Copyrighted Material

Song of Redemption Copyright © 2021 by Variant Publications

Book design and layout copyright © 2021 by JN Chaney

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.

www.jnchaney.com

www.jonathanbrazee.com

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Contents

Glossary

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Connect with J.N. Chaney

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About the Authors

Glossary

AGMS: Anti-G Straining Maneuvers

ASAP: As Soon As Possible

BC: the digital currency for most nations

BOCT: Benevolent Order of Crystal Technicians

Bronze Nova: the third-highest medal in the Union military

CCR-32 Didactic Interface: the AI implanted into the Marines’ heads.

Cerrocrete: a very strong futuristic concrete

CG: Commanding General

CO: Commanding Officer

COH: Council of Humanity, the highest authority of mankind

CST: Combat Simulation Trainer

D-5 Cord: an explosive-saturated cord

DC/Direct Combat: Marines such as infantry, recon mech combat engineers, who will face the enemy in direct combat.

DI: Drill Instructor

Dykstra: a heavy sniper rifle

E-Club: Enlisted Club where the lowest three ranks can hang out, drink, and eat.

ECR: Effective Casualty Radius. The radius from a detonation within which will produce 50% casualties

EMP: Electro-magnetic Pulse. Will shut down all electronics within range

EOE: End of Enlistment

FTL: Faster Than Light, a starship drive

Gold Nova: the second highest medal in the Union military forces

G-Loc: G-force induced loss of consciousness

Groundpounders: slang for infantry

HE: High Explosive

Host: the military arm of the Frisian Mantle, a sometime ally/enemy of the Perseus Union

KIA: Killed in Action

Leaches: Military slang for civilians

M49 Assault Rifle: the standard weapon of the Union Marines. It fires a 2mm high-velocity dart.

M-102 Nellis: the Marine Corps’ main sniper rifle

M-133: a heavy weapon fired by mech Marines

MF-30: a standard issue handgun

MilDes: Military Designator

MilDes Ninety-nine/Ninety-nine: essentially indentured servants in uniform

MMCS: Marine Mechanical Combat Suit

MP: Military Police

MPT: Military Placement Test

NCO: Non-commissioned Officer. The middle two ranks of enlisted Marines

NM: Neuro-mapping

NVD: Night Vision Device

Omega Division/OD: the secret police and spy agency of the Union

Optisight: a flexible optical tube

PAL-3: Personal Armor, Light 3: the standard body armor for an infantry Marine

PAL-5: Personal Armor, Light 5. The standard body armor of recon Marines and Raiders.

Paladin: a large Centaur heavy mech unit, similar to a light tank

PFC: Private First Class

Phoenix MG-3 Incendiary Mine: a small grenade that can burn through most substances

Plastiderm: a synthetic skin that is used in medical procedures

PN: Platinum Nova the highest military award in the Perseus Union military

Poolee: someone who is committed to the Corps but who is not yet been sworn in as a recruit

PQ: Personality Quotient. Used to determine the human characteristics of some AIs

PUNS: Perseus Union Naval Ship

Raider: part of Recon, but with more combat-focused missions instead of surveillance

Recon: Reconnaissance Marine

Riever: a smaller Centaur mech unit, similar to a Marine Raider or reconnaissance Marine.

Secdrones: Security drones used by the police

SNCO: Staff Non-commissioned Officer. The highest three ranks among enlisted Marines.

SOP: Standard Operating Procedure

Syksky: a deep-fried bread stuffed with spiced meat and vegetables

WIA: Wounded in Action

XM-554: a more powerful missile designed to have more punch

XO: Executive Officer, the #2 person in the unit.

Yellowjacket: a shoulder-launched missile

Yellowshirt: a Navy sailor charged with moving people and goods around a flight line.

1

“Five minutes,” the Navy lieutenant told the platoon. “I want you on board and strapped in sixty seconds after it lands.”

Captain Omestori gave the lieutenant a thumbs-up. They had been ready for an hour now, standing in the hangar while waiting for the OK to leave. As soon as the shuttle returned, they’d board in a moment, happy to get off the ship and down to the planet’s surface.

Sergeant Reverent Pelletier, Perseus Union Marine Corps, shifted his feet, anxious to get on with the mission. “Run Pashu’s checklist again,” he subvocalized.

<Still green, just like it was five minutes ago when you last asked,> Punch, his AI battle buddy said. For a hunk of crystals embedded into Rev’s brain, Punch could be a little snarky at times.

Rev really hadn’t thought that his IBHU, the Integrated Bionic Hopological Unit that hung from his left shoulder in place of the arm he’d lost fighting the Children of Angels, had somehow gone off-line while he waited in orbit. It was just that as a Marine Raider, he was normally among the first to enter a combat zone rather than sitting fat, dumb, and happy in orbit while other Marines secured a landing zone.

“You doing OK, Rev?” Tomiko asked over the P2P circuit.

“I’m fine. Just want to get going. How about you, element leader?”

“Hell, you used to be the element leader, so how hard can it be?”

“Yeah, you say that, Miko. You’ll see.”

This was going to be the first time in three missions that Rev wasn’t the team’s Second Element leader. In fact, he wasn’t in an element at all. He was the platoon’s package, not a real member, and he didn’t like that one bit.

With him taken out of the chain of command, Sergeant Tomiko Reiser had stepped up to take over. Rev knew that Tomiko would be fine. The only reason he’d been the element leader before was that while they both had the same date of rank, Pelletier came before Reiser alphabetically.

“Keep an eye on Radić. This is his first mission.”

“Ya think? Come on, Rev, I know what I’m doing.”

Rev winced. Tomiko was a hard-charging, kick-ass Marine—and his best friend. But sometimes, he was a little too protective of her, and he’d been on the receiving end of her tirades concerning that on more than one occasion.

“Sorry about that. I just—”

“I know, Rev,” she said, her tone softening. “But I’ve got it. Strap and Carp are experienced.”

But you haven’t worked together for real yet.

With Yazzie killed on TRT-36 and Rev pulled from the element, Tomiko had been left as the sole member. So, Lance Corporals Mordechai “Strap” Gantz from First Element and Tera “Carp” Porter from Second Team had transferred over. And now, with Private Til Radić, so boot he didn’t have a nickname yet, the element was at full strength.

Rev was no longer leading the other Marines, but he couldn’t just turn off his feeling of responsibility. He doubted any Marine sergeant could.

Red lights flashed in the hangar, and a moment later, the Ibis shuttle was pulled through the curtain and over to LP 2 where the tractor beams set it down as gently as a leaf.

Yellowshirts ran out to set the chocks while the Flight Deck Officer shouted, “Go, go!”

The platoon, along with another dozen cats and dogs from other units, ran in a line to the back of the shuttle and up the ramp. Rev, in his privileged position, was the last to board, and he took his seat along the starboard side. It made sense. With Pashu’s bulk, he took up more room, so this put no one on his left. But he knew the real reason. He’d be the first one out, and if the shuttle was hit coming in, he’d have the best chance at survival.

It was Colonel Trejo, the IBHU project manager, who called Rev’s position “privileged.” To Rev, it was more like being in a gilded cage. Being the first one, his IBHU had cost more than a Navy Shrike fighter, and the brass seemed to be afraid to lose it. But if they didn’t want him to fight if the situation was too dangerous, then why develop the weapons system in the first place?

The ship’s tractors lifted the shuttle before the ramp was closed. A few Marines looked up in alarm. Once past the curtain, they’d be in the void, and none of them were geared up for vacuum combat.

But the tractors merely spun the shuttle around, waiting for hull integrity. The ramp sealed shut, the red LEDs flashed to green, and the tractor beams shot the shuttle free. At the required distance from the ship, the shuttle’s engines powered up, and they started the descent to the surface.

“OK, listen up,” the captain passed on the platoon net. “The situation on the ground is hot, but the LZ is secure. As soon as we land, a red-patcher is going to take us to our designated assembly point. I want a three-sixty with Sergeant Pelletier in the center. Remember, we’re one of three reaction forces, so we need to be ready for anything. But based on that last comms before the tin-asses cut them off, be ready sooner rather than later for a frag order.”

Which was pretty much what the update to their operations brief had been four hours before. Evidently, Rev wasn’t the only one tired of sitting back while other Marines were in contact. The captain, too, was itching to get involved. Raiders were the point of the spear, not the ones in the rear with the gear.

This wasn’t going to be a nice, easy descent. The Union Navy might control the space around Mistake, but it certainly didn’t control the surface where an estimated two hundred-plus Centaurs were doing their best to throw off the landing. The shuttle, on full autopilot corkscrewed in, braided around the big terajoule beamer shots of one of the Navy monitors. With shields on full, there was no power for artificial gravity.

For all of Rev’s combat capabilities, he had what was referred to as a delicate stomach. He fought it while in null-G, trying to keep his breakfast down, but when they hit the atmosphere, with all the maneuvering, it was too much.

“Give me the antiemetics!” he gasped out.

A moment later, the need to puke lessened to merely tolerable. He gave a big sigh, then looked up to catch Hussein’s deadpan stare. Rev wanted to sneer back, but he didn’t have the energy. The other Marine had a stomach of steel, and nothing bothered him.

<You know, you don’t have to keep trying to weather it, right? You can get the meds before the ride.>

Rev ignored him. It didn’t seem right to him, no matter how logical it was.

The shuttle lurched again, and that threatened to send him off once more, but with pure willpower, he forced the gorge back down.

“You surviving?” Tomiko asked.

Rev didn’t answer but gave her a weak thumbs-up. He swore that the brass made the ride that rough on purpose, making the Marines so pissed off that they would rush out of the shuttle despite intense enemy fire rather facing that than getting bounced around like ping pong balls. The weird thing was that while he felt like he was as weak as a kitten, he knew the moment they hit the ground, he would be fine, roaring and raring to go.

The shuttle shuddered, a bright flare filling the cabin, and all thoughts of nausea disappeared. Red lights flashed, and air started whistling out a few seats forward of Rev. One of the crew ran back, pushed Bambam Sinclair out of the way, and shot the bulkhead with what looked like whipped cream. He stared at it for a moment, his body tense, before he relaxed and started saying something over his throat mic.

“Were we hit?” Bambam asked.

“We’d be dead already if we’d been hit,” the sailor said with a condescending roll of his eyes. He looked at all the Marines, the eyes of every one locked onto him. “No, folks, we’re OK. The shielding held. Just a stress fracture. Popped a seam. I got it fixed.”

He waved the can around so everyone could see.

“I think I about shit myself,” Tomiko passed.

“You and me both. I guess this is one of the downsides of coming in late to the party. Let’s just put this sucker down and get dirt under our feet.”

“And I guess that’s why they split you guys up.”

Rev knew that “you guys” meant him and the other two IBHU Marines. Not only were they going planetside on different shuttles, they had also made the passage to Mistake aboard different ships. “Spread loading,” the military called it. Lose one ship, and there were still two IBHU Marines making it to the planet.

Rev was the first IBHU Marine, but six weeks ago, he’d been joined by Corporal Thesbian “Backstop” McAnt. McAnt was a former supply clerk who’d lost his right hand and halfway up his lower arm to friendly fire when a Navy Shrike had hit their supply dump. He’d agreed to the IBHU and had been transferred to the Raider Platoon’s Second Team. For the first four weeks, Rev and Top Thapa had been pushing McAnt hard, bringing him up to speed as a Raider. The next two weeks had been working with his team, integrating them into a semblance of a fighting unit. McAnt wasn’t there yet as far as being a grunt, but his IBHU made up for a lot of that.

Then, ten days ago, Private First Class Ethereal Randigold had joined Bravo Reconnaissance Company’s Raider platoon at Camp Falcon. Rumor had it that she’d been badly burnt in a fire, losing both arms and a leg among her other injuries. The three IBHUs had been scheduled to train together next week, but this mission popped up. Rev was a little hesitant about having a boot IBHU, on a combat mission, but the plan wasn’t to have them operate together. They and their teams would be three separate reaction forces, ready to reinforce where needed.

Where and when that would be depended on the ground situation. Rev looked over at the newly promoted captain, wondering if he should ask if the platoon commander knew how things were going in the fight. But with comms out on the planet’s surface, he wouldn’t know much more than what they’d already been told.

The shuttle hit turbulence, and Rev clutched at the harness that was keeping him in place, glad he’d taken the antiemetics. The angle of attack increased as the Ibis hurtled to the ground.

“This is—” Tomiko started to pass when she was cut off.

<We’ve hit the comms blackout.>

Rev shook his head. It still rankled him that with two Marine regiments, almost five thousand Marines, facing from two to three hundred Centaurs, that they could still lose comms. They’d had thirteen years to figure this out, and still, the Marines were going to be reduced to hand-and-arm signals and runners to communicate.

The shuttle flared out, flattening every Marine into their seat. The back ramp started opening before they hit the ground. It was a sunny, too-bright day, the planet’s sun an orange dwarf. Rev deployed his face shield, darkened to protect his vision.

His harness snapped off, and the crew chief started yelling, “Go, go!”

Rev was the closest to the ramp on the starboard side, and he began to run down the ramp before it had fully lowered. He jumped while the edge was still a meter or so up and immediately started looking for the red-patcher, a logistics Marine with the traditional red patch on the outside of each knee.

But no red-patcher came out to meet them. Rev started to slow down, and the Marines behind him started to pile up. A captain rushed forward instead, gave a wary look at Pashu, and asked, “Where’s your commander?”

Rev turned and spotted the captain coming down the ramp. “That’s him. But we’re supposed to be being led to our assembly area, sir.”

“No time for that, Sergeant. You’re being sent out right now.”

* * *

The captain hadn’t been kidding. Nine minutes after Rev stepped off the Ibis, Third Team was on the move. Bravo Company was pinned down by a single Centaur. The tank that had been in direct support of the company had been destroyed.

That, and the company’s location, was about all the team knew, but that was enough to get them going. Bravo was over fourteen klicks from the LZ at the base of the scraggly mountain range that was the prime terrain feature in their AO. The area between the LZ and the company was supposed to be secure, and Bravo needed relief, but Staff Sergeant Delacrie was minimizing the risk as they jogged forward by keeping them in a team wedge, Rev in the middle. The terrain became rougher the closer they got to the company, but they made good time, reaching the beleaguered force in just under an hour.

The guide met them at the designated spot at a bend in a stream and led them into the company CP while the intermittent whooshes of Morays echoed off rock walls to their front.

“Glad you could get here,” the company commander said, shaking the staff sergeant’s hand while warily glancing at Pashu. The IBHUs were no longer secret, but most Marines hadn’t seen one yet.

“Sorry it took so long, sir,” the team leader said.

“I’m just glad you’re here now. This is the situation. I’ve got a squad pinned down inside that box canyon. I tried to extract them, but it’s a shooting gallery in there. We had an attached Avenger, and it went to cover their withdrawal, but the bastard got it.”

“One Centaur? What kind?”

“A riever, I think. We’re not sure. No comms, of course.”

“And the squad, they’re still effective?”

Which was a polite way to ask if they were still alive.

“They keep yelling out to us to let us know they’re still kicking.”

“And you tried to get them out? I mean, after the tank?”

“Twice,” the captain spat out, her eyes blazing. “Lost six Marines.”

“And you sent in drones?”

“No. I thought I’d keep them tucked away in their holsters, all safe and sound, Staff Sergeant,” she snapped.

Staff Sergeant Delacrie blanched. “Of course, ma’am, I know you would have. Sorry about that. I was just going over my checklist.”

He looked over at Rev for rescue. “What do you think, Sergeant Pelletier?”

Rev had been looking to the top of the box canyon, listening to the Morays being fired.

“That’s a lot of Morays, ma’am. But since your squad hasn’t come out yet, we’ve got to assume the riever is still alive. Any idea why?”

“One of my PFCs said he got a look at it, and it’s dug in.”

Rev couldn’t hide his surprise. In all of his battles, he hadn’t heard of Centaurs digging in a position.

“Yeah, I know,” the captain said.

“And he’s sure?” Rev asked.

“Yeah. He’s sure. And I’m sure. But I’ll let him show you in person.” She turned to a corporal and said, “Get Weems.”

“We’ve got to get a better look to see what we’re up against, Staff Sergeant,” Rev said as the PFC was being fetched.

Rev still felt weird telling the team leader what he needed. The staff sergeant was in command, not him. Rev wasn’t even the senior sergeant with Nix and Hussein in the team. But considering that Pashu was the tactical focus, the team’s tactics had to maximize her capabilities.

PFC Weems came running up.

“Show him,” the captain said, pointing at Rev.

A company commander didn’t have the authorization to tell a Marine to jack into another, nor tell another Marine to accept it, for that matter, but the PFC didn’t hesitate. He pulled the extendable jack out of his sleeve and offered it to Rev. His eyes widened when Rev’s end slid out of Pashu.

“OK, send what you saw,” Rev said after he made the connection.

There was a brief flicker, then Rev was “seeing” what the PFC had seen. And it sure looked like the riever was dug in almost like an ancient pillbox, back up against the rock face. Not much of it was visible, and something exploded behind the riever on the wall. The recording was barely three seconds long before the PFC had turned away.

Rev disconnected, then offered it to the team leader. He waved it off.

“Thank you, PFC Weems,” Rev said. Then he turned to the staff sergeant, “We need to get closer.”

“I’ve got a fire team ready to lead you up.” She paused, looking at Pashu again. “You really think you can take that thing out when an Avenger couldn’t?”

“I’ve done it before, ma’am.”

She shook her head and said, “I hope you’re right. And whatever we can do, you let us know.”

A fire team, led by a corporal, guided Rev, the staff sergeant, and Nix forward, the last fifty meters on their bellies.

“If you pass the boulder there, you’ll be in the fucker’s sights,” the corporal said.

Rev turned to the staff sergeant. “I’m moving forward.”

Delacrie hesitated, then nodded. Rev knew the staff sergeant had been told not to risk losing him, but he also knew that Rev had to know what he faced.

Still on his belly, Rev low-crawled forward. For all of Pashu’s power, she was not made for low crawling. Rev made a mental note to pass that onto Daryll or Doctor Chakrabarti. This was one of the many issues that hadn’t been considered until the field trials revealed them. The problem was that the “field trials” were actual combat, not back in the rear surrounded by techs.

After another ten meters, the still-smoking hulk of the Marine Avenger came into his view. Rev tried to push the thoughts of Bundy and Ten out of his mind. That was easier said than done as the hulk could be one of them right there, thirty meters away.

But it also became evident why the tank had been destroyed. As he crept up closer, he could see that the tank had been canalized into a kill zone. It couldn’t maneuver, which took away one of its most effective capabilities. It had been a sitting duck.

Rev crept up to the boulder the corporal had indicated, then studied what he could see of the terrain. Ahead of him was a typical box canyon, about twenty-five meters wide and a hundred meters long. The bottom was strewn with boulders. Cliffs, maybe forty meters high, rose above.

Several bodies were in his line of sight, while five Marines were hugging the backside of a particularly large rock. They had spotted him, and one was pointing to his right, signaling “Enemy, ninety meters.” Rev acknowledged the information.

At ninety or a hundred meters, Rev couldn’t pop up and try to take it out with Pashu’s cannon. It was out of her effective range. And while the boulders on the ground could give him cover, they would also both slow him down and limit his ability to change direction to maneuver closer.

He looked up, but it was pretty obvious that even if they could get word back for the Navy to hit the canyon, the monitor would have to be in orbit directly overhead to get a hit.

As he was looking up, however, a plan began to coalesce. But he needed to know exactly where the riever was.

“No way around it. Punch, record, wide-angle.”

Rev took three deep breaths, then popped up over the boulder and dropped back down an instant before energy washed around him, the air crackling with ionization.

“Show me.”

The image PFC Weems had shown him had been focused on the riever itself, with not much else noted. But with Punch’s help, Rev now had a snapshot of the scene. He studied it for a minute as a plan—an audacious plan, but a plan nonetheless—came together.

He crept back to where the others waited.

“You had to expose yourself?” the staff sergeant said, his eyes blazing.

Rev ignored the question.

“Here’s what we’re going to do.”

* * *

“Come on, Miko. Those Marines need us,” Rev muttered.

High above him, Tomiko was climbing the rock face, a rope dangling from her harness. Rev had planned on making the climb himself, but the staff sergeant had nixed that.

Rev had been annoyed, but he had to admit that the team leader was right. At less than half his weight and with two regular arms, she was having a far easier time climbing than he would have. And just like Pashu was somewhat of a liability in crawling, she would have been the same in climbing. Just one more thing to add onto the list to tell Doctor C.

Tomiko finally disappeared over the top. A few minutes later, she leaned back over the edge and gave them a thumb’s up.

“That’s me,” Strap said. He snapped his climbers into the cable and started up, the climbers automatically supporting most of his weight. Within a minute, he was at the top.

“Radić, you’re next,” Nix said on belay, the running end of the line wrapped around his waist. The private scampered up like a monkey, even quicker than Strap had.

Porter followed, a little slower than Radić. Rev watched until she disappeared from view.

“You ready, Rev?” Nix asked.

“Let’s do it.”

Rev attached his climbers to the line, then to his harness. He gave it a tug, and the tiny light turned green.

“Kick some ass, OK?” Nix said.

“You just be ready to light the thing up and give us some cover.”

“Will do.” Nix gave him a pat on the shoulder, and Rev started up. He could have just stayed still, letting the climbers raise him without effort on his part, but that was a recipe for getting banged around the rocks, something he didn’t need. So, like a rappel in reverse, he essentially walked up the hill, but let the climbers do the heavy lifting. He wasn’t as quick as the other three, but he crested the top where the element had formed a hasty defense and unhooked.

They pulled in the line, which Strap attached to his harness, and Tomiko said, “Let’s go.”

It had taken a bit of map study, but Rev had selected to climb at a spot four hundred meters from the Centaur and the trapped squad. Now they had to walk along the top of the ridgeline. It was a little rougher than it had looked on their maps, but they were augmented Marines. This wasn’t going to stop them from reaching the box canyon.

Strap had point, and he held up a closed fist to stop everyone. He pointed down, then gave the signal for enemy. If they were at the right spot, below them should be the riever and a trapped infantry squad. Farther out, the staff sergeant and First Element should be with some more Bravo Company infantry, waiting for Rev’s signal.

Up on top, Rev and the four Second Element Marines got down on their bellies and crept forward, using a twisted evergreen growing out of the rocks as their landmark. He couldn’t see the riever, but it should be directly below. The rocks protruded out a good five meters, which was probably why the riever had chosen its spot. The Marines didn’t have comms with the Navy, but if the monitors could break through the visual and electronic jamming, they could possibly target the riever, so the overhang could give the Centaur more overhead protection.

The staff sergeant had favored simply blasting off the overhang and letting it fall to crush the riever, but several quick simulations indicated that would not be a sure thing, nor even a probable thing, and it could end up crushing the Marine squad instead. So, they had to go back to Rev’s plan.

“We ready?” Rev asked.

“It’s on you,” Tomiko said.

Rev turned over to his back and motioned to Strap for the line. This time, there would be no climbers. Rev didn’t think he could control it and still do what he had to do. He attached the running end to his harness and waited for the rest.

Strap was going to be the anchor. He found another tree about five meters back, attached his harness to it, then ran the line around his back. Radić was the end man, there to take some of the stress off Strap but also to make sure the line couldn’t run free. Tomiko stayed closest to Rev. She’d handle any maneuvering required as well as shoulder part of Rev’s weight. Porter was security, ready for a drone-eye or anything else.

They’d all trained with this type of descent, but never together.

Shouldn’t matter, right? We’ve all done it before.

He looked at Strap as the Marine settled into place. He was the key that would keep him from freefalling to the bottom of the canyon.

“Hey, Strap. I did say I was sorry for punching you in the face back in Swansea, right?” he whispered.

Strap smiled and said, “I do seem to remember that little incident. Sucker punch.”

“Well, just remember that I apologized.”

“I never said I accepted that.”

Rev gave Strap a little salute, then got to his knees.

“All systems green?”

<All green.>

He pulled out a flare from his cargo pocket, took off the cap, then hit the bottom on the armor over his knee. The little rocket took off and climbed a hundred meters before exploding into a green starburst.

Within seconds, Morays and Yellowjackets were being fired into the canyon. Without being able to see the riever, they weren’t coming in expecting to hit it, but rather catch the thing’s attention.

“Remember what I said about firing too high,” Rev muttered as he stood up, ran a couple of steps forward, and jumped out over the edge.

He twisted around as the three Marines let out five meters of line, then he looked down, and immediately spotted the riever, just as its cannon glowed from firing. It wasn’t exactly dug in, but it had stacked rocked all around it as if it were inside a little castle.

With Rev swinging in to the side of the rock face, engaging with a Moray would have almost been impossible until his feet were planted. But Pashu was think-and-fire. As he was swinging in on the line’s moment arm, he twisted and pointed, “thinking” it to fire. Pashu blasted, and with the riever only thirty or thirty-five meters below him, it didn’t stand a chance. Its pedestal seemed to tip over, and then the self-destruct took over, and the thing exploded.

The shock wave rolled over Rev just as his feet hit the wall, knocking him sideways. Instead of a nice, solid absorption of the hit, he was flung off-kilter and smacked his right arm and head against the rock face before he bounced back off.

He didn’t care. He hadn’t been sure this cock-eyed plan would work. He hooted as he swung back out, his feet dangling in the air.

“Stupid thing never even looked up, Punch.”

He twisted his body again as he started to pendulum back the other way so he could get a better look at the shattered hulk beneath his feet when the sharp, unmistakable discharge of a Centaur cannon reverberated between the canyon walls. He tried to whip his body around, which caused him to drop another couple of meters before Strap and the others could stop the fall.

He didn’t notice the sharp drop. Directly across from him, from behind a finger of stone, a paladin was emerging, but sideways, like some vast spider crawling along the wall. Rev didn’t know they could even do that. A paladin was huge, but as far as he could see, it had no support other than its twelve legs keeping it on the vertical face.

The paladin fired its self-defense belt, and bits of the rocks on the ground disintegrated into dust.

“Range!”

<Fifty-nine meters.>

“Shit!” All Rev heard was the fifty-nine meters as he checked his cannon. The red light was blinking as it recharged.

<Sixty-six meters.>

“What, you just said . . .” Rev started before his swing brought him back into the wall one more time. Instinct took over, and he kicked wildly, trying to push off. He didn’t get much of the wall, but he got enough to put some force back into the swing.

<Fifty-eight meters. Fifty-four meters.> Punch kept relaying to him as Rev swung back out. Rev lifted Pashu, but she was still red as he reached the far side of the swing.

The paladin fired again, crawling out just a little farther, but Rev lost sight of it as he twisted at the end of the line and swung back.

<Fifty-nine meters. Sixty-seven meters.>

“Rev, what the hell are you doing?” Tomiko yelled from over the top. “We can’t hold you.”

Rev blocked her out. And this time, as he swung into the wall, he was ready. He hit it flush, bent his knees, and then pushed off with all his strength. The line jerked down another meter, but he’d put his augmented strength into it.

<Sixty-two meters. Fifty-eight meters.>

Rev pointed Pashu at the paladin, but she was still red.

<Fifty-two meters.> Punch said just as he reached apogee. The push had gained him two meters in range.

And right then, the paladin seemed to falter. Rev wasn’t sure why, but he knew that the paladin had finally figured out that the infantry on the ground wasn’t the threat. It lifted itself out a little farther from the wall, looking even more like a giant spider, as Rev started to swing back.

A wonderful green light lit, and without thinking, Rev fired, even if he knew it was probably out of range. But three of the paladin’s leg slipped, jerking the big chunk of armor. Then as it tried to recover, a few more legs slipped. That was enough, and the paladin fell. It crashed to the ground, hitting with a whump and a shower of dirt and dust.

A moment later, it detonated, not with the little one that the riever had used, but the full-fledged detonation that he’d seen on Preacher Rolls. The blast wave flung Rev into the wall, knocking the breath out of him. Shrapnel pinged around him, scoring his exposed skin. He dropped another few meters and jerked to a stop.

The wall had absorbed most of his momentum, and still dazed, he slowly swung back out, now only twenty meters above the ground. There wasn’t much left of the riever, but even less of the paladin. He raised his head to look at where it had been hiding, seemingly invisible. He still couldn’t believe that it had been able to cling there. And more than that, why, when Rev had shot it, had it fallen all the way to the ground? The damn things could fly.

But he wasn’t going to complain. The Centaurs had picked a good spot, perfect for a trap. Because it was obvious now that it was a trap. The riever was the bait, the paladin the deal closer.

But who was the trap for? The riever had killed the tank, not the paladin. Were they waiting for more tanks? For mech? Or were they possibly waiting for something else, a new threat, like an IBHU Marine?

He sure didn’t know the answer to that, especially dangling like a pinata, waiting for someone to take the stick to him.

“Rev, are you OK?” Tomiko shouted from above.

He looked up and saw her worried face peeking over the boulder.

“What the hell happened?”

“I’ll tell you later. But for right now, can you just pull me up?”

2

“There’s your fellow android,” Tomiko said.

Rev rolled his eyes. He didn’t like it when she called him an android even in jest—too close to home. At least she wasn’t calling him a Genesian, though. There were evidently lines that even she wouldn’t cross. He looked over his shoulder from where he was sitting and downing a D-rat Chili Mac. Corporal McAnt, along with some of his team, was coming in, dirty from six days in combat.

“Hey, Backstop, come on over and get something to eat. Got some Rotted Dicks left,” Rev shouted.

“I’m not that hungry.”

Rev rooted around in the box, pulled out a turkey tetrazzini, and tossed it at him. McAnt caught it, checked the label, and shrugged his acceptance. Strap picked up the box and took it to the other Raiders, who started grabbing what they could.

McAnt held out his IBHU and clinked with Rev’s. It had become second nature to Rev by now, as automatic as a handshake.

“How was it?” Rev asked. Without comms, things had been sketchy as to what had been going on, and this was McAnt’s first combat with his IBHU.

“Lost one. Sergeant Aland. No recovery.”

“Respect for the fallen,” Rev and Tomiko said.

Then Rev added, “How did you do?”

McAnt sat down and popped the heat tab on his meal. He waited the required ten seconds, then opened it. He watched the steam rise into the air for a long moment before he finally said, “You’ll have to ask Lieutenant Harisa.”

“Hey, I’m asking you,” he said, nudging the younger Marine with the toe of his boot.

“I took out three. The second was too close, though. That’s where Aland bought it, keeping the tin-ass off my butt until I could recharge.”

Crap. I forgot that this wasn’t just your first combat as an IBHU—this is your first in where you were actively fighting, closing with the enemy.

Rev sighed and lowered his voice to a whisper, which was more than enough for augmented ears to pick up. “And you’re blaming yourself for Aland, right?”

McAnt shrugged and took the first bite of his turkey. The corporal used his IBHU hand much better than Rev could, which Rev thought was an odd thing for him to notice at a moment like this. He shook his head and continued.

“Look, our teams are here as security. Our security. Back—” He’d almost said “Back in the day,” something only a few years ago and what he’d sworn to himself that he’d never say. “Before our little playthings,” he said, raising Pashu, “If a Raider team took out three Centaurs and enough had survived to still be combat-ready, hell, that would be celebrated.”

“Yeah, I know.” He pulled another spoonful of turkey out, then twisted it, staring as if the noodles held the secret of the universe.

“Being a Marine is a dangerous profession. You are going to lose more friends if you survive. That’s all there is to it.”

McAnt shook his head as if to clear it. “Yeah, you’re right. I know. And we did nail three of the bastards. I was closing in on another when they bugged out. How about you?”

“Got two on the first day. One more yesterday.”

“Righteous. Totally righteous.”

By now, the two teams were mixing as they ate, telling stories of the last six days with varying degrees of truth. It was all part of the bonding process. Rev just sat back and watched, drinking it in. Marines were Marines, and he’d give his life for anyone in uniform, but there was a special bond within the Raiders, a similarity among their augments, if nothing else. The other specialties had it, too—Recon, snipers, combat engineers, tankers, infantry. Mech took it to another level as well. For all he knew, the Combat Support and even the Ninety-nines, the poor bastards, had the same type of thing.

But Rev had another level, too. Something that as much as Tomiko was his best friend, she didn’t share with him. But McAnt, with his IBHU, and Top Thapa, Mr. Oliva, even Colonel Destafney did. The Brotherhood of Steel. He held out Pashu, twisting her as she seemed to drink in the bright sunlight. Someday, if he managed to stay alive, they’d take her from him, and he didn’t know how he would feel then.

“Hey, do you feel attached to Pashu?” he asked Punch.

<It is a valuable weapon.>

“I mean, do you feel something more about her than, say, an M-49?”

<The IBHU is not sentient. It is a tool, nothing more.>

Am I detecting a bit of judgment there?

Rev decided to leave that line of questioning. He still didn’t know how much Punch might be reporting about him. He was sure it was something, but he knew if he dwelt on it, he’d go paranoid.

“Earth to Rev.”

“What?” Rev asked, looking at Tomiko.

“I said, the skipper’s calling for you.”

Rev looked around. McAnt was already heading to the captain, along with the two team leaders present. He’d completely missed the captain calling while he was contemplating life. He jumped up and jogged to catch up with McAnt.

“We got new orders, Skipper?” Lieutenant Harisa asked.

“In a way, yes, if you accept stand by to stand by as orders,” Captain Omestori said. “We won’t be patrolling. We’re still the reaction force. We’ve got the Navy scanning every square centimeter of this planet, but from all indications, the surviving tin-asses have boogied. Still, you never know when they’ve left something behind.”

The captain gave Rev a quick look, and Rev could almost hear him say, “Like a tin-ass body.”

“Any idea how many got away?” Lieutenant Harisa asked.

“They’re working on that. The buggers are hard to track when they’re flying. Lots of decoys and shielding. But in excess of two-twenty, at least off the planet.”

Rev looked at him in shock. Two hundred and twenty? There were only supposed to be two hundred on the planet when the Marines landed. Both he and McAnt had taken out three apiece. Then there were the tanks, mech, air, and Navy gunships.

“Why so many, sir?”

Intel thinks that they weren’t really in the fight from the beginning. They were resisting, but after you two and PFC Randigold started kicking ass . . . uh, you in the teams, too,” he hurriedly added.

“Don’t worry about us, sir,” Staff Sergeant Delacrie said. “We may have gotten one, but we know who the triggermen are here.”

“Well, yeah. I guess. But what I was saying, once you three IBHUs started tallying kills, the fight seemed to go out of them. They were maneuvering in some of their deep-space vessels for a rendezvous with those fleeing the planet.”

“And the Navy let them?” Lieutenant Harisa asked, sounding surprised.

It was a good question. While their ships ruled deep and null space, they were not as effective in-system, and they tended to avoid the human navies within them.

“The Navy isn’t saying much to us, but I think they got taken by surprise. I hope we find out more.”

“You said PFC Randigold kicked ass. Is she OK?” Corporal McAnt asked.

“You can ask her yourself. She’s being brought in before going back with Fifth Marines. That’s another thing I’m passing. A Seiben tech is coming down to check the three of you out here. Should be landing in about an hour.

“And for the rest of the teams, I want everyone fed and cleaned up. First and Fourth are inbound and should be here shortly. Fifty percent on alert, then switch over. Capisce?”

“Aye-aye, sir,” both Delacrie and Harisa said in unison.

