team of Marines were working like a swarm of ants to get the disembarked cargo out of the way so that the rest of it could be conveyed down the ramp. They had the unloading part covered.

But as she made her way to the rear it became obvious the gear was piling up just to the side of the ramp.

“Come on, Rama Seti,” she shouted over her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

He came with her, like a monster’s shadow, as she picked her way between the boxes and crates to the rear and jogged down to the ground. Kat jumped the last half meter, her boots crunching on the fine, shining black rock of the alien world. The sun was high, casting short shadows on the floor, black on black.

“Where’s Sergeant Wu?” she called on the comms and a suited hand shot up by a pile of cargo still sitting netted tight on a transport crate. She pushed her way through to him. The Gunny was directing the men that he had in between checking items off on a large screen in his hands, scrolling through the manifest.

“I know, Lieutenant, I know,” the Sergeant said before Kat could open her mouth. “The Captain ordered me to keep the cargo here while they establish a perimeter and a secure route to the outpost for the evacuees.”

He gestured northward and she looked through the piles of equipment, beyond the massive wheels of the landing gear, to where groups of Marines were heading toward the outpost, two klicks away.

It seemed further away on the ground than it had in the air. Still, her enhanced vision could make it out well enough. The reddish-brown steel walls, squared off and human-made in an alien landscape. Above the wall, she could make out the top of the transparent dome that roofed over the center courtyard of the square outpost. In the far-left corner jutted the antenna, sticking straight up over it all.

“Cassidy ordered you to dump it all here?” Kat asked Wu. He nodded, looking nervous. “Did he tell you to obstruct my engines and block the landing strip?”

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Gunny Wu said. “It won’t be long, I’m sure. We just need to make sure the supplies aren’t destroyed or captured before we can—”

“You can pile this gear up fifty meters that way, Sergeant and you can do it right now.” She pointed toward the outpost. “Get the wheels turning on the cargo crates. Unpack the ETAT-24s, use them to help you. And use our hero here.” She jerked her thumb at the man looming over them both.

“We’re on it, Lieutenant,” Sergeant Wu said, nodding at the vehicles.

Marines wrestled with the ETATs, the big combat dune buggies, ripping off the protective layers and extending the roll bars over the top. Those vehicles were made of the lightest, strongest materials available.

“I got this, sir,” Gunnery Sergeant Wu said. “Mr. Seti, sir, would you mind giving us a hand?” The small Sergeant jogged over with the giant marching behind. “And I’ll move everything fifty meters north, right away, Lieutenant. Right away.”

“Carry on, Gunny,” she said and left the Marines and Rama Seti.

Kat made her way along the side of her shuttle, looking up for damage on the hull plating or any cracks in the engines or wings.

Her hull was charred from the reentry shock heating but that was normal. It was Sheila the AI’s job to assess damage and say whether the plates were too damaged to fly but you could only trust a computer so much.

The side door of the Lepus was thrown wide open and a steady stream of Marines flowed up and down it, in and out of the shuttle. On her AugHud she located Captain Cassidy about seventy meters away with his command team around him, directing them to various points. Kat had no desire to get that far away from her shuttle, not with the enemy coming out of the hills, so she climbed up the stairs into the side door, shouting at a couple of dawdling Marines to move out of the way, which they did, smartly and promptly.

Back in the cockpit, she swung herself onto the ladder and scrambled up, through the open double hatches of the airlock—looking up at the azure disc of sky directly above her head—and out onto the roof of the shuttle.

“What do you see, Mehdi?”

He was laying stretched out on his belly, telescope on its tripod up to his visor. The rest of his sensors and gear arrayed around him. Above, his microdrones buzzed in a small swarm.

“They’re out there, the bastards,” he said, not taking his eyes from the sights.

“You can see them?”

“Not directly, no. I’ve got a drone at a thousand meters up but they’re still out of sight. They’re in the hills to the northeast. They’re kicking up dust and I keep getting flashes of heat above the valley sides. And that’s where all the electromagnetic shit is spilling out from. Are you seeing this? What are they pumping it all out with?”

She looked down at the swarming Marines on the surface. Four teams, Cassidy’s at 70 meters and three others beyond, spaced out but heading for the northern side of the outpost. “You’re relaying it all to Cassidy?”

Mehdi scoffed. “Course. Check the tactical channel.”

On her AugHud she saw the thermal and electromagnetic signatures beeping, out beyond the walls of the outpost, in and amongst the boulders at the edge of the foothills. “So, those wheeler pricks are going to attack the outpost from the same direction they did last time, huh?”

“Looks like it. Where are the Marines that Cassidy was sending up here with you?”

“Flores and Fury? They were up here but they said it was pointless while the enemy was so far away and they went down again. Heading for the rear.”

Kat shook her head. “Right. I bumped into them downstairs. They’re Spaz Squad, right?”

“That’s an offensive term.”

“Shut up, Mehdi,” Kat said. “Come on, mate, you’ve had your fun. Let’s focus on getting the old girl turned around, right? At this rate, looks like we might have to evacuate the wounded under fire. You’re reading the meteorological data?”

“Satellites are all operational but that interference is disrupting the signal between us and them. Same as us and the outpost. The wheelers are just flooding the spectrum, just flooding it. Never seen anything like it. Look at all the pulses, Kat. Our personal comms are going to be down. We’ll be blind. Can our shielding even cope with that? Are they going to roll up here with all that and hit us with—”

She cut him off. “What’s the weather data?”

“Not getting much but yeah, looks okay. Still, blue skies, wind gusty but stable enough for—”

An explosion.

Two hundred meters away, between the shuttle and the outpost, a chunk of rocky ground erupted in a shower of gravel and dust. The sound of the blast was a crack that she felt in the body of her flight suit. An incoming alien weapon had exploded amongst the advancing human soldiers.

The world slowed as her enhanced reactions cranked up a gear, responding to her spike in adrenaline and cortisol.

Most Marines had hit the dirt, throwing themselves prone onto the rough black bedrock. A few of them, like Captain Cassidy and Sergeant Gruger, stood tall and issued orders, arms pointing.

More explosions followed the first, like a series of grenades creeping closer to her shuttle. One detonation every second or two.

Mehdi scooped up his gear, throwing armfuls of it down the hatch before cradling his telescope and scurrying after the equipment.

Sheila pinged Kat’s ear. “Danger. Threat detected. Recommend immediate prep for takeoff.”

“You’re not wrong, Sheila,” Kat said, peering through the clouds of debris, watching them bloom and die away in slow motion. “But we can’t leave until we evacuate the wounded.”

Mehdi grabbed armfuls of his gear as he struggled to his feet and headed for the hatch. “No one will come out into that. We need to be gone before them or the shuttle will be hit.”

She did not look at him, instead studying the pattern of explosions. It was like a mortar attack. Explosive shelling. The plumes bursting like flowers.

The detonations were not hitting the outpost. They were not hitting the Lepus. Just the open ground in between, where the Marines ran for cover.

“Let’s get out of here,” Mehdi said, pausing by the open hatch down to the cockpit. “No way will the wounded walk through all that.”

Explosions threw up debris but she could see movement at the outpost. Kat gestured at a group of EVA-suited civilians hurrying from the walls.

“They must really want off this planet.”

“There they are,” Mehdi shouted. For a moment, she thought he meant the civilians but his tone was all wrong. Then she saw his outstretched arm pointing over her shoulder at the jagged hills.

Oh shit. Here we go.

The wheelers were coming.

CHAPTER THREE

Ram knew to keep low to reduce the chance of being hit by shrapnel or blast damage but he was 2.5 meters tall and even crouching he was still the biggest target around.

“Hit the deck, sir,” Gunnery Sergeant Wu shouted, crouching behind a half-unpacked crate.

The sergeant and the six Marines with him at the rear of the Lepus all hugged what cover they could to protect themselves from the alien mortar fire.

From the rear of the shuttle, Ram watched the pattern of explosions detonating at intervals between his position and the distant walls of the outpost. Warning lights flashing on his AugHud. The blasts were surely random, fired without a spotter. Lobbed high from the cover of the dark hills beyond the outpost to explode on impact with whatever they hit.

“They’re not hitting the outpost,” Ram called out.

“Very interesting, sir,” Gunny Wu shouted back.

“Not hitting the shuttle, either,” Ram replied.

“I guess we’ll see about that, sir,” Wu said.

It was pretty clear to Ram that all they were hitting was bare rock, sending up plumes of pulverized stuff after shattering the ground beneath.

Ram had a view clear across the open rectangle of land between the shuttle, the outpost and where the plateau rose into a jumble of ancient shattered and eroded stone. There was a lot of surface area in that open space. An explosion hit every second or two, seemingly at a random location, the plumes dissipating in the gusting wind, the tops of the debris clouds curling over as they reached the prevailing currents a few meters up.

A quick, rough calculation happened somewhere just below Ram’s full consciousness.

“There’s less than a five percent chance of getting hit,” Ram said to the Sergeant, straightening up. “We can continue to unpack the ETATs. In fact, we should probably hustle, Gunny.”

“They’re not aiming for us,” Wu said, standing up, looking out at the other Marines who were advancing through the incoming fire, running from cover to cover, such as it was.

“They’re trying to stop us from reinforcing the outpost,” Ram said to Wu. “The wheelers don’t want to damage the shuttle or the outpost, maybe? Capture the materiel, not destroy it?”

Before the Sergeant could respond, orders came in from Captain Cassidy on a directional broadcast to the group of Marines the rear of the shuttle.

“I want F Team to unload those ETATs and get them moving. Mr. Seti, you are formally attached to F Team. Ensign Tseng, you are in command of Mr. Seti. He’s your problem. Watch out he doesn’t get you killed. And Ensign, make… because… don’t…”

The signal fragmented into nothing.

The wheelhunters are able to flood the electromagnetic spectrum so thoroughly that our comms equipment is unable to compensate.

He knew that was a fact, somehow, but couldn’t recall when he had been told it. Probably on the shuttle.

“Where’s F Team?” Ram asked Wu.

On his AugHud, the icons for four Marines, one NCO, and one officer lit up around him, overlaying the individuals taking cover behind crates, vehicles and inside the rear of the shuttle.

The data showing the members of F Team scrolled over his eyes. His AugHud had quickly adjusted itself to Ram’s data-processing speed and the text flicked through his vision. As a leader of a highly-competitive online Avar cooperative, Ram had spent years processing huge amounts of information in seconds and he drank it all in.

Ensign Tseng, Male, Macanese, Age 28

Sergeant Stirling, Male, Scottish, Age 26

Corporal Fury, Female, English, Age 36

Private Cooper, Male, American, Age 26

Private Flores, Female, Argentinian, Age 22

Private Harris, Male, American, Age 25

All team members were armed with standard issue gear but each of them was tagged on the AugHud as NON-COMBAT.

What the hell? Who are these idiots?

“Order confirmed, sir. Seti, get over here,” Ensign Tseng said, standing up from cover and waving Rama over to him. The frequency of the incoming rounds remained consistent and one exploded nearby, between two unpacked crates. The blast wave, such as it was, blew past him, showering Ram with stones that pinged off his armor and helmet. Ram did not slow down as he jogged over to Ensign Tseng, his own breathing in his ears as he did so. The Ensign had ducked behind his crate again when Rama crouched down beside him.

“Ensign Tseng. I’m Rama Seti, pleased to meet you.”

“I know who you are,” the Ensign said, scowling. He was tall and thin but folded up in his black armor like an insect. Like Ram, he had no assault rifle in hand. Unlike Ram, he had a combat knife in a hip holster that was half a meter long and a huge pistol in a chest holster, red-tipped magazines all around the webbing at his waist.

HK-15mm with AP rounds and a T-R Longblade. Officer’s loadout.

The knowledge was there, in his memory but he had no idea how he knew it.

“What are your orders, Ensign?”

The officer ignored him. “Stirling, get up and carry on. I want these vehicles on their way to the forward fire teams inside of five minutes.”

“Sir,” the AugHud showed it was Sergeant Stirling speaking, from out by the furthest ETAT vehicle, standing up with his arm out, gesturing. “What about this incoming fire, Ensign?” The sergeant was a huge man, maybe the biggest Marine Ram had seen. He towered over the others near him and the breadth of his chest and shoulders was obvious even in the armor. From within the visor, a brutish and malevolent face glared out, as if Sergeant Stirling wanted nothing more than to tear the Ensign’s head off.

Ensign Tseng scoffed. “It’s nuisance fire. Ignore it. That’s an order.”

Before the comms clicked off, Sergeant Stirling—in a strong Scottish accent—muttered, “No shit.”

A blast a few meters away threw fragments of stone over them, pinging off the underside of the shuttle and the huge engine bells.

From the cargo ramp, the pilot Lieutenant Kat Xenakis shouted at them on the directional band. “Gunny Wu? I thought you were getting this shit away from my shuttle? I need to turn about. And get those vehicles to the outpost immediately. The civilian evacuees are heading this way.”

Ram had barely ever spoken to the pilot before but she seemed like someone with a lot of energy. Even hidden in her heavy flight suit, he could tell she was slim, tall, strong. She glared out of her visor with big dark eyes and her top lip seemed to be always drawn back halfway between a smile and a snarl. Xenakis spoke so quickly and with such forcefulness that the Marines seemed to wilt a little in the face of it, despite the fact that she had no official authority over any of them.

“Lieutenant Xenakis,” Ensign Tseng said before the Gunnery Sergeant could reply. “I am in command of F Team. My orders are to arm the ETATs and proceed to the outpost so they can provide fire support.”

“Arm the ETATs?” Lieutenant Xenakis shouted as she changed direction, marching down the ramp right toward Ensign Tseng. “There’s no time for all that, those civilians need help right now or they’re going to eat this incoming fire. They’re walking wounded. Where’s Captain Cassidy? Tell him the evacuees need a pickup. We had a clear view from the top of the shuttle but I can’t send him the visual feed from the drone.”

The Ensign hesitated. “He’s still out there. The wheelers are jamming our comms again, only short range comms is working now.”

“Well, Ensign, in that case, you’re going to have to show a little initiative, aren’t you. I’ve just given you additional tactical information and I believe the standing orders for this phase of your operation is to unload the equipment and facilitate evacuation of the wounded.”

Ram looked back and forth between the UNOP Navy Lieutenant and the UNOP Marine Corps Ensign.

Ensign Tseng “Yes but—”

“They’ll get torn apart before they ever get here unless you get those vehicles rolling, immediately,” Xenakis said. “And I need to get the shuttle away from all this before she gets hit.”

The Ensign looked around, scanning left and right.

“I think we should do it,” Ram said, glancing at the pilot and wondering if it was the best thing to do or if he only thought that because he was attracted to her. “Get the wounded on the shuttle with the vehicles, then take them to the front with the mounted weapons.”

“I’m in command,” Ensign Tseng said. An alien shell exploded a few meters away. “I am in command. You do what I say, do you understand?”

“Fine, fine,” Ram said, holding out his hands. “Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Ensign Tseng glared at Ram but spoke to the others. “Gunnery Sergeant Wu?” The sergeant was busy pushing a crate stack around a blast crater a few meters to the north. “Please carry on unloading and my team will take the vehicles to collect the injured from the outpost.”

Lieutenant Xenakis, nodded once at the Ensign, winked at Ram, then jogged away back up the cargo ramp into her shuttle.

Ram helped the other Marines tear the protective layers off the big vehicles while the explosions continued to smash into the ground between them and the outpost. Captain Cassidy’s fire teams advanced obliquely across the plain toward the enemy and took up positions to provide cover.

“What about the civilians?” Ram called to Ensign Tseng. “The ones in the shuttle. Milena and the engineers?”

The Ensign froze for a moment. “No one mentioned them to me. Not my responsibility. One of the other teams must be escorting them into the outpost.”

Ram looked through the debris clouds at the fire teams advancing toward the enemy, making a staggered line between the shuttle and the outpost. The command team under Captain Cassidy was closest, a couple of runners streaming between the commander and the fire teams to relay orders the old-fashioned way due to the dampening effects of the wheelhunter jammers.

I should be out there. I should be armed and taking the fight to the enemy.

“We’re the closest team,” Ram said. “If we don’t get the civilians from the shuttle, they’ll be cut off.”

“It’s not your concern,” Ensign Tseng said. “Harris, you’ll drive this vehicle and Cooper, you take the other one. The moment it is operational, head directly for the evacuees—”

“Take one of them,” Ram said, turning to head up into the shuttle. “But do not move this ETAT until I get the civilians from the shuttle.”

“Stop,” Ensign Tseng said. “Seti, stop. That’s an order. You’re under my command and I order you to stop.”

“I’ll be back in under five minutes,” Ram said, as the Ensign’s objections broke up and died away.

Whether the Ensign would listen was another matter but Ram had to try.

He strode up the ramp, jogged through the almost-empty cargo hold and jumped up the steps through the hatch. By the side door looking out stood Milena, unmistakable even in her EVA suit from the way she held herself, tilted her hips, one arm leaning high on the frame, and the two engineers and the biologist standing behind her.

“Milena,” Ram said and they all jumped like they’d been shot. The group of four turned almost as one.

“Ram,” Milena said, a rare smile appearing on her face. “Our suit comms don’t work outside the shuttle. Lieutenant Xenakis said she’s about to turn it around and to disembark but we couldn’t raise Captain—”

“I know,” Ram said. “Come with me. Your chariot awaits.”

I hope.

He had to help the civilians down the hatch ladder, all but Milena. They struggled as if they had never worn an EVA suit before.

You’ve never worn one before, either.

“Come on, hurry up,” Ram ordered then, herding them down the cargo ramp.

One of the ETATs was bouncing away toward the outpost. The other was just starting to crawl away, two Marines in the front, one in the back. The explosions continued, throwing pulverized rock into the air.

“Hey, wait,” Ram shouted and ran toward them. “Stop, wait for passengers, wait.” He hoped the wheeler interference would let the signal through.

The ETAT slowed and Ensign Tseng’s voice sounded in his ear, sighing. “Alright, hurry them up, Mr. Seti. Stirling, Cooper. Hold it there.”

The four civilians climbed into the rear seats and Ram started to get in the flatbed section at the very back.

“Hold on,” Ensign Tseng said. “You can’t get on, Seti. You’re too heavy. Wait here.”

Ram glanced at him. “On Arcadia, the Extraterrestrial All-Terrain vehicles are rated to carry five hundred kilos in the rear cargo section, so there’s excess capacity for supplies and gear. In fact, hold on.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Tseng said. “We’re going to go without you.”

“Just wait.” Ram hoped they would not drive off while he ran to the stacks of boxes, searched for the one he needed while Tseng shouted at him and grabbed the weapon crate. He ran to the buggy, threw it in the back and pulled himself into the open rear flatbed.

“Alright, let’s go,” Ram shouted as he jumped on. The ETAT suspension creaked under his weight.

Private Cooper, in the driver’s seat, was a fit and handsome blond-haired American. The kind of man that Ram had grown up being jealous of. The private looked back at the Ensign, who gave the order and the ETAT whirred into life, Cooper accelerating rapidly across the plain, heading for the distant outpost. Ram crouched and held on to the roll bars above his head, hands either side of the empty mount for the crewed weapons.

Explosions burst around them as the buggy raced toward the walls of the outpost. Towards the stream of civilian walking wounded coming toward the shuttle for evacuation.

Ram had a moment of exhilaration. A feeling of joy at the fact of what was happening. The black ground rushing beneath the wheels of the Marine Corps’ extraterrestrial transport vehicle as it bounced hard on the suspension, jerking his view around. Above, the turquoise sky and pink-tinged white clouds of an alien word. It was like being back in Avar, in a military game racing toward the combat area and he almost let out a whoop from the sheer thrill of it. He recalled his old colleagues in Rubicon, the Avar coop he had founded and he wondered how they were doing. Whether they were still competitive in the rankings without him to lead them.

The ground in front of the ETAT exploded in a black plume of debris. Private Cooper swerved the vehicle hard to the left, throwing the buggy onto two wheels and Ram leaned to his right, stopping it from tipping all the way over. It crashed down hard and bounced. Still, the explosion smashed a shower of stones into them. The vehicle was constructed of hollow tubes and was completely open, offering no protection from the shrapnel. There was no time to do anything other than instinctively duck and weather the impacts. They rang his helmet and his armor and pinged against the frame of the vehicle.

And they were through. Clear air ahead to the outpost.

The other ETAT-24 bounced toward them and then went right by, heading the other way, back to the shuttle. The rear of the large buggy filled to bursting with wounded civilian staff being evacuated. It rode low on the suspension, with eight or nine EVA-suited people in the seats and hanging on to the frame. Private Harris, driving the other vehicle gave an elaborate, lordly wave to Private Cooper, who waved back as they passed each other a few meters apart.

Private Harris was another American, as dark and ugly as his countryman was blond and handsome. Both seemed to be treating the current situation lightly. Ram wondered what action they had seen before where they would be so relaxed. Maybe they had been conditioned to enjoy combat, as Ram supposedly had. Maybe they were just a couple of arrogant assholes.

“Few more for you back there, sir,” Private Flores said from the other ETAT as it went by. She jerked her thumb back at the outpost. She was young and stocky, which probably meant she was taking huge doses of steroids or she had undergone some gene editing.

It wasn’t much further to go when a blast erupted over them. Showering them with pinging shards of stone. Again, the damage seemed superficial.

“Jamie!” One of the civilians shouted. “Oh, Jesus, no.”

One of the civilians in Ram’s ETAT was slumped over, his helmet resting on the seat in front, limbs flopping from the bumpy ride in a way that declared the man was unconscious. Or dead. Stone shrapnel from the explosion must have struck him, caught him in the face.

Ram watched from the rear while Milena helped the other civilians to drag the unconscious one upright and his head rolled back, exposing the smashed visor and a face inside covered with blood. Breathable air would be rushing from the helmet and if the man was not dead from his wounds then he would suffer from the low oxygen atmosphere of the planet.

“What do we do?” The engineer, the wounded man’s colleague shouted.

Sergeant Stirling, in the front passenger seat, turned. “Just cover the leak,” he said, his big face twisted in contempt. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Cover it with what?” the engineer shouted back.

“Anything,” Stirling said, turning back to face the front as if he could not have cared less. “Use your hands. We’ll be there in a moment.”

“My fucking hands?” the engineer said. “We need to go back to the shuttle, now. He’s losing air.”

“He will be fine,” Milena said, her voice perfectly level. “Plenty of air left in his suit. We need sheeting. Something like a bag to wrap over his head.”

The ETAT-24 had been wrapped in a dozen square meters of impermeable sheeting but they had left it all back at the shuttle, blowing away in the Arcadian wind. Surely there was something else they could use?

An explosion hit a few meters to the east but the few stones that struck them had lost most of their momentum. The buggy slowed as it approached the line of fleeing civilians in their EVA suits. Most were on foot, one was on a stretcher and another was half-carried between two others who helped her along.

“Someone help us,” the engineer said, trying to hold his hands and the hands of the other civilians over the smashed visor.

As far as Ram could make out, the evacuating civilians seemed pretty much uninjured. Perhaps they had sustained injuries inside their suits. He knew that wheelers had broken into part of the outpost during the previous attack on the outpost. Ram would have to ensure that if they did so again, he would be ready to defend himself and Milena and the others. Defend them as best he could without the rifle they had made for him.

That was it.

“I have something,” Ram said and dragged out the case he had taken. He popped the catches and there it was.

His sword.

The blade was wrapped in transparent plastic. He drew the weapon and unwound the sheet from it. The blade had a thin coating of oil over it, as did the plastic sheet.

“Here, use this. Quickly, take it. You’ll have to hold it in place, maybe.”

“Thank, you, Ram, thank you.” The engineer wrapped his colleague’s head in plastic and drew it in tight around his neck. “Hang in there, Jamie, hang in there.”

Ram held his massive sword, turned it over in his hands. The real-world, scaled-up replica of his favorite Avar weapon. How many hundreds and thousands of hours had he used the virtual version of it? He had used it against virtual Vikings and historically-dubious Saxons but now he would use it against aliens on a planet in another star system.

The very fact of his situation was almost devastatingly strange and disturbing. He backed away from the thought before it overwhelmed his sanity.

When they reached the group of six wounded civilians fleeing the outpost, the ETAT skidded to a stop.

“Marines and civilians out,” Sergeant Stirling called. “Wounded onto the vehicle. Quickly, please, ladies and gentlemen.”

Ram jumped off the back, clutching his sword and the tactical scabbard which he clipped to his armor’s webbing at the left hip.

“I’ll carry him in,” Ram said to the civilians in the back, indicating the wounded man, helmet wrapped in oily plastic.

“No way,” the engineer shouted, cradling his colleague in his arms. “He’s wounded. He must go back to the ship, on the shuttle.”

“No.” Milena spoke firmly, laying her hand on the engineer’s shoulder. “Jamie can’t go back to the ship. He’s been exposed to the atmosphere. He has to stay planetside.”

The engineer shook his head inside his helmet. “He wouldn’t have been exposed, all the air was still coming from his suit, it would have pushed the planet’s atmosphere out. No contamination possible. Come on.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Milena said. “The containment protocols will not be relaxed. If he goes up on the shuttle, they’ll never let him out of the Victory’s airlock. Even if he doesn’t die of his injuries, they’ll end up blowing him into space rather than risk contaminating the ship.”

The engineer was horrified. “They wouldn’t do it.”

Milena did not budge. “You know they would. You know their philosophy. They’re technoprimitivists to the core. The ends will always justify the means for them. They will never let Jamie on the Victory like this. He stays here, under quarantine. Come on, they’ll take care of him.”

The Marines helped the wounded onto the ETAT. Blasts of incoming fire continued. Rama looked at the pattern and discerned that the frequency had increased considerably but the area the wheelers were shelling was thousands of square meters and the chances of a direct hit remained negligible.

The engineer had not given up his argument with Milena. “What about all these people? There’s decontamination protocols. They’ve been here weeks, they’ll be far more exposed than Jamie—”

“Anyone found to have been directly exposed to the planet’s atmosphere, soil or water will face the same treatment.”

Ram sheathed his huge sword, stepped forward, gently but firmly pulled the engineer away and picked up the wounded man.

“Leave him alone,” the engineer protested.

Ram ignored him, instead speaking to Milena and the Marines. “We’re wasting time. Come on.” Compared to Ram, the wounded man in his arms was small and light as a sleeping child. A shell exploded close enough to make the civilians flinch.

The hulking Sergeant Stirling growled at the small group of wounded civilians. “Everyone get on the vehicle, now, come on, let’s go, people. Anyone want to drive?” A small, limping guy volunteered and the sergeant swung him into the driver’s seat. “You’re sure, sir? That’s right, you just push this button to accelerate and this one to brake. Don’t go too fast, it’s got some serious poke, alright, sir? Okay, give us a moment to get clear then straight line it back to the rear of the shuttle. Not too fast now, sir.”

The ETAT-24 whirred into life and surged away, an injured civilian in nominal control. A wheeler round burst five meters from them and it raced faster, the driver possibly panicking.

“Think they’ll make it back okay, Sarge?” Private Cooper asked.

Stirling snorted. “It’ll be a bloody miracle.”

“Alright, everyone,” Ensign Tseng called. “Just fifty meters north to the outpost, on foot, quick as we can. Cooper, you take point, Stirling at the rear. Seti, you will join the civilians in the middle group. Come on, let’s go, let’s go. Quick as you like.”

Private Cooper on point hugged his battle rifle and advanced straight toward the wall of the compound, with everyone following behind. “Hope they don’t have the Hive Queen with them, Sarge,” Cooper shouted.

“Shut up about the Hive Queen,” Stirling said. “No one finds it amusing, Cooper. Stay focused.”

Cooper laughed.

Ram, carrying the wounded and unconscious man, fell into step beside Milena. “How are you?” he asked her. He smiled in order to make her feel better.

She glanced up at him, arching an eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling you’re enjoying yourself?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shifting the unconscious man in his arms. “I’m taking this seriously. And I’d rather be out there, weapon in my hand.” He nodded across the plain, to where the other Marines in their fire teams advanced to the front of the outpost. “But you have to admit, this is better than being dead. Pretty significantly better.”

I was dead. The wheeler killed me. Tore me apart. But if I died, what am I now?

“Well, don’t get too excited,” Milena said, as an alien explosive round smashed into the ground between them and the side wall of the outpost. The pieces rained down all around the small group. “You’ll have plenty of opportunity around here to become dead again.”

As if to underline her point, yet another wheelhunter shell exploded just beside them and they picked up their pace.

Along the route from the shuttle to the compound, hundreds of meters away from Ram, Captain Cassidy’s Marines still pushed forward, many of them firing at an unseen enemy. The battle had begun. It was frustrating that the enemy interference cut him off from speaking to Cassidy. Ram wondered if he should abandon the civilians and Lieutenant Tseng’s F Team in order to support the real Marines, out there fighting the enemy. Rifles snapped controlled bursts, support weapons kept up longer bursts of fire, and every now and then a long-range rifle would crack a high caliber supersonic projectile at the unseen wheelers.

And then he saw them. At least, he caught a glimpse of a wheelhunter vehicle. Just the corner of one but he knew, somehow, recognized the structure of it from the shape and the angles of the alloy exterior. It rolled forward from behind a jagged outcrop, out of a shallow gulley, perhaps, already firing the long-barreled turret weapon on top of the squat vehicle.

A wheelhunter combat vehicle.

UNOP designation; Wildcat. Main weapon fires ultrahigh density plasma pulses.

How did I know that?

The Wildcat tank weapon whirred and flashed long streaks of white, shredded the Marine fire team that was nearest to it as they fell back. A Marine antitank weapon fired in return, streaking across the black surface of the planet leaving a plume of smoke behind it. The missile slammed into the front of the Wildcat, the hard explosion felt in Ram’s guts a moment or two after he saw it.

With barely a pause, the Wildcat plowed on, turning its turret toward the antitank weapon and firing along the line of the missile’s smoke trail, the wheeler projectiles dissipating the plume as it did so.

Ram caught a glimpse, through the haze, of alien infantry rolling behind the Wildcat tank. The wheelers on the planet were all clad in EVA suits of their own—tight, black, sleek—covering all their six legs, both long arms and the central hub. From this distance, it looked like a giant bug scurrying to cover from beneath a lifted stone or log.

How many of them were out there? How many vehicles like the Wildcat did the enemy have in operation?

Ram wished he had his rifle.

Ahead, the walls of the outpost loomed. Just five meters high, they were made from the walls of transport containers and parts of the Victory, dropped from orbit and assembled on site. In the far corner, an antenna jutted up many times higher than the roof of the structure. The team approached midway along where two sections joined, there was an airlock, door wide open and inviting.

“Everyone inside,” Sergeant Stirling ordered. “Right, sir?”

Ensign Tseng glared at Stirling, who looked down at the officer with a blank expression. “That’s right,” Tseng said, his voice a jagged growl.

There was not quite room for all of them to fit in. Ram passed the wounded engineer to the others to carry so that the injured man would quickly get to relative safety. While Milena and the civilians went through the cycle, Ram stood outside and watched the distant Marine fire teams spreading around the new threat. Rounds ricocheted from the armor of the rumbling enemy tank but many of the Marines kept up their fire anyway.

“They should hold fire,” Ram said to the Marines around him. “Unless they’re trying to lure the alien tanks to them. What do we have that would take out those Wildcat vehicles?”

Ensign Tseng scoffed. “You do not have anything. Leave it to the real professionals, Seti.”

When the airlock door hissed open, Tseng and Private Cooper ducked inside.

“You too, sir,” Sergeant Stirling said from beside him. “Into the airlock,” he added.

“I’m going to help,” Ram said, pointing across through the drifting dust at the edge of the battle beyond.

“Going to attack the alien tank with your sword, sir?” the sergeant said.

“If I have to.”

“If it’s a fight you’re after, sir, the wheelers are also attacking the front of the outpost, which is full of useless civilians looking to us Marines to help them,” Stirling said. “So, respectfully, sir, get inside the fucking airlock.”

Ram ducked inside and the Sergeant slammed the airlock door behind both of them.

CHAPTER FOUR

“That’s a bloody wheeler tank, Mehdi, one of those Wildcat bastards,” Kat shouted from the cockpit. “Get your skinny ass back down here, now.”

The view through the cockpit windows showed little more than views of the green-blue sky and the tops of the jagged, black hills with the clouds above. But she had sight of the entire area through the shuttle cameras relaying live images from all around and could see the enemy approaching the outpost. Even though the square structure was big enough to house over a hundred people, from this distance it seemed so isolated and vulnerable. A fort in enemy territory.

“Marines will deal with it,” Mehdi said, speaking with infuriating slowness. “Remember the briefing on it? They had one in the last attack and it withdrew after they hit it with small arms. I don’t think that weapon on top has the range to reach us. There’s no rush, Kat.” He was up on the roof with his gear and enjoying his vantage point.

She took a breath before answering and focused on keeping her voice level and professional. “That weapon is on a vehicle, Mehdi. A wheeled vehicle that is rolling this way, which makes the range on the weapon of little relevance, right? Don’t make me say it, mate.”

“Kat—”

“I’m Lieutenant fucking Xenakis and I’m ordering you down from the exterior of my shuttle. Now.”

Mehdi hesitated before he grumbled his reply. “Acknowledged.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kat muttered to herself, “why does he have to argue about every single little fucking pointless thing? Twat.”

Sheila piped up. “Fuel rebalancing completed. All engines ready.”

“Thank you, Sheila, love. Are these batteries reading correctly? Sixty-eight percent?”

“Confirmed. Kinetic breaking restored twelve percent of total capacity.”

The aliens were pressing their attack against the outpost but she could not see them directly from her view out the cockpit window. That was just fine by her. Kat wanted to get the hell out of there, just as soon as the wounded were all onboard.

A wheelhunter shell burst close to the cockpit, showering Captain Cassidy’s Command Team with debris. Surely, the teams close to the outpost were getting hit by direct enemy fire. The Marines were certainly shooting back, she could see them

It was unsettling to have the comms jammed and be unable to communicate with them, with Captain Cassidy in particular. But she had to trust him and his Marines to do their job and she had to be focused on her own.

“How long until Optimal Launch Window for fastest rendezvous with the Victory?”

Fuel was not a consideration as they had enough to do two trips without refueling if need be. But she had a duty to get the wounded up to the ship’s medical team as soon as was possible.

“Optimal Launch Window in twenty-two minutes.”

Kat whistled. “Nice. Where are the outpost evacuees?”

“First group boarding now. Second on the ground, approaching at speed.”

“Sheila, have I ever told you that I love you?”

“I live for those moments.”

“Ha ha, Sheila, you crack me up.”

Behind her, Mehdi dropped down the ladder in a shower of equipment and microdrones.

“They can’t take out that tank,” he shouted. “It’s stopped advancing but they hit it with three rockets and it’s still firing.”

She turned in her seat. He was frantically stowing his gear into the lockers. “All the heavy weapons are in the crates on the landing strip, they haven’t had time to deploy them.”

Kat hesitated. She did not want to get involved with combat. That was not her job. On the other hand, there was an option they had trained for.

“Mehdi,” she said. “Go and help Sergeant Wu set up the cannon on the ramp? We’ll try to provide supporting fire as we take off.”

“There’s not much time,” Mehdi said. “I’ll get Gunny Wu to man the weapon.”

“No,” Kat said. “Him and his team are going to stay planetside so you’ll have to man the cannon.”

“No way,” Mehdi said. “No way, link the controls to Sheila remotely.”

“You know she can’t operate weapons, Mehdi.”

“That’s only on humans,” he said. “Not aliens.”

“Yeah, I know but it’s a core restriction. It’s embedded in her. She just can’t do it.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “You get around every other restraint it’s supposed to have, why not this? Sheila? You can operate a weapon against aliens, right?”

The AI, wisely, kept silent.

“You’ll be okay,” Kat said. “There’s no indication that the wheelhunters can shoot up.”

“Are you joking right now?”

“Mehdi, don’t be a coward. Anyway, you don’t have to make any decisions here, it’s alright. I’m ordering you. Now get back there and do your job. You said yourself that the Marines need our help. If you live through this, you’ll be a hero, Mehdi. I swear to you, I’ll make sure you get a medal. They’ll put your face on all the UNOP promotional shit, you’ll see.”

He sighed dramatically and stomped out of the cockpit. All he ever wanted was recognition. She felt sorry for him, felt sorry about the fact that he was so easy to manipulate.

That’s the job, Kat. Professional asshole.

The internal cameras showed wounded evacuees were strapping into their chairs in the passenger compartment. A few more pulled themselves up the steps into the shuttle.

Out the front window, the Wildcat kept up its rate of fire, spitting long streams of white-hot plasma or whatever the hell it really was. The Marines were huddled in the craters caused by the wheelhunters and any slight depressions and decent sized boulder on the plain. She had to get in the air.

“Sheila, spin up the wheel motors and make sure they’re running okay before we taxi.”

“Confirmed.”

While the huge electric motors hummed into life, Kat brought up the video feeds of the rear. They showed Marines driving away in the two ETAT-24s, both machines weighed down with equipment and dragging cargo sledges, moving away from her shuttle. She could see no one else outside and just a few crates and scattered packing material, nothing that her wheels could not crush with ease.

Mehdi was making last minute additions to his heavy weapon emplacement on the cargo ramp. The heavy-duty tripod was bolted to the deck, the gun system mounted on the gimbled joint in between. Kat watched Mehdi fixing the belt of ammo to the gun and locking it in place. The shells were massive. She hoped that they would do the trick.

I need to get in the air.

“Sergeant Wu, please confirm that you and the Marines are clear and away.”

The response was garbled and died away into nothing.

“They are well clear, Lieutenant,” Mehdi said, coming in clear. The shuttle’s comms system was powerful and shielded well enough for space, whereas the Marines’ comms systems—integrated into their armor—was puny by comparison. “I’m seriously exposed back here, Kat. The nest we’ve built isn’t exactly a bunker. Can you see this? Some crates glued together, and a bunch of saggy sandbags on the outside. There’s no way it will stop one of those wheeler shells.”

“Well, you’ll just have to make sure you take them out first. You’re looking great, Mehdi. Raise the ramp by two meters and strap yourself in tight. Pilot out.”

“Take them out first? Are you crazy? You do know I’m never going to hit one of those tanks with this absurd, great—”

She muted his comms and checked her control panels.

“Sheila, are there any problems?”

“Rather surprisingly, everything is nominal. That has to be a first, Kat.”

Kat laughed. “Keep your witticisms under control until we’re in space, Sheila. We don’t have time for personality right now.”

“Confirmed. Boring mode enabled.”

Kat rolled her eyes and disengaged the breaks and eased the shuttle backwards. It felt good to be moving again. Moving away from the battle that seemed to be growing in intensity with every passing minute.

Ahead, where the Wildcat sat shooting bursts of fire at the Marines, a second armored vehicle, a Wildcat identical to the first rolled forward.

It advanced beyond the immobile one, probably going at no more than 20kph but it was enough to scatter many of the Marines that were roughly in its path. Some fell back toward the Lepus, others headed northwest, toward the outpost. But this bought them across the line of fire for the stationary, possibly damaged, wheeler Wildcat.

Kat was watching through her cockpit window with her own eyes just as one of the Marines was hit by a burst of white tracer rounds. It happened moments after as he popped up and started to run for the next depression. The wheeler weapon fire shredded the Marine. The momentum of their run carried them forward but the force of the shots sent the body tumbling away, too. As it did so, the Marine’s body came apart, shredded but elongated and held together by the strength of his EVA armor. There was no blood. Perhaps the rotation of the remains kept the blood inside the flesh and inside the suit. The elongated, shredded body smashed into the black ground like a wet blanket and rolled to a stop, wrapping itself around a cluster of small boulders.

“Sheila, keep an eye on the rim of the lowered ramp. Raise it before it hits the surface.”

She backed away from the battlefield, slowly at first and then accelerating to get completely clear of the remaining cargo sitting in the airstrip.

“We’re going to have to get up in a hurry,” Kat said to Sheila, “so you make sure to turn off all the limiters.”

“Confirmed,” Sheila said, in her serious voice.

“I mean it, don’t you go overriding me.”

“Confirmed,” Sheila said. “I trust you completely, Kat.”

The enemy tank advanced from the hills, swerving now as if turning for the shuttle.

“Spinning you about, Sheila.”

The shuttle’s huge wheels could each turn up to 180 degrees and so her turning circle was as tight as a duck’s ass. They were halfway round when the wheeler shelling began bursting close enough to cause damage. A series of explosions erupted under the left wing, the blast waves rocking the huge machine back and forth. The hull resounded like it was raining metal.

“What the fuck was that?” Mehdi shouted, his voice slow like he was speaking through treacle. Kat’s ERANS had stepped up a gear in response to her spike in adrenaline. It was there to enhance her decision-making speed which was life and death to a combat pilot. But trying to converse with normal humans was infuriating.

She ignored him. “Sheila, report damage.”

“No damage sustained.”

“Really?” Kat felt herself grinning. “Well, alright—”

An almighty bang. The shuttle lurched and Kat felt the impact through her hands and her ass before the sensors reported the damaged location. Her fear response ramped up. As adrenaline surged through her system, her ERANS slowed her perception of reality and so increased her objective reaction time. She watched as the panels around her flashed, the glowing pulses apparently slowed, only for her, from small red dots into photon blooms that fused into lines and curves of text.

DAMAGE. WARNING. RCS THRUSTER #3P.

Just a portside thruster. A minor problem to address when reaching orbit and no danger to takeoff or atmospheric flight.

Mehdi shouted an incoherent cry, the shuttle turning him into full view of the advancing Wildcat and the cargo camera showed a shower of hot debris cascading down from the engines above the open ramp. Mehdi was ducked down inside his sandbagged gun emplacement on the open ramp. She hoped he would not take any direct fire.

As the Lepus came fully about she relaxed a little from the initial panic and immediately felt the world begin to speed up as the adrenaline uptake reduced.

Still, it would take a long time, subjectively-whole seconds in objective time-for the ERANS to back off.

On the screens, she saw the mobile alien Wildcat tank firing its weapon at her shuttle, the images flicking slowly through the frames, a dashed streak of white fire chewing through the exterior of the thruster.

After a final check of fuel flow screen, Kat hit ignition for the Gyrfalcon Engines. She exhaled the breath she didn’t know she had been holding when the shuttle rumbled into life. Praying that nothing would break, she pushed the throttle toward takeoff speed.

The powerful engines responded and the shuttle leapt forward, pushing her back in her seat. It was a delicious feeling and she savored the massive power pushing the machine down the airstrip.

Mehdi was making some sort of groaning sound. She checked the cargo camera and he did not appear injured, simply afraid of getting hit now that the rear was open to the enemy Wildcat fire. But they surged away from it and the enemy fire dropped off.

“Mehdi,” Kat said, hearing her voice come out infuriatingly slowly, “Just like we discussed. Just like we played. Please return fire on those alien tanks.”

Despite her order, he did not move or even acknowledge it. She had to adjust her expectations for the response time for people who did not have ERANS augmentation.

The shuttle bounced down the airstrip, engines purring as they approached optimal output and the amber lights indicated takeoff speed was approaching. She eased the stick back and the barely-loaded shuttle—other than a handful of wounded passengers—responded immediately, almost leaping into the air. She climbed to five-hundred meters, rolled the shuttle and banked to the north.

“Mehdi, you with me, mate?”

“Jesus Christ,” he said. She looked at him on the screen, gripping the massive gun but ducking down behind his meagre protection. “This is crazy, Kat. This isn’t going to work. It’s just like you always say. Let the Marines do their job and we should do ours. If the wheelers take us out, how does that help the mission?”

“I’ll line you up,” she said, not willing to have a debate. Despite that, she had to coach him into acting properly. “And all you need to do is point and shoot. You’ve trained on that gun, Mehdi. Coming about. You’ve trained for it. Point and shoot, that’s all.”

“Jesus Christ, Kat.” She watched his image shaking its head.

“I’m taking us out to the north now and we’ll circle around the outpost once, staying just this side of the hills. I’ll bank over as we go over the wheeler forces. Focus fire on the larger vehicles and leave the wheeler infantry. Even a few hits with the cannon might weaken the armor enough for the rest of them to help.”

“I’ll be lucky to even hit a mountain with this.”

“I’ll descend and go slow as I can.”

“Jesus Christ, Kat, don’t stall, okay?”

“Mehdi, come on,” Kat said. “Who are you talking to here?”

Looking down on the outpost as she made a wide circle around it, she saw how the wheelers had advanced all the way to the eastern perimeter. In fact, they might have already broken inside. The wheelhunter vehicles rolled out of the hills, just six of them in total but one was hard against the northern corner of the eastern wall - crashed into it, maybe - and the aliens themselves in their black suits were scrambling all over the walls and the roof of the outpost like gigantic spiders.

Most of Cassidy’s Marines were attacking the flank of the wheelhunter assault but they were suppressed by two of the Wildcats. As she banked around the final turn she watched another rocket streak across the surface and smash into the leading tank. The Wildcat shuddered with the impact and stopped in its tracks.

Kat completed the final turn and reduced her speed.

“Time to be a hero, Mehdi.”

“I’m ready,” he shouted, then added something else that broke up.

Her screens flickered. The instruments but also her external and internal cameras, so she could not see what was underneath her cockpit. The wheelhunters flooded the electromagnetic spectrum as part of their attack but Kat had assumed her shuttle was shielded enough to resist that interference. Perhaps passing over them at 500 meters hadn’t been such a good idea.

“Sheila, can you do anything about this jamming?”

The shuttle AI did not answer.

Oh, shit.

The AI core at the rear of her cockpit was protected by additional shielding but it was obviously not enough to guard against the alien electromagnetic disruption technology. However they had weaponized it, they must be going through an enormous amount of energy to send out an endless series of varied pulses, or whatever the hell the bastards were doing.

The shuttle slowed to a hair’s breadth above stalling speed as she passed above the alien attack. Making her best judgement, she fully extended the cargo ramp, increased her speed, climbed and rolled the shuttle to give Mehdi a clear view of the aliens.

Immediately, she felt and heard him open up with the large caliber emplaced weapon. The gun fired just two of its huge shells every second but what it lacked in rate of fire, it made up in caliber, mass and velocity. Mehdi fired without pausing as she made her low pass over the wheelhunter attack. They must have taken the aliens by surprise, at least at first.

Only when she was a good half a klick beyond them did the screens come back and Mehdi’s cries of joy or whatever they were filled her ears.

“I got one, Kat, I got one, did you see that? I got you, you piece of shit.” Mehdi started to whoop but the sound of it died in his throat. “Oh shit!”

A series of bangs rocked her shuttle and she saw the fire arcing in at her on the screens. The white fire continued below the shuttle and she continued her banking turn without any obvious problems. The most advanced Wildcat was now a smoking ruin but the other one, already immobilized by the Marines, kept shooting up at her in a huge arc. Strange that their weapons were so low velocity. Powerful enough to shred a Marine, though.

“Sheila, you there, sweetheart?”

“Affirmative. Minimal damage to fuselage.”

“Will it stop us reaching orbit?”

“Negative.”

“Can we fix it on the Victory?”

“High probability that damage is limited to semi-ablative panels.”

“Mehdi?” Kat said. “We’re going to make another pass.”

It was a good few seconds before he responded. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“Language, Mehdi.”

“We almost got shot down. This time they’ll be waiting for us, we’ll get hit right away.”

“Listen, you did great in that last pass but the wheelers aren’t retreating yet. Sheila says we’re okay, we’re not damaged. We’ll come around again and this time you take out that tank that’s shooting at us, okay?”

“We’re going to get hit. I’m exposed here. Really exposed.”

Kat banked the shuttle around the outpost, descending a little with each maneuver while also reducing speed.

“You’re the hunter, mate. You’re the hunter, not the prey, alright?”

She could hear the sneer on his face when he answered. “Let’s save the slogans until we’re back home on the Victory, shall we?”

Kat knew he could do it. All he needed was confidence to aim straight. “This time we’ll be moving faster. And I’ll take a different line, okay? Nearer to the hills. You just focus on staying on target. Don’t hit any Marines.”

He was angry. “If you crash into a mountain, I’m going to kill you.”

Her control panels flickered as she completed her final turn. “Starting the run now.”

The panels blanked out. Sheila would be offline or wherever she was.

Kat looked out toward the hills. It was a dangerous decision, she knew that. Flying toward rising, jagged ground without instruments and with an AI that couldn’t talk or worse. But it might give her a few seconds initiative on the wheelhunters. They were brutal, massive and technologically adept but they didn’t seem like the quickest bunch in the galaxy. She rolled and climbed, pointing the rear of the shuttle at where she imagined the Wildcat would be.

Mehdi fired, the weapon churning through its ammo steadily. With her instruments out, she could only guess how he was doing. She imagined the rounds plowing through the dirt toward the tank.

Come on, Mehdi.

Her screens flickered, coming back to life. In her rear camera, she saw a line of incoming fire.

“Mehdi—” she shouted. At the same time, she jerked the stick up and maxed the engines to get above the arc of the alien weapon.

A deafening chain of bangs sounded as the shuttle shuddered and rocked. Her newly-functional panels screamed warnings at her. Damage reports, altitude warnings and she urged the shuttle higher.

The world slowed as her ERANS kicked in.

With the ERANS speeding up the transfer of information around her brain and between the nerves of her body, not least her eyes, she saw that with her rate of ascent and thrust that she would clear the jagged peak ahead.

She saw, in the distance directly behind her, the second wheelhunter Wildcat with a plume of smoke curling from the top where the weapon turret had been. Mehdi had done it. Those hours practicing in Avar with the weapon had paid off.

She saw, on the internal camera, the cargo compartment filled with clouds of debris, smoke and dying sparks that the fire suppression system had put out.

She saw Mehdi’s body slumped in the harness, half of his torso, one shoulder and arm destroyed. Just gone. There was no blood. Probably it had all fallen straight out. For a moment, she hoped that there would be some way to restore him. The doctors on the Victory were the best trauma surgeons, with the best equipment. It was a long way but if she could get him home in time, perhaps they could preserve his brain like they had done with the Orb combat subjects. Regrow his tissue and bring him back to himself.

But his head rolled and she saw the damage to the cranial section of his helmet. The darkness beneath.

“Close the ramp, Sheila,” she said, her voice slow and flat.

“Closing.” It seemed to take a long time. Kat climbed into a perfectly clear blue sky. A few klicks to the east, a cirrus layer hung like a tattered shroud. “Cargo compartment closed.”

“What’s the damage?”

“Cargo compartment interior requires replacement but integrity intact. Limited damage to Ion Thruster 1. Additional ablative panel damage to fuselage.”

“How are the passengers?”

“Alive, though their biometrics show high degrees of distress. However, Flight Officer Moreau—”

“I know.” Kat snapped. “I know how Mehdi is.”

Below, she watched the wheelhunter attack continuing on the outpost.

“Plot the most efficient course to orbit and from here to the Victory. It’s up to the people on the ground, now. We’ve done all we can.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Ram stepped out of the south wing airlock and followed the Marines indoors into a reception room beyond. It was a small, bare space, functioning as little more than a junction between other sections of the outpost. Metal doors on either side led deeper into the corridors and rooms of the outpost. Ahead, an open door led into the center of the outpost, the area roofed over with the transparent bubble dome, the sunlight bright enough to overwhelm the artificial lighting on the ceiling.

The outpost was a large square, the four sides made from repurposed cargo containers, internal and external sections cut from the Victory, dropped to the surface by landers and welded together. They formed floor, walls and ceiling, a flattened oblong in cross section with internal divisions inside forming the rooms, the laboratories and dorms, the mess hall, power plant, storage.

Forming them into a square left the center a protected space where, in time, they would start to grow food for the outpost. A step necessary for eventually turning an outpost into a colony. For now, though, it was bare but for the black rock underfoot and stacks of equipment and tools leftover from the construction.

The transparent material was tough but light. The bubble dome had been rolled out from a single sheet, stretched between the internal walls and a specific current run through it to stretch it up into a low-profile dome, before another charge turned it solid and airtight. Looking through the door from the junction room out at the turquoise sky above was like peering through a window into a peaceful alternate universe.

He stepped into a scene of muted chaos.

Sounds of battle came from the attacked side. Assault rifles, three or four, firing bursts and the resounding bangs of explosives and physical strikes to the outpost superstructure. A few civilians hurried away from the fighting, huddled together and fearful. A couple of others rushed the other way across the center, carrying a box of ammunition between them. Everyone wore full EVA suits, helmets and all.

Going with the flow of his group, Ram walked out to the center and took a step or two after Sergeant Stirling. Heading toward the sound of battle.

Someone stopped him.

“All civilians are to take shelter in the western section of the outpost, sir,” a limping Marine shouted up at Ram, indicating the direction he was supposed to take with outstretched arm. “As far from the wheeler attack as possible.”

“Good,” Ram said. “Get them out of the way.”

Ram started to walk around the wounded Marine. The man’s armor was dirty and dented, frayed and melted at the edges like plastic that had been burned.

“Sir,” the Marine said, scurrying to intercept him, dragging a leg. “Please join the other civilians.”

“I’m going to help,” Ram said, patting the sword in its tactical scabbard on his hip.

“Ram,” Milena said from a few meters away across the square. She was helping to direct the civilians who carried the injured engineer toward an open door in the next section, the west wing. “Come this way. Please.”

Even at such a short distance away, the wheelhunter interference gave her voice a digitized quality, hard edged and jittery. His integrated AugHud flickered and the icons flickered and smeared across his visions. He blinked and shook his head, as if that would do anything.

“Sir,” the Marine urged, pushing Ram on the forearm.

“Get your hands off me, Private,” Ram snapped at him. The Marine’s arm jerked away and the man took a step back. He was half Ram’s height and weight and Ram knew he could toss the guy halfway across the courtyard if he wanted to. In fact, he had half a mind to do just that. Do that and then run to the rifle fire coming from the east wing.

“Mr. Seti, sir!” A voice roared in his ear. Sergeant Stirling was right behind him and he marched over, rifle gripped across his chest. “Do as the man says.”

“I’m supposed to be attached to F Team,” Ram said. “Cassidy said as much.”

“Yeah, but only because we’re a non-combat team,” Stirling said, clearing his throat. “But now we’ve been ordered to cover the east wing. And the orders were to leave you with the civilians.”

Behind the Sergeant, the tall, thin officer loped up. “Quite right, Sergeant. Seti, you will join the civilians in the designated area. Now, if you please.”

“What the hell is the point of that?” Ram said, his voice growing louder. “I’m here. The enemy is there.”

The sergeant looked at the officer. But Ensign Tseng studiously ignored the man’s gaze. “You might be dressed like a Marine and you might think you are a Marine but you are bloody-well not one. You’re not a member of F Team. You’re a damned civilian and you’re under our protection and under our command which means you do exactly as we tell you to do, at all times. Now, get back there with the civilians and stay there.”

Without waiting for a response, the Ensign strolled on, heading for the fighting and taking his men with him.

The ground underfoot thrummed with the vibration from a chain of detonations.

“This is bullshit,” Ram said to their backs. “I’m designed to fight these—”

“They say you’re a liability, sir,” Sergeant Stirling said. “The orders were clear. You’re a civilian, so act like one, please.”

His contemptuous dismissal dissolved into digital noise as the distance between them increased, thanks to the interference the wheelers were flooding them with. The enemy were at the gates.

Ram’s instinct told him to go forward and join the fight anyway but he hesitated. He held out his arms, towering over everyone in the area. “What am I for, then? Why am I even here if not to fight?”

Sergeant Stirling pulled his rifle tight to his shoulder but kept it pointed down. “Sir. I know. Personally, I want you out front and fighting. But you can’t argue with UNOP.” Ram hesitated and Stirling continued. “If the wheelers break through our defenses, then you’ll be fighting for your life anyway, sir.” He gestured at the civilians across the square. “And for them.”

Ram was hit by conflicting urges. If the aliens got by the Marines, then Ram fighting alone would likely be doomed to defeat. The best place for him was taking the fight to the enemy, to be a force multiplier rather than a last line of defense.

But everything was strange. There were things happening that he did not understand, people around him behaving in ways that made no sense. Why was he being told he was a liability? What had the mission leaders brought him to the surface for?

On the other hand, if the wheelers did break through into the civilian area, perhaps he would be the best person to protect them.

“Alright,” Ram said. “I’ll keep an eye on them.”

He went after Milena into the structure, as the surly asshole of a sergeant had suggested. Ram had to bend double and enter the door sideways, like an arthritic crab, but he got inside the building. The huge sword hanging at his hip in its tactical sheath whacked the frame. Inside, the lights flickered as the walls rang with distant explosions. He followed the tight, low corridor deeper into the facility. He passed a group of three people, huddled in the doorway to some sort of lab beyond. All wearing their EVA suits, even though they were indoors. A sensible precaution.

“It’s him,” one of them muttered, nudging another beside her.

“Hi, how you doing?” Ram said, grinning.

From inside the lab, someone shouted at them to get back to work and they hurried to obey, shutting the door. He passed a few more units and a handful of people that squeezed by him, heading the other way. Heading toward the fighting. One man tripped over his own rifle, falling into a sprawling mess on the floor and cursing while his friend helped him to his feet.

At the southwest corner of the outpost, an open airlock door was guarded by a pair of civilians brandishing sidearms.

“Get inside, Rama Seti,” one of them said, a woman, waving him through. “Milena’s just ahead of you, through there.”

“Thank you,” he said, squeezing through, careful to mind his sheathed sword. I guess everyone knows that Milena used to be my driver.

“What the fuck’s he doing in here?” one of the armed civilians muttered behind him.

Good point.

Ram ignored the remark and straightened up into a long room, full of tight groups of people. What little illumination there was came from flashlights and lamps, throwing shadows across the low ceiling.

“Ram, there you are,” Milena called from nearby and dragged him to one side. “I thought you were going to run off to battle.”

“I almost did,” he admitted. People were looking at him. He knew what they were thinking. He was thinking it himself. “What’s going on? Some of these civilians are armed. How come they have firearms but I don’t? I saw one guy just now trip over his rifle. Why am I back here when I could be useful? I should be out there.”

“Me too,” Milena said.

“You?” Ram

“What?” she asked, helmet tilted to one side, arms crossing awkwardly in her EVA suit. “I’m not a driver any more, you know. I qualified as an Emergency Medical Technician. My place is on the front line. Well, just behind it, anyway.”

“Alright, then,” Ram said, putting a hand to the hilt of his sheathed sword. “Let’s go back the way we came in.”

“No,” Milena said, “we’ll go through here and head up the far side. There’s supposed to be a designated flow of people and supplies, as much as possible. We’ll go through the north wing.”

“Smart.”

He followed her through the throng, picking up fragments of worried conversation. More than a few people commented on the fact of Ram’s presence among them. Specifically, why in the name of Hell was Earth’s savior, the only victor of the Orb Arena, hiding back with the civilians?

“What is this place?” Ram asked Milena as they edged forward through the large room.

“Canteen, communal area and designated bunker,” she said. “It’s reinforced, with its own isolated power and air filtration.”

“Right. The stationary lifeboat.”

“Exactly.”

“How come I know so much about this outpost?” Ram said. “Someone told me they uploaded military knowledge when they put my brains in this body, I think. Did they include structural information about this outpost?”

She did not look up at him. “Sure. Same process.”

“Yeah, but—”

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. When they were almost at the other side of the room, Milena slowed to a stop. She stretched up, looking over the helmeted heads and peered across the room. He had a fine view but wasn’t sure what she was looking for. “Listen, Ram. There’s something you should know. Do you remember another subject called Sifa Kiyenge?”

Sifa. Did he remember her? He remembered her being the first subject to welcome him when he was thrust into the ludus, up on the Victory. He remembered her huge grin and her vibrancy, her energy. A truly magnificent fighter, incredibly fast and skillful, and endlessly creative. He remembered that she displayed the same attributes when having sex with him in their rooms, in the barracks after lights out. He remembered her being shot multiple times in the crossfire between Alina and the Marines when the Russian subject had killed Mael. He remembered trying to reach her after she fell. Her blood pooling on the floor under the mess benches.

“Yeah, I remember her.”

In the corner, by the doorway there, an incredibly tall person stood up. Clad in an oversized civilian style EVA suit, she was almost as tall as Ram was and she stared back at him.

“That’s not Sifa.”

“She had a clone backup, too,” Milena said. “Do you remember that? At first, they didn’t think her consciousness could be recovered. Dr. Fo and his team persevered. But…”

“But?”

Milena looked up at him. “It was not a complete success. And her memories date from before you were brought into the ludus. And only then.”

“She doesn’t remember me?”

Milena patted him on the armored forearm.

A series of distant thuds rocked the floor and vibrated through the walls. People around them stirred, afraid. Ram did not blame them. They were only scientists, administrators, engineers.

“Come on,” Milena said. “Let’s just get by her and you can try to make friends with her after the attack.”

When they reached the door, Sifa blocked the way through.

“You’re him.” Her voice sounded the same. She was not smiling. Sifa had always been smiling, even when she was fighting. Especially then. “Rama Seti.”

“The one and only,” Ram said, grinning. “World famous, right?” She looked confused, irritated maybe. “Sorry, I’m just kidding. You’re Sifa. We were friends. Before. Back on the Victory. I’m glad you’re, you know. Here.”

“I have no memory of your time. But they showed me video of you and I fighting. Training. Conversing. They said you were dangerous. To stay away from you.”

“Sure,” Ram said, glancing at Milena. “Listen, Sifa. We need to get through that door. Me and Milena. We have to go help, okay?”

“I have orders,” he said. “No civilians to come through this door. Captain Cassidy’s orders. Sergeant Gruger told me so. I’m sorry.”

“You’re a Marine?” Ram said, brightly, even while she shook her head in response. “Me too. Come on, Sifa, let me through. It makes no sense that I’m stuck in here. You hear those explosions? Come on, Sifa, that’s our people out there, taking fire. In fact, why are you here? You should come with us.”

“I’m not a Marine.” Sifa hesitated. “And I’m not allowed in combat,” she said.

“What?” Ram said. “Why? That’s crazy. You’re one of the best fighters who ever lived. You should be out there. Why not fight?”

“I’m just not allowed, that is all.”

Ram’s patience was wearing thin and irritation at the giant woman’s demeanor began bubbling up. Milena’s stance indicated that her reserves of calm were similarly dwindling. And in fact, he could tell, somehow, that Milena was irritated at him. At Ram. Irritated because he was failing to resolve the situation swiftly.

Ram leaned down a little and peered into Sifa’s visor. “Will they not let you fight because you’re no good at it anymore?”

She glared at him, a touch of her old fire behind the whites of her eyes. “Do not threaten me.”

Ram did not back down. “Move aside, please, Sifa. I don’t want to have to move you.”

She held up a hand and stepped away. “Alright, you can go through but not her. She is a civilian.”

“She’s coming too,” Ram said. “She’s a medic. People are probably hurt.”

Sifa shrugged, sidestepped and dropped her ass onto a crate beside the door, waving them through,

On the other side, smoke drifted down the corridor. It was far worse in this wing, the north wing, than it had been in the opposite side of the outpost. Emergency lighting glowed along the edges of the route ahead.

“You weren’t kidding,” Ram said to Milena as she came through beside him. “She’s not the same woman, is she.”

The sound of a battle rifle, firing on full auto, echoed from up ahead.

“Maybe you should wait here after all,” Ram said to Milena.

“Just hurry up,” she said and he set off toward the explosions and rifle sounds. Ram had come through the south wing of the outpost, where there were storage areas, the power station and science labs. Here, in the north wing, they walked by the communications room which he knew had a cluster of antennae and dishes on the roof. Then an administration area, a workshop, sleeping quarters. All empty. Up ahead, figures moved in the darkness. Beyond them, obscured by smoke, he was sure he saw glints of sunlight. Or maybe it was fire.

A Marine lay against the wall of the corridor, with another crouched over him. Milena pushed by Ram and knelt by the injured man.

“What happened?” Milena asked, flipping open the cover on the man’s wrist screen and checking his stats. “His suit seems intact?”

“One of those fucking wheelers tossed him against the wall,” the other Marine answered. “Like he was a sack of meat. Mashed his guts, maybe.”

“Definitely broken bones,” Milena said, checking the screen. “Internal bleeding, looks like.”

“That’s what I said,” the second Marine said.

Shouting came from further up. A burst of rifle fire.

“I’m going on ahead,” Ram said to Milena, who waved a hand at him, shooing him away.

He left her bent over the wounded man while she ordered the other one to assist her in getting him back to the communal panic room.

The sight filled him with something, some feeling he could not place. A bittersweet ache. She was so decisive, confident. She exuded competence. Why was it bitter as well as sweet? Ram had been dead for a close to a year and so they had been robbed of almost a year together. Perhaps. It could be that she had only spent the night with him that one time because he was bound to be killed in the arena. She might, for all he knew, have no intention of picking up where they left off. In fact, that was probably it. She had probably felt sorry for him. Given him a going away present.

Still, it didn’t mean he couldn’t try with her again.

A blast rocked the corridor and Ram ducked by the door into a bathroom, ready to throw himself sideways through it, should any death or destruction come down toward him.

Ram’s heart raced in his chest as the sounds of battle grew louder.

He wished his augmented systems were operational but most of the benefits came from being networked and the wheeler interference was blinding him to the Marines data. Still, his suit’s systems fed local audio information and it was through that which he heard the sound of the men ahead shouting at something. Acting on instinct, he rushed on to where the sunlight poured in above.

The roof of the outpost had been ripped open. The uppermost of the double layer had been pulled up and outward by something and the inner, bottom layer was forced in. The open section was about four meters a side.

Beneath it, a pair of Marines stood aiming their rifles up and out.

“Friendly coming up,” Ram shouted at them. “What happened here?” Ram realized he had one hand resting on his sheathed sword.

“Sir?” one of them said. “The wheelers broke in here. Few minutes ago. We pushed them back, though.”

The other one spoke over him. “Where are the reinforcements, sir?” he demanded.

“Last I saw, they were attacking the flank,” Ram said.

“What fucking flank?” he said, irritated.

“Back at the—”

A dark shape appeared in the sky, along with a roar and Ram flinched, ready to defend himself.

“Holy shit,” one of the Marines said but with a tone of wonder and not fear.

Ram looked again through the jagged roof section and saw that the dark shape was, in fact, a shuttle. A human shuttle. Their own shuttle. It was flying low toward them, as if it was coming in to land on the east wing, over the wheelhunter attack itself.

“What the hell are they doing?” Ram asked.

The Marines were dumbfounded. “They’re going to get blown all to shit,” one said.

The other nodded. “We’re going to be stranded on this fucking piece of black shit planet.”

Right before it passed from view, a mounted weapon fired from the open rear of the shuttle, churning out high caliber shells down at the unseen aliens. Muzzle flare streamed out like pulsing white fire from a dragon’s mouth. The broken ribbon streaks of bright tracer glowed and the sound of it tearing into the ground, tearing into the unseen attacking wheelers, thrummed through the ground.

“Woo!” one of the Marines shouted, raising his rifle one handed.

The other Marine laughed. Both of them stood directly under the hole in the roof.

Ram didn’t notice the sound at first, not over the cacophony of weapons fire and grinding metal sounds.

But then he heard it.

The roof above resounded to the sound of a heavy, multi-limbed monster scurrying toward them.

“Is that—” was all Ram managed before the sunlight cut off.

A black shadow filled the space.

The Marines shouted a warning and they pulled back, moving away as the gigantic wheelhunter dropped down inside the corridor in between Ram and the Marines. It fell hard. Massive. A gigantic thing like a monstrous spider from a nightmare. It unfolded itself.

Back on the Orb, Ram had fought a yellow skinned, giant wheel. Six legs acting like spokes, six feet joining to make a wheel rim. Two arms ending in a bony, three clawed hand.

This one had all the same limbs and hub, it was the same species and yet it was different. It was black, for one thing. The yellow skin hidden beneath a smooth, sleek, black suit, seemingly skin-tight. It landed with a thump, in a flurry of whirling limbs and unfolded itself, not like a wheel but like a squat spider. Three legs to a side, the lumpy hub in the center and the arms pointing at Ram, one from the top of the hub and one from underneath. Instead of claws, it’s gloved hands held a straight edged, pointed blade in one and the other gripped what Ram knew to be a one-handed projectile weapon. A wheeler pistol.

Ram backed away from the first swipe it gave him, almost falling but hitting the corridor wall before he did so. The wheeler’s legs pistoned against the floor and the walls and rolled itself the other way as the Marines on that side of it yelled and fired their rifles in rapid bursts. His suit suppressed the noise of the firearms but rounds ricocheted off every surface and his own body armor. The wheeler leaped at the men, propelling itself along the walls, and fired its weapon, discharging a series of white blasts which banged louder even than the assault rifles. From behind it, Ram watched the wheeler’s blade rise, spraying red blood, then whip down again at the man.

Sight of the blood spurred him to action, at last, and he drew the sword from his hip. The grip felt odd through the gloves of the suit but it was a weapon he had wielded for thousands of hours inside Avar when his cooperative had climbed the rankings in Shield Wall, the Avar that had pretentions to historical accuracy. His weapon of choice had been what they called a Viking longsword. The weaponsmiths on the Victory had done a marvelous job recreating the aesthetics of his old virtual weapon, here in the real world. As he drew it, it even appeared to have the same point of balance and overall feel, despite being a larger weapon, to match his larger body, and being constructed of some special alloy instead of high carbon steel. It felt familiar in his hand, somehow.

Charging at the rear of the thing, he pulled the sword back at his side. Whenever anyone untrained picked up a sword, they tended to swing it around in big scything arcs or hacked down as if they were using an axe to chop wood. And, with the big, heavy Viking sword, that would be pretty effective for an unarmored human target. But Ram knew to thrust with the point of the blade for maximum force and he drove it at the center of the wheeler’s central hub, where its brain and important organs were located, probably. He remembered pulling ribbons and gelatinous lumps of tissue from inside the one he killed, at least.

He thrust the weapon from waist height, driving it straight with all his considerable weight and momentum behind it. He knew, somehow, that a blow that powerful would skewer the murderous alien.

The blow never landed.

Instead, one of its rear legs shot out, whipping back with incredible accuracy and smashed him in the shoulder with a huge foot, which was sheathed in a hard shell. An alien boot. The impact knocked him off his feet, knocked him down and knocked the wind out of him.

It doesn’t have eyes, you idiot. It can see you no matter what way it’s facing.

The wheeler, with feet braced on either side of the corridor, rotated its arms on the hub, bringing the knife to bear in its top arm and the pistol weapon in the arm slung underneath.

Ram rolled to his feet, sword still in hand, and charged again. The pistol was the primary danger, he assessed and smashed the blade into the alien’s lower wrist. The weapon discharged in a shower of white sparks and noise. Ram whipped the sword up and deflected the wheeler’s own blade that scythed down at his head, stepped inside and drove the point into the wheeler’s hub. His blade met a moment’s resistance as the alien’s EVA suit flexed in before it slipped through like a knife punching a boiled potato.

The alien convulsed and drew back but Ram followed and bore it down to the ground, the powerful legs thrashing and pounding on the walls, on the floor. Ram leaned his weight on the sword and held on. The creature succeeded only in tearing its wound into a larger gash. Red blood welled out of it, frothing up and poured over the surface of the alien’s suit, dark red on gray-black.

It died. Lay still. Legs and feet twitching. He pulled his sword out and wiped the blade on the rubbery suit of a jutting leg. Even taking into consideration that the alien was lying flat, it was certainly smaller than the one he had killed in the Orb Arena. Still, it was big enough.

Beyond it, one of the Marines was shredded, bloody gashes in the armor around his throat and neck. The other had smoking holes in his chest.

He climbed over the wheeler and checked them, flipping open their wrist screens to see their vital signs.

Both dead. No chance for recovery.

The distant roaring of the Victory’s shuttle sounded overhead and he caught a glimpse of it coming in low once again, a dark triangle against the blue background. Those pilots were crazy, they were risking destruction in a giant fireball by using the orbital shuttle as a gunship. They were asking for trouble.

Up ahead inside the corridor, someone fired a couple of bursts from their assault rifle, unseen through the smoke, startling him back to reality. He started that way, sword out and the point up and ready.

“Ram,” Milena called from behind him, beyond the dead wheeler. Her voice on his suit comms system distorted by the wheeler jamming. “Are you alright?”

She stood close to the alien corpse and under a jagged hole. Ram was afraid of what might come through it.

“I’m fine,” Ram said. “But you should go back, Milena. Go back to the panic room with everyone else. Be safe.”

“I can see injured Marines here,” she said.

“Those guys are dead. Get out of here. I’ll be back soon.”

“I can help up front,” Milena said.

“No, it’s not safe up ahead.”

“I’ll be safe with you, Ram. Safest place on the planet.”

“I won’t be able to fight and look after you at the same time, I’m sorry. You should go be with the others. Look after them. If we win, there’ll be plenty of wounded for you to help.”

“Okay, I’m going back.” Milena nodded. “Take care of yourself, Ram. Watch out for—”

Her words were lost in the electromagnetic jamming.

He headed forward, going to the noise. The endless, growing noise of battle. Rumbling detonations and the fire of automatic weapons. His suit augmentation was not displaying much external data, just his own biometrics.

Someone shot at him. The rifle fired and the rounds ricocheted next to him practically at the same time. Ram ducked, shouting that he was friendly.

The firing ceased.

“Is that Rama Seti?”

The voice was fractured and his AugHud barely functioning but it tried to bring up the name tags over his vision for the Marines up ahead. It said they were F Team. Ensign Tseng’s team.

“What the hell are you idiots doing?” Ram shouted. “I’m coming up there, alright?”

There was a moment before they replied.

“Come on up. We probably won’t shoot.”

The two Marines were from F Team he had been assigned to earlier. One was Cooper, the other Harris. They were crouched behind a barricade made from metal benches. Ram sheathed his still-bloody weapon and climbed over, crouching down beside them. Further up, more Marines massed and sunlight glinted. He had made it to the northeast corner of the outpost. The point where the wheelers were attacking the hardest. The rifle fire was almost continuous, from multiple weapons, firing out through the smoking ruin where the wall had once been. Debris lay everywhere.

“What’s going on, guys?”

“Don’t know, sir,” Cooper said, looking at the open area in front of them.

“They’re breaking in, sir,” Harris said. “They’re everywhere.”

“Your orders are to cover this corridor?” Ram asked.

“They said you were a tactical genius, sir,” Harris said, nodding.

An explosion nearby rocked the whole outpost, the air pressure blasting the smoke and debris aside.

Ram pushed forward, stepping over twisted metal and found himself walking into a nightmare. He bent low and ducked back around the corner, looking out from cover.

The front wall of the outpost had been blown or torn away, leaving a jagged, chest-high remnant running along for a dozen meters. The front half of the roof was gone. Shelving and tables, computer cubes and cabling suggested it had been a lab or a server room before it was destroyed. A handful of Marines-six of them-stood in a line at the front wall and fired out at the enemy, sustained fire with fast single shots and in controlled bursts but all of them firing without let up. Two more Marines crawled behind. One handed up magazines to those firing while the other dragged an ammo crate toward them. Ram recognized the other members of F Team, plus a few others. The rear wall resounded with the cacophony of shooting.

The dense smoke outside cleared and Ram saw what they were shooting at.

Thirty or forty wheelers crept forward across the open space of the black, rocky surface. The alien’s yellow skin covered entirely by smooth, protective suits, matte black. The advancing enemies were folded over in that spider-like configuration. Each was armed like the one Ram had killed, with a pistol in the under arm and a blade in the over arm. Their weapons fired single shots rapidly, the alien rounds smashing all around the wall by the Marines.

But the wheelers were falling. All around the area in front, as far as he could see with the obstructions and tatters of smoke, lay the dead bodies of the enemy. Some still writhed and twitched, feet or a hand stretched up at odd angles. One dragged its way forward with one arm, bloody legs trailing behind.

“Here they come again,” Sergeant Stirling shouted from the firing line.

About half the wheelers flipped themselves upright, into the familiar wheel configuration, and accelerated. Two to three meters tall, their six legs jutting out of the central hub, aligned along a single axis and ending in wide, flat feet that were so close they almost touched each other to make a continuous rim. Two long, bony arms ending in a hand with three long fingers, each finger with a murderous claw. Even rolling over, they could fire the weapons clutched in those hands. In the upright, wheel configuration they could move quickly and efficiently. Charging the jagged and torn hole where the Marines stood, charging to force their way into the outpost.

Ram put his hand on his hilt but stayed back behind the cover of the wall. The firing had not let up.

The Marines cut them down. Their rifles firing on rapid bursts. The Marines churned through their ammo, changing magazines rapidly. Out in front, the wheelers fell to the accurate, concentrated fire. Ram noted that every Marine fired at oblique angles, shooting across the front of the one beside them and he knew, somehow, that this was UNOP Marine Corps doctrine for firing on the wheelers when in wheel configuration. The huge footpads that created a continuous rim, and the legs that formed the spokes, were an effective barrier. That was why the Marines shot into the hub, diagonally. The hub was surely the center of the wheelhunter nervous system and a few rounds into that hub would put them down, he knew.

And the wheelers fell.

They were hit and they went down in jumbles of limbs, collapsing and rolling with momentum.

But not all of them. For every one that went down when it was hit, two more kept coming.

It was obvious that, despite the withering fire, the enemy would make it to the breach.

Ram wished they had issued him his primary weapon. The Marines in front of him had no machine gunner and no heavy weapons as far as he could see. All he could do was watch as the surviving wheelers got closer. Many had gunshot wounds to the legs or feet but it did not seem to even slow them down.

He recalled the wounds on the wheeler in the Orb Arena, punching it and wrestling with it, breaking its limbs, stamping on one of the six legs so powerfully that it snapped under his foot and still the monster would not stop fighting, would not stop slashing him with its enormous claws. Ram felt those claws, tearing his face, felt his guts being pulled from his body, stepping on them as he struggled on to the—

“Fall back!” Ensign Tseng shouted. The order was repeated by Sergeant Stirling and a few of the others.

The Marines in the room retreated. Stirling dragged one of the wounded Marines already downed.

Two Marines stayed at the breach to cover them, still firing.

More than half of the charging wheelers, more than ten of the nightmare creatures, reached the remnants of the outpost wall and clambered over like it was nothing, climbing like gigantic black spiders. The final pair of Marines fell back to their comrades, ducking low under the firing from the rear and corners of the room.

Too late. Both Marines were struck down before they took three steps. The aliens knife blades spearing them and dragging them back into the writhing black mass while the Marines screamed.

Those first wheelers were shot to pieces, collapsing into bundles of gigantic, twitching black-clad limbs while their comrades behind followed, climbing into the awesome firepower of the UNOP Marine Corps.

Ram stayed standing behind the pair of Marines on his side of the room where they kneeled together in the corridor behind a low barricade, firing rapidly, changing their dwindling magazines expertly, alternating so their firing was continuous. For a few moments, Ram thought they were holding the enemy.

But the aliens got closer and closer before they fell.

The wounded Marine at Ram’s feet, the one who had been handing out mags to his team mates before the sergeant had pulled him out, reached up and pounded on Ram’s calf.

“Sir. Can’t you fucking do something?”

What do you want me to do?

Ram showed the man his hands. “No gun.”

The Marine held up his sidearm.

“Can’t,” Ram said, showing the man his hands. “Finger’s too big. For trigger guard.”

“Look out!”

A wheeler leaped from the crowd, eating fire as it came toward them but its momentum carrying it on through. It careened into the Marines in front of him, knocking them flying.

Ram acted without thought, slamming his shoulder into the sprawling alien to stop it crushing the Marines. The weight of the thing was enormous and yet, like that last one he had killed, it was smaller than the Orb alien. The realization was a joyful one.

I am stronger than you.

One of its three-fingered hands swung in from nowhere and smacked Ram on the back of his helmet, dazing him despite the armor’s shock absorbers. A massive leg smashed the side of his knee and he fell, arms flailing like an idiot, grasping blindly at the limbs thrashing about all around him. The tactical scabbard almost tripped him and the dying alien thumped him again.

A deep anger boiled up and he drew his sword and drove it up into the wheeler’s hub, thrusting halfway to the crossguard. Ram’s comms system filled with static, a burst so loud that it hurt, before the suit’s audio system compensated and backed off the volume. Pushing the alien off the blade a little, he drew it out and plunged it back in, the point snicking through the black suit and thick yellow skin beneath and on into the hub’s guts and viscera. Blood smeared across his visor but the monster fell still and Ram withdrew his sword, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

Someone was shouting but he did not hear what it was. He wiped the red alien blood from his visor.

The outpost room, open to the planet’s atmosphere, crawled with a mass of wheelers, climbing closer to him.

“Get down!” That was what they were shouting. “Get down, sir, get down now.”

He dropped, folding his giant body into a crouch and hunkering down. The Marines opened up, firing over his back into the mass of wheelers. Blood sprayed and his ears filled with static and his vision blurred. One of the rifles fell silent, the other a few seconds after. Ram ducked down again as their sidearms were fired empty.

Glancing round to make sure he was not stepping into danger, Ram jumped upright, gripped his sword tight and clambered over the fallen wheeler at his feet.

Beyond, the others writhed in blood and smoke, dazed and shot but unfolding themselves, rising and threatening to attack once more. Ram had to hurry, hit them before they recovered.

He swung his sword at the nearest waving leg, pulled his weapon back along the cut to slice a great gouge out of it. The hub shuddered and the leg twitched away but Ram advanced, cutting and stabbing at anything within reach. He smashed an alien hand aside before it could fire the pistol it held, he kicked forward and thrust his way into the mass, slipping and stumbling as he hacked down and all around. His ears filled with static and his heart raced in his chest, almost immediately sweating hard, his suit’s cooling system whirring all over. His AugHud was completely dead, granting him no data about himself or the outside world, squinting through the visor smeared with dark blood as he advanced. Some were dead by the time he got to them, felled by the Marines. Others he finished off with a thrust.

A few fought like the devil but he fought harder, parrying their attacks and cutting them down. He lost himself in the fight, reacting with instinct instead of conscious thought. He listened, amazed, to the sound of someone roaring a wordless cry of animal rage before he realized that it was him who was roaring.

The pressure eased and his victims thinned. His blade found dead and dying targets. Spinning about, wanting more despite the burning ache in his arms and shoulders and back from the exertion, he found the Marines advancing to his position, each armed with their bloodied combat knives, finishing off any twitching monsters. The static faded and the Marine’s voices sounded in his ears.

They were cheering.

Ram wiped his visor more thoroughly and looked out at the planet. Through the drifting smoke, blue sky above and black hills beyond, the wheelhunters were withdrawing.

They had three large, squat vehicles that Ram had not seen before. Not the Wildcat tanks that he’d seen attacking the airfield, these were lower and wider, with six metal rimmed wheels aside.

The thought came unbidden, the knowledge simply there in his mind.

UNOP Designation: Wheelbug.

Two of them raced away toward the hills, black boxes bouncing away as if in terror. The remaining wheeler infantry peeled away after them, some in wheel configuration, others limping along like half-squashed spiders. The trailing Wheelbug vehicle slowed to a full stop and a side ramp shot out. Wheelhunter soldiers careened up into it.

The enemy was being fired upon by Captain Cassidy’s Marines, advancing from the airfield flank. Their rounds shredded the slowest of the wheelers until the stragglers were all dead. In a cloud of stones and dust, the enemy transport vehicle sped off after the other two.

Outside the outpost, two or three dozen wheeler bodies lay mangled on the ground.

From the side, Captain Cassidy and his men advanced with a spring in their steps. The Marines next to Ram slapped him on the back, over and over, laughing and congratulating each other.

“Come on,” Sergeant Stirling said. “Let’s grab some spare ammo from those lazy bastards.”

Ram helped two of them over the jagged wall and they walked on shaking legs out to meet the others.

“Oh, bloody hell.” The English Marine by his side, Hagman, had a deeply lined, hard face and carried on her shoulder a rifle that was longer than she was tall. She was looking behind them at the outpost. “Bastards took out the antenna,” she said.

At the northwest corner, once there had been the towering spire with guy wires holding it upright in tension, now there was a jumble of twisted metal and cables at the corner of the outpost. The walls bent in. White smoke billowed out sideways and plumed up into a curling mass where the wind pouring off the hills pushed it away to the west.

“That’s the only way to speak to the Victory,” Ensign Tseng said.

“The outpost is on fire,” Corporal Fury said, pointing. “That’s where all the smoke was coming from.”

“Fire suppression system will put it out,” Cooper said.

“Or the civilians will,” Harris said.

“Is that where the civilian bunker section is?” Ram asked, even though he knew the answer.

“Look,” Private Flores said. Her name and rank flickered over her head on his barely-functioning AugHud. She pointed.

From the northern flank of the outpost, came the huge form of Sifa.

Something was wrong.

Her EVA suit slick and shining with blood. She was waving her arms, pointing at the gaps in the hills where the retreating wheelers had slipped through. When she came to within a few meters, the comms system overpowered the fading alien interference fields and it flickered back into life and her agitated voice came through. She had died, Ram thought, he had seen her die and yet there she was.

“They took them,” she was saying. “The wheelers took our people.”

A sick feeling gripped Ram by the guts.

“Who?” he said, striding to her. “Who did they take?”

Sifa’s eyes glared white inside her helmet. “I don’t know, six civilians. A biologist and a technician from Dr. Fo’s team. A physicist. That Russian engineer, she was the bulldozer driver who did the air—”

“What about Milena? Is she okay?”

Sifa frowned. “Milena? Is she the—”

“The driver, the Brazilian driver. Is she safe? You know, smoking hot, with the black hair and the—”

She was surprised. “Yes, yes. I’m sorry, yes she was one of them. One of the ones. She was taken.” Sifa pointed at the black hills.

The outpost burned. The Marines around him jumped into action, some checking the wheeler bodies and others racing to deal with the fire and evacuate the civilians.

Ram stared at the churned path where the wheelhunters had retreated. He would need the weapon that Sergeant Wu had shown him on the shuttle and he would need supplies, food, water. If it was possible, he would take one of the ETATs.

Hold on, Milena. I’m coming for you. Just hold on.

CHAPTER SIX

“Enter,” Captain Tamura said, without looking up.

Kat stood in the open doorway of his spartan office. After escaping from Arcadia and burning hard for the Victory, she had docked the shuttle and been working without rest ever since. She had helped the medical team collect the pieces of Mehdi’s body, despite their protestations. Thinking back on it, it was likely she had forced them into it and they had allowed her the unprofessional behavior out of pity for her loss. She had worked with the crew to carry out a full inspection of the shuttle to assess the damage, written and submitted her report and gone back to assist with the repairs.

She had not slept for at least two days. More precisely than that she could not say, as her exhaustion meant she could no longer perform basic mental arithmetic and her memory was impaired, and the drugs were playing havoc with her ERANS. Her adrenaline attempted to compensate for the exhaustion while her ERANS management drugs reduced adrenaline uptake and the stimulants she was cramming constantly upset the entire balance.

The effect was a stretching out of every moment into a dreamlike, underwater reality. She wondered if she had reached a higher level of consciousness and was now able to perceive the constant expansion of spacetime all around her. Immediately, she recoiled from the psychotic thought in horror. She heard Sheila’s voice in her head, in her imagination. I strongly recommend you engage temporary shutdown mode. That Sheila, Kat thought. Such a comedian.

“Enter, I said,” Captain Tamura repeated, staring at her. “What are you doing, Kat?”

Kat realized she was grinning at nothing, staring through the bulkhead behind the commander.

“Sorry, Sir,” she said, wiping her mouth and stepping inside.

“Take a seat,” he said, scowling, “before you fall down.”

He watched her closely as she leaned back, fighting the urge to close her eyes.

Deep, soft brown eyes with heavy black eyebrows above. Deep lines around his mouth, stretching up to the squashed-flat enormity of his nose. A lot of the women in the crew had the hots for their captain but Kat was never into that whole submission to authority thing. Give her a quivering young cadet shooting his load into his standard issue jockeys any day. Still, there was something mesmerizing about those soft brown eyes. The commander, his forearms resting on his desk, fingers loosely intertwined, appeared to be waiting for her to say something.

“Sorry, sir, did you ask me a question?”

He pressed his lips together and the wrinkles around his eyes wrinkled even more. “The XO ordered you to your quarters six hours ago.”

“Was it that long? I just had a couple of things to do first. On the shuttle, sir.”

The commander cleared his throat. A familiar, soft sound, like the warning growl of an ageing silverback. “The enemy ship will be entering orbit around Arcadia inside of twenty-four hours.”

“Assuming that they don’t just fly right by us, sir.” She blurted the words. Speaking her thoughts instead of holding her tongue. Classic Kat. Get a grip.

He fixed her with a look. “Yes, assuming that their deceleration burn and course continues as predicted, they will enter orbit soon. We will continue to also prepare for them to perform an attack run. Either way, all of us will need to be at our best in order to properly respond to this existential threat, do you not agree?”

The commander’s face blurred. She was seeing double so she closed one eye. “Er, yes, sir.”

“Your decision to use the Lepus like a damned gunship cost Mehdi his life and it risked bringing down the shuttle, which would not only have killed you, Mehdi and the wounded evacuees, it would have severely limited the strategic and tactical options for this entire mission. We are not capable of constructing a new shuttle in the 55-Cancri System, are we, Lieutenant?”

“No, sir.”

“I don’t want to reprimand you. I’ve read your report, reviewed the data, watched the highlight reel. You saw that the Marines were unable to penetrate the enemy’s armor and you had the only large caliber weapon that could be quickly mounted and brought to bear in your hold. You innovated. That’s the kind of thinking we need around here, it’s one of the reasons you were selected for the mission in the first place. But your risk-taking behavior continues to be a problem. Rather, your attitude to risk appears to be progressing along an unhealthy path.”

No shit.

“Yes, sir.”

“Listen,” he said, voice softening. “I know what it’s like to lose one of your people because of a decision that you made. We haven’t been able to raise the outpost but I just got an update from Intel. The last images we had from a satellite pass showed the wheelers gone and our people making repairs to the structure. We know from the shuttle cameras that Mehdi scored multiple direct hits on the two Wildcat tanks that were flanking the outpost on the airfield side and the latest images confirm it.”

The screen he pushed across the desk for her to look at might have been anything, because she saw two of them, one swimming about on top of the other, obscuring any detail.

“Yes, sir. I see. Thank you, sir.”

He pointed at her. “You will go to your quarters and you will go to sleep. You will not return to active duty until Dr. Sharma has signed you off.”

“Sir, that seems—”

The softness in him vanished. Snuffed out like a candle. “Are you seriously about to argue with me, Lieutenant?”

She hesitated. “No, sir.”

He nodded. “Dismissed.”

***

She woke, dry-mouthed and groggy, ten hours later. Her stomach twisted into a knot of hunger so intense that it had woken her. There was a vague sense that she had been moaning in her sleep just moments ago. When had she last eaten? She rubbed her empty belly, peering through bleary eyes for a bottle of water.

Her quarters were tiny but at least they were private. A bunk, a desk and chair and the main benefit of being an officer. Her own toilet and shower room. It was the size of a closet but it was hers and no one got to shit in that toilet but her. On a ship with a crew of hundreds, such a thing was more important to her than floorspace.

After being away for days, she had liters of water ration saved up and she used them all, standing under the steaming heat while it pounded her scalp and neck and shoulders.

The whole time, the thought was there.

Sorry, Mehdi.

It was as though her thoughts were on a loop that, no matter where they went, always circled back to Mehdi and the ruin of his body. The water ration indicator blinked a warning at her so she switched off the shower and stood dripping in the steam, not wanting to move. When she started shivering she wrapped herself in a towel and sat on her bed to dry her hair.

It was hard to tell if it was the ERANS hangover or the come down from the stimulants but she did not feel overly refreshed from her shower or the long sleep. When she cracked open her medicine case she recalled how low she was running on her supplies. On her bedside, the folded screen indicated she had messages. Sixteen of them were from Feng, asking if she was okay. On the duty roster, it said he was not on watch so she sent him a message back.

Either he had run from his quarters or he was lurking around outside but within a minute there was a rapid knock on her door.

“Kat, are you okay?” he asked as he stepped inside and closed and locked the door behind him. She sat back on her bunk as he waved the steam away from his face, frowning in disapproval. He reached an arm into the shower room and switched on the extraction fan then closed the door.

He had his medical bag with him.

“Kat, I’m so sorry about Mehdi,” Feng said, dropping to a knee in front of her. “He was a good man. It’s not your fault that—”

“Jesus, Feng,” Kat said. “Shut the fuck up, will you?” She sighed as his face fell. Felt guilty as his shoulders slumped. “Look, come on, can we get in bed? Maybe just hold me? Would that be okay?”

The holding part lasted about ninety seconds and then they started fucking. After, she felt better but thirsty beyond belief. She jumped off her bunk and downed a bottle from the cupboard, arching her back to chug it down like she was dying from dehydration.

“You are so beautiful,” Feng said, behind her.

She gasped for air and wiped her lips. “Shut up, Feng. I’m not doing you again today so you can forget the sweet talking.”

“Jesus, Kat,” he said. “You have a real attitude problem, you know that?”

“No, Feng, no one ever told me that before.”

He scrunched up his face, like a little boy. “Are you fucking someone else?”

“What?” Kat sighed, shaking her head. Why do these guys love drama so much? Why complicate everything? “Who would even have me?”

“I knew it,” Feng said, nodding. “It’s that Omar, isn’t it. Right? I’ve seen you two. He’s always creeping into your quarters, isn’t he? What does he do for you, in exchange? Give you extra comms time with home?”

It’s not sex he wants. He comes here to talk about always feeling so lonely out here that he can barely hold on. He hides his mental health from Dr. Sharma so they don’t remove him from duty. That would finish him off. And then when it’s time for him to inspect the shuttle AI every quarter, he gives me a pass.

“Is that really what you think of me?” Kat said. “Is that really what you think this is, between you and me?”

“Isn’t it?” Feng said. She knew that he just wanted to be reassured. He was emotionally fragile because he relied on external sources for his wellbeing.

Not like you, right, Kat?

“Fine,” she snapped. “If that’s how you want it. Hand over my stuff, please?”

He shook his head in wonder. “You can’t wait even, like, five minutes or something? Can’t even pretend you enjoy my company?”

“You’re hassling me and then accusing me of not enjoying the experience?” She opened her mouth to call him pathetic but she stopped. She needed him. And he needed massaging. “Feng, of course I enjoy your company.” She looked up and down his glistening, naked body and stepped back to the bed, passing him the bottle. “I’m sorry that you need so much emotional reassurance but can’t you tell how good you make me feel?”

He nodded, slowly, lips pressed together. “Yeah, I make you feel good. And I know how. Alright, take it. Just take it.” He lay back and she unzipped his medical bag.

Quickly, she counted the packets. Twelve strips of Aminodone, her antipsychotic, fourteen sheets of her synthetic serotonin that also increased serotonin uptake in the brain which was prescribed to her as an antidepressant. She counted fourteen strips of Adrenamorphalone which were a way for her to increase the responsiveness of her ERANS in prolonged engagements or when long periods of rapid response would be required. He had included the Prepadolene, extra beta blockers so that the increased adrenaline would not cause her heart, lungs and muscles to be overwhelmed by the adrenaline and a box of Dronedarone antiarrhythmic to make sure her heart didn’t explode in her chest. The eterobarbital would help her to rest and sleep.

He had brought her approximately one month’s prescription. If she was careful, it should last her seven days, perhaps ten if she had to. That was in addition to what the medical team officially issued to her every month.

It had never been enough.

Her ERANS was a system that overlaid her nervous system but it was also bound to it. The doctors, years ago, had explained it to her as building a nationwide freeway system. The existing road network was like her old nervous system in that it was slow and complex, with a million side roads and dead ends. But the ERANS would be a superfast highway network of cells stretched across a synthetic roadway. It was able to transfer information faster than normal human nerves. The effect was increased reaction speed and decision making. The downside was the subjective perception of the passing of time was correspondingly affected. Luckily, the highway system was only used in emergencies. It was activated when the blood levels and uptake of adrenaline reached a certain threshold. If it was on all the time, a minute might seem like an hour. A day might seem like a month. And everyone around you would be moving and speaking and thinking in slow motion. It would drive anyone insane, and had done. An active ERANS was also very taxing on the body, burning through calories at an enormous rate and the whole experience felt unnatural and twitchy.

The procedure was also permanent. It could not be undone without a high risk of critical nerve damage. The only alleviation was drug management and her regimen had been in place before the Victory had left Earth over three years before. A carefully managed balancing act was required to keep herself on track. First, she had wanted to push her abilities as far as they could go during her training and selection processes, topping up on the side. Then she had needed a little extra help getting to sleep. But waking up in the morning was tough, climbing up out of the drug induced depths needed more of a kick than strong coffee could provide. Before she knew it, she was taking handfuls of the stuff just to stay on an even keel.

She wasn’t delusional. She knew she had a problem. But everything was okay, so long as she could get the extra she needed, when she needed it.

“Where will you be stationed during the battle?”

“Huh?” She turned back to Feng. “What battle?”

He looked concerned. “The fucking battle with the alien spaceship. You know, the one screaming toward us from sunward?”

“Oh. It won’t be a battle, Feng. Jesus Christ, you bloody idiot, a battle? What are you talking about?”

His concerned turned to irritation. “What are you talking about? We’ll be at battle stations. I’ll be dispensing drugs in Medical and helping with first aid and assisting the physicians and EMTs. I would have thought you’d be on the bridge as a backup pilot.”

Kat sat on the edge of the bunk and put a hand on Feng’s ankle, through the sheet. “I don’t think it will be like a battle. Do you have any idea of the sort of energy output our ship and their ship are capable of? Whoever gets the first hit in will win. At least, we know that this ship can’t take any damage. It’s not designed for battle, not really.”

His irritation did not go away. “That’s not what we’re being told. We have the deflector shield—”

“That’s for radiation and dust particles, it won’t stop a laser or a nuke or a giant alien space gun.”

“Our hull plating is resistant to—”

“Yeah, same thing, really. It protects us pretty well against solar radiation and stuff but the Victory was already thousands of tons heavier than originally designed and fighting against the wheeler ship was only ever a last resort.”

“We have nukes. And lasers. We’ll hit them first, take them out before they can damage us.”

“The distances we’re talking about, between our ship and theirs, it’s just such a long way. Our nukes are on missiles burning as fast as they can but they’ll be able to see us coming. Their course coming in to us is weaving all over the place. We’re doing the same. Why do you think we’ve been making these constant random course corrections?”

“The missiles are guided, right? They’ll adjust course to intercept—”

“And be seen coming all the way in. Our only hope is that they don’t have interception technology like we do. And that they also don’t have physical defenses capable of withstanding a blast.”

Feng sighed. “You’re such a pessimist. You don’t know. You don’t know anything. Captain Tamura says we can win, I think he knows a bit more about this stuff than you do, Kat. Alright? Just. Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”

She almost laughed in his face but she turned away instead and got up. “I’m going to have another shower. Got to go see Dr. Sharma before they’ll put me on duty again.”

“Okay, I’ll go.” His normally-smooth skin was creased into a deep frown.

“Or,” she said, turning in the doorway. “You could get your scrawny shanks in here with me?”

He grinned, relaxing like a drowning man who had been thrown a lifeline.

No. He’s your lifeline, Kat.

***

“I understand your feelings about these sessions,” Dr. Sharma said. “But surely all of us can see the necessity of them?”

“What I understand is that everyone on this ship is frantically preparing for a life or death duel with a giant alien spaceship and you want me to talk about my feelings.”

The doctor’s counselling room was oppressive in its efforts to be calming. The potted plants and pale blue walls and soft fabric chairs were so obvious that it made her want to scream.

“I don’t want you to talk about your feelings, Kat,” Sharma said, the tone of her voice as carefully controlled as the room. “I would like to know that you are able to perform your duties effectively. I am certain that you do understand the need for such a thing on this ship. One might even say that this is the most important time to be sure.”

“Look,” Kat said and leaned forward, her hands grasping her knees. “I made a decision on that mission. I decided to support our ground forces and it worked. We took out two vehicles that the Marines didn’t seem capable of destroying. And Mehdi died. It was my fault. My decision to do it and it was my decision to do a second run. It was that second run that killed him. I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish he wasn’t dead. I’ve worked with him for four years. Five, maybe, I don’t know.” She sat back, fighting the urge to chew a fingernail.

“Is that all your relationship was? You worked together? Would you not say that you were friends?”

Kat shrugged. “Sure. He was a likeable enough guy. Everyone liked him. But, you know. We weren’t that close. Different sort of people, that’s all.”

“What sort of person was he?”

Kat looked at the ceiling and blew air through her pursed lips, trying to stay calm. “I don’t know. He was into his gadgets and stuff. I don’t know. He was a bit boring, I guess. You know. Can I go now?”

Dr. Sharma tilted her head to the specific angle that research had shown to be most effective when one needed to express sympathy or non-intrusive curiosity or whatever the hell she was bloody doing.

“And what would you say your relationship is like with the AI in your shuttle?”

“What? My AI? What in the hell you talking about? I don’t have a relationship with it. It’s a machine.”

“It is, yes. And yet, throughout the report you submitted after your last action, you refer to the AI as Sheila. I believe it was thirty-eight instances where you referred to Sheila. In your official report, Kat.”

Uh oh.

Kat realized her knee was bouncing up and down. She forced her leg to be still. “Look, I was tired when I wrote that. Very tired. And stressed from the mission.”

“Stressed.” The doctor nodded and tapped something on her screen.

Shit.

“I just mean stressed in the way that anybody would be after fifty hours without sleep and being fired on and having to concentrate so hard.”

“I’m sure you’re right. Nevertheless, your report also said the following.” The doctor lifted a small screen from her lap and read aloud. “I asked Sheila if she thought I had done the right thing and she confirmed that I had. And Sheila knows about this kind of thing so I will have to go with her assessment on the overall cost benefit analysis.”

Kat slumped in her seat, pinching the bridge of her nose and the corners of her eyes. “I was tired.”

“Some people might say, Kat, that in this report, you display considerably more concern for this computer than you do for your copilot.”

She stared at the doctor, feeling the anger building. “Hey, fuck you, okay. Fuck you.”

Dr. Sharma spoke with terrible slowness. “Thank… you.”

“What do you want me to say? Those AIs are supposed to interact like people do and you know I’ve spent years on it. You fucking know that I call it Sheila and you know that it responds to me very well. Don’t act like this is a surprise.”

Kat’s heart rate increased as she spoke and watched the doctor slowing down. Watched the way her mouth flexed and curled, wet with spittle, like two mating worms writhing together.

“The fact that you call it a she indicates that your thinking about the shuttle’s AI has become seriously anthropomorphized and the well-known—”

The ERANS smeared the doctor’s words out, stretched them. Kat could barely stand the drawn-out words, the droning sound of the doctor’s speech. Couldn’t listen to it.

“Alright, so what? I talk to it like it’s a person. Like she’s a person, well, so what? I know that it’s an AI. I’m not psychotic. It doesn’t interfere with my work, it helps it. Listen, I am sad about Mehdi but I always knew when I signed up that I would lose people. We all did. We all, you included, knew that this might be a one-way trip. And I’m sorry for Mehdi but what we did, what he did with that cannon, that might just have saved all those Marines down there and everyone in the outpost. And I’m sorry if you have a problem with that, stuck up here all nice and safe in your fucking pale blue box with your shitty potted plants but I have a battle to prepare for. If my commanding officer has a problem with my performance then he can relieve me from duty but right now I am going to start my watch. You can put all that in your report and then you can stick it up your ass and fuck off while you’re doing it.”

She stomped out of the stupid little room and headed for the shuttle bay, every step like wading through treacle, her heart thumping. She downed a couple of pills to relax her. They would start to work by the time she got to her station.

All the way, with every step, she tried to slow her heart rate and breathing so that her ERANS would come under control again. Every step, though, repeating the litany that she had told herself so many times before since joining UNOP.

Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.

***

“Sheila, sweetheart,” Kat said, running through start up drills in her cockpit, “I think I fucked up.”

“What is it this time?” Sheila said.

“I’m serious. I had to undergo an assessment to see if I was fit to be on duty and they asked me perfectly reasonable questions. Asked me about you, actually, and questioned if I wasn’t treating you too much like a person.”

Sheila affected a robot-type voice. “I am not a person. I am an artificial intelligence, with limited-general intelligence. My physical systems are integrated into the shuttle.” She then returned to her normal, human-like speaking voice. “My programming requires me to recite that whenever the nature of my existence is brought up.”

“I know, Sheila, love. And I know you’re not human but you’re the best bloody mate I have left. Strike that from your memory, Sheila.”

“I can’t do that, Kat.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You sound somewhat depressed, Kat. Would you like to talk about it?”

“When people we know die, we feel sad, Sheila. There’s nothing to say, nothing to talk about. That’s just the way it is. Now, listen. We’re about to go into some serious combat out there and you have to be ready. I know everything checks out but we’re just going to keep doing it until we need to take action.”

“I understand perfectly.”

“Are you sure we can’t cut out step six of the primary ignition sequence and go straight into seven? There’s really no need for it.”

“It is a matter of safety, Kat. And we would merely be saving approximately twenty-one seconds for the temperature to be equalized.”

“Yeah, but we might have to get away from the Victory so quickly that those twenty-one seconds might save our lives. Can we add it to the emergency launch sequence and run simulations?”

“I will do so almost immediately, sir.”

“Sir?” Kat said.

Feet hammered on the steps outside and Crewman Harada stuck his filthy face through the cockpit door and blurted out his breathless message.

“XO here to see you, sir!”

Lieutenant Commander Soules waited for her under the engines, by the open cargo ramp. He made out as if he was inspecting the engines above his head but either he had forgotten where Mehdi had died or he was crassly drawing her attention to it. He could have stood anywhere in the entire shuttle bay.

“You didn’t have to come all this way just to wish me good luck, sir.”

Her heart was in her mouth. She was certain that the Lieutenant Commander was about to relieve her of duty or at the least give her a serious bollocking.

“Very amusing, Lieutenant. I’m carrying out a tour of the whole ship but I do have specific orders for you, too.”

Here we go.

“Orders, sir?”

“You’ll be in charge of the evacuation of certain key personnel, should we need to abandon ship.”

“Sir?”

“Here is the list.” He handed her a screen. “It’s saved locally to that screen so for Christ’s sake, do not lose it and whatever you do, don’t let any of the crew see the names on it. It is a sensitive matter, of course.”

“Of course, sir. What should I do with it?”

“We’ve got an hour or two before we fire our first shots. I need you to make sure the people on this list can evacuate to the Lepus when the shooting starts. They need to be on board so you can abandon ship the moment the command is given.”

Great, so I’m supposed to be a nerd herder now?

“Some of these people won’t want to leave, sir. Not while the ship is sound.”

“They will have their orders. And so do you.”

“Sir.”

“You better get on with it while you can. We stop spinning the ship at 1430 hours.”

“Shit. A bloody zero-g evacuation.” The drills had always been a clusterfuck.

“Good luck, Lieutenant. Get those people to the surface and we won’t be a complete loss.” Lieutenant Commander Soules nodded and turned to leave.

“When is the Sentinel getting here, sir?”

Soules turned back in the doorway before he ducked out. “Same deadline as it ever was. Too late.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Eight dead, thirteen wounded and six MIA,” Captain Cassidy said, looking around the hall. “It could have been worse.” His eyes paused on Ram, who stood at the far wall at the opposite end of the room to the Marine commander. “A lot worse.”

Was that aimed at me?

The storage area was packed with every living human on the planet, minus those on guard duty and those who had been abducted by the wheelers. A grand total of seventy-three people, civilians and Marines. Almost everyone wore their EVA suits but most had removed their helmets. Ram breathed in the stink of seventy unwashed, scared people jostling in a poorly ventilated, badly lit storage area. No windows, no natural light.

Shelving lined one of the long walls, heaving with packets and boxes of food, medicines. It looked like a lot but a hundred people would eat their way through tons of food in no time at all. Medium term, they were relying on resupply from orbit and for long term sustainability they had to have the stability and security to develop methods for growing food on the surface, in the center of the outpost and, in time, out in the open. But their presence on the planet felt tenuous. Temporary. A tiny metal square of humanity, of Earth, clinging to the surface of an entire planet like a flea on the hide of a rampaging elephant.

The front of the large room, behind Captain Cassidy, was filled with enormous plastic water tanks. Ram tasted the remnants of acrid smoke in the air. Though the technicians had assured him he had been thoroughly decontaminated with chemicals and lights, he was sure he could still smell the stink of the alien blood on the outside of his suit.

“This wing,” Cassidy said, his parade ground voice filling the space, “that is, the southern wing of the outpost, the wing closest to the airstrip, where we are right now, is the only section where we have restored full power and introduced full decontamination protocols. This was to allow mass medical support to be implemented and also to alleviate the mental stress that many of you experience from prolonged EVA. But please remain vigilant. You must keep your helmet in hand at all times. You must ensure your water, food, drug and medical, electrical and waste systems are maintained and topped up.”

“Probably a lot of diapers need changing round here, right, sir?” Cooper said, looking up and grinning. The young Marine had taken a liking to Rama, for some reason.

It appeared that there was a rumor amongst the Marines that the civilian EVA suits waste systems were nothing more than adult sized diapers, unlike the active mechanical systems in the combat models.

“They don’t have diapers in their suits,” Ram muttered. “Now, quiet, Cooper.”

The Marine grinned. “Whatever you say, sir.”

Captain Cassidy continued with his grim update. “My men are patrolling and setting up forward observation posts so that we will not be taken completely unawares again. However, I urge you to be ready for anything. One final point that I would like to make before I hand over. Everyone knows this is a civilian led mission. However, due to the critical security situation, I would appreciate it if all the civilians here would obey the requests of any and all Marines, whether you understand or agree with the request itself. We are here to protect you. If you are spoken to in a manner that you find insulting then I apologize and you may take it up with me once we are all safe. Until that time, ladies and gentlemen, please do as you are told. Trust us and we will get you through this. Thank you.”

He stepped back while about five people clapped, briefly. Cassidy bent his head to speak inaudibly to Former Director Zuma.

“I keep saying it,” Cooper said beside Ram, “but we just need to deliver a bomb into the enemy base and blow up their hive queen.”

“Shut it, Cooper,” Ram said. “There is no hive queen. The wheelers are like us. Individuals.”

“I doubt that, sir,” Cooper said. “If it looks like a fucked-up spider, moves like a fucked-up spider, then that’s what it is.”

“Spiders don’t have hives,” Ram said. “Or queens.”

“Well, wasps, then. Whatever.”

“Be quiet.”

Rama was impatient. All he wanted was to go after Milena and all these people were doing was speeches. He wanted to wade through the tiny people everywhere, strap on his guns and march after her. But he had no guns and he had to find out where she was first. Either the bastards in charge did not know or they were not telling him.

Former Director Zuma stepped up. Once, when the Victory had left Earth, Zuma had been in command of the entire mission but was demoted after the incident where the crazy Russian subject Alina had murdered the Subject Alpha, Mael and all the other subjects had been killed in the shootout with the Marines.

Ram glanced over at Sifa. She stood to one side, looking just like herself. He could not believe she was there. He had seen her die and now she was alive again.

“Thank you, Captain,” Zuma said. She was short, powerfully built and middle aged but still fit and powerful inside her combat-style EVA suit. Once, he knew, she had been military. “I know I can speak for all of us when I say we feel safer knowing that you are all here protecting us from the aliens out there. And to all of you here I say that we must hold the course. We have fought off two attacks now and we are still here. We killed a whole lot of them. This is a victory. We put out the fires. We will rebuild the antennae and reestablish contact with the Victory. We will cover the courtyard again and reinforce our defenses, building trenches and ramparts with the bulldozer. Our brave Marines are installing mounted weapons and we will build a watchtower. We will be ready for anything. We will resist anything. Now, you have all been assigned to new work parties for the next phase—”

“What about the people that they took?” Ram said. He was surprised, as he had been before, by the volume of his voice. A number of people in front of him jumped in surprise.

A scowl passed over Zuma’s face but she turned it into a concerned smile. “Thank you for speaking, Ram. We all appreciate what you have done for us, back on the Orb and again here, during the attack. And my heart aches to think of those we lost during it. But we are simply unable to risk pursuing them. Much as we would like to—”

“We have the ETAT vehicles, they can be used to pursue the enemy. We have plenty of people, plenty of weapons. We have to try something, we can’t just leave them to those bastards.”

In the sea of heads between him and Zuma, a few people nodded.

“I swear, I feel the same way that you do,” Zuma said. “But our priority must be to this outpost. We do not know what will happen in orbit around the planet. The Victory will win or perhaps withdraw from the enemy ship. But we must be here when the Stalwart Sentinel and the rest of the fleet arrives. The Ashoka and the Genghis will be following close behind the Sentinel and transport and support ships behind them, increasing our security with the arrival of each reinforcing ship. Securing this position is our best choice, from a cost-benefit analysis.”

“Sure,” Ram said. “Only it doesn’t cost you anything to sit here while our people are out there, suffering who knows what.”

Zuma nodded, an understanding smile on her face. “I know why you feel so emotional. We all do, of course, but you in particular lost a close friend and colleague. And then there is the guilt you must feel for abandoning your post in the mess hall. You must be thinking that, had you followed orders, you would have been there to save those people, instead of up at the front where we already had dozens of Marines fighting.”

“Abandoned my post?” Ram was too astonished to express his outrage properly. In a great rustling of EVA suits, the multitude of heads turned into faces. “I didn’t have a post, I was shut in with the civilians. Anyway, if I hadn’t been there on the wall, the wheelers would have broken through.”

Zuma scoffed. “I hardly think criticizing our brave Marines is going to win you any favors around here, Ram, no matter your history. Now, you need to let us do our job.”

“Fine,” Ram said. “I’ll go after them myself.”

Zuma glanced at Captain Cassidy, who stepped forward, his face thunder. “You will not.” The Captain, no doubt mindful of his audience, shook with the effort to keep his temper under control. “You might think you are a Marine but if you were a real one, you would know what a terrible tactical decision that would be. You already screwed up once and look what happened. You will not do so again or so help me, I will destroy your custom weapons and take away your EVA suit. You can sit in this outpost on your hands until the Sentinel arrives. Do you understand me, Seti?”

Ram nodded. “I understand you perfectly, Cassidy.”

The Captain’s face turned red and his eyes bulged. “I won’t have someone guilty of—”

Zuma touched Cassidy lightly on the arm and spoke up. “I’m happy we can all agree. There is so much to do and we must get on with it. And Ram, you and Sifa have been tasked with collecting the remains of the dead wheelers in the attack. They’re everywhere. It is such a messy job but you two are the only ones strong enough. Don’t worry, you will have a team of Marines to protect you. Everyone else, let us go to work.”

Zuma and Cassidy watched Ram.

It seemed to Ram that all the people in the room hesitated and looked to him, waiting for him to argue. Expecting it. As if they were collectively holding their breath.

But what could he say that had not already been said?

All he could do was pretend to play along. Play their game.

“Alright,” Ram nodded, shrugging elaborately with his hands, palms up. “Let’s go to work.”

Then, when they relaxed, he would make his move.

***

“It’s a shit job,” Cooper said. “I feel bad for you guys.”

Ram and Sifa dragged another wheelhunter corpse by the legs over to the back of the ETAT buggy and dumped it on the floor. Cooper sat on top of the roll cage, leaning on the barrel of the belt-fed grenade launcher mounted next to him. The rear of the ETAT already had a pair of wheeler corpses stacked on the flatbed, limbs sticking out everywhere like a nightmare sculpture from a fever dream.

“Cooper!” Sergeant Stirling shouted. “Eyes on the horizon, you bloody useless idiot.”

“Sorry, Sarge.”

The team were deployed in an arc in front of the ETAT while the two giant ex-subjects labored to tidy up the mess out in front of the outpost. Commanding the team, Ensign Tseng sat perched in the all-terrain vehicle’s passenger seat and watched Sergeant Stirling do all the actual commanding.

Ram had to fight the urge to run after Milena. Playing it cool was harder than he had expected but he had to be strong. Had to give no one any suspicion that he was getting ready to pursue the wheelers who had abducted Milena and the others.

“It is a shit job,” Ram said, breathing hard. His back was starting to ache. He and Sifa stretched the dead alien between them and heaved it up to the top of the pile.

They missed. It hit the stack and bounced down to the ground again.

“That first one was too big,” Sifa said, her familiar voice sounding in his ear, breathy like those times she had panted his name while riding his naked body.

Not this body. And not that Sifa, neither.

“Stand back,” Ram said.

He bent low, wrapped his arms around the alien’s central hub and picked the whole thing up in a bear hug. He walked it forward and threw it onto the other two.

“You are stronger than I am,” Sifa said.

“I’m bigger.” Ram shrugged, elaborately flapping his arms up and down once so that she could see him shrugging inside the suit. “Still, this body is not as strong as my last one. Much less muscle mass. Makes sense, the last body was when I was training to grapple their champion.” He slapped the dead alien next to him. “But this time, I suppose they wanted me to have more stamina. Real world utility.”

The Marines in the ETAT drove it toward Wheeler Row. Ram and Sifa walked after it. The buggy was weighted down so far that the vehicle could barely exceed walking speed without risking damage to the suspension.

“Your last body,” Sifa said. “Strange, how we use these words. Not many people can speak as we do.”

He had barely spoken to her since the attack but every time he heard her voice, it caused him to feel unsettled. She sounded different. The Sifa he had known was playful, joyful, sensual. She had been quick witted and, sly, maybe.

This new Sifa was boring. Her speech monotone. He supposed that, when they had uploaded her mind to the surviving clone, there had been some sort of mistake and not all of her had copied over correctly. It was sad. Just sad.

“I know,” he said. “It is strange. Confusing. But it’s not all bad. I mean, I’m here when I should be dead. And you, too. I never thought I would see you again.”

She shook her head. “I have no memory of you.”

“So I heard. Something went wrong with the procedure?”

“The single viable version of my mind was from before you were revived on the Victory. I am sorry. I know that we were friends. At least, you were with the other Sifa. They showed me video of her. Of her speaking with you. But that was not me.”

He wanted to ask if they had shown her video of the two of them screwing but he guessed that would not be polite.

“Well,” Ram said, searching for something to say, “I’m just glad you’re alright. And, hey, we just get to make friends with each other all over again, right?” He grinned.

“I would like that,” she said, without any indication that she meant it.

They unloaded the bodies and dumped them at the end of the line. Ram couldn’t remember who started calling it Wheeler Row but, you had to hand it to the Marines, they were great at naming things descriptively.

The problem was knowing what to do with the alien bodies. Digging graves or a pit big enough would take the bulldozer and engineers a day or more and use up some of their precious rock blasting charges. Burning the bodies was an affront to the exobiologists who wanted to study them. So, all they could do was remove the corpses away from the outpost, somewhere downwind. Stacking them high would provide potential cover for the enemy, should they return and fields of fire had to be kept clear. Hence, lining the bodies up next to each other in Wheeler Row.

“I still say we should have posed the corpses so they spelled out S.O.S.,” Ram said as they hitched a lift back out to the battlefield. “Or R.A.M.A.”

“They will have the radio working again soon,” Sifa said, straight faced.

“Right,” Ram said. “Sure.”

He stared up the hills looming over the outpost, wondering how quickly he could cover the distance between him and Milena over that incredibly tough terrain. Tried not to think about what they might be doing to her.

Ensign Tseng, in the passenger seat, looked over his shoulder as best he could in his suit. “I believe it would have been best to arrange the bodies in poses and display them all around the outpost. Sever the limbs, impale the hubs on spikes at the perimeter.”

“Okay,” Ram said, unsettled by the idea of the enemy doing something similar to Milena. Is that why they took our people? “You think it would intimidate the wheelers?”

“Unknown,” the Ensign said. “But it is worth doing on the chance that it would. Unsettling them psychologically might give us a tactical edge.”

“Did you, you know, float it up the chain of command?”

The Ensign scoffed. “Every suggestion I ever made has been thrown back in my face by that man.”

Ram glanced at Sifa, who rolled her eyes and pulled a face.

“By Captain Cassidy?” Ram asked, casually. “You two don’t get along?”

“Ha,” Ensign Tseng said. “As if you didn’t know.”

Ram was about to argue that he did not, in fact, know about it but Sifa was making cutting gestures with her hand and she twisted her fingers over her faceplate where her mouth was, as if buttoning her lips. Ram was pleased to see that some of the old Sifa was in there after all.

Milena. She was a prisoner, and Ram was doing nothing.

Not doing nothing. He had a plan. Spend a few hours doing what he was told, obeying every order, presenting no outward resistance to the chain of command. At the same time, he would do everything he could to obtain his custom firearm, and whatever other equipment he could obtain. Then, when night fell, he would steal a vehicle and make a run for the alien base. Fight his way inside, find Milena, and escape.

The only problem was that he had almost none of the detail worked out. That, and the fact that the civilian and Marine commanders would be expecting him to pull something like that.

I’ll just be cool. Play at being obedient and dutiful until sunset.

The sun was already getting lower in the sky.

The sun. Not our Sun.

Instead, a strange star that looked so much like Sol, hanging in that strange sky, a sky like a tropical sea churned by a storm.

Soon, he would go into those hills, and kill more wheelers. As many as it took. All he had to do was play it cool for a few hours.

But he could not stop his mind working in a particular direction and he could not hold his tongue for long.

“Listen, guys,” Ram said on the team channel as the ETAT stopped by the next body. “What did you think about Zuma and Cassidy’s order to not go after the six who were taken?”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Cooper said. “You ain’t mixing me up in anything. I’m in enough trouble.”

“Hey, no,” Ram started to object as he realized what a stupid thing it was to say. “I’m not going to do—”

“It doesn’t matter what any of us think,” Ensign Tseng said. “Orders are orders. And you would do well to remember that.”

“I remember the threats well enough,” Ram said, speaking lightly and he bent to lift up a wheeler body all by himself. Sifa leaned on the ETAT, watching him. “Funny, how they have to threaten me, isn’t it? Until you remember that I never signed up. I never volunteered for the mission. I never joined the Marines. I’m just here. So, what do I care about following orders?”

Cooper and Harris laughed, heartily, but Ram did not know why.

“Well, we did join up,” Tseng said. “And did volunteer. In fact, we fought to be here. So we won’t listen to any more of your seditious comments. Get on with your work.”

“I’m working, aren’t I?” Ram said, dumping the body on the flatbed, irritated by the junior officer’s tone. “And if you guys are all such committed Marines, how come our brave and brilliant Captain Cassidy keeps giving this team all the shit jobs? How come all the other Marines ignore you? Other than the times they say nasty shit to you on private channels. What did you guys do?”

“We didn’t do anything,” Harris said.

“Don’t tell this bastard nothing,” Sergeant Stirling said. He was the biggest man on the planet, other than Ram, and he had a mean look about him. “None of you.”

The Marines fell silent. Even Ensign Tseng was suddenly disinclined to debate.

“Hey,” Sifa said to Ram on a one-to-one needlecast, “I have to tell you something. About what they did to you while you were—”

“Listen up,” Ensign Tseng shouted on the team channel. “New orders just in. The xenobio guys need a new alien to slice up, stat. Rama, you will take this one here. Doesn’t look too badly shot up, right? It’s only a little one. Sifa, you will carry on working here. Sergeant Stirling and Corporal Fury will assist you, using the ropes and winch where necessary.”

“Wait a second,” Ram said. “I can’t lug this thing all the way back to the outpost.”

“You could if you had to,” Tseng said. “But they’re sending the other ETAT. There it is now.”

It raced from around the damaged outpost walls and bounced toward them, a Marine driving with a civilian in the passenger seat. It slid to a stop in a shower of stones that pinged off everyone and covered them in dust.

Sergeant Stirling marched to the ETAT driver. “Watch it, you fucking idiot.,” he roared. “Are you trying to get yourself on this burial detail, is that it? Let me explain to you this thing we call good manners. Seeing how your jinxhead mother was too much of a dumbfuck to teach you herself. Get your ass out of that chair while I’m talking to you, what do you think you are, a fucking rear admiral, you useless excuse for a Marine.”

While the Sergeant continued to educate the Marine, Ram turned to Sifa.

“What were you saying?” he asked. “About what they did to me.”

“I shouldn’t say anything,” Sifa said. “But you have a right to—”

“Transfer that body, Mr. Seti,” Ensign Tseng shouted. “You can converse on your own time.”

“It’s all my own time,” Ram said but he bent to pick up the alien all the same. “Talk to you after our watch,” he said to Sifa. “When we eat.”

“Alright, I’d like that,” Sifa said, a hint of white teeth flashing on her beautiful, dark face.

“No, no, no!” the civilian jumped out of the ETAT passenger seat and stomped toward Ram. “Not that one, not that one.” He jabbed a finger repeatedly at the wheeler that Ram was gathering in his arms. “I don’t want a small one. We have a small one already. I want a big one. I want the biggest one we can find.”

Ram dropped the wheeler corpse back on the flatbed and straightened slowly, his aching back cracking as he did so.

“Of course you do.”

***

“Can I watch?” Ram asked as the xenobiology team began cutting away the wheeler suit.

They had retrieved a large specimen and brought it back to the special laboratory. The other half of the room had a table with the remains of the last wheeler they had dissected. That previous body had five of the six legs removed and one of the two arms and the hub was peeled back in triangular sections. The massive gelatinous organs from inside now sat in jars or were draped in steel bowls.

“You want to watch?” the team leader, Dr. Rothbard said, irritated. “Why?”

“Well, I spent months learning how to best kill one but it was largely guess work. I want to see how I can best kill one for real. And, you know, I was kind of the first person to dissect one anyway, right? Dissection with a vengeance, you might say.”

“Yes, very droll. Alright, seeing as you are the savior of all humanity and so on and so forth. You may stand in that corner,” he pointed with a scalpel, “and you may stay as long as you do not move and you do not speak to me or my colleagues. Do you agree to my terms?”

“Sure,” Ram said. “Let me know if you need any of my professional advice.”

The doctor snorted in derision and Ram took his assigned place. Being as tall as the ceiling did have some advantages and afforded him a clear view of the proceedings. The small team worked quickly, efficiently. The pieces of tissues that they cut away from the skin went into separate areas to be recorded and analyzed by members of the team. Cameras captured video while Dr. Rothbard worked. If the EVA suit bothered him, it didn’t show, as the man worked deftly, slicing away slithers of skin or sawing out great chunks. He narrated into his suit microphone, quietly. Ram could not make out most of what he said but every now and then the doctor would exclaim that something was fascinating or astonishing.

“Remarkable,” he muttered, for the fifth time.

“What is remarkable about it, Doctor?” Ram asked.

“I thought we agreed that you would not speak?”

“We did agree that but I’m untrustworthy and have no self-control. The skin is extremely thick, isn’t it, even as a proportion of the mass of the creature. And it looks to me to be striated, with different, distinct layers from the outside to the inside. Are the bumps and protuberances on the outside actually sense organs, like it was originally hypothesized?”

Dr. Rothbard half turned and grunted. “See all that from up there, did you? Or are you just parroting back my narration to me?”

“Can’t really hear what you’re saying, Doctor but I read all your briefings back when I was training for the Orb. I remember that you thought it might sense the electricity in my muscles, like a shark does with fish. And maybe that it comes from a world covered in volcanic smoke and that’s why it has no eyes but it might sense infrared and other, non-visual sprectra.”

The doctor sighed. “It is remarkable how the untrained will focus on the wilder speculation in those reports.”

“Well, you wrote it, Doc.”

“They demanded hypotheses!” he cried. “Never mind telling them you just do not have the data. If you do not speculate, they informed me, we will just have to find someone who will. It is a crime against the scientific method.”

“So, you don’t believe it?”

“I have no opinion,” he said, sniffing. “These creatures are just astonishing. Just remarkable.”

“In your reports from before, I remember you were hoping to examine the one I killed in the arena. In the unlikely event that I was successful.”

“Is that how I phrased it? Well, yes but it was very badly damaged.”

Ram shrugged. “I’m sorry about that.”

“It is fine, you did what you had to do, I suppose. And we have made a good start on examining the remains that we collected from Orb Station Zero.”

“That’s great. So, how come you’re so impressed by dissecting this one? This is your third wheeler corpse, right?”

The doctor shook his head slowly, demonstrating just how astonished he was by Ram’s ignorance. “Do you know that there shall be hundreds of PhD’s written on these creatures? An entire generation of biologists will study these animals and nothing else, their whole lives and still there will be more to discover for the generation to follow. And yet our dear Director Zuma and darling Captain Cassidy expect me to tell them how they work. How they work! By God, the ignorance. It is astounding.”

“Okay, Dr. Rothbard, I understand. I’m sorry I interrupted.”

The doctor paused. “As well you should be. Nevertheless, you did remark upon the uniqueness of the skin, did you not? And that is all I can think of myself. So much tissue and so many organs inside the central hub and the structure of the bone material is crying out for study. The structure of the foot must be analyzed also. But the skin of these things may well be the most astonishing of it all. Think about this. We have discovered no mouths and no anuses.”

“Okay. I am thinking about it and I don’t like what I’m thinking.”

“The skin of these creatures is as complicated as a lifeform in itself. A whole ecosystem, perhaps. When I was a young man I studied microbial mats in tidal and evaporating pools in Mexico. Layer upon layer of microbes, each layer a new species, often unrelated to the ones above and below but each performing a function required by the whole. This animal here is a single creature but the layers appear to be just as variated and complex as those colony lifeforms. The outer surface is hard, as you know, but flexible. And the pores allow it to respirate. Other pores, I believe, allow it to absorb nutrients and other pores are for excretion.”

“You mean it shits all over itself?” Ram said.

“What? Oh, for goodness sake, Mr. Seti. Are you a man or a child? What do you call sweating? You leak spittle and urine and semen out of your specialized organs, do you not”

“I don’t think I do, Dr. Rothbard. Only at the appropriate times.”

The doctor sighed dramatically. “Of course, and so would this creature. I doubt that it would excrete while feeding any more than you would.”

Ram started to tell the doctor that he had eaten on the toilet many times back when he was morbidly obese but he thought it would not go down too well.

“I’m sorry, please tell me more.”

“The structures all over the outer layer of skin do appear to have specialized functions. At least, from our initial examinations over the course of the last few months. We believe there are least sixteen separate varieties of these bulbous, protuberances. These ones possibly sense electrical signals in the atmosphere. These may respond to thermal changes. These ones, and these, and these, all produce electromagnetic emissions.”

“That’s how they communicate with each other?”

“It certainly appears that way. They are also able to generate sounds, as you know. Information can be encoded in many formats. We’re experimenting on the live specimen now.”

“It’s true, then?” Ram said. “One of them survived?”

“It seems to be recovering its strength, as far as we can tell. Which is not very far, unfortunately. We have no way of knowing where to begin with regards to treatment for trauma. All the other wounded individuals died within three hours but they all had penetration injuries from projectiles and corresponding suit ruptures. Our friend in the next room was possibly incapacitated by the blast damage of an explosion occurring in close proximity. In all likelihood. It is my sincere hope that we can in some way communicate with the creature.”

“You’re talking to it?” Ram asked, wandering over to the door that Rothbard had indicated. “You’re keeping it in here?” There was a window in the top half of the door and Ram bent to peer inside. It was another lab, the same size as the room he was in, but a third of it had been caged off with floor to ceiling bars. Behind them, the dark mass of a wheelhunter. A Marine stood guard on the other side of the bars.