* * *

It was only forty minutes later that Rev was hooked up to a portable test unit, Daryll looking intently at the feeds. Daryll Begay hadn’t come alone. A Sieben management-type had accompanied him, and the man kept looking around wide-eyed as if expecting a Centaur to jump out of the trees and attack them. Finally, after being tested for well over ten minutes, Daryll nodded and unjacked him.

“So, is she all in one piece?” Rev asked, slapping Pashu with his right hand.

“You’re good to go, Rev.”

Which he knew. Rev had Punch run the diagnostics twice now, and everything was running green. He stood from the folding stool Daryll had brought, swept an arm like a high-dining maître d, and told McAnt, “If you would be seated, monsieur, your tech will be with you with our specials of the day.”

“Oh, yes, why thank you, good sir. I’m looking forward ever-so-much to this.”

Daryll rolled his eyes and said, “Just get on the stool, Thesbian.”

The other Sieben guy looked at the two Marines as if they were crazy. Rev winked at him and said, “It’s just so hard to get a reservation at Che Sieben, and they cost an arm and a leg . . . well, at least an arm!”

McAnt and Daryll laughed while the other guy shook his head and turned away.

<I understand why that is funny.>

“I wasn’t giving you another humor lesson.”

<Regardless, I found that enjoyable.>

“Great, I can make crystal laugh.” Still, he felt good about that.

Rev stood by McAnt as he was jacked when a Buzzard flared in for a landing a hundred meters off. About a dozen Marines deplaned.

“There she is,” Rev said, while McAnt twisted in the stool to see.

It was hard to miss her. Her IBHU would be enough, but they’d already heard that her situation was somewhat different than theirs. Ethereal Randigold had been caught in a fire at a local bar. Three Marines and four civilians had been killed, and Randigold had been badly burnt. She would have died, too, had it not been for her augments which protected her head and torso. She lost an arm and a leg in the fire, and the other had been so badly damaged that she’d had it taken off to enable her to use two prosthetic legs instead of one.

She’d actually been IBHU Marine 1 for a short time until Sieben and Navy Prosthetics realized the extent of her injuries and the time she would need to recover. That was when they had switched to Rev as the official IBHU 1.

She spotted them and started jogging over, followed by her team. All hands stopped what they were doing to watch her.

“And they call us androids?” McAnt muttered as Randigold lumbered up.

Rev wouldn’t know where to start in describing her. Both legs were prostheses, but they were purely mechanical without any attempt to look like an organic leg, something that was obvious as she was in shorts and not any type of uniform legs. Half of her face was a twist of scar tissue, and part of the rest was covered like Colonel Destafney’s Phantom of the Opera mask. Two vividly blue eyes bore into first Rev, then McAnt, and bright red hair, cut short, grew out of the small, undamaged section of her head.

As she ran up, Rev raised his arm for the Steel Greeting, but instead of a light tap, she gave him a hard shot that sent him back a step.

“Hey, Ether! What did I tell you about that?” Daryll said. “Easy with that thing. You break it, and you’re not getting another!”

“I love you, too, Daryll,” she said to him, then turned to the others. “PFC Ethereal Randigold, and I am so damn happy to finally meet you.”

3

Much to the Marines’ welcome surprise, they’d stayed on Mistake for only another two weeks, running patrols in response to anomalies from the Navy eyes in the sky. All of them proved to be negative. The Centaurs had truly bugged out.

The evening after their return to New Hope, Rev headed out to the VGW to check in with Mr. Oliva. The old man played it down, but Rev could see he appreciated the attention and the opportunity to tell his war stories. But Rev’s visits weren’t altruistic. He found he enjoyed the old man’s company, stories and all.

“Hey, Sergeant,” Maude said as he stepped into the dark bar. “How’s it hanging?”

“Same old, same old, you know.”

“Yeah, I guess I do know at that,” she said with a gruff laugh.

Maude Timmerkin looked like she could have been running a criminal gang, hard as nails and salty as seawater. Rev had been surprised, though, to find out she was a retired sailor, a captain, no less. She’d commanded three ships in her career, and now she was tending bar at the VGW. He’d asked her about that once, and she told him she’d rather hang out here with “her tribe,” as she put it, instead of at her retirement home.

“You just get off the ship?”

Marines were not supposed to talk about their comings and goings with civilians, but of course, Maude had her ear to the ground, and she was hardly a Children of Angels agent. Rev nodded, then she brought out a glass and poured a Pyron Rum, a traditional welcome home drink for the Navy.

Rev wasn’t a huge fan, but some things can’t be refused, and he downed it in one swallow, feeling the liquid gold roll down his throat. And it felt good. Maybe he was getting used to it. He started to wave his chip over the reader to pay, but she pushed his hand away.

“You insult me, Sergeant. You think I’m going to let you pay?”

Rev sheepishly nodded, then looked to the back, but his friend wasn’t there. “Where’s Mr. Oliva? I can’t believe he’d miss an evening at the canteen.”

Maude’s eyes clouded over, and she said, “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have heard. Some young punks roughed him up two nights ago. He’s in the hospital.”

Anger surged through him. “What? Which hospital? I need to go see him.”

“No visitors for a couple of days. They won’t let you in.”

Rev’s mind was whirling. Who’d jump an old vet? He was no threat.

“What happened? Why did they do it?”

“Who the hell knows? They were outside when he left, a few sheets to the wind. You know him. Maybe they gave him some shit, and he gave it back. You know Regis, right? He saw the same kids when he left a few minutes earlier, and they didn’t bother him.”

Mr. Oliva could be a smart-ass Rev admitted. But to get jumped for that? He could feel his blood boil.

“And you’re sure I can’t go see him?”

“I’m sure. A couple of the cooties tried to see him today and were told no. Not until Friday at the earliest.”

The Military Order of the Cooties was an ancient organization out of the Veterans of Galactic Wars, going all the way back to old Earth. It was somewhat secretive and had lots of rituals, but Rev knew that they spent a lot of time visiting infirmed or hospitalized veterans.

Maude poured him a beer and put it on the bar. “Sit down and cool off. It sucks, but there’s not much you can do about it now. Oliva’s a tough egg. He’ll be back soon enough, ornery as ever.”

Rev wanted to go try and see if he could get in to see the old man, but he knew she was right. He pulled up a stool and drained the beer. More than a few. He spent the next hour with Maude and a couple of the guys before he decided to head back to the base. He’d come back on Friday and get an update.

Rev paid his bill and stepped out the door once again, wishing his augments could neutralize the effects of alcohol. He took out his quantphone and called up an autocab, then started to walk to the corner.

“Told you there’d be another one,” a voice said from across the street.

Rev looked up where four men in their thirties or forties started across the street to him. “Excuse me?”

“Fucking Genny,” the lead man said, using the common slang for the Genesians.

Rev didn’t need his augments to know these guys were trouble, and it had to be them, not young kids, who’d assaulted Mr. Oliva. It was a pat coincidence, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be true. He could feel the adrenaline start to flow, competing with the alcohol for dominance.

The four spread out, making a diamond around him. Rev widened his feet slightly, weight on the balls of his feet. Flashes of lectures they’d gotten when first augmented zipped through his mind. An augmented Marine was never to use their advantages against citizens. But if these were the guys who’d jumped Mr. Oliva, then he wasn’t going to pay attention to that restriction. But he wasn’t drunk enough not to realize that he couldn’t just act on his suspicion. He had to confirm these were the same guys.

“What do you want?” he asked, surprised that his voice was so calm.

“What do we want?” the leader, a heavyset man with a bull neck, asked. “We want you off New Hope.”

“I’m a citizen, just like you. Born and raised here in Swansea.”

“Don’t matter none where you were born,” the man said with a sneer as the other three laughed. “You’re a Genny now. An assault on all that’s holy.”

“I am not a Genesian,” Rev said, noting the positions of each of them while he started to formulate a plan of attack.

“So you say. You Marines, you think everything’s all secret behind the gates, but we’re not stupid, and we have eyes. We know they’re creating Gennies again, despite all the laws and stuff. Taking nature into your own hands, and we know what happens when you do that.”

“And why do you think I’m some sort of android?” Rev asked, using the corner of his eyes to watch the guy on his right who seemed too excited for his own good. He was going down first or second, Rev decided right there.

All four laughed at that. “Look at you. You look like they made you with wax, and then you melted. And your arm. They cut off arms first, then make you guys Gennies. Just like the old guy Monday night,” the guy on the right said.

Rev slowly turned, his glare enough to make the guy take half a step back. “You were the ones who attacked Mr. Oliva?”

“If you mean the old Genny, then yeah. Taught him a lesson.”

Rev almost snarled in anger. He took three deep breaths and said, “Mr. Oliva is ninety years old. He lost his arm in combat years ago.”

The first guy shrugged and said, “Then they shouldn’t have done that shit to him.”

Rev was close to his breaking point, but he was going to try one more time. “Yes, I’ve been augmented. But only so I can fight the Centaurs. To keep you safe.”

The first guy looked up to the night sky and howled. “Oh, that’s fucking precious. You expect us to believe that? Centaurs? Those ancient myths.”

Rev wasn’t expecting that, and for a moment, he was taken aback. “You know we just call them Centaurs, right? They’re not like half man, half horse.”

“They’re not like half man, half horse,” the first guy repeated, but in a high, sing-song voice. “They don’t even exist, you idiot. They’re a figment of the government’s imagination, all to keep us in check, under their thumb. Everything’s for the war effort, and they take away our rights. And you guys. You’re going to be the enforcers when they try to push us down.”

Rev couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This was Children of Angels-crazy. “I’ve fought them. They’re real.”

“Sure you did. And if they’re supposed to be so tough, then how did you survive?”

“’Sides, even if they are real,” the guy on the right said, “they sure the hell ain’t coming here. That’s all for the central worlds to worry about, so why do we have to suffer out here?”

That was it. There was no reasoning with these idiots. “If I really am a Genesian, you know I can destroy all four of you, right?”

The first guy smiled, his eyes glinting in the street light. He brought out avibroblade and activated it, the hum unmistakable. “I don’t think even a Genny can stand up to this.”

Rev’s warrior self took over, and he moved into a fighting stance. The man could be right. With a molecularly thin edge and point, it might be able to pierce Rev’s spider web. It would certainly do a number on his skin, and while that wouldn’t be fatal, it wasn’t something that Rev wanted to go through.

But it was the guy on the right who moved first, whipping out a baton and moving in to coldcock him. Rev spun around with a spinning backfist, bashed through the baton, and connected with the side of the attacker’s head, dropping him like a sack of flour. But the move was designed to draw Rev out, and the first man was lunging. He was quick, with the reflexes of a street fighter. But Rev was quicker. He spun back, raising his social arm and catching the blade. The knife’s edge skittered across his arm’s metal surface, rising up along it until the blade nicked his skin on the shoulder. The man grunted in surprise before Rev’s right fist caught him on the chin.

Rev had pulled the punch. Killing a citizen would be much harder to justify, even if they attacked first. And the man was tough. He staggered back, barely keeping his feet, his eyes unfocussed. But he managed to retain the blade, which he held out, pointing at Rev.

One of the other two hit Rev from behind. Rev didn’t have time for him. He shot back an elbow into the guy’s face, feeling it crunch, then stalked forward. The man took one step, two steps back.

“I’ll kill you, you metal freak!” he shouted, waving the vibroblade. “You should all die!”

Quick as a snake, Rev’s social arm darted out and grabbed the man’s wrist, then twisted it upward. The man screamed in pain and went to his knee, but he wouldn’t let go.

<Don’t kill him.>

Rev’s anger was boiling, and while he knew Punch had been controlling the adrenaline surge, this was the first thing his battle buddy had said. And it was to protect these cretins.

He poured power into his arm, crushing and twisting. Bones snapped, and the man finally let go of the blade, which stopped the vibration. It bounced off the sidewalk, now just an unremarkable-looking inert gray. Rev raised his right hand, ready to cave in the man’s head.

“Stop, stop. Please,” the guy shrieked.

There was a sudden dip in his anger, and Rev didn’t think it was because of the man’s pleas. If Punch could raise him to fighting mode, it stood to reason that he could take Rev back as well. He knew he should be angry at being manipulated, but he couldn’t muster up the emotion. Which made its own kind of perverted sense, if that was what Punch wanted.

Rev let go, and the man fell to the ground and curled into a fetal ball. Rev turned around. Two guys were in motionless heaps, one of them, at least, groaning. There was no sign of the fourth guy.

Damn. He sure beat feet quickly.

His shoulder burned from the slash, but a little probing revealed that it was only skin. His spider web was still intact.

What now?

He was tempted to call the police. For attacking a Marine, the three—four, if the other guy could be tracked down—would get conscripted and find themselves in uniform soon enough. But he just didn’t want to deal with it, and even if he did, were these the kind of lowlifes he wanted fighting beside him?

What happened couldn’t be hidden. The police would get involved, and they’d check the secdrone recordings. But if Rev didn’t hang there until the police arrived, if he didn’t press charges, then maybe the police would let it go.

The autocab pulled up to the corner, and that was the deciding factor. Leaving the bodies in place, he got into the cab.

“Camp Nguyen.”

If the authorities wanted him, all they had to do is pull the autocab’s records. If they didn’t, then the four could rot for all Rev cared.

4

“Any bets on what this is about?” Tomiko asked Rev as they sat in the small theater in the bowels of the Second Division Headquarters.

“Maybe we’re finally getting another mission,” Rev said.

“They could have briefed us that back at Nguyen,” his fellow sergeant said. “No reason to drag us to Kamachi.”

Rev looked around the theater. There were the three IBHU Raider Teams: the two from Second Division and the one from First, each one with a single Integrated Bionic Hopological Unit Marine—Rev, McAnt, and Randigold. The rest were a handful of senior Marines. No Sieben employees, not even Doctor Chakrabarti, the IBHU civilian project lead, which was telling. Of the Marines, there was Colonel Destafney, another bird colonel who Rev figured was from First Division, two lieutenant colonels, four majors, and four sergeants major. Rev was more impressed with the sergeants major. One of them was Sergeant Major O’Hara, the Eighth Marines senior enlisted advisor. But Rev had never seen two of the rank in one place before, much less four.

“Hey, what do you call a group of sergeants major?”

<Is this a joke?> Punch, his battle buddy, asked.

“No. Well, maybe a little humor. I was just wondering. I mean, didn’t you tell me a couple of weeks ago that a group of crows is called a murder?”

<Yes, I did.>

“Well, I’d hate to run into a murder of sergeants major some dark and stormy night.”

<A murder might be appropriate. But how about a death?>

Rev couldn’t help it, and he laughed out loud.

“What? Being hauled all this way only to sit on our asses is funny?” Tomiko asked.

“No, nothing. Just thinking.”

“That’s your problem, you thinking.”

Rev didn’t have a quick comeback, so he didn’t say anything. Tomiko was much better than he was with trash-talking, so unless he had a zinger, it was better to abandon the field of battle and live to fight another day.

“Think they’ll ship us back to Nguyen right away after this brief?” Tomiko asked.

“I don’t know. Why?”

“BBQ, of course. Where did Bundy and Udu say they went? Fat Alice’s?”

“Fat Alicia’s. And yeah, that sounds primo,” Rev said, his stomach suddenly growling at the thought.

Anastasia, which was the city outside Camp Kamachi’s main gate, prided itself on having the best BBQ on the planet. And while Rev had been to six other planets so far, the only time he’d been to Anastasia or Kamachi was when he was in the hospital.

“OK, it’s a date,” she said, squeezing his arm.

“Did I hear you say Fat Alicia’s?” Hussein asked.

With their augmented hearing, it was difficult to have a private conversation around others.

“Hey, Rev and Miko are going to Fat Alicia’s. Who else is up for it?” he said without waiting for an answer.

There was a quick rush of hands shooting up.

“OK, then. If they give us some time before we go back, it’s BBQ,” Rev said, raising an eyebrow to Tomiko. She shrugged her acceptance.

If she was going to say something else, it was lost when someone yelled, “Attention on deck!”

All the Marines and Navy corpsmen jumped to attention with a clatter of seats. Rev kept his head oriented forward but with his peripheral vision, he caught sight of several Marines descending from the door in the back and making their way forward to the front row.

“The big brass is here,” Tomiko whispered.

She was right. Two three-star generals, one more than existed in the New Hope Marines, led the group. He’d met Lieutenant General Trejo before, the Director of the Union Marine Corps—the Big M—Research and Development Division back at Marine HQ on New Mars. The general had been a fixture during Rev’s initial prep, fitting, and training with his IBHU, but this was the first time he’d seen him since the hotwash for his first mission as an IBHU Marine. The second three-star was Lieutenant General Begay, the commanding general of the New Hope Marines. Major General Sirirat was the Second Division commanding general, and the other two-star had to be Major General Van Allen from the First Marine Division over on the mainland.

And that wasn’t all. There were a couple of one-star generals, a few more colonels, and some captains and majors with the gold aide-de-camp aiguillettes hanging from their shoulders. And one civilian, who was looking very out-of-place among all the uniformed Marines.

“At ease, and take your seats, Marines,” General Trejo shouted out.

“And sailors,” Doc Paul, the platoon corpsman, muttered quietly as he always did.

Rev took a quick look around the theater. “That’s a lot of brass for a couple of Raider platoons.”

“Best platoons in the Corps, though,” Tomiko said.

General Trejo centered himself in front of the seated Marines and faced them. “I’m here on New Hope for a series of meetings concerning our employment of the IBHU units. As you know, your two platoons make up the first operational unit in the Corps.”

Rev didn’t know that, and he sat up straighter in his seat. He’d been the first IBHU Marine, the test case. And now, with Backstop and Ether certified for combat and with a mission under their belts, he knew they had to have been among the first. But in the entire Marine Corps? Big M and the other planetary corps?

The Perseus Union Marine Corps, the PUMC, was the “premier” corps with its twelve Marine Forces, each comprised of a division, wing, and support group. They had the latest and greatest weapons and equipment and were first in line for every new innovation. To think that one of the planetary corps, in this case, the New Hope Marines, had something first was more than a little surprising.

“One of those meetings yesterday was your hotwash of Mistake. Good job, there, really good job. I’m proud of you all. But that’s not what we’re covering now, and this morning, when we sat down for the next brief, General Sirirat suggested that we bring you into this. And I think she was right. If you’re going to be the tip of the spear, maybe you need to know more about the tin-asses than you do now.”

Rev raised his eyebrows in surprise. First that a three-star general used the term “tin-asses.” That was just slang, and most officers tried to use Centaurs at best or the official Scutum-Centaursians. Second, and this was more important, a two-star general stopped a meeting to ask that the grunts be briefed as well.

Is it snowing in hell? Are pigs suddenly launching themselves into the air? Who stole my Marine Corps, and what are they doing with it?

“So, sorry for the short notice to get you here, but I’m going to turn it over to Doctor Saeed so we can get on with this and get you back to training.”

“I hope not before we can get that BBQ,” Hussein whispered loud enough for the augmented Marines around him to hear but hopefully not loud enough for the brass to pick up.

“Record this.”

<I’m on it.>

The civilian stood up when one of the colonels with the generals’ entourage stood and stopped her. “Before we start, I just want to remind everyone in the room that this is a One-C class briefing. All of you,” he said, sweeping an arm to indicate the gathered Marines, “have been given a mission-specific clearance for this. But there is to be no dissemination beyond this room and no recording.” He looked around the space to make sure that sunk in before he turned back to the civilian and indicated that she could continue.

<What do you want me to do?>

Rev pondered that for a moment. He’d never been at the top of any of his classes in school, and he knew that not all of what he’d be told would sink in. He’d need to go over it again when he had more time. And was he technically asking Punch to make real recording? Punch was in his head, after all.

He knew this was against about a million different regulations, but he chose to go with it.

“No change. Record it. We can delete it after I review it all.”

The civilian was an older, dark-skinned woman with short hair that had a purple swatch going front to back across her right temple, a pink swatch across her left temple. Both swatches seemed to glow with luminescence as if they were ocean plankton disturbed by a boat’s wake.

“Me like,” Tomiko said.

From what Rev had gathered, Tomiko had been the type to push the limits of social norms before she was conscripted, so the hair was probably up her alley.

“Hello,” the woman said. “I’m Doctor Lily Saeed, and I run J2-X. I’m happy to be here to talk to you today.”

“What’s J2-X?”

<It’s an unnamed division with J-2. She’s a CES-4.>

“OK, J-2 is intelligence at Big M headquarters, but what’s a CES-4?”

Rev knew about the Civilian Executive Service, but they were so high above him on the food chain that he didn’t know one from the other.

<It’s the equivalent to the three-star rank.>

And that impressed him. Along with the two lieutenant generals, that was three of them in this room, all to brief three platoons of Raiders.

The doctor hesitated as if choosing her words, and Rev got the impression that this lady never misspoke. She looked over at General Trejo as if for confirmation. Rev couldn’t tell from his vantage what the general might have signaled back.

“I’m not sure how much of this is common knowledge, but given the classification of this brief, I think I can go into this. I’m sure that you’ve all heard that the Frisians have accused us of having a Centaur prisoner. Well, that is just that, a rumor, but we have been able to recover Centaur tissue.”

There was an audible gasp from the theater, and Tomiko gave his leg a nudge with hers.

“I am not going into the details beyond that, but I wanted to use that as a basis of how we have been able to make some of what I am going to theorize to you here today. And I must stress that while we are fairly confident on what I am about to reveal, this isn’t proven fact. The Centaurs have been, and they remain, a mystery in too many ways.”

Every single Marine and corpsman in the room had their eyes locked onto the woman. An attack by a paladin outside the door wouldn’t have been able to shift their attention from her.

“First and foremost, the Centaurs are dying.”

Say what?

“I don’t mean the individuals, but as a race, they are slowly dying out. The signs are clear.”

“What are the signs?” General Sirirat asked. Evidently, this was as new to her as it was to Rev and the rest of the Raiders.

“I’m not sure how much you want of the science behind it, but let me summarize, if you don’t mind. And if this doesn’t suffice, I’ll be happy to show you in greater detail in a secure lab.”

The division CG nodded, and the doctor continued. “Centaur C-DNA, as we are calling it, is surprisingly similar to human DNA.”

There was another audible gasp, but something clicked with Rev. He’d seen the dead Centaur, which had to be the “Centaur tissue” to which she was referring. It had been wizened and much smaller than a human, but it had the same general features—a head, a torso, two arms, and two legs.

“Chimpanzee DNA is much closer, but the C-DNA works in the same general pattern and has the same function as our DNA. And within those C-DNA strands, there are similar C-RNA. We haven’t unlocked all of its secrets, but there are some things that are evident. And the first is that there are signs of degradation, and not just that of environmental pressures on the individual. With linear regression analysis, we can see that the mutation rates have been increasing over time, and not in ways to benefit the race. They are breaking down to where reproduction is becoming problematic. The Centaurs have a similar method as ours to fertilize their eggs. But their version of sperm, if I can use the term for simplicity’s sake, is misshapen and malformed.”

Rev grimaced. They’d taken sperm out of his and Tomiko’s Centaur? And how do they know this wasn’t just a sickly Centaur, one exposed to radiation or something? Unless they had more bodies?

“Punch, can we have more tin-asses on ice besides the one we found?”

<It is entirely possible.>

“The similarities of what can happen with devolution are too evident to ignore. Every analysis we run shows the same thing. As a race, they are dying out. A hundred years, two hundred, maybe three hundred years, and the Centaurs will be extinct.

“Now why this is happening, well, there are two trains of thought. The first is that they are simply an older race than ours, and they’ve reached their sell-by date. The second is that we are about the same age, but they are from a world or worlds where their magnetic field isn’t as strong as ours is, so they’ve been continually bombarded with their sun’s ultraviolet radiation, resulting in far more long-term damage.

General Sirirat looked over to General Trejo, who nodded, giving her the OK to question. “Doctor Saeed, that is all well and good, and yes, it is interesting. More than interesting, I guess. But we can’t wait a hundred years for them to go extinct. They may be dying, but their paladins keep killing Marines. Their ships blow our Navy’s most powerful ships out of null space. How is this going to help us live long enough until they die out?”

Doctor Saeed smiled then, a smile that made Rev hope he never got on her bad side. It gave him the shivers.

“Oh, we have no intention of letting them die out naturally. You see, with what we have uncovered, we are developing some species-specific weapons to speed up their march to extinction.”

“Are you inferring that we’re going to use bio-weapons against them? What about the Torinth Accords?” General Sirirat asked.

“Last I heard, the Centaurs are not signatories,” she said with a casual shrug. “But yes, we’re developing bio-weapons. And you,” she said, pointing to the Marines in the theater, “you are going to be our applicators.”

* * *

“So, what do you think?” Tomiko asked, reaching up to wipe a splotch of BBQ sauce from Rev’s cheek.

“Think about what? Our brief or the BBQ?”

“Ah, both, I guess.”

“Damn fine BBQ. These ribs are the bomb, and I can’t believe I was here at the hospital for so long without ordering delivery. Glad the colonel convinced the pilots to delay our return.”

“Well, when a full bird asks you to find a reason why one of the Buzzards can’t take off, you find it.”

“That and bribing them,” Rev said, pointing to where the crews of the two Buzzards were chowing down on Fat Alicia’s finest, courtesy of Colonel Destafney.

“And . . .” Tomiko pressed.

“Knowing they’re dying was surprising, but like the CG said, we can’t wait a couple hundred years for that to happen. About the bio-weapons?” Rev said with a shrug. “That’s way above my pay grade.

“What I really wanted to know is what makes them tick. You know, like know your enemy and stuff. Like Sun Tzu said. We still don’t know shit, and how can we figure out what they’re going to do unless we know how they think? That’s why we got slammed on TRT-36. ‘No, tin-asses wouldn’t set a trap. No, not them.’ Until they do, and Yazzie and the rest get killed.”

Rev threw one of the ribs, half-eaten, on the ground as the familiar anger at losing so many friends returned.

“Hey, pick that up, Pelletier,” Staff Sergeant Delacrie told him. “We’re guests here and not freakin’ barbarians.”

Rev nodded and picked up the rib. He was embarrassed that he’d let his emotions get the better of him, and he had to admit it was stupid to waste good food because he was still angry. He took a couple of deep breaths to calm back down.

“Sorry about that. But I really wish that doc had given us something more on how to fight them.”

“What do you think new weapons are?” Tomiko asked.

“Just tools. I want to know how to fight them, not with what.”

He knew he had to get over the deaths of his fellow Marines. Being a Marine was inherently a dangerous proposition, and it wasn’t up to some CES with probably a dozen PhDs to come up with a secret formula to make killing Centaurs easy. What it boiled down to was that it was still up to the individual Marine to get it done. And until then, just live life because who knew what tomorrow would bring?

He stood there for a moment, looking at the rib in his hand. Tomiko pointed to a trash can at the edge of the tarmac, but he just brushed off a few pieces of grass and bit off another chunk of meat.

Tomiko rolled her eyes.

“What? It’s still good.”

And it was. According to the flyer that came with them, all of the pork was vat-grown from “Blue Belly Argonaut,” an heirloom donor hog from Weller’s World. Rev had never heard of this super hog, but the meat was better than any manufactured pork he’d had back on Swansea. He hadn’t even tried the brisket yet to check out the beef, something he was about to rectify.

He started to walk over to get some when the sergeant major shouted out, “OK, that’s it. Let’s get loaded.”

Rev turned to see the Buzzard crews wiping their hands and getting back on board. He ran to where the BBQ was laid out and grabbed a container that still had a few pieces of brisket left as everyone else cleaned up the trash.

It would have been a shame if he and Tomiko had left before finding out if “Sir Regis Gold Lake” beef matched the quality of Blue Belly Argonaut.

5

“You gonna meet us at the E-club?” Hussein asked as they changed out of their workout clothes.

“Nah, I promised Mala that I’d meet her at the range,” Rev said. “We might be by later, though.”

“You’re going shooting with her? Now we know this is serious.”

“Yeah, right. We’re just going to shoot. She’s got a new Franklin .44 and wants to snap it in.”

“Snap what in, your gun?”

“Bite me, Hus-man.”

“Save that biting for her.”

“Did you say a Franklin .44?” Nix asked. “Can I come with you?”

“Leave the lovebirds to themselves,” Hussein told him, putting his arm around the sergeant’s shoulders.

“But I want to try a Franklin out. All the reviews say it’s pretty sweet.”

“Three’s a crowd. And you, Rev, make sure you shower good. I know you’re all swole up now after our sets, but women like their partners smelling pretty and clean.”

“Your mind’s always in the gutter, Hus-man,” Rev said.

“Right where I like it.”

Rev frowned and grabbed his towel, wrapped it around his waist, and started for the showers. He couldn’t help but see himself in the mirrors over the sink, and Hussein’s comment bothered him. Was he good-looking? He was powerful. That was obvious. But the harness to support Pashu changed the topography of his body. He wasn’t some model with a cut body, that was for sure. He was chunky and more than a little lumpy, if he was honest with himself, and his social arm and the larger sleeve that he had to be able to connect to his IBHU only added to his decidedly unique appearance. The four thugs outside the VGW hadn’t had any problem recognizing that he was different, after all.

He wasn’t buying into Hussein’s insinuations about Mala, of course. She was just a friend, and they were only going shooting. Hardly a romantic date if that was his goal. But in general, he wasn’t sure if the body in the mirror matched his own view of himself.

He tried not to let it bother him as he showered, but instead of using the rose soap he preferred, he made it a point of dialing the neutral soap gel instead. Hussein was off base in thinking he had to smell nice just to go to the range.

The other two hit the showers a couple of minutes behind him. Rev wasn’t up for more ribbing by Hussein, so he rinsed off, hit the sonic-blast, and hurried back to the locker to change. He gave his utilities a sniff and wrinkled his nose. They weren’t reeking, but he could tell he’d worn them over a long day. For a moment, he considered going back to his room and getting into a clean set.

No. They’re fine for two Marines just shooting. I can’t let Hus-man’s shit get to me.

He rushed getting dressed and started off. Not quick enough to escape one last shot. “Have fun snapping it in,” Hussein shouted out just as Rev was stepping through the door. Rev raised a middle finger with his social arm as the door swung closed behind him.

I love him, but sometimes, Hus-man can be a real pain in the butt.

The base shuttle was just pulling into the stop in front of the gym, so Rev hopped on. This one was going clockwise, so the recreational range was only three stops away. A single civilian was on the shuttle, and she gave Rev’s social arm an eyebrow-raised stare before she quickly shifted her gaze out to the buildings they were passing.

Prostheses were not as rare as many people might think. It was true that most people went through regen, and even the existing prostheses were almost undetectable by most folk. But now that military personnel weren’t given the option for regen, there were many more, and most Marines were opting for the visually obvious options. The civilian was working on a Marine base, so she shouldn’t have been surprised at seeing Rev.

Or maybe I’m just being a little sensitive right now. Thanks, Hus-man.

Rev sat silently until his stop, then hopped off. On a base full of training ranges, the recreational range was probably the most popular. Marines like to shoot, and if left to their own devices, would find corners of the base or off-base to scratch that itch. The Corps, in a long-standing practice, felt it was better to manage this proclivity by giving Marines a controlled, safe space, complete with an armory and a cafe. Each rec range had three sections: a shielded energy weapon range, a slug-thrower range, and the “Neanderthal” range where almost any thrown or bow-type weapon could be used.

Rev entered the range, signed in with a retinal scan, and went to the cafe where Malaika was sitting with a half-eaten burger and fries. Her eyes lit up when she saw him, and she put down the burger, wiped an arm across her mouth and her hands on her shorts.

“Sorry, I didn’t know when you were coming, and I was starving, so I got some chow. You want some?”

It had been two weeks since he’d last seen her, and he didn’t know if he should shake her hand or give her a hug, so he took away the choice by grabbing a fry and dipping it in fire sauce before chomping it down.

“No, I’m good. But you eat. We’re in no hurry.”

They sat down, and Mala made short work of the burger while Rev helped with the fries. A piece of lettuce escaped her mouth as she tried to hurry, and she shoved it back in with a, “Sorry. Not very lady-like.”

Rev laughed and said, “But rather Marine-like.”

The fire sauce started to burn a bit, and Rev took a sip of her WandiCola. Rev was a Coke man, thinking that WandiCola was a little too sweet, but he needed something to cool the fire.

But then, with Hussein’s teasing fresh in his mind, he realized that while sharing food was normal among Marines, it was also something couples did. “Hey, I didn’t mean to just help myself. Do you want me to get you another straw?”

“What, you think I’m worried about germs with all the nanos we’ve got running through our bodies? Right.”

She ate the last fry, licked her fingers clean, and said, “Let’s get some shooting done.”

They walked over to the armory. She got scanned and told them which weapon she wanted—and Rev wondered just how many she had—and in thirty seconds, the box opened, revealing a darkly blued Franklin .44. Rev craned his head to see it. It was an impressive-looking piece.

She took it out and handed it to him, watching his eyes intently as he hefted it.

“Nice,” he said, and not just to be polite. It felt natural in his hand. “Let’s try it out.”

There were a dozen Marines on the ground floor armory using crossbows and pilums, and two Marines were even using slings. Using ancient weapons was back in vogue, with some reenactors even dressing the part. Rev kept waiting for someone to show up in animal skins—they were using the Neanderthal range, after all.

Rev and Malaika climbed the stairs to the second deck, which was their destination. A single Marine was on Target 1 at the very end, firing what looked to be a competition air rifle.

“I like Target 11, if that’s OK with you,” Malaika said. “It’s sort of my thing.”

“I’m good with that.”

Malaika put the weapon down on the table and started back to the ammo dispenser, but Rev intercepted her. “It’s on me.”

“But I invited you.”

“And you brought the main player. Let me pick up the rounds. Anything specific I need to get?”

“We can go with range rounds. Forty-fours.”

Rev entered the order for 100 rounds, then at the last second, ordered another ten jacketless kinetic rounds. If they were going to do this right, then they might as well fire a few lead rounds downrange. Malaika’s eyes lit up when she saw the kinetic rounds.

“Twenty-five or fifty?” she asked.

“Let’s start at twenty-five meters to get a feel for it, then extend the range.”

Malaika sent the target down the twenty-five meters. The targets could go out to fifty meters, but with the range rounds, they could simulate up to two klicks—way beyond handgun range, but within that of many of the long guns.

She handed the Franklin to him, but he wouldn’t take it. “It’s your weapon. You deserve the first shot. And with a k-round. Make it real.”

Malaika didn’t argue. It probably would have been better to get a feel for the weapon before moving to kinetic rounds, but it just seemed right to pop its cherry with the real thing.

They both put on their ear protectors, then she loaded five rounds into the magazine and snicked it in before she stepped up to the firing line. She was all business, lithe and sure of her movements, as she brought it up, aimed, and fired a single shot.

“Nine ring, seven o’clock,” Rev said as the close-up image popped up in the screen above the target.

Malaika shifted her stance slightly and fired again.

“Bullseye.”

“This is sweet,” she said, holding out the almost black handgun.

She fired once more, then asked Rev to give her a human target. Rev dialed one in. There was a slight shimmer, then the figure of a clown appeared twenty-five meters away.

“Very funny.” But she double tapped, hitting the left eye dead on and just nicking the right eye.”

“It’s like I could just think the round to the target,” she said, causing Rev to turn and stare at her.

Enough people had seen Rev in action with Pashu that it had to be getting out, but she hadn’t mentioned it to him, and he wondered if she was hinting at something there.

She dropped the magazine, cleared the slide, and handed it to Rev. “You’re going to love it.

Rev reloaded the magazine and inserted it into the .44. “As much as I want to kill that clown, can you give me a standard target?”