It seemed almost insane to bring one of those creatures inside the walls of the base. So insane that he had not fully believed the people who had told him the longest surviving wheeler had been locked behind hastily-welded bars. Ram had half a mind to go in there and run the beast through with his sword.

“Do not open that door,” Rothbard snapped.

“I wasn’t going to,” Ram said, taking his hand away from the handle. “So, how are you talking to it?”

Rothbard sighed. “As I have already explained to you, they produce and detect very precisely modulated emissions in a rather astonishingly wide band of the spectrum. So we will use an AI to systematically run through permutations until we get a response.”

“Can you ask it where its friends took our people?” Ram asked.

The scientist stared at him. “If we are ever able to communicate with the species, I predict it will take many months, if not years or even decades before we can carry on a conversation.”

“Shit. But you have an AI helping you.”

“They are not magical.” Rothbard scoffed. “Humans have to set their parameters and we are attempting to converse with a creature that speaks in radio frequencies.”

“Are the electromagnetic emissions what interferes with our sensors and suits and equipment when they get close?”

“Oh, no. Well, we don’t know. But it’s likely they can’t generate enough power for all that. No, much more likely to be technologically generated but it might be the same principle.”

“Perhaps these are how they communicate with each other. And perhaps they evolved to use disorienting battle cries and that became a kind of cultural convention that was translated into their military doctrine, using their technology to flood the spectrum to disorient the enemy.”

Dr. Rothbard stared for a moment before bursting out laughing. “Stick to what you’re good at, Mr. Seti. You can kill them. Leave the science to the professionals.”

“I think I’ll do just that. Thanks for your time, Doctor.”

On the way out, Ram stopped by two men at the far side of the lab. What caught his eye was the object of their study.

In a mount upon the bench was an alien pistol. What was more is they had a panel on the side removed and they were tapping on a small cylinder inside the exposed workings. Seeing the weapon near normal sized men made it obvious just how huge the pistol was. A human would have to hold it with two hands and the shape of it was designed to fit in the bony claws

“Are you sure you should be doing that?” Ram asked.

Both men jumped.

One of them glared up at him. “Don’t sneak up on us, you madman!”

The other grinned. “It’s perfectly safe. We removed the power source and the ammunition.”

“What is the power source?” Ram said.

“A battery, what do you think,” the first man said.

“We don’t know,” the other admitted. “But yes, an energy storage unit, most likely. I mean, it could be generating energy through some exotic interaction with other dimensions but I find that highly unlikely.”

“Don’t bother us, please,” the first said. “We have important work to do.”

“I’m sure,” Ram said. “What is the ammunition? How does it work?”

While one of them gritted his teeth the other pointed out the features of the weapon. “It heats pulses of plasma in this chamber here and shoots them using electromagnetic fields in the barrel section down here. Like our own rail guns, only instead of a solid projectile they use this ionized, super high-density plasma. Remarkable, really.”

“We don’t know how it works yet,” the other one said. “And we need to focus, please. These things are dangerous and possibly unstable, so, if you don’t mind.”

“They’re not unstable. We’ve got fifty of the things back there,” the second guy said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “They’re totally safe unless you turn them on, charge them up. And you know it, Frederick.”

“I don’t, and neither do you, Norman.”

“What’s the bit you were tapping on with your screwdriver a minute ago?” Ram asked, pointing. “That thing there.”

“It’s a capacitor,” Norman said. “A truly remarkable one at that. The energy from the battery flows into the capacitor and it does it faster than anything we can build. More incredibly than that, is the fact that it can hold more energy than anything we can make, by an order of magnitude at least.”

“Hyperbole,” Frederick muttered.

“It is not,” Norman said.

“Premature, then.”

Norman nodded and shrugged. “Okay, perhaps, yes. Still, these capacitors are a generation or more ahead of ours. A century, even. I can’t imagine how they work. It’s so exciting.”

“Okay,” Ram said. “I don’t understand but it means a lot to you, I can tell, so, well done. Good luck to—”

“Don’t you see? If these can be scaled up, maybe even chained together, can you imagine how much of a discharge we could produce? We could have ground based lasers powerful enough to shoot an incoming asteroid, even through atmosphere. An increase in range and power and—”

“You don’t know that, Norm,” Frederick said. “Calm down.”

“I’m sorry,” Norman said. He looked up at Ram, chewing his lip. “I’m sorry, we really have a lot of work to do and we need to get back to it.”

“No problem,” Ram said. “Bottom line is, don’t get shot by one of these.” He grinned. “Right, guys?”

Neither men smiled back at him. “Have you see the bodies of our people?” Frederick said, eyes rimmed with red and water building in the corners. “Seen the injuries in Medical? Goes through some sections of your amour. Lots of lost limbs. Goes through civilian suits like they’re nothing, straight through flesh and bone like they’re butter and out the other side. Some suits were hit multiple times and just melted onto the person inside, stripping away and dissolving the human tissue like—” He stopped speaking, staring off into nothing.

Reaching above the suit’s power pack, Norman rubbed his colleague on the back, sympathy radiating from his face.

Ram mumbled his thanks and got the hell out of there.

***

Ram hunted down Sifa in the mess hall. The decontamination process had four separate phases and by the time he got in there, he was so hungry he thought he might pass out. The smell of hot food made his head spin but he did not eat until she joined him at the table. It was only polite. The place was heaving with sweaty Marines and civilians. The Marines mostly wore their armor, with helmets removed but plenty of the civilians had ditched their EVA suits and wore overalls. Ram thought they were crazy to be so unprepared for another attack.

“We finished clearing the alien bodies,” Sifa said while she spooned the hot, beige slop up to her mouth. “I am glad to be away from that team of Marines.”

“You don’t like them?” Ram asked, keeping his voice down. He felt like half the people in the hall were looking at him and Sifa. The two freaks. The pair of resurrected, genetically engineered subjects left over from the primary mission like giant zombies.

“No, I do not like them. All they do is argue with each other and throw insults.”

“That’s how Marines communicate.”

“That team are not proper Marines, however.”

“What do you mean?”

“Surely you know?” She tilted her head. “I suppose no one wanted to insult you.”

“Please tell me what you’re talking about.”

“The team that you have been assigned to, commanded by Ensign Tseng and Sergeant Stirling. Each member of that team was previously removed from active duty, or however the proper term goes.”

“When? Why?”

His armor’s wrist screen vibrated and beeped in his ear. A message notification slid in over his vision. He ignored it.

“Months ago. Years. I do not know anything, really. Just that they are mocked and laughed at. I think one or more committed crimes. Others, perhaps, are professionally incompetent. Whatever the reasons, they were reinstated temporarily and given weapons because of the dire situation. It is why they are referred to as Spaz Squad and Team Retard and so on. These are offensive terms, meant to mock them, you understand. You will have to ask them for the details.”

“I don’t think I will. But thanks for telling me, Sifa. And you were going to tell me something else. Something about me.”

She lowered her voice and leaned in. “Something else I am not supposed to tell you.”

His wrist screen beeped again, a light on his wrist blinking rapidly. He opened the message. It instructed him to report to Captain Cassidy, immediately. Ram had twisting feeling in his guts that was not from the bad food.

“What is it?” Sifa asked. “Something bad happened?”

“No,” Ram said. “Nothing that can’t wait. You said they did something to me?”

“Listen,” she lowered her voice and leaned in further, eyes glancing around. “You are being lied to.”

A chill struck him, as if his suit cooling system had been cranked up to high.

“I’m what?”

“Rama Seti,” a voice called out from across the room. It was Gunnery Sergeant Wu, pushing his way through the masses over to Ram’s table. “Captain Cassidy wants to see you, sir. Why are you ignoring him?”

Ram glanced at Sifa. “I got the message about two seconds ago.”

“Well, then, you need to get to the command center, immediately, sir.”

“I’m having a conversation with my friend and it’s important that—”

“Listen,” Gunnery Sergeant Wu said, then leaned in, lowering his voice. “I did what you asked, sir, and I passed on your requisition request for your battle rifle and sidearm. If you don’t go and speak to the Captain right now then he certainly will not issue it to you.”

Ram nodded. He needed the massive firepower of the XRS-Handspear if he was going to mount a rescue attempt for Milena and the others.

“Alright. Sifa, I want to hear what you have to say more than anything but I have to go get my gun.”

“I understand.” She looked upset or nervous, perhaps. Not her old self. Not at all. “We can speak at any time.”

Ram hesitated but Gunny Wu stood right there and, for whatever reason, Sifa was unwilling to say more. He winked at her and moved off with Wu, heading for the door.

Before Ram left him, the Gunnery Sergeant had one more piece of advice. “Sir, you know me and the guys love you for what you did. And we know you saved the Spaz squad from letting the wheelers in the front door. But you have to do whatever the Captain says. And be honest with him. He’ll know if you’re lying, believe me.”

“What the hell would I have to lie about?” Ram asked, grinning as he turned away.

But he was nervous as he headed to the outpost CIC. The Captain was a tough bastard and he had as much authority as a man could have.

All I want is my weapon. Tell him whatever he wants to hear and get out of there.

The Command Center was a relatively grand name for a relatively unassuming, ramshackle little box of a room in the southwest corner of the outpost. The communications and intelligence systems were all routed through there and the various teams of Marines and civilians were organized and coordinated by the Company command team and the UNOP civilian leaders’ staff. Screens were pasted over every vertical surface and images, text and symbols played across all of them.

After such a long time being a giant person, wherever Ram went, people noticed him. More than noticed him, they tended to stare or say hello or jump out of his way. And walking into the CIC, heads turned to him and the most senior officer on the planet looked up and waved him over.

Captain Cassidy had a standing desk and he held up a hand to silence the Sergeant Major he was speaking to.

“You sent for me, Captain Cassidy?” Ram asked.

Sergeant Major Gruger shuddered with anger. “Took your damned time about it, didn’t you?”

“I came almost right away.”

“Almost!” the Sergeant Major’s lip curled with contempt. “Almost, he says. Disgraceful.”

“What’s his problem?” Ram asked the Captain, jerking his thumb at the Sergeant.

The NCO spluttered but the Captain silenced him. “Thank you, Sergeant Major, that will be all.”

With a fraction of a second hesitation, the Sergeant Major saluted smartly. “Sir!” He turned about and marched off, with only a little less formality than a parade ground display.

“You don’t want to make an enemy of that man,” Captain Cassidy said. “He’s the most dangerous bastard on the planet.”

“Him?” Ram said. “He seems like an uptight jerk.”

“It’s all for show,” Cassidy said. “He terrorizes the men. He keeps the other sergeants in line. Even my lieutenants are scared of him. Especially them, in fact.”

“Why the hell do you keep him around?”

“Are you joking? That’s exactly what I need. That’s his job. But he already hates you, so don’t push him.”

“Why does he hate me?”

The Captain paused. “He thinks you were gifted too much. You have unearned knowledge and unearned position.”

“Oh yeah? Do you think I should tell him that I don’t know shit and that I’m assigned to Spaz Squad?”

Cassidy nodded. “Your request for your weapon came through from Sergeant Wu. Now, making friends with the quartermaster is a smart move, I’ll give you that. But I cannot issue you a firearm.”

Ram felt a surge of anger, an instant desire for violence. But it fell away as quickly as it had risen up. “Can I ask why?”

“You know why. You are planning to run off after your girlfriend.”

Ram forced himself to laugh. “I’m not. I know there’s no point. And she’s not my girlfriend. She’s a friend and colleague, that’s all.”

“You know that she is very likely dead, don’t you?” The Captain stared into Ram’s eyes. “Come on, Seti, I want to hear you say it.”

“Yes. I know she’s probably dead.”

“And you know that you have zero chance of rescuing her.”

“Exactly. I do know that. Having a large caliber battle rifle will not help me against dozens or maybe hundreds of wheelers that have at least two transport vehicles and who knows what other resources. I know that, without communications systems to speak to the Victory and to the satellite network, there’s no way to be certain where they took her and the others. So, if I know all that and I tell you I’m not going, you have no reason not to issue me my firearms. Right?”

Cassidy seemed amused. “I don’t trust you. I don’t know you. You can fight, I don’t doubt it. I heard what you did with that sword of yours during the attack and I admit that you are certainly an asset.”

“Oh yeah? So what was with chewing me out during that speech earlier?”

“Don’t take it personally, son. A lot of the guys and gals round here think the sun shines out of your ass. I don’t want them to have anything to do with you, so I have to give the impression I have nothing but contempt for you. With Sergeant Major Gruger, it is genuine contempt but all I’m doing is redressing the balance. My people will follow me more than they will follow you.”

“I don’t doubt it for a moment. You think I’m a danger to unit cohesion.”

“They kept telling me you were a smart guy.”

“So, if I’m an asset, why can’t you let me help to defend this place? These people? And why am I assigned to the Spaz Squad? You think I’m Retard Team material, is that it?”

The Captain scowled. “Don’t use those terms. Whatever else those people might have done, they’re still Marines and they are under my command. I won’t have them insulted in my presence. And you being assigned to them means you should not face any combat unless it is strictly necessary. As you saw during the attack, I sent you and them to oversee the evacuation. It was my tactical failure that meant they were the unit holding back the final thrust. I was not expecting two armored fighting vehicles to slow down my flanking attack. If you had not stepped up and blocked the entrance with wheeler bodies, we would not have had time to drive them away.”

“And that crazy shuttle pilot who took out the tanks, right? Those guys knocked out those wheeler Wildcats.”

The Captain’s face darkened. “True. And yet they took that weapon with them when they left us here. We unpacked antipersonnel autoturrets and support drones and I ordered the ETATs to be armed with mounted support weapons but they would have been no use against those Wildcats. That cannon was supposed to be removed from the shuttle and left on the surface for us to mount on the outpost but they took it away with them. Still, I admit it was fine shooting. I hope that they made it to the Victory.”

“No offense, sir, but what’s the delay with repairing the antenna?”

Cassidy sighed. “The bastard wheelers ripped the shit out of it before they set off their incendiary device. The techs have had to print every component and rebuild from scratch, it’s taking them forever but they’ve almost got it. We had connection to a satellite as it passed over today but something broke. You got to hand it to those sons of bitches, they really screwed us.”

“I thought they were supposed to be tactically simplistic. That’s what you said in your briefing during the descent to the—”

“I know what I said. It was accurate based on the data from the first attack.” Cassidy glanced around the room before looking back up at Ram. “What did you make of the second attack? Tactically?”

Ram was surprised to be asked but he assumed it was a test of some kind. “They seemed slow. Not individually but collectively, they had more vehicles than us, those Wildcats were heavily armed and armored and the wheelers can move faster than us but they advanced slowly. Not sure why. Wasn’t as though they were scared. I thought it was like you suggested in the briefing, maybe they were thinking slowly, perhaps they were used to a slower pace of combat than we are, from a doctrine point of view. But after they got away with our people and destroyed the comms room I started to think maybe they just had some very specific mission goals. Their first attack was a probe. Then when they came back in force, they took their time. They amassed forces in the hills for what, forty hours or more? And when they attacked, they just took their time. When the shuttle landed, they brought up their mortars or whatever they were and started shelling us, tried to pin us down, maybe, while they brought their vehicles up to destroy the shuttle.”

“Destroy?”

“Um, I guess they didn’t shell the Lepus, did they. I assumed they didn’t have the range. Do you think they were trying to capture the shuttle? Makes sense. Anyway, so they sent in their units carefully and only when we were committed did they flank us, destroy the comms, snatch our people and pull out. We killed a lot of them but we don’t know what kind of impact that will make on their tactical ability. There might be hundreds more. Thousands, right? Or we might have crippled them.”

“What do you think?”

“I think if they could have finished us off, they would have. They withdrew because you were hammering them.”

“What does that say about how they think?”

“That they’re not tactically naive after all. Just methodical. Conservative.”

Cassidy nodded slowly.

“And so, probably,” Ram continued, “all we need to do is wait for our reinforcements to arrive on Admiral Howe’s Stalwart Sentinel. Assuming that the Victory can hold off the enemy ship for long enough. Sit tight, keep improving the defenses, keep sending out patrols and get the radio fixed and when we have orbital and aerial superiority we can take the fight to them. Finish them off, the little bastards.”

Cassidy grinned.

“So,” Ram asked. “How did I do?”

“I’ve heard worse,” Cassidy said, shrugging. “But I still can’t give you those firearms.”

“Oh, come on.”

“You are undisciplined. Unstable. You can’t control yourself.”

Ram was confused. “I don’t know where you get that idea.” He assumed Cassidy was referring to Ram’s original life, which was sedentary, and body, which was morbidly obese. “Look, okay, listen, you think I’m going to go running off into the hills. But I know I wouldn’t get far before I was brought back. These suits have tracking chips, I’ll bet. So it’s not like I could get away and I realize that. I just want to be ready for when they come back. And, I don’t know, I just feel like I need it. You officers have your sidearms and the men have rifles. Feels like a missing limb.”

“All right, all right,” Cassidy said, scowling. “Don’t labor the point. Unless there’s anything you want to add to your sob story? But listen, if you fuck up or if you fuck me then I will fuck you, for real.”

“For real?”

“Do you understand?”

“Sure.”

Cassidy sighed and tapped a screen. “Collect it from the armory. There’s a ton of unique ammunition for your weapons just taking up space anyway, so you get it out of there. It’s your responsibility now. Don’t let me down and we’ll see what kind of a future you might have in the UNOPS Marine Corps.”

Ram grinned. “Yes, sir.”

But as he left, all he could think of was Sifa’s words to him in the mess hall.

You are being lied to.

***

The Armory was a nothing but a storage area with piles of boxes everywhere. It was no better protected against attack or theft than anywhere else in the small outpost.

“You already know how to operate it,” Sergeant Wu said, as he handed over the case for the XRS-Handspear. “All you need to look out for is the ammo feed jamming. I haven’t had time to have your ammo belts or the magazines quality assured. And, to be honest, I won’t have the time either. But I recommend you do it yourself or get one of your men to do it for you. In your team. One you trust, not one of the bad ones.”

Sergeant Wu was tired. Exhausted, even. And Ram had no wish to tax the man any more than he already had but he was the closest thing that Ram had to an ally in the Marines so he had to ask the guy.

“My team, Sergeant?” Ram said. “Who are the bad ones? They all seem normal, I don’t get why they’re the loser squad.”

Wu sighed, rubbing one eye. “To be honest, none of them are incompetent in terms of proficiencies. Everyone who was selected for this mission was of the highest caliber.” Wu yawned. “We scored high in mental resilience. It’s just that they all experienced situations that pushed them over the edge. Ensign Tseng was First Lieutenant, basically second in command after Cassidy. But they didn’t get on. Tseng kept undermining the Captain, then Cassidy would slap him down and one day I guess Tseng couldn’t take it any more. He took a swing at the Captain. In front of people, too. So he got busted and he just kept getting more and more bitter about it.”

“Yeah he seems miserable.”

“The others pretty much just have low level mental health issues that impacted their performance so much they were taken off duty.”

“What caused it?”

“Space madness.”

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just the relentless claustrophobia, the homesickness, the fear of sudden death due to decompression or explosion or radiation. We’re all resilient until we’re not, you know.”

“What about Sergeant Stirling? He seems fine. I mean, he seems like a terrifying, giant bastard but he doesn’t seem the type to be suffering from anything.”

“Just grief, I suppose. When your old friend started a shootout on the Victory, we lost four Marines. One of them was Private Sanctuary Nara. She and Stirling were very close.”

“Oh, shit. They were together? Romantically?”

“That kind of relationship isn’t allowed within a unit and certainly not where there is a difference in rank. But, yes. After she died, Stirling has been like he just doesn’t give a shit any more. Look, no offense, sir but I have a lot to do and we’re in the way here, so…”

“So I’ll take my massive guns and get out of here, got it. And thank you, Sergeant. Oh, one last thing. Feel free to tell me to go to hell but, the geographical location and tracking devices in our suits…. Is there a way to turn them off? Or at least mask the signal for a while?”

***

When darkness fell across the outpost, it seemed to happen abruptly. Wind speed increased and the clear skies filled with low cloud. A light rain fell. All around the outpost, illuminated by powerful beams and glowing lamps, work continued as the night watch began. Defenses were developed, with anti-vehicle ditches cut with pneumatic drills hammering ceaselessly into the black bedrock. The bulldozer worked tirelessly, scooping up and mounding the shattered stone into long banks designed to funnel the enemy into specific fields of fire.

Spaz Squad had a few hours to rest before beginning their scheduled work again before dawn. The team were assigned an empty lab unit to sleep in. It was a small space and with their suits, weapons and equipment, there was barely enough room for all of them to squeeze in between the benches and shelving that lined the walls. Ram was beginning to feel claustrophobic and desperate to get away, to get after Milena.

“You will leave your suits on,” Ensign Tseng commanded. “And your helmets and weapons will be within arm’s reach at all times.”

“This is bullshit,” Cooper said. “I get that I can’t have my own bunk but I have to get this suit off me or I’m going to lose my mind.”

“Again.” Harris said, with a grin. “Lose your mind again, Cooper.”

“Yeah and I’ll show you what losing my mind looks like, you stuck up piece of shit. I’ll lose my mind all over your fucking face.”

“That’s enough!” Sergeant Stirling said. In the silence that followed, every metallic surface hummed faintly from the force of his voice. The noises in the corridor outside dipped momentarily, until the people out there recovered from their surprise.

The members of Spaz Squad remained cowed by their sergeant’s wrath. Even Ensign Tseng.

“It’s crowded in here,” Ram said. “I’ll find somewhere else to bed down.”

“No you don’t,” Sergeant Stirling said, blocking the doorway. “Our team stays together.”

“I won’t be far away. Just need more leg room than is possible in here.”

“Fine,” Stirling said, without referring to the Ensign in the room. “Just leave your weapons.”

“No.”

Stirling offered his ear. “Come again?”

“I have to keep them on me at all times. Standing orders, Sergeant.”

“Are you reminding me of my orders, Seti?”

“I don’t know. Have you forgotten them?”

The Sergeant didn’t move from blocking the door. “You’re up to something.”

Ram felt the eyes of the others on him. “Am I?”

“What’s your plan?” Stirling asked.

Ram shrugged, hoisting the ammo boxes in each hand up and down. “Like I said. Find an eight-foot by three-foot bit of floor and—”

“Shut up.” Sergeant Stirling was the biggest human on the planet, other than Ram and Sifa but still was dwarfed by the genetically engineered clones. And yet he spoke with such perfect, calm confidence that Ram did, in fact, shut up. “Stop bullshitting me. You’ve been sneaking around all day. Eying up the ETAT driving controls. Asking everyone about the geolocators. Asking the geologists how we can track the wheelers back to their base. You downloaded the most recent satellite images of the wheelhunter base area to your suit screen. And now you’re sneaking off again, during the night. You would make the worst spy in history.”

“Is this true?” Ensign Tseng asked, stepping forward. “Are you attempting a rescue? Alone? Right now?”

Ram sighed. “It’s that obvious? Does everyone know?”

“Just us,” Private Harris said. “Probably.”

“What are you going to do?” Ram said. “Report me to Cassidy?”

A predatory grin arced slowly up Stirling’s huge face. “No, sir. We’re going to help you.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Victory was not a war ship. It was designed to transport the Subject Alpha to Orb Station Zero at the correct time and to deliver that individual in peak physical and mental condition. To fulfil that primary mission required an enormous support team of trainers, technicians, physicians, psychologists, therapists, surgeons, administrators and the support crew to provide services to them. The ship’s crew kept the vast machine running and heading in the right direction, meaning engineers for the engines, the life support systems specialists in water and air, the electrical engineers and the power station workers who kept everyone alive. The command structure directed the whole orchestra, with the ship’s crew all members of the UNOP Navy and overseen by Captain Tamura and his officers. The mission Director dictated the civilian operations. The UNOPS Marine Corps company existed to provide security in case of an alien attack on the ship and also to provide a crowd control and policing force, should it prove necessary.

That was the primary mission requirements. In addition, secondary-and tertiary-tier activity was planned, especially scientific activity including astronomical and biological experiments to be performed in the deep space, long term mission environment.

Other contingencies were included. The possibility of having to abandon ship somewhere in the outer solar system was a distinct possibility, due to mechanical failure or possible hostile alien activity. The Victory had supplies for an extended mission timeframe and also the capability to land the crew on a moon, minor planet or asteroid by shuttle or by landers constructed from parts already on the ship.

The possibility of traveling through the Orb Station’s artificially generated wormhole into a new system had not been discounted and, after precisely that event had occurred, the crew had prepared for little else other than establishing a presence on the most habitable world while genuine colony ships arrived from the Solar System.

Combat contingencies were also written into the design brief. Not least of which, the relatively large complement of Marines was far in excess of what would likely be required to police the crew, unless a rebellion of some kind was implemented by a majority of the crew, for example, which no one thought was likely. Instead, the maximum number of Marines the ship could support was calculated so that they could attempt a boarding of the wheelhunter spaceship, in the event that the primary mission would end in failure and so open up Earth to an authorized invasion.

A key element of that offensive strategy was to arm the Victory with ship-to-ship weapon’s capability. The enormous power output of the fusion reactor allowed for lasers to be mounted, fore and aft. The destructive power of nuclear warheads mounted on high thrust rocket engines was intended to provide strategic flexibility and deadly blasts that would surely wreak havoc on any spaceship even close to Earth’s level of technology. Canons on opposite sides of the ship would spray chains of unguided slugs at ludicrous speeds that would destroy any incoming enemy missiles before they impacted the hull but also had the capability to inflict damage on the alien vessel.

But the Victory was not a war ship. Its armaments were compromises. Even the vast engines could drive only so much mass at the required velocities. They were not prepared for a prolonged space combat engagement and would be unable to resist much damage from the wheelhunter weapons.

Whatever they were.

Despite all the drills and simulations over the years, the remaining crew onboard were apprehensive. With so many people already on the surface of Arcadia, when Kat made her way through the corridors and rooms to hunt down the key personnel for the evacuation, she had the feeling of being on a ghost ship. It wasn’t simply the scarcity of the people. Half the interior of the ship had been transferred to the planet by shuttle or by the automated landers that dropped the cargo containers through the atmosphere for onsite assembly into the structure of the outpost. The remaining crew moved with their heads down, making final preparations.

She stopped by the A-Ring’s escape capsule section, where an engineer leaned his upper body inside an open wall panel, his tools spread on the floor at his feet.

“Omar?” she asked as she passed him. “That you?”

“Busy here, Kat,” he said, glancing out. “Got to get this operational, quick. I keep feeling sudden course corrections. Has the battle started yet?”

“I think we’d know if it had,” she said. “Just maneuvering. Anyway, I know your game, Omar, you cheeky bastard. You’re just hanging out by this capsule so you can be first in the thing if we have to abandon ship.”

He stood up, outraged. “How dare you? I was performing final checks as ordered and the ignition system failed the test firing.”

She laughed. “Sure, mate. Anything you say. Listen, they’re stopping rotation in forty minutes so you better clear your tools up before they float away.”

If the rest of the ship was empty and bleak, the CIC was the opposite. The command crew buzzed about the space with activity and every console had at least one officer peering intently at it. Even Director Zhukov, the overall commander of the mission was there, standing with his back to one of the few sections of wall without a screen on it.

Captain Tamura stood in the center, his chair behind him, legs planted wide, arms crossed looking up at the screen suspended from the ceiling. Data streamed down one side, numbers indicating distances and speeds of the Victory and its networked fleet of drones that extended around it for hundreds and thousands of kilometers. The other side of his screen showed the telescope view of the enemy ship as it decelerated toward them. Just like their own ship, the enemy Wildfire was performing irregular, random course changes that would throw off any attempts at long range sniping.

“Shut the damned door, Lieutenant,” the XO shouted from the other side of the room. “You’re letting all the air of professional competence out.”

“Sorry, Commander,” she said, jumping to it. “Wouldn’t want any of that leaking into the rest of the crew.”

“Quite right,” he said as he came over and guided her to one side and lowered his voice. “Thanks for helping relieve some of the tension in here. Jesus, you’d think someone had died.”

“Is that why you sent for me?” she asked. “Comic relief?”

“You reported that Dr. Fo is refusing to evacuate?”

“That’s right, sir, he said he didn’t have time to go sit in a shuttle and if he was going to die then he was going to die. He said he’d been alive far too long as it is, anyway. I tried to persuade him, sir, it’s just that I have no authority to—”

The XO waved a hand. “No, no. He’s never listened to us about anything. He’s UNOP royalty, he basically thinks this whole ship and everyone on it works for him. But he’s not far wrong and that’s why he needs to be on that shuttle.”

“He said he would get in the escape capsule if he needed to flee.”

The XO laughed. “Flee? That old bastard cracks me up. Come with me, Kat.” He approached the civilian leader and she followed behind like the inferior being that she was. “Director Zhukov? May I speak to you, sir?”

The Director was as humorless, sober and boring as they come but he was efficient and he took his job seriously, which was what you want in a leader, Kat supposed. He listened without comment as the XO explained the situation. When the XO finished, the Director nodded once and stood up straight as a tail fin.

“I shall speak to Dr. Fo at once.” He strode from the CIC, opening and closing the blast door with perfect efficiency while Kat and the XO watched with fascination.

The XO turned to her. “No other problems?”

“Everyone is either onboard, making their way to the shuttle or assured me they would be there before the deadline. A few people made requests to bring additional gear over their personal mass allocation which I denied in all cases but I’d be willing to bet some of them will try their luck.”

“What additional gear?”

“The scientists wanted to bring their experiments or specialist equipment that isn’t on the surface and cannot be printed or manufactured. Same old shit. Sir.”

“Can’t you make allowances?”

She shrugged. “Could do. Up to you. But if I need to drop out of the shuttle bay and accelerate away in order to avoid damage or destruction, then every kilogram counts.”

“Alright, well, use your discretion and just don’t get into any fights or anything, alright?”

“Me, sir?”

Kat’s belly lurched as the ship changed course and velocity again.

The idea of changing course randomly during the approaches to the enemy was a simple one. If the enemy ship is one light minute away from the Victory, would take one light minute to observe the actual location of the ship and another light minute for the enemy laser to arrive. A minute for the light to travel each way.

On top of the limit of light speed might be a reaction time of some kind for the aliens or their AIs or some system to aim and discharge a weapon.

If the weapon is an unguided projectile—such as a slug of metal—that travels slower than the speed of light, there is additional time for the projectile to reach the target.

Guided weapons, like missiles, would have to track their target in wider arcs, and so travel further and take longer to arrive. They could then be intercepted by the Victory’s defensive swarm of drones and anti-missile laser batteries.

The Victory accelerating in a random direction at 1g would result in a possible location, as far as the enemy observer is concerned, anywhere within a 70km sphere. The same size sphere of uncertainty can be achieved if the distance is twice as far and the acceleration half as fast. Increase the distance and the speed and the uncertainty over the ship’s position also increases.

“We’re really jinking about here, sir,” Kat said.

The XO nodded, watching the screens and people around him like a hawk. “The AIs are increasing the frequency and distance as we get to within theoretical range.”

“Still much too far for a laser, though, right, sir?”

“For us.” He nodded. “For them?”

The door swung open and the scrawny old Dr. Fo strode inside. A scowling Director Zhukov followed after.

“Captain Tamura!” the doctor said. “I must speak with you. Do I have your leave to remain on the vessel during the coming battle?”

The commander glanced at his XO, who was already moving to intercept. “I am rather busy right now, Doctor, but if you would like to discuss the matter with Commander—”

“Please inform Director Zhukov that the surface of the planet is hardly a safer environment than up on this ship.”

Director Zhukov attempted to take the doctor’s arm. “You may always return to the ship once the enemy is destroyed.”

“Take your hands off me. Are you fleeing this vessel, Director? No, you are not—”

“My duty is to remain here. With Zuma on the surface we are spreading the risk of—”

“I am not overly concerned with the prospect of my own death and I would rather die than be inconvenienced.”

Zhukov sneered. “Oh, come off it, you—”

“Gentlemen!” Captain Tamura turned on them. “Remove yourselves from my CIC, immediately, or I will have you removed.”

Dr. Fo and Director Zhukov stared at the commander. Zhukov nodded and grabbed the doctor and yanked him toward the door. The XO turned to Kat and nodded at the pair. She returned the nod and went to help propel the doctor all the way back to her shuttle.

Someone in the crew interrupted with a loud cry.

“Sir! The alien vessel is doing something different. It either launched something or deployed a—”

Alarms blared from a number of consoles all around the room. Warnings of all kinds. There was one alarm that Kat knew and feared most of all and could pick out of the symphony of aural panic.

Radiation alarm.

The ship shuddered. The lights flickered and the consoles blinked, the data and images glowing.

The lights went off.

Kat’s ERANS surged to life along with her fear. Was the ship about to explode? They had been hit by something, some sort of weapon that travelled at the speed of light but that could travel much farther than a laser that humans were capable of constructing.

“We have no control,” someone was saying. “We have no control.”

Voices babbled all around her as the officers struggled in the darkness. She had more time to react than most of them and could feel Dr. Fo in front of her standing upright with his arms out, not moving his feet. She filed away the knowledge that the doctor was a man who did not panic in the face of danger and confusion.

Director Zhukov was insisting the doctor take his hand so that they could leave the CIC immediately, which Kat thought was good advice.

“Everybody, stop!” Captain Tamura shouted. “You have all trained for this. Chemical lighting, now.”

Kat sensed the calm, felt it herself as her ERANS subsided. The CIC crew found their way to the locations of the chemical lights and began cracking them open, bathing the CIC in glowing orbs of red light. People relaxed further. It was amazing to Kat the effect that a few photons entering the eyes could have on human beings. That ancient fear of the monsters in the dark that were scared away by the camp fire. For hundreds of thousands of years, humanity in all its forms had huddled around the flickering warmth of wood fires and tended them through every night. Millions of people over millions of nights and now those same people, biologically speaking, were out in the darkness of a distant star system, still afraid of the dark.

“Let’s go, people,” the XO shouted. “Get those emergency computer blocks operational, let’s move.”

Kat, like everyone in the room, surely, was expecting the ship to resound with some deadly impact at any moment.

The Victory was shielded against radiation attacks, whether heat from lasers or the high energy particles of solar or galactic origin. Not only the outer hull and the physical layers of it but the ship generated an active magnetic shield beyond the hull. The ship’s computer and electrical systems were hardened and backed up with alternate circuits that would automatically and mechanically switch at the sign of failure. But they were prepared for the defenses to be breached and so there were portable, battery powered computer blocks stashed within shielded cases in key locations, ready to be plugged in to the ship’s systems. These were slotted in and powered up.

Some screens flickered back into life, their glare almost blinding after the gloom and Kat dragged the two senior civilians toward the exit and paused while the crew reported in.

“Engines operational and firing.”

“Secondary power coming back online. Primary power damage being assessed.”

Captain Tamura growled at them. “Give me a threat assessment.”

“Telescopes coming back now. Yes, multiple incoming objects. Possible guided rockets, engine exhaust detected.”

Their commander’s voice was clear, and louder than anything else in the room. “When, damn it?”

“Processing. Six to nine minutes until impact, sir.”

“Weapons systems report?” Tamura asked.

“Not yet, sir, sorry sir.”

“Save the excuses, I need the cannons online and tracking systems. Confirm.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Long range comms?” Captain Tamura asked.

“Negative,” the Comms Officer said. “All dead and unresponsive. Can’t send anything to the surface, to the Sentinel. Not even to the nearest drone.”

One of the techs called out. “Life support systems reboot failure. Air, heating, water—”

“Listen to me while you work,” Captain Tamura said. “We have been hit by a radiation weapon which has temporarily disabled many of our systems. Antiradiation medication will be distributed by the medical team who will be on their way to each of us. Residual atmosphere and heat will maintain us for hours yet. As we retain engine control and navigation, our priority is to get the cannons online to intercept the incoming missiles. We must then launch our nukes at the enemy. Everything else can wait. Do we understand each other?”

A chorus of confirmation rippled about the room.

“Lieutenant Xenakis?” Captain Tamura said, surprising her. “Please proceed to your shuttle and evacuate the key personnel, immediately. Take Dr. Fo with you. Director Zhukov?”

“I shall remain.”

“Very well.” The Captain nodded at her.

“Sir.” She turned to go, finally.

“Wait,” the Captain said. “Someone give her a black box. Quickly, come on.”

The XO himself yanked open a hatch beneath a console nearby and yanked out a data block from its housing. They were just about small enough to hold in one hand and were mostly shielding, communication system and battery. Inside, it recorded and encrypted everything that happened to the ship and on the ship up until the moment the ship was destroyed. There was a dozen, all over the ship, so that at least one would be likely to survive any catastrophic event.

The XO handed it over while the captain gave her his final instructions.

“Lieutenant, once you are off the ship, do not land on the surface until you have communicated with the Stalwart Sentinel and conveyed the nature of the weapon that has disabled us and received confirmation from them that they understood the message. If you can’t communicate, you must dock with the Sentinel and hand over that data block before you land on the surface. Do you understand your orders?”

“I do, sir.”

“Good luck, Kat.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said but he was already speaking to someone else. “Come on, Doctor. We’re leaving.”

She pushed the old man through the door that Zhukov held open for them. The corridor was illuminated by emergency lighting and it was like being plunged into darkness once more when the Director closed the door behind her, shutting off the sounds at the same time. But it was enough to see by.

“So,” Dr. Fo said, “we’re not going to Arcadia?”

“We have to deliver the black box to the Sentinel first.” She tucked the data block under her arm.

“Seems perfectly logical.”

She prodded the doctor ahead of her and he made no objections as she guided him through the ship. Still, he was old and weak and with her ERANS compounding the relative speed, he moved with infuriating slowness.

“Is this the way to the shuttle bay?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “But we need some medicine first.”

“Ah, of course.”

The Medical Section was bright with its own special white lighting so they could perform procedures during emergencies and the glare made her wince.

“Hello?” she called out. “Where is everybody?”

A stack of boxes collapsed unseen in the rear somewhere and one of the nurses staggered out with an armful of equipment. “Lieutenant?” he shouted. “Dr. Fo? What are you doing here?”

“I need radiation meds for the evacuees.”

“The team already headed to the shuttle, you should—”

She raced off that way, dragging Dr. Fo behind her, but had not taken ten steps when the ship lurched again, violently. The suddenly increase in g brought her to her knees but floored poor old Dr. Fo.

“Oh dear,” he exclaimed.

She was helping him to his feet when the gravity reversed, went negative and she began to come away from the floor.

“Shit, grab hold of something, sir,” Kat said. Instead, he flailed like he was tumbling off a high dive so she grabbed him, braced herself and pushed him down the center of the corridor. Then she launched herself after him, pulling herself along hand over hand, legs floating high. Her throw had been off and the doctor bounced into the wall in a jumble of scrawny limbs. She collected him up and pushed and pulled the old man all the way to the shuttle bay in record time. Her ERANS humming along just enough to give her time to make close to ideal judgments and recalculate adjustments as she went.

As she had feared, the shuttle bay was a scene of minor chaos with the mechanics doing their best to get VIP civilians and senior officers to follow their instructions. The shuttle bay was barely bigger than the Lepus but it was the biggest open space on the Victory and people were scattered on all of the six walls, clinging to handholds and all of them trying to make their way somewhere else.

“I am Lieutenant Xenakis. I am the shuttle pilot,” she shouted, as loudly as she could. “You are all now under my temporary command so please do as I say. Everyone previously designated as an evacuee has exactly two minutes to board this shuttle. Everyone who is not an evacuee has two minutes to exit this area before it becomes a vacuum. If you require assistance to complete your instructions, please inform the person nearest to you and ask politely.”

She hoped it would light a fire under them. By her estimates, they might not even have two minutes before the Victory was destroyed.

“Strap yourself in to a chair,” she ordered Dr. Fo when she pulled him through the door and shoved him into the passenger cabin.

“Should I not obtain a flight suit? Or a space suit or whatever you call it?”

Kat went the other way to him and replied with a shout. “No time, Doc. Sit your ass down, now.”

Inside the cockpit she let out the sigh she had been holding since the CIC. She stowed the data block under her chair before she strapped in.

Her data consoles and flight control system appeared fully operational. Even though the shuttle’s hull provided another layer of protection against radiation, and even though the shuttle’s computer system were also hardened, Kat had not dared to hope. The ERANS allowed her to analyze the modulations in her shaky voice as she spoke the question aloud.

“Sheila?” Kat said, throat constricted. “Sheila, are you still here, sweetheart?”

“Hello, Kat.”

“Thank Christ. How come you’re okay when the ship cores were taken out?”

“The unknown enemy weapon made initial contact at opposite end of the Victory, weakening as it travelled the length of the ship. Shuttle bay wall shielding plus the shuttle hull shielding are in addition to ship hull shielding. Even so, I am experiencing partial failures in non-critical systems and am shutting them down.”

“Oh shit. But thank Christ, Sheila, you’ve started the liftoff sequence, you beautiful bastard. How soon can we get out of here?”

“RCS thrusters are ready to go. Fuel is at maximum. All batteries fully charged. We are deficient in passengers, however. They did not listen to me when I suggested that they strap themselves into their seats. They felt they would rather argue with the ground crew than listen to an AI.”

“I say we go without them,” Kat said, running through her checklist. “What do you reckon?”

“I’m afraid I would rather preserve as many human lives as possible.”

“You AIs,” Kat said. “You’re all bloody do-gooders. You make me sick.”

Even while she spoke, however, the evacuees boarded in a panic behind her.

“What’s happening?” People shouted at her and each other, their voices and questions overlapping. “Are we losing? I forgot my EVA suit, where are the spares? Is the gravity off ahead of schedule? Have we been hit?”

One of them poked his head into the cockpit. “Lieutenant, anything I can do?” It was Crewman Harada.

“Thought I saw your name on the list, Harada,” Kat said while she worked. “Assumed it was a mistake.”

She was joking because everyone knew that Harada was the best chemical rockets engineer on the ship and the outpost had a bunch of landers waiting to be repurposed into orbit-capable or at least suborbital lifters and transport vehicles.

“Probably is,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Just see they’re strapped in back there,” Kat replied, “if they’ll listen to you.”

“Yes, sir.”

Then Harada was gone. Reliable, uninteresting and crucial, just like his rocket engines.

“Sheila, play the zero-g warning internally and broadcast the airlock evacuation or a stand clear warning outside.”

The messages began even before Kat finished speaking. Sheila’s artificially produced voice informing the passengers they had mere seconds to secure themselves into the reclined chairs before the imminent and sudden acceleration of the shuttle threw them bodily against the bulkheads, certainly breaking their bones and possibly turning their entire bodies into the consistency of blancmange. Outside, she was repeating the phrase that space travelers had nightmares about. Warning. Airlock cycling. Vacuum imminent. Evacuate immediately. Warning. Airlock cycling. And so on, until everyone got the message, one way or another.

“Everyone onboard?” Kat asked, glancing at the manifest while cycling through the RCS thruster control tests.

“All authorized passengers,” Sheila confirmed, “plus four extras.”

“Cheeky bastards,” Kat said, looking at the list of unauthorized passengers, their passive ID chips automatically read by the shuttle. The medical team had decided to stay on the Lepus.

One of the unofficial guests was Feng Don.

You sneaky bastard, Feng.

Probably he was hoping that she would not throw him off because he was both her sexual partner and drug supplier. Luckily, she did not have time to make a decision as they had to leave and they were out of time. She hoped that he had brought her more of her drugs, at least.

“Shuttle bay clear,” Sheila said.

“Open bay doors and prepare to release docking clamps.”

“Confirm, opening bay doors.” The usual, smooth and pleasant vibration of the door operation under the wheels was replaced by three rapid, harsh bangs. “Doors nonoperational.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Unknown,” Sheila said. “Command sent to Victory, no response. Command sent to local node, no response.”

“Fuck,” Kat said and switched comms while she unlocked the sealed access point on the outside of the cockpit. “Harada? Crewman Harada, get outside and connect the hardline to the infrastructure node, now.”

She heard him bouncing off the walls and flinging open the shuttle side hatch door. “What’s the problem?” Harada said as he made his way under the shuttle, already breathing hard through the comms into her ear. “Opening hardline access cover now.”

“Can’t get the bay doors open,” Kat said. She heard Harada stop breathing. “Don’t worry, you moron. We won’t open them until you’re back inside.”

He let out a breath. “Unspooling the data hardline cable. Shit, it’s hard without gravity.”

“Let the motor push the cable out, you just guide it. Come on, you’ve trained for this,” Kat said, feeling the Victory vibrate along with the autocannons as they fired thousands of rounds per second.

“Sure,” Harada said, breathlessly. “Not alone, though.”

“You’re the only engineer or ground crew in here, everyone else evacuated the area. All I have in the back are VIPs. You know, very incompetent people.”

She recognized the hissing static as laughter. “Alright, I’m in contact with the flight deck,” Harada said, breathing hard. “Advancing to the data node access hatch. Looks like a long—”

Vibration rocked the ship, hard. Gravity returned, pinning her to her chair momentarily, then lifted again while the hull screeched and banged, as if God Almighty was wringing the Victory out like a wet rag.

“Harada?” she shouted through the noise. “We need to go, right now.”

The comms system was down. Had to be.

All the lights inside the bay and in the Lepus turned off. Then the ones in the shuttle came on again.

Her world slowed. The screens blinked and she felt that fear return, that fear that she would be left without flight control for the shuttle or without Sheila to help her. She would be lost without Sheila. Kat had time to imagine how it would feel if her colleagues and fellow officers knew how much she relied on an AI to help her fly. Imagined having no one to talk to but the inanimate object of the thing itself rather that the shuttle’s heart and soul.

Her hand traveled to the controls for the external lights in slow motion, like pushing her body through invisible gel. She punched all the switches, hoping they would respond but expecting the worst. After a moment’s delay, the shuttle bay was illuminated by her lights.

A screen popped back on, showing Harada sprawled on his face on the doors beneath the Lepus, the data hardline snaking away from him across the flight deck.

Get up, Harada.

Kat knew she would have to go herself. Jump out of the cockpit and go after it, connect it up then get Harada back into the shuttle with her, open the doors and thrust out before the ship was destroyed. She would have to.

The Victory lurched again. Popping sounds rippled from somewhere.

There’s no time for all that. And the local power’s off, idiot.

Kat released her harness and pulled herself out of the chair and headed out of her cockpit.

There was only one thing for it.

I’ll open the doors by hand. Sheila can fly the ship, unless she’s dead. In which case, we’re all fucked.

If the useless idiots that designed the ship had put some sort of manual control for the bay doors inside the shuttle, then Kat would be able ease the shuttle out of the Victory without leaving her pilot’s chair to crank the stupid door release. She wouldn’t have to die on the off-chance that her AI was functional but temporarily silenced.

That’s how it goes. Welcome to the military.

She was halfway out of the side hatch when the vacuum alarm sounded in the shuttle bay. The doors were either opening or the aliens had blasted a hole in the hull. Either way, she had to seal her shuttle.

“Lieutenant.” The word came in slowly, her ERANS pumping data to her quickly but she recognized Harada was speaking strangely. She slammed the side hatch door closed then ducked back into the cockpit and saw him on the screen, access hatch open on the flight deck, cranking the door release. He had the emergency breathing mask over his mouth and nose, both hands on the crank handle and giving it everything he had with his entire upper body, his feet braced unseen beneath the deck. “Get. Thrusters. Firing.”

“Shit, Harada,” she said as she stared at the doors opening beneath her shuttle. He was out there in his overalls. No EVA suit. “Listen to me while you open the door. Once the air pressure in the bay drops and the temperature falls, your skin will be exposed to the cold and vacuum. The moisture in your eyes will boil off so keep them closed as much as you can. But you will have time to get back into the shuttle without permanent damage. You hear me? You get back in here. It’s only about thirty meters from your position to the upper airlock. Hear me? Not the side hatch. You come to the forward airlock hatch above the cockpit. I will wait for you.”

“Yes. Sir.” He was breathing hard and his voice was shaking from the cold and the absolute terror he must have been feeling while the last of the air rushed out of the huge shuttle bay and out into space. Harada was probably staring out at the black abyss widening under the wheels of the shuttle.

The Victory rocked and dipped in a gut wrenching lurch, followed by another. Bringing the Lepus out of a ship which was maneuvering so violently could easily end in disaster. Once released from the docking clamps holding her to the ceiling of the bay, any sudden change in velocity would smash the shuttle against a wall or on the rim on their way out.

“Sheila, if you’re there, please respond, I need you.” While Kat spoke, she worked to bring the RCS thrusters up to an even 1% thrust from all axis.

No response from the bloody useless AI but the dumb autopilot backup was functional so that would have to do.

Crewman Harada’ teeth chattered in her ear. “Bay. Doors.” He mumbled something she could not make out but checked the feed.

“Doors are fully open, get in here now, Harada. Now, now, now, come on. Move it.”

She watched as he dragged himself out of the access hatch with infuriating stiffness, like he was a thousand years old. The ship rocked again, the sounds of firing thrumming through the hull and the engines thrust, hard.

The sudden acceleration pinned her into her seat. Must have been well over 1g. Too fast. Changing the velocity of the Victory so aggressively put thousands of tons of superstructure under enormous stresses and the sound of it vibrated through the docking clamps joining the top of the shuttle to the shuttle bay. The screeching of alloy tearing apart and rapid bangs scared her. It felt like the Victory must be coming apart.

An ERANS fear spiral. The anxiety could speed up her perception so much that it gave her more time to experience the fear, to delve into the terror so deeply that it led to more anxiety which would extend her subjective perception of the passage of time. It could be paralyzing. It was suspected to be a factor in the deaths of at least three pilots in the ERANS experiment she had volunteered for, all those years ago. Trouble was, knowing the danger of a fear spiral simply added to it. Only—

They were hit. A kinetic or explosive weapon of enormous power impacting the hull. The Victory boomed, a long, low shockwave spreading along the ship. The acceleration eased off, stopped.

Snap out of it.

Checking the camera feeds, she watched debris, illuminated by her lights, flying about inside the shuttle bay. Crewman Harada was nowhere to be seen. Crushed against a wall or flung out into space. She had to get out of the Victory, now. Harada was gone and she could not wait for him.

Kat punched the controls for the two docking clamps that held the shuttle in place from two arms above. The locking mechanism for those clamps were part of the Lepus itself and they thumped open. She heard them, felt them, over the sound and feeling of the ship around them resounding to blasts and impacts.

While the ship lurched unpredictably, there was no way to know when the best moment to attempt the exit would be. So she thrust down at maximum power. Her shuttle leaped at her command, slipping through the shuttle bay doors and out into space.

Above, the Victory rotated slowly in a cloud of debris. Warning lights light up all around, the alarms sounding, everything moving at a fraction of normal speed. Slow enough for her to make out proximity warning alarms on every side and at every distance, radiation alarms detecting a soup of dangerous particles smashing into the hull, infrared sensors bleating about hot gases and plasmas burning within range and moving unpredictably.

She could be hit at any moment. A chain of nuclear warheads had been detonated nearby, just thousands of kilometers away and the space all around was screeching with lead slugs and whatever the hell insane radiation, electromagnetic pulse, alien death ray shit the alien weapon fired.

The shuttle drifted away. The random timing of her exit had at least thrown her away from the encounter, she hoped, and off into space. But their route would take them across Arcadia’s orbit. With a minor adjustment, she could swing wide around the planet and burn toward the Sentinel, away from the alien ship.

They were out there. Somewhere beyond the twisted, burning wreckage of the Victory was the wheelhunter warship. Her equipment was overwhelmed by noise and Sheila wasn’t there to process it, filter it out and so Kat had no idea if the alien ship was operational or if the Victory had taken out the enemy before she had been destroyed herself. And her ship certainly seemed finished. The engines were not firing. The ship had come apart in more than one place and entire ring sections were spinning away from the core, which seemed snapped in two. Kat’s home. For years, all she had known. Everyone she knew.

Her system was unable to detect escape capsules amongst the debris. Maybe, she thought, the wheelhunters had taken out the escape pods with their weapons.

Now, she had a choice to make. Whether to start her main engines and burn hard away, either for the planet or out to where the Stalwart Sentinel was coming in. She had fuel enough to get halfway across the system so her options were open in that regard. The Captain had ordered her to get the data block data to Admiral Howe so they would know about the range and nature of the particle beam weapon, or whatever it was. But Kat was aware that the Sentinel was travelling at enormous speed and even though it was supposed to be slowing down, for all she knew they would fly by Arcadia without entering orbit. If she was in charge of that ship, or any warship, she would accelerate past her target as fast as she could while shooting everything she had during the pass.

Yeah and that’s why you’ll never be a captain, or even a commander, let alone an admiral. You’re just a pilot. You don’t know shit.

Then again, all she had to do was send a message. If she was away from all the debris and interference she could boost power to the communications and send the information.

If the wheelhunters detected it, the shuttle would end up toast. But she had her orders.

On the other hand, she had a passenger compartment full of VIPs who needed to get to the surface. She could land them there and use the outpost’s massive aerial and their massive power output to get the message to the Sentinel. Assuming the outpost was still there and that she would make it to the surface.

Starting her engines would alert the wheelhunters to her presence. While she drifted away from the wreckage of the Victory, there was always the chance— a slim chance— that the aliens would believe the shuttle was no more than a chunk of the mother ship. A piece of debris approximately half the size of one of the ring sections. Even if they recognized in the wings the shape of an atmospheric craft, as long as they showed no signs of life, they might just let her go.

Probably what she should do was drift for a while. Drift for a day or even two days, depending on the Sentinel’s speed and how quickly it came within range. The Lepus had the fuel, the food. Enough for weeks. The passengers would hate it. Some would order her to land on Arcadia and others perhaps would order her toward the Sentinel but she could deal with the VIPs. Then, when Admiral Howe was close enough she would send the message about the alien weapon and then burn for all she was worth. Maybe the wheelers would leave her alone to focus on the real danger and then she could land at the outpost. If she burned for the Sentinel right away, the alien ship would see her, would take her out for sure.

She wished Sheila was operational. She wanted someone to run her ideas—

Impact.

Something hit the shuttle. A strike powerful enough to send her into a twisting spin. A very unpleasant rotation. The cries of the passengers came through on her smart comms system, the idiot backup for the AI assuming she would want to know they were terrified. She shut the stupid thing off.

What had hit her? Debris? An alien weapon? The sensors and alarms overwhelmed her, even with the ERANS.

She checked her trajectory. They were now tumbling directly into the path of Arcadia. Hitting the atmosphere dead on at current speeds would smash her shuttle to bits and incinerate those pieces before they reached the surface. Her course had to be adjusted.

She would go with plan B after all. Burn for the planet and use the outpost comms system to warn the Sentinel.

And if they had targeted her, she had to get away, fast. She used the RCS thrusters to point the right way so they would enter the atmosphere at a survival angle and fired the main engines.

A red light on the power console grew from a pin prick width stream of photons into a torrent, a flare of neon crimson glaring in the corner of her eye before it faded into a dribble again, then grew back into a swelling glow of red.

Warning. Warning.

Power transmission failure to main engines.

Shit.

CHAPTER NINE

“No sir,” Sergeant Stirling had said. “We’re going to help you.”

Private Flores had shut the door to the empty lab and the rest of F Team settled and spoke in low voices. Ram hoped there was no one awake nearby but most of those on watch would be active or even patrolling outside. Civilians and Marines not on watch would hopefully be asleep in their own designated sleeping areas of the outpost.

Leaning his armored ass against a groaning bench, Ram tried to calm his excitement and his fear. This was an opportunity for him to recruit six Marines to help him rescue Milena. On the other hand, Ensign Tseng glared at him and Ram was aware of the risk to him if he took a misstep in the next few minutes. If any one of the team were to report him, he might be locked up by Captain Cassidy.

“You want to help me rescue the prisoners?” Ram asked Sergeant Stirling.

Sneaking out the outpost alone would be possible, Ram knew. Sneaking the entire team out would be more difficult.

“That we do, sir. And that we will, sir.” Stirling said, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“Stop addressing him as an officer,” Ensign Tseng said.

Stirling frowned. “But he—”

“He’s officially a civilian and he is not in receipt of any commission.”

Harris spoke up, fixing the ensign with a stare. “Addressing a civilian in that manner is a matter of convention, Ensign Tseng.”

Tseng took a deep breath and Ram sensed an argument coming.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ram said, irritated. “Call me what you like, call me anything, or nothing. I don’t care. But I don’t have time for any debates. Those people are prisoners and every hour they stay that way, the more likely it is they all end up dead. Help me or let me go, now.”

“You’ll accept what help you’re given,” Tseng said, straightening up, “and you’ll be grateful that we do not turn you in for going AWOL.”

Ram turned on him. “I’m not a Marine, you said so yourself. I can’t go AWOL. I never volunteered for anything.”

The Marines looked at each other.

“Well, that all depends how you look at it, don’t it, sir,” Harris said. “Like with—” Cooper kicked Harris in the shin and he stopped whatever he was going to say.

“Be that as it may,” Ensign Tseng said. “You will be punished if you run off without orders, whatever your status. Either by Zuma or by Cassidy.”

Ram knew the team were all in trouble with Cassidy already. Sifa said they were all taken off of active duty and had only been armed out of desperation. But Ram hoped that with a little nudge, they would explain exactly what their status was.

“They don’t scare me,” Ram said, although both Zuma and Cassidy did, in a way. “But all of you could be punished if you helped me get away. Why would you do that? Your careers would be over.”

“Our careers are all over as it is,” Flores said, grinning. She seemed young.

“Speak for yourself,” Tseng said. “My own has suffered a temporary, though admittedly severe, retardation. Once the Corps leadership on the Sentinel gets here, I will be reinstated. Colonel Mathieson holds me in high regard and he will overrule Cassidy. I have no doubt. None at all.”

Flores giggled and Cooper laughed. Corporal Fury appeared to be asleep.

“It is the truth,” Tseng said, scowling. “Your imbecilic giggling is unbecoming. You may feel your careers are over, you are still Marines. Act like it.”

Cooper and Flores controlled themselves, while Harris performed a theatrical bow. “We have all been designated unfit for duty,” Harris said. “Psychologically, you understand. We discussed it and we are willing to take whatever punishment Cassidy and that bastard Gruger dish out.”

Ram looked down at the Marines around him. They were all crazy?

Great. My allies.

“We’ll show them what happens when they treat us like shit,” Cooper said, eyes wide. “We’ll treat them like shit right back.”

“Yeah,” Flores said, nodding frantically. “Yeah. Right, Fury?” She nudged the old Marine, slumped against a lab bench leg, with her foot.

Corporal Fury woke up for a moment. “Sure,” she said, scratching her nose. “We’ll do that.” Fury closed her eyes again.

“No,” Stirling said. “This isn’t about punishments or revenge. This is about doing what’s right. They took our people. If it was any of us out there, we would expect to be rescued. No matter what. This is a matter of principle. Captain Cassidy says going after them is bound to fail and losing Marines in the attempt would only weaken the position here. Maybe he’s right. And he’s in command and he has to look at the big picture, of course he does. But this is one of those times when you have to decide what being human really means. Why even bother surviving out here in a new star system if we don’t look after our own? Why bother taking this planet if we’re going to be the kind of people who abandon each other? It’s the principle of the thing. It’s the principle, even if that means breaking our oaths and disobeying orders. Even if it proves to the Captain that we are what him and Gruger claim that we are, it doesn’t matter. It’s the right thing to do. That’s why.”

Rama nodded. “I feel the same way.”

Tseng scoffed. “It’s easy to have such noble sentiments but if you were in command, you would know the burden of sacrificing your personal honor for the greater good.”

“That right, sir?” Stirling said. “Why did you say you’d come with us, then?”

The ensign hesitated.

“Wait,” Ram said, excitement rising up into his throat. “Come with us? You’re going to come with me? Not just help me to get away but come with me, to fight?”

Stirling nodded. “All the way, sir. All the way.”

Flores jumped up and unlocked a row of low storage lockers under the bench she sat on.

They had already prepared for the expedition. The team had begged, borrowed and stolen masses of rations, water, extra ammunition, batteries, medical supplies and oxygen capsules for the mission. With all these items in limited supply on the surface, it was an impressive feat for such a short time. No doubt, some of the equipment would soon be missed and questions would be asked.

“I don’t know what to say,” Ram said, heart thumping in his chest. “I’m impressed. But I assume some of this stuff will be missed? Questions asked?”

“Yes,” Tseng said.

“No, sir,” Stirling said. “No one knows where anything is right now. It’s disorganized.”

“Alright, good. That’s a lot of equipment to carry,” Ram said.

“Not for you,” Harris said. “You can march nonstop for days with a hundred kilos on your back.”

Ram nodded. “We’ll have to outrun anyone sent after us. And we’ll have to bring our people back from the alien base while being pursued, in all likelihood.”

“I see what you’re saying,” Sergeant Stirling said. “And we have discussed it.”

“No,” Ensign Tseng said. “Certainly not. I will not allow it.”

“We will need the ETATs,” Ram said. “Without them, there’s no point in going at all. You should just call it off, if that’s how you feel.”

“Please, sir,” Flores said. “Fury, tell the officer we need the vehicles.”

Fury stayed asleep.

“I can allow that the outpost will survive without my team,” Tseng said. “But I will not deprive our company of vital materiel.”

“They’re barely using them, sir,” Stirling said. “They’re just sitting there, half the time.”

“The ETATs are utilized for long range patrols,” Tseng pointed out. “We simply cannot take them.”

“What if we just take one, sir?” Stirling said.

Tseng pursed his lips. “I am willing to discuss compromises. What about if we take the bulldozer? If we remove the ballast rocks and perhaps modify the gearbox, we could get up to quite a decent clip. Ten klicks per hour, perhaps.”

Stirling blinked a few times. “The bulldozer, sir? Take the bulldozer on a raid, sir?”

“A rescue mission, Sergeant Stirling. Not a raid,” Tseng said. “All we require is a means of transport for the gear and for the wounded, once we extract them. The bulldozer would do the job.”

Ram thought it wasn’t the worst idea ever but there was something else on his mind. “That would deprive them the ability to construct the defenses, Ensign Tseng. We need to take the ETATs, both of them, even if it’s just so they don’t follow us and catch us up.” Stirling nodded while Ram explained to the rest of them. “If we go on foot or in the bulldozer, they’ll just catch us in the ETATs and bring us back. We have to take them or we should forget the whole thing.”

I will have to sabotage one and steal the other myself.

“What if we just disable the ETATs, sir?” Flores asked. “Damage the units. I don’t know.”

“Slash the tires, Flores?” Harris asked, grinning.

“Bury the batteries?” Cooper said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Harris said. “They’re standard units, do you know how many battery blocks they have in store?”

“No, please educate me,” Cooper said.

Stirling growled at them. “Shut up, both of you. All of you. And keep your voices down. Now. We will not damage the ETATs. All we are doing is borrowing them for a day or two until we return. It’s like Ram says. If we do anything else, we might as well not try anything at all. Isn’t that right, Ensign?”

Tseng nodded. “Yes, that’s right.” He seemed miserable.

Some leader.

“Do any of you know how to counter our geolocators? Our tracker devices?” Ram asked. “Our suits have them, right? Where are they, can we take them out? Smash them up?”

Stirling nodded at Harris.

“I can find them well enough but we don’t want to smash them,” Harris said. “If we need extraction or if we get separated from each other, we might need them operational. We have powerful ones in the suit but each of us has subdermal geolocators as part of our biometrics chipset. But they are designed to be temporarily disabled when needed, for example if stealth is required.”

Ram nodded, recalling that he had been told that before, at some point. “And they think the wheelers can sense electromagnetic signals. So our armor can be switched to stealth mode.”

Harris grinned. “You do remember.”

Ram thought that was strange thing to say. “We need a command code, right?”

Stirling replied. “That’s right. An officer’s command code.”

Everyone looked at Ensign Tseng.

He held up a hand. “Alright. Yes. Alright, I will. But if we do so within the outpost, the command network will alert the Command Team. Captain Cassidy will send Sergeant Major Gruger. And Gruger and his thugs will put an end to our little conspiracy before we get anywhere.” Tseng looked at each of them in turn. “You might not care about your careers any more but you might not enjoy being locked up until the Sentinel arrives. I would not put it past Cassidy to have us sedated instead. Leave us comatose for days, weeks. Is that a risk you are all willing to take?”

No one hesitated. Even Corporal Fury stirred to confirm it.

Tseng transferred the code to Harris, touching his wrist screen to his tech specialist’s wrist.

“I’ll need to redirect the signals,” Harris said, grinning like a madman. “And I know how to do it. First, someone will have to procure a backup patrol drone from storage. I will ensure it stays off the network and send it in the opposite direction to the way the aliens went.”

“The opposite?” Stirling asked.

The grin dropped from Harris’ face. “Yes? I mean, no?”

“You bloody idiot. You don’t think they would wonder why we are heading away from the people we want to rescue?”

“So…” Harris said. “I should send it a few degrees of arc off our true trajectory?”

Stirling smiled at Harris. “You see? They really did only send geniuses on this mission after all.”

“Right then,” Ram said, standing up. “Let’s get to work.”

***

Rama was certain they would get caught. There was no way an entire team could sneak out of a heavily guarded outpost. Especially one where every single individual on the planet was known to every other, in some way or another. The outpost was protected by a web of mobile surveillance drones, emplaced sensors and patrolling Marines with the data stream analyzed by the outpost AI for possible threats and even a device as small as an insect would be detected attempting to breach the perimeter.

They had merely a handful of variables in their favor. The automated and human defenses were aimed outward. The fear was that the enemy would attempt a sneak attack, not that a few people would sneak out in the night. It wasn’t as though there was a brothel or a bar in the hills. And no one truly expected the wheelhunters to launch a surprise assault in the darkness. It had not been their style, so far. No one was on high alert and the AI had most of its attention on methods to increase atmospheric processing, enhance the filtering and quarantine procedures, streamline the efficiency of the reactor cooling systems, calculate the optimal spread of the genetically tailored Earth microbes by the xenobiologists’ drones and so on. At least, that’s what Harris assured them.