A moment later, the round target shimmered into place. Rev fired, the recoil pushing back against this hand. Between his M-49, which was a magring weapon, and Pashu, he hadn’t fired a chemical round since Tenerife. His first shot was in the eight ring and high, but he brought the next two into the ten ring.

“Clown or something different.” There was a hint of a challenge in her voice, and he couldn’t back down.

“Clown.”

He brought the weapon to the half-ready, left side of his body leading. As soon as the clown appeared, he fired twice, then looked up at the screen.

“Well, you killed the sucker, at least,” Malaika said.

Both rounds hit the clown’s face, but just high of the eyes. And that hurt. Rev was competitive by nature, but to do worse than Malaika, an infantry Marine, dug at his ego.

“Hey, we still got a hundred rounds left. Let’s see how we do with them.”

The range rounds fired a synthetic bullet, designed to be able to mimic the ballistics of any number of types of rounds. A small control panel at each firing position programmed the round, any outside conditions such as wind or precipitation, and range, with anything over fifty meters being simulated. Where the bullet actually passed through the target didn’t matter. Where it would have passed through if it had been a real round was what appeared on the screen. The bullets were far less lethal than any actual round—although they would still smart if they hit someone. Behind the targets, the bullets would be caught in the “range moss” and recycled for use over and over until they finally gave up the ghost.

Rev and Malaika spent the next seventy minutes putting the Franklin through its paces, firing under every conceivable condition, even pushing the range out to fifty meters. Rev was only mildly surprised that he fired slightly better with his social arm than his organic arm.

He was more surprised that Malaika was clearly the better shot, and that gnawed at him.

“Once again, a grunt kicks a Raider’s ass,” she said with a laugh as she broke down the Franklin to clean.

“It’s your augments,” Rev said, grasping for any excuse.

“Of course, it is. But that doesn’t take away from the joy in kicking your butt, Recon Raider.”

Her response gave Rev pause. He’d just been trying for any excuse, but she was openly admitting it.

“Is that true?”

<Augments given to infantry are different than those given to Raiders, and those would make marksmanship easier for them, so don’t let that get to you.>

“You know it bothers me? You reading my mind again?”

<I don’t have to be able to read your mind. I can read your bios, and those indicate you are frustrated. Given that Malaika just “kicked your ass,” as she said, it was a calculated probability that you were not happy at the outcome and were reacting to it.>

Rev did feel a little better now that he knew Malaika had an advantage, but not completely. And advantage could be overcome with effort, and he swore that the next time, he’d come out on top.

Malaika finished cleaning the .44 and turned it back into the armory. The two walked out the door and to the shuttle stop. They discussed the Franklin until the clockwise shuttle appeared in front of the mini-PX down the street.

“Well, that’s me. Thank you for breaking it in with me. It was fun.”

“No, thank you. Prestor Nix was jealous when he heard I was joining you. He wanted to come, too. We’ll have to do it again sometime.”

“Sure. Whenever,” she said.

The shuttle left the mini-PX and started toward them.

Once again, Rev didn’t know if he should shake hands as if they were just playing ball or give her a hug.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked. “I’ll probably just watch the holo. A new Prince of Demons season just dropped today.”

“I’m not sure.”

The shuttle pulled to a stop in front of them.

“Well, thanks again,” Malaika said as she started to step aboard.

“Hey-some-of-us-are-getting-together-at-the-E-club-do-you-want-to-come?” he blurted out in a rush.

“Uh, sure,” she said, sounding surprised.

The shuttle started moving, and Rev jumped on board.

“I mean, if you want.”

“Yeah, sure. Better than just going back to my quarters. But the club is the other way.”

“I guess we should have waited. We can get off at the next stop and grab a counterclockwise shuttle, or just take this all the way around. It might be roundabout, but it will get us there.”

* * *

It was the long way around, not that Rev cared. Almost forty minutes after leaving the range, the shuttle came to a stop outside of the E-club. The two Marines jumped off and entered a decidedly quiet club.

“Wow, it’s dead in here tonight,” Malaika said as she looked around where Marines were silently watching some of the screens mounted throughout the place.

“There’s my crew,” Rev said, pointing to a table in the back. “We’ll liven them up.”

They made their way to the others, and Rev said, “What’s with all the serious faces? You’ve got beer and cider. What else do you need?”

Tomiko pointed to the screen mounted over the next table. It was only then that Rev looked, and most of the screens and the main holo were on the same channel, where a newscaster was speaking.

“ . . . situation is still unclear. We are trying to get our local correspondents to give us a better understanding on what steps authorities are taking.”

“What’s going on?” Rev asked, trying to make sense of the broadcast.

“Trouble on San Jacinto,” Tomiko said.

“So, what else is new?”

“Not like this.” She scootched over on the bench seat so Rev and Malaika could sit down.

San Jacinto was an independent world closer to the center of human space where entertainment was the main earner. Gambling was the main pull, but almost anything else, either real or simulated, could be experienced. Want to be a Conan? No problem. Get jacked in and hack away at bodies to your heart’s content. Don Juan or Annie Iago? Get jacked and enjoy virtual partners ready for anything. Want to try the rarest delicacies in the galaxy? If you had the money, you could get them on the planet. Synth drugs were readily available.

It was the holy grail of liberty ports. Most militaries restricted their sailors and soldiers to one of three reservations where it wasn’t quite anything goes. The entertainment was limited to what was legal in the major nations. But for young military members, that was more than enough, and commanders sometimes held that over a crew and embarked troops as a reward for a deployment well done. And with the war, places like San Jacinto were more likely to be authorized by commands where losses had been heavy.

The San Jacinto police didn’t care what you did as long as you didn’t interfere with others or damage anything, and young servicepeople being, well, young servicepeople, they were often arrested and eventually returned to their ships once damages were paid. But some drunken sailors wouldn’t garner the news attention that Rev saw on the screen.

Slowly, though, things became clear, and it was worse than he’d expected.

By dint of bad timing, both Frisian and Union ships were in orbit over the Rio de Plata reservation, with hotels booked long before the present difficulties between the two nations.

The Frisian ship was a personnel carrier returning troops from a devastating battle against the Centaurs. The Union had two ships that had been on anti-piracy patrols and were scheduled to go back into the war rotation.

The news report kept showing holos of the initial fight. Frisian soldiers and Union sailors were at a beer and dance hall. It wasn’t clear from the video who started it, but there was arguing, then pushing, and finally an all-out brawl. The San Jacinto police, probably on alert given the current situation, quickly moved in with their roboenforcers and stopped the fight, but not before a Union sailor had been killed, his head smashed in with a chair.

Close to a hundred soldiers and sailors were arrested and locked up. The commander of the Union two-ship force, probably after reporting back to New Mars, demanded that the San Jacinto authorities turn over the Frisian soldier who killed the sailor.

The San Jacintans refused, but the Frisian maroon-master commander, whether because he feared the locals would accede to the demand, or whether it was because they’d just had their butts kicked in by the Centaurs and simply had no more fucks to give, broke into the jail to free the Frisian prisoners, and then they managed to board some shuttles and took them up to their ship before the authorities could react. Technically, this was an act of war against San Jacinto, but one that could have been diplomatically defused as no San Jacinto citizens had been killed. But then the situation deteriorated.

Before the Frisian ship could leave orbit, the two Union destroyers moved to block it. The force commander ordered the ship’s captain to send over the suspect. Not surprisingly, the Frisian commander refused.

And that’s where the situation was as Rev watched the broadcast. Three ships in a holding pattern while commercial ships and a single Grant’s World corvette under the Council of Humanity flag left orbit for the safer confines in the system.

Both the Perseus Union and Frisian Mantle governments were already accusing each other of instigating the incident and threatening to send more forces to the planet, and accusations and denials of Centaur prisoners were back in the forefront. This specific incident had all the earmarks of becoming the proverbial powder keg, with the larger issue being the Union not sharing Centaur intel and tech.

The other nations were also weighing in on the overall conflict. The reporter announced that the Hégémonie Liberté had joined the independent worlds of Tigana 3, Nowhere, Bugatti’s World, and Paxus in siding with the Union, while the Manifest Destiny Sphere, the Synergy Alliance, the Association of Independent Worlds, the Rigel Cluster, and several more nations and individual planets were already announcing support for the Frisian Mantle. Even with the major corporations staying silent so far, that meant almost seventy percent of humanity had chosen sides.

It wasn’t surprising that the Heg supported the Union. They had a long history of cooperation, and they had never fought against each other. What was surprising was some of those who were siding with the Frisians. Not the MDS, whose philosophy was flexible, to be generous with the term. But the Rigel Cluster received huge amounts of financial support from the Union and was considered an ally.

It was evident that the Union’s denials of the Centaur prisoner accusation were not being believed, and erstwhile allies were turning against them.

All the while, the Council of Humanity was pleading for the governments to back off the rhetoric, reminding everyone that the real enemy was the Centaurs, not each other.

“I bet it’s the angel shits who’re spreading all these rumors,” Hussein said as they watched the screen. “Anything for their tin-ass masters.”

Hussein was more apt to believe conspiracy theories than any of this team, but in this case, Rev thought he might be on to something. Not the initial Frisian accusation of the Union having a Centaur body, which, of course, was true. But of the escalation. Not all of the Children of Angels had been rounded up, and those who were still out there had to have revenge on their minds. And fighting breaking out between human forces would go a long way in helping the Centaurs take over human space.

“If they’re afraid that war is going to break out, then why aren’t we in Condition One right now instead of watching this on the news?” Radić asked.

“If this goes any further, we will be. But right now, the Navy will be scrambling,” Tomiko said.

“The Heg navy, too?” Strap asked.

The Union navy was nothing to sneer at, but the Hégémonie Liberté was the largest and best-equipped among all of humanity, and if fighting did break out, they were a nice security blanket.

“Who knows?” Tomiko said. “If they are siding with us, I’d have to guess so.”

The conversation died down as they sat and watched. All of them had enlisted or been conscripted during the war with the Centaurs. Until the Children of Angels, and those traitors were a different situation, none of them had fought fellow humans. But for the first time in their lives, it looked like that might be a possibility.

6

Tomiko aimed her M-49 downrange and pulled the trigger of the attached launcher. The 40mm grenade arched lazily three hundred meters and landed next to the scraps of what might have been almost any kind of Marine vehicle before it was hauled to the range.

“Shit! It didn’t detonate again!” she said, turning around where a major and two civilian techs stood watching.

“We’ll take care of that,” the major said. “But how did it feel?”

Tomiko twisted her M-49 to look at the launcher. “Like everyone else said, it works. I still don’t see why we’re using this, though. The tin-asses gotta be using filters or canned air.”

“This is just one of the employment methods we’re developing. There are others,” the major said. “So, who’s next?”

Private Radić stepped up as Tomiko left the firing position and walked back to the bleachers and took a seat beside Rev.

“You’re not missing much,” she told him. “But even if they can get the damn grenades to detonate, then what the hell good are they gonna do?”

“You heard them. They want the grenades to be destroyed by the self-defense belts. Spread the virus out faster.”

“If they aren’t zapping the air with some sort of virus killer.”

Rev didn’t respond. Tomiko, along with some of the others, was still on edge. The situation on San Jacinto might have been resolved to a negotiated stalemate by the Council of Humanity—assisted by the arrival of a Home Guard battalion—but the entire situation had come too close to ending up bad, very bad.

Rev was just grateful that things hadn’t broken down. He was a Marine on a holy mission, the very survival of the human race, and he was more than angry that the politicians, on both sides, he had to admit, were playing with fire. Why do the Centaurs’ job for them?

So, this little test firing of some prototypes was probably the best thing for the platoon. Give them something to do and bring the focus back on the Centaurs. If Rev was a betting man, he would say that was the captain’s plan. That, or the R&D folks were particularly bad at their jobs. Very few of the bio-grenades were detonating upon impact, so they weren’t field-ready.

He watched Radić fire his rounds. Two detonated with little puffs of mist. One hit a chunk of the wreck and didn’t detonate. Hopefully, by the time the actual weapon hit the fleet, they’d have ironed out little kinks like not working.

If it did work, then it would be great that finally, the average Marine could do something against a Centaur instead of using the main individual weapon to hopefully knock drones down. Other than the drone-eyes, the M-49 was useless in combat.

Well, it was fine against the angel shits.

Rev wasn’t part of this make-busy test. His weapon was Pashu, not an M-49, and according to the major, his job wasn’t going to be to send the virus to the enemy. He’d be the supporting element to keep the other Marines alive. It was a sea change from the last two missions. They were the package, and he was the security. And he was fine with that.

He’d be fine with whatever it took to win this war.

7

“Who or what is ‘Della Dragon?’”

<A singing group, most known for “Selfish Little Bear.”>

“Uh, yeah, I love Della Dragon. Especially ‘Selfish Little Bear,’” Rev told Kat and Neesy.

Kat’s eyes grew round, and she breathlessly said, “Really? OK, wait, wait! Neesy, let’s get it!”

The two girls ran off to get what he assumed to be a song, and Rev wondered if he’d made a strategic mistake. He looked over at his mother, who raised an eyebrow, which didn’t tell him anything.

Oh, well. No biggie. I can handle whatever it is.

“She adores you, you know.”

“I’m barely around.”

“Maybe. But you saved her life, and all she does is ask when you’re coming to visit.”

“I try to get here when I can—”

“Don’t worry about it. We know you’ve got your duties. There is a war going on, after all.”

Which didn’t make him feel much better. He’d gone out in town with his team or posse on more than one occasion without bothering to visit home.

“So, how’s she doing?” he asked to change the subject.

“Well. She and Neesy are close, which helps. But she misses her parents.”

“The same parents who gave her to Mr. Mark to use as a suicide bomber? She does realize that, right?” Rev asked incredulously.

“On one level, yes. But the counselor, Mr. Weisen, says this is a normal reaction at this stage.”

As part of the process for his parents to adopt Kat, and as the little girl was technically a Children of Angels, long-term counseling by the state was a requirement. Rev thought it was overkill. She was just eight now, for goodness’ sake, hardly a traitor terrorist.

“Normal reaction or not, I’d have killed them if I found them after what they did to her,” he muttered.

“Rev! That’s no way to talk!” his mother said, scooting back in her chair as if she thought Rev was about to attack.

Rev sighed. To his mother, and perhaps to most of the civilian populace, the Children of Angels were merely duped by the Centaurs, fed lies to gain their support. Maybe Rev had been hardened by the Corps, maybe he’d seen too much death, but he had little sympathy for the traitors to the human race, and he had absolutely none for parents who gave up their little girl to be sacrificed like that.

He looked down and flexed the fingers on his social arm, the shiny prosthesis that the military had given him to wear while out in public. “I’ll try to be more civilized when I’m in your house.”

His mother followed his gaze. “I didn’t mean it that way. I know you’ve suffered tremendously with your . . . your . . .”

“Arm.”

“Yes, your arm.”

The thing was that Rev was not particularly bitter about losing his arm. It was a small price to pay for saving Kat, and with Pashu and his ability to better contribute to the fight against the Centaurs, it probably was all for the best. Maybe already being augmented when he lost his arm affected his body image, but he was bothered far less about his arm than most people seemed to assume.

“But you need to learn forgiveness. Don’t let it fester and change who you are,” his mother continued.

Mom, I have already changed. And I’d like to think for the better.

But it wasn’t worth arguing with her. She was who she was, and without serving as a Marine, she’d never understand. Even his stepfather, with whom he was closer, wouldn’t understand. As much as he loved them, sometimes he thought Mr. Oliva from the VGW understood him more than anyone in his family.

“Do you think, you know, with the draft, that they’ll let you come home?” his mother asked.

“I think that’s just rumor. This is the Perseus Union, not the Manifest Destiny Sphere. The Articles of Confederation won’t allow for a draft.”

“But that’s what they say on the news, that it’s coming. And since you already sacrificed so much, maybe you can get out when that happens.”

Rev gave a mental sigh. His mother’s idea of the news was several blogs created by self-professed experts on just about everything. Many of the other nations had instituted drafts, but an open draft was expressly forbidden by the Articles of Confederation. And that was why when their heavy recruiting couldn’t keep up with the mortality rate, they started conscripting people for increasingly minor offenses.

He was trying to formulate a reply that wouldn’t upset his mother when he was saved by the two girls running back into the living room and climbing onto the couch to sit on either side of him. Kat clutched a small audio player embedded into a fuzzy toy puppy.

Neesy reached across Rev to push the puppy’s nose, saying, “Play ‘Selfish Little Bear.’”

“Neesy, I wanted to start it!” Kat protested, but the music began and cut her off.

It was about as expected—bright and mind-numbing.

The girls sang along, raising their voices almost to a scream for the final four lines line of each stanza:

Sorry, Mommy. Sorry, Mommy,

So the little bear said.

That’s OK, my little one.

And she kissed him on his head!

Screams of laughter followed.

Rev did his best to follow along. He could have had Punch feed him the lines, but for some reason, this had to be just between the two girls and him. At least he got the final line, singing out, “And she kissed him on his head,” with them.

As they started the song for the fourth time, his mother came to the rescue and told them that was enough.

“But Rev says it’s his favorite!” Kat said.

“Why don’t you go get the shirt Dad gave you,” his mother said.

“Oh, OK!” Kat said, sliding off the couch and running back to her room.

Neesy snuggled closer and put her hands around his social arm and squeezed it tight.

“Can I get you something more to drink? Another beer?” his mother asked.

Rev looked at the drink on the table. He was going to meet Mala for dinner and drinks in an hour, and he probably should be sober before he started.

“Maybe a coffee?”

“Coming right up.”

As soon as she stepped into the kitchen, Neesy gave his arm a tug and looked up at him.

“What do you want, little one?”

She hesitated, her face screwed up in concentration. “Do you love Kat more than me?”

“What? Whatever gave you that idea?” Rev asked, completely taken by surprise.

“I don’t know. You spend more time with her when you come.”

Rev’s heart fell. “I spend time with you, too. Neesy, are you having problems with her? Don’t you like her?”

“No, I love her. I like having her here. But . . .”

“But what?”

“Am I still your favorite sister?”

Rev’s heart was breaking, but he forced a laugh and pulled Neesy around to face him. “Neesy, Neesy, Neesy. You’ve been my favorite since I first saw you almost ten years ago. And now, with Kat joining us, you’re my favorite big-little sister, OK?”

“Really? And Kat is your favorite little-little sister, right?”

“You’ve got it.”

Neesy threw her arms around his neck and squeezed just as his mother returned with the coffee. “What’s going on,” she asked.

“Nothing,” the two siblings said, laughing.

“I don’t know; my mother-radar is going off.”

“Some things are just between brother and sister, Mom. Right Neesy?”

“Right.”

Kat chose that moment to come running back into the room. She’d changed her shirt to a green one with “My Big Brother Is A Marine” emblazoned across the front. She stepped in front of him and preened like a model on the catwalk.

“Come here, munchkin,” Rev said, as he gathered her up and pulled her to his right side. Sitting there, with his sisters on either side, he felt a sudden wave of . . . domesticity? No, that couldn’t be it.

“So, I know I don’t need to ask, but are you staying for dinner?”

He was about to tell his mother he had other plans, but he realized that he’d rather stay, not just for the girls, but to catch up with his father, and Grover was supposed to come over that evening from the dorm, too, probably to get clean laundry. He could call up Mala and give her his regrets, maybe promising something else later on.

“No, I think I’ll stay, if you don’t mind?”

“Well, will wonders never cease?” his mother said, a smile breaking over her face. “I was going to dial up something quick, but if you’re staying, I’ll make your favorite.”

“No, no! Don’t go to any trouble. Just dial up something!”

“Are you kidding? When my firstborn is eating with us?” She rushed off to the kitchen.

Rev’s mother had somehow come to the conclusion that one of her dishes from scratch, shepherds pie, was his favorite. Truth be told, his mother wasn’t a good cook, and the meal, while supposedly an Earth classic, was mostly a gooey, tasteless mess. Rev would far rather just get something dialed up on the family’s meal fabricator, but he knew it was a lost cause. When his mother got up a head of steam, there was no stopping her.

If Mala is still willing to meet later, maybe we can grab a bite of something.

“Hey, since Mom is busy, how about we sing some more “Selfish Little Bear.”

The girls squealed with delight, and they started another round of the song. Rev even started picking up the other lines.

Rev never did get that shepherd’s pie, though. After the fifth “And she kissed him on his head,” his quantphone sounded with an emergency recall back to base.

8

“There’s Ether,” McAnt said as the two entered the briefing room deep in the bowels of the First Division headquarters.

They made a beeline for her in the back of the room. After being screened no fewer than six times, Rev just wanted to fade into the background. Too much brass, and like elephants, they had a tendency to trample all the little mice in the grass.

“Hey, glad to see you could make it,” Ranidgold said, jumping to her feet and giving the steel tap to them both—still a little too hard, but better than that first time on Mistake. The woman was a live wire, full of energy. Rev hadn’t really spent time with her during the brief at Kamachi and only spent the forty minutes with her on Mistake before she and her team were whisked away, but they had been an intense forty minutes, not the least because she was already amped from taking out two Centaurs. Where McAnt had been somewhat retrospective after his first mission, Randigold had been flat out ecstatic.

“What do you think they’re gonna say?” she asked as the two sat down beside her.

“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Rev said.

If he had to bet, it would be connected with the last brief, the one at Camp Kamachi, and it had to do with biological weapons. This was the second brief in a month where Rev had to leave Nguyen. That was more than odd. They had remote briefings for a reason, after all.

“I bet we’re hitting the tin-ass homeworld,” Randigold said.

“You’d better hope not,” Rev said.

It was one thing to start using bioweapons in a battle somewhere, but an all-out attack on the homeworld? That was an entirely different kettle of fish.

“Why not?” she asked, frowning just a bit.

“Because if we have that much of a problem with two-hundred-whatever-it-was on Mistake, can you imagine what would happen on their homeworld?”

“But we gotta go there sometime, right?”

“Not us. The Navy. Or the Heg Navy. Let them blow the place out of space.”

“Just molecules left,” McAnt added.

Randigold seemed to consider that for a long moment before she grudgingly shrugged her acceptance. Rev just shook his head. She was so enthusiastic. He just hoped that wouldn’t be beaten out of her by reality.

But he knew he was right. Sending ground troops down to their homeworld would be devasting. Let the Navy, or as he suggested, the stronger Hégémonie Liberté Navy, reduce the planet to molecules, as McAnt suggested.

Not that he thought the Centaur homeworld was on the docket. But whatever it was, it was big, if he went by the brass crowding the room. The question he had was why the three of them—a sergeant, a corporal, and a PFC—were here as well. Yes, they were the only three IBHU-ready Marines, as far as he knew, but they were still pretty low on the totem pole.

“I could use some coffee,” McAnt said, pointing to a line of urns on a table in the back corner of the room.

“And I could use a beer,” Rev said.

Not likely, but true. A beer or something to munch on would have been welcomed. Rev and McAnt had been whisked away with no warning, flying to Falcon with General Sirirat, Colonel Destafney, and some of her senior staff, and he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since then.

“Think I can go over there and get some coffee?” McAnt asked Rev.

“Sure. That’s what it’s there for.”

“But all the brass. That’s a one-star helping herself now.”

“She’s just a Marine,” Rev said, more than half-facetiously.

“OK, then, why don’t you get some?”

Rev was about to make some crack about him being the sergeant and not them, but he could see both of them waiting for a reaction. He wasn’t technically their leader, but in a way, he was, and sometimes, you had to lead from the front.

Without a word, he stood up and started down the aisle. “With cream,” Randigold said.

He made his way to the table and picked up a plate. “Ma’am,” he said when the general started eyeballing him and reading his name tag. He could see she was questioning why a sergeant was in the room, and she might have frowned ever-so-slightly, but she didn’t say a word and left with her coffee back to the front.

“She doesn’t know who I am.”

<Evidently not.>

Having been on two combat missions as an IBHU Marine, Rev would have thought that all of the flag officers would have been briefed on them. Either this brigadier general hadn’t been, or she didn’t put his name together with the program.

A colonel came up and looked pointedly at the trays of food.

“Oh, sorry, sir.” Rev loaded up the plate with donuts, fried Maku balls, and baby carrots.

The colonel frowned at him.

“Haven’t eaten, sir.”

“A lot of us haven’t eaten, Sergeant.” But he didn’t tell Rev to put some back.

Rev filled three cups of coffee and grabbed sugar and creamer, then did his best balancing act going back down the aisle to the waiting Marines. He handed out the coffee, gave McAnt the plate of food to hold, and took his seat.

“Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.”

“No, Sergeant. Wouldn’t think of it,” Randigold said, grabbing both a donut and a Maku ball. “And I don’t care what your general says, I think you’re a good sergeant.”

“Bite me, PFC.”

“You didn’t get napkins,” she said.

“Again, bite me.”

Up front, the generals and colonels were milling about, shaking hands and chatting. Right behind them were the sergeants major and master gunnery sergeants. Not many of them, maybe five or six. And next back were the lieutenant colonels and majors, all sitting quietly and waiting to find out what this was about. Some of them were sipping on coffee or tea, but not many of them had any of the food.

All the more for us.

Ladies and gentlemen, General Begay will be in here ten minutes, so if you have to make a head call, do it now. We may be here for a while. And please be in your seats in five,” a major with a gold aiguilette hanging from his shoulder shouted into the room.

“Eat up,” Rev said before stuffing a dazzleberry donut into his mouth and chasing it down with the coffee.

Throughout the room, Marines were taking their seats, waiting for the New Hope Marine commanding general. Colonel Destafney turned around before sitting, looking for Rev, when he caught sight of Randigold. He gave her a little half-salute and a smile, and she stood and returned it before they both sat down.

“First time you’ve seen him?” Rev asked, realizing that if they all had the Brothers in Steel bond, the two of them had a little more in common.

“No, not the first time. He came to see me in my ward after my first set of operations. You know. Pep talk and all of that stuff. Came a few times after that, too.” She paused, then in a more subdued voice, said, “Helped me through some rough times.”

The revelation that the colonel had visited her surprised Rev. Randigold wasn’t in his regiment, and they weren’t located in the same camp, but he took the time to give emotional support to her?

“You’re lucky to have him as your CO,” she said. “He’s good people.”

“Yeah, I know.” Rev put that in his mental file under “leadership.” He had no expectations that he’d ever be in that type of position, but, if nothing else, it gave him a baseline on what a leader was.

“General Begay has entered the building. Stand by.”

There was a rush to silence as Marines sat straighter in their chairs. The brigadier general, the one who’d given him the weird look, was ramrod straight. To Rev, a major, much less a one-star general, was next to godhood, but there she was, acting like a recruit at boot camp. It was mind-boggling, in a way.

“Attention on deck!”

Immediately, everyone jumped to their feet as the great man himself entered the room, followed by his posse of a couple of Marines and a civilian.

“Take your seats,” he told them as he reached the front.

The general paused at the first row and shook hands with the two major generals and the Second Division Sergeant Major, then pointed and gave the one-star a small wave as one of his group, a full colonel, stepped forward.

“This brief is classified One-B.”

Rev looked at the other two enlisted Marines. He’d been temporarily given a One-A with regard to the Centaur body he and Tomiko had found on Roher-104, and all three of them were conditionally cleared for anything concerning their IBHUs, but he didn’t think this brief was about them. He wondered if the three of them were cleared for whatever this was going to be. But they were here, and he wasn’t about to ask anyone. Plus it was too late. General Begay was already walking to the stage.

The colonel sat down, and the general faced the gathered Marines. “General Sirirat, thank you and Second Division for coming down to Falcon, but I wanted to do this face-to-face.”

He had a naturally commanding voice, and he probably didn’t need the mic aimed at his throat to reach everyone in the room, especially when forty or fifty eyes were locked on him.

“I’ll be turning this over to Colonel Tiergarten from PUMC Headquarters, but I wanted to give you an overview of where we are first. Some of you have been in the loop, but for others, much of this is going to be new. If you were not directly involved with any of this, then you didn’t have the need to know.

“As a consequence of the battles to dismantle the Children of Angels, we captured many high-level personnel. Interrogations of these prisoners has been quite an undertaking, and it has been time-consuming. Adding to the problem is that due to their organization, or lack thereof, it was sometimes difficult determining just who we needed to be interrogating. When that happens, sometimes we have something right in front of us, and we just don’t recognize it. And that’s what happened at the Joint Interrogation Center on Donder Hide.”

He paused for a moment, letting that sink in.

Donder Hide was a Council of Humanity-controlled trust world in the Orion Arm, independent from all the major nations and a site for CoH business.

“During what was thought as a routine interrogation of a mid-level manager, a vital piece of information was revealed. The Centaurs have created an artifact in an installation inside the Perseus Arm. What the installation is, we don’t know, only that the Centaurs place significant importance to it. Where, we aren’t sure, but we’ve narrowed it down to three asteroid belts that fit the parameters based on the information we’ve received. One is well within our area of control, one is in claimed space, and one is within unincorporated space.”

He stopped again, gauging the room. Rev didn’t know what to think about the news. What did he mean by “an installation?” A military base? A listening post? And how was that different than what they’d been doing every time they took a planet?

“We have reason to believe two things. First that this is a clandestine project and, as such, has a minimal footprint. Second, that it represents a technological leap forward. With that in mind, and this is straight from the Director Prime’s mouth, we are going to take it.”

* * *

Rev, McAnt, and Randigold huddled back near the now-empty coffee urns. After three hours listening to the headquarters colonel and a civilian analyst, the bathroom break had been welcomed. Despite just sitting in the brief for that amount of time, however, Rev still didn’t know much of what was going on, and in his opinion, no one else did, either.

Basically, the Centaurs built something on the sly. It might be in an asteroid belt within Union space, it might be within an area to which the Union had claimed, or it might be in unincorporated space. Or it might be somewhere else altogether.

The installation, as the colonel referred to it, might be vitally important, or it could be merely of interest. No less than nine different possibilities had been presented, and even they were vague. It was obvious that if the source was being forthright, then he didn’t have a clue as to what this thing was.

The bottom line was that the Directorate wanted it and had every intention of grabbing it, no matter what it took. There was a fly in the ointment, however. The interrogation had been done in a joint center on a trust world, and while the subject had been captured on Tenerife, the interrogation lead had been a Council of Humanity employee from a Frisian Mantle-allied world, and one of the team was from the Hégémonie Liberté. The lead, as an employee of the CoH, was supposed to maintain secrecy, but not many thought he would, so the betting line was that the Frisians knew about the installation as well.

And that meant speed was of the essence, and Operation Klondike, which had only been authorized eight hours before, was in full swing. An agreement had already been reached with the Heg, which would be providing Naval support in return for the sharing of whatever was discovered.

But after three hours, Rev still had no idea what he and the other two IBHU Marines were doing in the room. Nor why the New Hope Marine Corps was being briefed, for that matter. There was no way that headquarters was going to send a planetary Marine force on a mission of this evident importance. That was going to go to a regular PUMC unit, maybe with Navy SEAL support. The colonel had even hinted as much when he said that units were being readied for deployment.

“Attention. Let’s get everyone back to their seats. We’ve still got a lot to cover and not much time to do it.”

There was a slow movement of bodies filing back. It took a couple of minutes before everyone was seated and General Begay could address them again.

“Now for the nitty-gritty of what we have we have on our plate. The New Hope Marine Corps will be involved in this operation.”

There were some murmurs of surprise among the attendees, and Rev began to have a glimmering of why the general had just said that. He was even more sure when the general called Colonel Trejo to the front.

“General Begay, thank you for this opportunity to brief your commanders,” the colonel said before addressing the audience at large. “My name is Colonel Augustay Trejo, IBHU Project Head. Some of you know what the IBHU project is. For the rest of you, this will be new. I apologize for some of you, particularly general officers, but if you weren’t directly involved, it was determined that you didn’t have the need to know. All of this was about to be briefed to you soon, but this just accelerated the release of information.

“For the last year-and-a-half, the New Hope Marines were chosen to test out a new weapons system. You are somewhat isolated from the rest of the Corps, and from the more populated worlds, for that matter, and it gave us a more secure environment in which to put this through development and into combat testing. The last test, which cleared the system for general deployment, took place on Mistake.”

There were a scattering of nods, probably from Marines who’d heard rumors of them, and two officers turned in their seats to look at the three Marines in the back. Rev could see the comprehension come over them.

“IBHU stands for Integrated Bionic Hopological Unit, and maybe it’s better if I just show you.”

He stepped back, and a two-D image appeared over the stage. Rev was in training, employing his various weapons against the fake Centaurs before the mission on TRT-36. There were some murmurs from the audience, but they raised in volume as the feeds from two of Rev’s Centaur-kills were shown. It switched over to a distant feed of McAnt on Mistake and one of his kills.

“Ooh-rah!” a voice cried out, too excited to keep decorum. Several more joined in. The entire presentation took about five minutes before it shut off.

“Hey, where’re my kills?” Randigold muttered.

“This is what an IBHU Marine can do. With an IBHU, an individual Marine can be more effective than a tank in certain situations.”

“You take away an arm?” one of the one-stars asked incredulously.

“I’m not going into the details of the project now because of time constraints, but rest assured, each of the three current IBHU Marines volunteered and had already suffered the loss of an arm, as have the nineteen Marines currently undergoing the process. Corps-wide, we have over five hundred potential candidates before we run out.”

“Nineteen more,” McAnt whispered. “Good to know.”

“If you turn around, you will see the Corps’ first three of what will be a force of IBHU Marines. Sergeant Reverent Pelletier and Corporal Thesbian McAnt, both Raiders from Second Division, and PFC Ethereal Randigold, a Raider from First Division, from your own New Hope Marines. Stand up, Marines.”

Forty-plus faces swiveled to look back as the three stood up. Rev sheepishly raised his social arm in a small wave.

“Unless the word has changed, PFC Randigold will conduct a short demonstration at twenty-one-thirty this evening for those interested but not otherwise engaged in the planning.”

“Glad someone told me about that,” Randigold said between clenched teeth.

“Once we have time, my team and I will conduct a more thorough brief, but for the moment, that will have to suffice.” Several hands shot into the air, but he said, “I can’t take questions now. I’ll be around to answer what I can after this brief, as will all three of the Marines, at least for a short while.”

“So, we’re going to be part of the Centaur treasure hunt.”

<That would be the logical assumption.>

“See if you can dig up any rumors about what we’re looking for.”

Another colonel stood up and faced the group. “As the general said, we’re being put in the game, and soon. We’ve got twenty-two hours before our units deploy.” There were some mumblings at that, and he held up a hand to say, “The affected units are already preparing, and the overall ops plan will be coming out of HQMC while the forces are en route. As soon as we end this meeting, the principles will remain to hash out our plan and ensure our units are embarked. And if we can’t deploy in that amount of time, then we need to tender our resignations and let someone else take over who can get it done. Understand?”

Rev nodded in appreciation. He didn’t know this colonel from a hole in the ground, but he liked that he was telling it like it was and wasn’t going to take any crap. Maybe that’s why he made colonel.

“OK, then. We, as in New Hope Marines, are being included because of those three Marines sitting in the back. I don’t have to tell you that our vacuum capabilities have suffered during the war with the tin-asses, and with the potential targets in asteroid belts, well, that’s what we’re going to need. The XI Corps will be providing anti-piracy units to be the backbone of each of three forces, augmented by SEALS. Civilian assets will also be in play for the Grayling belt. However, once the target is located, then our units will become the assault elements, each containing one of our IBHU Marines, their assigned Raider platoon, and an anti-piracy company.”