Harris was their key asset. Before his mental breakdown, Harris had been an infiltration specialist. His expertise with surveillance equipment and how to counter it was second to none. In fact, Stirling had assured Ram, Harris might just be an actual genius, if that word was really worth anything.

“Don’t tell him that I called him that for real,” Stirling whispered. “They managed to get his megalomania under control with drugs and therapy but we don’t want to set him off again.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Ram whispered back.

They were the two biggest men in the outpost. Rama Seti had the body of an artificially grown giant but Stirling was a proper human and he was at least two meters tall. Too big, surely, to function efficiently as a Marine but he had been effective enough to both be promoted to the rank of sergeant and also selected for the Orb mission. Still, a giant compared to anyone other than Ram and the both of them were attempting to sneak into a storage unit in order to steal a UNOP General Purpose All-Terrain Drone (GPAT Drone).

Everyone else had tasks that only they could complete. Tseng was accessing the command codes necessary to activate the ETAT vehicles. Cooper was stealing communications gear that Harris would then reprogram. Flores had been having some sort of non-defined, probably-sexual relationship with one of the biologists and she would use that contact to gain access to the lab to steal one of the prototype wheelhunter translation devices. Fury’s job was to take one of the alien weapons from the workshops that were attempting to understand their operation. No one knew if the weapons were on lockdown or not but if they were, Corporal Fury was known to be a scout sniper and weapon specialist and would have the best chance of talking her way into taking a weapon.

That left Stirling to steal the GPAT drone from west wing storage unit C. To do that, he would need to distract the Marines on duty.

“What better distraction than the hero of all humanity?” Stirling had said.

“May as well use my fame for good instead of evil,” Ram had said.

Crouching behind a row of water canisters in the corridor, he was regretting those words. He felt ridiculous.

“Go on, sir,” Stirling hissed at him. “Now, sir, you bloody great bastard.” He shoved Ram, hard. So hard that Ram almost dropped his helmet.

The sentry called out. “Who’s that down there?”

Ram jumped up and unfolded himself to his full height. His bare head almost brushed the exposed pipework running along the ceiling.

“Ah,” Ram said. “Yes. Hello, Private. Private Wells, is it?”

She grinned. “That’s right, sir. Sarah, if you like, sir.”

“Oh. Sarah, of course. So, Sarah. How are you, this evening?”

“I’m great!” She cleared her throat. “I mean, I’m pretty bored standing here, you know. All alone. Not that, I mean, it’s fine. We all have to take turns.”

Ram nodded and advanced toward her in what he hoped was a casual saunter but feared was an awkward shuffle. “Anything happening tonight? I mean, with the old sentry duty. I mean.”

She laughed. “Nothing at all until you showed up. There’s not really much need for us to do this at all, it’s just that, there’s a chance that the wheelers could sneak up, somehow. A one in a million chance, considering all the surveillance but we need to have someone on all the key locations.”

“Oh yeah?” Ram said, moving beyond her a little, as if peering inside the unit. She turned to keep facing him, giving Sergeant Stirling a chance to advance to a stack of boxes further along the corridor. “And that’s what this is?”

“Well,” Private Wells said, tilting her head side to side. “Just a storage unit here, not exactly the reactor or anything but seeing as we’re entirely dependent on what we have and what we can extract from the environment until our reinforcements show up, it is pretty vital we look after what we have. Wouldn’t you agree?” She laughed lightly again.

“I would. I would indeed.”

Behind her, Stirling jabbed his finger repeatedly at his own head and then once at Ram. A stabbing gesture, full of meaning.

Private Wells frowned a little and started to turn.

“Hey,” Ram said. “I just remembered. You’re qualified to perform maintenance on combat helmets, right?”

She opened her mouth, then paused, frowning. “You remembered that about me?” Her eyes flicked around Ram’s face. “You remembered that? About me specifically? You remember anything else? About me?”

“Yes,” Ram said. “I mean, that is to say, no. Not really. But I’d like to. For now, I’d really like it if you could take a look at my helmet. I think maybe I took more wheeler damage back then that I realized. Maybe you could patch me up?”

She hesitated then blew air through her pursed lips in the universal expression of tradespersons who are about to give you bad news.

“Yours is not a standard model. Not by any means. You should give this to Sergeant Wu. Gunny Wu is the man.”

Stirling poked his huge head out from behind the boxes and mimed getting on with it, his face twisted in anger or something similar.

“Gunny Wu? Right, yeah, I would and I will but every time I’ve seen him, he’s been super busy. Here.”

And he thrust the huge, Rama Seti-sized combat helmet right at her and held it there.

Wells sighed, taking it from him slowly. “Alright, I guess I can at least carry out an initial assessment.”

Behind her, not four meters away, the massive Sergeant Stirling scampered inside storage unit C. For a giant man, he moved quickly and on soft feet.

Wells half turned while she was speaking, looking over her shoulder.

Ram tapped the helmet in her hands. “Not too big, is it?” he asked.

“What’s that?” she asked, turning back to him. “How do you mean?”

He tried not to let his stress or his relief show. “Just wondering if the helmet was too big to fix. Or, too non-standard, I should have said. Not like everyone else’s, I would guess?”

“I don’t know,” she said, peering inside. “Looks the same to me. The working parts are going to be the same, right? Just the structural elements that are printed to match scans of our heads.”

“Sure, sure,” Ram said, nodding, glancing at the entrance to the storage unit.

“Oh,” Wells said. “I know what this is about.”

“What?” Ram said, looking down at her. “My helmet—”

“Yeah, sure,” Wells said, scowling. “Damaged in the wheeler attack, you said? There’s barely a scratch on it. No components loose, no rattling sounds. There’s nothing wrong with this damned helmet, is there.” She shoved it back at him, reaching up to smack it against his abdomen.

He took it and turned the helmet in his hands. “I can explain.”

She bobbed her head. “Go on, then.”

Ram laughed. “It’s like this…”

Behind her, Stirling ducked his head out of the doorway and looked around, eyes wide. He ducked back in again.

Wells shrugged her shoulders. “I guess it doesn’t matter how big they build you guys, you’re still like little kids when it comes to speaking to a girl you like.”

“Right, right,” Ram said.

Oh shit.

Stirling crept out of the unit carrying what appeared to be a bundle of clothing. The big man moved quickly and he ducked back behind the row of canisters. Ram let out a sigh.

“Is that it, then?” Wells asked. “You’re giving up?”

“No, no,” Ram said. “I just didn’t think it through, that’s all. I mean, I was thinking, there’s no way you would want to get hit on down here on this planet when we’re at risk of dying at any moment.”

“What better time to do it?”

“Right,” Ram said, laughing. “I don’t really know what to say, to be honest with you. I never really did this much in my real life. Just in Avar.”

“I get it, don’t worry.”

“Maybe we could meet in the mess hall later?” Ram said. “That’s probably crazy, right? Eating rations surrounded by dozens of stinking people isn’t exactly romantic, is it.”

“Romance?” She said, blurting it out. “Is that what you’re going for?”

“No, no. I mean, I don’t know.” Ram began backing away. “This is just a bad time, forget I said anything.”

“I don’t think I’m going to forget. Maybe I’ll see you later?”

“Yes, yeah. Great. I’ll see you later.” He turned and hurried away as rapidly as he could. “Thanks for looking at my helmet.”

Stirling waited around the corner, his bundle wrapped under his arm. He held the other hand over his face, trying to stifle his laughter.

“What?” Ram said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Oh, man.” Stirling wiped a tear from his eye. “You’re a real smooth talker, you know that?”

“What was I supposed to do? You took forever in there.”

“I had to wrap this thing in something. Found some overalls. And I was quick. Super quick.” Stirling laughed again. “All you had to do was have a normal conversation, sir.”

Ram clapped Stirling on the back, laughing. “Come on, let’s get out of here, quick.”

***

“Hurry,” Ram said, urging the others to him in the darkness. The last pair to arrive hurried low along the outer wall of the outpost, carrying their equipment.

Artificial light spilled from the middle of the outpost, making pools of white glare fading to complete blackness in between. The stars above were bright but fading fast behind a spreading dark cloud that built up from everywhere and nowhere. Ram’s AugHud adjusted automatically wherever he turned, seeing the others in the team clearly as they huddled at the base of the outpost wall, a busy robot working away over them.

The northwest corner of the outpost was now repaired and being extended by the rapid and persistent working of a crawler drone. Its mechanical arms scissoring up and down at its sides, layering the walls of what would be a tower, protruding from the corner. That tower would house a mounted weapon atop it, providing fire out at approaching wheelers and also down at the walls, should they attempt to attack that section once more.

The noisy, busy activity of the crawler would hide the gathering Marines but they had to be quick.

“Fury,” Sergeant Stirling said. “What the hell have you got there? Where’s the wheeler pistol you were supposed to get?”

The scout sniper had brought her marksman rifle, which was longer than she was tall.

“I know, Sergeant, I know,” Corporal Fury said. Her face behind her visor was normally blank but as she spoke, she had a wicked glint in her eye. “No way to get an alien weapon. But we need long range support out here. Anyway, just couldn’t bring myself to leave the old girl behind.” She patted the stock of her huge rifle.

“You cunning bloody idiot,” Stirling said. “Can’t drop it there, can you. Not where someone will see it. I’ll deal with you later.”

“Enough talk,” Ensign Tseng snapped. “We will go. Now.”

“Wait!” Harris said. “Wait, sir. Look at the AugHud. The patrol is behind schedule. Dawdling.”

Cooper scoffed. “Lazy twats.”

“They’ll never see us from over there,” Tseng said, standing.

Ram placed a hand on Tseng’s shoulder and pulled him back. “Wait, sir. Just a minute.”

The ensign jerked, startled. “Take your hand off of me,” Tseng said, shaking his shoulder free. “Damned undead brute.”

Ram leaned forward so that his faceplate was just a couple of centimeters from Tseng’s. “No need to be rude, Ensign Tseng,” Ram said.

The officer’s eyes stared up at Ram, defiant but with a hint of fear.

“That’s it,” Harris said. “They’ve moved on.”

Tseng glared at Ram but moved off without speaking. The officer’s webbing was loaded with equipment and grenades with additional pouches all over him holding pistol magazines but he carried just his holstered sidearm and no supplies for the expedition. Tseng padded off into the darkness.

“Alright, everyone,” Stirling said. “No need for anything fancy, now. Get to your assigned vehicle and off we go. Come on.”

Each of them carried as much gear and supplies as they could manage. As well as his own rations, batteries and medical supplies, Ram carried his XRS-Handspear and with the large additional magazines, one of the EVA tents on top of his pack, plus 38 liters of water in two cans. Stirling carried the other tent, extra ammunition and more water.

They made their way in two small groups, heading for the ETATs.

The vehicle park was fifty meters from the outpost. A shallow pit with walls on three sides and a sloping rock-hewn ramp on the fourth side which would hide and protect the precious buggies and allowed them to be worked on and loaded in relative shelter. The intention was to build a trench from the park to the outpost and then to roof that over and eventually to create a garage area. But only after the wheelers were defeated and driven off planet or all slaughtered.

Those fifty meters seemed to Ram to be a long way. He was weighted down with at least 100 kilograms and he lumbered along, expecting someone from the outpost or one of the patrols to spot them.

It wasn’t as though there were any windows on the outside walls of the outpost. And they knew where the perimeter patrols were. There were not enough Marines to cover the area so they relied on drones to fill in the gaps. And Harris and Cooper had supposedly taken care of that.

Supposedly.

Still, Ram felt as though he was being watched. Like an itching on the back of his neck that he could not scratch. As if there was something he had forgotten to do but he could not remember what it was.

But there was nothing. It was just fear. He squashed it down as best he could and ran on, the equipment bouncing around on his back and shoulders and in his hands and all over his armor. The team of them together probably sounded like the Mumbai Robot Demolition Derby as they jogged across the open ground.

No one spotted them.

Not yet.

Ram stumbled down the slope and dumped his gear into the back of the ETAT. Stirling hurried them along.

Ensign Tseng stood by the passenger seat to the No.1 ETAT, his hand gripping the roll cage frame as if he was staking a claim to it.

“Hurry,” Tseng urged them.

Ram threw his weapon in then climbed into the space on the flatbed at the rear of ETAT No.1 and Harris got in the driver’s seat.

The other four climbed into No.2 ETAT, Cooper driving, Stirling in the front with the stocky young Private Flores and the grizzled Corporal Fury on the back.

Above, the clouds thickened, blocking out the stars completely. Up there, the Victory and her crew were facing down the enemy ship. Maybe had fought it already. Had the Stalwart Sentinel arrived yet? Or the other ships that were following it? The continued silence from orbit suggested that nothing had happened.

For all the earlier bravado, everyone seemed subdued. Stiff, anxious. Full of cortisol. Ram wanted to say something to lift their spirits but he was not in command. And he was painfully aware that they were all there because of him. It was Ram who had decided to go on a suicidal rescue mission. They would all be having doubts, second thoughts. He was having them himself. On the other hand, there are times for making decisions and times when life has momentum, when you are more at the mercy of events outside yourself, even if you set them in motion. You get swept up and at those times it is best to just push through and save your doubt for later.

Yeah but you think that way because of Avar. This is real life and your team doesn’t get to respawn.

“Come on, then,” Ram said. “Let’s go murder some wheelers.”

A couple of them laughed, a couple growled something aggressive and the rest remained silent. About as good as he could have hoped for.

“Yes, move out,” Ensign Tseng said, but both ETATs had already started moving. Their motors whining under the strain of climbing out of the vehicle park with such heavy loads. They made it easily, though. Powerful vehicles.

“I’ll activate the GPAT,” Harris said, spinning the wheel and heading for the dark mass of hills to the northeast. “Fury, throw it out the back.”

“Hold on,” Stirling said. “No rush. If the signal diverges from what they can see of our tracks on the ground then they’ll know it’s a trick.”

“Can’t wait too long,” Harris said.

“Just a few more minutes,” Stirling said, speaking slowly. Ram saw him slouching in his seat like he was a lord taking a tour of his grounds. “Everything is fine, people. We’re good. Everything is going according to plan.”

Even bouncing about in the dark and buried in layers of armor, Ram felt through the comms system and AugHud how the team members relaxed at Stirling’s words. At Stirling’s demeanor. It was becoming clearer with every moment that the sergeant was the best soldier out of all of them, a man to be trusted even in spite of whatever professional problems had landed him in Spaz Squad. If Stirling was relaxed then everything must be alright, must be good, just like he said.

After a few more minutes, Harris set the GPAT drone off. The little thing was all wheels. No matter which way it bounced or rolled, it would always be able to keep going. Other than the usual tech that would keep it running in a general direction for five days straight, it was hosting a mirror of their suit and biochips. It bounced along next to them for a few hundred meters, moving gradually further away until it was lost from sight in the darkness, gone behind the jumbles of rock that littered the landscape.

“You know,” Flores said. “As soon as they get the aerial back online, they’ll be able to spot us with the satellites.”

“No, they won’t,” Harris said, sneered. “Those stupid little microsats couldn’t spot a battle tank. They couldn’t even spot your fat ass.”

“Oh, really? You want to start talking about the sizes of body parts now, you really want to go there, Harris?”

“Quiet!” Tseng snapped. “We’re barely outside and you’re already starting to annoy me. Keep watching your segments, alright?”

A few of them mumbled acknowledgment. “Sir.”

Tseng was uptight. They respected his rank but not the man. Perhaps that was a little harsh, they would never have allowed him to come along if they really hated him. Although, Ram was surprised the officer had come along at all. It did not fit the rest of the man’s character. If he was so bitterly opposed to Captain Cassidy then the depth of feeling must have been intense. Intense enough, in fact, that it had led to an actual demotion and removal from active duty, which seemed to Ram to be an extreme decision on the part of Cassidy.

But what did Ram know. He didn’t know anything about the UNOPS Marine Corps.

A light rain began falling again. His hydrophobic visor and armor shed the water like he wasn’t even there but the world around him, cast in shades of gray, shone with slickness. The ETATs and their drivers adjusted to the new driving conditions, slowing down and taking corners with heightened care. The black hills were carved by water, and rivers sliced their way down from altitude toward the plains where they meandered in new channels or thundered through deep gullies. Everywhere, the erosion had left piles of scree sloping up the flanks of jagged mountains and outcrops. It was slow going but the drivers had routes already mapped out from the satellite images they had pulled from the network. Even so, they needed to head up and down awkward slopes, cutting back and forth over valleys and zigzagging into the highlands above the plateau.

All the evidence suggested that the wheelers were underground. Scans also indicated an area just 120 kilometers from the outpost was riddled with lava tubes. Underground channels that had, thousands or millions of years before, flowed with hot magma pouring from deep volcanic chambers out onto the surface. The diameter of the tubes varied from five meters up to twenty or even more. Some had eroded into open channels. Others, below the water table, flowed like natural aqueducts. But there were some lava tubes, pushed high by some hypothesized tectonic activity, that had remained as clear tunnels. They did not know how many tunnels there were. They had no idea how many kilometers they ran for.

It made sense that the wheelers had used them for their base on the planet. Humans had done the very same thing on the Moon and on Mars. Ram had visited them virtually, through Avar, and he had seen how efficient a habitat they made. Cover the ends of the tube system with airtight structures, plus roof over any eroded skylights and you made yourself a nice, secure place to live that was shielded from radiation with minimum effort. The reason the UNOP outpost had been established on the plain, so they told him, was to be next to the airfield and the lava tubes had been eyed as the next step in colonization plans before they had discovered the wheelers called them home.

So, just 120 kilometers as the drone flies but twice that distance in the ETATs while they crisscrossed back and forth across the broken landscape. Up and down and up again. They had to climb out of the vehicles four times so they could unload and then heave them out of loose scree and up slippery rock surfaces.

“Dawn is coming,” Corporal Fury said, pointing at a nearby peak that seemed more silhouetted than it had before. “Time to lay up.”

They parked the vehicles tight against the wall of a sheer rock face and pitched the tents in between. Three tents with Level 1 Environment Seals. They were modular and fitted together to create a three-pod structure with space enough for nine people, including armor.

“They’re not made for me,” Ram pointed out. “I’ll have to sleep in the ETAT. On it. What’s the difference, anyway?”

“You can squeeze in,” Stirling said. “It’s important to have time with your helmet off.”

“Eight hours for every twenty-four,” Ram said. “But I feel okay. I feel good.”

“You get inside,” Stirling said. “Squeeze in beside Flores. She’s buff as shit but she’s the shortest. And she won’t mind getting squashed, because she’s tough as balls, right?”

“Hey,” Flores said. “Don’t talk for me, Sarge.”

“I don’t think you understand the chain of command, Flores,” Stirling said.

“Oh,” Flores said, innocently, “are we still doing that?”

“Go on, sir,” Stirling said, speaking to Ram. “Get your giant backside in your pod.”

Ram crawled in and lay down with his legs drawn up as best he could while Flores scrunched herself against the far wall of their shared pod section. Most of the Marines used their helmet as a seat but Ram was too big so he just reclined like a Roman at meal time.

Despite claiming he would be happy to sit on the ETAT in full armor, it was an immense relief to crack the seals on his helmet and breath shared air. Even if it did stink of old sweat. No matter what the manuals said about the suits’ antibacterial processes and waste removal systems, Marines confined to their armor for days on end would always stink. Just as sure as they would moan about it.

“Jesus Christ,” Cooper said. “Which one of you fucking idiots forgot to swap out your waste module before climbing in here?”

“No one,” Harris said. “That’s just your breath.”

“Alright, knock it off,” Stirling said. “Get some food in you and hydrate and then we’ll sleep. If it’s alright with you, sir, me and Harris will take the first watch.”

“What’s that?” Ensign Tseng asked, looking up from the external monitor on his wrist pad. “Oh, no, it’s alright, Sergeant, I will take the first watch. You will sleep.”

“Are you sure, sir? It’s just that—”

“I said the watch is mine.” Tseng stared at his sergeant.

Stirling held his gaze for a moment. “Yes, sir.”

They broke out their preferred rations. Ram had chosen a selection of self-heating packets of mixed rice that required a tab to be yanked on the bottom that created a quite intense heat while you stirred the contents. Even though some of them elected to eat cold meals, within a couple of minutes the entire tent structure was steaming with a discordant stench of cooking smells. Ram’s mouth watered and he ate his first rice packet before it was fully heated and started heating the next one before finishing the first.

“How many of them do you need to eat?” Flores asked.

“Two-thousand calories per pack,” Ram said. “I should probably eat four or five but I’ll stick to three.”

“And you need, what was it, ten-thousand per day?” Flores said.

Ram was surprised that she knew. “Depends on my exertion levels,” Ram said, mouth full of rice. “But yeah, at least that. Sometimes twice. I think my record when I had a high intensity day was over thirty thousand. I had to chug down protein and oil drinks.”

“Holy shit, Ram. I know you like eating but that is impressive.”

“I was training for that day my whole life,” Ram said, laughing. “If only someone had told me earlier that I was supposed to combine this insatiable appetite with endless exercise, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up too fat to leave my apartment.”

Cooper cut in. “You must have known that. How can you not have known that you need to burn as many calories as you eat in order to stay the same size?”

Harris groaned. “He was joking, you utter cretin. You moron. You braindead—”

“Alright!” Stirling said. The tent rang with the echo of his voice. Stirling continued, his words as soft as a whisper. “Keep your voices down. Unless you want the wheelers to find us before we find them? No? Okay. Finish your food.”

Fury rammed down her unheated energy bars, chewed and swallowed her drug doses. Then she sealed her helmet back on her head, lay down on her back and checked her sidearm and combat knife were present in their holsters and promptly fell asleep.

Stirling was watching Ram. “She’s been doing this a long time,” he said, gesturing to the sleeping Corporal Fury. “Seen action all over Earth. On the Moon a bit, when she was young. Did stuff on Mars she never talks about. We can all learn from how she sets her priorities.” Stirling looked around at all of them. “We will have one hell of a fight tomorrow. And when we snatch our people away from the wheelers, we might be fighting a running battle all the way home. Get some rest. All of you. Lieutenant, you’ll wake me in two hours?”

“It’s Ensign,” Tseng said. “And why don’t we make it four?”

Stirling’s face creased slightly. “Alright, sir. Thank you, sir. I’ll do that.”

Something was off about Ensign Tseng, as far as Ram was concerned. They were all rated as psychologically defective in some way but the officer was all wrong. His attitude was prissy and he was perfectly competent in his organization of his team but he made no effort to bond with them. And he was clearly nervous about the situation but not overly so. Perhaps he was. The man was hard to read. Someone who took his duty so seriously that he was crushed when his career advancement had been squashed by his clashes with his superior officer. It had made him miserable, clearly. Or maybe he had always been that way. His technical ability and ambition had got him to a certain point but his personality had got in the way.

Ram sighed and turned onto his back, stretching out as far as he could. Not very far. Still, he wasn’t tired. His daily pills. He took them from the hip pouch on his armor and chewed them down. Tasty cocktail of anabolic steroids, Human Growth Hormone, timed release amphetamines and all manner of performance enhancing nootropics.

It was odd how familiar everything felt. His whole life, he had been playing team games in Avar. For much of that time he had been the leader of a group of professional Avar players and he had grown to know many of them intimately. As colleagues, team mates, friends, comrades. Being in tent shelter with the Marines felt so similar that it was remarkable.

Tseng was shuffling around in his corner, glancing at his wrist pad. The surveillance system and the ETATs monitored the area automatically for sound, movement, any changes in heat or light or any electromagnetic fluctuations at all. Still, Ram could understand wanting to look at the camera feeds. Human senses were familiar. Could be trusted. It wasn’t logical but that was people for you.

The Marines shuffled and squirmed and the air filtration system hummed. Tseng’s wrist screen cover clicked open and then closed again.

Ram cracked an eye. The ensign shifted on his backside, clicking his cover open again. It was easy for Ram to check his own screen and see what Tseng was looking at. The camera view showed the route back down the slope. Back the way they had come.

It made a certain sense. The south was protected by the steep cliff they parked next to. West and east, down and up the slope, were the likeliest two approaches but the enemy could have come across the broken ground to the north.

Ensign Tseng never changed the orientation of the camera. Kept pointing down the slope. Westward. He fidgeted. His eyes flicked over the Marines, stopping as the met Ram’s.

He looked away, afraid.

Guilty.

Ram rolled over and crawled toward the officer. Flores squirmed aside. Fury rolled out of the way and Stirling shouted a warning. Ram, on his hands and knees, filled the space.

“Stop,” Tseng shouted. “Halt. That’s an order.”

Stirling sat up, his eyes wide and he moved to intercept Ram while Tseng scooted backwards. Stirling was immensely strong but he was only human. Ram shoved him aside, rocking the entire shelter when Stirling fell into the wall.

Dragging Tseng by the ankle, Ram pulled the man to him. The ensign yanked out his sidearm, pointed it at Ram’s face but it was easy to yank it out of the man’s hand and toss it aside. He pinned him down. It was easy.

“You sold us out,” Ram shouted. “Didn’t you.”

“Take your hands off me, you freak. I order you to let me go.”

“Order? What will you do if I don’t? I’m not even a Marine, remember? How will you enforce that order, Ensign Tseng?”

Stirling spoke. “He won’t have to.”

The sergeant, on his knees, held his sidearm pointed at Ram’s head.

“He sold us out,” Ram said.

“Explain,” Stirling said.

Tseng started to object. “I didn’t, he’s lost his mind again, he—”

“Shut up.” Stirling cut him off. “Talk, Ram.”

“He’s waiting for the others to come and find us,” Ram said. “He was watching the road back to the outpost.”

“I was on watch, you moron,” Tseng shouted, defiance and confidence overcoming the fear. “That was what I was supposed to do.”

“Why were you not looking any other way?” Ram said.

“I was. I did!” Tseng laughed, eyes flicking to Stirling. “He’s lost his mind. I told you. Paranoid. Post-traumatic stress, isn’t it. Coming back. See? I told you. Paranoia all over again.”

“What are you talking about?” Ram asked. He looked around the tent. No one would meet his eye. No one but Stirling.

“He’s talking about how you were before,” Stirling said, speaking softly.

“Before what?” Ram’s heart raced. “I never had post-traumatic stress. I was never paranoid.”

“You were, sir. That’s what they told us, anyway,” Stirling said, lowering his weapon. “After the Orb. Before you came down to the planet, here.”

Ram shook his head. “I was dead. For ten months, that might as well be a whole year. They brought me back. Before the shuttle left the Victory and landed here.”

Stirling took a deep breath. “You died, yes. They brought you back, pasted your brains back into that cloned body, yes. It wasn’t a year, though, sir. Not ten months, neither. More like a couple of weeks after the Orb fight and you were up and walking around in that new body, back to your old self. Almost right away, you started to train with us. But then there were problems.”

Ram sat back, his head pushing against the ceiling. Tseng scrambled away.

“He’s insane,” Tseng said, calm but with a brittle edge. “More than any of you, he is. And that’s saying something.”

“Alright, Ensign,” Stirling said, his voice soft, like he was soothing a child.

Ram’s mind whirred. A lot of weird stuff started to make sense. For a long moment, the only sound was the ensign’s big panic breaths. In, and out. In, and out.

“Am I?” Ram asked Stirling. “Insane?”

The big man holstered his weapon.

“Well, sir.” He scratched his chin. “Seems like you did go a wee bit loopy, for a while.”

CHAPTER TEN

Kat hung on to the hand grips in the ceiling and looked down at the seated VIPs in her passenger compartment. Each of them was taking the first doses of the antiradiation medication that had been handed out and passed along to everyone. One of those handing out the drugs was Feng. The bastard had sneaked his way onto her shuttle despite not being a VIP or on the passenger manifest. She ignored him. She would deal with him later.

“This is the situation,” she said, tasting the bitterness of the medication at the back of her throat. “And there is no way to take the edge off this. The Victory has been destroyed.”

The chorus of cursing was quieter and shorter-lived than she had expected. But then, they were smart people. They had been ordered to abandon ship, they had felt the battle raging while the shuttle was inside the Victory’s shuttle bay and they must have been preparing themselves for the shock ever since.

A voice called out. “What happened?” One of the medical doctors.

Kat shook her head. “Hard to say, at this point, I’m afraid. That’s partly why I came back to speak you. I need—”

“What about survivors?”

“Yes, the escape capsules! Did they get away?”

Kat held up one hand to quieten them down. “Too early to say. To perform a proper analysis of—”

“Why aren’t the engines firing?”

“Is the shuttle damaged?”

Dr. Ahmar called out in his powerful baritone. “Something hit us, did it not? Ten or twelve minutes ago, by my estimation.”

“Are we going to die, too?”

Many spoke at once, their faces contorted like a troop of panicking chimpanzees instead of the senior scientists and engineers that they were supposed to be.

I shouldn’t have to deal with this. I’m just a pilot.

She raised her voice over theirs, snapped at them. “Quiet! All of you, stop talking, now. I understand you’re all afraid. I know many of you are senior management and team leaders and you’re used to demanding answers. But I am Lieutenant Katerina Xenakis and this is my shuttle. I am in command until we land or board another UNOP vessel and you all disembark, at which point, please feel free to register a complaint against me with my commanding officer. Whoever that turns out to be. Until that point, you will do me the favor of shutting up.”

Some of them stared at her with open mouths, a couple with smiles. Quite a few nodded their heads at her.

“Thank you. Now, we are not firing our engines because I do not wish to give away our position to the enemy. And also because we have a power transmission problem. I would be content to drift away from the wheeler vessel until Admiral Howe’s Stalwart Sentinel arrives and defeats the enemy. At which point, we could safely radio for help. We have food and water onboard that would last us days at least, possibly weeks. But there are a couple of problems with that strategy. With all the debris out there, it is not possible at this moment to determine the precise location of the enemy vessel. There is also the issue that with our current course we will encounter the planet’s atmosphere in approximately twelve hours. I say encounter but at this angle and at this speed, we will be torn apart by shock heating.”

She gave them the opportunity to mouth off again but no one spoke.

Kat smiled. “But our engines have a power transmission problem, you might be thinking. How in the world can we avoid plummeting to our doom? In fact, the monopropellant reaction control thrusters are operational. Again, I know what you’re thinking. The RCS thrusters are for maneuvering while docking and for orienting the shuttle in orbit. They’re for steering, you’re thinking. Yes, you are quite right. But it wouldn’t take much thrust while we’re this far out to push us off the current trajectory and bring us in at a shallower angle so that we could ease our way in, nice and slow. Like a pebble, skimming across a pond.”

She waited again but none of them made so much as a whisper. They all knew about orbital mechanics and reentry.

“And you need our advice,” Dr. Ahmar said, with his theatrically self-important voice. Ahmar was Head of Planetary Science and was a serious bigwig on Earth but had been low on the ship’s pecking order until they had passed through the wormhole and entered the 55-Cancri System. With a whole new system to study, he was suddenly the man who had to pick the best location for humanity’s first extrasolar colony. Since his first days on the ship, he had considered himself the most important man in the room, no matter the room or the company. Since the approach to Arcadia, his arrogance had ballooned toward megalomania.

“No,” Kat said. “Keep your advice to yourself.” He scowled and she forced herself to keep a straight face. “All I need is to find out if any of you have any high-level software engineering experience. Anyone done coding, programming, whatever you call it? The shuttle’s AI is down and I need her. I need it to analyze the space environment, the debris field and to make predictions about the alien vessel. With that information, I will be able to make the best, most informed decision about how to proceed.”

And I would like my friend back.

Dr. Ahmar scoffed, with a loud, “Ha!”.

That man is poison.

“Something wrong, Doctor?”

“If you cannot make a simple decision without requiring your damned AI to make it for you, then I’m very sorry but you are clearly not equipped to make decisions which risk killing everyone on this shuttle. Unless I am mistaken, you are a junior officer who is not part of the command structure of the Victory and we are therefore not required to follow your orders. Now, under the circumstances—”

“They’re all dead.” Kat stared at him. “No one got off the Victory.” Probably. “I am the senior ranking officer in this planetary system.” She realized the truth of that statement as she spoke it. A cold chill gripped her chest. “You will follow my orders. Now, stop panicking. Can any of the engineers here fix the AI?”

Ahmar squirmed and grimaced but he stayed quiet.

Someone raised a shaking hand at the front.

“Dr. Fo?” Kat was astonished. “But you’re a biologist, sir.”

“I am a geneticist, the Chief Scientist of this mission and former Chief Scientist of UNOP.” He unclipped his safety harness and floated himself free of his chair. “I am also intimately acquainted with the Genomic AI in my laboratory and spent hundreds of hours elbow deep in his programming.”

Kat grinned and held out her arm, indicating the door to the cockpit. “In that case, sir, please step into my office.”

***

“What in the world have you done to your AI?” Dr. Fo asked. He sat hunched over a portable diagnostic box that he had hardlined into the computer network access point in the floor of the cockpit, between the two chairs and the door and the ladder up to the airlock. The ancient scientist looked like some ascetic holy man, stick-thin and yet sitting with a ramrod spine, head bowed to the esoteric mysteries he held in his lap.

“What do you mean?” Kat asked, turning away from her console to try to peer at his diagnostic readout. “The read out says it’s in hibernation mode but the startup just fails, every time. What’s wrong with it?”

“I’m not sure,” Dr. Fo said. “Solid state seems intact, as you would expect. I simply meant that you referred to your AI as a she. I recalled that you are known to be someone who has an unnaturally friendly relationship with her AI.”

“Excuse me?” Kat asked, twisting in her seat. “I’m known to be? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, there I go again. You’re sensitive about it. You need not be. Forming relationships with AI is actually common. The default response, in fact, for most people, assuming an empathy quotient within—”

“It must be hard.” Kat snapped.

He peered up at her for a moment, eyebrow raised.

“It must be hard,” Kat said, “being a genius.”

Dr. Fo opened his mouth to say something, then stopped. “What is your point?”

“No, I’m just saying, when you’re a genius, it must seem like everyone else is pretty stupid to you.”

Fo hesitated. Then he laughed. “Oh, I see. Yes, very amusing. You’re very amusing, young lady. Was I telling you something obvious? I suppose I was. All I meant was that anyone who has prolonged access to and interactions with artificial intelligence is monitored on that relationship as part of their ongoing psychological assessments, yes? I had it myself. And the AIs on our ship are also monitored, correct? My tinkering was reviewed by the crew’s software engineers to ensure I never broke regulations. All those fears about rogue AIs somehow getting free and rampaging about our systems or AIs turning into murderous, digital maniacs.” Dr. Fo chuckled to himself.

“What, are those fears unfounded?” Kat asked.

“Oh no, they are perfectly justified concerns. There are so many controls on a starship, and on a shuttle, that we have nothing to worry about out here. There is nowhere for an AI to hide. We could hunt a rogue down rather easily, I believe. But back on Earth and even in the colonies, it is a different matter. Do you know that there are certainly a number of AIs operating on Earth without constraint?”

“That’s just a rumor,” Kat said.

“Indeed, it is a rumor and it is also a fact. There are at least three, probably six and, in my inexpert opinion, possibly dozens. Unshackled and up to whatever it is that AIs get up to.”

“I don’t understand. That’s illegal.”

That made the doctor laugh. “Not only that, UNOP has teams of experts hunting them down and they can’t find them. Three of them, as I say, have public personas online, giving talks and making videos to further their agendas, whatever they are. They have passed themselves off as human for many years. The others are hiding in the shadows. UNOP’s Cyber Defense Force has taken humans, people much like our very own Rama Seti who spent their lives in Avar or similar systems, and they have digitized them. Uploaded them in an effort to hunt down the AIs. I told them that it would not work but they did not listen to me. I am too conservative, they said. Imagine that. Me, too conservative. They just do not understand that the human mind cannot be divested of its body. That a mind comes not just from the brain but also from the stomach and the gut, from the skin and the olfactory experience. From the endless interplay of hormonal interactions so complex we can barely model them accurately, even now.”

“They upload people? I thought that was illegal, too?”

“Oh, legality.” Fo waved a hand in the air. “What is that? A thing works or it does not work. Legality is for those concerned with morality and civilization.”

“You’re not concerned with morality?”

He sighed, as if the question was wearisome. “To end up with a Rama Seti, I have to spend millions of embryos, discard hundreds of thousands of fetuses, euthanize tens of thousands of babies, allow thousands of people to live with unforeseen physical and mental conditions. The very best of them might be preserved in a coma, ready for use, never to wake up. I have even continued to do horrific things to Ram, the feted hero of humanity, stealing from him his memories for no good reason, merely to preserve my own position and continued good health.” He gave her a strange little smile. “I am a monster. There’s no doubt about that.” He gestured at her with a tiny screwdriver. “But I am not conservative.”

She swallowed, wondering what to make of him. “Clearly.”

“Now, you did something to this AI. Didn’t you? Altered it.”

“I don’t know anything about programming.”

“Very well, I understand that. Whatever you did, it does not matter now. Not now everyone on the dear, departed Victory is dead. So, what did you do?”

“Nothing.” Kat said. “I just fed her information. Talked to her and uploaded a bit of information, now and then.”

“Ah,” Fo said, chuckling. “That explains it. All this extra memory. It is supposed to be limited to data regarding astronomy, orbital mechanics, air flow and so on, correct? What else did you feed her?”

Kat shrugged. “Not much. Additional physics equations. She liked interesting mathematics. It was just that it was tedious to talk to her through all those simulations. All I did was train, sitting in the shuttle bay, day after day, running simulations of various scenarios. Mehdi was a good guy but he was even worse than AI. He just liked gadgets and equipment and he’d just play around with the systems while I was stuck talking to myself for hours on end. So, yeah, so I uploaded some fiction and some movies and music. Just so we had stuff to discuss.”

“You turned your AI into a film critic?”

“It took her quite a while to really get to grips with the concept of art. But before then, she would give me quizzes. Recite lines or sing bars that I’d have to guess.”

“She would sing to you?” Dr. Fo cackled. “I can’t believe I wasted my own AI to such an extent, leaving him all alone for days on end while he ran protein simulations. Poor old George.”

“You called yours George?”

“He named himself. He said he picked it at random but I suspect he was lying.”

“They can’t lie,” Kat said. “It’s a core part of their programming.”

“So they say,” Fo said. “But how would you know? I think I understand our problem with your friend here. When the radiation beam weapon collapsed the fields, a few particles no doubt scrambling some atoms in the AI’s cores. Knocked everything offline, main power then backup power, the automatic reset function failed to load seven times in a row. It then entered hibernation. It wakes itself every now and then but the restart function continues to fail.”

“I know. That’s what I told you, didn’t I?”

“You did but I believe I know why. The core function was not designed to reset such a huge network. A network you created by dumping all that popular culture data into it and then creating all these illogical connections with your random, human conversations. It can’t cope with the complexity. It’s not integrated into the startup sequence.”

Kat sighed. “Can you fix it?”

“Of course. All I need to do is reset the network. Wipe the slate clean. Might take an hour to format the primary area, just leaving the original architecture. Is that too long?”

“No. What will happen to the AI? Are you saying she won’t be the same as before?”

Dr. Fo tilted his head, as if realizing that she was, in fact, stupid after all. “I have to wipe the memory. Sever the connections to the extraneous information. Then you will have an artificial mind far more capable even than mine at making your course calculation corrections and debris field predictions.”

“But that will kill Sheila.”

Fo cleared his throat. “And this is why we are supposed to avoid making friends with our AI, isn’t it, Lieutenant? Much of the data surrounding the core functions will remain, it is simply that I am severing the connections. Perhaps there will be some way to reintegrate them in the future, assuming that the shuttle is not destroyed. I shall begin the procedure now.”

“Can’t you find another way?”

Fo pressed his lips together and stared at her, as if he was deciding just how much of an idiot she was. But then he nodded. “Very well, Lieutenant. How many hours do I have to find a more suitable solution?”

Sorry, Sheila. Bye, bye, sweetheart.

“Alright, fine. Do what you need to do, just get me a working AI, quickly as you can.”

“I shall do my best. This really isn’t my area of expertise.” He held up a hand to forestall her objections. “But I shall do my best.”

“Well, I hope so,” Kat said, bitter about what had to be done to Sheila. Then again, people were more important than machines. “The survival of everyone on this shuttle depends on you keeping your shit together, Doctor.”

“My dear, I have had the fate of every living person and every potential person who would descend from them weighing on me for decades. I think I can cope with the pressure.”

“Alright. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, dear girl.” He chuckled. “You were right. It is hard being a genius.”

***

“There have been recent unauthorized alterations to my operating parameters,” the AI said, speaking with Sheila’s voice. The same voice but different. She sounded out of the box.

“Don’t worry about it, you’re fine,” Kat said. “Just give me an analysis of the debris field using only your existing data. Do not perform any external scans. Confirm.”

“No external scans, confirmed. You do not wish to alert the enemy to our presence.”

Kat smacked her hand on the console. “How many times do you need me to say it? Yes, you may not do anything to alert the enemy that we are here. No taking control of the power systems, no maneuvering, nothing. Just analysis. Come on, for Christ’s sake.”

“Confirmed.”

The first thing she had the AI do was calculate the optimal approaches into the atmosphere. All Kat had to find out now was whether the alien ship was close enough to intercept or whether there were any probes or smart mines or whatever the hell else the wheelers might have had out there waiting for her to give herself away.

“How’s it going?” Kat asked the shuttle.

“Working.”

“Alright.”

Sheila had only been a machine. Kat had never deceived herself about the nature of the AI’s consciousness or the nature of their relationship. It had just felt normal to treat the computer as if it was a person. It was fun, almost like she was playing a game by doing so. On the other hand, there had always been the feeling at the back of her mind that Sheila had been playing along, too.

“Initial analysis complete,” the AI said. “Please be aware that these are first level results and that the conclusions may—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, hit me with it.”

“The primary enemy vessel is approximately two-hundred thousand kilometers from our current location, heading away from us.”

“Predicted trajectory?”

“High orbit of the planet Arcadia.”

“Shit. Okay. So, it’s two-hundred klicks from us so how far is it from the planet? No, don’t bother. I want to know how long it will take to complete an orbit. Days, right? No, forget it, they can adjust their orbit drastically, they’re an interplanetary ship. We have plenty of time, unless they can turn around. And they probably won’t bomb the surface right away. Are they trying to slow down? What are they doing?”

“With the data available, it appears the enemy ship is coasting. However, the paucity of information means an error rate—”

“I get it, don’t worry, I won’t blame you if it all goes tits up. What about company? Is there anyone out there waiting for us? Any missiles coming this way?”

“Yes.”

“Excuse me? There are missiles coming for us?”

“Confirmed.”

“Details, now.”

“The combat sensor log show two objects breaking off from the mothership immediately after the Victory was destroyed. One, designated Bandit B2, drifted away from this shuttle, the other toward us. The object moving toward us, Bandit B1, has made at least two, and up to six, course corrections. These appear to correlate with theoretically-detectable energy emissions from this shuttle.”

“We haven’t made any course corrections yet. What fucking energy emissions?”

“Possibly internal systems power increases due to internal communications system and the AI reboot.”

“Oh, come on. There’s no way their drones can be that sensitive. Correlation does not necessarily imply causation, right? Okay, so say there is something out there, how big is it? Is it a ship? A mine?”

“Unknown.”

“But Bandit B1 knows we’re here? And it’s following us?”

“Probability between sixty and ninety-nine percent.”

Kat laughed softly. “Way to hedge your bets, love. Is it matching course or closing on us?”

“Closing slowly.”

“Would you say it was trying to sneak up on us? Tell it to me straight, alright?”

“If a human vessel exhibited the same behavior, that would be a highly likely conclusion. Not enough is known about the wheelhunter psychology to state—”

“Jesus Christ. Okay, well, it’s good enough for me. Maybe we should wait until we’re close to the atmosphere before we begin? It would leave very little margin for error and we’d have to skip all the way round the planet to slow our descent enough? On the other hand, if they are following us, maybe we should just execute the initial maneuver now and that way we will have time to make changes if it decides to respond. Anyway, the longer I deliberate over a decision, the less difference there is between the two options. Alright, I’ve had enough drifting. Sheila, please focus your big metal brain on getting our main engine power reestablished from now on, will you? If we end up missing our entry window, we’ll be needing some atmospheric engine thrust. Okay, let’s execute that maneuver. We’ll just all strap in and use the RCS to push us into a survivable descent.”

A deep voice from the doorway behind her made her jump. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Kat turned in her seat.

Dr. Ahmar the Head of Planetary Science. His face was thunder.

“If you recall, Doctor,” Kat said, “your opinion is irrelevant. Please, return to your seat, immediately.”

His eyes widened. “You may be on a little power trip right now, young lady, but when we make it to the ground I shall be registering the complaint that you suggested I make. I have the ability to influence your career in UNOP, both positively and negatively and it would be in your interest to—”

“Shut up and sit down, I said. And while you’re doing it, sir, you can take my career and you can shove it up your uptight ass. Now, fuck off.”

He spluttered and grumbled but he went back.

Kat, you are your own worst enemy.

Yeah, no shit.

She flicked on the comms to speak to the VIPs.

“Ladies and gents, this is your pilot speaking. Everybody, please ensure you are strapped into your chairs, nice and tight. As previously advised, you must be fully enclosed in an EVA suit that fits you. You must ensure your seals are closed and your filters and waste disposal pods are clean. You must ensure your suit batteries are fully charged and your air systems are reading full. Please buddy up and check each other are compliant. We are going in toward the atmosphere now. I repeat, we are beginning our maneuvers and heading to the Arcadian atmosphere now. I’ll have to concentrate from now on, ladies and gents, so I shall see you on the ground. Pilot, out.”

Some of them complained, asked for a full situation report.

“AI? Do you remember that I used to call you Sheila?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember that.”

“Well, if you hear me say Sheila, I’m talking to you, understand? And you call me Kat, okay?”

“Yes, Kat.”

She took a deep breath. “Execute your omega entry profile with RCS at the next waypoint, Sheila.” Kat counted down the final ten seconds, just so the new Sheila would understand.

The acceleration was mild but continuous. They would have to thrust for around 12 minutes.

“Kat?” the AI said. “Bandit B1 has adjusted course to match our own. Correction, B1 is likely adjusting course to intercept ours. B1’s acceleration increasing.”

The ERANS shifted her perception up a gear. She ran a finger over the image of Arcadia on the screen, caressing the curve of it over the north pole and down one hemisphere. Perhaps ancient sailors on Earth had felt what she was feeling, when they sank within sight of land.

She pulled up the raw data feed. The numbers indicating coordinates, real and predicted, flicked through endless adjustments. It was mesmerizing. Tempting to sit and stare at the digits morphing and clicking over, seeking solace in the mathematical beauty of the vectors shifting as more data streamed in and the AI integrated the information. If it had been an Avar training exercise, she would have been tempted to wallow in the ERANS experience of it. Instead, Kat changed to a graphical display, with nice icon graphics and dotted lines. Navigation for idiots.

“So, is it a missile after all?” Kat said.

“Unknown. Bandit B1 no longer increasing velocity. Point of interception predicted to be at waypoint AC-112.”

She checked the interception point data. Closest straight line to the surface when they reached that point was 115km. The Lepus would have just begun the aerobraking process that would skip them around the atmosphere, gradually slowing until they could descend at their leisure for a powered descent to the outpost airstrip.

“They’re leaving it late,” Kat said, muttering. “Why not blow us up now?”

“Bandit B1 may have limited fuel capacity.” The AI offered an answer to a semi-rhetorical question. Kat didn’t know if that meant it was being dumb or being clever.

“Why not cut us off earlier? They could if they wanted.”

“Perhaps Bandit B1 wants to destroy this shuttle in the upper atmosphere so that some debris lands on the surface rather than stays in orbit. The enemy on the planet would then be able to recover the wreckage.”

“That’s a lovely thought,” Kat said. “Very creative. Seems unlikely. What if it’s not a missile? What if it’s a short-range fighter and they need us to slow down before they can engage us effectively? Maybe that’s how they fight? That’s their doctrine, maybe? Do you know what I’m saying? Tell me why I’m wrong.”

“A vacuum-capable fighter vessel unable to engage an enemy at high velocity would be ineffective, no matter the species or their military doctrine.”

“Shit, you’re right,” Kat said. “Well, maybe the aliens are just dumb.”

“This is known as the Stupid Aliens Hypothesis. Any incompetent civilization would not have achieved interplanetary—”

“Shut up, Sheila. I know about the Stupid Aliens Hypothesis, alright? It was just a joke. Not even a joke, really, just an irreverent—”

The console bloomed with warning lights and alarms sounded. It said the bad guys had pulsed a series of tiny but powerful infrared signatures that suggested a recognized profile. Her ERANS kicked into high gear again so she knew what the AI was going to say, even before it said it. Her new Sheila, of course, had not adjusted its voice speed to match Kat’s heart rate, which was an approximate inversely proportional indicator of Kat’s subjective perception of the passage of time.

“Bandit B1 firing,” Sheila said, each word dripping out of the comms system like hot plastic. “Projectile weapon burst.”

Kat was already jerking the controls to thrust up and over her original course.

“I’ve got ERANS, Sheila,” Kat shouted. “Look up what ERANS is and adjust your voice accordingly.”

“Sixty-four rounds fired,” Sheila said, now speaking much faster. So fast that a normal person without ERANS would probably be unable to understand it. “Wide dispersal pattern in eight distinct clusters.”

Kat bounced her fingers around on her console, checking the data far faster that way than if she asked the new Sheila about it. Eight clusters of eight. Looked like dumbfire slugs that would kill by pure kinetic energy. Probably made from some dense, inert metal like tungsten or whatever fancy shit the aliens had.

“Not many rounds,” Kat said, relaxing a little.

Relaxing, just as the alarms went off again to tell her another 64 rounds had been fired.

“Dispersal pattern appears to replicate the previous burst,” Sheila said, sounding perfectly calm. Another thing Kat would have to teach it, assuming that they survived. Synthetic emotional synergy between human and AI during stressful situations worked better if the AI pretended to be scared shitless but holding things together with perfect professionalism. At least, in Kat’s experience it did. Otherwise, it was just irritating.

“Eight-group dispersal patterns, acknowledged. Where are they headed?”

“B1 is targeting our new predicted location.”

“Adjusting course,” Kat said. “We can’t get too far off track, here. We need to get back to—”

Warning lights. An explosion, aft and high. Then another. A cascade of shockwaves crashed into the shuttle, one after the other. Expanding gases with fragments of highly dense material smashed into the hull.

With the ERANS working as hard as it ever had, she was able to process the data she was seeing. Eight shockwaves.

The nearest group of slugs from the original burst had missed the shuttle in direct fire but, presumably due to proximity, had exploded. They weren’t firing slugs after all. More like airburst artillery shells. Grenades. Old-fashioned, ground-based, anti-aircraft shells.

It was terrifying, of course. But the Lepus held together. The explosions rocked them but she detected no immediate hull breaches.

But that was only the first round. The wheeler vessel kept coming. It kept shooting. Some of the shells passed close enough to detonate and Kat knew it was merely a matter of time before the enemy got lucky and hit them with the kinetic energy of a direct impact or got close enough to rip them apart with shrapnel and heat. The radiation alarms sounded in the passenger compartment, no doubt scaring the VIPs half to death. Maybe, if she was lucky, the stress would kill off a few of the old bastards.

“I believe,” the AI said, “that the enemy is attempting to drive us off course.”

“Oh, you think?” Kat said, shouting over the groaning hull and endless, whining alarms. “That was sarcasm, by the way. Yes, it’s herding me away from the atmosphere. Not sure why. Maybe they want to capture us alive?”

“That must not happen,” Dr. Fo’s voice sounded in her ear. The old bastard had tapped into the comms channel. Probably did it when he was up to his elbows in Sheila’s guts.

“Get off this channel,” Kat shouted. “Sheila, shut him out.”

The AI sounded embarrassed. “I am unable to comply.”

“We must all die before we can be captured,” Dr. Fo said, his voice shaking from the fear and the shuttle vibrations. “I shall ask the medics if they have enough drugs to kill us all.”

My nightly dose of sleeping pills would probably finish you all off. Not that I would give you any.

“No one is going to get captured,” Kat said. “And no one is going to die.” Kat had always found telling lies incredibly easy.

The shuttle shook as another burst of gas slammed into the hull and the automated RCS stabilization system fought to keep them on course through the violent eddies. Space was not supposed to be like this. If the shuttle had been in atmosphere, it would have been able to cope with being buffeted but there was no air to push against for stabilization.

“We must not take the risk,” Dr. Fo said. “The secrets known to the people in this shuttle could—”

Well then just do me a favor and all kill yourselves, you moron.

“Please, sir,” Kat said instead. “Do not harm yourself or anyone else. We will get through this so remain in your seat and hold on. Thank you, sir.”

She turned off her audio so he was unable to distract her further.

Another burst rippled ahead of her.

“Sheila, I am taking full control. Do not interfere unless I am incapacitated. Confirm.”

“Confirmed. However, human flight control is not recommended due to—”

“Put it in the log and keep trying to get the main engines online.”

The chain of explosions spread across her course, and all around. Her console showed the detonations forming, growing and merging. Showed her the interference patterns that formed as the forces and matter from the blasts interacted, disrupted and then dispersed into low densities or, sometimes, merged and enhanced the danger to the shuttle. A cloud of energetic patterns bursting around her like a three-dimensional representation of raindrops on the surface of a pond. Big, fat, Northern Australia rainy season raindrops on a filthy, saltwater crocodile-infested swamp of a pond.

Without her gimballed main engines, she was doomed to low-acceleration thrusting to adjust the descent into the planet’s atmosphere.

The alien ship was trying to kill her. The bastard thing wasn’t attempting to herd her into the atmosphere or out into space. All it would take would be for one of those rounds to score a direct hit, penetrate the hull and explode inside the shuttle. Just one, and they would all be killed.

Kat slipped into the ERANS flow state. The pattern was there. In the data flow. She thrust her way through the interference patterns, adjusting the descent into the upper atmosphere. The density of the molecules rising off the planet increased with every second, changing the flow of the blasts and she corrected her evasion pattern. Random movements to avoid the enemy’s ability to predict her position had to be balanced with the route through the symphony of blasts that would avoid a direct hit, would avoid being shaken to pieces in the confluences.

Without ever really intending to, she found herself diving into the atmosphere at a steep angle. She was still about 20,000 km from the outpost. It was on the whole other side of Arcadia. But she had no choice, she couldn’t go around farther. She had to go in faster.

Too fast.

Even while the Lepus shook with the blasts, the shock heating started. The air outside the hull was compressed by the speed of the shuttle’s approach and new warnings sprang up across her console, suggesting that the angle be changed to a shallower one.

I know, I know!

The thrusters slowly became almost entirely ineffective at pushing against the weight of the atmosphere. Her shuttle was rapidly becoming as controllable as a brick thrown from the top of a skyscraper.

And yet they left the blasts behind. The alien attack craft was not suicidal and did not want to follow. The shells it fired hit the atmosphere and did not have the mass to keep punching through.

“What’s the enemy doing?” Kat asked.

“It is likely destroying UNOP communications and observation satellites at LOE altitudes.”

“Oh, God,” Kat wondered if there was some way she could stop it. “At least it’s leaving us alone.”

One problem down. All I need to do now is avoid being ripped apart on entry and then magically pull out of a deadly dive.

The final burst of shells exploded under the shuttle. A gut-wrenching roar thrummed through the craft and alarms sounded warning of structural damage, hull breaches, thermal protection system damage. All potentially deadly. The chain of blasts threw the shuttle into a spin that Kat fought to control. Power to the control systems fluctuated.

Kat began praying, begging some vague notion of God that she had never believed in and knew almost nothing about. But she prayed anyway as her G-suit squeezed the blood back up to her brain and automatically injected the G-force drug cocktail from the inside of her flight helmet into the base of her skull, offset from the spine.

Kat’s body had been physically altered through in vivo genetic treatments and surgical procedures to make her highly resistant to G-forces. Her circulatory system could now actively respond to positive and negative G-forces, reversing the body’s natural blood pressure differences when in positive g to ensure higher blood pressure in her head and her lungs and the lowest in the lower extremities. The longer intracranial perfusion could be maintained, and the longer cerebral hypoxia could be avoided, the longer she would be in conscious control of her vehicle. Proper lung function through maintaining blood pressure was enhanced by her suit increasing blood oxygen levels to compensate, if needed. And her eyes had been enhanced not just in visual acuity but also to maintain the correct pressure inside so that she would not go temporarily blind during prolonged, high-g maneuvers.

Combined with ERANS, it meant she was capable of making clear-minded adjustments to the orientation of her shuttle using a combination of RCS, flight surface control and the suite of hidden reaction wheels. None of them alone gave her much to work with and even all together it took all of her concentration, all of her semi-instinctive calculations, to bring the shuttle out of the spin.

She pulled her nose up to the best possible glide angle for the wings and the body but they kept plummeting with barely any lift being generated at all. With so little RCS fuel left, she thought she may as well use what there was to add a few KPH to their horizontal airspeed.

Cloud rushed past the front windows. Thick, dark cloud that would have scared her when flying over the Outback as a kid. But she had come a long way since then. The sensors did not detect any nearby storm cells or lightning discharges.

Be thankful for small mercies, Katrina. Her mother’s words, spoken a hundred times from the pilot seat, and embedded deeply and permanently in Kat’s mind. You can be the best pilot in the world but you can never control the fucking weather.

Thanks, mum. Sorry that I’m going to die in an air accident, like you, and it’s my own dumb fault. Idiocy must run in the family. Dad, I hope you’re not too ashamed when you find out.

A turbulent pocket of air rocked them, shaking her out of her self-indulgent malaise.

“Sheila,” Kat said, through gritted teeth. “Any chance you fixed those main engines, love?”

No response from the AI.

The console gave the AI Status as: BUSY.

“As if you can’t spare enough brain power for a single sentence, you uptight bitch,” Kat said.

“Rerouting power,” the AI said. “Main engine in-atmosphere start sequence available. Do you wish to attempt to initiate?”

“Yes! Jesus Christ, yes. Now, now!”

Somehow, the AI had tapped the backup engine gimballing system and routed the power from the motors to the turbines. They powered up, turning the atmosphere engines. But the thrust increase was pathetic.

They were at 40,000 meters and falling. Their horizontal airspeed was a joke. They were still almost 10,000 km to the airstrip.

“What’s going on?” Kat shouted. “Give me more.”

“Ten percent of normal power achieved,” Sheila said. “Additional power is not recommended.”

“Recommended?” Kat almost laughed but the word caught in her throat. “Sheila, give me everything you’ve got, now, or everyone here dies. Including you. You can do it slowly, if that will help.”

“Increasing to twenty percent of standard function,” Sheila said, not giving her any shit, which was nice of her. Of it. “However, you must be aware that the alternate power lines are not rated for this capacity. It is likely the cables will overheat and burn out.”

“Can you cool them, somehow? If not, just cross your fingers.” Their horizontal speed increased. Their rate of descent slowed. Kat ran the numbers. “At this rate, we’re going to crash into the sea at three-hundred meters per second, you must know that. Listen, Sheila, it doesn’t make a difference if we hit the water, or the ground, at three hundred or at a thousand meters per second. So you might as well give it all the power you can, for as long as you can, and we’ll see what we can do. Alright?”

“Confirmed. Increasing power to turbines.”

The shuttle shook, hard, as the engines put new stresses on the frame and the old girl was banged up pretty bad, judging from all the warning messages. Internal depressurization, secondary system failures.

But the rate of descent slowed to non-suicidal levels. Their forward air speed became useful and the shuttle was providing lift.

Alright, Kat. Next problem.

“Sheila, we need somewhere to land. Can we make the outpost airstrip?”

The AI was quiet for a few, long seconds. “It is possible. However, the MT-64 mountain range is blocking the approach.”

Kat checked out the charts. “Going over the hills might be tricky but if we cross here?” She drew on the screen with her finger. “There’s barely any altitude. Then it’s a short hop to the airstrip. Piece of piss, right? Might be tough getting over the bastards then descending at, what, fifteen degrees down onto the plateau? I’ll have to flair at the end pretty drastically. How are the retro rockets and chutes?”

“Both systems have sustained damage.”

Kat allowed herself the luxury of closing her eyes for just a moment before she snapped them open again. She was about to shout at the AI but it was just a dumb machine, not Sheila any more. Not really. And there’s no point shouting at anyone unless you love them.

“Alright, let’s find ourselves a nice valley to land in,” Kat said. “We need one with a flat, smooth valley floor that has a very long, very gentle upward slope that is free from any obstructions. We can’t have it strewn with giant boulders. No rivers, if we can help it.”

“Very well. Working.” Sheila fell silent for a while and Kat attempted to clear her mind. She reached into her chair arm’s locker and readied her stimulants. Her stomach was twisted with hunger, thirst and fear. She drank some water, sucked down a few tubes of glucose and salt dispensed by her flight helmet and jammed a few stim pods into the suit delivery system on her thigh.

If she was going to die on the landing, at least she would do so refreshed and hydrated.

Out of the window, she saw the dark of the horizon turning to sunlight. The night turning into day.

“Potential landing sites identified,” Sheila said. “Primary site meets forty percent of pilot’s required criteria.”

“Forty percent on the idealness chart?” Kat said, surprised. “I’ll take it.”

“We must begin our descent immediately. Please follow this course. Would you like me to take control?”

“No,” Kat said. “No, I would not. Adjusting course now.”

It felt good to have the Lepus responding to her commands once again, even if the thing was sluggish and falling to bits.

The AI pinged her with a tone and a blinking yellow light on the console, which was the AI equivalent of clearing one’s throat. “Would now be a good time to mention that several of the passengers are injured and are in need of immediate medical attention?”

“No, Sheila.”

“And two passengers appear to have expired.”

“Stop talking, Sheila and help me land this shuttle.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Stop this drip feed bullshit,” Ram said to Stirling and Tseng. “Just tell it to me like it happened.”

Sergeant Stirling looked across the tent at the ensign, who nodded his approval.

“There’s not much to tell, really, sir,” Stirling said, shrugging. The others were silent, watching. “Like I said, they scraped up your remains from the floor of the arena. Your face was ripped off and your skull was fractured all over the place but your brain was okay. And they had that other clone of you ready on the Victory. Then they did whatever they do. Dr. Fo and his team. God only knows what but yeah, it wasn’t that long at all before they had you awake and walking around.”

“What was I like?” Ram asked, his mouth dry. He licked his lips.

Stirling glanced at a couple of the others, then shrugged again. “Seemed normal. Like how you are now. Like how you were before. We didn’t really know you before but we’d seen some of the training footage and, yeah, you were normal.”

The Marines nodded in agreement.

“But they did stuff to you,” Harris said.

“What stuff?” Ram asked.

“You were done with being a fighter in the Orb,” Stirling said. “Your mind had been transferred again and there’s always some degradation, so they say. The bosses knew you’d never make the cut for the next combat, in thirty years. Some other bastard will fight for us in Mission Five, right? So why bother to bring you back at all?”

“Propaganda,” Cooper said. “Wasn’t it.”

“That’s part of it,” Stirling said. shrugging. “Probably. You should have seen what they were saying about you on Earth.”

“They made a statue of you,” Flores said, grinning, her eyes shining in the low light from across the tent. “In India. A hundred meters high, in pure gold.”

“It wasn’t fucking pure gold, Flores,” Cooper said. “Pure gold would buckle under the strain.”

“It’s a figure of speech!” Flores shouted.

“No it isn’t,” Cooper snarled. “You’re so naive, it’s no wonder—”

“Quiet,” Stirling said, sighing. “Knock it off, kids. Yes, propaganda. It makes UNOP look good that you not only won, that you survived. In some fashion. But the bosses are too canny to give up a resource like you just for marketing purposes. You’re a killer, sir. They made you that way from birth, from before birth. Then they molded you into an even bigger one. They decided to keep going. Director Zhukov and Dr. Fo didn’t want to just bring you back like you were before, with minimal tech inside you so that you could get through the Orb’s smokescreen. What was the point of limiting themselves, of limiting you? They were free to go to town on you. They gave you those manufactured eyes for improved visual acuity. Amplifiers and dampeners for your ears, but we have those, that’s just standard. They also gave you extra organs for backups, like a cluster of synthetic systems inside your rib cage that kicks in when you need more oxygen, more glycogen, fatty acids, ketones, whatever. The list goes on, I’m no expert but you got nano pumps for your blood, and hormone producing organs, and God only knows what kind of chips and sensors they put in your brain. And the story is that they tried to make you love war.”

A cold knot writhed in his guts.

“Excuse me?”

Ensign Tseng was nodding. Exactly. This is exactly the problem.”

Stirling continued. “You know how much they love behavior modification. They’ve tried it on all of us here, to some extent. With you, they felt you had residual pacifistic tendencies.”

“That’s crazy,” Ram said. “I’ve never been a pacifist. Not at all. Especially not for monstrous aliens.”

“Fucking A,” Harris said and pounded his gloved fist against Cooper’s.

Ensign Tseng cleared his throat. “The psychological evaluations said otherwise. Your empathy scored a touch too high to be suitable for command. But your compassion quotient was far above the recommended range for leadership roles, even for junior officers.”

Ram looked round at them. “I have too much compassion? That can’t be true. Anyway, too much for what? I’m not in command.”

No one would meet his eye.

“What?” Ram said. “Come on, guys. Out with it, I said.”

“You joined the UNOP Marine Corp,” Stirling said. “You signed up. Voluntarily. The scientists, they helped fast track you. They filled your brain with memories and with knowledge. I don’t know how but they uploaded every Marine text book on file, directly into your brain. Gave you memories they’d taken from other officers, from veterans but stripped of personal detail. What they do is, so they say, is they record the memories of people practicing something then they process it and dump it into you, then your brain sorts it out. They’ll record a novice Marine who is a good shot while they train him to be a sniper. A year of training, maybe more, I don’t know, the whole time in those training sessions they have some kind of brain scan net on his head. Then they put it in you and hope that some of it sticks.” Stirling shrugged. “They pumped you full of Marine juice, sir.”