Rev raised his eyebrows at that. Technically, each infantry battalion had a company designated to train and fight in the vacuum of space. Cricket’s Delta Company, for example, was one. But as the colonel had said, with the war going on, the training had taken a back seat, and skills had atrophied. Maybe the XI Corps units had trained and reacted to real-life missions, but not the New Hope Marines.

The colonel went into more details over the next thirty minutes, but those were the salient points. The New Hope Marines would have three company-sized units, each centered around an IBHU Marine, acting as the assault force to take whatever it was that the Centaurs were hiding.

Not an easy task—not only because of the lack of training in vacuum ops, but the Centaurs wouldn’t passively allow the Marines to just waltz in and take the installation. Their habit of self-destructing could take out the installation . . . and the Marines trying to take it.

9

Nineteen hours after the Camp Falcon brief, Rev, the platoon, and Delta Company were aboard the PUNS Alacrity, heading to Asteroid Belt 6-067 in unincorporated space. The Alacrity wasn’t even a combatant. Most of Task Force 46-3 was aboard a Heg cruiser and a Union destroyer, but the Alacrity was a support ship, without much in means of defense should she be jumped by a Centaur ship in null space.

There were two reasons for that. The first was that the Union wasn’t ready to reveal to the Hégémonie Liberté the existence of IBHU Marines. It may very well come out if the Centaur installation proved to be a fact, but until then, the IBHU project was to remain under wraps.

Second, however, had to do with an unexpected glitch. No one had considered that the Marine Corps EVA combat suits were not made to accommodate the IBHU. Sieben was developing a suit made specifically to take advantage of an IBHU’s capabilities, but that was lower on the priority list and was months from completion.

Four hours before boarding, an EVA was pulled from the embarkation pallets, and Daryll and others tried to fit Rev inside, but it just wasn’t going to work. After hurried deliberations, each of the three assault forces were cross-decked to whatever support ship with machine shop capabilities could be drummed up. The port support unit had to jump through their butts to reroute the supplies and equipment from the ground, but the New Hope contingent of TF 46-3 went to the Alacrity, McAnt and the contingent of TF 46-2 went to the PUNS Restore, and Randigold and the contingent to TF 46-1 stood by until either a new ship was rerouted or the support Marines could rig up a new EVA combat suit.

And now, Daryll, a Marine master sergeant armorer, and three Navy engineers were discussing how to rig an EVA so that Rev could use it. Daryll had also been a last-minute add, bypassing the paperwork necessary to allow for a non-military civilian to be taken into a combat zone and something against all sorts of regulations.

Rev wasn’t sure why he had to sit there being ignored. They had Pashu hanging from a hoist, and he certainly didn’t have any mechanical advice to give the team. Let them figure it out and get him when they needed to fit it.

He sighed a little too loudly, hoping they’d hear him.

Nothing.

Once more, a little louder.

They kept arguing over F-20s, whatever that was, and whether they could stand up long-term in a vacuum.

Punch knew he was bored, and he came to the rescue.

<Why are dogs afraid to go into space?>

Well, it’s not like I’m doing much else right now.

“OK, I’ll play. Why are they afraid?”

<Because of the vacuum.>

“Really, Punch? That’s the best you can do?”

<I do have access to a large library of jokes, but I prefer to create my own. And in this case, with Mr. Begay trying to seal your IBHU against a vacuum, I thought this one appropriate. And funny.>

Really? You’re creating your own jokes?

Punch was continually surprising him. Rev had long considered his battle buddy a tool of the psychologists, designed to make him a more efficient Marine. And he’d been OK with that because he could see how much Punch helped him. But it seemed that every so often, Punch revealed something else of himself that hinted at something more.

Unless that’s what he’s programmed to do.

It gave him a headache to try and figure things out, and Rev shook his head and sighed. This time, the master sergeant heard him and looked up.

“Sergeant, we’re not going to be getting anywhere for another couple of hours at least. Why don’t you go get some chow and get back here, say, zero-nine-hundred ship-time? And if we need you sooner, we’ll have you paged.”

Rev didn’t need to be told twice. “Roger, that!” He jumped up and took off before the top could change his mind. The Alacrity was a big ship, full of engineering and maintenance spaces, able to repair almost any piece of Marine equipment and quite a few Navy, but it didn’t have the huge numbers of crew that some ships had. Rev wandered around, trying to find his way to the mess decks, frustrated at being lost.

Since his augments, Rev had never been lost in the true sense of the word. He always knew where he was and where he wanted to go. But that was a combination of each world’s magnetic field and downloaded charts. The Alacrity didn’t have a planet-type magnetic field, the artificial gravity threw him off, and the ship’s diagram didn’t make sense to him. The mess decks were clearly marked, but he couldn’t figure out how to get there.

Finally, he ran into a sailor who showed him the way, and he entered the galley where the smell of food reminded him that the dazzleberry donuts back at Camp Falcon were the last solid food he’d eaten. The galley was packed with Marines, and more than a few were sitting on the deck along the bulkheads as they wolfed down their chow. Evidently, the Alacrity wasn’t used to hauling Marines. With over two hundred of them aboard, they dwarfed the ship’s crew.

Rev joined the back of the line, which ran the length of the galley. He scanned the eating Marines but didn’t see any of the Raiders. There was someone else he wanted to find, too, though.

“Hey,” he said, tapping the shoulder of a Marine sitting at one of the tables. “You know Sergeant Aroyatan?”

“You mean Cricket?” the other Marine, also a sergeant, said as he pointed to the far corner of the galley. “I think he’s over there.”

Rev couldn’t see his friend facing him, so he yelled out his name. A familiar face turned and broke out into a smile. Cricket elbowed the Marine next to him. His friend Dyce saw Rev and waved a greeting.

Rev motioned that he was going to get his chow and join them. It took a while, but he finally reached the head of the line. The ship’s Auto-Chef fabricators weren’t designed for this many mouths to feed, so the crew had broken out G-rats, which were a step up from D-rats, but not by much. Vats of food, each designed to feed fifty Marines, were opened, automatically being heated to the correct temperature. A petty officer was overseeing Captain Sauer and First Sergeant Limike, the Delta Company commander and first sergeant, and a gunny Rev didn’t know, as they dished up the food. Rev held out his tray while the first sergeant gave him a ladle full of rice, the captain covered that with a creamy, hamburger-like stew, and the gunny put a piece of bread on top. A vat of drink pouches was at the end, and he snagged one as he left the line.

He brought the dish up to his nose and sniffed. It didn’t smell bad, at least. That didn’t mean it would taste good, however. He had to step over the legs of Marines sitting against the bulkhead as he made his way back to Cricket’s table.

“I was wondering when you were gonna show up. I already saw Miko, and she said you were off doing whatever,” Cricket said as Rev reached him. “Hey, scoot over, Tundra,” he turned and said to the corporal sitting next to him. “Give a Raider some room.”

“I’m almost done. Give me a second.”

“Then you’re almost out of here, as in now.”

The corporal grumbled but picked up his tray and left.

“The new corporals these days,” Cricket said with mock dismay.

“Hey, good to see you, Rev,” Dyce said with the same look of respect mixed with awe that he’d shown since that first day they’d met back when Rev was a private. Which made Rev a little uncomfortable. Dyce was a sergeant, too, but senior to Rev.

“Good to see you, too,” Rev said as he sat down on the other side of Cricket. “Is this stuff any good?” he asked, poking at the meal.

“It’s calories. What else do you want?” Cricket said.

“A medium-rare ribeye, Halsberg Mash, and baby snow peas, now that you’re asking. But I guess I’ll have to settle for this stuff.” He took a tentative bite, but it was OK. Not the ribeye, but certainly decent enough.

“You guys settling in? Where do they have you?” he asked.

“We’re racking out in whatever spaces we can find. Our platoon is in a storage space for tank parts. What about you?”

“I haven’t had a chance to see yet,” Rev said. Which was true, but he’d already been told platoon was taking over a Navy berthing space—not that he was going to spring that on Cricket at the moment.

He took another bite of the stew, reached for a container of ketchup, and liberally dosed the meal. Cricket looked at him with amusement and watched Rev shovel another spoonful into his mouth.

Rev caught the look and said, “What? It makes it better.”

Cricket laughed and then leaned in closer, quietly asking, “So, what’s the scoop?”

Rev frowned and said, “The mission? Uh . . . we’re going after some tin-ass stuff. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, that mission. But I mean, like here, now. Like why did we get moved to this tub at the last minute?”

Rev knew exactly why, but he hadn’t been briefed on how much he could reveal. He stuffed another spoonful in his mouth as a shield against answering and shrugged.

“I heard,” Cricket said, lowering his voice even quieter, “that the reason has to do with you Raiders, and in specific, with you.”

“Rumor is just that, rumor.”

“Come on, Rev. I’m your buddy. We go way back.”

Rev turned to look at Dyce, who was obviously listening intently. Rev didn’t know how much a grunt’s hearing was augmented, but he had to assume that Dyce, and every other Marine on the table, could hear him.

“I’m sure they’ll tell us soon enough,” Rev said. Not a lie, but he still felt bad about not being open with Cricket.

And he could see that Cricket knew he wasn’t being forthcoming. His friend pursed his lips and seemed to accept that Rev wasn’t going to say any more.

“So, where was Miko when you saw her? Why isn’t the platoon here at chow?”

“Deathdealers first—”

“Deathdealers!” several of the other Marines at the table chanted.

“We’re eating first. Your platoon and the rest eat second,” Cricket said.

“So, I crashed your party?”

“Eh, we like to allow the lower forms of life to exult in our presence every once in a while.”

“Lower forms of life?” Rev asked. “Crap, me sitting with you here just raised Delta’s average IQ by ten points.”

* * *

Rev showed up at exactly zero-nine-hundred. Daryll and the others were sitting wherever they could find a seat, cramming stale-looking sandwiches into their mouths. From the looks of things, they hadn’t left the space since they boarded.

“We’re almost ready for you, Sergeant,” the top said, licking his fingers clean, then wiping them on his trousers. He stood up and motioned for Rev to follow him to where an EVA hung next to Pashu.

Rev took a look, then a double take. The thing had no left arm. He reached up to peer inside the shoulder opening. There was nothing there, and he could see inside the suit.

“Um . . . Top, I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, but I’ll be going into space, and I can’t breathe in a vacuum.”

“You won’t be. We’ve got that covered. We’ll show you, but not here.”

He told the others to finish eating, and then they wrapped up Pashu until it was unrecognizable. They hooked it, along with the EVA, on a cargo skid that looked like a smaller version of the mules that moved around shuttles and fighters on a flight deck. Once they were all ready, one of the Navy techs programmed the destination, and the little skid started rolling. The group followed it through the wide, central corridor and into a large, almost cavernous space, then to the back corner where there was a pressure chamber. Rev watched as the others maneuvered the EVA and Pashu inside, then joined them.

“OK, let’s get you in the EVA,” the senior sailor, a Navy lieutenant commander, said.

There were two kinds of EVA suits in the Navy’s supply chain. The first was one that allowed for working outside a ship. Fluorescent orange and white, they were made to be visible, and they had only enough armor to protect against micro-dust. The second was the EVA combat suit, which looked like a cross between the Navy work suit and a Marine mech suit. The surface was chameleon fabric, which covered about the same amount of armor as a Raider’s PAL-5 had. It was bulkier than a PAL-5, though, with the air, water, and propulsion jets. Rev had been in mock-ups at boot camp, but he’d never been in a real one before, nor had he operated any other than in the sims.

“You need to take off that arm first,” the lieutenant commander said.

Rev reached over, twisted his social arm, and removed it, then handed it to Daryll. He looked at the suit for a moment, wondering if being one-armed would make it difficult. He shouldn’t have worried. The combat EVA was surprisingly easy to don. The front was split open, and Rev essentially backed into it, first stepping into each leg, then wiggling his butt and back into place as active padding conformed to his body, hugging him and keeping him in place. He ran this right arm into the sleeve, then waited as one of the other sailors closed up the front.

“Now for that other arm,” the lieutenant commander said.

“We’re going to have to manhandle it on him,” Daryll said. “It’s heavier than it looks.”

The top and two of the sailors lifted Pashu and struggled to hold it in place until Daryll could make the connections. Once that was done, Rev took over supporting it, to the relief of the other three.

“And now, about that little vacuum thing?” Rev asked.

“We’ve got it.” One of the Navy techs took a roll of silvery tape out of his bag and stepped up to Rev.

“Wait. You’ve got to be kidding me. Duck tape? You’re sending me into space with duck tape?”

“That’s duct tape, not duck, as in quack-quack, tape, and this isn’t your hardware-store duct tape,” the sailor said. “We use this for repairs in space. Don’t worry.”

“Is that true?”

<It would seem so. There are a multitude of uses listed in their manuals.>

“And you trust that with your life?”

<The question is whether I trust it with your life. A little vacuum won’t kill me, after all.>

“You know what I mean. But OK, should I trust it?”

<As much as you can trust anything.>

Rev lifted Pashu and rotated the shoulder, which made the sailor jump back. “Just making sure everything’s tucked in place.”

The sailor stepped back up and started wrapping the duct tape around Rev’s shoulder, down the little bit of EVA suit extending past that, and halfway down Pashu’s upper section. He wasn’t stingy with the tape, putting layer over layer.

“I think that will do,” he finally said as he stepped back to admire his work.

“Then, let’s test it,” the top said. “See if this bad boy works.”

The five stepped out of the chamber and sealed the door. Their faces crowded the windows.

“We’re going to remove the air in stages. We should be able to tell if there’s a leak, but if you hear any air escaping, or if breathing becomes difficult, then let us know,” one of the sailors said through the speaker.

If I can’t breathe, how am I going to be able to tell you that?

But he just gave a thumbs-up with his right hand.

“For the moment, don’t move. Just stand there. Beginning depressurization now,” the sailor said. Rev could see her reach for something just out of his sight, and a moment later, the display number started falling.

Rev immediately started holding his breath, then laughed as he realized he was overreacting, just beating the sailor’s, “Breathe normally, Sergeant.”

It didn’t take long. Within twenty seconds, the display read a complete vacuum. And he was still breathing.

The sailor looked at the lieutenant commander, who nodded. “We want you to raise your . . . arm, the big one. Your left. Raise it to ninety degrees.”

Rev lifted Pashu . . . and suddenly, alarms went off, and Rev could hear air escaping. He snapped his arm back down as his heart jumped to his throat, and he held his breath again. O2 rushed back into the chamber.

The door opened, and Daryll and the male petty officer came inside. The petty officer was holding what looked like a spray can.

“Lift your arm again,” Daryll said with a calm voice. He leaned in to check the tape.

“Do you know where it’s leaking?” Rev asked.

“They put telltales in your suit. We can track them, and they leave blue marks as they escape.”

Telltales? I’m breathing them in?

“Check on the medical effects of these telltales.”

<Reported as harmless.>

“There,” Daryll said, pointing to a spot on the backside of Rev’s shoulder.

The sailor sprayed the spot as if he was spraying disinfectant on a puppy’s accident. It didn’t seem to be very high-tech. Rev couldn’t see the spot, and with the EVA on, he couldn’t reach around to feel it. But the sailor seemed satisfied, and the two left the chamber for another test.

It took four more tests before the seal was secure. Rev went through every possible motion until there was a leak, and that would be plugged up. But at last, everyone was satisfied. Everyone except Rev, that was. He was the one who was going to be going into combat with a couple of BC’s worth of duct tape and ship goo to keep the vacuum out and the air in. It was just too slipshod for his comfort level.

But the team was in a celebratory mood as they cut Rev free and removed Pashu. “Let’s see those assholes on the Restore do any better,” the lieutenant commander crowed while giving the others high fives.

And Rev realized that for them, this was a victory. It didn’t have to do with killing Centaurs. It didn’t have to do with keeping subordinates alive, but rather tackling a mechanical problem and coming up with a solution.

Rev shook his head, ignored by them. No matter how hard he might try, he knew he was never going to understand the engineering mind.

10

As quickly as the Task Force had been authorized, formed, and embarked, it wasn’t quick enough. When TF 46-3 arrived at their target, the Frisians had beat them to it. Two Frisian Host ships straddled the asteroid belt, and upon the arrival of the Union/Heg task force, had sent out a message on the universal channel that they were invoking CoH regulations on the exploration of unincorporated space.

That indicated two things. First, the Frisians were aware of what the interrogation of the Children of Angels prisoner had revealed, not that that was surprising. Second, they were not going to simply cede whatever it was to the Perseus Union without a fight. Rev didn’t know if the Frisians were at the other two locations, which them being within Union space, might make that more problematic. But here, in unincorporated space, they were willing to risk war. Again. San Jacinto was only three months ago.

With the Frisians already searching, the PUNS Restore and two of the Navy combatants were diverted to the asteroid belt, and First and Second Raider Teams were cross-decked to the Alacrity. TF 46-3 was now a larger, more powerful force, but outright war was not something the admiral wanted to put on her shoulders alone, especially when there might not be anything in the belt. It took an hour for the orders to come back from New Mars—deploy in an aggressive formation, but do not engage for the moment. Most importantly, if there was a Centaur installation within the belt, find it and claim it before the Frisians could.

If the Frisians found it first, the Directorate would decide upon the next course of action. Rev didn’t know what that actually meant, what actions were on the table, so it would just be better if they found the installation first and made the Frisian presence moot.

Finding anything, however, wasn’t going to be easy. Asteroid Belt 6-067 was made up of densely packed nickel-iron asteroids covering 1,200 kiloklicks—which was nothing in deep space but was a huge area in which to find a specific installation. The task force would be relying on scanning to identify possible targets, but the nickel-iron asteroids wreaked havoc on their instruments.

So, the Navy SEALs were now tasked to birddog the Frisians at a distance to keep tabs on them. Squads from XI Force and the Union’s Delta Company were sent out on what were essentially patrols, checking potential sites, while Rev and the Raider platoons were being kept aboard the Alacrity. If nothing was found, Rev would never leave the confines of the ship, keeping the IBHU program secret of another day.

But if there was real evidence of a Centaur installation or artifact, then the Raiders would spring into action with the mission of taking it intact, whether it was being defended or not. And the assumption was that it would be.

There were several issues, however, with taking an installation inside of an asteroid. The first was that the intel indicated that the installation was protected by a small number, maybe only two or three, Centaurs. Within the probable confines of an asteroid, a couple of Centaurs might very well be able to pull a Horatius at the bridge scenario, holding back any number of Marines thrown at them.

Second, they may not simply try to hold the Marines off. Given their proclivity for self-destruction, they might do that with the entire artifact. Even if the artifact itself wasn’t rigged to blow, Rev had seen what a Centaur self-destructing could do in the open. In a closed area, the destruction would be magnified.

The Marines’ one ace in the hole was the modifications done to his IBHU beamer. In normal usage, the employment of the braided beams ablated in an atmosphere, but this fight was going to be in space. Knowing that, and using the data collected on Donner Hide, his beamer had been tweaked, giving it not only more power, but focused on the frequencies that the science-types thought initiated the self-destruction. It was possible that with a super-blast of his beamer, he could not only kill a Centaur but also keep if from self-destructing.

When Rev had asked what the possibility of that was, after some hemming and hawing, they told him from forty to fifty percent, depending on what type of Centaur awaited them. Punch put the number closer to twenty percent. Rev was going with Punch’s calculations.

Captain Omestori had the Raiders working out scenario after possible scenario. Without a combat sim, they couldn’t do a total walk-though, but he’d gone as far as having the ship’s captain use pallets to create a constrained path in one half of the hangar deck, simulating corridors inside an asteroid.

Rev felt a little ridiculous walking around the hangar, shouting “Bang, bang” during the rehearsals, but after a few of them, he could see their benefits. It was better than nothing.

After the first day, however, the captain came down with an unidentified virus and was put into isolation. Second Lieutenant Harisa took over with Top Thapa assisting, but the hangar rehearsals petered out with the intent of keeping everyone fresh and rested.

That meant that while Navy Scouts were carefully navigating the belt, looking for anomalies, Rev and the Raiders were cooling their heels on a five-minute alert, which for Rev, meant in his EVA combat suit, helmet off, left arm already sealed shut. And after two fruitless days, he was getting mighty sick of it. He almost wanted to start rehearsing again, just for something to do.

“You think they’ll find anything?” Tomiko asked for about the hundredth time as they sat in their little section of the hangar playing Knock On.

“I’m beginning to doubt it. I mean, I know there’re a zillion hunks of rock out there, but if there is anything to it, how come the Navy hasn’t spotted it yet?” Nix said.

“It’s all an angel shit trick. I told you that,” Hussein said. Also, for the hundredth time. “They just want us to waste resources. I mean, why would the tin-asses stick something important out here in human space, then only have a couple of them protect it? Makes no damned sense.”

“Why do the tin-asses do anything they do?” Tomiko said.

Staff Sergeant Delacrie shook his head and said, “You heard intel. They didn’t want an obvious footprint. We’ve been gaining ground on them, slowly but surely, and if they had a big operation, we would’ve spotted it by now.”

“And how do they know that? ’Cause an angel shit told them so? Like Miko said, we don’t know why they do anything.”

Rev just shut his eyes and leaned back the best he could on a bench one of the Navy mechs made for him. He reeked, the smell making its way up through the helmet ring. Yesterday, he told the crew that he thought the plumbing was wonky, but after a quick check, he was assured it was working as designed. He still reeked, though, and he noticed that the others were giving him more than the normal space.

He loved his team, but sitting with them like this on the hangar deck could get on anyone’s nerves. And they could leave and go to the head, sleep on the cots set up along the bulkhead, or even take a quick shower. Rev was stuck in his suit until this played out, one way or the other.

* * *

The alarm sounded the next day, shocking Rev out of his catnap. He jumped up, looking for his helmet. The entire platoon was scrambling to their feet.

“Get kitted up,” Lieutenant Harisa shouted as she grabbed her helmet and put it on her head, not bothering to first don the rest of her EVA suit.

Sailors rushed over to help, one grabbing Rev’s helmet. “Ready?”

Rev nodded, and with sure hands, the sailor slipped it over Rev’s head and double-twisted it to lock it in place. A blast of body odor hit him, but with the helmet in place, the air started circulating through the filters. He activated the system and ran his checks.

“This is it. We have a target,” the lieutenant said as she started to get into her own EVA.

“What about the captain? Is he coming?” Staff Sergeant Delacrie asked.

“Still in isolation. I’m in command. We have positive contact, Asteroid 6-067-442. I’m sending over the data now.”

There was a beep, and Rev’s EVA received the orders, displaying the location of the target. A red line tracked the intended course of the shuttle that would take them there.

“Board as soon as you check green.”

Rev was the closest to the ramp, and he ran up and to his usual rear right seat. Within moments, Marines were rushing in and taking seats.

“I’m sending the mission, but we do have what is probably a hit. It looks like the Fries have entered the target, though.”

The mission appeared on his face shield. It was one that they’d rehearsed in the hangar deck at least ten times. Third Team, with Rev, was the point of main effort, and Second Team would be the support element going inside with Third. First and Fourth would remain on the surface of the asteroid as the security element, ready to take over if the other two teams were taken down.

The back ramp closed, and the shuttle departed the ship. The Alacrity normally carried only the standard Ibis shuttles, but for this mission, an Osprey had been brought aboard. Used for ship-boarding, it was fast and maneuverable—but the target was well within the asteroid belt, so it was still going to take over thirty minutes to make the transit. And if the intel was right, the Frisians had already entered the asteroid. The objective had been for Delta Company to locate the target first and not have the Raiders play catch-up.

But operations rarely proceeded planned, and the Marines were nothing if not flexible. Lieutenant Harisa spent the next twenty minutes adjusting their plan on the cuff, trying to foresee the potential roadblocks.

“And if the Frisians resist our arrival?” Top Thapa asked. “Has the commodore officially weighed in?”

He was going to be on the asteroid’s surface with First and Fourth Teams, but it was a valid question. It had been discussed, of course, but Rev knew the Top wanted it said out loud.

“There’s no change. We are to get to the artifacts first, and we have the green light to defend ourselves.”

Which wasn’t an answer. What every Marine understood was that they had to recover the artifacts, doing whatever it took. But probably going all the way to the Director Prime himself, they were not going to be given explicit orders to kill Frisians.

Which put them into a difficult position, and it was why Rev had been counting on Delta Company finding the target first. He’d served with the Frisians, and he respected them. He hoped that it would not devolve into fighting.

“Let’s go over this again. I want to make sure . . . wait one. I’m getting an update,” the lieutenant said. She listened for a moment, then told them, “The target is hot. There’s been an explosion, and it looks like we’ve lost a SEAL team.”

“How the hell did that happen?” Top asked. “The SEALS were not supposed to engage. Did the Fries attack them?”

Rev felt the familiar surge of adrenaline as he got his combat on. He didn’t want a fight, but he couldn’t help the rush of excitement. He was by now convinced that this was all artificial, but knowing that didn’t change anything.

“It’s . . . I don’t have everything. It looks like the SEALs followed the Frisians inside an opening in the asteroid, and there’s been an explosion. I . . . wait, I’m getting new orders now.”

Rev wanted to curse the EVA suits. Unlike when in his PAL-5, his comms were more limited, and he wanted to be able to monitor the command net to know what was going on.

“ . . . we’re still on. There’s what looks like another opening on the other side of the target. We’re to conduct a hostile entry,” the lieutenant said, her voice rising in excitement.

Rev had accepted the artificial adrenaline boost for him as a fighter, but he’d really rather have his officers working without chemical stimulation.

“One of the Navy scouts is scanning the asteroid now, so stand by.”

Tomiko used the hand and arm signal to ask him, “Are you ready?”

He signed back that he was.

“Then let’s kick some ass.” Or, to be more accurate, she gave the hand signs for “attack-full strength-victory.”

His thumbs-up reply was more universally understood.

He sat in silence as the Osprey entered the belt. He had to trust the Navy autopilot to navigate through the rocks and get them to the target in one piece. But for once, he wasn’t anxious when his life was in someone else’s hands. He was excited, the blood pounding through his system, but at the same time, he was more concerned with what they were facing. Not the Centaurs. He’d faced them before. But the Frisians. He would do what he had to do, but he would really rather avoid a fight with them.

It was a weird feeling, both amped and ready for combat but hesitant at the same time. And he didn’t like it. Conflicted Marines were likely to become dead Marines.

“I’m uploading the survey,” the lieutenant said a moment before a 3D scan of the asteroid popped up on his face shield.

Asteroid 6-067-442 was 876 meters along the longest axis and ranging from 140 to 358 meters at the widest point along the cross axis. Slightly banana-shaped, it was a big hunk of nickel-iron. The scan revealed that it had been laced with tunnels and several larger open sections. The mere density of the nickel-iron kept much of the detail hidden, but the paths of the tunnels, which looked to have slight zig-zags along their length, were reasonably clear.

An entrance into the asteroid started thirty-one meters from one of the asteroid’s ends, and approximately ninety meters from that entrance, the image glowed orange, a computer aid in showing where the explosion had taken place. That was where SEALs, and presumably Frisian Host soldiers, had died.

The asteroid didn’t look warped or damaged around the blast site, but it could probably take tactical nukes without any degree of destruction, and even a cruiser’s meson cannons would take a long time to burn their way through the mass of metal.

An arrow appeared at one of the openings at the other side of the asteroid, then a path snaked through the tunnels until it reached another larger cavity.

“This is our point of entry. We don’t know if it’s sealed off or not. Sergeant Incrit-Kole will conduct the recon and breach it if it looks feasible. Otherwise, we’ll be using the drill to gain egress.”

The drill was the multi-tool breaching system on the shuttle designed to do anything from creating an air-lock breach into a ship through which Marines or sailors could board their target to a destructive decompression.

More control symbols appeared as the lieutenant emplaced them. Second Team was the breaching force and would proceed twenty meters down the chosen passage where Third, with Rev on point, would conduct a passage of lines and become the lead element. First and Fourth would remain outside of the asteroid. Fourth, armed with a compact but powerful pack cannon, would be defending against possible Centaur reinforcement, while First would be the mobile reaction force, ready to repel Frisian troops or become the point of main effort should something happen to Second.

None of this was new to them. Every Marine and sailor knew their task in the mission, but with the map, they now knew where everything would take place. This was getting real.

“Give me another systems check.”

<System Green. Power reserves at ninety-eight-point-six percent.>

“Five minutes. First wave, get ready,” the lieutenant ordered.

First Wave consisted of the entire platoon except for Second Team. Without the need to breach with an assault airlock, the Marines would exit the back ramp under their own power, then fly to the target while the shuttle’s lone gun covered them. Fourth would debark first and set up security, followed by First and then Second. First would stay aboard until the asteroid was breached.

The Marines stood by the back ramp, waiting for it to open, like Earth WWII soldiers waiting to hit Omaha Beach. In their EVA suits, they were far more vulnerable should the Centaurs have a surprise waiting for them.

“We’re getting an update,” the lieutenant passed. “Shit, another flight of Fries are on the asteroid. How the hell are we just finding out now? Standby while I get some orders.”

Rev’s heart gave a lurch. If the Frisians were already there, the chances there would be a fight increased by a hundred-fold. To avoid that, they’d just have to get to the target chamber first. There was no other way about it.

“Damn crayons,” Tomiko said, using her favorite slang for the Frisians. “They really don’t want to tangle with us.”

“And we don’t want to tangle with them, if we can help it.”

“It’s on them if we do.”

Thirty seconds later, there was a slight vibration and momentary dimming of the lights. Rev knew what it was. The shuttle had fired its cannon. And unless it was at an approaching Centaur force, things had just gotten serious. Tomiko looked over at Rev, raising one eyebrow.

“We just engaged the Fries with a warning shot,” the lieutenant relayed to the platoon. “Hopefully, that’ll stop them.”

Rev was relieved. A warning shot was not war . . . yet.

The shuttles interior lights flashed amber for ten seconds, then went a solid green as the back ramp quickly opened. The three teams cascaded out the back and disappeared from sight as they raced for their positions.

Top Thapa passed, “The Fries are inside. I repeat, they are inside the asteroid. Should we pursue?”

“That’s a negative,” the lieutenant said. “Third Team, debark now. Get to the opening and wait.”

Rev was already moving. He activated his impellers as he ran to the ramp and dove forward. As soon as he cleared the ramp, he was out of the artificial gravity and in open space for the first time in his life. The vastness hit him hard in wonder, and he wanted to just drink it in, but he had his mission. He slowly brought himself around until he was facing the asteroid. Marines were already on the surface, moving around. One of the Marines from Second Team had a beacon on his suit, and Rev adjusted his course and surged forward.

A mere nano-speck within the vastness of the galaxy, Asteroid 6-067-442 loomed huge in Rev’s horizon. Pockmarked with meteor and other asteroid hits, it looked like a war zone, something Rev hoped wasn’t an omen.

Lieutenant Harisa passed, “There is no barrier at the entrance. We’re entering the tunnel.”

Too quickly, Rev and Third Team arrived. Rev neatly slowed down and came to a stop three meters from the mouth of the tunnel. Despite the gravity of the situation, he felt a little surge of pride as this was his first actual EVA.

The rest of the team arrived alongside him, waiting for the word to enter. Scattered around this end of the asteroid, the other two teams were well dispersed. Rev wondered where the Frisians had entered, and he was just about to ask the staff sergeant if he could find out when Sergeant Minnow Krill appeared at the entrance to the hole.

“Comms are almost useless inside, so the lieutenant sent me to get you. We’re set up about forty meters in.”

“You heard him,” Staff Sergeant Delacrie said. “Let’s move out.”

Rev was the point for this effort, so he maneuvered his EVA, orienting himself to the tunnel, and flew ahead. His infrared lantern lit up the tunnel, making it as light as day through his face shield.

Immediately inside the entrance, the tunnel made a hard dogleg left, then after only another ten meters, it doubled back to the right. Rev had seen the slight serrations in the tunnels on the chart of the asteroid, but he hadn’t realized they would be this severe. It made sense when considering a defensive posture, but if that was the case, where were the Centaurs? They had a habit, much like the Japanese defenders of the island during Earth’s World War II, of allowing the assaulting force to land lightly or unopposed, then hit them while the forces were extended.

Second Team was still ahead of Rev and Third, but in a few minutes, Rev would be the lead Marine, and he needed to be ready if the Centaurs were about to spring a trap.

Inside the asteroid, it wasn’t just comms that were messed up. His augmented navigation was useless, of course, as it relied on a planet’s magnetic fields. But the hunk of nickel-iron made it worse than if he hadn’t been augmented at all. It was as if the little voice that told him where he was and where he needed to go was drunk.

“I’m going to need help here if I’m going to be ready for whatever might come. I need you to keep track of the map and guide me.”

<Understood, and I’m on it.>

One less thing for me to worry about.

Rev was glad he was leading. Making sure everyone was oriented the same way, heads pointing in one direction, gave a feeling of up, even in weightless conditions. But moving down a tunnel like that limited fields of fire, with the Marines in the front blocking those behind. So, in a tunnel, the SOP was for the Marines to circle its cross-section, like numbers on a clock, with the heads toward the middle. This gave more Marines a lane through which they could fire their weapons.

With Rev’s delicate stomach, though, while he’d been surprisingly fine in open space, he was a little queasy, and he didn’t want to see the rest of the team oriented every which way. And if they were behind him, he didn’t have to see them.

But that didn’t take Second Team into account. Rev passed the second corner, and there they were, spokes on a wheel.

“Third Team, passing through,” he sent, his voice tight as saliva started to form at the base of his jaw.

<Do you want your antiemetic?>

He’d resisted so far, but he couldn’t let pride jeopardize the mission. “Do it.”

He looked straight ahead, trying to block out the sight of the Marines until the medication started taking effect. He jetted down the center of the tunnel through Second Lieutenant Harisa and Second Team.

Gizzy Incrit-Kole gave Rev a thumb’s up as he passed, Pashu extended, his tomographic scanner seeking any sign of movement. And then they were the lead team, leaving their security behind. It was on to their objective.

With the constant zig-zagging, he brushed the smooth walls a few times as he flew, which knocked him off-kilter, but the suits had good gyros, and his quickly righted him. With their lack of real EVA time, he didn’t like going this quickly, but this was a race to the target, and he had to push it.

<Twenty meters to the intersection. Take the left fork.>

“Will the tunnel straighten out after that?”

<Negative. It will continue in its present form.>

The short bends were more than just an obstacle to travel. For one, it knocked out the Morays as effective weapons. Each of the missiles needed forty meters to arm, and the Marines had yet to encounter a single straight stretch that long. It also provided for ambush spots, and there could be a Centaur lying in wait just around the corner in the next section. Rev tried to focus on what was in front of him and watch for his sensors to light off as they swept his path.

He reached the intersection when his peripheral vision caught motion to his side, and he immediately realized his mistake. The Centaur was in the other corridor. He tried to twist around but flailed until he reached out with his right arm and pushed away, bringing Pashu to fire . . . and froze.

Three Frisians were facing him, just as surprised as he was. One brought up his weapon, but it was going to be too late. Rev had him dead to rights.

“Stop!” Rev shouted over the universal frequency. Whether the Frisian heard him or if it was Pashu aiming at him at point-blank range, the soldier froze. The other two with him froze as well. They didn’t have to know exactly what Pashu was to know she had a pretty big bite.

Radić and Tomiko saw Rev’s reaction and pushed forward, M-49s ready, but Rev held up his right hand, stopping them.