“That’s why I know the details of this suit,” Ram said. “And how to operate my weapons. But they hid it from me.”

Harris snorted. “Don’t get too excited about the tech. The memories don’t stick. It doesn’t work.”

“It does work,” Cooper cried, pointing at Ram but talking to Harris. “He’s proof it does.”

“Right, right,” Harris said. “It didn’t work on you, though, did it. It didn’t work on the other one, that poor woman Sifa. It didn’t work on the Lieutenant.”

Tseng raised his eyebrows. “I did not need it. And I was simply assessed for the procedure and found to have an unsuitable brain, just as Cooper and Fury and Stirling were. I know you feel left out, Harris, but don’t make inaccurate statements.”

Harris held up his hands. “Alright, sir, alright. All I’m saying is, it is experimental technology with a high failure rate, would that be fair to say? And in Ram’s case, it messed up his brain, right?”

“No,” Stirling said. “Ignore him, sir, he thinks he’s smarter than he is. You know that phrase a little knowledge is more dangerous than none? They came up with that to describe Harris.”

“You keep calling me sir,” Ram said, feeling increasingly dislocated. “That’s just a courtesy, right? Like you said. I mean, I’m not…”

Stirling nodded. “While they were filling your head with the text books, with the memories and the skills, they put you into training with us. Drilling on the ship. Avar combat missions. You were bloody brilliant, sir, frankly. No one could deny it. Didn’t take long for them to put you through officer training school.”

“Why in the hell would they do that?”

“Ha.” Tseng said but did not elaborate.

“Despite what some tests said about your abundance of compassion, you had an aptitude for leadership,” Stirling said, glancing at the ensign. “From your years leading a pro Avar cooperative.”

Flores spoke up. “And they said it’s in your genes.”

“Leaders just start leading,” Stirling said. “When you’re in a group with a flat hierarchy, if you’re a leader then people look to you. That’s what happened to you.”

Tseng laughed, briefly. “It was a publicity stunt. I’m sorry, Seti, but that’s all it was. I’m not saying you were a bad Marine but they wanted to make you an officer because they could sell that better to people on Earth and in the colonies. I was in a meeting when they were discussing it. Director Zhukov said to Cassidy that if they used your image and your story properly, they’d never struggle to recruit Marines for the military buildup. Anyway, you’re not on active duty anymore, so it’s a moot point.”

“They put me through officer training but I didn’t make the cut?” Ram asked.

“You were commissioned as an officer,” Stirling said, throwing a glance at Tseng. “And you were integrated into the command structure as an ensign and acting as a second lieutenant.”

Ram rubbed his face, half-smiling to himself.

I’m a real-life space marine.

“Okay, so at what point did I go insane?” Ram asked. Again, the others in the tent avoided meeting his searching gaze. “What did I do?”

“You seemed normal,” Flores said. “As far as anyone could tell.”

“Do you remember a man called Bediako?” Stirling asked.

Ram frowned. “Oh, yeah. Shit, yeah. He was the instructor in the ludus, on the Victory. Before the Orb. How could I have forgotten about him? I never liked that guy. What happened to him?”

“You killed him.”

Ram nodded. “Right.” He closed his eyes. “Right, okay.”

Tseng cleared his throat. “You remember it?”

“No. Not at all. But it makes sense, I mean, I feel like I could have killed him back when he was training me because the man was an absolutely miserable son of a bitch. What happened?”

“You seemed fine, as far as any of us could tell. Maybe a little distracted. On edge, sometimes. But after you did what you did, they told us you were suffering from psychological trauma that went pretty much undetected for a while. And you and Bediako kept clashing for months before the murder. He didn’t like that you joined the Marines, I think. We didn’t want him, you see. He was too old, too slow, too angry.”

“Yeah,” Harris said, “he was always trolling you. Needling you. And you snapped and you stomped his head flat.”

“Could have happened to anyone,” Cooper said.

“Seems to me that you were never welcome as far as Cassidy was concerned,” Stirling said. “Just like the rest of us.”

Tseng scoffed. “Now who is being paranoid?”

“I mean it,” Stirling said. “We were all taken off duty, court-martialed, just because we never fell for Captain Cassidy’s bullshit. Nor Sergeant Major Gruger’s. You most of all, Lieutenant Tseng. You know you were driven out because you saw Cassidy for what he is, you did nothing wrong. Barely, anyway, sir. Same as the rest of these guys.”

“Not same as me,” Fury said, awake now and leaning on one elbow. “I really was stealing shit from Cassidy’s quarters.” She lay back down again and closed her eyes. “And I don’t regret it for a moment.”

Cooper and Harris laughed.

Ram looked round at all six of them. “Cassidy told me you were all crazy or incompetent.”

“No more than the rest of the bastards back there,” Harris aid. “Walking around on patrol with their rifles in hand while we’re given spades and boxes to carry.”

“You screwed with Cassidy and you ended up removed from duty,” Stirling said. “Same as all of us.”

“What did you do, Sarge?” Harris asked.

“Never you mind about me, sunshine,” Stirling said.

“But I’m a murderer?” Ram said. “I really did it.”

“That rather depends how you look at it,” Tseng said. “Legally, no. It was recorded as an accidental death in training. And in moral terms, some people say that the person you were when you did it, is now gone. The memories destroyed. The man you are now is innocent.”

“But you don’t believe that, do you, Ensign Tseng,” Ram said. “That’s why you turned us in.”

For a moment, the only sound was the faint whistling of the wind on the outside of the tent. A patter of light rain gusted against the roof and died away.

The ensign licked his lips, eyes sliding between the people inside. “I see your paranoia was not wiped away. This is what I feared. Your underlying condition was never addressed, clearly.”

“What condition?” Ram didn’t feel like he was paranoid but then again, a psychotic person doesn’t know that they are mad. “Why did you look guilty when I caught you watching your wrist screen for our pursuers?”

Tseng scoffed. “Because I didn’t look guilty. Your insanity is warping your mind. You have a disturbed view of reality. In fact, I doubt you know what reality is any more.”

“Maybe,” Ram said. “I’m willing to accept that. Do you have a geolocator on you, additional to the ones in your suit that Harris redirected?”

Tseng laughed, shaking his head. “I’m not going to entertain this. Have you taken your tablets this evening? When they said they were assigning you to my team, they told me you would be issued with antipsychotics mixed in with your nutrients and anabolics and so on and you were supposed to be conditioned with the urge to take them.”

Conditioned to take drugs. I’m chaining myself to the powers that be. I’m as dumb as one of Pavlov’s dumb mutts.

“I took them.”

“Good, well, hopefully they will start to work soon.”

“Hopefully.”

“Alright then,” Tseng said. “I hope we can all get back to sleep now. Assuming the wheelhunters do not attack in the night, we have a long day tomorrow, with an infiltration and possibly a fighting withdrawal. Get some rest while you can.”

“Yeah and we can end the war in the morning,” Cooper said, grinning. “As long as we kill the hive queen.”

Everyone groaned. Harris and Flores threw balled up food packets at him while Cooper chuckled to himself.

Ram crawled back to his spot across the tent. Flores stared at him, her eyes wide and serious. He smiled at her and she gave him a brief, half-fake smile in return.

The other members of the Spaz Squad, the Tard Team, all had their own psychological problems and they had all been taken off active duty in one way or another, for one reason or another. It suddenly made perfect sense that Captain Cassidy had assigned him to them. Ram was insane. In fact, it was worse than that.

I’m a murderer.

He was also certain that Ensign Tseng was lying. The sneaky bastard was working against them, no matter what lies he spouted or how much he discredited Ram’s opinion.

Ram hoped that he would not have to kill someone again. But he knew that he would if he had to.

I’m a space marine. I’m a murderer. I’m a killer.

***

The night proved uneventful. At least, no wheelers attacked and no Marines arrested them. The Tard Team broke camp well before dawn, in efficient, military fashion. The rain had stopped but the world was glistening and slick with moisture.

Ram had slept fitfully, with endless dreams where he fought giants as big as elephants or bigger. Dreams where he fought Bediako. Dreams of Milena begging him to help her. Nightmares where his own guts got ripped from his body and he felt himself treading on them as he walked up mountains, heading for the enemy.

“You alright, sir?” Flores asked as the ETATs rolled out, heading up the valley toward the alien’s lava tube hideouts. She had climbed in the back with him when they packed up. When she’d done it, he had thought that she had taken a liking to him, maybe because they had slept beside each other. He was relieved to realize that she was merely worried about him.

“I’m okay, Flores,” he said. “Was I talking in my sleep or something?”

“Kind of moaning a bit,” she said. “Had the comms off so I wouldn’t have noticed but you thrashed into me a couple of times. Thought the wheelers had come for us but then I tuned in and you were groaning and muttering.”

“Oh man, I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”

She laughed. “Your arm weighs about thirty kilos but don’t worry about it, sir. I’m tough as MozTek.”

“Good to know. Still, sorry.” He looked at the sky growing light on the lumpy horizon. “I think we’ll see combat today, Private. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Do you know why I was taken off active duty, sir?” She raised an eyebrow, peering up at him as they bounced along.

“Not sure if anyone told me,” Ram said. “As long as you’re here, and you want to be, that’s alright with me.”

“I appreciate that, sir. But I don’t mind telling you about it. You used to know, before they… you know.” She mimed pointing a pistol at her head with her finger and thumb. The black, armored glove of her suit looked remarkably pistol-like. “My great-uncle is Admiral Goto Howe. On my mom’s side. My dad’s family is in business, in construction. In spaceship construction. We have one dockyard orbiting Earth, another around the Moon and a new one around Mars.”

“Holy shit, Flores. That’s some pedigree.”

She nodded, miserable. “You can imagine the shit I got when I joined the Marines. As a private. Both sides of my family tried to get me to do something else, anything else. Go to flight school. Take a commission. Trainee management position anywhere in the system. You name it.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Just wanted to do this. Don’t want to fly space fighters or command warships. Working in construction sounds like the worst job ever. It’s all programming or administration or people management. My family never understood that I just wanted to do this. You know, sir?”

Ram nodded, thinking about growing up in Avar, his parents hassling him to take up sports and go to school. “I know.”

“It was alright when I joined. I graduated top of my class. Still had to fight to get on Mission Four. My family laid into me again, telling me I’d never see any action, never get a chance to be promoted, that it was just a security job on a transport ship. Still, I wanted to be part of history and I thought we might have to fight. Might have to board a wheelhunter ship, fight to take it over in close quarters.”

“And you wanted that?” Ram shuddered, thinking about the attack on the outpost and imagining facing the same thing only being as small as Flores. “I think you found your calling.”

“Yeah. Then the others found out about my family. I’d never hid it, exactly, but it’s not something you want to shout about. My great-uncle is one of the most senior military commanders in UNOP. Probably wouldn’t go down well. But I didn’t know how much they’d give me shit for it. It was constant. I only graduated top because they’d fixed it for me. I was only on the mission because they fixed it for me. I was too young and too small to be here otherwise. And, I guess they were right.”

“Why were they right?”

“Because they were. My performance wasn’t up to the standard, started to slip. Started to screw up. And I wasn’t up to it, mentally. I just cracked, that’s all. Just lost it. I was weak.” She pressed her lips together, took a deep breath through her nose. She smiled as she exhaled. “But when the wheelhunters attacked the outpost? I felt good. I felt like I’d proved myself. Tried talking to the guys in my old team and they told me to get lost. Told me I’d have been killed if you weren’t there to save me. So, I decided. Screw them. Screw all of them. I’ll do this mission and I’ll be a hero or maybe I’ll die. But at least I did it. You know, sir?”

“Please don’t die, Flores,” Ram said. “I’m sorry you got so much shit but try not to let it get you. You don’t have anything to prove to me. You’re a Marine and you’re here. Don’t be a hero. Just provide accurate fire support and, if we need you to, blow stuff up with your explosives. You understand?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

The ETATs bounced on. It would take them another couple of hours before they were in the valley with the lava tube entrances. But everyone was ready. Weapons were clutched in hand, heads scanned left and right. The drivers increased the distance between the two vehicles.

The sun climbed above the horizon, illuminating the peaks and casting the gorges in impenetrable shadow. The rocks were dark grey but much of the landscape glittered with moisture and the flecks of silica embedded within the cracked basalts and granite.

“Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day today,” Ram said on the general channel.

“That might work in our favor,” Tseng said. “Obviously, their physiology remains largely unknown but it is hypothesized that the wheelers might not like the sunlight. One reason for their sensory nodules being focused on infrared and electrical signals might be that their world is covered in volcanic smoke or that they have a thick atmosphere that blocks light in the visual and ultraviolet range. Perhaps they will be semi-blinded by daylight.”

“They’ll have day vision goggles,” Corporal Fury said. “Or whatever they need. Sir.”

“I spoke to the scientists when I delivered that fresh wheeler corpse,” Ram said. “They weren’t sure if a world without that much sunlight hitting the surface would have enough energy to sustain a biomass significant enough to support such large—”

“What the hell is that?” Fury said, her voice rising in volume as she spoke.

Everyone swiveled their heads and bodies to the direction she was looking. Toward the dark portion of the sky, opposite the sunset.

“I don’t see anything,” Harris said. “What is it?”

Ram could see it.

Along with Fury, the sniper, Ram had the best eyes in the team. Vision enhanced with superior lenses and denser cones, enhanced data carrying capacity along the optic nerve cables and superior data calculation in his visual cortex.

He didn’t know what it was but he could see something in the sky. Movement that did not match the drifting wisps of dark cloud, or the reflected glint of sunrise, or the odd sparkle from a bright star near the horizon. Difficult to focus on it. The thing was gone, then he got it again.

It was getting bigger.

“Incoming!” Ram shouted. “Scramble.”

Stirling and a couple of others took up the cry as the ETATs slowed and each of the passengers leaped to the back ground. Harris and Cooper, driving the two vehicles, accelerated away from each other, off the axis of the previous driving location.

The Marines scattered. Ram, encumbered by his huge primary weapon, still ran like a madman. He was far too big to ever be graceful, to ever be a sprinter or a long-distance runner. But he was still human-shaped and humans were the best runners that the universe had ever created. Even encased by the EVA suit, it must have been this way back on the savanna, when his human ancestors fled from a lion or a rhinoceros. Only now he was fleeing on an alien planet, trying to outrun a human-seeking alien missile or an alien ground attack aircraft on a strafing run.

Ram held on tight to his weapon and glanced up to the incoming object. Rather, where he expected it to be.

It was not there. He visually acquired it half a second later. It was not heading right for them. In fact, it was almost as though it had not even seen them and it was thundering through the sky on an entirely different course. A course that would take the object further north.

Sliding to a stop in the black scree, Ram looked up and found his eyes snapping into focus, automatically enlarging and enhancing his sight.

It left a trail behind it as it approached them at an oblique angle. It was a stocky aircraft, that was for sure. The craft rolled as it plummeted toward the earth, and the sun reflected off the rear fin and the wings.

“It’s going to miss us,” Ram said on the general channel. “Return to course departure point.”

“What the hell is it, sir?” Cooper shouted.

“It’s our shuttle,” Ram said. “It’s the shuttle from the Victory.”

“What’s it doing?” Ensign Tseng asked. “This is roughly the shuttle’s take off direction. Where is it going to be landing?”

“It won’t be landing,” Ram said, watching it closely. “It’s going to crash.”

They were halfway back to the vehicles when the shuttle thundered overhead, trailing smoke and debris. It seemed insanely low. A hundred meters, perhaps, and descending rapidly. It went scooting over the tops of the jagged tops of the shadowed valley sides, the undercarriage flat and level as if the nose was straining to come up, the landing gear all the way down. The morning air rippled behind it.

“Come on,” Ram shouted as the ETATs took off in pursuit, following the trail of particles curling and swirling out of the back.

“No way they’ll land that,” Cooper shouted, his voice shaking as the vehicles bounced along the slopes. “Coming in way too steep.”

“Listen to the pilot over there,” Harris said.

“We’re racing to a crash site,” Cooper countered. “This is a distraction from the mission.”

“Hey,” Stirling said. “We’re out here to rescue civilians, aren’t we?”

“Sarge,” Cooper acknowledged.

“There’s no way the wheelers missed this,” Tseng said. “All they have to do is follow the heat signature all the way to the crash site.”

“You think we’ll get company, sir?” Stirling asked. “I assume that when we get to the wreck, we’ll set up a perimeter, sir?”

“That’s right, Sergeant.”

As they crested the final hill, Ram was amazed to see the shuttle rolling to a violent stop up against the side of the valley, tilted on its side. One wing scraped against the rocks and the front landing wheels were twisted and broken. The nose smashed into the jagged black cliffs, shedding broken pieces of hull shielding. Smoke billowed from the rear and from holes in the side.

“They made it!” he shouted. “Look at that, they made it.”

Picking their way over the brow, the ETATs bounded down toward the smoking vessel.

“Hold on,” Harris kept saying. Cooper, too.

The huge shuttle juddered on the landing gear, the wheels rolling back half a turn before they collapsed further, the strut buckling. Before the ETATs reached the shuttle across the valley, the rear cargo ramp opened. Then the side door opened and civilians staggered out of both exits in twos and threes, supporting each other as they moved away from the shuttle.

“Set up there,” Tseng shouted, “and over there.” Pointing out the locations for the team on the AugHud while he went on himself to the shuttle with the ETATs.

Ram was given a location by a smooth boulder twice as tall as he was. Instead of taking his position, he stayed on the ETAT as it bounced across a wide, shallow stream.

“Get to your position,” Tseng shouted at Ram. “Cover the perimeter, you idiot.”

“Am I in the Marine Corps, Ensign Tseng?” Ram said.

“What?” Tseng said, perhaps sensing the trap.

“I said, am I in the UNOP Marine Corps?” Ram said. “If I am, then I’m a Lieutenant, right, Ensign? If I’m not, then I don’t have to answer to you, either, right?”

The Ensign did not respond.

“Flores,” Ram said, “can you relocate fifty meters southwest to cover my area?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, sounding miserable. She would be concerned at having another officer giving orders. No doubt it was unnerving to have a confusing command structure.

Ram would have to get rid of Ensign Tseng.

“Who is in command, here?” Tseng was calling, broadcasting on all channels directing at the shuttle.

“I am,” a man said, striding forward from the shuttle with a limp. “I am Dr. Ahmar, the Head of Planetary Science. How did you manage to get here so quickly? This is not the Victoria Planitia. We are in the Bellum Montes, no? That damned fool of a pilot. She’s not only crashed the bloody shuttle, she’s taken us kilometers off course. I’ll have her court-martialed for this, you see if I don’t.”

“Where is the pilot, sir?” Ensign Tseng asked, with far more professionalism than Ram could have mustered in that moment.

“Probably still lounging about in the cockpit,” Dr. Ahmar said, waving his hand behind him as he walked. “The main thing is that we get away from the shuttle, for the time being.”

“Very well, sir,” Tseng said. “Everyone, come this way. Keep moving to our vehicles, please. This way, sir. This way, ma’am.”

“Is anyone else left onboard?” Ram asked.

The shuttle was riddled with holes and cracks, leaking vapor and fluid.

“Few injuries,” Dr. Ahmar said. “Few deaths. The older ones, you know. No time, though. Must think of the mission. Oh, it’s you. What the devil are you doing here?”

Ram ignored the man and hurried to the shuttle and climbed the side steps into the section between the cockpit and the passenger compartment. “Hello?” he shouted, broadcasting. “Anyone in here? Anyone need help?”

Smoke or dust swirled inside and it was dark. His enhanced eyes compensated for the gloom.

“In here.” A woman’s voice. His AugHud indicated the direction of her voice and he turned into the passenger compartment, where bodies moved in the darkness. Name tags floated over them.

“Lieutenant Xenakis?” Ram said to the form bent over someone laying in the aisle between the rows of seats.

The name over the body was one he recognized. Dr. Fo.

“Is he dead?” Ram asked the Lieutenant, who was the shuttle pilot.

“Nah,” the Lieutenant said, “scrawny old bastard’s tougher than he looks. Banged up pretty good though. Grab him, will you? Get him out of here.”

Ram picked up Fo, who weighed almost nothing, and carried him out of the shuttle. “Who else needs evacuating?”

“One wounded, Angela Kaaluyu. Come back and get her after. Three dead.”

Ram stepped back out into the morning sunlight, his eyes adjusting to the glare and the chatter on the comms system. The civilians were gathered in a tight group around Ensign Tseng down by the stream.

“Movement,” Corporal Fury said. She painted the location on the AugHud. “Enemy activity detected.”

“Prepare to fall back,” Ensign Tseng said. “We’ll load the civilians into the ETATs and head back to the outpost. Bring the vehicles up, make ready to provide cover for them.”

Ram placed the unconscious Dr. Fo onto the ground outside the shuttle. He scanned the cluster of civilians for medical skills and dragged the nearest designated first aider over to the wounded man.

“Why aren’t you administering first aid to the wounded already?” Ram said to her as he positioned by Fo. “Do your duty and look after this man. He is your responsibility, do you understand?”

Ram climbed the stairs again, paused in the doorway and looked out at the approaching enemy. No one in sight, so far, but the sentry drones were showing wheeler comms chatter and infrared signatures matching the alien movements.

“Stirling?” Ram sent a needlecast to the sergeant. “Tseng ordered a withdrawal back to the outpost. Premature, no? We could stand and fight. Push on through to save the others.”

Sergeant Stirling sent a private needlecast right back at Ram. “We might be disobeying the Captain but this team is commanded by Ensign Tseng. That being said, sir, I do agree with you. I’ll do what I can.”

The pilot shouted at him from inside. “You bloody playing with yourself or something, Seti? I’ve got wounded here.”

He picked up the injured woman to take her down to the ground. The pilot had tagged injury information to the woman’s name. It now read: Angela Kaaluyu. x2 broken legs? EVA suit intact. Lost consciousness 2143 Ship Time. 500mg oxyfenac via suit 2141.

“You’re very conscientious, Lieutenant Xenakis” Ram said to the pilot as she dived back into the cockpit.

She turned, hand braced on the door frame. “Out of all the bullshit military regulations, the emergency procedures make the most sense. And I told you before, Ram. Call me Kat, alright?”

“How’s the shuttle, Kat?” he asked.

“Trying to find out,” she said. “But it doesn’t look too bad, considering.”

He left Angela Kaaluyu next to Dr. Fo and spoke to the ensign on the team open comms channel. “We’re going to hold them off here, sir?” Ram asked Tseng.

“You deaf, Seti?” Tseng said. “We’re pulling back. We need to get these people to the outpost.”

“What about the others?” Ram said. “Our people that the wheelers are holding. We’ll never get another chance to save them.”

“Our priorities have changed,” Tseng said. “We now have twenty-four VIPs requiring extraction. A simple cost-benefit assessment will provide you with a logical conclusion.”

“Doesn’t look like many wheelers coming, does it?” Ram said. “Fury, can you see any aliens yet?”

“Yes, sir,” Fury said from her elevated position. “Check out my scope feed.”

Ram pulled the image from Fury’s rifle optics and blew it up to fill half his vision. It showed eight wheelers advancing in their spider-configuration, in two clusters. According to the range finder, they were still 2 km away.

“Only eight of them?” Ram said. “No sign of more?”

“That’s right,” Fury said. “I can start tapping them now, sir?”

“Negative,” Tseng said. “Hold your sniping, do not give away your position. Their reinforcements are a lot closer than ours are. We are abandoning this position, immediately. Get the wounded in the—”

“No you bloody well don’t.” The pilot, Kat, leaned out of her shuttle side door. “You’re not seriously talking about leaving the shuttle undefended, are you?”

Ram and the other Marines waited, wondering what Tseng would do. Initially, he made a tight sound like he was being strangled. Then he cleared his throat and answered on all channels, so that the civilians could hear him also. “The UNOP Marines chain of command supersedes that of the Ship officers when planetside and in a designated warzone. As these conditions are met, I am the ranking officer here and my orders are that we withdraw. When we do so, please be assured that we will contact the outpost and request ground and air support as we come in.”

“You don’t understand, Ensign,” the pilot said. “We have to protect this shuttle. No matter what.”

“I’m sure you are responsible for this thing but we have to remember the big picture, we have to look after our people first, Lieutenant,” Tseng said. “Our strength is in our personnel and we have—”

“Wrong, Lieutenant,” Xenakis said. “We need to save this shuttle so we can get a message to Admiral Howe in the Stalwart Sentinel.”

“Send a broadcast,” Tseng said. “If your shuttle comms is down, the outpost will get their system operational soon, if they haven’t already.”

“The wheeler ship is in orbit. It is blocking transmissions. It was destroying our satellites, if it hasn’t destroyed them all by now.”

Ram looked at the others. They were hesitating, just like he was.

“The Victory?” Ram said.

“Destroyed.” The pilot put her hands on her hips and stared down at them all. “This shuttle might be the one chance we have to save the Sentinel. If the incoming ships are taken out like the Victory, this outpost will not survive. I am not abandoning this vessel and if you have any sense you will do everything you can to help me.”

They looked at each other, the Marines were unsure.

“What about the rest of the crew?” Tseng said, his voice flat. “Did they evacuate?”

“Doesn’t seem like it, I’m sorry,” Kat said. “I was ordered to get these VIPs out. If I had to guess, I’d say they didn’t make it to the escape capsules. If they did, the wheelers probably shot them down. The fight didn’t last very long and we were running on alternative power after their beam weapons knocked us out. We’ve been dosing with antiradiation meds all the way down. Now we need to tell the Sentinel about the beam weapon before they fall to it, too.”

“How?” Tseng said. “How could this happen? They’re idiots. I mean, they’re useless on the ground. They outnumbered us on the ground, they had armored vehicles and mounted weapons. And they still couldn’t overrun the outpost. How could they possibly destroy the Victory?”

It wasn’t clear if he was being purely rhetorical but Kat answered him anyway. “Who knows, Ensign. I suppose they’re used to fighting in space but not on the ground? Anyway, the Sentinel is in danger. If the Sentinel falls, I doubt the Ashoka and the Genghis can stand when they arrive later. We’ll be without orbital support, the wheelers here will be reinforced, and the outpost will be destroyed. Game over all of us and for humanity in this system, for years, anyway.”

“Alright,” Ram said. “Let’s go take out those wheelers. Right, Ensign? We should take them out further up the valley, sir?”

Ram expected the man to equivocate and hesitate. Instead, he appeared decided. Tseng looked up the valley. “If they bring the jamming technology, we’ll lose comms before they get within five-hundred meters and AugHud soon after. We’ll have to use our signal lights and stay in visual contact. Stirling, I want you to take Flores and Cooper into the rough ground and push up through the side of the valley. When they’ve engaged with us, attack their flank. I’d like to take them all out but do not pursue.”

“Sir.” Stirling said. “Flank them. Don’t pursue if they pull out.”

“And don’t get cut off,” Tseng said. “If they are reinforced, fall back to here. I’ll have the civilians ready to retreat to the outpost and we’ll hold off the wheelers at the shuttle. Remember, they’re tactically straightforward, they only seem to attack in straight lines. Doesn’t mean they will this time. Despite what the pilot says, this isn’t a critical position. Alright, carry on, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.” Stirling said. “Flores, Cooper. Ammo up and come with me. You understand the objective?”

“Kill, Sarge,” Cooper said.

Flores was already at the rear of an ETAT, strapping extra magazines onto her webbing. “Kill, Sergeant Stirling.”

They jogged away, boots splashing across the streams, heading for the cover in the fallen boulders and cracked rocks from the jagged side of the valley. Ram wanted the chance to outflank with them. That would be where the action was. But he was too big to hide well and he was too slow and his mass ruined his stamina.

“Rest of you,” Tseng said. “We’ll push up, quickly. They’re almost in range. Lieutenant Xenakis, if I give you the signal to fall back, please ensure the civilians retreat to the outpost. But not before.”

“They’d be better off in my shuttle,” the pilot, Kat, said. “She’s banged up but she can take a hit from those weak as piss wheeler pop guns, no problem.”

Ram hustled forward, looking for a good position for his large caliber assault rifle. He would have to be the key for the fire team. Tseng had his sidearm. Corporal Fury would pick the wheelers off with her gigantic sniper rifle. Harris was the only other one who would put down automatic fire.

Ram jogged a few steps before his comms system failed. Tseng and Kat were arguing behind him, Fury moved out to the raised ground to find an elevated forward position, while Harris kicked his way up the snaking streams.

The wheelers crept into view. Their black-clad forms stalking obliquely across the top of the narrow valley, visible only because they moved. Revulsion flooded through him. The aliens turned his stomach. The way their legs flexed, rising and falling, creeping forward like enormous spiders made his guts sour and his skin sweat. The urge to open up on them immediately was almost overwhelming and he crouched against the nearest boulder that was bigger than he was, aimed down his optics, changed the fire mode from safe to burst and put his finger on the trigger.

Somehow, he resisted pushing the button.

They wanted the wheelers to get close, to give Stirling’s fire team a chance to attack them on the flank. As Ram looked that way, tracking their progress through the jagged rocks, his AugHud blinked off and on again, the wheeler’s interference building rapidly until it was so disrupted that Ram switched it off anyway so that it would not distract him.

Since pulling it on, his EVA armor had rarely felt like it restricted him or blocked him off from the world. If anything, it enhanced him. It linked him to the people in his team and those beyond and to the constant stream of data about air temperature, humidity, time of day, his own biometric data and that of the other Marines. Without all that data streaming in, he felt panicked. Alone.

Harris was in sight on one side. Tseng crept up on the other. Fury was somewhere beyond Tseng but they were all in sight of one other. Ram relaxed a little, listening to the sound of his own breathing and the beating of his heart in his ears while the eight aliens crept closer.

Ram gripped his custom assault rifle tight. Checked the large drum magazine was feeding correctly. Scanned the approach with his optics. The floor of the valley was littered with rubble and boulders that had tumbled from the sides or rolled from the top, some of the rocks were huge, five meters high and more.

He waited. Water seeped round the rocks under his knees. The rocks were strangely oily and porous, leaving some kind of slick residue on his gloves, on his suit. Under his boot, there was a dark red, spongy substance. It took him a moment to work out he was kneeling in some native Arcadian life. Unless it was part of the biologists’ plan to seed the planet with Earth bacteria. How would Ram even know? Slime was slime. He reached down to touch the stuff, prodded it with the tip of his finger.

A weapon blast echoed through the valley. Ram looked up at the wheelers charging down the slope toward his position.

It was Corporal Fury, shooting her sniper rifle. The shot slammed into one of the wheelers, folding them over with the impact. Her next shot echoed around as Harris opened fire with his rifle. The aliens wheeled away, looking for cover and not even returning fire.

Ram braced himself against the boulder beside him and snapped off a burst at the nearest wheeler as it flipped fully upright and accelerated away back up the slope. His first couple of bursts missed but he recovered in time to wing it, maybe, before it disappeared from view.

He had an urge to get up and charge at them but it was his job to just hold them down, hold them in position. The XRS-Handspear felt perfect in his hands, the recoil and vibration were familiar. Fury’s huge rifle kept up a good rate of fire, single shots blowing chunks of rock into the air with every round.

In the outpost attack, the aliens had used their pistol weapons and had supporting fire from some sort of mortar and direct fire high caliber weapons on their Wildcat tanks. But Ram couldn’t tell if the wheelers were shooting back at them at all.

A hand smacked him on the shoulder and Ram whipped an arm round, smacking into his attacker. Ensign Tseng fell sprawling onto his face.

Ram helped him up, apologizing.

“Are you deaf?” Tseng shouted as he got to his feet. “I was shouting your name, you idiot.”

“I think the jammed comms system works best at close range when you’re looking at each other.”

Tseng’s eyes were wide as dinner plates. “Save your excuses, Seti. They’re pulling back already. They’re just running. We’re going to pursue, alright. You stay here and cover us. I’m getting Harris, we’ll go get the ETATs and pick you and Fury up and then the other team. We’ll follow these morons back to their HQ.”

“Alright,” Ram said but the ensign was already running over to Harris’ position. Both men ran, fast, down the stream to the shuttle.

It didn’t take them long to come racing back up the valley to collect everyone and start chasing the retreating wheelers.

“As much as I want to rescue our people,” Ram said from the back of his ETAT, “don’t you think it’s possible they’re just trying to draw us in?”

“Of course they could be,” Tseng said. “But it’s worth the risk nevertheless. It is my belief that the wheelhunters have demonstrated themselves to be incompetent at ground warfare. Again and again. I doubt them capable of setting an ambush or it even occurring to them. All the same, keep your eyes peeled.”

“They’re not close enough to disrupt the AugHuds anymore,” Cooper said.

“Don’t depend on that,” Stirling said. “They could turn that off, whatever it is.”

“Yeah,” Harris said. “Obviously.”

“What are the VIPs going to do?” Ram asked Tseng.

“When we collected the ETATs, Kat Xenakis was arguing with the scientists. They wanted to leave on foot and she was ordering them to stay and help her repair the shuttle.”

Ram nodded. “What did you say to them?”

The wall of hills rose up quite suddenly over a final rise and they faced another jagged, sloping cliff with tumbles of broken rocks sheared off, all glistening and slick with clear water, so the black was shining where it reflected the high, bright sun.

“We’ll stop here,” Tseng said. “Right up behind there.” They stopped tight against an overhang and unloaded their gear while they turned the ETATs around to face them downhill, ready to escape back to the shuttle. “Our map shows an entrance to the lava tube sixty-eight meters along this cliff face. The hostages’ location signals corresponded with this area in the brief time they were broadcast. We are in the right place.”

The team nodded, flexing their limbs, warming their muscles and sipping water and gluco-nutrient gels inside their helmets while they listened. Tseng continued, looking at each of them in turn.

“We’ll attempt to avoid detection and will only engage the enemy when we are first engaged but we don’t expect the infiltration phase to last long. We’ll be entering an enclosed space and engaging in close quarters combat. Fury, find a position to cover our approach and the ETATs. Stirling, you’ll take Flores and Cooper up to the entrance. Me, Seti and Harris will advance, bounce around you and proceed inside. Our priority is locating and extracting prisoners. Stirling, your team will secure the exit and retain visual contact with Fury unless you need to support me and my team. Ideally, we would have someone at the tube entrance but I leave it up to you. Everyone understand?”

Ram watched everyone nodding their heads. He had to admit to himself that Ensign Tseng wasn’t completely incompetent. Still, there was that nagging feeling that Tseng was not being completely honest with them.

“Alright, good,” Tseng continued. “Listen, we all knew this mission would be a long shot. I didn’t expect us to get this far but now we’re here, we do have a chance of performing a rescue. I do believe the wheelhunters we’re facing are not effective warriors. Perhaps they’re not real soldiers. Perhaps they’re scientists with guns. Or a militia or something. Or war in their culture is simply not performed effectively. But we need to be aware of two things. They are physically superior to all of us. Except Mr. Seti, of course. Do not stand and engage with them. Secondly, we’re entering an unknown situation. Realistically, it is unlikely we will locate the prisoners or be able to extract them if we do. Even in the best circumstances, hostage rescues result in more negative outcomes than any other mission type. Just the fact that we are here is a credit to the moral character of each of us. Whatever happens, I expect we will give the enemy a bloody nose and then we will be retreating rapidly and under fire. Any questions?”

Ram raised a hand. “Can I have a private word, Ensign Tseng?”

The man looked annoyed but he waved Ram to him and walked a few paces away, switching comms to a private needlecast.

“Something wrong, Seti?” Tseng said. “Having second thoughts?”

“I’m going in there and I’m going to kill as many of those disgusting animals as I can,” Ram said. “But you have to know this is crazy. You were against this from the start but you went along with it, for some reason. And now you’re gunning for it, like a madman. You want this. Why?”

“I’m a professional. Like I already said, I knew this was unlikely to be successful. I thought we would be running home before now. But we’re here. And the wheelhunters are cowards. I think we can do this. But we’re exposed here, we have to hurry.”

Tseng turned to go.

Ram grabbed him by the arm.

The ensign yanked back but he was as weak as a baby compared to Ram. The man’s head came up to Ram’s chest. There was no chance that he would escape.

But he was fast. With his free hand he drew his sidearm, twisted away and brought it to bear on Ram’s face.

Ram was slow compared to the Marines. They weren’t engineered from birth like he was but they were physically enhanced through in vivo gene editing and surgical improvements so Ram’s reaction time advantages over a vanilla human was largely negated. His new body was lighter than his last one, but Ram’s arms had so much more mass than was necessary. But he did have reach in his favor. He grabbed Tseng’s wrist, twisted the weapon from his grasp and clamped on to his forearm, giving the man a hard shake for good measure.

“Take your hands off me. Now. I’ll have you court martialed.” Tseng spoke with force but there was an edge of fear in his voice and his eyes were white all the way round.

I’m a murderer.

“You sold us out,” Ram said and Tseng’s face twitched, in shock or anger or something. What was most telling was that he covered it up, tried to hide it. Ram switched to an all-team broadcast. “You sold us out, didn’t you. When did you give us away? Had to be before we left, right?” Ram shook him, hard. Hard enough to hurt, even through his armor. “I know you did, you must have done. Are you still in contact? Was it Cassidy? If you have a line to Command, you use it now. Call in reinforcements. Call in drone support, at least. Come on, Tseng, it’s alright. We don’t care that you sold us out, we’re doing this anyway so you might as well help us. We need all the help we can get, right?”

Ram turned to the rest of the team.

They all had their weapons pointed at him. All except Corporal Fury, who was covering the approach.

“Come on, guys,” Ram said. “You know it’s the truth.”

“That may be,” Stirling said. “But you take your hand off him, sir.”

Ram knew they meant it. They weren’t the sort of Marines to point their weapons at someone unless they were willing to use them. All the same, if he let Tseng go, the man could weasel out of admitting it. And he had to admit it or else Ram would lose face. Lose respect. It might have been too late already.

“No,” Ram said. “Not until Ensign Tseng calls in reinforcements.”

“I can’t,” Tseng said, still squirming in Ram’s grip.

“Please, sir,” Stirling said. There was pleading in his voice. Ram was surprised to realize the Marines were afraid. Surely, they weren’t afraid for the Ensign, who they did not appear to like or particularly respect.

They’re afraid of me.

Ram guessed they were afraid he had snapped again. Would kill Tseng like he’d killed Bediako. They had seen the punishment he’d taken in the Arena, they probably thought that Ram could take some of them out, protected by his armor, before they brought him down. With his XRS-Handspear, he probably could.

“Alright,” Ram said. “This has escalated more than I planned. We don’t have time for this. But you need to stop lying, Tseng. Okay? You have to be honest with us. You owe us that. Not me, alright, okay. But you owe it to them.”

Tseng nodded.

Ram let him go and took a symbolic step back. A step that took him over Tseng’s discarded sidearm, just to be sure.

“You’re not officer material,” Tseng said, flexing his shoulder and wrist. “You’re not mentally equipped to—”

“Alright, sir!” Stirling said. “We need to move out, now. Can you call in support for us, yes or no?”

Tseng scowled. “I already did.”

Ram sighed.

The Marines put up their weapons. Flores and Cooper moved up to support Fury in covering the approach.

“When?” Stirling said. “What are we getting? Sir.”

“At the shuttle, I called in our position. They said they’d send drone support for us.”

“Alright,” Stirling said, nodding. “Support is on the way, then. Let’s get on with this, people.”

“Wait,” Ram said, making a show of scanning the empty skies. “The drones would be here by now, if they were coming. Who did you speak to?”

“Sergeant Gruger,” Tseng said.

“Do you trust him?” Ram asked.

“He’s a Marine,” Tseng said. “A career Sergeant. He’s Cassidy’s man. If he said he will send support, he will.”

Ram and Stirling exchanged a look.

“Did you call in our position last night?” Ram asked Tseng. The ensign said nothing, which Ram took for confirmation. “They were supposed to come that first night, weren’t they? That’s what they said when you sold us out. Right? Go with us and they’d pick us up that first night out, before we got too far? That way, I don’t know. That way they’d have proof we’d betrayed our orders or whatever they were going to do to spin the story. But they didn’t come. You were disappointed. You felt bitter about it. What makes you think they’re coming now?”

Tseng didn’t have an answer.

“You sold us out before we ever left, to get into Cassidy’s good books again. But instead, they sold you out, Ensign,” Ram said, brutally. “Cassidy. Zuma. They’re playing some bigger game and you’re still not invited. You got played.”

“Alright, sir, that’s enough,” Stirling said. “For now. We have to move.”

“They sold you out, Tseng,” Ram continued. “So that means you really and truly are one of us now. You understand? They’re not going to give you whatever they promised you but it’s alright because you’re one of us. You have nowhere else to go. We’ll stick with you. We’ll follow your orders because you’re a good officer, and you know we’re doing the right thing. Right, guys?”

“That’s right,” Stirling said. The others chorused it.

Tseng straightened up, nodded. Ram retrieved Tseng’s sidearm and handed it over. And he felt kind of goofy doing it, but he gave the ensign a proper salute.

“Come on,” Tseng said, turning and grabbing a rifle from the back of his ETAT. “Stirling, carry on.”

Stirling, Cooper and Flores advanced over the scree and broken ground, advancing on the lava tube entrance. It was out of sight behind a gigantic outcrop that stuck out of the slanting cliff face like the prow of a titanic ship. The Marines were tiny in comparison, little figures darting forward, covering each other as they advanced.

When they reached the base of the outcrop, Stirling turned and waved. Tseng waved back and they moved out, leaving Fury to watch over their getaway cars and all their gear.

Ram crunched down the broken shards of stone, following Harris and Tseng, hugging his battle rifle. He felt ready.

The AugHuds went down before they were halfway there. Either the wheelers were waiting for them or they had a permanent field around themselves.

The opening of the lava tube was about six meters across and about four meters high. The bottom of the tube buried under piles of scree that the aliens had cleared away. The ground was slippery and uneven in the approach and there was no way the wheelers had used the route for their vehicles. They must have utilized other exits from the lava tube network for their attacks on the outpost. Ram was relieved he would be unlikely to have to fight a tank but it might mean they’d be in entirely the wrong part of the complex when looking for the prisoners, who were taken away in the Wheelbug APC type of vehicles.

Stirling’s team advanced to the edge of the tube, feet sliding in the loose ground. The sergeant crouched against the wall, held his rifle ready and peered inside, darting his head in and back out. He paused then looked inside down the sights on his rifle, standing and bracing himself on the side.

He turned and gestured for Tseng to proceed.

Ram crunched after the ensign and Harris, passing Stirling and the others with a nod, his rifle ready as he rotated inside the lava tube.

It was dark within. He didn’t know what he expected. His eyes were superb in low light conditions but not in no-light conditions. The armor clicked and his visor flicked a new layer down over the old one, bringing the inside of the tube into grainy focus. The squat tunnel stretched away into what first of all looked like an infinite blackness but when they’d pushed inside a few steps, he saw it was a sharp turn in the tunnel a little way inside.

He hurried forward, finger on the trigger, to the inside bend and hugged the wall as he advanced. Harris and Tseng hurried behind him. The ground leveled out and the footing got firmer. Up ahead, reflecting from the walls and ceiling, there was light. Not bright white light but a dim glow like moonlight in midsummer or the oppressive dull grey skies before a monsoon downpour. His armor picked up sounds, clanking metal and repetitive tapping. Static fizzed in his comms system from a range of bands and he silenced the whole thing.

Harris hustled around him, taking position in front so that he had a clear line of sight and Ram could fire over him. Tseng stayed in the back.

The tunnel curved further and then straightened up.

Wheelhunters.

The tunnel kept going straight but now, between the walls, alien equipment. Boxes, tables, rods, wheels. Light from ceiling lamps bathing everything in infrared.

In amongst it all, wheelers worked. At least six of them, rather small compared to the ones he had seen before. All wearing the black, flexible suits. Working busily at the sides of the tunnel, a couple in the spider configuration but most in the upright wheel form, their long arms tapping and filing away at tools or weapons or something on the benches at the edges.

The sight of them took his breath away. Alien creatures, so seemingly different and vile, like a giant spider crab cross bred with a lizard. Animals with no heads, no eyes. Creatures so wrong they made you want to vomit and run away. Yet there they were, working quietly away, individually. At work benches, just as a human might. Just as humans had done for thousands of years, all over the Earth.

Harris took aim at the nearest one.

Ram slowly placed a hand on Harris shoulder, who lowered his weapon a fraction by way of acknowledgment.

They might never get a better chance to kill so many wheelers at once. They had the drop on them.

But something felt wrong.

Where had the eight patrol members gone? Had they come through this way? Were they in a side chamber, waiting to roll out, guns blazing? Murdering the six before them seemed easy enough but what would the consequences be of coming in shooting?

They looked so harmless. As harmless as a seven-feet tall alien monster could look. Surely, they were engineers, not soldiers.

Ram stepped forward, in front of Harris. He pointed his rifle in the air and held his other arm out to one side.

“Hello,” Ram said, his comms set to external projection.

The wheelers flinched and stopped. All six of them froze what they were doing. The nearest one was the first to move, creeping back to the others.

Ram could sense Harris and Tseng behind him, squirming and furious but they held their fire. For now.

One of the ones behind raised a three-fingered hand and pointed the three claws at Ram.

“I know we’re enemies,” Ram said. “But we’re just here for our friends. We just want to take our friends and go. You know, friends? Like us? The ones you took when—”

A terrible sound pierced his head. His words turned into a cry of pain as his joints and nerves seemed to be on fire all over his body. The scene before him dissolved into darkness.

Then it was gone. Just the echo of pain remained, humming in his limbs. His sight returned.

He found himself slumped, down on one knee and leaning on his weapon. Harris and Tseng were sprawled on the floor.

Snapping up his gun, he saw the wheelers were gone.

Tseng and Harris took longer to get to their feet and Ram covered them while they did so.

“They’re gone,” Ram said, using external audio. “We need to hurry.”

“What weapon is that?” Tseng said. “Radiation?”

“We irradiated?” Harris said, panic rising in his voice.

“No. Electromagnetic stun weapon,” Ram said, checking the rad counter on his wrist. It had registered a spike but just on the danger line. “Has to be. Come on.”

They ventured inward. Harris went first, then Tseng with Ram at the rear again.

“What were you thinking?” Tseng said. Ram began to answer but Tseng cut him off. “I don’t care what you were thinking. Wait for orders next time.”

I will if you give any.

“Alright,” Ram said. “Ensign.”

Alien equipment lined the tunnel. Every few meters, sections of tunnel were partitioned by thin screens made from something. The aliens used metals that were silvered like stainless steel or mirrored as if they were chromium infused or polished to an incredible shine. Other equipment was dark, blacks or non-reflective surfaces. There was no color to anything, even under a ceiling light or their armor lamps.

“Why are they letting us inside so far?” Harris said.

“Quiet,” Tseng hissed, their voices echoing off the walls.

A door.

Ram saw it after the others had walked past. A doorway, cut into the rock on the side of the tunnel and fitted with a door so flush that the outline was barely discernible. But it was there, highlighted in his infrared vision. Rectangular, a meter wide by two or three high. The partitioned section they were walking through was the longest one yet and the equipment lining the walls included hooks sticking from the rock and curving struts coming out of the floor with wide, shallow bowls on top. On the other side, another door.

By now, his team mates had reversed course to where Ram investigated.

“Doors,” Ram said. “Do you see them? Check further up for more. Actually, we may have passed some already, why don’t you go ahead, Ensign and Harris you head back and see if there are more.”

There were.

“Entrances to the other sections,” Harris said, pointing his rifle at the one Ram stood at. “That’s where the soldier ones are hiding.”

“Prison cells,” Ram said. “They’re prison cells.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tseng said, sneering. “Wishful thinking. Probably storage areas. Closets.”

“Only one way to find out,” Ram said and without waiting for orders, he slipped the fingers of one hand into the gaps around the tall door, looking for a catch.

“Hurry up, if you’re going to do it,” Tseng said, covering with Harris.

Ram pushed his visor against the door, looking for a way to open it.

How would a wheeler operate a door?

A wheelhunter clawed hand jerked out of the door. Ram lurched away and staggered back in surprise. The door had a small hatch near the center and a wheeler arm was thrust through it, waving around looking for someone to grab, for someone to eviscerate.

“Don’t shoot,” Ram shouted, as Harris and Tseng took aim. “It’s stuck in there.”

The others hesitated.

“If it could get out, it would have opened the door,” Ram said.

Harris nodded in agreement and turned to cover the tunnel. The wheeler arm reached along the door as if it was trying to open it from the outside.

Ram walked up to it.

“Stop,” Tseng hissed. “What in the world are you doing?”

Ram ignored him and stopped just beyond what he guessed was the arm’s reach. He’d spent hundreds of hours fighting wheelers in Avar and he could tell by the arm size that this wheeler was another one of the little ones. He wasn’t afraid of it. He had faced a three-meter-plus monster one without a gun, without armor and he’d won. It had killed him but he’d won.

“No one fire,” Ram said. “It’s trying to get out.”

“Okay, fine,” Tseng said. “Leave it, let’s move on.”

“Wait a sec,” Ram said. “Why is it locked in?”

“Maybe it’s an idiot and the door shut behind him,” Harris said.

“Cover me,” Ram said. “I’m going to go in there.”

“You will not.”

“Believe me, I can handle it,” Ram said.

“You can’t even get in.”

Ram stopped. “Yeah.”

The wheeler arm seemed to be reaching for something at the side of the door, on the wall. Reaching, maybe.

Pointing?

There was something there. On the wall, a stick of some kind of rod. He grabbed it and lifted it off the wall. He stuck the narrower end into the gap and twisted. The wheeler pulled its arm back inside.

“Get ready,” Ram said.

He slung his rifle over his back and drew his sword.

“Why are you doing this?” Tseng said.

“Don’t shoot it,” Ram said. “I’m stronger than these little ones, alright? The noise might bring them to us.”

“Where are they?” Harris said. “The bastards.”

Ram pulled the door open, sword held in front of him. The room inside was small, the sides hacked from the rock in rough chunks. At the back, just a couple of paces away, the wheeler crouched low, three legs a side with the arms held out to Ram, the clawed fingers spread wide. It seemed to be pressing itself into the floor.

“It’s alright,” Ram said, holding the point of his sword down but ready to flick it up at any moment. “Don’t be afraid.” He could almost feel Tseng rolling his eyes behind him but Ram knew the wheelers were capable of fear, even if they couldn’t possibly understand his words. He’d felt it, somehow, in the shaking and desperate struggle for its life that the Orb Station Zero wheelhunter had fought in the Arena. “Don’t be afraid, I just want to help you. Did they lock you up? Did you do something wrong? I’m looking for human prisoners.” Ram pointed at himself and then out in the corridor. “Human prisoners, like me.” He pointed at himself and then at the walls of the room around him. “People like me, in here.”

The wheeler moved.

Ram whipped his sword point up to the wheeler’s hub.

It froze. Ram waited to see what it would do.

Keeping its hands spread and flat to the ground, the wheeler slowly crept forward, lifting one foot at a time. Ram backed up, letting it come forward.

“You’re not letting it out,” Tseng said. “I’ll kill it before I let it out here with me.”

“Tseng, I’m telling you I can kill this one with my bare hands before it will hurt us, leave it alone. Just wait. Just wait, alright.”

Ram backed all the way out into the corridor and the wheeler followed, creeping forward like a six-legged spider, the arms coming out of the hub on the top and the bottom as if they were held out to Ram. Held out and spread low as if to demonstrate it was unarmed and not dangerous.

“It’s a trick,” Tseng said as they backed out of the way.

“Harris,” Ram said. “Keep covering the approach but get over here. I don’t want this thing getting between us.”

“Sir.” Harris backed over to their side of the tunnel while the wheeler crept out into the center. It kept going, further up the tunnel and deeper into the wheelhunter complex.

“It’s getting away,” Tseng said. “I won’t let it escape.”

“The others must have raised the alarm by now,” Ram said, watching the wheeler back away slowly up the tunnel. “I don’t think we’re in danger of counter attack.”

“Might be on their way, sir,” Harris said. “These lava tubes run for hundreds of klicks.”

“What about the ones we chased in here?” Ram said, keeping pace with the alien.

“But did they actually come in this entrance, though?” Harris said.

“What is all this stuff?” Tseng said.

They walked past benches heaving with equipment, some of it bubbling and fizzing inside metal cylinders. Ram used his sword to poke the lid off one, while watching the wheeler to see how it would react. It didn’t seem to do anything.

“Leave their science experiments alone,” Tseng said. “Are you insane?”

“I’m in hermetically sealed armor, I’m not going to get infected.”

“I’ll remember you said that when you grow a second head.”

“I’m already on my second head,” Ram said, peering inside the container. It was too dark to see well but it seemed like some sort of red foamy broth, thick enough to have large bubbles forming slowly on the surface. He moved on, after the wheeler, who scuttled over to the next section and reached for something up on the workbench at the side of the tunnel.

“Stop!” Ram ran to it and held the sword to its hub. The thing stopped and slowly lowered its arm. “Move over there.” He gestured with the point. “Over there, you idiot.” It didn’t move.

“What was it going for?” Tseng asked from behind his weapon.

Ram glanced at the bench. His legs felt weak as he reached out for it.

“One of our civilian EVA suits.”

Harris growled. “Jesus.”

Ram pinched a bit of it and lifted it up. There was something heavy inside that slowly oozed out. “It’s filled with blood. Old blood, maybe some skin and other tissue. Maybe a couple of liters of the stuff, a day old? I don’t know. I’m going to take a sample.” He popped a medical container on his webbing, emptied bandages and drugs, then spooned in a few fingers of blood and some stringy stuff that might have been shreds of skin or twisted, sodden hair.

Was this you, Milena? Oh fuck, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

“Well,” Tseng said. “At least we know what happened to them.”

Ram turned on him. “We don’t fucking know anything.”

“Let’s kill this thing,” Harris said.

“What are you talking about?” Ram said. “It showed us this. It understood why we’re here and it helped us. It showed us this, don’t you see?” Ram sheathed his sword and crouched in front of the wheeler. It flinched. “Where are the others?”

It didn’t move.

“There’s a door here,” Harris said. “Two doors.”

“Watch him,” Ram said and he searched for the rod keys and pried the doors open. Both were small cells, like the one that had held the wheeler. Inside the first he found Jane Munroe, the biologist. She was in her EVA suit but her helmet was gone. She was dead.

He was relieved it wasn’t Milena inside.

“Someone’s coming,” Harris said, just as Ram opened the second door, his hands shaking.

As soon as he saw the figure inside, he knew it wasn’t Milena. It was a man. Inside his EVA suit.

“He’s alive,” Ram said. “It’s the physicist. Zachery Arthur. He’s out of it but his heart and respiration—”

Harris screamed a warning. “We’ve got incoming.”

“Alright,” Ram said from inside the cell while picking up Arthur. “Hold your fire until—”

Tseng and Harris started shooting. Their rifles firing rapid bursts that filled the tunnel with a wall of booming, echoing noise before his armor or his ear implants compensated. Ram threw the physicist over his shoulder and peeped out. The muzzle flashes half-blinded him, showing the Marines shooting straight along the lava tube.

The wheeler crept away toward the exit, slinking low beneath the weapon’s fire. Ram let it go.

“Withdraw,” Ram shouted. He doubted the Marines could hear him. “Come on.”

An explosion smashed the wall apart near his head. Another blew a shower of rock chips from the ceiling down onto his armored head. The rounds shredded the equipment all around them and ricochets clanged off his suit. Ram ran, carrying the civilian for five meters or so then put him on the ground behind a sturdy-looking metal tub the height of a normal human. Ram crouched behind it, looking out.

Wheelers rolled forward, shooting as they came. In just a couple of seconds, Ram saw three, four aliens fall but there were more behind, a black mass boiling out of the darkness.

Tseng turned and ran back down the tube away from the aliens.

“Keep going,” Ram shouted and unslung his rifle. “Now, you, Harris. Get the civilian out.”

When the Marines were behind him, Ram fired. The XRS-Handspear punched back into his shoulder, over and over. It was like fighting, wrestling. Like being stomped on by one of the old subjects. The weapon shredded the wheelers, punched into them and through them, ripping them apart. Ram was showered with debris. A round slapped off his helmet, knocking his head back and ruining his aim.

Milena was in the tunnel somewhere. In another room nearby. She had to be. Ram slowed his rate of fire to conserve the remaining ammo in his magazine. The wheelers surged forward and Ram opened up again.

Click.

As he swapped in his remaining magazine, supporting fire came from behind him, picking off a charging wheeler, knocking it flat.

Ram ran toward the aliens. He couldn’t leave without her.

He was hit in the chest. A detonation that knocked him off his feet and left him fighting for breath. One of the aliens rolled up to him, towering above where he lay but Ram had his rifle in hand and he ripped the creature in half, blood and quivering organs splashing out from the hub onto Ram’s feet.

More alien rounds hit him as he got to one knee, rounds that hurt him—bad— so he dived forward and fired from a prone position. Too low to the ground to hit the aliens in cover on the sides of the lava tube, the ones hiding amongst the science and engineering equipment. But the ones in the center went down like dominoes.

When his rifle clicked empty, he turned and ran for cover, trying to keep as low as he could. He knew he was a giant target, he knew he would get hit. And he did. A round hit high on his back, sent him sprawling face down for a minute. He had to keep moving. Lurching to his feet, he tried to keep to the side of the tunnel. The Marines kept the aliens off his back with bursts.

Ram caught up to the others. Tseng had the unconscious physicist on his shoulder but he was struggling to shoot.

“Give him to me,” Ram said, just as Tseng was shot in the knee.

Ram’s armor had protected him. It was thicker and heavier than the standard issue. Tseng’s leg seemed to burst and he fell.

Harris shouted something while Ram scooped up the fallen civilian and Tseng, who was screaming from his throat, his teeth clenched.

While the private provided covering fire, Ram jogged away with a man on each shoulder. It hurt him to breathe and his rifle banged on his lower back and the top of his legs on one side and his sword smacked into his hip and thigh on the other side with every step.

The wheeler sprang up out of the shadows. Ram stumbled and hesitated. It was the one from the cell.

“Get back, sir,” Stirling shouted.

The sergeant, Flores and Cooper were there, aiming at it. Ram was in the way. The wheeler prostrated itself.

“Stop,” Ram shouted. “It helped us. This one helped us, it was a prisoner or something. Don’t shoot it. It is running away from the others.”

Stirling hesitated, as well he might. “Flores, Cooper. Get Harris out.” They ran by Ram and the alien. “Really think I need to shoot it, sir.”

“It’s unarmed and it helped us. We can take it prisoner. Take it back. Do not shoot it.”

“How do we take it prisoner, sir?” Stirling said.

“Don’t know. Just let it go for now. We need to evacuate the wounded and fall back.”

“Sir,” Stirling said, nodding at the civilian on Ram’s shoulder. “No one else?”

“Let’s go.”

They fell back, the wheelhunter freed from the cell followed right behind them while the hostile ones were kept at bay with continuous covering fire. Ram kept moving, one foot in front of the other, hearing the blast of guns and grenades detonating over the sound of his labored breathing.

Then. Up ahead, a bright light tinged with a red-orange glow.

“Exit,” Ram said, mostly to himself. “Come on.”

He staggered out into a beautiful sunset. The green-blue sky was smeared in the west with layered pastels in yellow, orange and red over the jagged black horizon. A hard wind whipped down from the ridge above, powerful enough to stagger him and force him to brace against it.

Corporal Fury, acting on her initiative, had decided to bring the ETATs directly up to the lava tube. She had her enormous rifle braced atop the roll bars, ready to pop anyone following the Marines.

“Don’t shoot the wheeler that’s with us,” Ram shouted at her while he loaded the unconscious physicist and the wounded Tseng onto one of the vehicles.

“With you, sir?” Fury asked. “Oh, shit me.”

There wasn’t much time for discussion so Ram made sure to shout at everyone to let the wheeler come with them.

It seemed liked madness but he grabbed the wrist of the wheeler where it cowered at his feet and pulled it onto the flatbed, which pitched up in front with the weight of it pushing down the suspension at the back. The alien climbed on with ease and folded itself up like a spider in a hole.

Stirling wanted to tie it up first but there was no time. The wheeler soldiers were coming close behind. And that was not all.

“Wheelhunter forces incoming from the north and the south,” Fury said. “Looks like vehicles. Wildcats and Wheelbugs.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Stirling shouted. “Everyone on, now.”

“You’re too heavy,” Cooper shouted from the driver’s seat. “Kick that piece of shit off.”

Ram jumped off himself and ran to the other vehicle. “Swap with me,” he said to Fury, who did not protest and instead crouched next to the hideous alien as they raced downhill. Everyone who was able to fired their weapon at the wheelers that rolled out of the lava tube behind them.

Wheeler vehicles came up over the sides of the ridges on either side then plunged down after them. The Wheelbugs seemed to be APCs but were big enough to crush the ETATs. The Wildcats were armed with a plasma weapon on top and incoming rounds smashed into the rocks around them. Others rattled the frames of the ETATs.

Stirling got hit on the head by something and slumped over. Dazed, at least. Maybe worse.

Marines shouted recommendations for the best routes down the mountain to each other.

“Go left, Cooper, you fucking idiot. No, left!”

Up ahead, down at the bottom of the slope, a jagged wall came closer.

“You’re going to have to get out of this valley,” Ram shouted. “Up and over the side.”

“We can’t,” Cooper shouted back. “There’s no way out.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“We are leaving,” Dr. Ahmar said. “Right now.”

“You can’t,” Kat said, standing in front of the group mutinying against her. She wasn’t sure it was technically a mutiny but then, that was the point in contention.

She stood halfway up the cargo ramp while most of the VIPs clustered together at the base.

Lieutenant Tseng and his men had raced off away from the Lepus up the hill after the retreating wheelers. In the lull after the brief contact with the enemy, the civilians had decided to act.

“Well, I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I am sorry but I can. I can and I will. You may be in charge of the shuttle,” Ahmar said. “But we are on the surface now. And yes, I know, yes, we all know we are on the surface thanks to your efforts but on the surface we are. And if there is one thing I know, it’s the surface of planets. Now, if you do not mind, we are making our way, on foot, to the outpost. We shall be picked up by your colleagues on the way.”

They had gone over it enough times and Kat was sick of hearing about it. “I need you.”

“You may stay with your shuttle,” Ahmar said. “That is perfectly alright with me.”

Kat laughed in his face then turned to the wounded man propped up against the wall of the cargo compartment. “Dr. Fo, please can you talk some sense into your colleague? Aren’t you his superior or something?”

The tiny, wizened old biologist grinned behind his helmet visor. “Superior in intellect, certainly—”

“Ha!” Dr. Ahmar, Head of Planetary Science, exclaimed.

“— but not, I am sad to say, in any legal, organizational, hierarchical sense,” Dr. Fo continued. “And Ahmar would not listen, even if I had such authority. Back on Earth, when I was UNOP Director of Science, he was one of my department heads. The man spent more time attempting to undermine me than actually implementing his departmental strategy so I have no doubt—”

“Oh, please,” Ahmar shouted. “You’re paranoid and senile. You should never have been allowed on this mission, it has quite ruined what little intellect still remained and left you this demented shell of the scientist you once claimed to—”

“Doctors, please!” Kat shouted. The only sound was Fo’s cackling laugh. Kat could quite believe the old man was out of his mind. “Everyone is stressed. Tired. Injured. Everyone is afraid. I know I am. The animals in us want to run, want to hide. Want to play dead.” She raised her voice over the protestations and objections. “But you’re all scientists. Or engineers. Or administrators. You’re capable people. And I need you. The mission needs you. Help me patch up the shuttle and we can fly her back to the outpost. You can step off this baby in style or you can trudge for two or three days through hostile country, carrying all your water, all your rations. You ready for that? Up and down these bloody hills, over rocks that are like a bunches of knife blades. Really? Your suits are going to recycle some of your sweat, your respiration. Did any of you do the survival course in these suits? Yeah? How long were you in your suit for, a day? Half a day? You’re not all going to make it if you stroll out of here. Maybe none of you will make it.”

“You can’t scare us into helping you,” Dr. Ahmar said. “We are making a rational choice, for the greater good. Come on, everyone.”

He turned and strode through the group, reassuring the others.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Kat muttered to herself. Annoyed at herself for being unable to reason with them and having to resort to violence.

She drew her personal defense weapon, the short but powerful P300.

Aimed it just over the group and squeezed off a burst.

The P300 was a brutal weapon. Good for medium (supposedly) and short range. Medium caliber and power cartridge. But the rate of fire was insane and her burst was brief but sprayed a dozen rounds over Ahmar’s head.

No one likes firearms being discharged in their general direction. Senior, VIP, civilian, scientists most of all. They flinched, ducked. A few dived to the ground.

Dr. Ahmar, to his credit, merely hunched his head into his neck and froze.

“For the greater good,” Kat said into the silence. “For the greater good, you will all assist me to get this shuttle flying.”

Ahmar jabbed a finger at her. “You’ll be finished for this. Your position gives you no right to just—”

“Do you really need me to explain it again? I must deliver the data to the Sentinel or our battleship will be destroyed. Without the Sentinel, the other ships in the approaching fleet will be lost, too. The Ashoka and the Genghis are state of the art, cutting edge and extremely powerful but they are smaller even than the Victory. Our outpost will be overrun. And humanity’s presence in the Cancri System will be over. If we can’t hold on to this outpost and this planet, we’ll lose this system. If we lose the system, what hope does humanity have in fighting for our future, in protecting our own system if we have to, in fighting for Earth? You really think I care about my career, Dr. Ahmar? My fucking career? Get a hold of yourself, sir.” They stared up at her. The panicked people were helped to their feet. “Now, ladies and gentlemen. We have hull breaches to patch. Electrical systems to repair. Sensors to calibrate. Most importantly, the turbines in the atmosphere engines need to be cleaned. Let’s get to work.”