“Slowly, Miko. I’ve got some Fries here. I never saw their light, and they evidently didn’t see mine.

<They must be using some other form of night vision.>

Whatever the reason, both sides seemed surprised, and uncertainty could result in rash action. He needed to defuse this.

“Strap and Carp, stay just short of the intersection. The rest of you, wait.”

He motioned the two forward, making sure the Frisians could see him. A moment later, Tomiko and Radić reached him, Tomiko going high and Radić off at an angle.

One of the Frisians slowly motioned with his hand, and two more appeared, crowding the corridor.

“What now?”

<That’s not something I can answer. You have your orders.>

To start a freaking war? If I fire now in this damn tunnel, it’s going to be a massacre.

“Staff Sergeant Delacrie, we’ve got a situation here.”

There was no answer.

“Staff Sergeant Delacrie, Lieutenant Harisa, come in.” He hoped they could hear him.

Dead air.

The nickel-iron was plaguing comms, but they couldn’t be that far back in the tunnel. Regardless, Rev knew this was on him.

And he knew what he had to do. Before he could contemplate it, Rev lowered Pashu. One of the Frisians started to raise his weapon when another put out a hand and blocked it.

“Who are you?” came over the universal freq.

“Sergeant Reverent Pelletier, Perseus Union Marine Corps. And you?”

“Yellow-master Dredge Vstaleekru, Frisian Host. Why are you here?”

“Probably for the same reason you are.”

Rev couldn’t see inside the face shield of the Frisian, and he wished he could opaque his.

“Did you attack our other flight?” the Frisian asked.

“No. We were aboard our shuttle when the explosion occurred.” He didn’t say that there had been a SEAL team there at the time.

“So, you were the ones who fired on us,” the Frisian said, his voice on edge.

“Warning shot. Not on our command.”

“Warning for what? We’re in uncontested space.”

“Are we really playing that game?” Rev asked.

The Frisian looked around, catching sight of Strap and Porter. “And I assume you have more of you stippy-do jarheads with you.

Rev didn’t say anything.

“OK, Sergeant. What now?”

“What now is that we are going to proceed down this tunnel here.”

“And I don’t think I can let you do that.”

Rev gave a low chuckle. “I’m betting you were told to get there first, too.

Rev couldn’t see the Frisians’ faces, but that chuckle seemed to have an effect. Their bodies seemed to lose some of their tension.

“Miko, can you read me?” Nix’s voice broke in through on the platoon net.

“Affirmative, but we’ve got a situation here,” Tomiko said.

“What kind of situation?” Staff Sergeant Delacrie broke in. “Time’s of the essence.”

“Staff Sergeant, tell the lieutenant time is OBE. We’re in contact with the Fries. The situation is tense, so please hold in place,” Rev passed.

The staff sergeant was the team leader and technically in command, but he also realized the special situation. Rev wasn’t in his chain of command, but he called the operational shots.

Rev didn’t know if that would hold, but the team leader passed, “Roger. Understood. I’ll try and raise the lieutenant and apprise her of what’s going on.”

Rev switched back to the universal freq. “I’m sorry about your other flight.”

Geez, that sounds lame.

But the yellow-master dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Thank you, but we’re still at an impasse. “I can’t let you proceed, and you can’t let us proceed.”

And there it was . . . unless it wasn’t.

This is stupid, Reverent.

But before he could talk himself out of it, he asked, “Why can’t we? I mean, let each other proceed. Together.”

The soldier just looked at Rev for a long moment, the seconds ticking on, until he asked, “Just what do you mean?”

“What’s Ting-a-ling’s real name? Pronounce it for me, slowly.”

<Tjee-vyrtz-leen.>

“Do you know Yellow-master Tjivyrtzlin?” Rev asked, hoping he didn’t mangle the name too badly.

“No. Should I?”

It had been probably too much to hope that this Frisian knew the other yellow-master, but that didn’t matter.

“We served together. His flight was part of our platoon, and we fought on Tenerife, Roher-104, and Alafia. We bled together. You Frisians died alongside us.”

He waited for the yellow-master to come to the same conclusion as he had, but the Frisian asked, “And so?”

“And so, we’re on the same side. The side of humanity. Our enemies are the tin-asses, the Centaurs, not each other. Down this tunnel, there might or might not be some sort of tech or intel that can help us win that war. Do you really want us to fight over it, maybe losing whatever it is in the process?”

“So, we’re supposed to just let you go grab it, so you can use the alien tech after this war is over against us? Like the Centaur prisoner you kept from us?”

Rev wanted to say it was a dead Centaur, not a prisoner, but he wasn’t that foolish.

“I don’t mean just our side. Yours, too. We go together.”

The yellow-master didn’t seem convinced. Rev wondered if mentioning what had happened on the other side of the asteroid would help or hurt his chances with the yellow-master.

Just go for it.

“Look, we had a SEAL team that followed your flight into this asteroid.”

The yellow-master looked to the side at one of the others, and Rev knew that what he’d just said had them talking between themselves. He wished he could eavesdrop on what they were saying.

“I don’t know what happened between them, but given the results, it’s a fair bet that a Centaur self-detonated and destroyed whatever was there.”

“Possibly,” the yellow-master admitted. “But what are you proposing?”

“Rev, I’ve got Hussein back down the tunnel relaying your conversations with the Fries to the lieutenant, and she wants to know what you’re doing. We’ve got Navy and Frisian ships incoming,” Delacrie asked.

“I’m trying to accomplish the mission.”

Rev raised Pashu, and all five Frisians brought their weapons to bear, which made Tomiko and the rest do the same. “If there’s a Centaur up there, I think I can disable it with this.”

“And what the hell is that Genesian monstrosity?”

“I lost an arm on Alafia. It was replaced with this. And our R&D-types think that here in a vacuum, it can fry a Centaur’s circuits if I get close enough. Do you have anything that can do that?”

Only twenty-five percent chance, but still . . .

He lowered Pashu, and one by one, both the Frisians and the Marines lowered their weapons, too.

“So, what are you exactly proposing?”

“We fought Centaurs together before. We do it again.”

“And whatever we find? What then.”

“Equal access.”

“You’re a sergeant. I’m a yellow-master. Hardly high on the decision-making food chain. And we just take it upon ourselves?”

“Why not? We’re adjusting on the fly due to changing circumstances. And we’re still allies, after all.”

The yellow-master turned to one of the others, and once again, Rev wished he could listen in on their conversation.

“The lieutenant wants to know if you think this is a valid course of action,” the staff sergeant passed.

“I don’t know, to be honest. I think it would be a mess if we started fighting, but then you’d have a clear shot to the target.”

There was a pause as Delacrie relayed the message, and Rev waited, half-expecting to receive orders to attack the Frisians.

Instead, it was, “The lieutenant says to do what you think is best, but she wants you to broadcast your feed. She’s heading back to the surface to see what she can do with the incoming ships and says whatever you do, you’d better do it quick. You don’t have much time.”

“I assume you know that we’ve got company coming, both yours and mine. We can decide to go at it right here and see who’s left standing, we can just sit and wait until matters are taken out of our hands and maybe have a fight break out there, or we can complete our missions. It’s up to you.”

“You’re putting a lot on your shoulders, Rev,” Tomiko said, breaking her silence.

“What would you have me do, Miko? You want to fight them?”

“I’m not arguing. I just hope that if they agree, the pot at the end of the rainbow is really there and not a mirage. You’re going to need something good to protect you.”

“What, you want to record a formal protest to cover your ass?” Rev asked, surprised at her tone.

“You know me better than that. I’m just saying. But no matter what we do, I’ve got you covered.”

The yellow-master cut in. “It’s never a good idea to sit and wait for others to take over. We’re in. But, uh, we’ve got five more coming up to join us.”

Rev laughed and said, “And we’ve got another element. Sergeant Nix, why don’t you come on up?”

It took a few minutes of discussion, but Nix and Delacrie were to stay back with the five Frisians while Rev, Second Element, and the initial five Frisians were to advance. If something happened to them, it would be up to Delacrie and the stay-behind Frisians to decide what to do.

“You ready, Yellow-master Vstaleekru?” Rev asked.

The commando gave him a thumbs-up, then stepped up beside Rev. It looked like they were both going to lead the way.

Rev started down the tunnel, Pashu raised and deployed. The Frisian yellow-master gave it a few sidelong glances before he managed the discipline to focus ahead. Armed with a UL-56, he’d be a deadly foe to a human, but it wouldn’t do much against any of the commonly encountered Centaurs. And with the tunnel continuing its zig-zagging, the Frisian’s KK-40, the same missile the Union had copied with its older Mantis, was probably useless as well.

“What’s the arming range on that thing?” Rev asked.

“Twenty-nine meters, so yeah, not much good in here if we hit anything big.”

From the size of the tunnel, however, there was no way a paladin could have gotten through. Maybe a riever could be ahead of them, so there was no telling what they might be facing. The AI mini-centaurs he’d faced on Tenerife might be a more likely foe, and Rev didn’t know how effective they were.

“What about that thing you’re lugging around,” he asked, acting like he was only casually interested.

Rev knew Pashu’s capabilities were classified, but he’d already blown past that restriction.

“The missiles are forty, but the beam cannon has no arming range, of course.”

“And you think you can do something with that against a Centaur?”

“I’ve killed with it,” Rev said, and left it at that.

After too many zig-zags, they reached the end. A solid door blocked their way. Their objective was on the other side of it.

“So, what do we do now?” the yellow-master asked. “Draw straws?”

“I’m going in first.”

“So, you can claim priority, jarhead? I don’t think so.”

“Unless a target is on the far side of the space, you already said you can’t engage.”

“If it’s a paladin, no. But this passage is a little small for one of them, right? So, for their baby-cents, we’ve got something that will do.”

So, they know about the mini-Centaurs. Not surprising.

“And for their self-destruct? You got something for that?” Rev asked.

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take.”

“And I’m thinking that might have been what took out your other flight and our SEALs.”

The Frisian soldier seemed to think about that for a moment, then asked, “And you really think that thing will stop the same thing from happening?”

Rev patted Pashu with his right hand. “Sure do.”

I wish I really were that confident. And that’s only if there’s no atmosphere on the other side of this door.

“In that case, you’ve got the lead, but I’ll be standing right beside you.”

“Accepted.”

He turned around. Tomiko was “above” him, looking down, and Radić was toward his left side. With that disorientation, he was glad Punch had him take his meds. “We need Hus-man and the breaching charge.”

“You heard him,” Staff Sergeant Delacrie, just emerging from around the last corner, said. “Hussein, up!”

Twenty seconds later, Hussein came around the staff sergeant and made his way forward, giving the Frisians a wide berth.

“Blow that thing,” Rev told him.

As Hussein pulled the breaching charge from his kit, the yellow-master reached out, touched his arm, and said, “You’re not going to use that, are you?”

Rev didn’t understand the Frisian’s question. He didn’t think the Centaurs forgot to lock the door and they could just waltz right in.

“I think we need to blow it.”

“No shit. But with that ancient tech? Stippy-do, sometimes I wonder about you Union folk and how you can really be a threat . . . I mean, not now, of course. We’re still allies, but you know.”

“And what would you suggest?” Rev tried to keep the snark out of his voice. He didn’t see the Frisians with an IBHU, after all.

The Frisian turned, and a moment later, one of the soldiers just a couple meters behind them flew forward to the door, then came to a graceful stop. The soles of his boots touched the wall and stuck fast, giving him some stability.

He pulled out a small, handheld scanner and ran it across the edges of the door and frame. Whatever he read seemed to satisfy him, and he took out another scanner that looked to be the twin of the first. He turned to look at the yellow-master, who raised one hand for him to proceed.

“What did he say?” Rev asked.

“First, he checked for booby traps, then took a reading on the door. Twenty-three centimeters thick, no atmosphere on the other side, so when we open it, we won’t have to deal with that.”

Rev gave a mental sigh of relief, but not because of any outward rush of air. A vacuum was needed to increase the range of his beam cannon. Intel had been right when they said their objective was probably not pressurized, not that that made much sense to him. The Centaurs needed more O2 than humans, if the xenobiologists were right, so why would they be doing whatever they were doing in a vacuum?

Then again, why do they do anything they do?

The soldier at the door took out what looked to be a large tube of toothpaste and started applying an off-white gunk around the edges of the door.

“So, you know what that is?”

<The Frisian Host commonly uses liquid explosives in their arsenal. I would have to assume that is what is being applied.>

Rev frowned. The gunk couldn’t even be a centimeter thick. How much energy could it release?

Once the soldier applied the first line around the door, he applied a second just inside of the first. And after that, he did it one more time, so there were three parallel rectangles of white gunk along the edges of the door.

“All hands, remain on the universal freq for the duration,” the yellow-master passed, which Staff Sergeant Delacrie immediately repeated. Which was probably a good idea if they were about to get into a fight.

“I’ve got a solid circuit. I’m ready to blow this,” the Frisian at the door said.

“You ready, Sergeant?”

“Do we have to move back?” Rev asked, warily eyeing the door ten meters ahead of them.

The yellow-master laughed and then said, “I told you, we don’t rely on ancient tech. I think we should move up.”

He took three steps forward, his posture making it evident that this was a challenge. Rev didn’t know if it was smart to be that close to the door, but he stepped up alongside the yellow-master.

“Do it, Beemoral,” the Frisian said.

“Get ready,” Staff Sergeant Delacrie passed.

The Frisian reached out with a small wand and touched the corner of the outer gunk line. There wasn’t much of a visible reaction, just a light mist that worked its way along all three lines and gathered in the zero G, keeping close to the surface.

“Stand by,” the yellow-master said, nudging Rev and stepping a meter to the side, his UK raised.

“Find me targets.”

<Roger.>

Having an extra set of eyes, even if it was Punch noting things in his peripheral vision when he was focusing on something else, was something he and his battle buddy had been playing around with in training, and it seemed to work.

The misting seemed to slow down, then with a small flash, the entire door fell inward.

The mini-Centaur was five meters inside the door, just to the right. That split second it took for Rev to adjust his aim was enough for the Centaur to fire, the beam itself invisible. Rev fired, his beam hitting and arcing over the thing’s body. There was muffled, almost half-assed explosion, but Punch had already highlighted two more mini-AIs.

Rev was already moving, darting inside and to the right. He went low, taking cover behind a metallic bench, firing as he went, hitting one of them as two missiles shot through the door, hitting the third mini-Centaur, which then detonated far more spectacularly. Shrapnel zinged through the space, and without the bench, Rev would have been shredded. As it was, his suit was punctured at the thigh, but between the suit’s armor and Rev’s spiderweb, the shrapnel didn’t penetrate past his epidermis. His suit integrity alarm went off as the smart fabric quickly reknitted.

“Did you see anything else?” Rev asked, trying to remember what he’d seen in that second or two.

<Not from what was in your line of vision. But the space looks extensive, and you didn’t look at all of it.>

Rev turned to look back out the door to tell the yellow-master to come inside, but the Frisian had been cut down, most of his body above the waist gone. A fine pink mist floated around the body, which slowly cartwheeled in retreat. Another of the Frisians was flying forward, their passage disturbing the pattern of the blood.

Respect to the fallen.

He turned his attention back to the front, looking for any Centaur sign. The area around the mini-Centaur hit by the Frisian missile was littered with mangled equipment and machinery, but the damage was much less than what a paladin self-destructing would be expected to do. Rev couldn’t tell if the thing self-destructed at all or if the damage had been caused by the missiles. In the weightlessness, bits and pieces of mini-Centaur and equipment floated around the space, only changing direction when they collided with something.

“Three tin-asses down. I’m on the right, ten meters in. No sign of any more, but the space is not secure. I repeat, not secure.” Rev passed.

“Coming in left.” Tomiko passed. She came shooting through the blasted door at the same time as one of the Frisians, both almost colliding. Within twenty seconds, the rest of the Marines and Frisians were inside, taking whatever cover they could.

“We need to clear this space,” Staff Sergeant Delacrie passed over the net as he took over.

The question was how to partition up the area. This wasn’t a planetary warehouse with rows of vertical crates. Everything was haphazard without a firm orientation. The staff sergeant moved to the center, and using his arms, encompassed about a third of the space.

“Frisians, if you can take this, and Raiders, we’ve got the rest,” he passed, switching his arms around.

Primitive, but it worked.

“Understand,” one of the Frisians passed. “We’ve got it.”

But for the Raiders, there were better control features he could send to their helmet displays. The staff sergeant threw up boundaries on their section.

“Second Element, cover First. We’ll start right here,” he passed, one section suddenly highlighted. The lieutenant and Second Team are on their way in.”

Raiders and Frisians moved forward to start clearing. Rev watched for movement, but except for humans and the pieces of mini-Centaurs, it was still.

“Good job, Rev,” Miko passed on the P2P.

“Glad it was only mini-Centaurs.”

“Think there are any more in here, waiting to jump out?”

Rev scanned to the back, where there was what sure looked like an airlock. He didn’t understand what made the Centaurs tick, but something told him they didn’t like weightlessness and vacuums.

“No, I don’t. I think the three mini-tin-asses were it.”

“And you base that on what?”

“Just a hunch. But we’ll find out soon enough.”

Second Team and the lieutenant entered the space and shifted to the right to join Nix and his element. All of them were alert for more Centaurs or booby traps, but the place was clean. Fifteen minutes after the brief firefight, Lieutenant Harisa sent Hussein back to declare the objective secure.

* * *

Just short of five hours later, Top Thapa and First Team came through the blasted door, followed by a small team of four civilians. Lieutenant Harisa met them, and Rev watched from what looked like a small workbench of some kind he’d claimed as his anchor, something to ground him in the weightlessness.

His skin itched, and he wanted nothing more than to take a shower. Real water would be great, but at this point, an underpowered sonic shower would work. He didn’t understand why it had taken this long to get someone there.

The top, the lieutenant, and one of the civilians were in deep conversation. More than once, the civilian pointed to where the Frisians were gathered. Rev could see the tension in their bodies. They weren’t obviously presenting their weapons, but Rev knew that could change in an instant.

After five minutes, the lieutenant and the civilians jetted away from the entrance and deeper into the space. The Frisians just watched.

“Pelletier, where are . . . oh, there, you are” Top passed. He flew across to Rev, his body canted in relationship to him.

Rev twisted his body around until they were face to face and aligned.

“You outdid yourself this time,” Top told him.

Which could be good or bad.

“Lots of people are pretty pissed at you now.”

Bad, then.

“This was supposed to be a Union haul until you decided to start making galaxy-shifting decisions.”

“I did what I thought I had to,” Rev said defensively.

“Granted. And from the look of things, it’ll pay off, for humanity at least. The other side of this hunk of metal looks to be a write-off.”

“The SEALs?” Rev asked.

“Complete loss. We won’t know for sure until it’s all analyzed, but that’s where the Centaurs were located. From what we can tell, they blew themselves up.”

“Then what’s this place?”

“Fuck if I know,” Top said, holding onto Rev’s bench so he could twist to look. Their infrared lanterns were not that powerful, so the farther recesses were not clear. “Warehouses? Work that they didn’t want in the pressurized areas? I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

Rev was a little disappointed that all of this might just be the Centaur equivalent of a supply shed. The Marines and the Frisians had almost come to blows over the space.

“What about the Fries?” Rev asked.

“What about them?”

“I mean, I promised them they’d have access.”

“Yeah, you sure did, didn’t you? Pretty ballsy. Like I said, shifting the course of the whole freaking galaxy.”

“So, what happens now?”

“Now, we’re officially waiting until their command ship gets here and their main body can enter with ours.”

“Their command ship? I don’t understand.”

Top laughed, then said, “Yeah, I didn’t understand at first. After the lieutenant sent Hus-man to the entrance to upload your . . . negotiations . . . well, that now fell under some paragraph of the Torinth Accords.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“I asked my battle buddy, and even now, I don’t get it all. But basically, in a combat situation, agreements made between commanders to cease hostilities are essentially treaties. It goes back to the Willis War, when a ground commander negotiated a cease-fire, promising the defenders free passage, with weapons, off a planet. When the higher command arrived, they ignored the deal and took all of the defenders as prisoners. Something like that. You can ask your battle buddy for the details.

“Punch, I want—”

<I have it already for when you have time. Torinth Accords, Paragraph 5.23.2.>

Rev tried to process what he’d just heard. Something wasn’t adding up. “But you said commander. I’m not the commander.”

“Ah, but the lieutenant was, and she endorsed your agreement.”

Rev twisted to look at her as she showed the civilians around. She’d made sure to cover Rev’s six in all that had happened.

“Not to be cynical, Top—”

“Oh, of course not. Marines are never cynical.”

“But, I mean, there are only five of them. What’s to keep someone from, you know . . .”

“From making them disappear and not letting anyone know of your agreement?”

It hurt Rev to admit that could be a possibility, but he said, “Yeah. That.”

“Because when Hus-man broadcast it, he did it on the universal channel.”

It took Rev a moment, but then it sunk in. “So, anyone else in this asteroid belt would have heard it.”

“Like other Fries, the Council, and whoever else might be wondering what we and the Fries were doing? Yeah.”

That stunned Rev. All he’d wanted to do was avoid a needless fight. Somewhere in his mind, he’d understood that all of humanity had to pull together if they were going to survive, but at the team level, in the here and now, it had been about keeping Marines and soldiers—allies—alive.

“I didn’t mean to get things . . . to bring it to that level.”

“Well, you did.”

“Was I wrong?”

“I’m just a master sergeant, so far down the food chain that I never seen a menu yet. But as far as I’m concerned, you did good.”

“Really?”

“Hey, I fought with them, too. No need for allies to be killing each other when the real enemy is still trying to erase us from existence. Now, let me go check on everyone.”

“What about us? What do we do, now?”

“You’ve been in the Corps long enough to know, Pelletier. Now you stand by to stand by.” He rotated around and flew off to where some of Second Team was gathered.

“What was that all about?” Tomiko asked.

“Just some updates. No survivors with the SEALs.”

“We expected that. What about this place? He know what it is?”

“Maybe a warehouse.”

“No, I don’t mean this place. Of course, that’s what this is. I mean the whole fucking asteroid.”

Of course, she’d been able to figure that out long before me.

“Not yet. I, uh, I also asked him about the Fries.”

“What about the crayons?”

“I asked him what’s going to happen to them. He said because of the Torinth Accords, the agreement we made has to be honored. We’re waiting now for more of them to come so the Seabees and the rest can come inside.”

“Well, good. I was wondering about that. But . . .” she said, twisting her body around so she could see the Frisians, “. . . what if the OD or someone decides to . . .” She drew a quick hand across her throat.

“Too late. The lieutenant had Hus-man send out the agreement on the Universal freq.”

“Damn! That’s one smart butterbar.”

Rev had to agree, and he appreciated the backup. He’d only had casual contact with the lieutenant before, but now, with the skipper out sick, she had risen to the occasion.

Rev looked over at the Frisians again and said, “I’m going to go talk to them.”

“I’ll go with you.”

Rev jetted across the open area, Tomiko beside him. They came to a stop as one of them moved up to meet them.

All EVAs had a universal connector through which the wearers could communicate or share air and water. Rev didn’t really want what he wanted to say on the U-freq, so he pulled his out from his sleeve, and after a slight hesitation, the Frisian pulled out his and married the two.

“I’m so sorry about Yellow-master . . .” he paused, hoping not to butcher the name.

“Vstaleekru,” the Frisian said. “He was good people. I’m Yellow-master Keej.”

Rev started to reach out a hand, but shaking in zero-G could be problematic, so he switched to the more acceptable hand to the chest. He didn’t want to ask, but if he understood their system correctly, this Keej had just become the yellow-master upon the death of the previous one.

“So, are you here to give us the bad news?” the Frisian asked.

“What bad news?”

“I count about twenty of you, and with those civilians, I’m betting there are more of you outside. I don’t see you all just giving us free access, not with what’s at stake.”

“I said you’d get the same access as we are. Nothing’s changed.”

The Frisian snorted, then said. “Except for the fact that you’re a sergeant, and in your service, you don’t have much say.”

“I have enough say to keep my word,” Rev said, a little miffed at the accusation, even if he’d entertained thoughts along the same lines.

“So, if me and my flight just wander over there and pick up some of this Centaur shit, no one will do anything?”

“You can’t.” He held up a hand, palm out, when the Frisian started to say something, but Rev continued. “And neither can we, if I understand what’s going on. We’ve got teams ready to go, but we’re waiting for your command ship to arrive. The salvage and research teams, yours and ours, will go in together.”

The Frisian half-turned to the others. Rev knew he was relaying what Rev had just told him. Two of them gave Rev a thumbs-up.

“Thank you for telling us. I have to admit, when Concrete, uh, Yellow-master Vstaleekru, that is, agreed to your proposition, I wasn’t sure we could trust you. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wasn’t called Concrete for nothing. Once he set his mind on something, he was hard to dissuade. He said you jarheads weren’t our enemy. He served with you guys, you know, on Montoya’s Haven. Said you were good shits. Brothers in blood and all.

“I should have just listened to him.”

“We shouldn’t be fighting each other,” Rev said. “We’ve got the tin-asses to worry about.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” The new yellow-master’s head tilted, and even if Rev couldn’t see inside the face shield, he knew the Frisian was looking at Pashu. “That’s some impressive arm there. Concrete said you lost the arm, and that’s what they gave you to replace it?”

Rev felt a tremor of concern. The IBHU program had been highly classified, and that was his ingrained reaction. But he realized that the cat was out of the bag, and as he’d just said, they were on the same side.

“Tell your flight to switch to U-freq twenty-one-point-five.”

The open universal frequency was labeled twenty. The others could be used for more restricted conversations.

“Going to U-freq twenty-one-point-five,” he told Tomiko so she could join.

“This is Pashupatastra, named for the personal weapon of Shiva and Kali.”

The others crowded around him, and he gave them a brief overview of the weapons. One thing that never changed, no matter the nationality, was that military people loved their weapons. There were a few excited questions, and Rev answered the best he could, but without giving away the specs.

“I didn’t know you were working on them, but I heard a rumor that the Mad Dogs were doing something along those lines,” one of the soldiers said as he patted the cannon projector.

Rev gave Tomiko a glance. He had no idea that the Manifest Destiny Sphere was pursuing the same kind of weapon, and he wondered if Colonel Trejo knew. Probably, if this Frisian soldier knew.

Strap came over, then Radić. McAnt and some of the Second Team Marines joined them. Pretty soon, instead of standing in their own groups, Marines and Frisians were mixing, telling stories about what combat they’d seen. Some of it might have even been mostly true, but for thousands of years, absolute adherence to the truth had never gotten in the way of a good story.

Rev had just broken out laughing over a tall tale that the Frisian Tomiko had already christened Bulldog had told when they had company. At least fifty Seabees and Frisians came into the warehouse. The Seabees efficiently set up large lights and turned them on, bringing the space into sharp focus.

Rev and the rest turned off their infrared, glad for more normal vision. He looked around, taking in the extent of what they’d captured. Seeing it as a whole, it didn’t look like it contained as much as he’d initially thought. There was a lattice-like array that now reminded him of what the Centaurs had been building with human slave labor on Tenerife. He wouldn’t be surprised if that turned out to be some sort of power station, which would make more sense with them being in a cold vacuum instead of the pressurized section of their installation.

There was more, but almost all of it was beyond his comprehension. Rev hoped that the experts could make something of it, something that could help humans in the war.

Teams consisting of both Perseans and Frisians started to move throughout the space, recording and cataloging what was there. Five hours ago, the two sides were close to colliding, but already, they were acting together—although Hussein, in his typical cynical style, said the teams were there to make sure no one was able to hide something valuable.

And maybe he was right. But Rev didn’t care. They’d succeeded in their mission, and if there were valuable understandings to glean, he was sure that between the two nations, the experts would uncover them.

* * *

Rev stood under the sonics, blissfully feeling over a week’s worth of Reverent-stink and dead skin slough off his body. EVA suits were not made for extensive periods of time, and Rev had gone above and beyond the call of duty, as far as he was concerned.

It’s got to be against the Torinth Accords as torture.

The amount of dead skin had been a revelation. No one had told him that in zero-G, the skin built up, but unless rubbed off by the inside of the suit itself, it remained stuck on top of his live skin instead of flaking off. There wasn’t any more of it, but what was there was all still on his body. His feet had been particularly gross.

He had the projector on high, and the sharp waves were like needle pricks, but he didn’t care. Anything to feel clean again.

They’d stayed in the asteroid for six more days after taking it. Both the Navy captain and the Frisian amber-master had decided that the fewer people exposed to the Centaur tech, the better, so the Raiders and soldiers had become the gofers and manual labor for the Seabees, civilians, and Frisian engineers.

There had been one more military-centric mission, that of checking out the other side of the asteroid. The airlock had so far stymied the human engineers, so a mixed expedition of twenty soldiers and Marines had flown outside the asteroid, entering where the SEALs and Frisians had gone in. Within twenty meters, it was evident that the damage on this side had been extensive. At forty-five meters, they couldn’t proceed any farther. The slagging of the tunnel walls convinced Rev that the damage wasn’t caused by the humans. The Centaurs had to have unleashed something to destroy the evidence of what they were doing. He didn’t know why they hadn’t done that on the other side, unless there wasn’t anything there worth concealing.

They managed to recover some human remains that hadn’t been vaporized or blown out of the tunnel, but Rev couldn’t tell if they were SEALs or Frisians. It had been a sober patrol that returned.

There had been some discussion about trying to bore in from the side with their own tunnel to see if they could reach the main spaces, but as Hussein had said, the Centaurs were pretty good at destroying their traces. Rev had strong doubts that anything useful could be recovered. If this mission was going to have any benefits to the war effort, it would have to come from the warehouse.

After that mission, Rev had respectfully requested permission to return to the Alacrity, even if for only a couple of hours, but the Navy captain had thought Rev and McAnt’s presence was a deterrence should the Frisians try something sneaky. Rev wasn’t sure how they could attempt anything given that every square centimeter of the space was being monitored with the feeds being sent back to New Mars for analysis.

Finally, Captain Omestori, still on the Alacrity, got permission to bring the Raiders back, replacing them with Delta Company, who had gone on a port and starboard work schedule. Rev had seen Cricket during the turnover brief, but they didn’t have a chance to talk before the Raiders were on board the shuttle and heading back to the ship. Rev almost cried out with relief as the shuttle entered the hangar, and once again, he had weight.

Now it was going to be shower, food, and sleep, in that order. The thought of getting some deep sleep instead of the catnaps that he’d been able to grab was wonderful. But for Rev, it was going to take a little longer. That tape and goop sealing off Pashu that he’d been so concerned about proved to be pretty tough stuff and resisted removal. In the end, Daryll had cut the suit itself so Rev could slip out, wrinkling his nose in disgust as the Eau de Pelletier came out in a wave.

A Marine doesn’t take care of themself until their weapons are cleaned and stored, but this was going to take some time. Rev left them discussing how to remove the duct tape from Pashu.

And now, a good hour after the rest of the Raiders, Rev had the showers to himself, and he just reveled in his stall. His skin was abraded raw, but he was clean. He would have stayed longer, but his stomach was complaining about being ignored. They’d only been off the Alacrity for less than three days, but while the EVA suits provided all the nutrition needed to sustain life, the goop was hardly a treat for the taste buds. D-rats would have been welcomed, but when they’d debarked the shuttle, a chief had told them that they’d be getting their next meal in the crews’ galley. Real food. And that was about the only thing that could pry Rev from the showers.

Rev dressed and made his way to the galley, not even bothering to get his social arm from berthing. There were only a dozen Marines left, sitting in the back talking. Gizzy Incrit-Kole told him that most of the rest were already in the rack. Evidently, Rev wasn’t the only one who had trouble sleeping in zero-G.

It was breakfast in the ship’s cycle, and Rev dialed up four eggs over easy, bacon, sausage, waffles, tetris rolls with raspberries, and tangerine juice, then carried the load back to join the others.

“Not hungry, are you, Rev?” Gizzy asked.

“Takes a lot of energy to keep this finely-tuned fighting machine going,” he said as he sat. He started shoveling in the food, regretting not getting his arm first. Then he could use that to mop up the egg yolks with the waffles while using his right arm for the bacon, all at the same time.

“You heard anything about how long we’re going to be able to stay aboard?” Minnow Krill asked.

Minnow was a sergeant the same as Rev, same as Gizzy, for that matter, but all the Marines turned to hear his response. Rev might be a sergeant, but with his special position, they hoped he’d be more in the know.

But he didn’t know. The Alacrity was there for the duration, as far as he knew, and not much had really been done yet in the asteroid. He figured they’d have a day or two to unwind, then it’d be back to the salt mines.

The talk shifted to sports. It was tourney time on New Hope, and despite years of Swansea City futility, hope always springs eternal. Gizzy said the lieutenant was going to try and get the ship’s captain to authorize a feed so they could watch the Jacks in their first-round match. Rev was more of a flipball fan, but he was happy just to listen in as he ate. But his rack was calling, so as soon as he finished, he was off to the berthing, ready for some “gravity sleep.”

It felt like he’d barely closed his eyes when Tomiko was shaking his shoulder. “The captain wants to see us all in the hangar deck.”

“Kitted up?”

“No word on that.”

I guess we’re going back to the asteroid sooner than I thought.

He sat up and swung his legs out of the rack.

“How long did I sleep?”

<Seven hours, fourteen minutes.>

That surprised Rev. He’d have sworn it had been only a few minutes. But he was well-rested, reminding him of when his mother had calmed some restless nights with a grey gravity blanket.

He took a moment to put his social arm on, then followed the rest down to the hangar deck where Captain Omestori, looking a little ragged still, was waiting for them. The skipper held up for a few minutes longer for the stragglers to come in.

“Raiders, first, I want to congratulate all of you for a job well done, and I’m relaying the same message from General Begay.”

There was a chorus of ooh-rahs.

“I apologize that I was not able to be with you, but I had full confidence in your abilities to accomplish the mission. And now, I’ve received our follow-on orders, and I wanted to relay those to you as soon as possible.”

Follow-on orders? What’s going on?

“We’re being relieved on station. Or, to be more exact, our mission here is over. The Marines’ mission, for the most part. D-4 and D-6 will be taking over. Delta Company will remain on station for security until regular Marine forces can take their place, and all their gear is being readied for a cross-platform move to another ship.”

“Home for the tourney!” Minnow Krill shouted.

The captain said, “Not so fast, Sergeant. We aren’t going home just yet.”

There were a few groans, and Rev waited for the boom to fall. What was happening that needed the Raiders?

“In another half an hour or so, a package will be brought aboard from the asteroid. I don’t know what it is, but you can conjecture on your own.”

Rev exchanged glances with Tomiko. The agreement had been reached that no Centaur tech was to leave the asteroid until more detailed and specific agreements could be hammered out. Could the governments somehow have managed to do that in record time?

“We will escort the package to its destination, where we’ll probably be debriefed in more detail. And where is that destination?”

Every set of ears were locked on him, waiting. Rev didn’t have a clue if it wasn’t New Hope.

The captain broke out into a huge grin and said, “We’re going to New Mars!”

Tomiko’s mouth dropped open, and she punched Rev hard in the shoulder. “No fucking way!”

Rev was equally shocked. New Hope was part of the boonies of the Union, a backwater planet lacking in almost everything the capital planet could offer. New Hopers liked to say they were just as good as those in the central worlds, but there was always that little bit of inferiority complex and a sense that they’d love to see the capital.

Most New Hopers never got the chance, but now, the Raiders were getting that chance, and all on the government’s dime.