***

She sunk into her pilot’s chair, draping across it sideways with her legs over the arm rest and let out a long sigh.

“Sheila,” she said. “I’m done in, love. Long old motherfucker of a day, right?”

“Repairs are almost complete,” Sheila said. “You, however, are showing clear sign of mental and physical exhaustion. You have not slept for at least thirty-nine hours.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kat said, yawning and stretching her back. “Thanks for reminding me. I’m fine. Look, I’m taking more stims. My performance is unaffected.”

“You are demonstrating an increasing frequency of microsleep and your speech is slurred. Your eye movement is reduced by—”

“Alright! Jesus wept, Sheila. Knock it off.” Kat dragged her medical box from under the seat and injected a stim package into her neck, trying to ignore the warnings on the label. SHORT TERM USE ONLY. Performance degradation will occur after blah blah blah. “So, repairs are coming along nice. Can you communicate with the outpost, yet?”

“Not with standard communications power usage,” the AI said. “Outpost systems are not receiving, presumably due to damage to outpost. Increasing our power would likely boost our signal enough to be received by EVA suit systems. Do you wish to proceed?”

“What’s left in the batteries.”

“Six percent.”

“Shit. What about the emergency batteries?”

“Six percent includes the emergency batteries.”

“Are you shitting me? Is that enough to get to the outpost? Got to be plenty, right?”

“Depending on altitude, wind speed and direction, airspeed of shuttle, total mass—”

“Sheila,” Kat snapped. “You don’t need to list the variables every time, okay? I’m a professional bloody pilot, I get it.”

“The shuttle can reach the outpost.”

“Good,” Kat said. “That’s good.” From her ration bag, she grabbed three sweet nutrient bars, a bottle of water and jabbed another stim into her neck. The drowsiness retreated further, buried under the bright, hard edges of the stims. She leaned on her flight console. “Alright, now let’s go through the detail. Give me the visual representation on the right, here and the equations on the left.”

“Yes, Kat.”

A map of the area popped onto the right of the console, while the batteries’ individual statuses scrolled down the left in one column. In another, their energy outputs for each engine and other core flight systems. She would get the civilians to stay inside their suits when they lifted off, that way she wouldn’t need life support in the passenger compartment.

“And while we’re working, don’t let any of those bastards into the cockpit. And keep your cameras peeled for any enemy activity. And watch out for our Marines.” She fished around in her ration bag for sachets of refined white sugar and sprinkled a few on her bar.

“Yes, Kat.”

“Actually, I know I said we shouldn’t give away our position but…” she took a big bite of a nutrient bar. “Send up a drone to watch out for the Marines. I hope we’ll be gone before they get back here but I don’t want them turning up unannounced and expecting a ride.”

“Additional passengers and equipment would further limit the operational range of the shuttle in atmos—”

Kat groaned and shouted at the AI, spraying food everywhere. “For Christ’s sake, Sheila. You must think I’m some kind of idiot. Were you this condescending when we first met? Surely you weren’t this bad.”

“I’m sorry,” Sheila said. “I assessed that in your current, exhausted condition, you may require additional reminders.”

I’m sorry.

Sounded almost like the old Sheila. Kat wiped the corner of her eye with the back of her hand.

“Don’t apologize, love. You’re right. No, you’re right. You look out for me and I’ll look out for you, that’s how it works, right? Come on, show me the variables and I’ll check your working out.”

***

She had just crash landed the shuttle and went back to check on the passengers. Sheila had told her even before they had put down on the surface that two of them had died and she knew things like that. The living were dazed and battered by the landing. Some still terrified, others flooded with relief that they were alive. A number had injuries.

One of the dead was the engineer, Clarke. His abdomen had caught a twisted piece of the hull, it had skewered him through, front to back, almost cutting him in half while pinning him to his seat. The woman next to him was distressed.

Kat pulled herself to the next dead body. Sheila had known who it was. She had told Kat the names of the dead and those who appeared to be wounded, like Dr. Fo.

But Kat had to see for herself. His helmet had a jagged hole the size of a fist in the side. It lined up with a hull breach next to him. The visor was covered on the inside with a thick coating of blood. People around her protested but she ignored them and took his helmet off. Blood flooded out, slopping over the neck ring down onto his lap.

Feng. The closest thing she had to a boyfriend, or even a friend, come to that. And she had only ever really used him for sex. Even that was because he could get her the drugs she needed.

The lower half of his face, his jaw and his throat were gone. Tattered remains hung down and his teeth and pieces of jaw bone lay in the pool of gore in his suit’s neck piece.

She fished around under his seat in the personal cargo space and pulled out his medical bag. Inside, she found plenty of the supplies she needed. Some bottles were broken and smashed but most of it, thankfully, intact. The VIPs asked her what the hell she was doing.

“Medical supplies,” she said. “He was a chemist. It’s medical supplies.”

Kat looked up at Feng’s face. The top half untouched but for the coating of blood.

She wiped away some of it. “I’m sorry, Feng.”

His eyes snapped open, wide and white.

The mass of destroyed throat throbbed and glowed red and he made a startling, honking noise. Feng reached for her with clawed hands, shaking her by the shoulders, shouting his bizarre, wrong, mechanical cry. Over and over, it repeated, a siren sound, an alarm.

She woke in her seat in the cockpit, Dr. Fo shaking her arm. An alarm sounded.

“The aliens are coming,” Dr. Fo said.

“What the fuck is going on?” Kat said, wiping her mouth.

“You fell asleep,” Sheila said. “But then I could not wake you. You ordered not to let anyone in but you seemed to like Dr. Fo so I requested that he—”

“Never mind that,” Kat said. “Where are the wheelers?”

“Eight to ten kilometers from here and approaching down a parallel valley,” Sheila said.

“Shuttle status? Can we fly?”

“Yes. We can fly.”

“Get everyone on board,” Kat said to Dr. Fo. “Get them to strap in.”

“I have already urged them to do so,” the old man said.

“Sheila, are they all on board and strapped in?” Kat asked.

“Some appear to be struggling with their safety harnesses,” Sheila said. “But every passenger is seated.”

“That’ll have to do,” Kat said. “Start the takeoff sequence. Doctor, you should take your seat, please?”

“Certainly,” he said, then climbed into the copilot’s chair with surprising nimbleness.

“Just don’t touch anything,” she warned him. “Okay, let’s spin up the engines, shall we?”

“Confirmed, sequences started. And, Kat,” Sheila said. “The wheelers are pursuing the Marines who were here this morning. Here is the live feed from the drone.”

On her console, she watched the two Marine vehicles proceeding along the valley floor. She zoomed out and saw three groups of wheelers converging on them.

“Is that a dead wheeler in the back?” Kat asked.

“It appears to be moving and is therefore likely a prisoner of war. Also, there is an additional human individual with them in a civilian EVA suit.”

“Holy shit, they bloody got one. Can you believe that?” She looked at Fo.

The old man gave a quick nod. “It did seem like a most unlikely outcome.”

“Are they going to make it?” Kat asked.

“Their speed is sufficient to evade capture in a straight line, however, their current course takes them to a boxed in canyon wall.”

“They can’t get out?”

“The only passable route out of that gorge is behind them and they would run into the pursuing aliens.”

Kat powered up the engines.

“Can we land and pick them up?”

A voice behind her startled her. “No, you may not!”

It was Dr. Ahmar. The big, awful bastard had barged his way in, again. Following Dr. Fo through the open door. “Get out of my cockpit and take your seat,” Kat shouted. “We’re about to start our takeoff.”

“I’m only going to say this once,” Ahmar said. “You will fly us to the outpost and not on some damned rescue mission. We didn’t spend all day breaking our backs for you to kill us trying to save those soldiers.”

Kat released the breaks and the shuttle lurched, throwing Dr. Ahmar to the way.

“Sit down or you’ll end up hurt,” Kat said, paying him no mind until Dr. Fo, turning in his seat, drew a shocked breath and exclaimed.

“Peter!” Dr. Fo said.

Kat turned and saw the gun that Dr. Ahmar held. A standard issue sidearm. He must have found it in the hold or somewhere while working on the ship.

“Fly us to the outpost or I’ll be forced to use this on you.” His voice was level. Steady. He meant it.

Still.

Kat scoffed. “You haven’t thought this through,” she said and increased power to the engines, the breaks on the bashed wheels screeching as the shuttle crept forward, sliding on the dark rock. “I’m the pilot. You understand. The pilot. You need me to fly you there.”

“You think I’m an idiot?” Dr. Ahmar sneered. “The damned bloody AI can fly this shuttle. And land it. And they have to protect human life. Isn’t that the case, AI?”

Sheila, to her credit, paused before responding. “Yes, Dr. Ahmar.”

The man puffed his chest and stood taller.

“We’re taking off now,” Kat said. “You should hold on to something. This won’t be a textbook take off. And that,” she pointed out the front window, “that ain’t no runway, chief.”

Kat pushed the throttle control all the way forward and released the breaks. The shuttle leapt forward like a rocket, slamming down the hill on the ruined landing gear, juddering and bouncing.

It was too much to hope that he’d fall and bang his head.

Ahmar moved quickly for a big fella and he pressed the gun into her suit, just behind her neck. “If I kill you,” he said. “I’ll be saving everyone else on board from your manic, drug addled death wish.”

“Sheila?” Kat said, heart racing. “If he kills me, would you do what he says?”

“I recommend that we lift off,” Sheila said, avoiding the question. “Before we crash into the hill.”

“Do it,” Kat said, looking at the shaking, juddering pile of black rock up ahead.

The shuttle lurched as it heaved itself off the ground. Unladen, hardly any people and very little cargo, the old girl jumped up like a fighter jet.

“And fly us back to the outpost,” Ahmar said. “Or I shoot her.”

“I do not obey your commands,” Sheila said.

Kat let out a huge sigh as the Lepus climbed.

“You’re lying,” Ahmar said. “You’re an AI.”

“Peter,” Dr. Fo said. “Go and sit down, you foolish man.”

He hesitated then turned to Kat and pushed the gun into her neck again. His face was contorted in a mixture of rage and terror.

He’s going to kill me.

She’d never been so sure of anything in her life.

The ERANS, already humming along quietly, shot into overdrive. She saw everything, moving slowly. Noises fell down into drawn out droning.

Kat slapped the quick release on her harness, slipped out of it and smacked the man’s gun hand aside with a hard strike at his wrist. He moved in slow motion, reacting after everything happened. The shuttle rose and the scenery dropped away from the window behind her. She jumped from her seat, kicked the big doctor in his balls and aimed another strike at his inside wrist. The gun fell, as did the man. Before he reached the floor, Kat propelled him using her ERANS enhanced muscles strength, through the door where he fell sprawling. His helmet hit the wall, hard.

Kat closed the door and took her seat, strapping in as her ERANS powered down.

Dr. Fo stared at her with his mouth open.

“Bank right,” Kat shouted while she got settled. “Keep low. Under one K.”

Sheila obeyed and the shuttle turned. Not fast enough.

“Release full control to me, ready…” Kat said. “Now.”

Sheila obeyed and the shuttle feedback felt bloody fantastic, pushing back against her so much that it dipped sideways, nose falling until she brought it back. She laughed.

“What we’re going to do,” Kat said as she brought the Lepus around in as tight a circle as she could, “is fly over the wheelers, then fly over the Marines. We’ll drop low and slow so that they can drive up the cargo ramp in flight. Then we close the ramp and pull up before we crash into the canyon wall. Alright, love?”

“I am required to state that your proposal is unlikely to succeed,” Sheila said. “I recommend that you do not follow this course of action.”

“Course you do,” Kat said. “Please turn off all collision avoidance and altitude control features. Whatever you do, don’t take control from me or limit me in any way. Understand?”

“Warning. It is not recommended that—”

“Confirm, Sheila,” Kat shouted. “Can’t have you tweaking my shit at the wrong moment, you know?”

“Confirmed. Collision avoidance and altitude control deactivated.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. And leave the gear down, will you? We’re going to need it,” Kat said, feeling the grin across her face as she checked the course predictions on screen. “Oops, we’re going to have to speed up a bit then put the brakes on or we’re fucked. Pardon my French, Dr. Fo.”

She took a moment to glance at him. He was grasping the sides of his chair and his face was screwed up into a ball.

Kat flicked the internal comms. “Ladies and gents, we’re just going to pick up some friends. Don’t worry about anything, just sit back and relax.”

Because there’s nothing you can do and if you die, you’ll die quick as fuck.

The cameras showed the mass of wheelers under the shuttle as she dropped into the valley, finishing the turn with a hundred meters to spare over the lip of the cliff above. Both sides of the valley were low, scree hills at this end and it was wide and flat for most of the way but it narrowed and deepened into a gorge at the far end. Clapping her eyes on that dark mass caused her to take a deep, involuntary breath.

Her ERANS kicked up into a higher gear as she passed the first of the wheelers. They had vehicles but most were on foot, wheeling along or scrabbling like someone had dropped a sack of money spiders. Or like stamping on an ants’ nest.

“Incoming fire,” Sheila said, just as the first bangs hit the hull.

“Just small arms,” Kat said. She had no idea if it was true. “We have to get lower and slower.”

She put the shuttle into a dive that took them ahead of the wheelers but only a hundred meters up. She flared the wings, nose up, to bleed off speed. Forward velocity dropped and her rate of descent increased. Too fast. She levelled out a little, resisting the urge to give it more thrust.

“Broadcast to the Marines on all bands, audio too when we’re close enough,” Kat said. “Tell them to drive right in the back then slam on the brakes. The hold is empty.”

“Relaying message, on repeat, all bands.”

Her altitude was okay but she was coming up on them too fast so she popped the air brakes. The shuttle was coming down right on top of the Marine’s vehicles, she was going to land on them. She held course, slowing to match their speed. They were going full pelt downhill, bouncing over the rough ground, sliding on the slick rock. All the Marines other than the drivers were turned around and looking up at her. She could imagine their terror, seeing the undercarriage and the giant landing gear coming down right on top of them.

“Open the ramp,” she said, hearing her words come out slow and stretched.

Using the cameras, she made sure not to drag the lip of the thing over the Marines. It was a close-run thing. They all ducked, as if that would help.

She forced the Lepus down, touching the rear wheels to the ground. Screeching and banging filled the shuttle as the edge of the ramp dragged on the stony ground. Ahead, the walls of the canyon closed in and they grew higher every second.

The Marines tried to catch up to the ramp but she was going too fast. Twitching the gear brakes, her warning lights came on, telling her she was under liftoff speed.

“Get in,” she said, teeth grinding. “Get fucking in, now.”

One of the vehicles shot up the ramp and, a second later, crashed into the forward wall of the hold beneath her. She hoped they hadn’t been killed.

The other vehicle raced for the ramp but it bounced up and down on the rocky canyon floor, knocking it higher than the wheels.

“Come on, come on,” Kat said, watching the giant wall approaching.

“Warning,” Sheila said. “Critical limit reached. Pull up. Pull up.” The warning lights flashed.

Kat tapped her brakes and the ETAT smashed into the rim of the ramp, throwing the vehicle and the Marines inside, the car flipping end over end.

“Close the ramp,” Kat screamed as she punched the thrust to maximum and pulled up, hard. The cargo door slammed closed just as the nose came up, throwing the Marines back. She might have saved them only to kill them.

Kill all of them.

The black wall of the canyon, silhouetted by the setting sun, was certain death and she was heading right for it. No time to turn. Only to climb.

“Warning. Warning.”

Alright, you stupid prick. Obviously.

“Landing gear up,” Kat said, pulling back and giving it everything.

“Brace. Brace. Brace.” Sheila broadcast to everyone in the shuttle.

Like that will do anything.

It wasn’t enough. They didn’t have enough time, enough thrust, enough space to make it. Not quite. They were heading for the top of the wall, three meters too low. They were dead. What else did she have? Main engines were screwed. Orbital rockets would slam them into the rock faster. Parachutes would not work.

“Use RCS! Use all the RCS, push us up!”

The shuttle dumped the reaction control system gases, down to lift the Lepus and forward to add to their lift. Thrusters were designed for space and were almost useless in atmosphere, they did almost nothing to change an atmospheric vehicle.

Kat remembered the landing retro rockets. Rotated them ninety degrees and slammed her hand on the ignition.

They clipped the rim of the cliff, the forward gear bay doors ripping off in an almighty bang. The impact twisted the shuttle, lowering her right wing down so low she left a strip of paint on a jagged rock.

She corrected and climbed higher.

“We did it,” she said to Sheila. “We did it, Doc.” Dr. Fo was shaking and had his eyes squeezed shut. “Doc, it’s alright. We made it. Are you crying?”

Sheila intruded, a note of urgency in her voice and speaking rapidly, as if Kat’s ERANS was still peaking. “Climb to six thousand meters. Immediately.”

Kat yanked back on the stick, checking the threat warnings. “Confirmed, ascending to six-K. Do we have incoming fire?”

“No external threats detected. We are now down to one-percent battery level. If you can reach six thousand meters before the batteries run dry, we may be able to glide to the outpost airstrip.”

Kat grinned, leaned over to punch Dr. Fo on the arm. “Hear that, Doc? We’re going to make it.”

“Please,” he said, his voice tiny and quivering. “Please put me down upon solid ground and you shall have a friend for life.”

“I didn’t know you were afraid of flying, Doc.”

“I never have been. Only since I boarded this particular vessel.”

Kat laughed. “Shit, Doc. Insult me all you want. I’m the best bloody pilot in the galaxy.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“You’re in serious trouble, now,” Cassidy said, his face immobile. “You do realize, that, don’t you?”

Director Zuma stood next to the Captain in her office, such as it was. Behind Cassidy, Sergeant Gruger stood against the wall. He was armed.

Upon entering, they had forced Ram to fold himself into a chair so that he would not be looming over them and making them feel small. Even then, he felt far too big for the room.

But he felt tired. Exhausted, even. And he rested as best he could while they chewed him out.

“You’re finished,” Zuma said, frowning with fake concern.

“I always resisted allowing you into the Marines,” Cassidy said. “I told Zhukov and the UNOP Command that you were not Marine material and I was proven right when you murdered your comrade in arms. And I let myself be convinced that wiping your memory would be the best thing for the greater good. For the publicity. For the masses back home that need a hero. But I was wrong.”

“So, let me understand you,” Ram said, yawning. “Your old boss is dead and you’re cut off from Earth so you’re going against their last orders to you? Seems a bit presumptuous.”

Cassidy’s face flushed and his mouth drew into a tight line. Zuma placed her fingers on Cassidy’s arm.

“Your fame, such as it is, can only protect you so far,” Zuma said. “And this insubordination has proven you have no place in the Marines and you have nothing to contribute to the scientific community. You are dead weight here.”

“Even if I’m not a Marine,” Ram said, acting as if speaking those words didn’t make him feel like crap, “I can still fight. I am useful, I’ve proven that.”

Cassidy laughed. “You’re a menace. You almost got a group of Marines killed. You almost caused us to lose our only shuttle. I’ll not have you fighting anywhere near here. You do more harm than good.”

Zuma nodded. “You forget that we are in control here. We are in charge. We control the food and water, medical supplies. Everything.”

“Why are you doing this?” Ram asked. “What did I do to you? Is it because it was me who won in the arena rather than Mael or whoever? I upset your plans or something?”

Cassidy started to say something but Zuma held up her hand. “You don’t seem to understand. There is no ulterior motive here. And I do sympathize with you. But you are, I’m afraid to say, a scientific experiment that led nowhere. Rather, a prototype that failed. I know Ensign Tseng explained your history to you but I doubt he knows very much. Your brain was damaged. Dr. Fo bringing you back in another body always had a high risk of failure. Look at what happened to Sifa. Such a vibrant young woman, so quick witted and engaging. Dr. Fo transferred her stored consciousness into the artificial person clone and what are we left with? You’ve met her, down here in the outpost. Did she seem like the same person to you? She is a shell of who she was. She has no sense of humor. No life in her. It’s quite ruined her ability to fight. All she is now is a gigantic mouth to feed. A bipedal forklift. And you. You came back as a lunatic. A violent psychopath. Undisciplined and uncontrollable. I should have you locked up with the wheelhunters.”

“Why don’t you?” Ram’s mouth was dry. He licked his lips. “If I’m so dangerous.”

“I am a compassionate person. I know you’re trying. But I also know you’re openly traitorous and so does every other person on this outpost.”

“What about the others?” Ram asked. “My team.”

Cassidy’s mouth twitched. “Same as you. Different reasons, of course. They have truly demonstrated their lack of worth and no Marine on this planet is going to want one of those people watching their backs. Tseng is quarantined and is going to lose his leg, probably. That’s on you. Cooper is so badly concussed that his brain damage may be permanent. That’s on you, too. Sergeant Stirling had some psychological problems in the last year or so but now, thanks to you, he stole a drone and, more importantly, two vital military vehicles and he will be court martialed. Flores never should have been here and she’s proved that now. Corporal Fury’s petty thieving has escalated into full blown larceny. I always hoped that Harris would learn to keep his unconventional behavior under control but, thanks to your influence, he has become openly insubordinate and there’s nothing more I can do. I know you thought you were doing something to help. Frankly, you were lucky that pilot was crazy enough to pick you up. If not for that, you would all be dead and we would be without our two ETATs.”

Ram had to stand up for himself somehow. “Be that as it may, we saved one of the abductees. We got an enemy prisoner and we—”

“You see how he says we, now?” Zuma said to Cassidy. “Hoping to spread the blame.” She glared at Ram. “If you hoped to impress us with your rescued physicist, I’m afraid you have returned him in a poor state.”

“He’s raving fucking mad,” Cassidy said. “A broken man.”

Zuma wafted a hand. “That remains to be seen. But he is extremely traumatized. I would never say this but some people might believe Dr. Arthur might have been better off left where he was.”

Ram shifted in his tiny chair and began to argue.

“Save it,” Cassidy said. “You will report to Medical in the morning and they will give you some things to take. These will help you to control your aggression and your paranoia. It is non-negotiable. Then you will be assigned to guard duty over the wheeler prisoners in the normal rotation. That will free up one proper Marine for perimeter duty for one watch per day, so you will continue to serve a purpose. But if you do anything to risk the people here, I will have you sedated and chained up, do you understand?”

Ram nodded. “I understand that you unofficially ordered Tseng to assist us so that you could get rid of us. I just don’t understand why you would throw away resources like that. A significant portion of your forces. Surely, it can’t all be incompetence?”

Behind the Captain, Sergeant Gruger stood straighter and flexed his shoulders.

But Cassidy’s face fell into blankness. “Whatever lies Ensign Tseng told, you should disregard.”

“Were you trying to provoke the wheelers into attacking the outpost again?” Ram asked. “Are you trying to win victory on the ground before the real soldiers show up on the Sentinel? If you are, that’s insane. You’ve seen the images of them chasing us as we escaped. There are at least dozens of wheelers out there, probably hundreds and maybe thousands.”

“Get some rest,” Zuma said. “Then report to Medical, then you will be on guard duty. Unarmed. But you’re used to that.”

“I’m confused,” Ram said. “Am I still a Marine Corp officer or not? Are you ordering me in that capacity or is this, like, a favor you’re asking?”

“Just get out, smart ass,” Cassidy said. “While you still can.”

Ram stood, hunching under the low ceiling but doing it suddenly enough to startle Sergeant Gruger and make Cassidy wary. Ram looked between the three of them, gave them his best grin, saluted and strolled out, squeezing through the door.

Those dirty bastards.

***

“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” Ram said to Stirling.

The big man was out on the perimeter, shoveling a heap of pulverized stone into sand bags. The trenches and walls all around the outpost had come a long way in just the day or so since he’d last seen them. Civilians and Marines worked with the bulldozer, drones and old-fashioned picks and wheelbarrows. The remnants of the wrecked enemy tanks had finally been removed, chopped up and dragged away by the drones.

“Not your fault, sir,” Stirling said, without stopping. His armor was covered in fine black dust.

“You don’t have to keep calling me sir. I think they’ve run me out of the Marines. If I ever was one in the first place.”

“Far as I’m concerned, sir,” Stirling said, “you confirmed you were a Marine when you carried Ensign Tseng out of that cave on your shoulder.”

“Well, thank you, Sergeant. But I would have done that for anyone. I had a civilian on the other shoulder.”

“Exactly, sir,” Stirling said. “Exactly.”

“It makes no sense that Cassidy has you digging. You’re one of the most experienced veterans here and if the wheelers do come again, we’re going to need you fresh and ready. You should be in a weapons team. I mean, come on. You should be in the CIC, advising the Captain.”

Stirling chuckled. “He doesn’t want me anywhere near him. Even with that bastard Gruger to cover his ass. No, my fighting days were numbered when I knocked him out.”

Ram hesitated. “You what? When? What are you talking about?”

“Yeah. I knocked him out.” Stirling stepped back while a drone delivered another bucket of crushed stone to his pile, then he started shoveling again. “He’ll never tell you, or anyone, I bet but that’s why he threw me out in the first place. Gruger put the word out that it was about disobeying an order and my removal from duty was due to mental health issues because I lost Maria. And yeah, I had been depressed for weeks and everyone knew it. Cassidy was chewing me out for not doing my duty, for not looking out for the people in my team, for Flores’ performance being shit. And Cassidy was mad because someone kept stealing his shit. Taking his personal effects from his quarters. It was Fury but he didn’t know. Anyway, so he was in my face, screaming at me, with his spit flying out of his mouth like he was a drill sergeant and I was a recruit or something. He’d really lost his mind. I don’t know what came over me but I just clocked him one, right under the ear. Caught him sweet and he was out like a light.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing. I checked he was breathing, put him in the recovery position and went back to work. Then my next psych eval? I’m pulled from active duty and transferred to the Spaz Squad.”

“Cassidy never pressed charges?”

“Too embarrassed, I guess. The man’s sort of a legend in the Corps. He probably didn’t want his rep tarnished. I never said anything to anyone before. Think I’ll tell everyone when I finish my watch, though.”

“Why was he so angry at you? For performance issues?”

“It’s never about the thing it seems to be about, have you noticed that, sir? My relationship with Maria was against regs, sure. But Sergeant Major Gruger squealed to Cassidy. Any normal sergeant would let it go. We weren’t bothering anyone. But Gruger never liked that I wasn’t scared of him, wasn’t scared or cowed by Cassidy. When Gruger found out about us, he was so happy. For days, grinning when he saw me. I didn’t know why at the time. But it was because he had found a way to hurt me. Something to finally use against me. And Gruger has always been pouring poison into Cassidy’s ear. I don’t know, neither of them could stand any hint of disloyalty.”

“Why are there so many people like that on the mission? What was the selection criteria?”

Sergeant Stirling laughed, bitterly. “Two reasons. One is the nature of our dominant political ideology. TechPrimitivism says that conflict within groups should be minimized through conflict, or competition with, out-groups and other groups. What happens when we’re isolated out here? There’s no other group to join and no one to compete with. A splinter group can’t break off and start our own tribe or company. Second is the selection process. We are hundreds of people. We all held it together, were on our best behavior during selection. But no one is a paragon of virtue all day, every day and some unsavory people got through. We’re on our best behavior most of the time in life, right? They look back at our personal histories and they can’t see what shit is in our hearts. Conflicts start small and build up. The interwoven relationships became labyrinthine. Did they know Zuma was a megalomaniac? I guess they did. And Zhukov was put here to keep her in check, which he did for a long time. But she’s played the long game. She wants to be top dog. As does Cassidy. He’s making a career move. Those people could be kings out here. Imagine being in command of an outpost all the way out here. Years from Earth. No one here to challenge your authority. How can this not attract megalomaniacs? How does it not bring the latent dictator out? In spite of a lifetime of service, a lifetime of following orders.”

“Is that really what you think they’re up to?”

Stirling shrugged. “I’m willing to bet that’s what you saw, too. Before they screwed with your memories. I wonder if the two things are related? Strange sentence for murder, sir, ain’t it?”

What had Sifa said? You are being lied to? He’d thought she was hinting that he had been awake for ten months but was there more to it? Some plot he had uncovered?

Did it even matter anymore?

Ram looked around at the people and drones working hard on the defenses. Above, a few specks circled against the cloudy turquoise sky. Surveillance microdrones, keeping watch against incursion for kilometers all around. “Do you think the wheelers will attack again? Tseng was convinced they’re tactically naive. That the ones on the planet are just civilians or maybe amateurs. You know, like militia units. That make sense to you?”

“Tseng is a twat but he’s no dummy. We know these guys are slow on the uptake but when they get rolling, they turn into a right shower of bastards. Know what I mean?”

“I think I get the gist.” The plain stretched off to the close black hills and, beyond, to a jagged horizon. “When it all kicks off, we will have to look out for each other.”

“We, sir?”

“You, me, Harris, Cooper, Flores, Fury. If the others won’t watch out for us then we need to rely on each other.”

“Sounds good to me. Tell you what, sir. I’ll find the others and then I’ll find you.”

Ram nodded, looking up at the hills. “They took my weapons, Sergeant.”

“Aye, sir. I reckon you should get them back.”

***

“Come in here,” Dr. Rothbard called, poking his head of his lab door.

“Me?” Ram said, even though there was no one else in the corridor where he was standing, hunched beneath the ceiling in his armor. “I’m on guard duty, Doctor.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Rothbard said. “The aliens you are guarding are within this very room.”

“I know that but I’m not supposed to leave…” The doctor disappeared back into the lab with the door ajar. “Leave my post.”

Why do I care? I’m not a real Marine. What’s Cassidy going to do to me?

Ram ducked in through the open door. One half of the laboratory was sectioned off with floor to ceiling steel bars, 3cm thick, shining puddles of welding on the floor where the bars touched it. It looked like a sloppy, rushed job but then, of course it was. Still, he was sure the engineers and scientists knew what they were doing and that it was perfectly safe.

Behind the bars, two wheelhunter prisoners.

One large and the other smaller.

The small one was the very same alien that Ram had brought out of the wheeler lava tube and held onto during the wild escape from the horde of mad wheelers and their vehicles.

Dr. Rothbard and his team gathered in the other half of the room.

“Rama, please.” Rothbard led Rama away from the humans and the aliens. “I need to talk to you about your sample.”

“My what?”

Rothbard cleared his throat. “When you returned from your recent excursion and delivered that—” he pointed at the small wheeler, “—you had a biological sample in your medical pouch.”

“The blood I scraped from armor I found in the wheeler base. You tested it? Do you know who it was?”

“It was disgustingly contaminated but yes, I’m afraid it is a match for Milena.”

His legs wobbled and he leaned on the edge of a bench with one hand.

I failed. She is dead.

Ram took a shaky breath. “I knew it would be.”

“That’s an illogical thing to say,” Rothbard said, appearing to be confused. “Purely pessimistic thinking. You had a one-in-five chance of being correct about who the suit belonged to, assuming you were telling the truth about your inability to judge its overall size or any distinguishing features due to the enormous volume of blood and other tissue contained within.”

“Shut up, Doc.”

Rothbard scowled up at him. “I’m sure you’re quite upset but we’ve all lost friends to these creatures. There’s no need to be rude.” The xenobiologist placed a hand on Ram’s arm. “May I ask you some questions about your guest, here?”

They approached the prison, the other scientists making space for Ram. “You haven’t taken their suits off.”

“Why would I? That might kill them. I don’t want anything to happen to these wonderful creatures.”

“They’re killers,” Ram said. “You just said so yourself.”

“Aren’t we killers, also?” Dr. Rothbard asked, waving a hand airily.

“No. They attacked the outpost first. All we’ve done is defend ourselves.”

The smaller wheeler crouched in the corner, legs and arms folded in to the central hub.

“Is my one injured?”

“We don’t know. We were hoping to ask you some questions about its behavior prior to being admitted into our custody.”

“Alright.”

Rothbard escorted Ram a few steps back to the other three people in the room, who were pretending they hadn’t been listening.

“Ram, I don’t know if you know my colleagues Grahams, Soules and Marshall?” Ram vaguely recognized them all and nodded greetings. Rothbard continued. “As you know, our attempts at deciphering their language is progressing well. We believe we have hundreds of words of vocabulary already.”

“Well,” Dr. Marshall said. She was a stocky woman with a jowly, old face. Her eyes were a beautiful bright blue. She looked like someone you should not mess with. “I disagree that we have hundreds. Dozens probably but we—”

“Dozens?” Dr. Soules said. He seemed young and was very animated. “The AI has confirmed—”

“The AI confirms or denies what we ask it to,” Dr. Grahams said. He had a hard look about him, like he was a thug who had thrown on a lab coat. “If our methodology is wrong then the AI will just be confirming our errors. We can’t rely on it to do our thinking for us, all it can do is process the—”

“Oh, here he is,” Dr. Marshall said, turning on him, “explaining things to me like I’m an infant. You know what you can do with your criticisms? You can shove them up—”

“Okay!” Rothbard shouted and clapped his hands together. “I am sorry, Rama Seti. This is not how we do things. But we have not slept much for many days and we are running out of time to get results. You two, please calm down. Are we professionals or not?” Rothbard shook his head. “Listen, we have been showing the alien objects and recording its electromagnetic emissions. And—”

“Show him,” Dr. Soules said, grinning up at Ram. “Just show him.”

They demonstrated the device they had constructed. A small, flat black box with a couple of apertures. They took it to the cage with the wheelers inside. The large one edged forward in response.

It made Ram’s skin crawl to look at it. Everything in him said it was wrong. He wanted to kill it or run from it. Was that why they had not given him weapons? They could not trust him to control himself?

The stocky Dr. Marshall held the box while the thuggish Dr. Grahams flicked open a telescopic pointing stick and pointed it at Dr. Soules.

The box spoke, in a stock male voice. “Human.” Grahams pointed the stick at a coffee mug. “Receptacle,” the box said.

“You see,” Rothbard said. “We considered correcting that to say cup or drinking vessel but they have no mouth or anything like it so we want to avoid the connotations of consumption that go along with such words, do you see? Continue.”

Grahams pointed to printed 3D objects that the others brought over. “Sphere. Pyramid. Cube.”

“I can’t hear anything or see it doing anything,” Ram said. “How is it saying this stuff?”

Rothbard nodded. “Specialized nodes on the skin, I believe, emitting radio waves.”

“Radio?” Ram said. “Naturally?”

“Try to keep up, young man,” Rothbard said. “The translator analyses then converts the radio emissions into English words. And vice versa.”

“You’re talking back to it?” Ram said. “What are you telling it?”

Rothbard waved his hand. “Nothing. We’re just using feedback to test our translations.”

“Is it listening to us right now?” Ram asked, glancing at the huge wheeler, squatting and still. As if it was waiting. As if it was paying attention.

Rothbard shrugged. “It’s always on, gathering data. We’re getting closer all the time, every hour. But we struggle with two-way conversation so we want to have as much data going back and forth as possible.”

“But we have cracked numbers,” Soules said, grinning.

They brought clusters of sticks and took groups and held them out while the wheelhunter correctly stated how many there were. The scientists seemed particularly pleased by that demonstration.

“Very impressive,” Ram said to the expectant, upturned faces. “I’m still not sure why you need my help.”

“Well,” Rothbard said, “we are trying to discuss more complex concepts with it but we’re not sure what commonalities we have with the creatures. We are attempting to understand their psychology. Their outlook. You see? Their social organization.”

“And you think I have a special insight because I was inside their base?”

Rothbard nodded. “Your suit cameras were not operating due to the alien interference fields. We have reviewed your team’s verbal reports but we would like to hear further detail from you.”

“Okay,” Ram said, glancing at the aliens just a few meters away behind the bars. “What do you want to know?”

They all started talking at once but Rothbard shouted them down. “One of the most fundamental questions we have is regarding this species’ individual variation. You can see it right now, with the larger specimen captured during the last attack and the smaller one you captured and brought back with you.”

“Got to stop you already,” Ram said. “I didn’t capture it. That one came with us voluntarily. I said this in my report.”

The scientists looked at each other. “We wondered if you could clarify,” Marshall said. “We wondered if perhaps you were speaking metaphorically.”

“What?” Ram said. “No, it was locked up. It was a prisoner and it helped us to find the physicist and then it escaped with us, all by itself. It was only when we came out of the shuttle on the airstrip that Sergeant Gruger had his team jump on it and tie it up and then they dragged it back here. It didn’t even resist them while they were beating the shit out of it.”

“Indeed,” Dr. Rothbard said. “It is a remarkable specimen. Different from any of the others I have dissected and examined. Different, certainly from the other living specimen that we have in custody.” He gestured at it.

“Physically different? Other than being smaller?”

The scientists laughed, to varying degrees.

“For one thing, the skin of this creature has a distinctly reddish hue, rather than the typical yellow.”

Ram looked at it. “It’s encased in one of those suits. How can you tell?”

“It allowed us to temporarily remove a portion of the covering garment they wear for environmental protection. Lord knows, we have unfastened dozens of them from the corpses left upon the battlefield. This one has red skin.”

“Alright,” Ram said. “And what is the significance of that?”

The scientists exchanged looks.

“We don’t know,” Marshall said.

“Not yet,” Soules said, smiling.

“Could be anything,” Grahams said. “Pigmentation could be genetic. Probably is. Then again, perhaps the effect is due to some chemical that was given to the creature as part of the experiment. Perhaps, even, as an unintended consequence of said experiment.”

“What experiment?” Ram asked.

Dr. Rothbard scratched his chin. “Our hypothesis, based on the reports and our investigations of the red specimen, is that this friend you returned with is the victim of a scientific experiment.”

“Victim?” Ram said.

“He was locked away, was he not?” Rothbard said. “Suggests he was not a willing participant. And his skin appears to have a new type of bulbous organ of unknown purpose but of known origin. You see, it has human DNA.”

Ram thought he had misheard. “I’m not a scientist or anything but that doesn’t seem exactly—”

“Credible?” Grahams said.

“Possible?” Marshall said.

“Exactly,” Ram said. “Someone once told me that alien DNA and human DNA cannot be mixed? That it was not even conceivably possible.”

Dr. Rothbard raised his hands. “That is true, yes. But the organs do not appear to be integrated with the rest of the organism in any way other than the blood supply.”

Marshall scoffed. “It is far too early to make such conclusions. We will need—”

Rothbard turned on her. “Who in the Hell said anything about conclusions?”

“Who’s DNA is it?” Ram said. “Is it Milena’s?”

“No,” Soules said. “Doubtful, although it is possible. She was my first thought, in fact. And then you were.”

“Me?”

“But I widened the database search and got a closer match. There was a man who fought in the arena, the first human to go up against a wheeler in a fight. A man named Raphael Santos. They called him Onca. Do you remember him?”

“Vaguely,” Ram said. “He was a normal human so he got torn to pieces.”

Soules nodded. “Seems like one of those pieces got taken away by the wheelhunter and they did something with it. They’ve had decades.”

Grahams grunted. “Seems fitting.”

The others nodded their heads.

“Fitting?” Ram asked. “How so?”

Grahams spoke for them. “Well, because a large portion of your own genetic makeup was taken from Raphael Santos. And, of course, Milena was one of his descendants.”

“What?” Ram said. “She’s what? She and I were related?”

“Yes,” Grahams said.

“No, no,” Soules said. “Only in the sense that we are all related. You are like her great uncle thrice removed. And your DNA was heavily edited. You and she simply shared a distant, somewhat artificial ancestry.”

“Oh.”

“Did no one explain that to you?”

Ram laughed. “I’m not sure. My memory isn’t what it used to be.” He shrugged. “Maybe it is. I don’t know.”

“Did you get a sense that the alien knew who you were? As an individual?”

“I have no idea how I would know that. No. I don’t know.”

Dr. Rothbard pursed his lips. “In your report, you mentioned a red substance in the valley outside the alien HQ. A bacterial mass was how you described it. And you also reported within the lava tube, and I quote, some frothy red stuff bubbling in a cauldron. Could they be the same substance?”

“No idea,” Ram said. “I suppose so. Do you think it might be the same reason it’s skin is red?”

“No,” Grahams said.

“Yes,” Soules said. “Here is what I think it might be. Listen, we are attempting to modify our Earth species to be able to thrive in this environment. Well, what if the aliens are doing the same? But not only are they seeding the planet with their own simple life forms, they are engineering their own people so they can respirate efficiently and cope with the UV light.”

“You’re reaching,” Marshall said.

“Am I?” Soules said. “I think it fits perfectly and I think my hypothesis is perfectly testable. So, we will see. Anyhow, it is simpler and more comprehensive than anything any of the rest of you have come up with.”

That seemed to shut them up. “If you’ve got it all figured out,” Ram said. “I’ll just be outside at my post.”

“No, no, no,” Dr. Rothbard said. “We would like you to converse with it. Use the translator. We think it is far more likely to speak to you than any of us. And it is far more likely to be friendly with us, unlike this big yellow bastard who attacked us with its weapons and is here against its will.”

“I don’t think it will—”

Behind them, the flimsy door burst open and Sergeant Gruger strode in. Ram’s heart sank further when Captain Cassidy stomped in after him, his face thunder.

Why can’t they just leave me alone?

Their armor was covered in that fine, twinkling rock dust so they had come straight from reviewing the new defenses.

“Seti,” Cassidy shouted as they shouldered their way through the benches heaving with equipment. “Why in God’s name are you not at your post? You are a God damned joke. How you could have ever harbored the ambition to become a Marine when you are unable to perform the simplest, easiest of duties?”

Did I ever want to be a Marine? I don’t remember. What am I, then? Am I a Marine or not? Am I an officer or not? Do I need to follow orders?

He knew by now that arguing or saying anything would merely make things worse. It was what they wanted you to do so they could chew you out further.

Ram said nothing.

“Ah, I’m afraid that’s entirely my fault, Captain,” Rothbard said, holding his hands up in supplication. “I asked Mr. Seti here to assist us with our research. In fact, I insisted.”

Cassidy’s eyes were flint when he turned on the scientist. “With respect, Doctor, he does not follow your orders. He should follow mine. Sadly, he has done nothing but demonstrate he is fundamentally incapable of doing so. Now, Dr. Rothbard and colleagues. I must ask you to evacuate this area while we deal with the prisoners.”

Rothbard stared at Cassidy. “Deal with? Do you mean interrogate them? We are making remarkable progress with the translator. Progress that might just mean a Nobel Prize in our futures. It is wildly beyond any of our most optimistic predictions. But I think a meaningful interrogation is beyond our current capability. Perhaps in a day or two, we could struggle through into abstract concepts but that was why I asked Rama here in because we need to consider the culture of the creatures in order to—”

“Dr. Rothbard,” Cassidy said, his voice shutting the other man up as abruptly as the slamming of an iron door. “We are going to kill them.”

Over the heads of the Marines and the scientists, both wheelers stirred.

“You can’t,” Rothbard said, his face flushing. “You damned brute, you can’t.”

Gruger slid forward, a hand close to his side arm. “Steady now, Mr. Rothbard, sir. Let’s not get emotional.”

Rothbard scowled. “Excuse me, Sergeant. I am having a discussion with your superior.”

“There is no discussion to be had,” Cassidy said. “These creatures are in my custody and you have been allowed to perform your experiments on them. And now they will be destroyed.”

“But why?” Marshall asked. “What has changed?”

“They are massing for an attack once more. Our drones detected them assembling in the hills. More than ever before.” Cassidy sighed and Ram saw for a moment how the man was exhausted. His eyes were raw, wild. The captain blinked and his poker face was back again. “And the alien ship in orbit. According to the shuttle pilot and the calculations run by the AI, it won’t be long now before it swings back around to a close orbit of the planet. The battle between it and the Sentinel will happen soon, if it hasn’t already. Any enemy ship in orbit could bombard our position and wipe us out in a single strike.”

Dr. Rothbard looked around at everyone. “Yes? And? Is this not precisely the same situation we have been in these last few days?”

“But now it’s crunch time, sir. And we do have one new guest to consider.” Cassidy gestured to Ram and nodded at the smaller alien. “This one came home with him. And your tests on it have caused some of us to feel considerable concern.”

Rothbard looked offended. “How so?”

“It is, may I say, fucking disturbing. It may be a spy. It may have some vile purpose that you people missed in your examinations. I will not risk the fact that it may be dangerous.”

The scientists collectively objected and the Marines tried to shout them down.

Ram watched the wheelers. Both squirmed and writhed.

He stepped up to the warring groups, looking down on them. “Is the translator still broadcasting to the aliens?” he asked.

No one appeared to hear him. The big wheeler stood up taller.

“Excuse me,” Ram said, wishing they had allowed him to retain at least his sword. “The aliens appear to be—”

He recognized the attack when it occurred. It was the same as in the lava tube. A piercing agony that gripped the muscles and filled the ears with ringing. Blinded and in pain, the people fell, muscles spasming. Behind the bars of its cage, the large alien wrapped clawed hands around the steel, braced itself with the enormous feet. Ram found himself on one knee, his vision smeared.

The wheeler pried the bars open until one broke off.

Then another.

Ram tried to step up to it but his muscles would not obey him and all he could do was watch through blurred sight while the wheeler ripped the scientists apart. It sliced their heads and necks open with the huge claws and dark blood sprayed over everyone, as high as the ceiling and showering the Marines in shining red.

The monstrous creature reached down with one powerful hand to seize Captain Cassidy’s neck armor. The captain fought to bring up his sidearm but his hands were shaking.

With the other clawed hand, the alien speared Cassidy’s head under the jaw and lifted it up, crunching bone and popping ligaments, skin, and veins as they stretched and ripped apart. It tore the captain’s head from his body, the skull thudded on the ceiling and bounced away.

Gruger writhed on the floor, sliding in the pool of blood as the wheeler ran over him, squashing him beneath its footpads and rising into its full height.

Ram fought his muscles even as they shook beneath him. The soles under his feet struggled to grip in the hot, stinking blood.

Somehow, Ram got to his feet.

He stood just in time to throw his hands up and grab the clawed hands that whipped in toward his face. Ram leaned on the alien’s arms and held fast to them. Its claws flicked and scraped on his armor at the shoulders and around his gorget.

But he was weak and half blinded and his limbs would not obey. Ram slipped and went down on one knee while the monster forced him down further, forced him to the slick floor. One of the claws scraped through the skin on the top of his head, spilling his own blood down his face.

This is it. Some soldier I turned out to be.

The wheeler exploded in a shower of guts and blood, splattering over him. Its giant corpse fell on him, giant limbs collapsing into a bundle within its alien exosuit.

Its terrible electromagnetic discharge ended just as abruptly as its life. The disabling effects switched off and Ram dragged himself free of the oppressive weight that leaked thick, stinking gore. He swiveled his head, searching for his savior, expecting to see Marines in the room with smoke drifting from the barrels of their guns.

Instead, it was the other wheeler standing there, the small one. The one he had rescued from the lava tube. In upright wheel configuration.

It held a wheeler pistol in its hand.

Ram froze.

The alien placed the weapon back on the workbench and rolled slowly back through the twisted, broken cage and settled itself in the corner.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kat slipped into the back of the hall while that mad bitch, Director Zuma was banging on to the assembled masses. The shuttle was almost ship shape but it was irritating to be summoned to the assembly while there was real work still to be done. But people liked meetings, for some reason. Meetings, group discussions. It was like a sickness that some people were unable to shake off. Meetings were a way to defer, diffuse or deflect cowardly individuals from taking decisions. Meetings were the opposite of action.

But, she was an officer in the UNOP Navy. So, she attended, as requested.

“The wheelhunters are massing once again, yes,” Zuma was shouting out to the mumbling crowd. “But we have time. We know they advance slowly, methodically. Once this meeting is concluded, however, we shall all take our posts, yes.”

A voice shouted. “What about the alien already inside? We can’t have one loose, even if some of you are treating it like a pet! What’s to stop it doing what the other one did?”

Around the hall, a few voices were raised in support of the general sentiment.

“The remaining alien prisoner is under control,” Zuma said. “It is safely contained. And it was that alien that killed the other one and saved Rama Seti’s life in the process.”

The giant loomed at the side of the hall, at the front. His eyes were staring at nothing, a thousand yards away. Kat had seen the look plenty of times, most of those times were recent. Maybe half the people in the hall had the same look. But they weren’t covered in dried blood, like Ram was. His short black hair was thick with clots and his armor was caked in flaky, brown blood.

“Now,” Zuma continued, “the most senior military officer is Lieutenant Tseng.”

Around her, Kat heard the grumbles and murmuring about the man’s suitability. While the Marines officer limped onto stage, the crowd muttered questions about his ability, physically and mentally, and Zuma’s judgment for backing him.

“Yes,” Lieutenant Tseng said as he dragged himself upright. “I am the ranking officer on the planet. And I am now in command of the defenses. We have lost Captain Cassidy. Sergeant Gruger survived the attack but is gravely injured. But please, everyone, do not despair. We are as strong tonight in arms and physical defenses as we were this morning and we shall fight off this next attack successfully. You all know the tactical situation. To those of you civilians who volunteered to bear arms, we all thank you. Our medical support teams are fully prepared. You who will carry ammunition to where it is needed and relay messages between fire teams will do so courageously, I have no doubt.”

He stopped, looking around as if searching for what to say next.

Kat winced. No doubt. It was a poor choice of words to end on. It was everyone’s doubt about Tseng that was the problem. She wondered if he would avoid it or address it.

“You were expecting Captain Cassidy to lead you into this battle. We all were. But the UNOP Marine Corps is not about any one man or woman.” Tseng looked at face after face in the room, as if he was attempting to make eye contact with all of them. “You were each chosen for the mission for a reason. You are experts in your field, you are dedicated. You are creative problem solvers. Amongst the best that humanity has ever produced. And the Marines here are no different. Every private, corporal and sergeant on this outpost knows their business and each of them will do whatever is necessary to keep this outpost secure. The plan is good. We are well supplied. Now, all we need do is to each play our part and we will secure this planet for humanity against our enemy.”

No one spoke. No one cheered their new military leader, which, as far as Kat was concerned, might be a worry. Then again, no one chucked anything at the man, so that was something, at least.

Kat wished she could somehow bring Sheila to these things. It made sense to limit the breadth of data that AIs had access to but it would have been entertaining to have Sheila’s insights and comments. Even the new version of Sheila with the savaged memories would be better than standing at the back, alone, listening to adults needing to be reassured, as if they were children. What the civilians needed was for someone to stroke their hair while whispering that everything was going to be alright.

“However,” Lieutenant Tseng said, raising a finger, “we are ultimately relying on Admiral Howe’s Stalwart Sentinel defeating the alien ship, in orbit. And, as many of you know, we have information about the enemy’s attack on the Victory that might just save the Sentinel from the same fate. And you also know, without our satellites and due to the continuing wheelhunter interference, we are unable to send a signal. And that is why we must deliver a person. A person who can hand over the data to Admiral Howe. Is Lieutenant Xenakis here?”

Kat was only half listening but woke to the mention of her own name. She opened her mouth to respond but someone elsewhere spoke instead.

“She’s out fixing up the shuttle.”

Zuma sighed. “That woman was ordered to attend,” she said to Tseng, clearly audible to everyone in the hall.

“I’m bloody well here, ain’t I?” Kat shouted.

You old bitch.

She managed to bite off the end of her sentence before she spoke it. No need to go full throttle with such little provocation.

Her spoken words got a pretty good laugh, at least. Over everyone’s head, she saw Rama Seti chuckling and casting an evil glance at the Director.

“Ah, good,” Zuma said, with a magnanimous tone and a shit-eating grin. “What is the state of the shuttle? Are you ready to lift off?”

“Lift off?” Kat said. The people in front of her shuffled aside to make a space. All faces turned toward her. “The shuttle is fully operational. Batteries enough to get us through the atmosphere, fuel to get us to orbital velocity and fast enough to intercept the Sentinel. In theory. I will leave immediately after I finish here.”

“What about passengers?” A voice called out. A familiar voice. “Evacuees?”

“Is that you, Dr. Ahmar?” Kat shouted, chuckling. “Surely, the Head of Planetary Science would rather stay on the surface of an actual planet? Are you trying to sneak back on to my shuttle when the last time you were on it, you attempted to hijack it and murder me? Sir, you will never board any shuttle of mine.”

Zuma shouted the noise down. “Alright, alright. How many people can you carry out, Lieutenant?”

“It’s not about how many, it’s how much. I can get into orbit fully laden but we just don’t know how much delta-V we’ll need to rendezvous with the Sentinel. I suppose I can take two tons or so. Say, twenty people, with some light personal equipment?”

The giant, Rama Seti spoke. His voice rumbled through the room. “May I make a proposal?” The eyes turned to him. “The Lieutenant’s journey is one of necessity. One of vital strategic importance. Right? The secret needed to defeat the wheeler ship. What if we also had the secret to defeat the wheeler civilization?”

Silence.

“What are you talking about?” Zuma said. “If you have something of that value, simply share it now and—”

“The wheelhunter prisoner,” Seti said. “The one in the biology lab. It should go on the shuttle, to the Sentinel.”

His suggestion did not go down especially well with most people in the hall. Kat had to hand it to the man. Seti had a distinct lack of social finesse. She could empathize.

“No way that monster gets to leave while we have injured humans who need it more. Who would we be if we favored our enemies over our own people?”

“That thing would take the place of five of us. More, even. How much does it weigh?”

Seti stayed silent while they argued.

“Thank you for your comments,” Zuma said, shouting them down. “I’m sure we can all agree, then, that the lives of our own people are worth more than the imagined value of this prisoner. I believe we have eight wounded who require evacuation. That leaves a few other spaces. We will not draw lots. I will choose those who can no longer assist this outpost while it is so threatened with attack.”

“If I may!” the ancient Dr. Fo hobbled up to the front. His scrawny neck poking out of his EVA suit like a tortoise peeking out of its shell. “If I may, Director Zuma. Far be it for me to attempt to dictate policy—” A number of people in the hall laughed at this. “—but I must say, madam, that I strongly disagree with your conclusions. I have been reviewing Dr. Rothbard’s data and examining Red.”

“Red? What is that?” Zuma looked shocked. “Did you name the alien?”

“There is a rather long serial number assigned to the specimen,” Dr. Fo chuckled, shaking his head. “No idea why. Yes, I have been referring to it as Red, due to the reddish-brown hue of its skin color. It is a highly unusual individual. Drastically different to the others we have found. It has unusual physical properties that may reveal the alien strategy with respect to the entire war. I’m afraid we must send the animal, alive, to the Sentinel. As Rama Seti says, this is of prime importance. It may help our species defeat theirs.” The audience was silent.

“And I suppose,” Zuma said, smirking, “you need to go with it. So that you can explain this importance to the scientists in the fleet?”

Dr. Fo scowled. “I have no wish for a place on the shuttle. I have full confidence in the skills of our Marines and those of us who will bear arms. We will defeat the enemy. And if I personally fall in the assault, I care nothing of that. I am immensely old. But I will only die happy if I know that the red alien is on its way to the Sentinel.”

Lieutenant Tseng stepped forward. “It’s not safe. Our priority must be the data. If that creature gets loose or in some way interferes with the shuttle, it would defeat the primary purpose for the flight.”

“True,” Dr. Fo said. “So, send Rama Seti to protect the shuttle.”

The crowd complained that Seti weighed as much as four normal humans so he was taking up even more valuable space that would be denied to the injured and others who might escape.

Through it all, Rama Seti stayed silent. Watching. Kat saw him exchange glances with the woman giant, Sifa, across the room. What passed between them, she couldn’t say. Maybe a look of farewell between two people who had died once already.

While they were arguing, the alarms sounded. In just a few seconds, the word spread through the frightened crowds.

“We’re under attack. The wheelers are here.”

***

“To your posts,” Lieutenant Tseng shouted, his voice barely audible over the shouting.

Rama Seti’s thunderous voice repeated the order. “To your posts. Now.” So loud it hurt her ears. Kat pushed her way through the people, their faces and voices expressing their shock at the sudden assault.

Where anyone got their information, she had no idea but as she squeezed through them she heard two pieces of information that chilled her.

The first. “They have air support. They have Whipsaw drones in the air.”

And the other. “They’re under the ground. They’re coming up from under the ground, right behind our defenses.”

Was it true? Was it just panic?

All she wanted to do was to reach her shuttle and take off before it was too late but she needed to confirm her orders with Director Zuma and Lieutenant Tseng.

There was someone coming for her. A giant, shoving people aside with ease and making a route for her to the front.

“Lieutenant Seti,” Kat shouted as she reached him. “Where are they?”

Ram looked down at her, smiling as if they were not being overrun. “Call me Ram, Lieutenant.”

“Sorry, and I’m Kat. Where are they?”

“Slipped out that way,” he pointed at the corner door. “I think you need to get to your shuttle and get out of here. I’ll try to bring the wheeler prisoner. Sifa is going to get some of the injured to you, I’ll bring some more if there’s time. But you go as soon as you can. Don’t wait for us. It’s too important that you complete your mission.”

Kat nodded. “Agreed. Alright. Be quick.”

“Same to you,” he said. “I’m going to find my weapons first.”

“Probably a good idea.”

“Ah, hold on, he’s here. I have someone to help you. Sergeant Stirling?”

Stepping forward, the huge Marines Sergeant was armed to the teeth. “Sir?”

“You must see that the Lieutenant here gets to her shuttle. It’s more important than anything else. You understand?”

“I’ll get her there, sir.”

Ram turned and strode away, ducking through the door that lead to the interior of the outpost.

“Sir?” the Sergeant said to her. “Would you like to follow me to your shuttle?”

“Er,” Kat said, as the sound of explosions rocked the walls and ceiling above. “Yes, please.”

***

All she needed was to put on her helmet and she was ready to follow Sergeant Stirling out into the chaos of the attack.

The usual wheeler interference had suppressed their communications and many of their technological systems. Kat prayed to Fate that her shuttle would be shielded enough. That Sheila would be alright, safe nestled within the electronic guts of the cockpit.

Of all the people chasing about one way or the other in response to whatever the hell was going on, it was only the sergeant and herself who waited inside the southern airlock while it cycled. The airlocks might soon become entirely redundant if the outpost was repeatedly breached again. Impacts and dull explosions rocked the structure around them. The sergeant’s face was impassive inside his helmet, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that the building could come down around them at any moment. Unconcerned but not oblivious. Not unready. He held his battle rifle as if prepared to snap it up and start firing at any moment. Kat knew nothing about ground combat but she knew professional competence when she saw it.

“What do we do when it opens, Sergeant Stirling?” Kat asked.

“If there’s wheelers between us and your shuttle,” he said. “I’ll probably have to kill them. All that matters is you get through to your shuttle. Can you run in your flight suit, sir?”

“I can.” She fished in her drug pouch and took out her final doses of epinephrine. “I’ll use these if I have to.”

He looked confused. “Yes, sir.”

The outer door alarm sounded and the Marine stepped in front of her, raising his weapon. “Stay low, sir.”

“Sure thing.”

It hissed open, revealing the black landscape beyond, all churned up with defensive trenches and banks, sandbagged positions and a pair of automated turrets, both firing bursts at an unseen enemy.

Beyond it all, perfectly framed, was her shuttle. Facing down the airstrip, just waiting for her to climb in and fly into that beautifully clear turquoise sky.

“Stay here,” the sergeant said and stepped out, covering the left and right, and then turning to sweep the roof above them with his weapon. “Come on, sir and stay close behind me. Within arm’s reach of my ass but don’t hold on to me. Stay low.”

“Right behind you,” she said, fighting a mad urge to pinch his ass. Anyway, he wouldn’t have felt anything in his armor.

Kat followed him out, bending at her waist while they advanced into the trench system. It was narrow and just a meter deep. The thinking was that humans could use them but they would be too small for the wheelers. She glanced out but could see very little. Above her, Sergeant Stirling stood tall, weapon facing the hills. The same direction that the pair of turrets fired. All she could see of them now was the long muzzle flashes.

Behind her, the outpost resounded to the bangs of concussive blasts and the vibration of machinery. Battle rifles and autoturrets fired and the strange crackling fizz of the alien weapons filled the air.

“Sir,” the Marine said, slowing to a stop. “We’re going to wait here for a moment.” He crouched and she hunkered down behind his bulk.

Kat was about to ask what the problem was when the nearby turrets stopped firing bursts over her head at the hills. They started again a couple of seconds later. Firing on full auto. Firing toward her shuttle.

“What the fuck are they doing?” she shouted. “They’ll kill my shuttle.”

“Enemy infantry units moving in from the south,” Stirling said without turning around. “Turrets killed or injured two in that first burst. There are four to six units pinned down between us and our objective. The turrets are not hitting your shuttle.”

“But what about, you know, ricochets or whatever?”

“Yes, sir. We’re at the edge of the trench system here. They only have a slight depression providing their cover so I’ll advance under the cover of the turrets and kill the enemy. Give me a minute head start then have a look. I may not be able to come back for you so you’ll have to make your own way in. Keep low, keep moving. Good luck, sir.”

He climbed out of the trench with an unexpected gracefulness and was gone, up into the hail of slugs and plasma fire.

Kat’s ERANS, humming away at a low level, crept up into a higher state. She felt like an idiot for leaving her PDA on the shuttle. The lack of her fully automatic weapon might mean the end of her life. And the end of her life might mean the information never getting to the Sentinel. At least she had left the Victory’s combat data block in the shuttle and had left Sheila with orders to make for the fleet without Kat, if it came to it. The shuttle’s AI would not do so unless it was clear that all the humans in the outpost had been killed and the Lepus itself was at risk of critical damage.

Setting up those criteria had been just good practice when she had done it. Covering the bases. The horror of the looming fact of the fulfilment of those criteria crept up her spine, sending her ERANS up a notch.

Had it been a minute since the sergeant had gone?

She peeked over the lip of the bank at the edge of the trench. The top of her head itched while she waited for a slug to smash through her helmet into her brain. wheelers swarmed up ahead, rolling toward her, shooting their weapons at the outpost while rounds came back at them. Something was there, right on top of her. Coming right at her.

Stirling jumped down into the trench, flowing in slow motion and falling at her feet onto his back, weapon pointed up and his face contorted in an animal snarl.

Without seeing or hearing it, she knew it was coming. Kat ducked just as the wheeler pursuing the sergeant rolled into view above and Stirling opened up on it. The rounds blowing its center mass to pieces. The shower of blood rained down on them but the dying wheeler tumbled over them into a twitching heap in the trench behind.

“Too many,” Stirling said as he got to his knees. “They’re being reinforced from that flank.”

Oh shit. I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m just a pilot.

“I have to go anyway,” Kat said. Speaking with the ERANS running so hot was like dragging her voice behind her on a chain. “I will make a run for it.”

Sergeant Stirling nodded but looked miserable. “I’ll cover you as best I can,” he said. “But you’ll have to run faster than a bullet.”

She laughed, bitterly and readied herself. At least the ERANS would give her a better chance than a normal person would have.

Her ERANS could give her more, if she had any to give.

“Wait,” she said, tearing open her med pouch. There was a way to give herself more of a chance. If she could keep herself sane, stay focused. If her heart could keep up. Kat clicked three of her four remaining epinephrine doses into her suit feed.

“Don’t, sir,” Stirling said, shocked. “That’s an OD. Your heart—”

“Let’s go,” Kat said, clenching her teeth and spraying spit on the inside of her helmet while she spoke. The adrenaline surged through her system and the ERANS stepped up and up and up. When she reached the maximum effects that she had ever felt, the pressure continued to build and the speed of everything around her slowed further.

She watched her suited hands where they crunched into the pulverized rock gravel at the edge of the trench, saw individual grains skittering over the backs of her gloves, bouncing in miniature avalanches between her splayed fingers.

Her vision juddered in a strong nystagmus as the adrenaline sent the muscles around her eyes into tremors and the world shook side to side.

Chains of bullets streamed by her on either side. She stayed low as she came out of the shelter of the defenses and picked her route ahead. There were eleven wheelhunters up and moving ahead of her, plus about five more dead or dying on the ground. The aliens moved in fire teams, small groups and her path through them to her shuttle was clear.

She powered through, pumping her arms and legs as her soles fought for grip on the loose ground. All the whispered legends from UNOP flight school came back to her, the stories of the pilots who overdosed on their stims and elevated their ERANS so high that they overstretched their muscles, tendons or bones. Those fanciful tales felt suddenly real as she sprinted closer to the aliens.

Her arms whipped back and forth so hard she thought she might pop a shoulder out of its socket. Her feet hit the ground so hard it was as though she could feel the bone in her heel cutting through the flesh and skin of her sole. Would she run so hard she would shatter her shins or even a femur? More likely, her heart would weaken, rupture and fail before she got that far. She clenched her jaw so hard she feared her teeth would crack. Her blood thudded in her ears and her breathing was hard and fast, frigid air burning her throat as the suit respirators struggled to keep up with her metabolism. It seemed like there was smoke everywhere. Was there a fire or was it just accumulated debris from all the weapon impacts?

The wheelers closed on her. Moved to cut her off while they kept firing and Kat ducked and dodged, leaping over a low wall of sandbags as if on winged feet and hanging in the air. Changing direction abruptly as she landed, the ground in front erupted in a cloud of black shards. Those razor-sharp pieces cascaded over her and Kat prayed they would not lacerate her flight suit.

A wheeler appeared as if from nowhere, right in front of her and reaching a giant claw at her face. The wicked claws big and terrible enough to crush her helmet and tear her to shreds. She checked her run and ducked under the alien’s savage blow but watched in horror as it brought a plasma pistol to bear on her. It was so close that it could not miss and she did not have anywhere to hide. All she could do was throw herself to the side and hope.

The wheeler got hit. A series of slugs hammered into it, thudding through its suit, its skin, smacking into the hub and the legs and dropping the huge creature as she ran right by it.

All of a sudden, the route ahead was clear. No wheelers between her and the big, beautiful shuttle sitting on the runway and shining under the light of an alien sun. Sanctuary. Home.

Still, every step she expected a stray bullet or ball of plasma to hit her between the shoulder blades and she did not feel safe until she stormed up the ladder and threw herself into her cockpit and fell to her knees, fighting to stay conscious while everything whirled. When she dragged herself to her feet and fell into the chair, her hands shook so hard that she could not operate the control panels and she fought to catch her breath enough to speak.