Rev gave Tomiko a hug, then turned to accept Hussein’s as the babble of excited voices filled the hangar deck.

I guess sometimes good things do happen to those who deserve it.

11

The shuttle settled on the landing pad, and the back ramp opened. Immediately, the yellowshirt started walking the mule with the special delivery package to the ramp as four black-suited personnel ran down the ramp to meet it. One of them took control of the mule, waving the sailor off.

“Yeah, like we haven’t just transported that thing all the way here,” Nix said. “And they know how to operate the mule better than the ship’s crew?”

“Well, they sure ain’t Navy. I’m saying OD,” Strap said.

“Probably right,” Rev said. “They’re going to want to be the lead on this, and it must have killed them to have to wait until we delivered it.”

“The question is if it’s gonna do anything to help the cause. For all we know, it was just some sort of tin-ass toilet.”

“You don’t really think so, right Miko?” Rev asked. Like the others, he had no idea what the thing was, but his gut told him it was important. So did the team at the asteroid. It was the first thing they’d wrapped up for removal, and it was loaded on the Alacrity for immediate transport back to the capital. Delta Company had been cross-decked with the Raiders staying aboard for the passage.

The more he’d watched the Persean and Frisian salvage teams back on the asteroid, the more he was convinced that they’d get good intel from the place. Sure, the Centaur technology was better than human, so it should have been easier for them, but it still must have taken a lot of effort to build the installation inside the asteroid. Tomiko was being facetious, but they wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble and taken such great lengths to hide it if all it contained were Centaur toilets. Maybe not specifically in the warehouse, but the entire asteroid had to be related to the war. But the OD would figure it out, or if not them, then the Frisian equivalent.

“What’s the name of the Frisian Omega Division?”

<The Turquoise.>

Of course, they’d use a color. No wonder Tomiko calls them crayons.

“Think they’ll let us have some time off after debriefs? It might be our only chance to see New Mars,” Tomiko asked.

“It would make sense. I mean, we’re right here. And we did just accomplish a pretty successful mission.” Rev hoped so, at least. He would love to see some of the sights of the Perseus Union capital.

“Since when has the military ever done anything that made sense. They’ll ship us back to New Hope, then send everyone here who needs to be part of the debrief there, too,” Hussein said.

And he could be right.

They watched the OD agents guide the shrouded package into the shuttle. Another agent stepped out, spotted them, and walked across the hangar toward them. Captain Omestori stepped out to meet him.

“Are you the Raider unit which captured the material of interest?”

Tomiko nudged Rev in the ribs and chuckled. “Material of interest?”

“Yes, First Raider Platoon.”

“Is this everyone?”

“No. Not everyone is here.”

“I want you to get everyone together in whatever this ship has for a conference room. Anywhere where I can speak to you.”

Captain Omestori still looked a little rough, not totally over his illness. He hesitated and looked around at the others. An OD agent had no real authority to tell Marines what to do, and Rev could tell that the agent’s perfunctory manner grated on him. But he shrugged and told Sergeant Nix to gather Second and Third Teams and get them to the galley.

“I’ll take you there,” he told the agent.

“Were you on the asteroid?”

“No, I wasn’t. Second Lieutenant Harisa was the senior Marine there.”

“Then I don’t need you there. In fact, you are not to be there.”

Rev could see the captain bristle, and for a moment, he thought the man was going to explode on the agent. But he controlled himself and instead said, through gritted teeth, “I’ll just debrief them after you’re done.”

The agent gave a slight smile and said, “If one of the Marines who was there can show me the way, I would be obliged.”

“Pelletier, Reiser, if you two would escort her,” the captain said. “I’ll catch up to you when you’re done.”

“If you would follow us,” Tomiko said as the five Third Team Marines lead the way off the hangar deck and down the galley. No one said a word as they walked.

Petty Officer Grenoble, who’d been on the team who worked on Rev’s EVA suit, and another sailor were in the mess decks, chatting and drinking coffee.

“I need this room,” the agent said.

“Ain’t no room. It’s a space,” Grenoble said.

“OK. Then I need this space.”

“We’re almost done.”

“You can finish your coffee elsewhere.”

Grenoble caught Rev’s eyes. Yes, the agent was being a jerk, all for what was sure to be the first of many debriefs. But it probably wasn’t smart to annoy her. Rev gave a slight nod and tilted his head to the hatch. With a sigh, Grenoble and the other sailor stood and left the galley.

“Take a seat while we wait for the others.”

“I bet she’s the life of the party,” Tomiko whispered as they sat together. “So, what’s this all about, ya think?”

“Probably swear us all to super-duper top secret about all of this before we start the debriefs.”

“Kinda hard to be super-duper secret when the Frisians have got their own package. So, what, don’t tell an MD agent?”

“It’s OD. They keep it secret when they take a dump.”

<That’s a good joke.>

“Yes, it is, isn’t it? And off the cuff, too,” Rev told Punch, inordinately pleased that his battle buddy liked it.

“The coffee’s not bad on the ship. Do you want some?” Staff Sergeant Delacrie asked the agent. She just shook her head.

A few minutes later, Lieutenant Harisa led the rest of the two teams into the galley. She started to announce herself when the agent told them all to sit.

“Is this everyone who entered Asteroid 6-067-442?”

“If that’s the one that had all the tin-ass shit, then yeah, this is everyone,” the lieutenant said as several Marines laughed at her choice of words. Probably not appropriate, especially for a commissioned officer, but everyone was feeling their oats after what had to be an historic mission.

The agent pulled out a portable scanner, then went to each Marine and Doc Paul, scanned their retinas, and asked them to state their name, rank, and Union number.

“She’s serious about this. You don’t think this can be another, like, you know. No glory?” Tomiko asked.

She didn’t have to elaborate. After they found the Centaur body on Roher-104, all mention of it in their records was pulled, including their award recommendations. All in the name of security.

When the agent was finished, she returned to the front and said, “For the record, I am Special Agent Five Teresa Light Udel, Five-five-four-eight-zero-lima-tango-six, six. I have with me . . .” she read the names of each of them, their ranks, and their union number, “. . . as so recorded, and am placing them under arrest.”

What?

She turned to the group. “As I just entered into the record, under orders from the Vice-Director Four, all of you are under arrest for treason against the Perseus Union.”

12

This isn’t how I wanted to see New Mars.

Not that he was seeing anything other than four bare walls, a table, and four chairs. And three people staring at him. He didn’t know if they were OD or what. None of the three were in uniform.

Rev leaned forward, using his right arm to brace himself. They’d taken his social arm, and the prison orange’s left sleeve hung loose.

“I don’t understand the question,” he said again.

“I’ll be more direct, then,” the youngish man, who seemed to be in charge of the debrief—the interrogation—said. “Were you, or were you not, the individual who initiated contact between Union forces and the Frisian Host commandos.”

Rev had to think about it. He wasn’t sure if he was the one who’d yelled out first or if the yellow-master had.

“I don’t know.”

The young man frowned. “You know, we’re talking to everyone else, and we’ll be pulling your internal records. I would suggest you be honest now.”

Rev had figured that that was coming. That was why they’d shut down all of their battle buddies while still on the Alacrity.

“Why don’t you just do that, then,” Rev snapped. “See for yourself.”

“Oh, rest assured, we will, once your Marine Corps stops interfering with us.”

“Hansen,” the older agent, the one who hadn’t said a word yet, snapped.

The younger agent looked chastised and said, “Just answer the question, and truthfully.

Oh, great. I’ve got a trainee doing my interrogation. But what was that about the Corps? Are they fighting for us?

That gave him a rush of badly needed hope. He took a deep breath, ready to cooperate . . . for now.

“I was on point. We came upon each other suddenly. I did yell for everyone to stop, but I don’t know if I was the first.”

The agent looked flustered, whether from Rev’s answer or from getting reprimanded. The third agent leaned over and whispered something into his ear.

“Sergeant Pelletier, was it you who first suggested cooperating with the Frisian soldiers in order to capture the Centaur objects of interest?”

Rev thought he had, but he needed to think about it to make sure, and he ran the events through his mind. It would have been much easier with Punch online, but he didn’t think they’d go along with bringing him back.

“Yes, I think I was the one who first suggested it.”

“And you did this despite knowing that your orders were to keep the Frisians from obtaining any of the objects of interest?”

Rev knew this had been the intent, but he wasn’t sure it had been that specific. “My orders were to make sure that we beat the Frisians to the, uh, objects of interest. We did that. We were the first into the intact chamber.”

The agent seemed frustrated with his answer. “But you subsequently let them in.”

“Yes, sir. I did.”

“Why?”

The agent seemed genuinely confused.

“That was our agreement.”

“And why did you make this agreement?” the third agent interrupted.

“Because in my judgment, that was the only way to succeed in obtaining the objects. The rest had already been destroyed, and I thought that getting something was better than nothing, even if that meant the Fries got access, too.”

“But the Frisians are our enemy,” the first agent protested.

“I thought the Centaurs were our enemy,” Rev said, scorn dripping from his words. “I’ve fought with the Frisian Host, and they’d bled and died beside me. I consider them brothers in arms.”

Anger flashed through the older agent’s eyes. He stood, the other two following. He leaned over the table and said, “You are being very stupid, son. You committed treason, and you know the penalty for that. Take ten minutes and think of how you want to proceed.”

“I’m not your son and leaning into my space isn’t going to make you any seem any tougher,” Rev said casually.

The agent’s eyes flashed with hatred, and Rev allowed himself a small grin. If the cherry wanted to be petty, so could Rev. He was in custody and didn’t have a lot of options.

The agent turned on his heel—a practiced gesture that was a shade theatrical—and the door whooshed open. The three left, leaving Rev alone, his heart pounding. It was extremely stupid to antagonize these people, whoever they were, but damned if he was going to be a punching bag for desk jockeys. Even if the Marine Corps was trying to help them, the fact was that they were in a building somewhere, probably on New Mars, and these three controlled Rev’s future.

He wished he had Punch there to keep him from getting himself into trouble.

Getting into trouble? I’m being charged with treason. What more trouble is there?

* * *

Sorry, Mommy. Sorry, Mommy,

So the little bear said.

That’s OK, my little one.

And she kissed him on his head.

Rev was lying on his cot, facing the wall, Kat and Neesy’s song on a loop in his head—and driving him crazy—when the door to his cell opened. He didn’t bother to turn over. Footsteps approached, then stopped beside the cot.

“Sergeant Pelletier.”

“I’ve told you everything I know. It was my decision, and my decision only. The others had nothing to do with it.”

“Sergeant Pelletier, I’m Major Yarborough. I’d like to talk to you.

Rev turned his head to see a Marine major in Dress Green Alphas standing over him. “Crap, sorry, sir,” Rev said, swinging his legs over so he could stand and come to the position of attention. “I thought you were one of them.”

The major held out his hand, and Rev automatically took it. The officer took a moment to look around the bare cell, then shrugged and said, “I guess we can just sit on your cot.”

Rev sat at the edge of his cot. He had no idea who this major was, and he thought silence might be a good idea.

“You pissed off a lot of people, Sergeant.”

Rev stiffened his back and looked straight ahead. So much for the Corps watching out for him. “Like I told the interrogation team, sir, I did what I thought best to complete the mission. And the decision was mine and mine alone. The others, they just did what I told them to. It wasn’t their choice.”

The major huffed, then said, “You had a staff sergeant with you and a second lieutenant close by. You’re a sergeant. And you say it was your decision?”

Rev gave the major a glance, then looked ahead again. He didn’t know how much the major knew about him and the IBHU program, and he was in enough trouble as it were that he didn’t need to be accused of releasing more classified information.

“Operational decisions were temporarily delegated to me, sir. Even over Staff Sergeant Delacrie.”

“Good response. Make sure you maintain that.”

Rev turned his body to stare at the major. “Sir?”

“I guess I should have told you when I walked in that I’m your counsel.”

“Sir?”

“I’m your lawyer.”

“You’re on my side?”

The major chuckled and said, “If I’m your lawyer, I guess I should be on your side. Makes it a bit easier.”

“I didn’t know I was going to get a lawyer.”

“What? You thought the Marine Corps was going to let them feed one of our own to the lions? I’m surprised at you.”

“But my orders, and the Frisians.”

“You followed the orders you were given. If you had to improvise under combat conditions in order to achieve the mission, well, that’s what we expect every Marine NCO to do.”

Rev took a moment to digest what the major had just said, and for the first time since he’d been arrested, he felt a real glimmer of hope.

“So, are you going to get me out of here, sir?”

The major frowned and said, “We’re trying, Sergeant. But . . .” He paused and looked up at the ceiling.

“I don’t give a flying fuck what kind of BS regulation you’ll pull to justify listening in, but this is a privileged lawyer-client discussion, and if any of this sees the light of day, I’ll pull a Writ Three-oh-four on your asses so fast you won’t have time to wipe yourselves.”

Rev’s eyes widened at the outburst, and he asked, “So, what we say now is private?”

“Probably not. But if they try and use anything we might say, some of them are going to pay. Personally pay,” he added a bit louder.

“Now, to get back to your question, we’re trying to get all of you out. The Commandant himself is involved.”

“So, he thinks we’re innocent.”

“No. And he’s one of those who you pissed off.”

“Then why is he getting involved?”

“Because you’re a Marine, and no damned chief spook or even the Director of Internal Security is going to try and punish one of us. In a way, you’re lucky that they tried to horn in on this.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“If they hadn’t, you and the rest would probably be up for courts-martial. You have some unique circumstances that might keep you in your position,” he said, his eyes momentarily going to Rev’s empty sleeve. “But the others?”

“So, you think we committed treason?” Rev asked, his guard back up.

“Treason in a mighty strong word, Sergeant. And more than difficult to prove!” he said that last part louder before going back to a conversation level. “But some in the command think there was a severe lack of judgment on the part of some people, like Delacrie and Harisa. No matter that you’re trying to shoulder the blame, they were the two senior Marines on the scene.

“But what I think doesn’t matter. I am here to make sure your rights are protected and to—”

“It matters to me, sir.”

The major hesitated as he marshaled his thoughts before answering. “I have never seen combat, so I don’t know the pressures you DC Marines must experience. We train you to be able to make decisions on the fly, taking into account the ground reality of what’s happening. And I think that’s what you did. So, if you want my opinion, then I say no, and the charge is ridiculous.”

“And the Frisians getting their hands on the tech?”

“They’d be getting it anyway, and anyone who thinks different is sniffing unicorn farts. All you did was speed that up.”

It shouldn’t matter to Rev, but it did. He’d spent the last however long he’d been a prisoner second-guessing himself. To hear the major say that was a huge relief.

“So, what now, sir?”

“What now is that I make sure you’re being treated well. I’ll be filing motions, along with the other staff judge advocates, for all of you, trying to get you out of D-4 control.”

“That’s who has us? Internal Security?”

“Yeah, and it’s going to be hard to spring you until there is some sort of resolution. So, you may be here for quite a bit longer. As far as D-4 thinks, possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

“Longer? Do you know how long I’ve been here so far? I don’t know. They leave the lights on around the clock, and I think they’re screwing with my chow.”

The major frowned and said, “I’ll take care of that. But you’ve been here five days.”

That’s it? I would have sworn it’s been at least two weeks.

“Is there anything else I can do for you right now? I mean as far as quality of life?”

“I wouldn’t mind getting my soc—” He stopped before he could say “social arm.” “My prosthesis. It would make life much easier.”

“I’ll see about that. Anything else?”

“If at all possible, I’d love to be able to see the others.”

“That will be harder, but I’ll see what I can do. I’m going to leave now to get on some of this, but I’ll see you tomorrow. Keep your spirits up. We’re fighting for you.”

* * *

Whatever the major and the lawyers did seemed to have worked because two days later, he was escorted out of the isolation cell and into a regular prison cell with a small window into a central common area. He was still locked in for most of the time while not being interrogated, but for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, the prisoners were allowed out into the common area. All except Lieutenant Harisa. She wasn’t with them, and that was a major subject of discussion the first time they were able to get together.

Major Yarborough had reminded him that D-4 would be listening in to them, hoping to catch a stray comment that would buttress their position, and that it would be best if they kept their conversations off the actions in the asteroid, but with the lieutenant missing, that was pretty hard to ignore. Staff Sergeant Delacrie had demanded to know where she was as they were ordered back into the cells, but he was ignored.

Now, on their third time together, he and Tomiko were sitting on one of the tables while Strap and Hussein were having a pushup contest, the rest cheering them on. With their augments, they might run out of time before one of them quit.

“I miss Pikachu,” Tomiko said.

Rev grunted. She’d always been closer to her AI than he was to his. But he missed Punch, too. As adverse as he’d been to receiving him, the hunk of crystals had grown on him.

“I could use some of his entertainment feeds. It gets pretty boring in my cell.”

“Think the D-4 has downloaded them yet?”

“Major Yarborough said they can’t until a decision is made on that, but knowing the OD . . .”

Rev wasn’t even sure if it would actually be the Omega Division who would dissemble Punch, if it came to that. D-4 was an opaque organization, and he wasn’t sure who did what within it.

“If they’re gonna do it, I just wish they’d get it over with,” Tomiko said. “They’ll see there was no fucking treason. We were just doing our jobs. What we had to do.”

Which will clear all of them, I hope. I was the one who made the offer.

But he didn’t trust D-4 farther any than he could throw them. They had a reputation of doing what they wanted, then massaged whatever laws and regulations they had to after the fact.

And Rev and Tomiko, at least, had already been under suspicion of leaking information to the Frisians about the dead Centaur. The OD agent who had interrogated Rev and downloaded recordings had said he was cleared. But, as far as Rev knew, that leak still hadn’t been uncovered. He had to think that made them doubly suspicious of him.

“One way or the other, this has to end. They can’t keep us here forever,” Rev said.

“Oh, you are such a naive young lad. With D-4, they can stretch this out for years if they want to.”

Which was probably true. He just didn’t want to let his mind fall down that hole. He was already depressed.

“You know, if Punch was here, he’d be telling me jokes to keep my spirits up.”

“You two are so weird about that. But OK, how about you telling me a joke? Keep my spirits up.”

“Uh . . . OK.” But his mind was blank. Nothing was coming up. “I can’t think of one.”

“Just tell me the last one Punch told you before they kidnapped him.”

“Let me see. I can’t remember . . . ah, OK. I’ve got it now. Ahem,” Rev said, clearing his throat. “A lumberjack walked into a magic forest and started his chainsaw to cut down a talking tree. ‘You can't cut me down,’ the tree complained. ‘I’m a talking tree!’ The lumberjack raised his chainsaw and said, ‘You may be a talking tree, but you will dialogue.’”

“What? I don’t get it.”

“You will dialogue. Die a log?”

“Oh, geez. You’re better off without Punch if that’s the best he can do.”

“I don’t know. I thought it was pretty funny.”

The bell rang, and their unseen nanny said, “Everyone, back to your cells.”

Hussein and Strap were still going strong, but they had to quit. That didn’t keep them from arguing who had done more as the two teams returned to their individual cells.

Rev looked over to Tomiko just before he entered his and shouted, “Die a log!”

He stepped inside, and the door shut behind him.

13

“Prisoner Pelletier, report to the Interview Room Three.”

The door to his cell swished open, and Rev sat up and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. After two months, he’d been sleeping up to fourteen hours a day, which he knew wasn’t healthy. But what else was he supposed to do in a bare cell?

The “prisoner” was something new their captors started about a week ago. It was petty but annoying. Their life had devolved into a series of petty, annoying things, and Rev was really over it all. The worst thing was that he didn’t know when, if ever, it would end.

He stepped out of his cell. Tomiko shouted out, “Give ‘em hell,” as he walked across the common area and stood in front of the door . . . and waited for a full two minutes until it opened. More petty BS. The interrogations were done in any of six “interview rooms,” three on each side of the short, dead-end corridor. Rev went to number three, entered, and took a seat.

The interrogations had become fewer, and they seemed to just repeat what was asked before. It was more harassment, and even the interrogators didn’t seem too thrilled to be going through the pantomime. He expected to wait thirty minutes or more, but within a minute, the outside door opened, and Major Yarborough stepped in for the first time in a week.

“Sergeant,” the major said as he took a seat opposite Rev. “How’re you holding up?”

“I’m alive, so there’s that.”

“I know this has dragged on longer than we’d expected, but the D-4’s been playing hardball.”

“And we’re pawns, I know, sir.”

“Unfortunately, yes. But we might have a breakthrough.”

Rev gave the major a measured stare. The major thought they had a breakthrough five weeks ago, and yet, here he still was, “Prisoner Pelletier.”

“The Director Prime, with pressure from the Council, has agreed to pool resources with the Frisian Mantle to investigate what was recovered. This has already started, and it looks like it has paid dividends.”

Now that did surprise Rev. It was the logical thing to do, given that humanity was still at war with the Centaurs, but the varying human factions had never been accused of being too logical. The initial spirit of cooperation inside the asteroid had been dashed by the government, ignoring the military and the Torinth Accords, but evidently, they must have known it was too late to close the barn door. The horses had already escaped.

“So, all’s forgiven? We’re going to be released?” He was being sarcastic, but hope kept trying to break free of the cynic he’d become.

“I wish I could say that. But D-4 still contends that treason was committed and that whatever benefits the cooperation will provide is outweighed by letting the Frisians stay on par with us in an after-Centaur galaxy.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me, sir. We’re not even winning this damn war, and they’re worried about jockeying for position after the Centaurs?”

The major shook his head in agreement. “But given the new developments, the Commandant has authorized us to make an offer.”

“We have to make an offer? We can’t just go with what is right and what is wrong.”

The major gave Rev a how-naive look. “You know better than that, Sergeant. That’s not how things work.”

“Yes, sir, but that’s how they should work. But what is this offer?”

“Most of the Marines and the corpsman will get a Page 11 and be put back on full duty.”

A Page 11 was an administrative entry into a Marine’s record that really didn’t mean much unless too many of them piled up. But Rev didn’t need to be a genius to know that he wasn’t included in the “most” category.

“Sergeant Nix’s selection for promotion to staff sergeant is being rescinded.”

“Nix? But he didn’t have anything to do with this.”

The major shrugged and said, “He was senior to you. Staff Sergeant Delacrie will be reduced a rank and removed from the Raiders, back to an admin billet.”

Rev just shook his head. He wasn’t a huge fan of the team leader when he took over, but the man had grown into the position.

“Second Lieutenant Harisa is losing her commission and will become a MilDes Ninety-nine.”

Rev looked at the major in shock at that one. He opened his mouth to say something, to object, but his mind was blank. Finally, he managed to say, “Sir, I’ve already taken the blame. Just put in on me. But this? For something they didn’t do?”

“I think you know why, Sergeant. You’re, shall we say, in a particular position, and for the Marines to keep you in that position, well, heads have to roll, and it’s hitting those senior to you.”

“Just because I have a damned—”

“Sergeant! Yes, you’ve shown a damned fine skill in killing tin-asses.”

“Others have that, uh . . . skill.”

“The commandant has determined that you are needed in your present billet.”

“And how will I be allowed to stay with my team?”

“You’ll lose a rank.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Rev knew the decision on the asteroid had been his, and he’d do it again in a heartbeat. He knew it had been the right thing to do. But if someone had to take the fall, it should be him. Not Nix, not Delacrie, and certainly not the lieutenant, at least not to what they were going to do to them.

Rev was angry. The OD and the rest of D-4 had to know about his IBHU. It wasn’t something that could be hidden from the rest of the decision-makers. Maybe some of the agents—and even keeping it from them was ridiculous—but not those on top. The commandant just had to confront the D-4 director, lay down the law, and not play these games.

On a personal level, getting busted to corporal was nothing. Once he realized he was in trouble, he’d expected much worse. And in his mind, the guilt for what was happening to the other three was worse.

“So, why are you telling me this? I don’t have a say in what you do.”

“Because the D-4 are going to want assurances that you, and the others, accept this.”

“You’re asking me to accept my punishment? I didn’t know you gave criminals that choice,” he said with a snort of disdain.

“There’s been a . . . small development. Somehow, in conjunction with the announcements that the Union and the Frisians are toning down the animosity and suspicion and are back to being best buddies, there has been a story making the rounds in the undernet of a small group of Marines and another of Frisians who refused to let war break out. A feel-good story, if you will. And there is some concern that some of you might decide to go public and confirm the events.”

“I’m assuming that whatever was recovered is still classified? So, no one could talk about it.”

The major said nothing.

“And how did this rumor get started?”

“Don’t know. Probably some non-combat Marine, like a public affairs officer, inadvertently said something before realizing it wasn’t for public release.”

“Or a lawyer.”

“Possibly, sure. Could be,” the staff judge advocate major said.

Rev stared into the major’s eyes, but they weren’t revealing anything. It was pretty convenient, though, that this happened when the Corps needed leverage.

“I can say from my part, I would never go to the public. I can’t speak for the others.”

“Fair enough.”

“So, when would this take place?”

“Not today. Not tomorrow. It depends on how things go between the two agencies. Officially, this is now D-3 to D-4, and not the Marine Corps. D-6 is also involved, but they are not taking sides that we can tell.”

D-3, Defense, and D-4, Internal Security, had also had something of a competitive relationship, and with the war, D-3 had moved into a position of more importance and priority in budgets. Rev understood how the D-4 might have thought working with Centaur tech might raise their priority higher, only to have that knocked down again when the Frisians joined the effort. D-6 was Science, which incorporated research and development. They probably just wanted to have as little fuss as possible so they could do their thing.

“Lieutenant Harisa is a done deal, however. The paperwork is already in process.”

“And if D-4 doesn’t agree with this?”

“For Harisa? Won’t make any difference. The commandant decided that before all this came up. He holds officers to a different standard. But for you? Then it’s back to the drawing board. But I have a feeling we’re going to get this accepted. So, a week, maybe two, and you could be back with your platoon.”

Rev was numb. His anger still smoldered, waiting for that trickle of oxygen that would burst it into flames again, but all of this was a lot to take in. He shouldn’t be in any trouble in the first place, but he was going to get off easier than expected. Nix, Delacrie, and Lieutenant Harisa were going to get hit harder. All for inter-directorate politics.

He was a Marine, one who’d been augmented to be able to kill Centaurs. They all were Marines, all with that same job. That’s what they should be doing, not sitting on their asses in a D-4 prison.

14

“Get up. You’re out of here,” the guard Rev called Cow Eyes told him, kicking his feet.

Rev yawned, stretched, and sat up. “Why? What’s going on?”

“You’re leaving. That’s what’s going on.”

That’s quicker than I expected.

Rev had only spoken with Major Yarborough the previous day, and he’d been told this could take a week or more to get through the system. He looked around the cell. There was a clean set of overalls folded on the chair, ready for the next day, but nothing else.

“Do I get my uniform back? And how about my arm?”

He didn’t have to specify which arm. D-4 had to know all about the IBHU program. Heck, there were OD agents at the asteroid. But they were all playing this game, refusing to acknowledge what they knew or revealing information. “Arm,” in this context, was his social arm.

This is all so stupid.

“You’ll get them when you leave the facility.”

With a shrug, he followed Cow Eyes out of the cell. He didn’t bother to look back. They walked down the passage and into a room that had been locked before but was now acting as an issuing center. About a dozen members of the two teams were already there, picking up their uniforms, shucking their prison overalls, and changing.

Rev didn’t need the nametag to find his issue. His social arm on top was all he needed. He snapped the arm in and picked up his utility blouse . . . and stopped. Two corporal’s chevrons drew in and captured his eyes. He reached up and ran a finger over them.

He’d accepted the demotion, but it had been an abstract at the time. Seeing the chevrons, it was now real.

“That sucks, Rev,” Tomiko said as she stepped up beside him.

“Fuck it. It’s not as bad as Nix and Delacrie. Give me a year, and I’ll have my sergeant’s stripes back.”

Rev had told her about it the evening before and what was going to happen to Nix, Delacrie, and him, but he’d held back on Lieutenant Harisa for reasons he didn’t quite understand.

“Still sucks,” Tomiko said.

He dropped his prison oranges and put on the utilities. Even with the corporal’s chevrons, it felt good to be back in uniform, with the PUMC across his pocket.

Rev kept looking up as the rest of them were escorted in, but the lieutenant never showed. It looked like she’d already been yanked from the Raiders. They hadn’t even let her say goodbye.

Fair winds and following seas, Lieutenant. You’re a good Marine.

There were a few backslaps and some handshaking as the Marines acknowledged the fact that they were getting out and going home. It was a subdued lot, however, without real celebration.

The group milled around wondering what was next when a gunnery sergeant in dress Charlies, the more informal version of the dress uniform, and a dead give-away that he worked in an office, strode into the room.

“Alright, Marines,” he said in a weak facsimile of a DI’s gravelly voice. “I need all of you to follow me. We’re holding up a ship for you to get you back to your home.”

“After all this shit, we really don’t get to see the capital?” Tomiko whispered. “Figures.”

“Why the sudden rush, Gunny?” Now-sergeant Delacrie asked. “I mean, we’re not objecting, but we were told getting us out was going to take some time.”

“The ODs didn’t tell you?”

“Tell us what?”

“The reason your release was expedited is that you’re needed back at your unit. The tin-asses have launched an all-fronts attack. This is going to be the big one, the one for all the marbles.”

15

An unfamiliar Master Gunnery Sergeant was waiting for them as they landed at the military spaceport at Camp Kamachi. He ushered them into a waiting hoverbus for the trip back to Nguyen.

Each of them was scanned at the gate before the bus was allowed to continue, and once out of the camp, the master guns activated security screens for the windows, then he stood and faced the Marines. Neither tall nor short, he could have passed for an average guy before he’d been augmented. But there was something more about the man than just his Raider augments. He had that weathered leather look that told of a life full of the extremes. He was not a person to be reckoned with.

Rev thought he knew most of the Raider master sergeants in the two divisions on the Gold Continent, which was the same rank as a sergeant major, but he didn’t recognize the man.

“I am Master Gunnery Sergeant Kauri Tuala, just transferred in from the Double Nickel division.”

Tomiko nudged Rev hard with her knee. The PUMC’s Fifty-fifth division, the Double Nickels, was one of the most storied Marine divisions in existence. Based out of Apia, which was one of the charter worlds of the Union, it was Regular Corps, unlike the provincial corps such as the New Hope Marines.

But what was a regular Marine master sergeant, from the Fifty-fifth, at that, doing meeting them at the spaceport?

“I am fully aware of what you have gone through since you last left New Hope. I am aware of the pressures you may have felt, and I’m aware of how that might have affected your choices and actions.

“But that is in the past. There isn’t time for recriminations and endless hotwashes to determine what went wrong and how that could have been avoided. The tin-asses have launched a galaxy-wide assault, and we’ve already lost worlds and possibly billions of lives.”

Billions?

Rev had heard the gunny on New Mars, but he’d no idea things were this bad.

“We’re still relatively untouched for the moment, but that is not expected to last. But what that has done is given us a short time to prepare. We’ll be deploying and thrust into the fight in eight days.”

Which was actually several days longer than Rev had thought they might have. He half-expected to immediately board a warship upon arriving back home. He also noted the master guns’ use of the word “we.” He wasn’t sure if that was the grand “we” as in the division, or was that the “we” as in the platoon, and he wasn’t sure he was going to like finding out the answer.

“We don’t have much time, but we’re trained to react at a moment’s notice, and I fully expect that all of you will rise to the occasion.”

“Master Guns, are you now part of the platoon?” Staff Sergeant Khumalo asked, something that was by now on everybody’s mind.

The senior enlisted Marine took a moment to sweep his penetrating gaze throughout the bus, stopping to bore into Rev, before answering. “For reasons I’m not privy to, you here on New Hope were chosen to test out a new weapons system that greatly increases the lethality of the individual Marine. Like I said, why New Hope? I haven’t the foggiest. But the decision was made.

“During your past deployment, things didn’t go exactly as ordered, and so the Sector CG, General Isiah, asked me personally to come to this platoon. I’m the new platoon sergeant. Master Sergeant Thapa will be moving to take over Second Team with the departure of its former commander.”

Rev wasn’t sure he liked having a foreigner waltz in and take charge, especially with the inference that the platoon had poor leadership, maybe related to the fact that they were a provincial corps, and he was the new sheriff in town to clean up the mess, but as platoon sergeant, the team might be able to stay out of his crosshairs.

“Additionally, you all should know by now that Sergeant Delacrie has been reassigned.”

Rev resisted turning to look to where the sergeant had taken a seat in the back of the bus.

“So, with that being the case, I’ll be dual-hatted. Aside from my duties as platoon sergeant, I’ll be taking over Third Team.”

* * *

“Hey, Rev, the master guns wants to see you ASAP,” Hussein told him.

Rev sighed but said, “In a few minutes. I need to run some checks on Pashu.”

“He seemed pissed that you disappeared right after we got here.”

“He’ll get over it.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Daryll asked.

“It’s nothing. Let’s finish up here.”

Daryll guided the hoist, moving Pashu to the test cradle.

“I really think he means now, Rev.”

The base was a mass of activity, and Rev hadn’t waited to ask for permission once the bus dropped them off at the barracks. He’d called Daryll who’d come and picked up the crated Pashu to take to the IMBU armory. They’d just gotten her out of the crate when Hussein had tracked him down.

“Can’t you hang out for twenty minutes and then say you found me?”

“Nothing doing. I don’t want to get on his bad side, and for all I know, he’s pulling some shit right now to track me.”

“It’s OK, Rev. I’ll run her through her tests. If anything’s up, I’ll let you know.

Rev hesitated, but if there was anyone he trusted with Pashu, it was the civilian tech. “OK, I’ll check back later.”

He followed Hussein out of the armory and headed back to the barracks. “What’s he like, Hus-man?” he asked.

“The master guns? Don’t really know yet. Hard, for sure. And kinda full of himself, you know, being a Double Nickel and all. So much higher on the food chain than us mere provincial hicks.”

Which Rev had already figured out. But he’d been hoping that Hussein would have had some better insight.

“He’s in the platoon sergeant’s office. Good luck,” Hussein said.

“Yeah, thanks.”

It was getting late, but people were out and about. Several of the First and Fourth Team Marines shouted out a “welcome back” when they spotted him, and Rev waved, but his attention was on the platoon office doors near the end of the passage.

Rev was just about to step in when Captain Sauer, the Delta company commander stepped out of his office at the very end, spotted Rev, and motioned him over to shake hands.

“Glad to see you back. I was really upset with what the D-4 assholes were doing to you. I’ve already talked to Captain Omestori, so I know a little of what went on, but do you have a minute? I’d like to hear your take on how things went down.”

Rev glanced at the platoon door, then looked back at the captain. “I’d love to, sir, but I’m supposed to be seeing the new master guns.”

Please tell me that you’re overriding that order. Please?

The captain actually blanched, as hard as that was to imagine. The mustang captain, an infantry officer with more than ten campaigns under his belt, blanched.

“Oh, well, you’d better see him, I guess. But later, when you’ve got a moment, come on back, you hear? I really want to hear your take.”

“Aye-aye, sir. Will do.”

Withholding a sigh, Rev opened the hatch and stepped into the outer office. He crossed to the platoon sergeant’s office, knocked on the doorsill, and said, “Master Guns, Serg—uh, Corporal Pelletier reporting as ordered.”

The master guns looked up from his pad and told him to come in and close the hatch. He pointed at one of the chairs. “Take a seat, Corporal.”

He deliberately closed his pad, set it neatly in front of him, and aligned it with the front of the desk before he carefully folded his hands together and then caught Rev’s eyes.