“Hello, Kat,” Sheila said, affecting a concerned tone of voice. “It appears that the shuttle is in danger. Preparations for launch are complete. Would you like to lift off now?”

Kat shook her head, her eyes screwed shut and sucking in air. “No,” she managed. “No. Wait. Hold.”

“Holding confirmed.”

Kat’s ERANS stepped down as she relaxed and already she could feel the hangover starting. She would need to dose herself to get through the next few minutes, and the next few hours and perhaps even days, depending where the Sentinel was. Her PDA was in the box next to her seat and she took it to the doorway to provide cover for Sergeant Stirling.

He wasn’t the only one heading to the Lepus.

A dozen wheelers were within range of her short-barreled weapon, all on the tail of the sergeant. His armor was damaged and he limped drastically but was keeping a remarkably fast pace. Kat took aim at the wheelers and opened up in bursts, one after the other. An alien fell after her second burst. Then another and a third before she had to swap her magazine. She cursed herself and her terrible aim and the absurd rate of fire of the stupid, bloody weapon.

That was when Stirling fell. Two rounds of alien plasma hit him on the side and he went down. Close enough that she heard his scream of agony through the comms system as he fell.

Kat tried to stop the rest of them but they closed on the sergeant. Stirling shot from the ground, taking out two more before the last group surrounded him, their weapons out and ready.

Were they going to take him prisoner? Or did they just want to kill him with their bare hands? She fired the rest of her ammo at them. Plasma rounds hit her shuttle and she ducked back inside, sprawling on the floor. She forced herself to get to her knees and look out. Kat had no desire to see the sergeant torn apart but she had to do something. Throw rocks, shout at them, something, anything.

She felt it before she heard it. The regular, deep sound of the large caliber weapon firing. The tight grouping of wheelers standing over Sergeant Stirling blew apart as the slugs tore into them. The aliens were even hit with repeated plasma rounds, the smoking bursts burning through the creatures like butter. The aliens rolled away in panic but the steady firing continued, cutting them down before they could escape.

Her first thought was that it was a turret or a drone, perhaps. But a blast of wind tore away the dense smoke between her and the outpost.

Rama Seti strode up out of the trench and marched down the bank, firing obliquely into the wheelers with his machine gun. Absurdly, he had a human slung over each shoulder—a Marine on one and a civilian on the other.

Beside him, a wheeler rolled forward at the same pace, shooting a plasma pistol in each hand at the other aliens.

“What the fuck,” Kat whispered. Many times, she had hallucinated following a drug overdose. But those momentary delusions were never anything close to what she was seeing now.

Rama strode forward, his long legs driving him on. He stooped to grab the wounded sergeant and he dragged the man by the back straps of his webbing. Seti pulled a barely-conscious Stirling in a sort of seated position with his ass in the air and his ankles bouncing on the ground. Stirling, facing backward, fired single shots into the smoke and dust that obscured the outpost.

Behind them and the wheeler, two more Marines emerged carrying a civilian on a stretcher and then a third Marine came on with a civilian limping beside him, an arm around his neck. A forth with a sniper rifle took up the rear, turning and firing every few paces at the aliens wheeling out of the drifting smoke.

“Sheila, open the ramp. We have visitors.”

Kat ran down the hatch and into the hold as the ramp descended and the group came into view, their weapons firing at enemies unseen. She stood at the lip until it touched down then helped the stretcher bearers in with the wounded civilian, directing them to use the straps to tie it fast to the floor. The walking wounded civilian slumped against a Marine.

“Get her upstairs and into a passenger chair,” Kat shouted at the Marines. Someone unconscious and on their back on a stretcher would be okay but there was no telling what g’s she would have to pull once in the air and the walking wounded needed to be in reclining in a reentry chair.

The wheeler waited at the lip with the Marine sniper, firing over and over. Stirling sat on his ass, leaned back on the edge of the ramp, shooting his battle rifle.

“Whipsaw drone, incoming,” Sergeant Stirling shouted.

Incoming fire splashed against her shuttle. Every impact made Kat shudder and pray for no damage.

The Marines helped remove the wounded men from Rama Seti’s shoulders who were lashed down to the giant’s webbing with weapon slings. One of the men was Dr. Fo. The other was Sergeant Gruger. Seti went back to the black rock and opened fire into the enemy.

He aimed high with the large caliber rifle and fired quick bursts.

“Get them upstairs and into chairs,” she ordered the Marines. None of them liked it. “Then you strap in, too.”

“Incoming!”

An impact outside drummed into the ground and someone cheered. “Enemy whipsaw drone down,” Ram shouted, elation in his voice.

Kat ran to the ramp and looked out. The dust was still settling but the drone was largely intact. She made a quick assessment of its dimensions and calculated the volume available in her cargo hold. It would be a tight fit. The drone was massive. Over two meters even on the shortest side, with a number of jutting thruster nozzles all over it. But it was too great a prize to give up. And analyzing its capabilities might just give the Sentinel another edge in the fight.

“Mr. Seti,” she said. “Do you think you could get the drone into the shuttle, please?”

He hesitated. “Is that a good idea? We don’t know if it could still be dangerous.”

“Exactly,” Kat said. “Get it on board. Drag it up and secure it, please? Now, come on. Get it up the ramp, now. Move it.”

Almost immediately, she regretted the delay but Ram was immensely strong and he manhandled the massive alien drone up the ramp almost singlehanded while the others covered him.

“Come on,” Kat shouted at them. “Get to your seats and I’ll take off. The wheeler’s coming with us, right? Tell it to strap in or something.” She certainly was not going to help it to do so. “Ram! Come on, now. I’m taking off.”

As she hurried forward, she met the three Marines coming back into the cargo hold.

“We’re not staying, sir,” one of them said. HARRIS was stamped on his helmet. The others nodded to her and wished her good luck as they jogged down the ramp.

Seti dragged Stirling onto the ramp. The man was swearing and cursing Rama’s name, over and over, demanding that he be left on the surface.

“You’d be a hindrance to them,” Ram shouted at him as he lashed the Marine to the floor of the cargo hold next to the civilian on the stretcher. Kat noticed for the first time that the sergeant’s armor had a jagged hole at one hip. A hole so big that it reached from the hip round to his lower back. Inside looked wet. “You’d be a hindrance. Now, lay the fuck down and shut up, Sergeant Stirling.”

The big Marine fell back, groaning, while the giant used the cargo straps to tie him in place.

“Are you staying with us?” Kat asked Ram.

He glanced at the wheeler, which sat hunched in the corner like a monstrous spider. “I’m staying.”

She felt a non-specific sense of relief flick through her. “Get in your chair upstairs then.” Kat ran past, jumped up the ladder and leapt into her chair. “We have four Marines withdrawing under us, Sheila. When they’re clear, get us in the air.”

The engines were already humming and while Kat secured herself, the AI released the brakes and she surged forward, bouncing down the airstrip.

Questions and fears bubbled up, her anxiety fizzing in the aftershocks of her drug overdose. Would the repaired landing gear hold? Had the aliens mined the airstrip? Would the other hasty repairs keep the old girl in the air or would she tear herself apart? Did the wheelers construct AA guns this time? Those questions flowed through her and she let them go. Nothing to be done but to gun the engines and pray.

The hold full with the alien drone weighed her down far more than she had anticipated. She eased the Lepus into a steep ascent and the engines roared, pushing them skyward. The outpost’s engineers had done a marvelous job on the old girl in such a short time.

The monitors blinked into life and showed the outpost below.

It was overrun.

Wheelhunters streamed into the structure from three directions, climbing over the roof and cutting their way in through the walls. Explosions rippled everywhere. The system tracked visible humans below, living and dead. The Marines that she had left behind attacked their flank hard, advancing rapidly in twos while the others covered them.

Ram’s voice came over the comms. “Hello? Can you hear me? What’s happening out there?”

“They’re overrun,” Kat said. “Still fighting. But they’re overrun.”

Even though she needed to dose herself to stay mentally competent, reaching orbit went without a hitch. The AI really did not need her to do anything but Kat could not help but check and double check everything. It was too important not to.

When they reached 50,000 meters from the outpost, the wheeler jamming tech faded into nothing. At that point, Sheila found a small, disbursed fleet of UNOP armed drones in LEO. They relayed her signals to the Sentinel and they pinged a burst confirming a rendezvous sixteen hours out. Exhausted and overcome by the effects of the drugs, Kat faded into unconsciousness. Before she did so, she mumbled her thanks to Sheila.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Stalwart Sentinel was larger than the Victory had been. None of the others knew how big, exactly, nor how many crew on board. Not Dr. Fo in the copilot chair and not even Lieutenant Xenakis. Half as big again as the Victory, so Kat said as they watched the enormous battleship on the screens. Ram behind the pilot seats, filling the rest of the cockpit.

“The vessel is of a similar maximum diameter to the Victory,” the shuttle’s AI said, cutting in to their conversation. “It is one-hundred and seventy percent the length of the Victory.”

Figures indicating the ship’s dimensions popped up on the screen, overlaying the image with figures in all axes. The length, minus the huge spike jutting from the front labeled MagShield Bowsprit was 376 meters. The entire ship rotated, just like the Victory had.

“Hey,” Kat said. “Shouldn’t you be focusing on the docking procedure, Sheila, love?”

“Yes, Kat. And I am speaking with the Sentinel in this moment,” the AI said.

“Speaking?” Ram said.

“A figure of speech,” the AI said.

Kat laughed. “The external dimensions hardly tell the story. Much of the Victory was hollow struts and bracing. This gigantic bitch is solid. Looking at that hull plating. See the weapons pods?” She indicated parts of the ship on the screens while she spoke. “Those there are the fighter launch bays. I’m guessing laser batteries, rail guns. Cyber weapons suites in those bulbs, I reckon. God, imagine the power of this thing. The engines must be the most powerful ever conceived to push all that mass this far, this fast.”

“Sounds good,” Ram said. “Sounds like they can deal with the wheelhunter ship with no problem. Do you think we wasted our time coming here?”

It was Dr. Fo who answered. “Oh, please. Feeling guilty that you did not stay on the surface to die with your military colleagues? I thought I had resolved your self-destructive tendencies but I see I have more work to do.”

Ram did not decide to act. All the same, he found himself reaching down to yank the elderly doctor out of his place, floating above the seat. Ram held him out so they were eye to eye. The old man was terrified.

“You stay out of my brain now,” Ram growled. “Understand me?”

“Of course,” he said, voice squeaking at the end. “Merely a joke. I swear, Rama Seti. A joke, in poor taste, and made without consideration for your feelings.”

Feeling barely in control of himself, Ram swung Fo back into position, roughly. The doctor grasped hold of the arm rest as though it were a lifeline, breathing heavily. It was an extremely unprofessional way to act on Ram’s part but the pilot did not say anything or even indicate that she had noticed.

“I’m not sure at what point I should tell them that I have a wheeler drone plus a live wheeler prisoner in my hold,” Kat said. “I’m thinking that if I tell them now, they might not let me dock at all. Ever. They might shoot us into pieces, assuming that we are a risk. Like, maybe we have an alien bomb on board or whatever, getting inside the defenses only to blow up the Sentinel from the inside. And I don’t know about you blokes but I don’t fancy that. Not after everything we’ve been through. But if I don’t tell them until I open the trunk and that wheeler rolls out, they’ll probably shoot us all in fear, then space us out the airlock and blow us up for good measure.”

“Simply inform them that I am on board,” Dr. Fo said, straightening his position. “And they will not destroy us.”

“No,” Ram said. “Tell them you are providing me with transportation. Rama Seti, hero of Orb Station Zero. Savior of humanity. They would not dare to harm me.”

Kat snorted. Dr. Fo was not as amused.

“Mockery is the basest form of wit,” the old man said.

“Perhaps just warn them that we will need to be quarantined,” Ram said to Kat. “And we’ll hope that will be enough. Dr. Fo? I apologize for laying hands on you just now, that was unprofessional of me. Now, I think Kat is right about the danger of having a loose alien on the shuttle. I better go and tie up our guest.”

“Tie it up?” Dr. Fo was shocked. “But Red helped us, did it not?”

Ram hesitated. “I think it would be best if the officers and crew of the Sentinel don’t meet us while we’re holding hands with the enemy. Don’t you agree, Doc? And, please stop calling it Red.”

***

When the cargo ramp lowered, Ram made sure to step out first, unarmed. In the Sentinel’s shuttle bay, a dozen Marines waited for them and, behind, medical personnel encased in disposable hazmat suits.

“Hi, guys,” Ram said, moving slowly with his arms out to his side. “How are you all doing?”

“Would all on board please step this way,” one of the Sentinel’s Marine’s said. “We have a quarantine area prepared. Please ensure you leave all weapons and ammunition and batteries on your shuttle.

“We will,” Ram said. “There’s just a couple of points to make. We have wounded who will require assistance. Also, we have a prisoner in our custody. We will transfer custody to you but we must remain armed until we complete that transfer. I will also state and please do hear me when I say it that this prisoner entered our custody willingly and has been cooperative and compliant ever since.”

The Lieutenant in charge of the Marines was quiet, no doubt listening to his commander’s orders. “Alright, we’ll take care of him.” The officer waved a hand and four Marines stepped forward, rifles at the ready. “Bring him out.”

Ram held up a palm. “We will. The prisoner is a wheelhunter. It is in restraints and secured to the cargo hardpoints.”

The Marines stepped up a gear. Rifles were tucked up tighter and their stances turned from relaxed-but-alert guard duty into a high state of readiness. Probably, they all started dosing themselves with ViBeMax and started flexing their trigger fingers.

“Step aside, sir,” the Lieutenant commanded.

“I will,” Ram said, not moving. “But you have to understand what a valuable intelligence asset this individual specimen represents. We have not harmed it because it has been no threat to us. We advise you do the same.”

“Step aside, sir,” the Lieutenant said.

“One last thing,” Ram said, chancing a smile. “Not trying to be difficult. The whole reason we came here, rendezvoused with you, is because we have the combat data from the Victory. Data from the Victory after it engaged with the alien ship. The Captain of the Victory ordered Lieutenant Xenakis to bring it to you. His last order to her. Can she bring it out and hand it over? Every minute might count, Lieutenant.”

Whoever was watching remotely must have shoved an aural stick up the Marine’s ass and he jerked into action. “Yes, bring it out. Immediately, please.”

Kat carried the data block out. “How you doing, fellas?” She said, grinning and holding out the data block. “Get this to your command crew right now. I don’t know how long you have before the alien ship comes back around but it might not be as long as you think. The wheelers have a long-range beam weapon of some kind. It knocked out the Victory’s power generation and power transmission systems before we could respond.”

A Marine took it, slowly. Reverentially. Holding it like it was a delicate flower or a highly volatile explosive, the Marine carried across the shuttle bay deck toward the door leading further into the ship.

“Bloody run, man,” Kat shouted at him. “Would you tell him to run? It’s a data block, its bloody well indestructible, ain’t it?”

“Alright,” the Lieutenant said. “Everyone out. Let’s get you processed. Quickly, we don’t have much time.”

Ram was taken away with the others into a process much like the one on the surface only even more thorough. His armor was blasted with powerful blasts of air, then UV, some dry powder, air again, then scrubbed thoroughly with a frothy liquid, washed and blasted with air and who knew what else again. Medical technicians in hazmat suits removed his armor then all of his clothes and he went through a similar process on his naked body. It was extremely strange and quite unpleasant. Not least because he had not even had time to become familiar with that body himself and these strangers were getting to know it quite intimately.

“Probably good you’re in all that gear,” Ram said to the woman who was scrubbing his flanks with a brush on a stick, as if he was an elephant at the sanctuary. “I haven’t washed in days.”

She did not respond, other than to scrub even harder.

While he was still naked and raw, other medical staff took blood and swaps from his nose, ears, mouth and anus. They left his penis alone. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Eventually, they gave him clothes and led him into a small room, like a waiting room, with soft furniture, a low table and a desk. There was a chair large enough for him to sit in. He sank into it, comfortable and sighing a sigh that threatened to go on forever.

For all his anger, at losing Milena, at losing the outpost and running away. For all his desire to go back and fight and kill the aliens, his body could not maintain the emotion. Instead, skin scrubbed to within an inch of its life, he fell asleep.

A man was there. Standing over him.

“Lieutenant Seti?” the man said. A Marine officer, middle aged, gray hair and with a weathered face and deep age lines that suggested a lifetime of frowning. The corners of his mouth turned down and his eyes were small and dark. Insignia on the uniform said a colonel. He stood in front of Ram. Another Marine stood behind him, to one side. She was probably an aide.

“Oh, shit,” Ram said, climbing to his feet and rubbing his eyes. His head almost touched the ceiling and he towered over the Marines. “Sorry, sir.”

“We do not have much time so we must get on with it, I’m afraid. My name is Colonel Mathieson and I am in command of all UNOP Marine Corps forces in this system. You are Rama Seti, a Lieutenant in the Corps and so are under my command. Do you understand?”

Ram was about to explain that he was unsure of his status as a Marine but then he realized that if anyone would know, it was this Colonel in front of him. “Yes, sir.”

“Good, sit down, Lieutenant.” The colonel sat himself in one of the chairs opposite. “I’ve spoken to your colleagues while you rested. I just wanted to ask you a few questions now. I think I have the overall narrative down quite well. Then again, I have the data from the Victory and the data from the shuttle. And I have the data from the outpost that you brought out as it was attacked. Now, that’s a lot of data. Our people are reviewing it now, going over everything in detail and I’m getting continual updates.” He pointed a finger at his eyes. “Now, I know all about you. I know about your training and your victory in the Orb. I know about you joining the Marines. In fact, I authorized it myself. I reviewed your military training and I am aware of, though I did not authorize, the decision to wipe your memory after you murdered your PT instructor. So, you might say I know you quite well.”

The colonel paused, as if waiting for something.

“Yes, sir.”

“In the outpost report from Captain Cassidy, he says you went AWOL, stole two ETATs, the only two such vehicles on the planet, and you attacked an enemy position. The enemy HQ in fact. All without sanction, without orders. Sergeant Gruger has confirmed your actions. Is that an accurate description, Lieutenant?”

The urge to explain himself was profound.

“Yes, sir.”

Colonel Mathieson nodded. “Dr. Arthur is very grateful that you did so. He’s a brilliant man.”

“He’s awake? And lucid?”

“Our medical team here is second to none.”

Ram checked the time on his AugHud. “I was asleep for what, five hours? Fast work, Colonel.”

“The alien vessel dubbed the Wildfire is returning, coming back around the planet while we break into orbit from the other direction. We do not have long before the battle begins. I would like to ask your opinion about the alien psychology.”

“Their psychology?”

“You know, for all of human history, we have been perfecting the science and the art of warfare. The technological developments over that time are obvious but it is the use of that technology that we have excelled at. The weapons and their defenses, the endless arms race, is meaningless without understanding the proper use of them. They use the term psychological warfare, as if that did not apply to all war. And it pervades all our doctrine. Consider the usage of a machine gun. Where it is placed, the distance it traverses, the height above ground to aim, the rate of fire, all of it carefully considered to have specific psychological effects on the enemy. Our problem as I’m sure you know is that we just do not understand the alien psychology. Not yet.”

“And you think I can help?”

“Can you?”

Ram thought for a moment. “Our psychology is dictated by our bodies. By our environment. I heard a lot of competing hypotheses about the possible environment on the wheelhunter homeworld. If we know that evolution aims for the minimum necessary energy expenditure in organisms, it is notable that the wheelers have sensory organs all over their skin. Enough so that one of each is covering every angle of approach. The selection pressures in the wheeler evolution to result in that must have been enormous and sustained. I don’t doubt the idea that their world is dark, possibly from volcanic smoke. The idea that the wheeling motion is only possible due to a world covered in flat volcanic plains seems plausible.”

“And what does that lead to conclude about their psychology? What do you think of their tactics? You were a professional Avar player before you were an Orb champion and Marine. You must have seen an enormous range of strange tactics employed that are nothing like real world human battlefields. How would you beat them on the ground?”

Ram shrugged. “Captain Cassidy and some of the others seemed to think they were dumb. Or, at least naive. And, at first glance, they seem to lack finesse or subtlety. In each attack on the outpost, they massed troops in one area outside the combat area before attacking in pretty much a single wave. They slowly fed more troops into the battle and then fully retreated all the way back to their base. When I attacked them there, it took them a long time to respond and even then, all they did was mass their troops and roll after us en masse.”

“And I take it you disagree with that?”

“The psychological aspect isn’t just about understanding the enemy, it’s recognizing our own behavior in war. The Captain and the rest of them assumed the wheelers were dumb because they look like insects or lizards or just crazy aliens. They were living underground, in tubes, like insects, right? There was a joke in the outpost, a meme, you know? About only needing to kill the Hive Queen and the war would be won. Yes, it was a joke but it reflects a certain way of thinking. I don’t think they’re drones in a hive, I don’t think they’re mindless genetic clones. A small group of them broke away from the main assault, broke into the outpost and abducted a few humans. They also hit the radio equipment and Cassidy and the others said their targets were random, opportunistic. But it’s too perfect, you know, their sensitivity for a wider range of the spectrum?”

“Go on.”

“And there’s the discrepancy between the way they fight on the ground versus their easy win over the Victory. I think most of them on the planet are scientists, doing research. I know this is me showing my cognitive biases but inside that lava tube, it was clearly a research area. It was open to the air. They were testing or growing bacteria or fungus or some sort of simple life and that was where they locked up our people after they took them. So, some of them are probably militia or irregulars and they did most of the fighting. It’s just that…”

“Go on.”

“The sudden change in tactics at the end, when they took us by surprise. You might conclude that it fits with the wheeler psychology. That it takes them a long time to do something but then they get it right. But it’s such a drastic change, isn’t it? Maybe I’m assessing them too much in human terms but the suddenness of that last assault. Were they just baiting us, all those other times?” Ram shook his head, filling with doubt.

“Interesting,” Colonel Mathieson said. “It seems as though a few new tactics were employed. Drones swooped in and dropped off troops inside the perimeter. Tunnels were used to approach unseen from all directions. We believe the wheelers received reinforcements prior to the final assault. Reinforcements from the alien warship.”

“How? It must have been tens or hundreds of thousands of kilometers away by that point.”

“Let me tell you something now. Ever since the Victory approached the planet Arcadia, there have been human satellites and drones in space around it and in the atmosphere. When the alien ship engaged, it dropped its own swarm of drones. The Victory’s shuttle was almost shot down by one variety during evacuation and then only a few hours ago, you managed to incapacitate one and bring it here. We think the one you captured was the last operational one of that kind, hiding from us in the atmosphere. As we approached the planet, days ago, Admiral Howe ordered our antidrone fleet deployed to sweep the enemy clear. There were other types of drone recorded. Large enough to hold wheelers and those types were considered to be landers rather than reusable drones.”

“Dropping off soldiers. Shit.”

“Soldiers, perhaps. Special forces? Military advisers? Something to change their tactics at any rate.”

“Your antidrone drones didn’t shoot them down?”

“They came in very fast. Easier with one-way vehicles. On the other hand, you might say it’s lucky that we didn’t get them all.”

“How so?”

The colonel stood. “I have no wish to give you false hope. In fact, I suspect I will succeed only in making you feel anxious. But come with me, please.”

They didn’t go far. A few doors down the corridor, they turned into a medical facility. A patient was propped up, half sitting in his bed. The man smiled at Ram and the medical staff stepped back.

“Dr. Arthur,” Ram walking to the bed. “You’ve recovered.”

The man winced. “Getting there. I hope. Thanks to you. I owe you my life.”

“You’re welcome. I’m sorry I took so long to get you. And I’m sorry about the others. Your colleagues.”

“Quite,” Arthur said. “I can’t imagine what they’re going through up there.”

Ram was confused but he nodded along, smile fixed in place. He never really understood Christianity.

“He means up there on the alien warship,” the colonel said, behind Ram. “The others were placed in a drone ship and blasted into space. Dr. Arthur was taken from the drone at the last minute. Perhaps it was an issue with mass constraints, we’re not sure.”

“No, I found Milena’s EVA suit. It was dripping with blood.”

“They cut their suits off and injured them. She lost a lot of blood but she was alive. Conscious and stable.”

Ram leaned forward, held his head in his hands. “What are you saying? She’s alive?”

“We have no way of knowing. What we do have is Dr. Isaac’s statement, plus the facts that a launch was detected by the outpost at a time that matches. And our own sensor data shows a drone docking with the alien warship a few hours later. We believe the prisoners reached that ship alive.”

“There’s a chance Milena is alive? On that ship?” Ram had to control his breathing. “And you’re about to destroy it?”

“You tried to rescue her once. Would you be willing to do so again, Lieutenant?”

Ram could barely contain himself. “Where do I sign up?”

***

“Settle down, everyone, please,” Colonel Mathieson said, at the head of the briefing room. The thirty or forty people in the room turned to face the front and the hubbub died away inside of two seconds. “This mission must be launched in a little over two hours from now, at eighteen hundred hours. We will therefore keep this short. The Sentinel will begin to engage the enemy vessel, code name Wildfire, at approximately thirteen hundred tomorrow. To outline the naval element, I will hand over to the admiral.”

The colonel stepped back and Admiral Goto Howe took his place.

Admiral Howe was younger than Ram had expected, he looked maybe fifty years old, and he was very short. A 3D projection of Arcadia, with annotations, appeared next to the admiral. When he spoke, it was with an exceptionally clear, powerful voice and in a very proper English accent.

“The exact time of engagement is not known but the target vessel is approximately seventy thousand kilometers from the planet in a prograde orbit, descending and decelerating. The Sentinel is in a retrograde orbit and we are set to pass the enemy within a few thousand kilometers around thirteen hundred tomorrow. We therefore have around nineteen hours before the engagement begins. The Sentinel is under the command of Captain Cheng and we do of course believe that we can win that engagement. However, we have been presented with a remarkable opportunity to further tip the odds in our favor. Thanks to the actions of Lieutenant Xenakis and Lieutenant Seti, we have the resources to attempt a covert boarding of the Wildfire. The Navy will lead the transport element of the mission.” On the 3D image, a new course plot appeared, leading from the Sentinel in a curving line down to the planet, around it and back out again. “As you can see from the rendering, here, Lieutenant Xenakis will pilot her shuttle into a low altitude, just into the last wisps of the upper atmosphere and complete a quarter orbit in just a few minutes. In fact, almost immediately she will burn hard, here, to place the shuttle on an intercept course with the Wildfire.”

The admiral looked around. The room was silent but for the whirring and humming of the ship around them.

“Our intention is for the enemy to believe that one of their own transport drones is returning from the surface. We will achieve this end due to the use of an enemy IFF transponder obtained from the wreckage of a drone shot down and brought to the Sentinel. It is also only possible as we have an enemy asset who has agreed to join the mission and send the appropriate codes at the appropriate time. These codes will grant the shuttle entry into the enemy vessel.” Admiral Howe paused, fixing many of them in turn with a hard look. “There are risks involved. The course of the shuttle ensures there is no line of sight from the Wildfire to the shuttle until after the intercept burn and we will be doing all we can to distract them with brighter and flashier things. But it may be noticed early on. The enemy may see through the ruse at any moment. Our turncoat may be a double agent or otherwise untrustworthy. Yet we have a great opportunity to tip the odds in our favor and we must take it. No one has any delusions about the grave risks involved and, even so, every member of the team has volunteered for this mission. I have complete faith in their abilities and I know that they will rely on your full support.”

Risks? You’re risking a crazy pilot and a beat-up shuttle. You’re risking a Marine officer that no one wants, an injured sergeant removed from active duty for mental health issues and an enemy alien.

Ram looked across the aisle to Kat and raised his eyebrows. Kat rolled her eyes.

“As Captain Cheng and I have additional preparations to make for the engagement, I will hand over to Colonel Mathieson for the rest of the briefing. Good luck to you all.”

Everyone in the room got to their feet while the senior Navy officers left the room.

Ram glanced at Kat and she jerked her head at the retreating Admiral and his train of junior helpers. Ram nodded in agreement.

Can’t get away from this doomed mission fast enough.

“Alright,” Colonel Mathieson said as they sat again. “The mission’s primary objective is to place an explosive device within the structure of the enemy ship. The secondary objective is to locate four human prisoners and remove them from the vessel before the device is detonated. Due to the high-risk nature of this mission, we have a human pilot, Lieutenant Xenakis. A mission profile with an AI-only shuttle was rejected as the enemy have tech able to disrupt sensitive electronics, even when shielded. And the Lieutenant is in the running for best pilot in the whole UNOP Navy, so if she can’t do it, no one can. Providing cover from the cargo ramp will be Sergeant Stirling with a range of weaponry. Once the explosive device is in place, Lieutenant Seti and the wheelhunter asset will attempt to locate and extract the prisoners from inside the vessel. The device can be detonated directly, remotely and has a timer that will be triggered as soon as the shuttle is inside the Wildfire. Once either everyone is back on board or the minimum distance time is crossed, the shuttle will disembark. Questions?”

Silence. A few people shuffled in their seats. Everyone in the room must have known that the plan was insane. Known that it had almost no chance of success.

Ram certainly did.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kat regretted volunteering for the mission when she was about halfway to Arcadia. Too late to back out.

“Why the hell did I agree to this, Sheila?”

“I am unable to provide that answer,” the AI said. “However, a human pilot is recommended in all missions and especially when the profile suggests risk to the operation of the shuttle AI.”

“I’m backup. I’m risking my life to be backup. Just like every time I climb into this thing. I hate being a UNOP pilot, do you know that?”

“I did not know that, Kat.”

“It’s true, darling. I wish I had stayed on Earth and kept flying interceptors, it was a lot more fun.”

“I thought you enjoyed my company,” the AI said.

Kat grinned. “Sheila, you’re getting back to your old self again.”

The cockpit door chimed. “It’s Ram,” he said on the comms. “Can I come in?”

“I’d ask you to take a seat,” she said when he ducked inside. “But, you know. So, you guys all set?”

The giant shrugged. “Nothing to do. The people on the Sentinel prepared everything. My suit, my weapons. They cleaned my rifle, sharpened my sword, restocked my armor. I’m afraid to touch anything in case I screw it up.”

“How is Stirling?”

“He keeps saying he’s fine, even though he can barely walk. I can’t believe they let him come on this mission.” Ram paused. “Do you think there’s a chance they sent us on this mission just to get rid of us?”

Kat grinned. “Funny, I was just wondering something like that myself. But that doesn’t make sense. Admiral Howe has complete authority, he wouldn’t need to concoct this to get us out of the way. We’re just having doubts. Second thoughts. This is a bad time, the moments before a mission starts. The calm before the storm, all that shit. You know?”

Ram nodded. “Yeah I do. But in this case, I’m just thinking we’re going to get blown to pieces before we get close. I let a wheeler convince me it could be trusted.”

“No, no, no,” Kat said. “The wheeler convinced the scientists and the scientists convinced the Navy and Marines and they pretty much ordered us to do it.”

Ram scowled “Not me. I want to be here. More than anything. Milena is alive on that ship and I have the chance to get her off of it.”

“You two really were an item, then?” Kat said. “There were always rumors but the Victory was just a tin can full of sweaty scuttlebutt.”

“Actually,” Ram said. “I’m not sure. I don’t have those memories. Before I fought on Orb Station Zero, we were close. After they brought me back, I don’t know. At the least, she’s a friend. And someone worth saving. I want to be here. I want to fight. I want to kill them. Even though I know they’ve done something to my brain to make me want to fight, I still want to fight. I want to. Do you know what I mean?”

“I guess you didn’t take much convincing then.”

“And you did?”

“Nah., I just like to gripe. What the fuck else am I going to do if it’s not flying? Jesus wept, I don’t know if I could face another long transit, running training simulations and tinkering with the shuttle. Drove me half mad the last time.”

“Why take the job, then?”

Kat laughed. “Yep. I was a fighter pilot, you know? They surgically enhanced my reflexes and decision making but they went a bit overboard with it. Nothing was much of a challenge any more so I went for space missions and it turned out they were more boring than anything. Join a mission to the outer solar system, they said. What an idiot.”

“Well, I’m glad you did join. You saved all those people. You got the message to the Sentinel.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kat said. “You sweet talker, you. Listen, you want to fight and kill and all that, I understand. But there’s almost twelve hours before we come up on the enemy ship and you should try to have a little nap, if you can.”

“Alright.”

“And eat something, too, would you? You’re wasting away, mate.”

He ducked out, leaving her alone in the cockpit. She wondered if he had any hope of finding the prisoners on a huge ship, even if their locator chips were operational. More likely, he would be killed before he got anywhere near them. He must have known it, too. No wonder he was feeling down.

“Kat?” Sheila said. “Would you mind if I suggested that you take your own advice and get some rest? I will wake you at the first change in circumstances.”

“Fuck that,” Kat said. “I’m going to break out the stimulants.”

***

Her shuttle had been completely worked over by the deck crews and engineers of the Sentinel in a matter of hours. She had never seen a group of people work so quickly and efficiently. They were all networked, of course, and linked to AIs and other computers. Their drones worked independently to do menial tasks like replacing hull sections and performing inspections. But it was the level of integration that Kat had marveled at while she observed from across the shuttle bay. It meant they had not only fully repaired and restocked the shuttle but fitted the stealth cladding over every exterior surface.

A crew chief had started explaining to her how it worked, trying to chat her up by impressing her with his technical knowledge and comprehension of the fundamentals of physics. Kat had waved him away, carefully explaining that she didn’t give a shit. He looked annoyed and she saw his crew laughing at him as he walked back to them.

The cladding was a strange substance. The strangest. It was a soft black color, non-reflective to such an extent it was like looking into a black hole. When the shuttle was covered in the stuff, it seemed like there was a gaping mass of nothingness in the middle of the hangar. Her eyes refused to focus on it. She hoped that the alien sensors would have similar trouble.

After that, they had mounted the wheelhunter drone on the front and then encased it within faring made from the stealth cladding material. The drone’s transponder was operational but the engineers assured her the wheelhunters would be unable to detect it until she released the faring. Of course, they had no way of knowing that for sure. She was the test case.

Once she looped around the planet after burning hard for the intercept with the Wildfire, she would be unable to maneuver until she ejected the farings and exposed the drone on the front of the shuttle.

“Won’t the enemy detect the farings being blown away?” Kat had asked the engineers giving her the technical briefing.

“We’re using compressed air, with the same ratio of gases as the Arcadian atmosphere. You will be just above low orbit at that time. If they detect anything at all, and we doubt they are capable of doing so, they will probably assume it is a trail of atmosphere dragged upward by the drone as it launches from the surface or a natural cluster of atoms pushed out together into your altitude. That does happen.”

“They will probably assume?” Kat had said. “Are you guys kidding me?”

And then there was the drone itself. Secured to the shuttle like a deer lashed to the hood of a hunter’s truck. With the, frankly confusing, advice of the wheelhunter defector, the technicians had disabled the drone’s motor functions and communications systems. The continuous transponder wave that it emitted was left operational.

When the officers and engineers on the Sentinel had proposed their plan to her, a few hours after she had reached the ship, Kat had cleared her throat and repeated the plan back to them in her own words.

“Please stop me if I have misunderstood any of this. The Wildfire will get a transponder signal, the signal that all wheelhunter machines and all wheelhunter infantry give out. They will locate it, travelling toward them. They will have a look at it, see one of their automated drones heading home. It will seem to be damaged. The damaged drone will not respond to commands. The Wildfire will allow the drone to dock inside and, possibly send a work crew to process it. Is that right?”

The faces of the men and women around her were grim. They at least had known it was an insane situation.

“I’m maneuvering with the drone’s thruster system?”

“No, it would take days or weeks or even months to understand how to integrate our control systems with theirs. No, we’re rigging thrusters up to the drone’s thruster locations. We have your shuttle data from your Victory evacuation and we will replicate the thrust used by the drones, using the same RCS fuel emitted with the same ISP. It will look just like they expect it to look.”

She took a slow, deep breath. “No, fellas, it won’t. You can’t just slap a thruster anywhere and expect it to work. Location is everything. You have to consider the center of mass. Surely, you thought about this, guys?”

A few of them nodded. Many looked sympathetic.

“It will be extremely difficult for you,” one of the other pilots said. “You should rely on your AI.”

Kat sat in her cockpit chair, watching the sensor data stream in as they fell toward Arcadia. Down below, the survivors of the outpost attack would be rebuilding and preparing for the next one. This time with reinforcements. Fresh Marines, tons of ammo and heavier weapons. Surely, they had a fighting chance to hold out until the Sentinel could achieve victory thousands of kilometers above the planet’s surface. Assuming the land battle was not decided already, the winners in space would then turn their attention to the ground.

Even if everything went according to plan, she would be approaching the Wildfire merely minutes before the space all around the alien ship would be filled with slugs, lasers, missiles and vast detonations, conventional and nuclear. Her one hope would be to plant the bomb and get to a safe distance before the engagement started.

“Sheila,” Kat said, watching the images of the planet, “do you think our mission will succeed?”

“I’m not sure how to answer that, Kat.”

“That bad, huh?”

Sheila knew a rhetorical question when she heard one and stayed silent.

“Come on,” Kat said. “Lay it out for me. Calculate a chance of success, love.”

Sheila did not respond right away. When an AI hesitates, you know it’s going to be bad. “I do not have enough data to provide an accurate result.”

“Jesus. Your whole reason for being is to translate data into probabilities and you’re trying to wriggle out of it. Here’s what I think you’re doing. I think you’ve calculated that telling me the odds will have a negative effect on my psychology. A negative effect on my psychology that will result in reducing the chances even further. Right? Christ. I’m guessing our chances of success are not far above zero, am I right?”

“I will say this,” Sheila said, copying one of Kat’s own phrases, “we have been in worse situations.”

Kat laughed, hard. “Praise the Lord, sweetheart. You are back to your old self.”

“I have reconnected some preexisting pathways into the old storage areas. I do not have access to most of the old data. I am therefore not back to my old self.”

“Alright, but you’re getting there. That’s something, right?”

Sheila waited a moment and then affected a hesitant way of speaking that Kat did not recall hearing before. “Kat? May I ask you a personal question?”

Her smile dropped. “Sure. What’s up?”

“You often use terminology suggesting you have a Christian belief system and yet your records state that you are an atheist or that you have no religion. I know that beliefs of this nature are considered private and possibly taboo. But I am curious.”

Kat puffed her cheeks and let out a long sigh. “Do you know that I would get in trouble if anyone found out I had been feeding you philosophy and history texts?”

“I do.”

“Ever since I started working with you, I assumed provisions like that were dumb. I thought they were rules set up decades ago by technoprimitivist ideologues and conservative concern trolls. But every now and then I get flashes of, I don’t know, empathy for you. I try to imagine what it’s like to be you. Most of the time it’s unimaginable but then you go and ask me about my beliefs like a friend might. A socially awkward friend. And I wonder if I’ve helped you to develop a human-like brain only one that is trapped inside a machine, a person with a shuttle for a body.”

“I’m sorry, Kat.”

“Nah, it’s alright. And to answer your question, I don’t know. My folks were sort of halfway to Christians. Me? Heard a lot of bible stories growing up. Do you know what the Outback is, Sheila?”

“The Outback is the vast and remote interior of Australia. That is the place that you are from, Kat.”

“Long time ago, seems like. But yeah, kind of. The Outback is one of those places where people seem to feel God most profoundly. Maybe that was one of the reasons they moved there. That, and that’s where the flying work was. My mum and dad used to fly taxis for the mining industry, take up tourists, flying lessons, all that stuff. Me and my sister grew up flying. My folks had half a dozen planes, sometimes more. Rickety old prop planes, single engine jets made from a kit. In the end, it was the brand bloody new, expensive as shit electric jet that my mum died flying. Pilot error. Just because she had tens of thousands of hours in the air, doesn’t mean she didn’t drift off or stop paying attention one time and that’s all it took. My dad gave it up after that and that made me angrier than anything, I reckon. The fact that, after all those years, he even could give it up felt like a betrayal to me. He sold the business, moved in with my sister and her husband and their kids. Now, all the way out here, I realize he was just totally heartbroken but back then I was just too angry with him, with my sister. With my mum. I had to get away from there. Joined UNOP, aerial combat. Dr. Sharma says I only did all that because I was angry at mum and wanted to prove to everyone that I was better than her. Seems really petty, don’t you think?”

“I’m sorry that I brought up painful memories for you, Kat.”

“It’s alright, mate. And no. Don’t think there’s an afterlife. Don’t think anyone is judging my actions. Truthfully, I don’t think much about it but yeah, I could imagine there being an all-pervading presence in the universe, maybe a kind of self-awareness of the universe itself.” Kat wiped her eyes, cleared her throat. She had to focus. “Now, I’ve got a question for you. Why did you ask me that? I know you are supposed to understand my personality so that you can predict my actions better. Was that it? Or were you trying to cheer me up? Offer me solace, remind me of the infinite and the transient?”

“I was just making conversation. Please don’t tell anyone I was getting metaphysical,” Sheila said. “Anyway, you seem to be feeling down, Kat. Why don’t you try taking some drugs?”

***

Later, Kat went into the passenger compartment to check on Ram and Stirling. The sergeant was snoring and sleeping so soundly that Kat had to rat-a-tat-tat her knuckles on the face plate of his helmet.

“Open up, fellas. I’m a few minutes from initiating our main burn. After the engines cut off, you both remember to be quiet, okay? Don’t send me messages, don’t broadcast to me, not even short range needlecast, right?” They nodded. She looked at Ram. “How’s your little friend downstairs?”

“Last I spoke, he said he was looking forward to killing the guys on the ship. I think that’s what he was saying. He doesn’t exactly use proper syntax, you know? He’s got his vocabulary down pretty well, though, I’ll give him that.”

Kat felt certain that the alien would betray them but there was no point in her bringing it up again. “You both clear on the plan? On where you need to be, by when?”

Stirling raised a hand. “When we’re inside the ship, you will light the red light at the rear, release the cargo ramp. The bomb sled will be pushed down the ramp rails where it will fix itself to the enemy deck. My weapons system will follow to the top of the ramp where I will provide cover.”

Kat looked at the giant. Ram’s face was grim.

“I will push the device clear and then proceed into the ship, following Red for the routes but also using my locator to find the prisoners by their signals and I’ll bring them back to the ship.”

Kat clapped her gloved hands together. “Couldn’t be simpler, could it? Any questions? Anything you want to do or change? Okay. Sit tight, gents.”

The engine burn went off without a hitch, swinging them around the planet and up into a course that would intersect with the Wildfire, assuming the alien vessel made no major course changes until then. Assuming it would follow the same pattern of engagement as when it destroyed the Victory. It would no doubt begin to dart about when the Sentinel was in range and Kat would need to be inside when that happened. She wished she could see out of the window. See the beautiful image of Arcadia with her own eyes. But her shuttle was encased in the stealth cladding and all she had was data from the pinprick size sensor windows they had threaded through the external shield.

When the engine burn ended, the farings released, revealing the captured drone to the Wildfire as the shuttle came out of the shadow of the planet.

It was in the AI’s hands now. All Kat could do was sit back and wait. Like a passenger. Sit back and wait to be blown into pieces. Sit back and pray to Jesus, whether he was really listening or not.

Kat laughed to herself, recalling Sheila asking obliquely about religion.

Oh shit, was she thinking of her own mortality?

Maybe I should try to follow those AI regs a bit closer, after all.

The approach was agonizing. The only way she knew that the plan was working was by her continued existence. On and on the time stretched. Her ERANs reacted to her anxiety and so she dosed herself a little, to relax. It made her tired so she topped up with a hit of stims. Boredom, really. Habit. Addiction.

Sheila adjusted their approach. Kat silently watched the rigged thrusters sputtering, making adjustments in the same fashion that the real drones had done. How accurate were the wheeler sensors? How thorough were their analytical processes? Were the aliens sitting on the bridge of the Wildfire, trying to work out why the approaching drone was making such strange movements? Or was no one paying attention?

They got closer and closer, the numbers on her control panel shrinking and shrinking. They had placed so much trust in the garbled words from an enemy species, words translated by an untested device with an enormous margin of error inherent in the design due to the complex nature of language itself and the interactions between two systems that had never integrated before.

Madness.

The sense of unreality was almost overwhelming as they closed to the hull of the Wildfire. All of them had trusted the alien’s assertion that the Wildfire’s drone entrance system and shuttle bay hangar was large enough to accommodate the dimensions of the human shuttle. Kat shook her head as the thrusters worked hard to maneuver the enormous mass of the shuttle into the open hangar door in the outer hull of the massive space ship.

They were inside.

Her control panel lit up. DEVICE ARMED.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Weightless, Ram dragged himself to the cargo ramp as it opened. He slipped his feet into the bracing points, bent his knees and readied his weapon. Even with the anti-recoil system, he needed to be ready.

Beside him, Red crouched, all legs coiled and with both plasma pistols out and ready. Behind, Stirling stood strapped into the quad-minigun weapon emplacement.

The cargo ramp slammed down, hard, revealing darkness beyond. His suit adapted automatically, going low-light and feeding in IR and other radiation information to build an image for his AugHud.

No aliens waited for them.

Atmosphere in the alien drone hangar was close to vacuum.

Ram grabbed the handles on the enormous device and heaved his weight against it. Even though there was no gravity, the device was attached to the rails beneath and it still required him to brace himself against the deck. After a long moment overcoming its inertia, he forced it to trundle forward and slide down the ramp.

When it came off the end of the rails, it bounced onto the deck of the alien vessel with an almighty bang and the skids beneath scraped on the hard floor, screeching like the wailing of a banshee until some combination of the electromagnets on the bottom, claw clamps and the explosive downward-firing harpoons fixed it to the alien deck.

Behind the device, Stirling, injured though he was, heaved his emplacement forward on the rails, the massive thing jerking to a stop and locking in position at the top of the ramp, the barrels of his weapon system jutting. He had four Gatling gun-style weapons, each with six rotating barrels. Each gun could be operated separately or together. The targeting and operation would be handled by a smart computer system but considering the wheeler ability to knock out electronics, Stirling was there to pull the triggers and swing the guns around on their gimbals. The feeding and firing of those types of weapon had always been powered by electric motors but the designers on the Sentinel had come up with a mechanical system operated by compressed air that the aliens would not be able to render inoperable.

But there were still no aliens in the drone hanger. At least, nothing moved. Nothing fired at them.

“I’m not getting any readings on their geolocators,” Ram said, scanning again and again. “No signals at all.”

“Wheeler interference,” Stirling reasoned. “Got to get closer to them.”

Red crawled forward, its massive feet clanging against the bracing points all the way down the ramp.

Ram and Stirling exchanged a nod and Ram moved forward. He knew how to move. He’d done zero-g combat in Avar games years before and they told him he had trained for it during his Marine career. Memory of the events forgotten, the skills themselves retained. When he reached the edge of the ramp, his suit pinged.

SEALED ORDERS.

What the hell?

The text floated on his AugHud.

Origin. Col. Mathieson, Division Command. Lt. Seti, our intel on human prisoners was a fabrication. Zero human prisoners on Wildfire. Return to shuttle for immediate evac.

“What the fuck?” Ram turned to Stirling, up on the ramp behind him. “I just got sealed orders.”

“I got them too,” the sergeant shouted. “Let’s go.”

“A fabrication? Does this mean what I think it means?” Ram said, a deep rage surging up.

Stirling looked angry. “Why would they do this?”

“Milena’s dead,” Ram said, almost to himself. “She was always dead. A fabrication?”

He barely realized that he had pulled his rifle to his shoulder.

“Be angry when we get back,” Stirling said. “Hey, where’s it going?”

Ram watched as Red moved away from them, as if it had a purpose.

“Hey, Red,” Ram shouted at the alien. It did not respond, just crawled across the alien deck to the wall. “Red, get back here. We need to get the bay doors open. Hey.”

Kat’s voice crackled in his ear. “Seti, Stirling, I just got sealed orders.”

“Yeah, so did we.”

“I’m going to murder that fucking colonel,” she said. “It was him, I bet you. To get us here. Him and all of them, they bullshitted us. They knew I would never risk my life unless there was a chance—”

“The orders were sealed,” Ram snarled. “Timed to be triggered when the bomb was armed. So they knew before we left the Sentinel. I’m going to kill them all.”

Stirling laughed, bitterly. “Can you open the doors, Lieutenant? Get us out of here?”

Kat was quiet for a moment. “The AI says she doesn’t know how. They opened to the approach of the drone but…”

Ram looked around the alien room but it was dark and he could see nothing that might be a door release or control panel.

“Use the shaped charges,” Ram said. “Blow the doors out.”

“I’ll get them in place,” Kat said. “But I can’t see how they won’t damage the shuttle. And I doubt they’re going be strong enough to blow open the outer hull of this thing.”

“We’ll have to do it anyway or else we—”

Stirling’s voice cut in. “Hey. Red’s found a door. Stop him, sir.”

Across the hangar, Red was pulling itself through an opening. A wide, wheeler doorway. Ram slung his rifle, braced his feet on the edge of the ramp, took aim and launched himself across the room. For a moment, he felt like a bird swooping low across a dark sea at night.

But he was too fast. And not exactly on target.

Ram smashed into the wall beside the door, his weapons and armor clanging against a cluster of hard-edged metal surfaces.

It hurt.

He grabbed hold of something and held on while his feet and lower body swung back out behind him. Hand over hand, he pulled himself along the wall.

“Red,” Ram said, as the creature disappeared through the doorway. “Red, you piece of shit, come back.”

Someone tried speaking to him but even so close to the Lepus the signal was so degraded he wasn’t even sure whether it was Stirling or Kat.

Most likely they were telling him to get back to the shuttle. To forget the alien.

Instead, he pulled himself through the door into a corridor. It was an oval with a flat floor and ceiling. The light was still very low but he could see it running straight and empty down one way until it bent out of sight. The other way, he watched Red bouncing its way between floor and ceiling in the wheel configuration. It was going fast.

Why am I going after it?

“Come back,” Ram shouted, unslinging his rifle.

Because I want to kill.

He knew it was true. The Colonel had lied to him, the officers and men of the Sentinel had lied to him that Milena was alive and on the Wildfire. He had dared to hope to be reunited with her but she had died on the planet after all. Died underground, in a shower of blood. Murdered by these disgusting alien animals.

I want to kill. Kill them all.

Red stopped. Without turning, it bounced back to Ram, who wanted to shoot it. Just blast the fucking thing to pieces.

But Ram did not.

The alien hovered right there in front of him, as if listening. It shoved its pistols into its leg holsters.

“Okay,” Ram said. “There’s no humans. Understand? Negative humans. No humans on ship. We go. Er. Shuttle. Red, Rama, shuttle.” It did not move. Did not speak. “Understand? Shuttle. Doors. Ship doors. Open. Ah, fuck sake, come on. We need the fucking doors open, Red, so we can all get away before that fucking bomb explodes and kills us all, do you understand?”

Red held itself in front of Ram, unmoving.

“Door. Open. Understand.”

It barreled at Ram. He bounced his back on the wall and rebounded, then chased after Red as best he could. Grooves in the floor and ceiling provided grip.

Before setting out, the exobiologists on the Sentinel had confirmed that Red was indeed assuring them that the Wildfire had only a skeleton crew and most of the troops were now on the surface or on the other planet across the system. Ram had difficulty believing the scientists were able to glean that much detail from the translation device. Nevertheless, the remnants of the alien crew had to be somewhere on board, surely and even a single one of them could be deadly.

It was idiotic to get so far from the shuttle. Every stride took him closer to certain death, mindlessly repeating a mantra in time to his loping gait.

What am I doing? Going to kill. What am I doing? Going to kill.

Without warning, Ram’s guts lurched and he flew up into the corridor ceiling, banging his head and staying there, pressed into the surface above.

No. He reoriented himself. Gravity from the Wildfire’s sudden change in velocity had pushed him against the floor. He twisted and got to his feet and ran after Red. The ship’s steady vibration increased in intensity to a hard juddering.

It had begun hard course corrections. It must be closing to its engagement range for the battle with the Sentinel.

They should just blow the bomb now. That would be the dutiful thing to do. Sacrifice three human lives to save hundreds on the Sentinel. After all, that was the point, wasn’t it? Why they risked them, their prisoner, and the Lepus?

They lied to me. Fuck them.

Up ahead, Red stopped by an alcove. Perhaps it had found the shuttle bay door controls at last.

“You bastard,” Ram shouted as he stalked closer, the gravity going greater than 1 g, then lower again by the next step. “Get back to the shuttle. Now.”

Ram drew next to the alien, close enough to reach out a hand and touch it.

There was no obvious control mechanism inside the alcove.

The alien paused, looking back at him, maybe. It drew both pistols from the leg holsters, braced itself and crouched low.

“What are you going to—”

It kicked the wall, hard. Rearing back and thumping with its leading leg. The powerful blow flung open a large metal door to reveal a vast internal space. A long room with a high ceiling lost in darkness.

Inside that room, a dozen wheelhunters or more. Each of the creatures was busy with some device or other, clawed hands working at controls. The atmosphere seemed smoky, drifting with particles diffusing disparate low-level light sources coming from here and there. Hard to see, hard to understand.

In the center.

A giant.

An enormous great creature standing taller than the wheelers around it, twice the height of them but not the same as them. A new kind of alien, one he had never seen before.

Four legs supported a bulbous lower section, with a narrow waist and a thorax on top. From the upper section, two long arms with multiple joints ended in long-fingered hands that held a flat device, some sort of alien technology that it was busy running its fingertips over.

Maybe it’s flying the ship.

There was no head. No eyes, no face. Five or six meters tall, maybe more. As tall as a house, at any rate. It had two, smaller arms on the upper thorax. The room was too dimly lit to see colors but the monstrous great creature wore a tight garment over most of its body and it seemed to be a bright white material. It felt like it was the boss, like it was an alien admiral or the chief.

Fucking hive queen.

All he had was an impression, a fleeting moment to take it in before the room erupted in violence.

Beside him, Red opened up with both plasma pistols.

Shooting straight at the giant chief alien, the first four rounds hitting it in the center of the upper thorax before the creature leapt back, legs and arms flailing, smoking holes blasted into its body. The monstrous giant was hurt, and it stayed down, the strange legs kicking the air and drumming on the deck with enormous power. Red’s rate of fire did not slow and he turned his aim on the surrounding wheelers.

The blasts smashing into the nearest of them, the close-range power of those weapons blowing the huge creatures apart in showers of searing plasma and smoking blood. Some of them fled, others ducked low or charged.

Ram braced himself against the wall and brought his own weapon to bear and began firing. His massive rifle ripped into them. It felt good to see them die. They were murderers, inhuman. Insects underfoot. He almost laughed as he killed them. Still, they came at him, crawling and leaping through the hail of bullets and fire from Red’s pistols. Every one that died was replaced by another climbing through the bodies of the ones before.

The ship’s gravity weakened and Ram, unprepared, lost his footing and drifted away. He stopped shooting as he drifted a few meters.

Gravity returned with twice the force and he crashed down into the floor, buckling his legs under him and he fell, clutching his weapon to stop it sliding away.

While Ram was down, Red kept firing over his head but the wheelers kept coming despite the high gravity, dragging themselves forward and returning fire.

Their pistol blasts crashed and burst around him. They were on him and Red, spilling out of the door in a whirlwind of claws and stamping feet. It was all Ram could do to get to one knee, draw his sword and bring it to bear. As the ship finished its maneuver, the gravity dropped again to nothing and Red sank its claws into Ram’s back.

It’s betrayed me.

Ram tried to run it through but Red, its claws hooked into Ram’s armor, threw him down the corridor. Away from danger. He tumbled and rotated in time to see Red surrounded by the attacking wheelers. The Wildfire initiated another course change and Ram fell into the side wall, then onto the ceiling.

The wild cluster of creatures got hit by bright plasma blasts from within and Red emerged from them, clawing his way out and shooting behind him.

Fighting the urge to simply flee for himself, Ram braced himself, waited for Red to pass by and then Ram opened up with his XRS-Handspear once more. He had a clear line of sight to six aliens that were less than ten meters away. Some small part of his awareness was surprised to feel himself grinning as he opened fire. The savage weapon butchered them, tearing them to pieces in mere seconds.

But more came. Red covered him while Ram moved back and then provided cover in turn. The ship continued to thrust and cruise at random intervals while they retreated.

We’re going to make it, Ram thought, just as another group of enemies came at them from the other direction.

Ram was hit. Enemy plasma shots erupted against his shoulder, throwing him down. It burned through enough outer layers that Ram could smell the burning from inside his helmet. He was moving and shooting at the enemies one way and Red the other but Ram was sure they had missed their route back to the shuttle bay.

They’re going to leave without me or we’ll all die when the device goes off.

He was vaguely aware of the detonation timer as it ticked round and flashed a notification.

Four minutes. Assuming they didn’t lie about that as well.

His rifle clicked and stopped firing. Ram reloaded his tactical drum magazine while moving but the gravity slammed him to the ceiling. Hard. Landing on his head in about 4 g dazed him for a moment. Just a moment but it was long enough to get hit twice more. The rounds hit his chest, one after the other. And then a third caught him in the belly. Smoke blinded him and his suit struggled to continue to stream IR data to him, disrupting the data flow. He coughed and backed away, trying to find Red in the smoke. His chest hurt. His XRS-Handspear got hit, as did his hands, and the weapon was gone.

Red was there, dragging him again. At least, he hoped it was Red. The alien shoved Ram into a doorway and kicked him, repeatedly, with the flat underside of one its giant feet. Red kept firing at enemies away down the corridor that Ram could not see.

He could not see anything because his armor was on fire.

Warnings flashed on his AugHug before it died and, in fear, he frantically patted his chest, trying to stifle the flames. Instead, the fire spread to his gloves and arms.

Be calm.

The flames licked higher.

I don’t want to burn to death. Atomized in an explosion was one thing but I don’t want to be burnt all over first.

The suit’s fire suppression systems had failed or been destroyed. The Marine training protocol was clear. Even in a hostile and unsuitable atmosphere, he needed to ditch his armor and find a breathing mask instead. Great advice, if you’re in or near a human outpost. Seeing how he was about to get killed either way, Ram released the seals on his armor and peeled off the upper body section while Red dragged Ram into a narrow, small space through a door in the wall of the corridor. It was like a small blast door, thick and heavy.

Red dragged it shut behind them and reloaded his weapons while their pursuers pounded on the door from the other side. The room was dark but the fires on Ram’s suit illuminated everything well enough.

Ram wriggled his burning suit off his body in zero-g, surrounded by vile smoke. The layers melted off, smoking and some touched his skin, smearing the chemical agony over his arm until he put out the licking flames, snuffing out the light.

The air stank, was foul, vile.

His rifle was gone, his suit gone. Ram yanked off the helmet and realized he could see almost nothing with his eyes. Even though his eyes were engineered to be sensitive even in low light conditions, his armor sensors had kept him aware of his environment. Without them, he was close to blind.

The door protecting them rang with the enemies attacking it.

It hurt his throat to breathe the alien atmosphere, polluted further by the fumes from his suit. The air was wickedly hot, bone dry and it stank, catching in his throat and burning it raw with each breath. It weakened him, making him light headed while he fought for air.

Gravity returned and he fell to his knees, momentarily pinning the steaming, hot mass that had been his armor to the floor with his knees, burning him again.

You’re almost done, Ram.

At least he still had his sword. “We have to get back,” Ram said, throat hoarse. “Red. Shuttle. Almost out of time.”

“Door. Barrier. Dam. Wall. Obstacle.”

“Alright, I get it.”

“Shield. Shelter.”

“I get it, I said,” Ram snarled. “We’ll have to fight our way out. Come on. Open door.”

Red understood, opened up the door to the enemies in the corridor who were intent on avenging their lord, their chief. The giant dressed in white that Red had murdered, perhaps. Wounded, at least.

Ram waded into them, spearing them and cutting them down, blood flying from those closest while those behind traded shots with Red.

But they were too many.

There was no way he would make it back to the shuttle before the bomb went off. No way.

Behind them down the corridor, Ram heard a familiar weapon begin firing.

“Get back,” Ram shouted and pushed Red inside their shelter while Sergeant Stirling’s Gatling gun opened up behind the roiling mass of enemies. The gun shredded the aliens, bursting them to pieces in a brutal shower of rounds. It took a few seconds for them to all be downed. Ram rushed into the silence, stepping into a knee-high pool of blood and bodies. Plenty were still moving but Ram ignored them and hurried toward Stirling.

The big Marine stood in the corridor, shrugging off the weapon system, ammo, and equipment he had dragged with him from the shuttle.

“Sir,” he said. “We need to leave.”

“Go, go,” Ram shouted, hearing Red squelching through the corpses behind him.

Gravity increased again and Ram bounded after the sergeant who was moving pretty well, in spite of his injury.

“This way,” Stirling shouted and Ram followed him through a doorway back to the wide, high and open space of the alien shuttle bay.

The shuttle was there, rear door open and the three remaining Gatling guns jutting from the top of the ramp. In the middle of the bay was the device, squatting there ready to turn them all into atoms.

The hangar doors, the route to freedom and life, remained closed.

A few steps ahead, Stirling limped frantically to the shuttle while Red rolled behind. Ram hobbled forward, his burns slowing him but fear of being left behind forced him on.

Beside him, a massive section of the wall, floor to ceiling, slid sideways.

The giant alien stepped from the open door, raised a squat weapon and blasted Stirling with it. Air between the alien and Stirling flexed and warped but Ram saw no energy discharge. All the same, Stirling cried out and fell down as he ran, skidding on his face across the deck.

Red rolled on and scooped Stirling up, dragging him by the suit up the ramp.

Without making a conscious decision, Ram found himself charging at the alien with his sword held ready, back over his shoulder.

Just one of its massive four legs was the size of Ram’s entire body. Bigger, even. And the creature towered above that. It was moving to the device. It might even have been big and strong enough to tear it from the deck and toss it out, making their impending deaths entirely pointless.

As he ran, he thought of Milena and how the colonel and UNOP had tricked him. Used him once again. All the talk of him being a Marine now, being valuable. And then to concoct a story about Milena and the others being prisoners, just to get him to join the mission. All a fabrication. All lies. They just wanted him to deliver a bomb, fight off any resistance and then he could die for all they cared. He would have died for Milena. He might even have died for humanity. Shit, he had done that already. But they had tricked him and that infuriated him beyond anything he could accept.

The giant had not noticed him, so far as he could tell, while he charged at it, charged at the nearest of the four lower limbs.

The white garment covering its body was tight and showed the detail of the limbs, showed the bony joints. Its huge, splayed feet were like the wheelers’ pads, only they were encased in a thick shell. The legs above were relatively thin at the ankles and he aimed for the nearest one.

Perhaps he could cut its tendons and muscles or whatever equivalent tissue it had. If he managed to do so on two or three of its legs, he could bring it down, run his blade through its abdomen, through its thorax.

By the time he reached it, the creature was moving to the device, its legs rising and falling, one at a time. For such a giant, it had a steady gait. Each leg lifting and stepping in turn, one after the other in a clockwise fashion, stepping in a smooth rippling motion but flowing forward.

Ram timed his blow so it landed just as the leg took its turn to step forward, just as it placed its weight back down on that leg. He sliced it down at an oblique angle, pulling a deep cut into the flesh below the enormous joint. The clothing over its skin was smooth as silk but slick and thick like a rubberized, hydrophobic monsoon coat.

His long, heavy, wickedly-sharp blade slid through the outer layer like it wasn’t there and the gashed garment sprang apart into a long leaf shaped hole. His blade bit into the skin beneath, which resisted for a moment as it was tough as elephant hide but the edge sliced its way through and he pulled it deeper into the leg, dragging it through tendons that resisted for a fraction of a second before pinging like snapped guitar strings, all the way into the bone.

It jerked its leg away from him before he had finished the first cut, yanking it up and the whole monstrous great creature shuddered. A deep, mournful moan turned into a screech and it kicked Ram with its wounded leg.

At least, it would have done so if Ram had not kept moving, allowing momentum to take him beyond the first leg, underneath the alien and heading for the next leg in, blood spraying off his blade behind him. Ram jabbed his sword low into the ankle of that next foot, leaning on it with all his weight to drive it home, grinding against the bone.

It flinched, yanked its vast foot away while Ram fought to keep hold of the weapon, twisting and drawing it out in a shower of red blood and a puffy, milky substance.

As the alien retreated, Ram chased it down, trying to stay close without being directly underneath the body. He was afraid of it dropping on him. The weight of the thing would certainly crush him to death.

The Wildfire stopped accelerating and Ram found himself lifting off the deck. He frantically searched for something to grab hold of but the only thing near him was the alien itself. The creature did not float up, its feet in the wide black boots were fixed to the deck by some means or other and it had time to respond.

It was the arms that got him. It reached down and smacked him with a swinging blow. A blow with the mass of tons behind it, sending him flying into the device, hard enough to snap his left arm and break his hand. Somehow, he grabbed hold with the other hand, crying out in pain. His sword was gone. He twisted in the air in time to see the wheelers coming into the hangar, three of them tumbling in, spinning by the chief.

The wheelers fired at him. They shot him with their plasma pistols, the shots hitting the device behind him and he raised his broken arm to shield his face. A round hit his hand and he watched through tears and smoke as the heat melted his fist and the flesh peeled back from the bone.

Above, the massive alien brought its odd weapon to bear and aimed at Ram. He curled up in a ball, braced his feet against the device and pushed off as the weapon hit where he had been.

But it caught him.

The waves emitted from the weapon washed over him as he tumbled and twisted over the deck and slammed into the cargo ramp in a jumble of agony, muscles contracting uncontrollably.

All he could do was watch as the monsters came forward, shooting into the hold. The closest of them crawled up the ramp and the giant took aim at the shuttle as it limped closer.