“Corporal Pelletier, I’ve gone over your actions at the tin-ass asteroid. You did what you thought you had to do, and not being on the scene, I am not going to second-guess you. Officially, that is.

“Would I have made the same decisions? No, I don’t think so. But I have the advantage of having far more experience than you have. So, to put your mind at ease, as far as I am concerned, and as far as the commandant himself is concerned, you have been demoted to corporal, and with that, the matter is over and done with.”

Rev started to say that he was demoted to appease D-4, not because he’d done anything wrong, and that he wouldn’t change any of his actions, but he realized that for the moment, at least, it would be better to just sit and say nothing.

“However . . .”

Crap. Here it comes.

“. . .the mere fact that you were in the position to make that kind of decision is a travesty. You were a conscript sergeant, for God’s sake, with less than six years in service.”

Rev bristled at the “conscript.” He hadn’t heard that term for a couple of years, and he didn’t appreciate it now.

“Lieutenant Harisa should never have let you make decisions. And if not her, then Staff Sergeant Delacrie should have known better.”

“Master Gunnery Sergeant, everyone knew I was supposed to be the point of main effort. It was important that I deploy my IBHU as I best saw fit. Lieutenant Harisa knew that.”

“Sweet Saint Leopoldina’s immaculate butt, Corporal, you’re going to have to get off your high horse. You are nothing special, no matter what fairy dust the program heads have been blowing up your ass. You’re a Marine, nothing more, nothing less. You have a powerful weapon in that arm the Corps has given to you, but it isn’t as powerful as a tank, for example. Do you see tankers strutting around giving orders to their superiors because they’ve got bigger guns? No, because it just doesn’t work that way.”

“But—” Rev started to try and tell him that the organization had come from on high, not from Lieutenant Harisa abdicating her authority.

“But nothing,” the master guns almost snarled. “She let you make command decisions, thereby proving that she was not officer material. And so, she lost her bars. But let me tell you something, Corporal. Those days are gone. From now on, you are not out of the chain of command. You are just another member of your team. Understand?”

Rev was seething. Not because of being just another member of the team. That was meaningless to him. But to hear the lieutenant and staff sergeant get slammed like that. The master guns might be going by the book, but things had been different, and they all had been simply following orders.

“Understand, Master Gunnery Sergeant.”

“Very well. Then this is all in the past, forgotten. We’ll look to the future and how we can defeat the tin-asses.”

“Is that all, Master Gunnery Sergeant?”

“That’s all. No. Wait. Where the hell were you after we arrived? You were the first person on my list to speak to, and you were nowhere to be seen.”

“My IBHU. It had been crated up without any maintenance since the asteroid. I wanted to make sure it was operational.”

The master guns’ glare softened, and he gave a grudging nod. “At least you know what’s important. I can’t fault you for wanting to take care of your weapon first.” He picked up his pad and powered the screen back up. “You’re dismissed.”

Rev held it together as he walked down the passage, nodding at the greetings. It wasn’t until he was out the front hatch and into the night air that he clenched his fists, raised his head to the sky, and screamed out his frustration.

Without even considering Centaurs on the rampage, things were going to be rather hot in the First Raider Platoon.

16

“Moving like that’s going to get you killed, P4. You have to put some effort into it!” Rev shouted across the range.

“But I’m trying, Corporal!” the former MilDes Ninety-nine whined.

“Trying ain’t good enough! How many times do I have to tell you that? If you can’t survive the range, then how the hell do you expect to survive a real tin-ass?”

Rev had met quite a few Ninety-nines while in the Marines, and, despite the tendency to stick with other Direct Combat Marines, he’d downed more than a few beers with them. Except for a close decision back when he was a recruit, he could have been in their ranks. From those he got to know, it was rarely apparent why they’d been relegated to the bottom of the Marine Corps ladder.

Not so with Private Preston Porter Pierson, who Rev had immediately christened P4. Soft, unfocussed, and lacking drive, he wasn’t Marine material. Rev didn’t consider him even Ninety-nine material. But the Marine Corps, in its infinite wisdom, had not only shifted him to Direct Combat but had given him his own IBHU.

And now, he had only three more days to whip the private into some degree of proficiency. With the Centaur mass incursion, there just wasn’t any more time, and if the other IBHU trainees could work their arms, then they were jerked out of the pipeline and sent to front-line units. Rev wasn’t sure if he could get Pierson into adequate shape if he had a year.

“Wheng, show him how to do it.”

“I’m on it, Corporal!”

Lance Corporal Sisi Wheng, on the other hand, could be up to the task. Her control needed work, but she was willing and driven, two good combinations. And she’d been a combat engineer when a training accident took her hand, so she’d already been Direct Combat.

As soon as she reached the starting position, Rev signaled to the range NCOIC to start the target. The simulated paladin was a sight better than the one he’d used on the same range to demonstrate Pashu’s capabilities what seemed so long ago. It appeared from the right side of Range 401, speeding across the open area. Wheng immediately took off, trying to head it off, which was a mistake as the angle meant the paladin had less of an arc to traverse its pedestal.

Just when he thought she was dead meat, she darted to the inside, and the paladin’s shot missed her. She managed three more jukes and got to within seventy-four meters before the paladin nailed her. It was an angry and embarrassed young Marine who came back to the bleachers, vowing to do better next time.

Pierson, on the other hand, was sitting, staring up into the sky at who knows what. Rev just shook his head. He could only do so much with the raw material given to him and the extremely short time window.

“OK, you two. Let’s look at your last runs and dissect them to see what went wrong. Then we’re going to do it again, and again, and yet again until you get it right.”

Wheng leaned forward in anticipation as the NCOIC powered up the holopad. Pierson’s shoulders slumped in disappointment.

Rev’s stare hardened. He was going to get lazy bastard into shape or kill him trying.

Wheng had actually survived twice when Rev called the training to a halt for the evening. Pierson hadn’t even come close, and the worst thing was he didn’t seem to care. Rev made a note to himself to talk to the captain about the situation and see if anything could be done. It seemed a waste to spend all that money on an IBHU only to have it destroyed, and it certainly wasn’t fair to try and force the square Pierson into a round Direct Combat hole. It was going to get Pierson killed along with any other Marine who depended on him.

* * *

“Because you need to know how to take care of your IBHU. You’re not always going to have Daryll here with you. That’s why.” Rev said with an exasperated sigh.

Daryll just smiled as he went through his checks.

“But I can just get Boxer to run the checks,” Pierson said.

“After you put him on. Your battle buddy can’t do much when your IBHU’s on the rack.

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.” Well, you should have instead of challenging me.

“So, I suggest you get off that stool and come here to watch what Daryll’s doing.”

As more IBHU Marines were hitting the fleet, armorers were being trained up to take over the maintenance of the weapons. But Rev planned to keep Daryll as long as he could. He’d built up a strong relationship with the man, and civilian or not, he trusted him more than a Marine who was still learning about the system.

Pierson stepped up beside Daryll and started watching. It wasn’t that the Marine was fighting authority. He just seemed to want to know the why of whatever he was told. Rev could understand that to an extent. But not for every little thing. Sometimes, a Marine just had to salute smartly and march on.

Rev started to take a seat by Wheng when their was a rap on the door. With Daryll busy, Rev went to see who it was.

“There you are,” a pissed-looking Nix said. “Been looking all over for you. The master guns wants to see you in the company office.”

“Of course, he does. Well, I’ll head over as soon as we’re done.”

“You think I’ve been running all over the base to find you if he wanted to wait for you? He wants you ASAP.”

He resisted rolling his eyes and said, “OK, OK. I ‘m on my way.”

“Just get over there, OK? I’ve got better things to do with my time than tracking you down.”

Why didn’t you just call me? he thought as Nix spun around and strode off, looking none too happy.

He closed the door and returned to the others. “Hey, Daryll, my overlord wants to see me.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got it. I’ll zap you the readings.”

“Both of you stay here until your IBHUs are upchecked, then head back and get some chow. I want to see you at twenty-hundred in the conference room for another sweat session on maneuver angles. You both better be ready for it.”

He left the armory and headed back, wondering what it was this time. It had only been two days, and the new team leader/platoon sergeant hadn’t been as raging an asshole as Rev had feared, but he was constantly micromanaging, always getting involved. And why did he have Nix, a senior sergeant, acting as a gofer tracking Rev down? And it wasn’t as if there was something like a quantphone, right?”

Rev pulled out his and checked for messages.

Brilliant, there, Reverent. You forgot to turn it on.

Range rules were that no phones were allowed to be turned on. Evidently, once, possibly years ago, an incoming call somehow set off some ordnance, and now, in typical Marine Corps fashion, all civilian phones had to be turned off while within fifty meters of a live range.

“Why didn’t you remember to tell me to turn my phone back on?”

<Because you have never directed me to do so.>

“Well, I’m directing you now.”

After all this time, Rev would have expected to figure out how to use his battle buddy by now, but little things like this kept slipping through the cracks. As a fount of knowledge, he was great. For telling jokes, as bad as they were, he was OK. But his ability to volunteer information or assistance was somewhat hit or miss.

Rev powered up his phone, and there were three missed messages, two from Nix and one from the master guns.

Oh, well. Not much I can do about that now.

Now he knew why Nix looked pissed off. Rev would have felt the same if the roles had been reversed.

Rev cut behind the chow hall and into the company area. As he was rounding the corner of the barracks, he said, “Afternoon, Lieuten—”

He stood in open-mouthed surprise as Private Harisa gave a wry grin and said, “Afternoon, Corporal Pelletier.”

“What . . .”

“My orders got changed due to the present circumstances. I was supposed to go to General Support Battalion, but they needed all experienced hands for high-priority units, and that includes the Raiders.”

Rev didn’t know how to react. She was still an officer in his eyes, but here she was, a private.

“So, you don’t have to become a MilDes Ninety-nine?”

“Oh, no. I’m still a Ninety-nine. It’s already done. So, after we’re done here, I’m supposed to go back to the battalion.”

“That’s . . . that sucks, ma’am.”

“No more ma’am for me, I’m afraid.” Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes weren’t.

“But why back here to the platoon?” Rev asked.

“You see any other Raider platoons in the regiment, Corporal? And how many of us have worked with you IBHU Marines?”

“No, but this sucks.”

“If I’m going into combat, I’d rather go with Marines I trust, so it isn’t so bad.”

Brave words, but Rev couldn’t imagine it. He was still trying to get used to being a corporal in the team now, but that was nothing compared to Private Harisa.

“It’ll be fine, Corporal Pelletier.”

“Rev. Call me Rev.”

Non-rates didn’t call NCOs by their first name, but non-rates weren’t officers a few weeks ago.

“I didn’t get the chance on New Mars to talk to you. But I wanted to say that you got screwed over.”

“It is what it is. I was in command, and I didn’t follow my orders.”

“But I was the one who made the decision. Not you.”

“No. You acted. I could have stepped in.”

“But the Torinth Accords. I’d already made the deal,” Rev said, not letting go.

“And as the colonel in charge of my case said, if you were that untrustworthy, then I should have been there with you and not back with my team.”

To be called untrustworthy took Rev aback, and she must have seen the shock on his face because she said, “His words, not mine.

“Look, Corporal, I knew what I was doing, and I knew the potential consequences, but even if I’d been with you, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.”

Rev scrunched up his brows as he digested that. “But if you knew you’d get in trouble, then why didn’t you try to stop me?”

She smiled, and this time it seemed genuine. “Because what you decided, that was the right thing to do, of course.”

Rev hadn’t thought of the personal consequences at the time. He’d just been convinced that he was right and everyone else would agree. It had been an easy decision for him to make. But Harisa had understood that she was putting her career on the line, and she still went along with him.

That was true courage and showed the temper of her steel.

He was at a loss for words, so it was almost a relief when his phone buzzed, even when he saw it was his team leader.

“I’m right outside, Master Guns. I’ll be there in a minute.”

He turned back to the private. “I still think it sucks big time. You shouldn’t have been demoted.”

“Life sucks, and then you die. What are you going to do?”

“Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you around.”

Trite, but he was feeling guilty and was at a loss for words.

He turned around and hurried to the barracks entrance. No one was avoiding his eyes as he walked down the passage to the company offices, so he didn’t think he was in big trouble, but with so little time until they shipped out, any interruption like this was one too many.

Rev opened the hatch into the office. The master guns was in the outer office, speaking to an unfamiliar gunny. “Master Gunnery Sergeant, sorry I’m late.”

“Corporal Pelletier, glad you could make time in your busy day to see me. Go in and wait for me while I finish up here.”

Rev tried to withhold the wince at his tone and entered the office. The master guns had already decorated it with plaques, 2D photos, and holos, and that seemed to indicate that he was planning on the long-haul here.

Rev didn’t sit down but started to look at the master guns’ I-Love-Me wall. Like all such walls, there were the unit plaques, a dozen from mostly infantry units, but one from Marine Headquarters on New Mars. There were images of him as a slightly younger Marine at his promotion to gunnery sergeant, and there were no less than four of him with previous commandants and several of him posing with what looked like infantry squads, out in the field. A holo ran a loop, and as Rev leaned forward, he was surprised to see it was of the master guns, as a sergeant, receiving a Gold Nova from a four-star general.

Rev looked over to the medal citations. There were quite a few of them. Along with the Gold Nova, the second-highest Union award for valor, were three Silver Novas and a host of lesser awards. Rev didn’t want to be impressed with the master guns, but he was.

In the center of the same wall was a single 2D image, except Rev couldn’t tell which was the master guns. Two young Marines were smiling, arms around each other’s shoulders in a desert world, three moons stacked in the sky behind them. Both were shirtless with their utility trousers on. And both were mirror images for each other.

The master gunnery sergeant entered the office, and Rev jumped, feeling guilty for some reason. The platoon sergeant pointed at the chair, and Rev sat.

“Are you a twin?” he asked.

Stupid question, Reverent. Of course, he’s a twin.

“That’s my brother,” the master guns said in a subdued voice. “Enlisted on our eighteenth birthday.”

The thought of two Master Gunnery Sergeant Tualas was just a little too hard to swallow at the moment. One was more than enough.

“Where is he now?”

The master guns looked at Rev for a moment with dead eyes and said, “In the family plot on Apia. KIA the day after that picture.”

Shit! Way to go.

“Sorry,” Rev said, before he just shut up, wishing they could just move on. Evidently, the master guns felt the same.”

“There is a move to transfer you, Pierson, and Wheng to the infantry.”

You could have knocked Rev over with a feather. Never in a million years would he have expected to hear that.

“But . . . but, why? I’m a Raider.”

The master guns shrugged and said, “Raiders don’t kill Centaurs. It’s not their mission.”

“But I’ve killed them, even before my IBHU.”

That seemed to take the master guns by surprise, and Rev wondered how much he’d been briefed on the Marines in his command.

“On Preacher Rolls.”

“And how did you do that? With a Yellowjacket?”

Which was a logical conclusion. The Yellowjackets were the infantry’s prime weapon before the Morays really hit the fleet, and while they weren’t overly effective against Centaur armor, they could, if the Gods of War smiled down upon them, take a riever, or possibly even a paladin, out.

“It was too close. I had to use a Phoenix.”

The master gunnery sergeant’s eyes got wide, and he asked, “With a Phoenix? You melted one?”

“Yes, Master Guns. It was suppressed after we got back. The brass didn’t want to highlight how we got our asses handed to us. But you can ask Sergeant Reiser or Sergeant Nix if you don’t believe me. They were there.”

“You’re a Marine NCO. Of course, I believe you. And later, I’d like to hear the details. But even if you managed to kill a . . . what kind of tin-ass?”

“A paladin.”

The master guns raised his eyebrows and then said, “Even if you managed to drop a paladin with a Phoenix, the fact of the matter is that the mission of the Raiders isn’t to kill tin-asses. If it were, you’d be armed for that. Your M-49 main weapon is effective against drones and such, but not against tin-asses in their armor. Raiders conduct recon, they attack infrastructure, they take out weapons systems.

“You, however, have been augmented with your IBHU to become a Centaur-killer. So, the reasoning is, you should not be a Raider.”

“What . . . where do they say I should be?”

“With the infantry.”

“The infantry aren’t tin-ass killers, either,” he blurted out, even knowing the master guns was career infantry.

“They are more than Raiders and recon are. The grenadiers and missileers are armed to kill them,” the platoon sergeant said more than a little defensively.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He needed the master guns on his side. He couldn’t afford to antagonize him.

“Punch, help me. Give me something.”

<You have to be more specific. What do you want me to give you?>

“I need to prove that this is a bad idea.”

<From what he’s said, moving you is the logical course of action.>

Rev shook off his battle buddy’s comment. The thought of leaving the team had him almost in panic mode. But he couldn’t just say he didn’t want to move. He had to have a reason.

He leaned forward in his chair, almost to the edge of the master guns’ desk, and said, “Teamwork is vital in killing a tin-ass. You can’t just go it alone. And when are we lifting ship? Four days? Five days?”

“About that, most likely.”

“You take me out of the Raiders, and I won’t have time to develop the rapport wherever they send me. I’ll be up shit creek without a paddle.”

Don’t make it personal. Make it the mission.

“I mean, I won’t be as effective in killing tin-asses, and that means more will be left to fight the tanks, the mech, the infantry.”

The master guns just sat there, looking at Rev, who couldn’t begin to unravel what he was thinking.

“What about Lance Corporal Wheng and Private Pierson? They haven’t had time to develop much of a rapport.”

Which was true, but Rev wasn’t going to admit that. “Whatever time I’ve had to work with them, and they with their teams, is more than they’d get anywhere else,” he said.

“And does it really matter where I’m at? Where they’re at, if that’s where we can be the most effective? I’m just a Marine with a weapon, like you told me the other night. And if the Raiders are the ones who are employing me, then the Raiders are Centaur-killers, right? Like infantry with Morays. Like me with a Phoenix.”

“So, you’re saying that this is a bad idea?”

“Yes, Master Guns. I just want what’s best for the mission, and moving me isn’t that.”

The stern look faded from the master guns’ face. “Which is exactly what I told them you’d say.”

“Excuse me?”

“Colonel Destafney wanted to know your opinion on this, so he told the sergeant major, who then told me to find out what you thought. I told the sergeant major that you were a Marine, and of course, you’d want to stay with your unit, but I had to ask you.”

“So, you agree?”

“It wasn’t up to me to agree or not. The colonel wanted your opinion, not mine.”

“So, what now? Are they going to pull me?”

“I doubt it. Like you said, there’s no time. Likely some paper pusher thought it would be a good idea, not thinking about the timeline.”

Rev felt a rush of relief, then some embarrassment at his reaction to the concept. He’d told the master guns that it didn’t matter where he was, and that was true. If he’d be more effective as an infantry grunt, then that’s where he should be, no matter if he really wanted to stay with the team.

“But speaking of Wheng and Pierson, how are they progressing?” the master guns asked.

The abrupt change of course took Rev off-guard, and he said, “Wheng shows promise. She’s raw but a good Marine. Pierson is a basket case. In fact, I was going to ask you if I could see Captain Omestori about keeping Pierson back when we ship out.”

“No.”

“Master Guns?”

“No. You won’t see the captain about that.”

That wasn’t the response Rev expected.

“But he’s a liability. He’ll get killed, and he’ll endanger his team.”

“Well, then, you’ve got another couple of days to make sure he isn’t a liability. That’s your job, right?”

“But—"

“But nothing. Didn’t you just tell me that the mission is paramount?”

“Uh . . . yes?”

“So, complete the mission. We’re going to need all of our assets if we are going to come out of what’s heading our way with our skin intact.”

It took a moment, but Rev realized that the platoon sergeant was right. Rev was right to be concerned with Pierson, but sometimes, you just had to play with the cards you were dealt.

“Right, Master Guns. I’ll get him ready.”

“You do that. Anything else?”

“No.”

“Then I suggest you get going.”

Rev stood and started to leave when the master guns said, “And Corporal. Don’t sell Private Pierson short. There’s a Marine in everyone. You just have to uncover him.”

Rev stood there for a moment and nodded before continuing out. The master guns might be right, but with Pierson, the Marine was deep, deep inside, and Rev was going to have to do a lot of digging to uncover him.

17

Rev wasn’t even given two full days to whip Pierson into shape. The regiment had been told they’d be shipping out on the fourteenth, but on the tenth, the strategic situation had changed. Beacon, one of the eighteen charter worlds, had been invaded, and New Mars was gathering forces to take it back. The two New Hope divisions were given twelve hours to be off the planet and on their way.

Understandably, the base turned into a madhouse. Supplies, weapons, and ordnance had already been partially staged, but not enough was ready. Breaking all sorts of regulations, civilians were brought onto the base to help speed up the process.

Rev knew the logistics were going to be tough, but as light infantry, all the Raiders had to do was draw their weapons and ordnance and pack their kits. That would take an hour, maybe two. So that gave him almost ten hours of training, and he wasn’t going to waste it.

He tracked down the team leader who was arguing with a combat support staff sergeant, and the staff sergeant wasn’t backing down over whatever was the bone of contention. Rev didn’t wait for him to finish.

“Master Guns, I need to take Wheng and Pierson back to the range. I figure I can get ten hours in and still make the load out.”

The master guns spun around in exasperation, and Rev thought he was going to explode on him, but the team leader took control of himself and said, “That’s cutting it too close. I’ll give you six hours. Get Sergeant Philia to lock on a range. You’re going to have to hoof it out, though. No way you’re getting transport.”

“And I need some bodies, too. They really need to work on coordination.”

The team leader hesitated as he thought it through for a moment, then he said, “Take Third,” before turning back to the staff sergeant.

“I want First. Third and I know how to work together. Pierson and First need the time.”

The master guns slowly turned around, his eyes blazing, but Rev didn’t flinch, nor did he back down. “I really need First.”

The hesitation was longer this time as the team leader’s glare bored into Rev.

“Can you do it in the sims?”

Rev thought about it. He’d rather be out in the dirt, doing it for real, and the scenarios hadn’t really been developed for the IBHUs, but Rev was most concerned about coordinating maneuver. It would probably work.

“I think so. And they can leave their IBHUs to get crated up. I just need the bodies.”

“Do it. I’ll give Gunny Sokolov the heads up. Six hours, Pelletier. Then I want you back here standing tall.”

That was at least one good thing about having the master guns as a team leader. He was also the platoon sergeant. And with no officer team leaders, what he said went.

That didn’t mean that the gunny was going to be happy about it, and once he found out that this was his idea, Rev might pay the price, but Pierson wasn’t ready. These six hours could make a difference when the rounds were flying.

* * *

“Back into the breach,” Tomiko said as the platoon sat on the tarmac in stick order.

Normally, when the Marines went anywhere, it was hurry up and wait. This time, though, things were moving quickly, and Rev was glad that the master guns had limited him to six hours in the sims. The training had gone well, and Gunny Sokolov had even thanked him for the session, but the two hours Rev had thought they’d individually need to pack out hadn’t considered the madhouse the base had been.

“Did you hear who we’re deploying with?” Tomiko asked.

“No. No time.”

Rev knew the teams were being split up. With the four IBHU Marines in the platoon, each team was going to be spread loaded, which meant being put on different ships to increase the chances that at least some would make it to Beacon. It was the same with the armor and mech, the two heavy hitters in any battle against the Centaurs.

“We’ve got Second Platoon Recon and Alpha Company.”

That perked Rev up. “Alpha? You mean—”

“Yep, Orpho is going to be with us for the transit.”

“Oh, great!” he managed to stumble out. He had been about to say Malaika would be on their ship, and now he felt guilty that was his first thought. Orpheus was part of their posse, together since the beginning.

“I don’t know how busy we’ll be, but it would be good to catch up a bit. I haven’t seen Orpho since before Alafia. I wonder what he’s gonna say about Pashu.”

Technically, the IBHU project was still classified, but by now, most of the Marines had heard of it, even if they didn’t know who the four IBHU Marines in the regiment were. But whether they knew or figured it out when they saw Rev with his social arm, he’d been stopped and asked about it several times around the base.

“Orpho will be curious, of course, but not like Cricket. He’ll want to know why the project head didn’t come to him for advice,” Rev said.

“No. He’ll want to know why the commandant didn’t ask for his opinion,” Tomiko said with a laugh.

Sitting in lines and the sun beating down on their heads made it harder to hold conversations, but the chatter was prevalent as they waited to be called to load the right shuttle going to the right ship.

One of the redpatchers shouted for Second Team to follow him. With all the modern technology on display, the sticks were playing ducklings following mama duck to get to the right shuttle.

“Have you talked to Harisa?” Rev asked Tomiko as he watched her bring up the rear of the stick.

“No. I don’t know what to say to her. That was a bad move, putting her in her old team.”

“I talked to her for a bit. She said it was because of us, I mean, McAnt, the two newbies, and me.”

“You mean you androids.”

Rev wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of objecting to that.

“Not only us, but that she was a Raider. I guess she’s augmented specifically for Raider missions.”

“Like that’s gonna matter as a fucking Nine-nine, right? Geez. They coulda stuck her in some infantry unit, maybe with Sixth Marines at Kamachi where they don’t know her. Sometimes, I wonder if our vaunted leaders know what the hell they’re doing. Or if they even care.”

Rev felt a little defensive over that. The Marine Corps did care. He’d seen that. But then, as he thought about it, sometimes, he had to agree with Tomiko. He’d seen it personally with his Platinum Nova recommendation.

It was a weird dichotomy. Marines can be loyal to a fault, and that’s what made Rev feel like he had a home. But at other times, it seemed as if the organization didn’t give a shit about the individual. He wasn’t sure how he could explain that.

“Third Team, First Raider Platoon. Follow me” another red-patcher said, coming to collect them.

“Hey, Doc,” Hussein shouted up to the corpsman. “You notice the Marines only need that little red patch on their trousers, but the Navy needs an entire yellow shirt to do the same thing? What does that tell you?”

“I don’t think you’d understand, Hus-man.”

“Try me.”

“It won’t do any good. When I was at corpsman school, they never gave me brain trauma classes like they did most of the others. I asked them why, and they told me that since I was going to be sent to the Marines, it would just be a waste of time.”

Rev laughed out loud. Corpsman might be Navy, but they had Marine hearts, and they weren’t going to take shit from anyone.

They followed the red-patcher past several shuttles until they reached their ride. The red-patcher wanded the shuttle and confirmed it was the right one but still asked the crew chief, “You heading for the LaSalle?”

“Sure am.”

“OK, load up,” the red-patcher told them, and the column trooped inside, each one getting wanded before their lead foot hit the ramp. After the master guns boarded, he checked his pad again before he gave the crew chief a thumbs-up.

Rev followed the rest inside and took his seat. Once they were seated, the cargo followed, and he was on edge until a familiar crate was trundled in and strapped in place. With Pashu aboard, he could relax. But he perked up when a white case with a red circle, the number 93 inside, was loaded. It looked like the same case the grenades they’d tested at the range came in. Marines nudged each other when they saw them, and Rev had to assume that these might be the real deal.

To save time, the crew chief gave them their safety brief while the rest of the cargo was being loaded. From the moment the first Marine stepped aboard until the back ramp closed was less than eight minutes, which was amazing all things considered. Without the civilian augments and the high degree of automation, there was no way they could be ready in that short amount of time.

Rev watched out the back as the ramp closed, cutting off his view of New Hope. There was a lurch as the shuttle lifted to take them to their ship.

Their mission to retake Beacon was underway.

18

The PUNS LaSalle was an N-Destroyer Escort, an unassuming, small cylinder that packed a serious punch—the “N” designation for null space. Its mission was to protect larger vessels, and most of the interior space was made up of weapons and its powerful Kaijung reactor. What it wasn’t designed for was to carry Marines. Between the LaSalle and the Alacrity, Rev missed the troop compartments of the Hobart Bay. But with the scope of the Centaur push, there simply weren’t the platforms needed to move Marines around, and if it was space-worthy and had a few cubby holes, the Navy was going to dual-use it to fight naval battles and transport Marines.

With the Raider and Recon platoons and Alpha Company, that was close to 270 Marines and corpsmen, so they needed more than a few cubbyholes. Any deck space became a place to lay down and sleep. The Raiders claimed the access grates running alongside the tube that made up the ship’s main weapon, an algorithmic twenty-giga-joule discontinuity cannon capable of firing in null space.

“Nice to know I don’t want kids with this thing radiating my cajones,” Hussein said, patting the tube.

“You’d have to find a willing partner to get that done, so no harm, no foul,” Tomiko said.

“You wound me, Miko. And here I was about to ask you to tie the knot with me.”

“In your dreams, in your dreams.”

“How about you, Carp?” he asked Lance Corporal Porter.

“I don’t swing that way, and even if I did, you’re hardly marriage material.”

Tomiko laughed and high-fived the other Marine. “You tell him, girl.”

Rev leaned back on his assault pack, crunched under the curve of the cannon tube, as he listened to the give-and-take. The trash-talk tended to increase as they were going into battle, and it always marveled him how the human brain reacted in this kind of situation. They may be heading to their death, but there was still the humor of military life.

Even if they might not have long in this plane of existence, nature still had to be answered, though. A harried-looking sailor entered the space, spotted them, and dropped off a case of D-rats.

Sergeant Nix shook his head and opened the case. “I kinda expected this. Not like they’ve got the facilities to feed us. Radić, Badem, pick your chow.

The Corps always fed the junior Marines first, and Rev perked up. All D-rats sucked, but some sucked more than others. And now, as a corporal, he’d just jumped in line.

“You better not leave me Rotted Dicks,” Tomiko told him.

“Would I do that, Sergeant?” he asked with mocked sincerity. The Trieste Sausage—Rotted Dick—was considered the worst D-rat of them all.

“You know you would, asshole.”

Rev still had to wait until the two PFCs, Strap, and Porter selected, and while the two D-rat creams of the crop, spaghetti and sloppy joes, were immediately taken, there were still some passable choices.

Rev made a show of hemming and hawing over his choice until Tomiko yelled,

“Just fucking choose already!”

He’d already known he was going to take the Fornician Stew, but it felt good to finally get over on her.

Call me an android, why don’t you?

She gave him a dirty look as he sat back down on the grating, and he said, “You know you love me, Miko.”

“Not when you’re screwing with my chow, big boy. All other times, sure.”

Rev wasn’t hungry yet, so he stowed his stew in his pack and stretched out his legs. He thought about trying to catch a few winks, but the master guns said he’d be back with their plan of the day, so he decided to wait.

“What do you think’s going to happen,” Badem asked, scooting over closer to Rev.

“What do I think? I think we’re going to kill some Centaurs,” Rev said with a snort. “What do you think’s going to happen.”

But then he saw the hurt look on the PFC’s face, and he changed his tone. “What I mean is that the tin-asses have invaded Beacon, and from the looks of it, they’re in control. That’s something like how many people? That’s—”

<Over nineteen billion. I can give you the exact number if you want.>

“That’s over nineteen billion people. Union citizens. We can’t let them down. So, we’re going to counterattack, all of us. Not just the regiment. Not just the New Hope Marines. But maybe half of the entire Corps.”

“I get that,” Strap said. “But how are we going to get down to the planet? They’re no pissers here, and I don’t think the tin-asses are going to just let us land in a shuttle. I thought Raiders, us and Recon, we’re supposed to be the first in?”

Which was a good question, and one for which Rev had an answer.

“The pissers can be launched from any Navy combatant. Once we get out of null space, they can cross-deck some to us. Don’t worry about that.”

“You think our mission will be like on Mistake?’ Nix asked.

Rev started to answer when it struck him. With Pashu, he’d become the center of gravity for the team from a tactical standpoint. But somewhere along the line, even demoted to corporal, he’d become the center of gravity from a relationship standpoint. He was no better informed, no smarter, no more qualified than Nix, Strap, or Tomiko, but they were looking to him for answers.

It was a humbling realization and one that suddenly became something of a burden. If the others were putting more weight upon his words, as it seemed to him, then he’d better make sure he was right.

And in this case, he didn’t know the answer. That was up to the planners at the regiment of division level, not to him.

He chose to dodge. “Whatever our orders are, we’ve been trained to succeed at them.

Surprisingly to him, there were a few nods, but no one pointed out that he hadn’t answered the question. The conversation continued, and while Rev might have been the focus, he tried to spread it out, letting others voice their opinions. It wasn’t until the master guns returned that the talk ceased.

The master gunnery sergeant spotted the box of chow and rummaged through it, pulling out a Rotted Dick, of all things, and sticking it in his cargo pocket before addressing the team.

“I just got through with the ship’s XO. We’re waiting for the rest of the fleet’s loadout before we move. We’ll be underway in about three hours, and in four, we’re going to conduct our jump into null space with every other ship in this fleet. And not just us. Sixteen fleets are scheduled for a simultaneous exit into the Beacon star system. We’re going to overwhelm the tin-asses with sheer numbers and force.”

Which meant that the Union knew it was going to suffer heavy losses. But that had been the course of the war so far. No major battle had been won without huge human losses. Rev’s first battle, the one on Preacher Rolls, had been barely a blip on the list of engagements since the Centaurs invaded, yet the Marine losses had been huge and the battle lost.

“The latest consensus is that the tin-asses are trying to win this war once and for all with a crushing defeat. Our job is to keep them from doing that. If we can hold them back, then we can worry about taking the fight to them.”

“Do we have a mission yet?” Rev asked.

“The regiment does. We don’t, yet. But the Three is working on that. We’ll have it as soon as the plan is refined.”

“Master Guns, that white case in the shuttle. Are those the grenades we tested? Are we finally getting the weapons they promised us at that brief in Kamachi?” Tomiko asked.

“We have some new weapons, like Corporal Pelletier, there.”

The regiment had four IBHU Marines. That was nothing, and they certainly weren’t the array of promised weapons.

“But this battle is going to be won by air, armor, mech, and naval gunfire. That’s the way it’s been since the beginning of the war. Infantry, recon, Raiders . . . we’re in support, doing what we can to help the heavy hitters. As far as that case we saw, well, you know as much as I do. More so. I wasn’t at the brief with you guys.

“I’ll keep trying to get more info, and I’ll pass that as soon as I get it. We don’t have any Marine-capable sims and no real space to train, so for the moment, stay here and out of the way. Get some rest, because, from the look of things, we may not get much once we get there.”

He grabbed his assault pack from where he’d stashed it, dragged it to the side, and sat on it as he pulled out his meal and popped the heat. He looked tired, and Rev wondered how much sleep the man had gotten over the last forty-eight hours. Probably not much.

“This looks like a tough one,” Tomiko said. “This is where the last five years boil down to.”

“Until the next fight,” Rev told her.

“You think we’ll be around for the next fight?”

“Hell, Miko. You’re too tough for the tin-asses to get.”

She snorted in half a laugh but didn’t say anything.

Rev looked in his meal and pulled out the blackberry cobbler, popped the tab that would reconstitute it. The stew itself wasn’t bad, but the cobbler was what made that particular meal.

“Hey,” he told Miko, and when she looked up, he tossed it to her.

“My favorite,” she said, as a smile spread across her face.

“I know.”

“I guess you do love me, Big Boy,” she said as she opened the packet and sniffed, her eyes closed in joy.

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

* * *

Rev didn’t like null space.

It wasn’t as if he felt different. His eyes saw the same way. His ears heard as they always did. His brain seemed to function normally. But he knew none of that was true, and that grated on him.