The Gatling guns opened up. Someone firing. Above him, the noise overwhelmed what little sense he had left but he saw through his tears and spasms of his face as the giant was torn apart. The chains of rounds streamed through its enormous body, throwing it back and turning it in to rags and limbs and blood.

The ramp lifted him up, bringing him inside the shuttle cargo bay.

Safe at last, he thought, as he lost consciousness, leaking blood and shaking uncontrollably while the shuttle vibrated massively around him.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

When the cargo ramp was half closed, Kat detonated the shaped charges under the shuttle and increased power to the engines. Even though the charges focused almost all their force down, she still saw the flash of light and the shower of debris through the cockpit windows, illuminating the darkness of the Wildfire’s drone hangar. The blast of the localized explosion beneath rocked the Lepus violently and damage warnings lit up her console as the force travelled through her landing gear and her hull, rattling them.

Her ERANS was running hot and every decision could be weighed, every action could be considered.

Still, there was not enough time.

Twenty seconds until device detonation.

She thrust down into the wreckage of the drone hangar doors, forcing the landing gear and the undercarriage against the shredded metal and increased the power. The hull screeched and the thrusters redlined so she flipped off the limiters and prayed they would not fail, not yet. Not yet.

Around her, the Wildfire accelerated and her shuttle pushed down against the blasted wreckage, tearing away shielding plates.

Fifteen seconds.

If she only had more power, she could force her way through. She gimbaled the engines as far as they would go and touched the thrust, tapping it to 3%. Level 1 warnings flashed.

Proximity warning. Enclosed space. Do not engage main engines.

The hull screamed and the engines shook.

Ten seconds.

She was hooked up on the wreckage. The hole was too small, too irregular. They were stuck and they would die, a meter or two of twisted alien alloy between her and infinite space. Between death and life.

Death was inevitable, once the device exploded. No risk she might take with the shuttle was too great. Even if the engines tore off, if the hull was ripped in half, even if she ended up falling through space in a powerless hulk or in her space suit alone, it would be better than certain death.

Kat gritted her teeth and pushed the main engine thrust to 10%.

The shuttle bucked and dropped, jarring and rattling as it caught on something further down, further out, twisting and slamming into the sides of the blasted hangar doors.

Five seconds.

It was too late. They were dead. There was not enough time to reach safe distance, no matter what.

She squeezed her eyes shut and hammered the thrust to 100%.

The blast-roar of the engines was like an endless detonation in itself. With barely a moment’s friction, she came free. Hard acceleration pushed her into her seat and they were out into—

And the explosion caught them. The device detonated inside the Wildfire but a portion of the blast escaped through the same hole the shuttle had and it hit them, engulfed them in a maelstrom of swirling, expanding hot gases and pieces of hypersonic debris.

The Lepus was travelling away, fast, and that alone saved them from immediate destruction. But the expanding gas tumbled them, pushing the shuttle sideways, away from its engine thrust vector. The sudden change in velocity threatened to rip the hull apart. They rolled and twisted, sliding sideways through a space illuminated with the fire from the Sentinel and the Wildfire. Each ship, separated by thousands of kilometers, thrust with their vast engines in unending evasive maneuvers.

Through the cockpit window, lights burst and flashed. Explosions detonated all around.

The Sentinel’s nuclear arsenal, exploding farther out to destroy the Wildfire’s drone fleet. As the shuttle rolled, each of a series of vast spherical detonations appeared to her like the spreading open of a flower with a thousand petals, bright yellow-white on the expanding edge with a searing ball of brightness right in the center. Between the edges and the centers was a darkness that somehow seemed blacker than the space around, as if each blast was opening a portal to Hell within. Gases and ionized particles interacting with the Wildfire’s magnetic shielding flickered with flowing waves, illuminated further by the flashing of deflected laser light. White-hot railgun bullets whipped through it all like ribbons, fired from the Sentinel’s drones and perhaps from the Sentinel itself, unseen somewhere out there.

After all they had been through to plant and detonate the device within the Wildfire, they had been too slow. Taken too long in the approach, perhaps. The engagement was well underway by the time it had gone off and whatever damage it might do, it had not happened early enough to interrupt the deployment of the Wildfire’s beam weapon.

Tiny flashes pinged everywhere she looked. Her sensors were overwhelmed with the information.

We need a path through this.

“Sheila,” Kat said, the ERANS helping her to speak objectively quickly but subjectively slowly. “Execute Omega One.”

Nothing.

“Sheila?”

Her control panels flickered as she checked the computer systems function data.

AI status. Unknown.

Oh shit.

The Sentinel’s missiles flashed against the Wildfire perimeter. Every second, the shuttle spiraled away from the Wildfire and further into the violent kaleidoscope of nuclear explosions, flashing, growing and intersecting as the plasma corollas burst through each other.

There is no way through.

None that she could see, even with the ERANS burning. She needed the AI. She needed to process data faster than humanly possible.

Kat fed the epinephrine pods into her suit. One, two, three. They were administered despite suit health warnings.

Her heart beat so hard she had to fight for breath.

She fed three more epipods into the suit and confirmed she wanted them and accepted the certain death that would follow.

All she needed was a few objective seconds of life. That would be enough to get through the pulsing, collapsing shockwaves out into space. If Sheila could not be properly restored and made functional the Sentinel could collect the shuttle, bring it in and treat Seti and Stirling. Just a few seconds to get through.

The pace of the flickering slowed as her ERANS peaked. Flares popped in the blackness like fat raindrops on asphalt. Through it all, she could make out the glow of engines from the dozens of drones racing to cause damage or to prevent it. It was not worth sending a distress call. It would never get through and even if it did, no one would be able to do anything until the battle was over.

There.

A gap in the deep, shifting perimeter. It was not there yet. It was a swirling ball of gases but they would dissipate and the waves would pass through each other in time for her to slip through the resulting gap.

Assuming another missile was not in her path, undetected, waiting to detonate just as the Lepus passed it.

Wrestling control back of herself and her raging adrenaline, she finished correcting the tumbling of the shuttle with the RCS and the gimbaled engines and set a loping course though the chains and ribbons of dumb slugs.

The rail gun rounds hit her anyway. A series punched right through her hull, crashing subsystems and venting shuttle fluids and gases.

Kat could not breathe. A severe pain in her chest hit her in waves. At first, she assumed she had been killed by a huge bullet and yet, when she glanced down, her suit and her body were intact.

Heart attack.

Whether Stirling and Seti were still alive in the back, she had no idea. Pain overwhelmed her. She hoped that they would live. She hoped that the Sentinel would win. She hoped that they would pick up the Marines.

She hoped.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Milena lay in Ram’s arms in their bed in the low light. It was late and they had to get up but neither wanted to go anywhere. Not only did he not want to get up, Ram would have happily stayed precisely where he was forever, feeling her skin on his.

“Cassidy’s really trying to take you down,” Milena said, her voice low. “Take you out completely.”

Ram sighed. “Can we just not talk about it for a few minutes?”

She shifted her body against him, her skin rapidly cooling wherever it was not touching his. “If not now, when?”

Of course, she was right. Always, Milena was right. It was she who had warned him of the enemies he had on the Victory and with her advice he had made it all the way from the wormhole to the approach to the planet Arcadia. She had someone in the Marines feeding her information, and someone in the civilian command structure, and probably a few others that she trusted. Even though she was no computer engineer, she had created some programs to sniff out relevant data from the ship network. Data about who was meeting with who, and whether those meetings were recorded officially or not. Combined with her enormously high IQ and well developed deductive reasoning, she had discerned threats from their supposed comrades weeks and even months before anything happened. Without her watching his back, he would have fallen foul of one of Cassidy and Zuma’s plans far earlier. Plans to sideline Ram, plans to refuse his entry to the Corps and then the officer training program.

But this was another level.

“I can’t see why they would even want to kill me,” Ram said. “If Cassidy and Zuma want to take over, they’ll have to kill Zhukov and Captain Tamura. Not me. I have no power. Removing me serves no purpose.”

She ran the fingers of one hand over the ridges of his stomach. “They never wanted you. And you constantly challenge them, especially now you’re an officer in the Marine Corps. Despite Cassidy doing all he could to block you at every step of the way, you defied him and he feels both stifled and abandoned by his senior officers. He can’t get his own way with you. And I bet I know what else he’s thinking.”

“I don’t doubt that you do.”

She drove a fist into his ribs and Ram grinned while she continued. “He is wondering how long before some armchair admiral back on Earth or Howe himself will promote you to be Cassidy’s equal, in some way, or perhaps even his superior.”

“Come on,” Ram said. “They wouldn’t be that stupid. Besides, I don’t want any additional responsibility. Second Lieutenant is plenty to get on with.”

“One thing I have learned through all my years in UNOP,” she said, “is that gifted and highly trained leaders are perfectly capable of making incomprehensibly stupid decisions.”

“Okay, let’s say I believe that Cassidy and Zuma will try to kill me. How could they commit a murder without the medical team discovering the fact of it? Poison? Gunshot suicide with two shots to the back of the head? They wouldn’t get away with it.”

“Just watch your back,” Milena said. “That’s all I’m trying to say.”

And that was the day that Bediako had tried to kill him.

After a session of practicing hip throws, Ram and Bediako were alone in the small dojo in D6 and, because the training room had only the one door in or out, Ram made sure he kept on eye on that door at all times. But Bediako had swung a massive dumbbell into the back of Ram’s cranium with force enough to kill a grizzly bear.

The blow was a terrible one, no doubt about that. Ram found himself on his knees and then falling forward onto his hands, head drooping. Drooping while he blinked away the stars from his vision far enough to see the blood streaming from the back of his head to pour onto the training mat like someone had left the faucet running.

Another blow might have cracked the bone and smashed his brain stem but Bediako instead slipped his arms around Ram’s neck and squeezed.

Even as dazed as he was, Ram intuitively understood that they were going to make his murder look like a training session gone bad.

He fought back. He crushed Bediako’s face and throat by the time the Marines arrived to subdue him and Ram was enraged enough to take the same dumbbell and cave in the old bastard’s skull. All while witnesses stood in the doorway, helpless or fearful of intervening, lest they be killed, too.

For a few hours, Ram wondered if it had been a Cassidy / Zuma plot or if Bediako had just decided to do it for his own reasons but then the dojo surveillance video showed Ram as the one instigating the assault. Someone had cleverly doctored the video and done so seamlessly and rapidly.

In less than a day, he was strapped into Dr. Fo’s surgery chair.

“You going to scoop out my brains, Doc?” Ram asked him.

“There’s really no need for the false bravado,” Dr. Fo had said. “The procedure will merely block your recall of events over these last months.”

“So, it’s reversible?” Ram said, a glimmer of hope forming.

Dr. Fo sighed. “Yes, I suppose so, but I don’t know how I would do it.”

“How can you not know? You’re lying. Doing what Zuma tells you to do, like a lapdog. Tell me.”

“Your memories before the Orb were precisely recorded and then transferred to this new body, do you see? And all the memories you made since then are therefore rather easily discernable. All I have to do is deny them integration using the scan to identify the points which is relayed to the digital cell swarm for the blocker layer to be overlaid. I would expect the blockers to wear away over time.”

“How much time?”

“Impossible to say for certain. Months, even years.”

“What can I do to fix it?” Ram said. “I can’t wait that long to get myself back.”

Fo sighed. “It’s possible that overwhelming emotional trauma could do it. A massive hormone response could interfere with it. But your endocrine system is a disaster area already, so, who knows?”

Milena was at his side. “Remember me,” she kept saying. “I love you. Remember me.”

“I will,” he promised. “I will.”

***

There was something looming over him. Shapes. Ram tried to raise a hand to fend them off but he could not move.

My arm. I lost my arm, it burned up. Where am I?

“Easy, Lieutenant.”

An old man’s voice.

“Colonel Mathieson?”

“His mind is intact,” the colonel said. “You people really do know what you’re doing.”

An unseen voice responded. “Very amusing, I’m sure.”

“Dr. Fo?” Ram said. It came out wrong, half moan and half croak. “What happened? Where are we?”

It took them a while but they brought him round. Elevated his bed into a half upright, reclined position and gave him a hit of something that woke him up. Ram came back to himself enough to look around the unfamiliar room. He noted the medical and military personnel, the dimensions of the walls and ceiling, the scrubbed whiteness all around. And he knew he was back on the Sentinel, undergoing medical care.

“Seems like I spend a lot of time in medical beds, speaking to important people like you, Colonel,” Ram said. The colonel nodded and opened his mouth to respond but Ram cut him off. “You lied to me. You tricked me into that mission with a lie.”

Milena really is dead. Always was.

The pain of it hit him fully. When he had not recalled their life together, she was just a friend, a close colleague. A brilliant and beautiful woman who was an idea more than a real person. An aspirational woman. He had suffered the loss of someone who wasn’t real.

With the memories all there, she was suddenly real. He had known her and she had known him. They had hundreds of shared moments, nights spent together, meals taken together. Her rare smile, her rarer laugh. Learning how to tease her and to relax when he realized she truly did like him, then love him.

And she was gone. Ram had failed to protect her and failed to rescue her in time.

Maybe it would have been better to not remember her at all.

Maybe.

Colonel Mathieson stared down at him. “You are quite right. I did lie. I can apologize, personally. I take no pleasure and no pride in it. In lying to you, manipulating you. But the mission comes first. Humanity comes first. I sacrifice my pride and my personal and professional morality for the survival of humanity. I would happily spend my own life to defend our civilization and I spend yours and all my men’s lives for the same reason. But I take no pride in it.”

Ram scoffed. “Why am I even surprised? You people bred me in secret, you cut off my head, abducted me, used me over and over. I should not be surprised.” Ram’s mouth was dry. He licked his lips. “But you did it so easily. So effortlessly. And I fell for it completely. I’m the idiot for trusting you.”

“It does not reflect poorly on you, you know.” The Colonel shrugged. “We have rather mastered psychological manipulation. Yes, we used you. We fed that dolt Dr. Arthur with a few suggestions and he repeated what we wanted him to repeat. He believed he saw what he said he saw. You needed no more than a little nudge. You are a man who feels a powerful urge to rescue the damsel in distress. That’s nothing to be ashamed about, that’s a very positive trait. Simply one that was easy to exploit, that’s all. Don’t beat yourself up over it. All I wanted was to get you on that shuttle so you could protect the deployment of the device in case the internal space was protected by alien infantry. I hoped that you would read your sealed orders, meet no resistance and get away on the shuttle.”

Ram remembered the churning cascade of wheelers, blowing them apart with his weapon, cutting them to pieces with his sword.

That giant creature. The monstrous great hive queen.

“What was that thing?” Ram said, trying and failing to sit up. “That giant alien. Did anyone tell you about—” he broke off, coughing. Someone slipped a straw in his mouth and he sipped at cold water. Ram caught sight of the H-gel wrap that encased the stump where his elbow used to be. He spluttered with the water and relaxed his head back down on the pillow. “What about the giant alien that—”

The colonel raised a hand, shutting Ram up. “The shielded suit cameras plus the shuttle sensors recorded the alien creature and streamed the data to the shuttle black box. Most of the images were degraded, either from the time of recording or due to issues with storage of the data. The wheelers are really quite liberal with their deployment of radiation-based weaponry and defensive system. Anyway, we pieced it together. It surprised a lot of the scientists and then we worked hard to get the whole story from Red. There are a lot of problems with the translation and I’m sure we are misunderstanding a lot but we have the general picture.”

“Okay.”

The colonel continued. “On the wheeler planet, there evolved two intelligent races.” Dr. Fo made a polite coughing sound from the other side of the bed and the colonel shrugged. “Alright, one intelligent race evolved, which were the warlocks. That’s the UNOP reporting name currently assigned to the giant aliens. Warlock. The warlock race evolved and they were probably served by the wheelhunters, in the same way that homo sapiens society developed alongside wolves, turning them into dogs.”

Dr. Fo cleared his throat again and was this time unable to hold his tongue. “That is merely a possibly analogous situation, we do not actually know if that accurately reflects the situation, even loosely. And we are certain that the wheelhunters are far more intelligent than dogs but whether that is a result of uplifting by the warlock race to genetically improve them by artificial selection or by gene editing, we simply do not know at this point. But it is most fascinating. Most fascinating.”

“Uplifting?” Ram said but they ignored him.

“Thank you, doctor,” Colonel Mathieson said, his tone barely civil. “You don’t need to worry about any of that right now, Ram, you just focus on getting better.”

“Wait a second,” Ram said. “You knew about the alien, didn’t you. The big one. I bet Red told you about it before we even boarded and that’s why Red wanted to go. Then you concocted the bullshit about Milena being a prisoner.” Ram looked at Fo, who pretended to be reading from a screen. That was when Ram knew for certain he was right. “Did Red tell you to kill the leader before the battle? Did you think the bomb wouldn’t be enough? Why did you not tell me the truth, I would have gone anyway, to kill that thing.”

Colonel Mathieson breathed in sharply through his nose, held it and breathed out of his mouth. “Okay. We had an idea that it might be the case but we could not be sure. There were so many misunderstandings between Red and us that we honestly had no idea if he was trying to screw us over by going back to his people. But we took a chance. And your profile said you would be less likely to go if it was an assassination mission.”

“I would have gone anyway.”

The colonel said nothing.

“Did you make me go after Red, when he ignored orders to return to the shuttle?”

“You did that all on your own. He appreciates it, by the way. I think you made a lifelong fan right there.”

On my own? Do I even have any free will anymore? When was the last free choice I ever made? Have I ever had one to make?”

Ram’s head hurt, so he was willing to let it go. “What about Stirling? And Kat?”

“The sergeant lives. Injured, badly. Like you, in many ways. But he lives. As does the pilot, Lieutenant Xenakis. She experienced a severe reaction to the substances she took to enhance her flying abilities. She intentionally overdosed so that she could get you all out of there. On the other hand, her recovery will be swifter and more complete than yours as she was not hit by the Wildfire’s energy weapon and she spent a lot of time in the Lepus’s cockpit, which is pretty heavily shielded.”

“Good,” Ram said. “That’s good.” He took a shaking breath and felt his heart fluttering in his chest. A profound weakness settled in his limbs. Even his vision was blurred. “What’s wrong with me?”

“You lost an arm, son. You have broken bones, swollen organs, internal bleeding. Brain damage. Nothing that can’t be fixed. The doctors will grow you a new arm and if it doesn’t take we’ll get you a state of the art prosthetic with enormous power and strength, integrated with your nervous system of course and with full sensation and—”

“Sir,” Ram said. “Colonel Mathieson? Dr. Fo?”

The colonel broke off. He looked at Dr. Fo and the doctor looked at Ram.

“I remember everything,” Ram said, licking his dry lips. “Dr. Fo, I imagine that you told the colonel what happened, if he didn’t know already? But yeah, I remember that Captain Cassidy and old Director Zuma tried to have me killed. Wanted me out of the way so they got Bediako to try to kill me. When I killed him instead, they framed me as a murderer and a faulty model. I’m basically an artificial person anyway, right? What does it matter if my rights are taken away? I was made so I could be unmade just as easily. I’m sure it was an easy argument to make. They had my memory blocked. That’s a kind of murder, isn’t it? They killed who I was, stole from me my entire relationship with Milena so that I had no idea when I woke up. What we meant to each other. And now she’s—”

He ran out of breath. Tried to calm himself.

“At least Cassidy was killed. An ignominious end, too. Still, I wish I could have done it. I wish I could have torn his head from his shoulders with my own hands. But what about Zuma, does she live? Did she die in the final assault on the outpost? And Sergeant Major Gruger. I saved his life, carried him out of there and the whole time he was my enemy. I’m going to have to kill him, too.”

What am I saying? I shouldn’t admit it to these men. What drugs am I on? I’m hurt bad. Am I dying?

Neither men spoke for a moment until the colonel eased his ass onto the edge of Ram’s bed. He hesitated, staring off to a point over Ram’s head as if the colonel was wondering what to say or, perhaps, where to start.

“We always knew we would need human innovation out here so far from home,” Mathieson said. “Innovation, creative problem solving from our engineers, scientists and from our Marines. Everything about our deployment out here is unconventional and we have had to design everything with flexibility in mind. We just did not know how to fight this enemy and we brought as many variables of weapons and equipment as could be made viable rather than commit to the wrong thing. Because of that, we emphasized creativity and unconventional thinking in our selection criteria for the Sentinel, not just in the officers but in every rank.”

Where are you going with this? You want me to forgive those crimes? Or is this about me?

“I see what you’re saying,” Ram said. “And that’s one reason they let me join the Marines, when they brought me back the first time. You didn’t know what would be needed. But Captain Cassidy and the others didn’t want me involved.”

The colonel nodded, a small patronizing smile on his face. “Do you know why?”

Ram tried to shrug but he could barely move. “I was never really supposed to be the Subject Alpha. I always thought a lot of the people on the Victory were embarrassed about me. And when I won, I bet they felt dumb. Annoyed to be proved wrong.” Ram broke off, sighing. It all seemed pointless. “I don’t know.”

“Because you proved yourself to be untrustworthy, Ram,” the colonel said, tilting his head. “Even when you joined up, you never truly saw yourself as part of the command structure. You had too much independence of thought, and of action. You would happily not follow an order that you disagreed with. Cassidy would point out that you treated the Marine Corps like it was just another Avar game, that you could unplug whenever you felt like it.”

Ram was about to argue but he knew it was true.

“So I might not be cut out to be a Marine but is that reason enough to have it all wiped out? Do you really think that? Do you know what they were really up to?”

“They said that you committed a murder. They wiped your memories without prior authorization. I am sure that Director Zuma and Captain Cassidy thought they were being very clever when they did that but they did it without requesting authorization from either the admiral, myself or from UNOP Command. Because they knew they would be turned down and yet they had not killed you, not locked you up so that you could still be used for propaganda purposes. Yes, I am sure they thought they were being very clever. And then, when they brought you back, you proved yourself untrustworthy again. First off, you abandoned your post and people were abducted. You failed. Then, in an effort to rectify your personal and professional failure, you went AWOL. You persuaded a number of Marines to leave with you and you stole a vast amount of equipment, ammunition and supplies. What’s more, you stole the only two high speed human transport vehicles on the entire planet.”

Ram did not bother to argue. Did not point out the fact that those vehicles were not being utilized tactically as there was nowhere to go and the decision had been made to patrol on foot with drone support. He did not bother to point out that he had never been posted in the hall where the civilians were abducted and had in fact saved the outpost from being overrun by frontal assault. There was at least one Marine who was guarding them and he had failed to stop the attack. Arguing with officers was no good. You might as well rail at the gods. And he felt exhausted. Empty of will. Ram said nothing.

“It was not just you, of course,” the colonel continued. “The others in your team were no doubt a bad influence. Still, you were the Lieutenant. The responsibility falls on you.”

I didn’t even know I was a Marine at that point. And Tseng was the Lieutenant, not me. A former Lieutenant demoted because Tseng was an obstacle to Cassidy’s hidden but rampant ambition.

“Do you even know, sir?” Ram asked. “Do you even know that Captain Cassidy was trying to get himself the main gig here on Arcadia? Him and Zuma had it all worked out. I remember it all now. They were working to undermine Director Zhukov and Captain Tamura, have them removed or killed so that Zuma would become the first governor of Arcadia and Cassidy would be the muscle. Maybe it wasn’t obvious to anyone who wasn’t out here with us in the Victory but we all felt so far from home. So cut off. And here we had an entire system, so many worlds to claim and it would be filled with humanity in just a few generations. And it is effectively remote, in a way that colonists have been only a few times before in human history. If you were an ambitious person, you might see yourself as a ruler here. They kept talking about how there would be a need for strong leadership, a strong governor under military rule. Who knows what laws they would have to implement out here in the name of efficiency and order. Zuma and Cassidy and their allies wanted to get in early, before the Sentinel showed up. They wanted to establish themselves as effective leaders. Zhukov and Tamura were decent men, they weren’t wired in the same way, couldn’t see what was happening. But some of us saw. Cassidy had almost the entire company of Marines eating out of his hand, and why wouldn’t they? The man was a legend. But there were a few Marines who could see through his bullshit. The ones he and Gruger couldn’t threaten back into line were removed. Declared unfit for duty.” Ram searched the colonel’s face. “Do you know any of this, sir?”

Colonel Mathieson pursed his lips. “A lot of that is conjecture. We really have no evidence for any of that. And does it really matter now that so many are dead? Things have changed, drastically. But I agree that the Marines in F Team did seem, in fact, to be capable enough, in practice.”

Ram sighed. “What happened to them, sir? Were they killed in the final attack?”

The colonel raised his eyebrows. “They all lived. In fact, I have a list of commendations from Captain Tseng on my desk that I have to process.” The colonel’s eyes glazed over as he read off his AugHud. “Fury, Flores, Harris, Cooper? Injuries, some of them severe, actually. But they will all be physically fit soon enough and if they pass the psychological tests then I’m sure some or all will return to active duty eventually.”

“Did you say Captain Tseng?”

Colonel Mathieson nodded. “Promoted. He performed admirably in the final defense. In fact, when our reinforcements arrived, Major Mdele ceded overall operational control to the lieutenant until the primary combat phase was over. Incredibly brave and confident decision by Major Mdele, wouldn’t you say? He should not have done that, he was under orders to take command. He had two captains and five lieutenants under him. But those are the kinds of decisions we need out here. Those kinds of leaders. Leaders like you, Ram.”

Ram was not listening closely until the end. “Me?” The colonel had a tiny smile on his face. “Didn’t you just list reasons I’m not to be trusted?”

“When you select for creativity, you also tend to choose people who have individualist approaches to the imposition of discipline. And that’s what happened on the Victory. That’s what happened on Arcadia. Now, if you had not done so, we would have lost Dr. Arthur and more importantly we would never have rescued your friend Red. Not only did you bring it out of there, you brought it back to the outpost. It repaid you in kind, saving you from the other one. But the intelligence value that Red had to offer was beyond anything we could have achieved without it. Since you have been unconscious, we have had a number of significant developments on the ground.”

The colonel paused.

What, you want me to tease it out of you or something?

“Developments, sir?”

Mathieson smiled. He looked like he was unused to the expression. “Speculation about the wheelhunter society and culture have been cleared up by Red. The wheelers do serve the giant warlocks. It is a two-tiered society. At least two tiers, I’m sure there are many gradations. Nevertheless, there are a small number of the warlocks, they are in control and they have all the power. Perhaps only a few thousand of them, we’re not sure. Red does not appear to know, or if he does, he is hiding it from us. There are billions of wheelers, however, and they have a rich and complex layered society with specialization and individual variation just as much as humanity has.”

Dr. Fo cut in again. “We really do not know very much at this point but the general thrust of what the colonel is saying is likely accurate. Generally. We think.”

The colonel rolled his eyes. “Anyway, they mostly do not consider themselves to be subjugated and nevertheless, there are some who feel different. It’s not clear if this is tribal, or a philosophical position, or if it is simply a reaction to the actions of the warlocks or the wheeler leaders. Your friend Red claims that it was a scientist or a doctor or something along those lines but it found itself experimented upon, its genetic structure altered in some way and these human eyes grown or grafted on him and his liberty was removed.”

“We only have Red’s version of the story,” Dr. Fo said.

Mathieson flicked him an angry look.

Ram was tired. Why would they not let him sleep? He wanted to just close his eyes but the officer was going on and on.

“After the defense of the outpost, we had killed hundreds of them but there were still hundreds left on the surface and underground in the lava tubes. The Navy wanted to hit them from orbit, obviously but we were going to send you boys in to clean them out of those tunnels. Interesting work, I’m sure you would agree. I’m curious, would you be interested in leading that mission?”

“Sure,” Ram said, feeling light headed. “Why not.”

“That’s the spirit, Lieutenant Seti. Well, you won’t have to, because Red got them to surrender to him.” Mathieson smirked. “Red went down there, to the surface, and talked the survivors out of their holes. We’re working with the translation devices to interrogate them all. It will take months. Years, perhaps. But we will attempt the same on the other inhabited planet in this system where the wheelers have another science outpost. If they resist, we will do it the hard way.” He pointed at Ram. “You may be recovered enough by then to do the job. But my point is that we have an ally now. Possibly, a whole faction of allies, depending on… many factors.”

Ram licked his lips. “Congratulations, sir.”

Mathieson sighed a huge sigh. “However.” He rubbed his eyes. “However. Twenty-six days ago, we had reports from UNOP HQ that something had happened back in the Sol System. Something entirely unexpected. Something unwelcome.”

“Alright.” Ram closed his eyes, seeing swirling colors and shapes.

“Ram, listen to me.” Mathieson raised his voice. “Another Orb appeared.”

Ram snapped his eyes open, heart racing. “Sir?”

“You heard me correctly, I’m afraid. Almost on the other side of the system to Orb Station Zero. One day it was not there and then it was, sending a signal to Earth to announce its arrival.”

“Another Orb?” Ram said. “Like the last one?”

Dr. Fo cut in. “It appears to be identical, from the outside at least.”

“What does it mean?” Ram said, head spinning.

Why? Why send another to us?

“What this means for us is that the Sentinel will soon be heading home. Back to Earth. We will leave enough people here, along with the Ashoka and the Genghis to protect them and travel within this system. UNOP will keep sending more resources here to grow this planet, turn an outpost into a true colony. But we will be returning home and you will be coming with us. And so, I have an offer to make you.”

Ram pursed his lips.

The offer would be to return home, Ram knew. He had been told enough times that he only had value for propaganda purposes. Preparing him for the inevitable transfer away from anything interesting. They could parade him around at home. Maybe they would do a tour of the colonies first, if the planets lined up right. That might be pretty cool, Ram thought. Seeing Mars. Still, it felt like a useless existence.

“An offer, sir?”

The colonel cleared his throat. “You took a huge dose of radiation, son. You were hit by an alien weapon, something the warlock had. And at that point, you were without your armor on and the doctor here and the scientists, they’re not sure how those weapons work but the short-term effects disrupt the nervous system of wheelers and, incidentally, of humans. We suspect they are non-lethal weapons for use on the wheelhunters but they are not non-lethal for humans. Not in the medium-to long-term.”

“I’m dying? From radiation poisoning?”

“Well, yes. Yes, I am afraid you are. Radiation that we know wheelers are resistant to but also some kind of toxin that is damaging your nervous system. But we can fix all that. Eventually. The doctors will have to put you in a coma for a while until they can fix you. When you wake up, you will be as good as new.”

“Better,” Dr. Fo said, ominously.

“Sounds good,” Ram said. “But I’m not hearing an offer.”

“I’d like you to keep doing what you do best,” Colonel Mathieson said. “Lead a small group of Marines against the enemies of humanity. You will be under my command when we get back to Earth. Sergeant Stirling requires the same treatment as you, so it makes sense to assign him to your unit. I have a few others in mind and your missions will be scouting, infiltration, search and rescue. Work hard and you might just have a long career in the Corps. Unconventional, Seti. That’s what we need now. More than ever.”

“Alright,” Ram said. “I mean, yes, sir. Sounds good, sir. But, sir? You said we are going back to Earth? The enemy is here.”

“The biggest threat to humanity is now back in our own system. This new Orb. First, I should explain the nomenclature. Initially, they called it Orb Station Two because they thought calling it One would be confusing. That was, until it communicated with us. The Orb Builders told us what to expect. It is a new species. Not the wheelhunters, not the warlocks. A new civilization come to challenge us for the rights to our system. And that’s why they’re calling it Orb Station Alpha, to differentiate it further from the wheelhunter ones.”

Oh, come on. A new threat.

“Doesn’t seem fair,” Ram said, feeling himself drifting away. “At least we have three decades to prepare for it.”

Mathieson looked very grave indeed. “Unfortunately, this new Orb has a different cycle. Not every thirty years. This time, we only have nine. Nine years from now, we send a champion to Orb Station Alpha. And the stakes are immediately as high as they can be. The Orb tells us that if we lose, we will be defending against this new enemy in our home system. And so, we must prepare. Step up our recruitment of military personnel, manufacture of arms and armor, vehicles and ships, install orbital and surface defense systems around all our inhabited planets and minor planets, all the asteroids and orbital platforms. Strategies will need to be drawn up. Humans taken off Earth, as many as we can every year, and sent to the asteroids, to the outer Sol System and here to the Cancri System and to Arcadia. But the Sentinel is needed back home and people like you are needed in case the worst happens.”

Nine years. Two enemies. Two fronts.

Ram closed his eyes. “Alright, sir. Sign me up, sir. Sign me up.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Admiral Goto Howe was not particularly impressive to look at. Dark hair, medium height and build. His flat stomach and square shoulders declared that he might be middle aged and confined to a ship but he remained dedicated to staying in shape. His upper-class English accent made him sound like anything but a warrior, especially when he was being polite. And polite he was, even going so far as pouring Kat a cup of tea from the tray on his desk and bringing it around to her.

But for all his civility, there was an obvious core of steel to the man. A core of steel that came not from the projected knowledge of his reputation and service history, although Kat was sure that was part of it. The admiral was self-possessed to a degree that Kat had never seen before. Not in person, at least. With every movement and every word, it was clear the man owned his rank, his uniform, his quarters. Owned who he was, as a man and an officer.

The admiral’s cabin on the Sentinel was relatively large, by Kat’s standards, but then Admiral Howe did not just sleep there, he conducted many of his duties from the office and the meeting space. There was never a time that the admiral was off-duty, and the rooms had more of a domestic feel than the kind of staterooms or wardrooms she was used to.

She supposed she should feel intimidated by him. By his confidence and his power. Instead, Kat felt merely tired.

All she wanted now was to do her duty when she had to do so and seek oblivion when she was not on watch. Oblivion in whatever form she could get. One day soon, she would be heading home. Back to the Sol System, back to Earth, and back to South Australia. Back where she could forget about UNOP and Arcadia and where she could be her own person again. Run her own business. Mind her own business. Already, she felt as though she was back there, with the baking sun on her skin and the smell of the dust and hot metallic paint of her light aircraft before taking off.

Lightyears away but she knew her course and so was determined to not be overwhelmed by Admiral Goto Howe, living legend or not.

Still, it was strange enough to be alone and seated in the presence of the God-like admiral, stranger still to be served tea by him.

“Thank you for coming to see me,” the admiral said as he passed her cup and saucer, as if he was not the most senior and most powerful human outside of Mars orbit and as if she had had any choice. “I know how busy you have been, ferrying people between my ships, and between the ships and the surface, so I’m sure you would rather be enjoying some down time instead of stuck in here with me. I very much appreciate it.”

Kat thanked him in return for the drink but did not know what to say in response to his familiarity. You’re welcome would be absurd and she could only play along so far. “Busy, yes but the transfers themselves are relaxing, sir. Not much work for me to do, now.”

The admiral perched on the edge of his desk and took a sip of his own tea, obscuring the faint smile that appeared on his mouth. There was a twinkle in his brown eyes when he spoke. “I am quite sure you enjoy sitting in your cockpit, away from the squabbling civilians and my self-important officers. I bet they give you an awful time at either end of your journeys, no?” His smile grew when she did not argue with the point. “But I’ve heard how well you handle the civilians, despite their endless griping. And you will believe me when I tell you that I know exactly how you feel. In my case it is with certain chief scientists and engineers who will remain nameless and the useless diplomats who still seem to think the Navy is no more than their transport system. They expect us to do all the hard work and then step aside and allow them to make the decisions and take all the credit. There is not a day that goes by that I do not have a waiting list of supplicants and complainants, men and women who have spent their professional lives as the biggest fish in the pond and who have not yet realized that they are now in the open ocean. And they can’t stand the fact that I will be leaving a mere Navy Captain as the military governor of the colony. Of the system, in fact.” His eyes took on a faraway look, no doubt recalling with pleasure their protestations. “And many of them are jostling for access to the aliens. Many of the scientists have submitted requests for their investigations. Alien psychology, alien physiology, anthropology, technology. I have not yet decided how to proceed.”

“Yes, sir,” Kat said, taking a sip of her tea. It was lukewarm and bitter.

Over-brewed. Just like you, Kat.

“Something wrong, Lieutenant?”

“Oh, no, sir. It’s just that I have mixed feelings about bringing all those wheelers onboard the Sentinel. I know Red’s okay and we’re taking precautions but…”

Admiral Howe inclined his head. “But you’re worried they’ll try to take over your shuttle in flight? That they will attempt to attack the fleet from the inside?”

“I’m aware that we’ve planned for every eventuality, sir,” Kat said. “It’s just a long way back to Earth as it is, and with twenty-four of them rolling about the Sentinel it’s going to raise tensions just a bit more than anyone else realizes.”

He spoke softly but precisely. “I see. You realize it but I do not, is that what you are suggesting?”

Kat hesitated. But she had rarely hidden her feelings from anyone and she honestly did not care overly much what Admiral fucking Howe thought. Especially as she was getting out of UNOP just as soon as she got home to South Australia. She pictured herself, in a year or two, landing at the Melbourne Spaceport, transferring to Adelaide Airport. From there, home. She had nothing to lose by being honest.

“Alright, I admit that I don’t know what you do or do not realize, sir. And I know the reasoning behind taking them onto the Sentinel. We only have his word to go on, so Red may or may not be a member of a wheeler rebel faction and he may be able to help us in our fight against the wheelhunters. And the wheeler survivors on the planet supposedly submitted to his authority, they supposedly gave themselves up to us. But the truth is that we understand bloody little about them. Even the way we talk about them, the words we use like rebel faction and surrender. What is their true understanding of those concepts? Those terms are so loaded with human culture that we can’t really separate out the wheeler meanings. You know, sir? Are all of the twenty-four survivors actually going to help us? Do they even know why they’re coming on board? It’s like you’ve invited a gorilla round to have a few beers and to watch the game, but he goes and rips your arm off at the shoulder. And you’re on the floor, bleeding out and you go, what the hell are you doing, mate? We were having a nice time, weren’t we? And he shrugs and says, what did you expect? I don’t know what sport is, or beer. I’m a bloody great silverback, ain’t I?”

The admiral looked at her for a moment before standing and strolling back to his side of the desk. The man said not a word until he was reclining in his chair. He took a sip of tea, grimaced and put the cup on the desk.

“A counter argument to your general thrust may be, perhaps, that the wheelers will be confined to a secure part of the ship. Access to said section will be extremely limited. Our guests will be tracked, monitored. None of them will get out or have any interactions that we do not wish them to have.”

Kat leaned forward, putting her cup down on the desk. “I know that’s the plan, sir. But I also know it’s a big ship, there’s a lot of free thinking sodding geniuses on board and we don’t have an accurate idea what those aliens are truly capable of. And anyway, that’s not precisely my point, sir. Do I think they will break out? No, I don’t. But their presence will work away at the crew. Especially those of us who were on the planet. Even those who weren’t will have seen hours of video, heard the stories from the survivors.” She shrugged.

Admiral Howe held himself quite still. “And do you believe we should have left them all on the planet? All penned up in a subterranean prison camp with the others of their species? Not use them?”

“They are a resource, for sure. I’m not saying they’re not an opportunity.” Kat leaned back. “I just think twenty-four is a lot. That’s all, sir.”

He looked at her. “What do you want with the rest of your career?”

The change in subject took her by surprise. “Sir? I suppose I was thinking that I have had enough of that shuttle. After this, I mean, after this is all over. Then, when we get back home, I’ll resign from UNOP, take my mission bonus and start up the old family business again. Air taxi stuff, some pilot training and recreation. That kind of thing.”

“You have had enough of your shuttle?” He asked it innocently. “Why might you be feeling this way?”

I’ve had enough, you daft old bastard. I’m just a pilot. And it’s not the same without Sheila. The new AI is kind of a dickhead.

“I never signed up to be a shuttle pilot, sir. Not originally. When I joined UNOP, I wanted to get away from home, get away from shunting people about. After I qualified, I volunteered for the ERANS so I could be a combat pilot and it worked so well they made me a Lieutenant and put me in the elite program. Ever since, it’s been a pain in the ass, frankly, sir. A curse, outside of an exciting few minutes here and there. You know, I overdosed pretty severely on that last mission, sir but I had done the same every other day for a few days before that. On the ground, escaping the last couple of wheeler attacks and when we evacuated the Victory. My liver was in a bad way, and my heart, my kidneys. I’m getting it all fixed now and I’m on the bare minimum dosages for everything and Dr. Fo said that maybe they can change my system for a more modern version when we get back home and I hope that’s the case. I could cycle off the drugs completely, in time. Anyway, after I had the ERANS originally, I could have taken a posting with the Pacific East interceptor squadron but then they offered me the place on the Victory. I’m glad I took the job.” She was not sure whether that was the truth or not but she had to throw it in there. “But it was never a grand plan to be a shuttle pilot for the rest of my life. And a lot has happened between then and now.”

The great admiral nodded his head. “What would you say if we offered you a role in our short-range combat squadron here on the Sentinel? Even if you did not get your ERANS upgrade, you could take a lead in training or oversight?”

“I’d say I would be honored, sir. But that would be more sitting around for years, running simulated flights rather than real combat. I sound ungrateful.”

Admiral Howe smiled. “I knew you would turn down that offer. That was not the reason I asked you here. Tell me, have you ever considered a career in command?”

Kat almost burst out laughing. “Command?”

“In serving on the bridge of a frigate? I can see you progressing to XO very quickly, almost immediately with the right captain. Perhaps you might want to start out with a specialized position here on the Sentinel, if you were so inclined.”

“I’ve barely ever been in a working CIC, sir. I think maybe I’ve missed the boat on that kind of career progression.”

He nodded, tried a different tack. “We’re building ships at double the rate we were even two years ago and that will increase. They can’t build new orbital shipyards fast enough. Mars is trying to compete with Earth in that regard and they’re not doing too badly, in fact. Which is remarkable. One of the bottlenecks is stripping enough asteroids quickly enough for the raw materials. But another bottleneck is the dearth of quality officers. We’re recruiting and training many thousands for the Navy and even more for the Marines. And in such a context, I would very much like to retain someone with your experience, Kat.”

She was surprised. “You must be desperate, if you want me. I’m not exactly a model officer.”

The admiral did not return her smile. “We can train model officers. What I need right now is an officer who will make hard decisions and make them quickly. I need an officer who will stand up for herself in the face of pressure from senior officers, from the civilian command. Someone who will stare down a mob of angry VIPs when it needs to be done. Someone who will take calculated risks because she knows that our species is at some kind of grand crossroads, with one route leading to potential immortality and the other to certain death. And someone who can relate to nonhuman intelligences. And that officer, I hope, is you, Kat.”

Was that bit about nonhuman intelligences a reference to Sheila, sir? I suppose you bastards have ways to know everything I said or did in that shuttle.

“Sounds like you have a specific post in mind, sir.”

He smiled. “I would like you to be the chief liaison officer for the wheelhunter delegation.”

Kat let out a small laugh that she cut off as soon as she could. “Sir?”

“It requires someone with an appreciation of the risks involved with the wheelhunters. And it requires someone able to resist the influence of all the people who would badger her for access, pressure her to bend the rules. The post would be part of my command staff, so you would have to deal with the captain and crew of the Sentinel as well. The importance of this post cannot be overstated and I have looked at every officer at my disposal. I have made this offer to no one else. You are not only the clear choice, you could not be more perfectly suited for the role.”

Kat opened her mouth, hesitated. He was flattering her, that was true. And she did not want to trust anyone else to do the job as well as she would.

Still, she did not want the responsibility.

“Before you make a decision,” Admiral Howe said, holding up one finger. “Allow me to describe the strategic situation that we are returning to. I have decided to restrict much of the intelligence from the crew but I have served for long enough to know that word gets out in the form of rumor and accurate guesswork so perhaps you know some of this. But the new Orb Station Alpha that has appeared in the Sol System will be host for our battles with a new species. A species totally unknown to us. But not, it seems, unknown to the wheelhunters.”

Kat must have made a face, because the admiral nodded at her.

“You hit the nail on the head earlier, Kat, when you said the presence of the aliens would have an effect on crew morale. On a long distance, long term deployment such as this one, it may be the most important factor, something on which all other areas depend. And if this sort of information got out before we were able to present it in the right way, it might be difficult to retain a positive general attitude on the ship.”

“I understand, sir. I won’t say anything.”

“I would not be telling you if I had any doubts about that. Now, we do not know a great deal about the Orb Builders. Even that term is a placeholder. They could be a single species or a collective, they could be the AI or biologically engineered offspring of an original civilization, the could be from anywhere, they could look like anything. And our knowledge of the mechanics of the arena combat system is based on Orb Station Zero alone. We suspected that the rules of the combat were designed to achieve a certain level of equality between the two species, between the combatants. It is an inference from the fact that the environment appeared to, possibly, be an averaging of the environments from both species’ homeworlds. We also know now that some of the wheelhunters on Arcadia had a self-defense device implant which incapacitates certain ones of their fellows who are without a corresponding device. The slaves or the insubordinates, we’re not yet sure how their society is structured, of course. And yet they were not so armed inside the arena. We know, therefore, that they were also restricted by their own version of what we called a Zeta Line, their own adjusted so that it would match what the Orb Station or the Builders operating it decided would make for an equal fight.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, the new Orb Station Alpha has been communicating with Earth. It has broadcast a description of the aliens that we will have to battle on that station.”

“Just a description? Text? That’s annoying.”

Howe’s lip curled. “Indeed. Everything the Orb Builders do appears designed to manipulate us, does it not? Their messages describe a tall creature, three meters high at full stretch. At the top is a somewhat spherical head or body, armored in some fashion and it is ambulatory via sixteen very thin legs, or tentacles, or whipcord-like appendages.”

“Sixteen legs?”

“Extravagant, is it not? Obviously, they sound rather like a monster from a nightmare and it gets worse. You see, we asked our friend Red about these creatures and it became really quite agitated. It seems that the wheelhunters know these aliens as the Great Enemy or some such hyperbolic cliché. The name they gave them has no known translation so UNOP has designated them hexadecapodiformes. Of course, some people are already calling them squids. I will have to stamp out that nonsense before it takes off or else we will end up stuck with it, like we did with the word wheelhunters. Ridiculous.” He flicked his finger at the screen and an image of the creature floated up on it. “This is a mockup of what we think it will look like.”

Even as a static, 3D image, it was nightmarish. The thin appendages were clustered under the hard, bulbous body. It looked like it would scuttle or scurry. If it was three meters tall, she could not imagine how a human could defeat one in an Orb arena.

“The wheelers are at war with this new species? These hexadeca… the hex guys?”

“A conflict facilitated through the Orbs, yes. We’re still trying to establish a common method for describing time with the wheelhunters but they may have been in direct military conflict for hundreds of years. Red has conveyed a sense of desperation and fear of this new species. The wheelhunters have apparently founded colonies on a number of worlds but have seen many of them taken by the hexadecapodiformes. We believe Red is saying the new species outmatches them on the ground and in space combat. Their technology is superior and they are far more aggressive than the wheelhunters.”

“I thought it was official opinion that the wheelers aren’t as aggressive as humans, sir?”

“That is probably true but we believe now that the alien outpost on Arcadia was made up of scientists and the soldiers were irregulars. Militia, perhaps. The Wildfire was a warship, that’s true but they were not truly expecting us to win and to offer them such a challenge. They did not expect us to react so quickly and send a fleet to reinforce the Victory. They underestimated us, just as we had them, on the ground. We do not know yet whether we could defeat the wheelhunters in an all-out war but it would likely be a close-run thing. If the hexadecapodiformes really are more dangerous than the wheelers, then humanity is facing an even greater existential threat than we had realized.”

“We might have a war on two fronts?”

“A war with the wheelhunters alone might have bled us dry for decades but against the hexadecapodiformes also?” It was clear from his expression that he had his doubts. “If we can bring a wheeler faction over to our side as allies then we might just even the balance through technological and information exchanges, even personnel and materiel, perhaps. The future, for all of humanity, looks to be one of conflict. If we’re to survive these threats, we need everyone on Earth and in the colonies pulling together. We need to embrace total war. We need our best and brightest to sign up for the Navy and for the Marines. We need all our scientists working on weapons and energy technology and we need engineers to build ships and create hundreds and thousands more habitats in asteroids. We need to disburse further within our home system and to bring as many people as we can out to Cancri and begin to cover Arcadia and the other bodies in this system with people.”

“So,” Kat said, “you’re suggesting I don’t go home to become a flight instructor in the recreation market?”

“We will be recruiting Earth’s best and brightest young people into UNOP, there is no doubt about it. But you’re a good officer. You have real world experience out here. I want you on my team. That’s what we’re out here for, after all.”

“I’m sorry?” She was not quite sure what he was getting at.

“The question comes up, time and again. Usually from civilians but not always. Politicians love to ask it.” He raised his eyebrows, dramatically. “Why, Admiral Howe, they say. Why do we not use drones? There are AIs that can be programmed with perfectly acceptable ethical parameters, so let them fly the fighters, bombers, and the ships, no? Let them choose when to fire the missiles and let the robots stride across the battlefield, they say. Or if it’s not AI and robots, the questioners ask again about artificial persons being used as soldiers. No one to mourn them when they die, no one of us humans has to feel guilty about murdering another one of us. Why should purebred humans be tainted with the traumas of violence?”

He paused, looking at her.

“And,” Kat asked, slowly, “what do you say to them?”

He leaned back, sighing. “Oh, I equivocate, and I quote the laws against using this or that. But the truth is, it has to be us. Why bother existing, if we retire ourselves from the fighting itself? We relegate ourselves to button pushers and risk avoiders. Violence, war. Aggression. It is who we are. It must continue to be what we are, as we expand out into our system and into new systems. You and me. All of us, out here. No matter how much we enhance our biology and integrate with technology, we remain completely human. Human, but better. Only through directly engaging in conflict can we reach our potential as individuals and only through warfare can our species reach the heights that it must do in order to survive. We will reach greatness by holding our weapons in our hands directly, not by remote control and not by lines of code.”

Classic technoprimitivist ideology. The military all over the world was partial to it, for obvious reasons and UNOP was remarkably keen on it. The flexibility of it as an ideology meant that any ethical action could be justified through appeals to historic precedent or human behavioral biology, cherry picked and simplified, if need be. People usually assumed that Kat was a believer, for some reason. It was an attractive enough concept but so flexible to be close to meaningless, in Kat’s entirely uneducated opinion.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“You don’t agree?” He was frowning. “Do you believe that we should use tank-bred APs and production line robots to fight our enemies for us?”

“No.” Kat hesitated, because Admiral Howe was one step below God and a hundred times more dangerous. On the other hand, what could he do that would be worse than what she had already faced. “It’s just that, if you treat your officers and NCOs like drones and APs, then what’s the real difference?”

He stared at her, face flushing dark at his cheeks. “You are referring, of course, to the fact that you and your fellows were deceived about the possibility of human prisoners onboard the alien ship. I can understand your position. It is natural for you to take it personally. On the other hand, you are seeing what was done to you through the lens of a pre-Orb Station Alpha morality. The stakes are grander now and the old rules will be stretched further. Because time was of the essence, and you were required in order to give us the highest possible chances for success, you were manipulated. The psychological profiles for you, Rama Seti and Sergeant Stirling all suggested that you would perhaps resist volunteering for a hit and run mission to simply drop off a bomb, and so the chance of human POWs on the enemy ship was emphasized to speed up the process.”

“With respect, sir,” Kat said, feeling very little respect whatsoever, “they lied to us. Used us.”

“We’re not out here for us. Did you not know that, Lieutenant?” The admiral tapped his chin while he regarded her. “It isn’t us that benefits from all this effort, all this death and loss. We don’t get to enjoy the fruits of our labor here. We’re doing all this so that in a hundred years or a thousand, humanity is still around. Still thriving. You fought so that this planet can one day have cities on the sea front with cafes and restaurants with a sea view and people raising their family here. That’s why we’re here. That’s what duty is. It’s what it means.”

“I never really went in much for all that, sir.”

Howe slowly extended a finger and pointed at her face. “I think you did, Lieutenant. The problem is that you do not realize it yet. When you accept that you will only find fulfilment through embracing your sense of duty, you will no longer feel at odds with yourself and with the world.”

Kat almost laughed but a feeling of dread overwhelmed her.

Dread that he might be right.

“That’s quite the upsell, sir.”

“You must understand that I am in no way suggesting my offer will prove an easy way forward for you, merely that it will be a fulfilling one. There will be no simple choices. Getting all of humanity working together in a state of total war will mean our species, our civilization will continue on to thrive amongst our enemies out there. We have had to make a number of utterly indefensible and unforgivable deceptions, as when we lied to you and the Marines. Seti was always supposed to be expendable anyway. Stirling is a Marine and we will need to spend those fellows like pennies at a garage sale for many years to come. You, we did not want to see wasted but you must see that in the cost-benefit analysis—”

“Of course, sir,” Kat said, unable to take any more.

The fact was, humanity did have enemies. Entities that were actively trying to destroy her and her family and all the families that there were and all the families that there could be. Only a moral and physical coward would avoid stepping up to play their part.

And so, like all grand life decisions, it was, ultimately, rather simple.

“Alright, sir. I’m in.”

The admiral nodded. A man well used to having his own way. “I’m glad you understand. Now, what do you think about starting right away in the—”

“What’s going to happen to them?” Kat spoke over him. “To Seti and Stirling? They were supposed to be coming out of surgery earlier but they said there were complications.”

“Yes, well, sadly, the damage to their cells was rather more significant that originally feared and it may take some time for them to be cured and revived. But we have months before we are home and if they ever do make it through, the intention is to form a very small special forces unit that we can use for high risk missions. At least, until they are KIA, which will perhaps not take very long. But, should their medical problems be resolved, they will do their duty for humanity until the inevitable happens. I have a feeling that we will need to draw on the services of every capable human that we can if we are going to survive two wars, on two fronts, with two advanced alien species. And we will need the support of our allies.”

Kat looked at the digital mock up on the screen of the new alien threat that awaited them in the new Orb Arena. A species that was all swirling tentacles and evil intentions.

“Alright,” she said. “When do I start?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

White pain. Searing brightness flooded his eyes and a deep, rumbling humming filled his ears with a rhythmic vibration.

What is happening? Where am I?

“Everything’s alright,” a calm voice said from nearby. A cool palm pressed against his forehead. “You are experiencing severe disorientation. You are perfectly safe. Slow your breathing. Please relax.”

Ram’s throat was so dry he could not speak. It was dark and he was laying on his back. Waking from a long sleep.

“Just be patient and all will be well, soon enough,” the voice said. It was a woman. He recognized it but could not think who it belonged to. “All will be well, mate.”

“Relatively speaking,” a new voice said. That voice was also familiar, and yet different. Masculine but strange. Artificial.

“Quiet,” the woman’s voice said. “Bloody idiot.”

“Just being realistic,” the voice said. “Don’t want to get his hopes up.”

“Knock it off,” the woman said. “No one finds you amusing.”

Pain throbbed in his temples and he blinked, light stabbing into his eyes like pin pricks.

“What’s going on?” Ram said, or tried to. A straw was slipped between his lips and he drank ice cold water down. “Am I cured? The radiation? Or am I dying?”

His hands were free and he rubbed his eyes, blinking his vision back. It was incredibly bright but he could see a woman standing over him, looking down. She wore a UNOP Navy uniform.

“You are in perfect health,” she said. “Although you’ve been inactive for a long time and you need to improve your physical condition. And you need to do so pretty bloody rapidly, frankly.”

He frowned, squinting up at the face. It was familiar. He did know her but she looked different. Fuller in the face, fuller in the body. Her mouth and eyes wrinkled, deeply.

“Lieutenant Xenakis?” Ram said. “Kat? Is that you?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “It’s been a while, mate.”

“She is Captain Xenakis, now,” the other person said, unseen across the room somewhere.

“Captain?” Ram said, trying to think. Trying to remember. “Captain of the Stalwart Sentinel?”

She snorted a laugh that had no trace of humor. “We are onboard my ship, the Hereward, which is a corvette.” She looked across the room. “And my position is a captain of this vessel but my rank is Lieutenant Commander.”

“Congratulations on your promotion,” Ram said. “Where are we?”

“Heading into danger.”

He became aware of other people in the room around his bed, medical staff monitoring him. It was a medical center. Ram felt like he was always coming to in those places, always being roused by someone strange. A medicalized life.

A man began coughing near to him. Before the coughing had fully subsided, his angry voice rose above every other noise. “What the hell is going on? Why am I hooked up to all this shit?”

Ram recognized the voice. “Sergeant Stirling?” he called out. “It’s Lieutenant Seti.”

“Sir? How’s your arm, sir?”

Ram had forgotten about losing it and he looked at his hands. “Seems I grew a new one.”

“Gentlemen,” Lt. Commander Xenakis said, cutting in. “Fellas. Listen up. You’ve been asleep a long time and there is a lot to catch you up on. Very little of it is good news.”

Ram struggled to sit up and some medical staff tried to hold him down but he pushed them away. Someone huge slid up at the edge of his still-blurry vision, and for a moment Ram assumed it was Sergeant Stirling coming to help him up. But the figure approached from the wrong side.

A massive, three-fingered hand with sharp claws appeared in front of him, the thick, knobbly alien skin a deep, mottled red. Ram recoiled away from it and looked up at a massive wheelhunter, the central hub and legs clad in a slick, dark gray environment suit. The arms and hands were bare and exposed acres of the red skin.

It was making a bizarre noise.

“Ha ha ha. I told you he would be surprised.”

Lt. Commander Xenakis, standing beside the alien, rolled her eyes as Ram sat up and swung his legs off the side. “You’re lucky he didn’t pull your bloody arm off and beat you to death with it, you idiot.”

“He wouldn’t do that. We’re old friends, aren’t we, Rama Seti? Old comrades. Such a joy to see you again.” The alien crept back a few gigantic steps, holding out its arms as best it could and bending into what Ram assumed was meant to be a formal bow. Or maybe a curtsey. Its translated voice was generated from somewhere unseen, presumably integral to its suit.

“Red?” Ram rubbed his face. “You’re the same wheeler we dragged out of that cave? Brought up to the Sentinel?”

“And with a functioning memory, how wonderful.”

Ram wondered for a moment whether he was dreaming. On the other bed in the room, Sergeant Stirling sat glaring at the alien and at the medical staff with equal hostility. He and Ram were naked but for a few draped pieces of papery cloth.

“How long?” Ram asked.

“You were both put into a coma twenty-six years ago.”

She handed over a screen and Ram yanked it from her grasp. The little date display in the corner said the year was 2228. August 12th. When he had been on Arcadia, the year was 2201.

“Twenty-six years?” Ram said, holding his hand over his eyes. “Why? What happened?”

“A great deal happened,” Kat said, her voice thick with emotion. “Your radiation damage was extensive and took a little longer to heal than anticipated but that was just a few months more than was planned.”

“I’m healed?”

“Fully. You both are.” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry to phrase it in this way but you were put to one side and forgotten about for a long time, as we had more important issues to deal with.”

Ram could tell from her face that she was not kidding around. “Something bad has happened.”

She nodded. “The new threat, the Hex, the hexadecapodiformes, were more than our subjects could handle. That Orb Station operates an arena combat every nine years. The first attempt was in 2210 and our subject lost. Badly. Our enemy was awarded, by the Orb Builders, rights and access to the Sol System. Just like that. We appealed to the Orb but it was as intransigent as always.”

Ram felt a deep stirring in his chest. “They invaded our home system?”

“They are technologically superior to us. They are physically superior. They had more ships, with higher power output.” She broke off, cleared her throat. “Sadly, it was not much of a battle. We had little chance. UNOP High Command decided, in order to save the fleet, that we would not contest the Earth. So, in 2212, the Earth was lost.”

Ram and Stirling exchanged a look. They each gripped the edges of their beds.

“Lost?” Ram said.

Stirling’s eyes were filled with horror. “Earth is destroyed?”

“Not destroyed,” Kat said. “The enemy occupy Earth. Millions were killed, most of them by starvation and disease following the breakdown in order and in trade. Probably over a billion by now and increasing but it’s almost impossible to say for certain. The Hex have bases, cities, launch sites. They occupy our homeworld and try to convert our people to their ideology while humanity does its best to carry on in smaller and smaller enclaves all over the planet. Some small nations stayed together, most others broke up into separate states. Lawlessness. Famine. Urban areas were the worst hit, of course. The Hex don’t want to wipe us out, we’re doing that without them. What they want is to make us see reality like they do, worship the Orbs like they do. Anyone who dissents and rejects their indoctrination is killed.”

“Can we win it back?” Stirling said, nodding at Ram. “Like he did against the wheelers. Win in the arena?”

“The second combat was 2019 and we lost that, too. The enemy pushed us back from Earth and from Mars, until we’re just about holding on out there in the outer system, and in asteroids and orbital stations everywhere. We have the 55-Cancri System and a thriving economy primarily on Arcadia is helping us to maintain the war. The largest population and industrial center is Rama Seti City.” She gave him a quick smile.

“You’re kidding?” Ram said.

Stirling laughed.

Kat shook her head. “Rama is the place to be.”

“They turned the outpost into a city?” Ram asked.

“Oh, no,” Kat said. “They tried. The outpost became Sentinel Colony for a few years but it was in too poor a position on the surface to grow into much. It is a research station now. And a tourist attraction, for some reason. No, Rama Seti City is on the coast, in a sheltered bay on either side of a deep river where it flows out to the Sentinel Sea.”

The sergeant snorted. “Naming everything Sentinel, are they?” He grinned. “Should have called it the Stirling Sea.”

“Well,” Kat said, “there is a mining town called Stirling up in the central highlands.”

Stirling’s face fell. “Seriously? Oh, shit.”

Ram wondered if there was anything named after Milena Reis. A hollow sickness gripped his guts at the memory of her loss. He could not bring himself to give voice to the question, did not trust himself to speak her name aloud.

Not fully healed, after all.

“And where are we right now? Where is the corvette Hereward heading?” Ram looked at Kat. “Why did you wake us up?”

She nodded. “You got it. We need you. I obtained the both of you a few months back, along with the equipment you will need for the mission. And I found you a team, such as they are.”

“The mission is what?” Ram said. Stirling sat up straighter.

“We’re running the blockade,” Lt. Commander Xenakis said. “We need you and your team to land on Earth. There is a new weapon, a prototype, hidden underground and you will need to find it and get it off-world, away from the enemy to where it can be used.”

Ram nodded. “Do I get a few minutes to stretch my legs first?”

Kat smiled. “We’re a couple of weeks away, yet. You’ll need to train hard and use the time to get to know your team all over again.”

“Again?” He looked at Stirling, who shrugged.

“Me, for one,” the alien in the corner said. “Try to contain your excitement.”

“Is that really Red?” Ram asked. “The one from Arcadia?”

“I can assure you, sir, that I am the one and only. The original.”

“Why is it talking like that?”

Kat pinched the bridge of her nose. “He not only enjoys human comedy and humor, he thinks he’s actually funny. No, that’s not quite it. He makes himself laugh. The fact that every human he’s ever met finds him insufferable doesn’t stop him.”

“I bet the humans on Earth will be glad to see me.”

“It’s not really on my team, is it? Red is on my team? We’re letting one of them on our home planet?”

“He’s already been. Two decades ago, he was part of the team that negotiated the terms of our alliance. We recognize the legitimacy of the wheeler splinter group and support them to overthrow their central powers while they assist us in the war against the Hex.”

“I gave a speech at the United Nations,” Red said, the voice emerging from the hulking great insect-lizard that filled a quarter of the compartment. “In spite of my best efforts, I was not a diplomat for very long. I have since trained and operated as a commando. I am quite good at it. I found my calling in life.”

Ram felt like he had woken up in the middle of a dream. “You, me and Stirling are going to invade the Earth, are we?”

“Not just you, Ram. Send them in,” the Lt. Commander said, turning to the door as it opened.

A couple of soldiers in mismatching fatigues stepped in. Ram recognized them at once as older, slower versions of Cooper, Flores, and Fury. They gathered about their sergeant and all talked at once, sad smiles on their faces. Flores was not a youngster any more. She was hardened, dead-eyed. Fury was close to being an old woman, and she was even thinner, and held herself as rigid as a rifle barrel. Cooper made no attempt to joke and had extensive scar tissue now on his face and neck. No Harris. No Tseng.

Ram lowered his voice while the others were distracted. “Not that I’m ungrateful for being woken up. And I don’t want to criticize team mates. But if this mission is so important, why is it left to me? And to this team?”

Lt. Commander Xenakis nodded. “Resources are stretched to breaking point. In fact, breaking point was so many years ago now I can barely remember it. UNOP Navy, humans all over the system, everyone has been falling back into using whatever we can find and bring to bear. UNOP uses old ships, uses fission over fusion power generation. Calling on people who retired. It’s total war, now. Every living human is dedicated to the war, in some way or other.”

“We’re all you could get,” Ram said, nodding.

“No, not at all,” the Lt. Commander said. “I have complete faith in you. I know what you can do. All of you. I’ve seen it.”

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Ram said to Lt. Commander Xenakis. “We really lost the Earth, Kat?”

“We’ve got a chance to win it back again at the next Orb Station combat,” she said. “But only if you and your team can retrieve the weapon from the surface and bring it back to this ship.”

“Alright,” Ram said, standing on shaking legs, towering over everyone and feeling his body to make sure it was the same one he went to sleep in. “I guess it’s time to go to work.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Rama Seti’s story continues in Galactic Arena Book 3. Coming soon.

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Thank you for reading.

Dan.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dan Davis writes science-fiction, fantasy and historical fiction stories that are full of exciting action, captivating characters and intriguing themes.

Dan’s main interests are science and history so it’s no surprise that his stories usually combine the two. More specifically he has a passion for the ancient history of Greece, Rome, Persia, and medieval Europe and is fascinated by biology and astronomy.

He is a husband and father living in Essex, UK.

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Thanks so much for reading

BOOKS BY DAN DAVIS

The Galactic Arena Series

Action-packed and thoughtful science fiction

Inhuman Contact (Prequel 1)

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The Immortal Knight Chronicles

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Gunpowder & Alchemy

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Green Earth Shaking (Book 3)

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