Rev didn’t totally grasp the science, but the very cells that built his body, the molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, quarks, were both scattered across space yet held together through a branch of quantum entanglement at the same time. It didn’t make sense, but the mathematicians swore it was true. Have faith, they said which made it sound like religion. Rev had nothing against religion, but when he went to church and sat in a pew, he didn’t have to pray that his body wouldn’t suddenly come apart.

It had been centuries since ships had accidents where the formulas that kept them and the passengers inside intact—virtually, that is—were corrupted, and Rev knew the chances he’d come out of null space as Reverent Pelletier, Corporal of Marines, were pretty high. But the thought of what was being done to his body was unsettling. So, on each of his trips into null space, he liked to either sleep or keep occupied with books or holos. The less he thought of his body stretching across real space—although the physicists said there was no corporeal intersection of null space and real space—the better he felt.

The idea that he was now in a ship designed to fight in null space added fuel to his discomfort. The discontinuity cannon was not the typical meson cannon other Navy ships carried. The cannon fired what were, in essence, formulas that sought to disrupt and cancel the enemy’s own formulas, ejecting the ship from null space. It was math attacking math. All taking place in an instant, it was a fight of calculations until either the attacking formula was expelled or the target ship’s formula collapsed, and with it, the ship and passengers emerged in real space, their molecules spread out over light-years. And being in null space, the weapons were not as constrained by the distances as real space energy weapons and torpedoes, so battle in null space took place almost instantaneously.

The LaSalle was vulnerable in real space with only self-defense torpedoes. But particularly in solar systems, the human navies had an advantage over the Centaur ships, so it didn’t matter much. In deep and null space, however, the Centaur ships had the advantage, and it was up to the LaSalle and ships like her to protect the other ships in the fleet. And that meant that if the Centaurs did attack, the ship, and the Marines inside her, would be rushing to the fight, not trying to get away.

There may not have been an accidental collapse of a ship in null space for centuries, but thousands of them had been lost in wars. And if the LaSalle entered battle during the transit, Rev and the rest would be helpless in determining their fate. Rev didn’t consider himself as a control freak, but it was always when he wasn’t in control that he was nervous, whether that was in a shuttle, in a ship, or descending in a pisser. Once he was on the ground where he could make a difference in deciding his fate, he was fine.

And right now, his life depended on a supersized, supercooled version of Punch, both for transit and to defeat the Centaurs if a battle broke out in null space.

“What are you reading?” Tomiko asked, coming over to sit by him.

“Uh . . .” he wasn’t really deep into the writing, and couldn’t remember the title, so he flipped to the front matter. “Centurion’s Burden. Roman historical fiction.”

“You know, just because we’re in the Marines doesn’t mean you have to read only military stuff. How about a romance or an interactive synch mystery?”

“I know. It was just the next one up in my queue. Got to keep my brain busy.”

“It’ll be fine. We know what we’re doing, Rev. We know how to kill Centaurs.”

Rev just grunted. He’d never told Tomiko that it was the null space that gave him the willies. If she wanted to think he was concerned about the fight on the other end, then he was good with that.

Tomiko reached up to pat the outer tube of the discontinuity cannon looming over them. It had to be nine meters in diameter, even if the actual projector was supposedly much, much smaller.

“You think we’ll see this baby light up?” Tomiko asked.

“Don’t tempt the gods of war, Miko.”

“I don’t know. Just curious. I still don’t know how the damned thing works.”

“You don’t have to understand it. The engineers who designed it do. But with the military using the lowest bidder, well, you do the math.”

“You can be such a cynic sometimes, Rev.”

“A realist.”

“Now I know why you’re reading about Romans. You’d love to be in a time where all you had to do was bash your enemies with a big-ass sword.”

Rev chuckled, tapped a finger against his temple, and said, “Yeah, maybe that’s why. Simpler times for simpler minds.”

“Not me. As small as I am, I’d be cut down in the first charge. No, give me technology to even the playing field.”

“Roman times or now, no one’s cutting you down, Miko. You’re the hardest ass I know.”

“Oh, you say the sweetest things.”

Before Rev could respond, the lights in the space flashed red, and a voice came over the 1MC. “General quarters, general quarters, all hands general quarters. All embarked Marines, get to your berthing and stay out of the way.”

The cannon seemed to come to life with a slight vibration as it powered up, and Rev instinctively scooted away from it.

“Make a hole, make a hole,” a sailor shouted as he ran along the walkway. The Raiders got out of the way so he could get through them.

“What’s going on?” Badem asked.

“The Navy’s gonna fight,” Radić told him.

Various stations reported in over the 1MC. For a ship with fewer than forty sailors in her crew, there seemed to be a lot of stations.

19

Rev sat, his back against the bulkhead, trying to make sense of the holo display. They weren’t in their berthing space anymore. A few minutes after general quarters, a harried sailor had yelled at them to get away from the cannon.

They didn’t argue.

They were jammed in with most of the other Marines in the engineering spaces where they claimed whatever patch of deck they could. Rev spotted Malaika and grabbed a spot by her, with the rest of the team scrunching in around him.

The mood was subdued as Marines quietly wondered what was happening. After another five minutes, a petty officer came into the space with a holo repeater, which she set up right in front of Rev and the rest.

“You deserve to know what’s going on,” she announced. “I can’t stay and explain this all. But the blue are our ships, the turquoise our N-ships. The red are the tin-asses. From the looks of things, I’d say we’ve got about twenty minutes before the battle is joined. Sorry, but that’s all I have time for.”

She left the Marines to their own devices, and Rev stared at the lights. It looked like a slow dance, like a school of anchovies maneuvering en masse. Rev forced that idea out of his mind. If they were the anchovies, then the red lights were the sharks. He didn’t like that analogy. No, it was more like they were the sheep, the turquoise were the shepherd dogs, and that made the red the wol—”

Damn it, Reverent, that’s worse than the anchovies! Snap out of it.

“I thought these battles were supposed to be quick,” a Marine from Alpha Company said.

Which is what Rev had heard, too.

“The battle itself is quick once we engage. But there’s lots of maneuvering, like wet-water Navy ships of the line back in the day,” someone else said.

Rev could see the man’s face, so he asked Malaika, “Who’s he?”

She leaned in to him and said, “That’s Chief Apel, the company corpsman. He served aboard N-ships before he came to the Marines.”

Rev perked up. This was a man he wanted to listen to.

The chief stood up and walked through the sitting Marines up to the repeater platform.

He reached up with a forefinger, and one of the turquoise lights got brighter, and PUNS LaSalle appeared under it. “This is us. As you can see, we’re trying to interspace us between the fleet and the tin-asses. But that isn’t our main mission, as counterintuitive as that might be. What we will be doing is trying to get position on the tin-asses to take the fight to them.”

“How far away are the tin-asses right now?” someone asked.

“Ah . . . it isn’t that easy. They’re no distance at all, and they’re all distances at the same time. It’s . . . I can’t really explain it. What you see here are just representations of the situation so that we can understand it. We are really located off the . . .” he reached out again, and another light got brighter, and the words PUNS Pinto flashed on above the platform. “We aren’t off the Pinto’s starboard.”

“But I can see we are.”

“That’s the point. This is just a representation. In null space, we’re really all over the place,” he said, sweeping his arm to encompass the entire display. “And no place, at the same time.”

Rev knew all of that. At least he’d been told that. It was really beyond his comprehension, so he just had to accept it. And he was grateful for the display. It might not reflect null space reality, but at least he could understand what was happening.

“So, what we are doing now is positioning ourselves for the clash. As soon as we have a superior aspect, then the real shit will happen, and it’ll be decided in a flash.”

“And now, the skipper is putting us in the right position for that?” one of the Alpha lieutenants asked.

“No, sir. She’s already out of the picture. All of this is being done by the ship’s latticed AIs. No human brain can run the calculations quickly enough, and that includes what’s happening now.”

“Chief, if we’re positioning ourselves now, are the tin-asses doing the same thing? Do they fight in null space the same way we do?” Rev asked.

“Good question, and the answer is, we don’t know for sure. But as you can see, they are not engaging yet, and they seem to always engage at about the same time and positioning as we do. Maybe a little sooner, and they are more effective, but from the results and from what we know about null-space physics, yeah, that’s the assumption. So, if they’re better than us, we’ve got to rely on superior numbers to prevail.”

Rev frowned. If the display was an accurate representation of the numbers involved, then there didn’t seem to be many more turquoise lights than red.

“Why don’t we just drop out of null-space?” Gizzy Incrit-Cole asked.

“We could. The calculations have been made and entered, but we can always adjust those to make new ones and drop out pretty much anywhere. Every ship has the emergency calculations for just that reason. But then, Beacon is lost. We’d be spread out over half the galaxy to keep as many ships as possible from being picked off. And if we tried to drop together in some semblance of order, the tin-asses would follow, and with their range advantage in deep space, well, it wouldn’t be good.”

He looked around the gathered Marines, but there were no more questions. “It’s going to get hot soon, and it’ll happen quickly when it does. So, just watch what ships, theirs and ours, get hit.”

“Thank you, Chief, for the explanation,” the Alpha Company commander said as he stood up. “I know it’s hard to just sit here, not being able to contribute.”

You can say that again.

“But our job now is to just sit here and let the Navy do its job. And, the Mother willing, we’ll get through this to take the fight to the tin-asses on Beacon.”

The ooh-rah reverberated within the space.

“So, for now, don’t get worked up. Sit back, relax, pray if you want, and keep preparing yourself mentally for when it’s our turn in the breach.”

“You feeling confident?” Malaika asked him.

Rev just shrugged. This was totally out of his control, so anything he said would be a guess. He just had to trust the skill of the Navy crew—or by what the chief said, the skill of the technicians and programmers who designed the ship’s AIs.

On the display, the lights started to shift more, leaving the more structured formations. The turquoise and red came closer together, but in a weird, mirrored dance, as if they were looking at their own reflections.

Nix had been standing by the hatch into the space while the chief had explained things, but now he made his way over where most of the Raiders were sitting. Tomiko scooted over to give him space to sit, which pressed her against Rev’s right side.

“This is better. I couldn’t see the display from over there,” Nix said as he wormed himself in between Tomiko and Strap. “Hey, relax, Miko. You’re as stiff as a board. You heard the captain.”

“I’m fine,” she said, but to Rev’s ears, she was tense.

He put his hand on her shoulder and leaned over to tell her to relax, and she flinched ever-so-slightly. He dropped his hand.

She sure is stressed. Can’t blame her, though.

When Tomiko was upset, it was best to just let her be, he’d learned over the years. She’d come around.

If we even make it out of this fight.

And it was obvious that things were happening. The ship movements were becoming more erratic. Talk died as eyes were locked on the display. Marines jockeyed for position to get a better view. Rev could feel the tension as a palpable force, thick enough to cut with a knife.

Beside him, Malaika was breathing heavily, and Rev gave her knee a squeeze with his social arm. “It’ll be OK,” he said.

She looked at him with a half-hearted smile before turning back to the display.

Rev could feel his warrior start to claw his way to the surface, but there was nothing for him, no mission, no killing tin-asses to suck up that energy. He tried to push the warrior back, but by nature, warriors are not very amenable. He needed help.

“You got a joke for me, Punch?”

<What did the father do when he caught his son chewing on an electrical cord?>

“I don’t know. What?”

<He had to ground him.>

Rev laughed aloud, and Tomiko and Malaika spun toward him in unison, staring at him like he was crazy.

Maybe I am.

“Sorry, sorry. Yes, inappropriate,” he told the two, trying to look serious.

But to Punch, he said, “That was so bad my warrior walked out on me. So, mission accomplished.”

<He did that to teach his son how to conduct himself.>

“OK, that’s enough.”

<But the boy is currently doing fine.>

“Oh, geez. Enough already, Punch.”

But it had worked. Rev knew the situation was serious, but his heartbeat was dropping back to the normal range. He had a sneaky suspicion that it hadn’t been just the jokes, which really weren’t that funny, but maybe a little calm-juice had been released into his bloodstream. Looking around, he wondered if anyone else had been artificially calmed down.

“Any moment now,” the chief shouted.

The stress immediately came back, even if muted. Rev leaned forward, as if that could make a difference. One minute passed, two minutes.

“Just start, for the Mother’s sake,” Malaika whispered.

Another minute passed, and still, the dance continued. Move and countermove.

And then, there was a flurry of action, none of which made sense to Rev. But names started popping up as blue and turquoise lights went out.

Trieste.

Gopher.

Mount Elba.

Utica Prime.

Nuthatch.

Housley Station.

Kearsage.

“The Kearsage,” Rev said, grabbing Tomiko’s arm. “Isn’t Fourth Team on her?”

“Yes,” she said with a gasp.

Rev felt light-headed. Staff Sergeant Khumalo and Fourth Team were gone, just like that. His friends, people he knew. And Wheng! Gone!

More names popped up, one after the other for another ten, fifteen seconds, when the display went dark. Shocked shouts filled the space.

“They’re censoring us, don’t want us to see,” Hussein shouted as he stood up.

More people shouted until the chief stood and screamed at everyone to shut up. It took a few moments, but finally, he could be heard.

“They’re not censoring us, although I wish that was it. This is a null space display. It doesn’t work here.”

And it hit Rev what that meant.

“We dropped out of null space,” the chief continued. “The order was given to save as many of us as possible.

“We lost the battle.”

20

It was a sober crew and passengers that entered orbit above New Hope. Rev, along with most of the Marines, had a hard time coming to grips with what had just happened. All of them had been prepared for the rigors of battle, for knowing that they could and probably would lose comrades in arms, but not like this. Not even reaching the site of the fight, yet losing so many.

Marines had been defeated before. Rev’s first fight on Preacher Rolls had been a horrendous loss, with two regiments almost wiped out. But they’d been active participants in that fight. This time, no Marine in the relief force had fired a shot in anger, yet they’d paid the ultimate price.

Rev mourned them all. These were people he knew, people with whom he’d shared a beer. And with Wheng, he’d lost a protégé, someone about whom he’d had such high hopes.

Master Gunnery Sergeant Tuala formed them up on the tarmac after the shuttle dropped them off. “Everyone, once we get back to the barracks, no one leaves. No one calls home. You’re under a strict blackout until we get some guidance.”

“And so, the cover-up begins,” Hussein muttered.

The master guns wheeled on him. “We lost Marines out there. You want their families to find out through the rumor mill, Hussein?”

“No. I just meant—”

“I know what you meant. But we go by our SOP. Families need to be notified properly. And, when all is said and done, if the top brass feels we do need to cover up, then we’ll fucking well cover up what happened. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Master Guns,” Hussein stammered out.

Rev had been thinking the same thing, and now he was glad he hadn’t voiced that. He still avoided the team leader’s eyes as he boarded the hoverbus that had been locked on to take them back.

The ride back was eerie. Rev didn’t know if they had purposely been returned at night, but the camp was quiet as if it were abandoned. It wouldn’t last, he knew. The Centaurs were still out there, and wherever the enemy was, the Marines were sure to be sent.

* * *

Rev was right. The quiet didn’t last. Within a day, the rest of the surviving deployed forces had returned, and there was a new and revitalized sense of determination. Training was increased as recruits were rushed through boot. The rumors were back that the Union was considering instituting a draft for the first time in its existence. That would take a change to the Charter, but it was quite obvious that relying on volunteers and criminal conscripts wasn’t going to replenish the ranks fast enough to keep the Navy and Marine Corps at fighting strength.

A week after their return, the news hit that Beacon was classified as lost. One of the charter members of the Union, with nineteen billion souls, was gone. Rev hoped that there were large numbers of citizens who had managed to escape into whatever the planet boasted as wilderness, but for the time being, Beacon was no longer a military objective. It was a psychological blow, but the right strategic decision. With the other nations fighting in their territory, the Union had to marshal its forces to fight where they could have the biggest impact.

The question of where and when they were to be deployed next was a major topic of conversation and conjecture.

“It will be Earth and Titan. Mark my words,” Hussein said.

“They haven’t been close to the home system yet,” Tomiko countered.

“They hadn’t been close to Mistake or Beacon, either.”

“Fair enough. But Beacon didn’t have the combined might of all the different navies protecting it, either. What do you think, Rev?”

Rev thought that Hussein might be right. The Centaurs were popping up all around human space in a pattern only known to them, but several key planets had been lost. The human navies hadn’t had much luck in turning them back. If they wanted a moral and emotional blow that could shatter the human alliance, taking away the Mother would be a sound strategic move.

Even the thought made Rev shudder. He’d never been to Earth, of course, and he never expected to be that lucky. But the Mother was embedded in the human psyche—she was what bound them together.

“We don’t know where they’ll hit next. All we know is where they are now, and that’s bad enough.”

Tomiko gave him a frown, probably upset that he hadn’t supported her. But he knew he was right. In the Union alone, five planets had been taken or were about to fall, and Trainor Station had been destroyed with all hands lost. Across human space, the Centaur targets on this push reached past hundred and counting.

“So, what about us? Where will we go?” Tomiko asked.

“Nowhere. I mean, nowhere currently being attacked.”

“Not even Toriyama?” Strap asked.

“It’s already lost. They just don’t know it yet, Mother be with them. By the time we can load out and get there, it’ll be over. No, the tin-asses aren’t done with us, and the next planet they hit, that’ll be our destination. So, be ready for an immediate loadout, because when it comes, it’ll be short-fused.”

“Rev’s right. That’s why we’re restricted to base and have our tethers,” Nix said. “So, for now, concentrate on our training. Treat every hour as if it’s our last before we ship out, because that’s what it might very well be.

* * *

All eyes of the platoon were on the master sergeant as he opened the white case, the same one or a twin to the one that had been loaded onto the shuttle taking them up to the LaSalle. He picked up one of the grenades. The body looked identical to the normal 40mm grenades but white with a red circle and 93 on the side.

He held it high so everyone could clearly see it. “Marines, this is the MG(B)-93 Forty-millimeter Rifle Grenade. This will now be your primary weapon against the tin-asses.”

“That’s not going to punch through a paladin’s armor,” Gunny Okafor, who’d taken over Second Team when Top Thapa switched to First, said.

The master sergeant glared at the bunny and said, “Please hold your questions until after I’m done.

It wasn’t a question.

But Rev was pretty sure that this wasn’t some super-duper shape charge. That briefing they had what seemed like a decade ago had been about bioweapons. Given the color and the biohazard symbol on the side of the case, and given their testing at the range before, he was pretty sure that grenade contained a biological agent of some sort.

“Now, as I was saying. This will be your primary weapon against the tin-asses. the “B” in the designation stands for “biological.” Think of this as a delayed-action weapon, and your job will be to get this little gem close to the tin-asses.

It’s not going to kill your target right away. Maybe not for a week or more, in fact.”

“Uh . . . Master Sergeant Thanh. We are to deploy this weapon, but it won’t kill the tin-asses until later?” Captain Omestori asked.

Just what I was wondering.

The master sergeant might have wanted to wait until later for questions, but he couldn’t ignore a captain.

“I was going to get to that after I showed you how to operate it, but I’ll skip to that part.”

He probably meant it as a SNCO to officer put-down, but Rev knew the captain didn’t care. He just wanted an answer to the question he knew every other Raider wanted to ask.

“This weapon was not designed as a tactical weapon. It probably couldn’t be given what we had to work with. From what I’ve been told, given super incubation prowess, death could occur within twenty-to-thirty minutes. Not quick enough to make an immediate impact on the battlefield. So, it was reengineered with a longer incubation period. We’re not trying to kill that paladin or riever. We’re trying to make that paladin a weapon, one who will go back and infect others.”

He paused for a moment to let that sink in.

“If we can make it into a pandemic, we think that we can turn the course of the war. Indications are that they are not a numerous race.”

“A shitload of them are hitting us all over the galaxy right now,” Gunny Okafor blurted out.

“Back in World War II, in the Twentieth Century, the Germans were able to mass a huge attack during the Battle of the Bulge despite their armed forces being seriously depleted.”

The Germans didn’t lose that battle because of a lack of soldiers,” the captain said. “They lost because they couldn’t project their logistical train far enough to support the combat troops.”

The HQ master sergeant frowned and said, “OK, I’m not a history buff. That was just the example I was given in case that question was asked. But whatever happened in history, Intel doesn’t think there are huge numbers of tin-asses in existence. And they think we’ve got the potential to cripple them, or at least their military, right here.”

He held up the grenade once more.

“A forty-mike-mike grenade? With all our armor, mech, air, Navy, you’re telling us it’s a piece of infantry ordnance that’s our holy grail?” Master Gunnery Sergeant Tuala asked.

“Master Guns ain’t buying it,” Tomiko whispered.

Rev ignored her. He wanted to hear the response.

“Not just the grenade. But what’s in it. We’re modifying several munitions to deliver the virus. This is just the first. More will hit the fleet within a couple of weeks.”

Something was bothering Rev. He’d been fine with letting the captain and the senior SNCOs ask the questions, but it was obvious that the HQ master sergeant’s carefully prepared brief was out the window.

“Master Sergeant, don’t the paladins, coursers, and rievers have filters on their armor. Our tanks and mech do. Wouldn’t they?” he asked.

“Probably. But I’ve been using the term virus because I need a name. To be more precise, what is in this grenade are modified alien virus analogs, and they’re even smaller than our viruses. The originals were recovered, to the best of my knowledge, inside tin-ass armor.”

There were more murmurs at that. After the accusations from the Frisians, and now with that comment, Rev wondered how many of his fellow Raiders suspected by now that the Union had Centaur bodies.

“So, the hope is that while they probably have some sort of filtration system, our little killers will slip through. But if not, they’ve been designed to clump together on any surface, like the outside of a paladin. The tin-ass crawls out, and voilá. It’s infected.”

“So, this grand plan of yours is that we line up, fire a bunch of grenades, then sit back and wait for them to carry the infection home?” the captain asked.

“All of this will be in the SOP that you should be getting within the day, Captain. But to cut to the chase, you will still be using standard grenades. You’ll be using Morays. Tanks and mech will be trying to kill tin-asses. These grenades will be interspersed, hidden among the others, in effect. Together with what the sappers emplace, they’ll hopefully not be noticed as anything different in the attack. Just one more ineffectual human weapon.

“If you kill some tin-asses, all the better. But don’t wipe them out. The best situation would be for them to pull chocks and abandon the planet. But you retreating would still work. Let them think they’ve won.”

A bunch of hands shot up, the master sergeant said, “I’m not a grunt, and I’m the wrong person to ask about details. Captain, like I said, you’ll be getting all of that soon. All I’m here is to run this fam fire. So, if I can, let me go over this with you.”

He held the grenade up for the third time. “The MG(B)-93 Forty-millimeter Rifle Grenade is fired essentially like any other forty mike-mike grenade. However, unlike those, this one must be armed. At the moment, the virus capsule is isolated from the outside world for safety reasons. Before you fire the grenade, you have to arm it, which means releasing the virus into the warhead.

“You do that like this.” He mimed twisting the warhead around the body. “And that’s it. You can now load and fire the round like any other. But, if, for some reason, you do not fire, then do not take the round back to a ship or other enclosed space. You will be given a disposal bag. Seal it inside, bury it, and record the coordinates.

“Don’t take it inside a ship? So that leads me to ask how dangerous is it? To us, I mean.” Tomiko asked.

“Fair question. And the answer is we don’t know.”

There were some rumbles at that.

“I mean, we don’t know the long-term effects. You will be given nose filters, and the amounts you may be exposed to out in the open should be minimal enough not to be fatal or to cause serious injury.”

There were more mumbles, louder this time, and Master Gunnery Sergeant Tuala shouted out, “At ease!”

Captain Omestori asked, “You didn’t answer the question, Top. How dangerous is this to us?”

The master sergeant sighed, then said, “Honestly, we don’t know. Getting the liquid on you is probably going to mess you up. Breathing in the droplets, the same thing. But from all the models we’ve run, for humans, the effect is immediate, but not on a chronic level.”

“Top, I think you might need to explain that to everyone,” Doc Paul said.

“OK, this is how it was explained to me. Think of it like fire. If you touch it, it burns, right? And that can even kill you. But if you survive the burn, it isn’t going to stick with you and continue to get worse.”

But the captain wasn’t done. “You’ve said models. I take it this stuff hasn’t been tested on humans?” The master sergeant shook his head. “And you know we’ve all been augmented, right? And we’re susceptible to the rot. Has that been modeled?”

The master sergeant shook his head. “I really don’t know, sir. I didn’t have anything to do with the development. I’m just the guy tasked with bringing these to you.”

“Look, Top. We’re Marines, and we’re not going to shirk our duties. The situation is dire, and we’ll do everything in our power to help turn back the tide. But I think we deserve the true scoop, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. I do.”

“OK, then. We’ll go through this fam fire with you now, but I want you to get back in touch with your bosses and find out the answers to our questions.”

“Aye-aye, sir. I’ll make sure I get some answers for you.”

The captain stood and turned around to face the platoon. “Then let’s hold further questions until Master Sergeant Thanh can get back to us. Let’s do this fam fire and get back. We’ve still got the P303 training to get through today.”

The top nodded in relief and motioned for the rest of the contact team to come forward. Several jogged 500 meters downrange where an old hulk was set up at the target. Four large rectangular objects had been placed around it. The Marines turned them on, and it became obvious that these were giant filters, sucking in air from around the target.

“That makes me feel confident,” Tomiko said as they waited in the line to get full-hood gas masks, not the promised nose filters.

While the contact team Marines jogged back, the team put on the hoods and sat back down in the bleachers. After they got back, the Range NCOIC called the range hot and then called for the first team to approach the firing line.

“First Team, we’re up,” Top Thapa said.

They lined up by the grenade case. Top was first. Under the watchful eyes of the HQ master sergeant, he twisted the grenade live, fed it into his launcher, and stepped up to the firing line. He fired, the grenade launching out in an arc, coming down to hit the target with a puff of mist. There were a few cheers as he cleared his weapon, turned around, and made a dramatic bow to the rest of the Marines.

The target was smaller than a paladin, so it would have been a direct hit unless the Centaur blasted the thing out of the air. But if the HQ master sergeant was right, that really didn’t matter much. The closer, the better, but as long as any of the virus reached the vehicle, there was a good chance that it would eventually infect a Centaur.

If they were really vulnerable.

If the vehicles didn’t go through decontamination procedures before the Centaurs exited their armor.

If they didn’t have the medical foresight to run bio scans that could detect the viruses and then eliminate them.

If there weren’t a hundred other ways this effort could go wrong.

But the Marines had to trust the system to work. Otherwise, it was all a waste of time and effort.

One by one, the Marines armed and fired a single grenade. Some of the Marines were better shots than others, hitting on or near the target. Others, like Gizzy Incrit-Kole, were way off, her grenade landing outside of the safety air filters, the rest of the Marines hooting at her effort.

Private Harisa’s shot was dead on, and she received subdued applause. She was still an anomaly within her team, and Rev didn’t think they knew how to react to her. Rev still thought that if she was going to be returned to the Raiders, it should have been with Second Platoon out of Camp Kamachi.

And then it was Third Team’s turn. With the master guns dual-hatted as the team leader, the Marines of First and Second Teams were going to watch their shots closely.

Rev checked his M-49. He hadn’t fired it lately, and he hadn’t fired one with a grenade launcher attached since boot camp, so he was slightly nervous. He wanted to nail the target. Nothing else would do.

The master guns said he’d go last, so Rev watched Nix, Hussein, and Badem fire before it was his turn. He stepped up to receive his grenade when the sergeant handing them out asked, “You Pelletier?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t get one.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because you’re not on the list.”

Rev turned around in confusion and called out to the master guns. “He says I don’t get to fire.”

The team leader walked up to the sergeant. “What’s going on here?”

“The top told me Corporal Pelletier doesn’t fire.” He took a step to his left and called, “Top, can you come here for a moment?”

The HQ master sergeant stepped off the firing line and approached.

“This is Corporal Pelletier, and the master gunnery sergeant wants to know why he’s not firing.”

“You haven’t been briefed yet?” the master sergeant asked.

“You just briefed me,” Rev said.

“I mean, because of, you know . . .” he said, pointing at Rev’s social arm.

Captain Omestori noticed the conversation and started over to see what was up.

“I won’t be using this in combat,” Rev said, holding the arm higher.

“Yeah, that’s the point, Corporal. Your mission isn’t going to be to infect tin-asses.”

“I don’t understand, Top. Then what is my mission?”

The master sergeant looked at the team leader and platoon commander, a worried look in his eyes before he turned back to Rev.

“Well, it’s like this. You’ve got to attack the tin-ass with enough force for it to think it’s real and focus its attention on you so the others can get a ninety-three in close enough to do some good.

“You’re the decoy.”

21

“I heard that they’re hooking up drones with the shit, like old-fashioned crop-dusters,” Fyr said.

“Crop dusters? Why is it that everything we use against the tin-asses seems like old tech? First, rockets, now grenades and crop dusters?” Cricket asked.

“A Moray isn’t exactly old tech,” Tomiko pointed out.

“Shit. The Chinese had rockets three thousand years ago.”

“Not like a Moray.”

Cricket waved his hand in dismissal. Tomiko was right, however. The Moray might be a missile, but it was no more the same as a Chinese rocket than a blunderbuss was the same as the mag-ring M-49. But that didn’t mean Cricket had a point as well. With the viral bioweapon, Rev thought there had to be better ways to deploy it, ways that didn’t pose so much risk to the ground pounders.

The drones were something new, but at the moment, getting the virus to the Centaurs was the job of the infantry, Raiders, recon, combat engineers, and sappers—the first three with the grenades and the last two with boobytraps.

That meant that as they sat around the E-Club, Cricket, Yancey, Orpheus, Tomiko, and Rev were the pointy end of the spear, and Udu, Bundy, Ten, and Fyr were now supporting arms. Their places had been reversed.

“It’s not like we can fire the stuff with our meson cannons, Cricket,” Bundy said.

“But you’ve got real guns that can shoot shells,” Cricket said, not wanting to let it go.

Which was true. Each Marine tank had a 20 mm machine gun, and every tank battalion had a company of Rayburns, a smaller tank that fired 120 mm hypervelocity shells.

“The virus can’t take the impact velocity of the twenties. It breaks down their cellular walls,” Bundy said as if lecturing to a student who just didn’t understand the lesson.

“What about a Rayburn? That’s a hundred and twenty millimeters, and all we got with the grenades is forty. And what’s the range on that thing? Forty klicks?”

“If the virus won’t survive the impact of a twenty, then it can’t take a Rayburn’s hypervelocity shells, either. That’s why we’re looking at forty mike-mikes and drones.”

Cricket opened his mouth, but Udu put her hand on his arm and said, “Just let it go. This is what we’ve got now. More’s probably coming down the pike at some point in time.”

Cricket scowled, but he wasn’t going to argue with his fiancée. He looked at Rev’s half-drunk beer instead. “You going to finish that?”

Rev pushed it across the table. Restricted to base and on an eight-hour tether, Marines were allowed one alcoholic drink per day. With only one drink, it was barely worth the effort to him.

“I did hear one thing,” Ten said in a quiet voice.

All eyes swiveled to her. Ten was the quietest one of them, but when she had something to say, it was usually worth listening to.

“Word is that on Lleitletter, the Frisians aren’t deploying the virus.”

Lleitletter was one of the major Frisian worlds, and they were in a major battle with the Centaurs at the moment.

“Too late to get it there?” Fyr asked.

Ten looked around to see who might be listening before she said, “No. They’re afraid of contaminating the planet.”

That silenced the table.

“But they said it isn’t dangerous to Earth-based life. I mean, with long-term stuff,” Tomiko said.

“Yeah, they said that. But if that’s true, then why wouldn’t the Fries use the virus on Lleitletter?” Cricket asked.

Cricket could be somewhat of a conspiracy theorist at times, but Rev had the same question.

The virus was being heralded as a Union development, and knowing about the Centaur he and Tomiko had found, Rev could accept that. But as the war went beyond the Union, the weapon had been distributed to other nations. The Frisians probably didn’t have much on hand yet. Labs were supposedly ramping up to create greater amounts of the bio-ordnance, but even within the Union, only select units had been armed with it so far.

Even considering, however, that they might have limited amounts, why wouldn’t they use it on Lleitletter? Were they willing to let more of their citizens die and rely on other nations to try and get the virus into the Centaur population?

Damn. I’m sounding like Cricket now.

But then there was two days ago. The Centaurs had hit Eveready, a densely populated Union world. The New Hope Marines had expected to be deployed, but they were still sitting on alert status.

There could be lots of reasons for that. There might not be the spacelift necessary to move them. There were other Marine units closer. There could be another virus-armed unit being sent in. They could get the call in ten minutes that they were going after all.

But with Ten’s news, if it was true and not just another baseless rumor, Rev had to wonder if there was something more to it. Was the virus more dangerous than admitted? Did the powers that be not want to somehow ruin the major worlds, even at the cost of more normal destruction and death?

If that was the case, then just when and how would they be deployed? And how would that affect them as the ones spreading the virus?

No one said a word as it sunk in. It wasn’t that there was a lack of trust as to the intentions of the Council . . .

Who am I kidding? Of course, there’s a lack of trust.

“Crap,” Bundy said, breaking the silence. “I wish they’d let us have another beer.”

22

“We should have a name for this stuff,” Tomiko said as she brushed soapy water around the seal of one of the grenades.

“We do. The MG(B)-93 Forty-millimeter Rifle Grenade,” Rev told her.

“Ha-fucking-ha. I mean the virus inside. The money shot. We need something a little more threatening.”

The word had come down that every grenade had to be checked for leakage, which wasn’t very comforting. And since there were no tests for the virus, at least at the team level, that meant putting soapy water around the seal between the tip and the body, the one that was twisted to make it live, and watching for bubbles to form. Cricket was probably going apoplectic at the low-tech method.

“It’s not even a real virus,” Strap reminded them. “Just a sort-of virus.”

“We can call it the tin-ass-killer,” Radić said.

“That’s why he’s still a private,” Hussein told the rest of them.

Radić looked a little taken aback by that, and Tomiko said, “What, did the big mean sergeant hurt the little private’s feelings? Grow a pair.”

“How about KAFA?” Badem asked.

Everyone turned to him as he stood with a stupid grin on his face. “For Kill All Fucking Aliens.”

Nix laughed out loud and said, “See, Radić, that’s why he’s a PFC.”

Other names were thrown out there.

“Zappers.”

“SOT,” for “Suck On This.”

“Scorpion’s Sting.”

“Excalibur.”

“Acid.”

“Claudius.” Rev had to ask Punch for the reference. Leave it to Tomiko to throw a little Shakespeare into the conversation. And it was appropriate, but not a popular choice.

The master guns opened the door and stuck his head in. “You about done in here?”

Sergeant Nix looked around at how many grenades were left. “Another twenty minutes, Master Guns.”

“Make sure that’s all. I’ve locked on a sims at fifteen hundred, and I don’t want to lose it.”

“No problem. Building Two-Oh-Three?”

“Yep. Be there.”

“Hey, Master Guns. We’re trying to come up with a better name for the virus. All we’ve got is SOT. What do you think?” Hussein asked.

The team leader snorted and said, “As long as the stuff works, I don’t care if you call it my Great Aunt Teresa. Now get back to work and finish up.”

The door closed behind him, and Hussein asked, “So, we go with Great Aunt Teresa?” He stood, acted like he was firing a machine gun at the hip, and shouted, “Eat my Great Aunt Teresa, tin-ass!”

The team broke out laughing.

“Hey, tin-ass, you don’t want to meet my Great Aunt Teresa,” Radić said.

“What about gat. Great Aunt Teresa. G-A-T,” Rev said. “Gat.”

“That’s pretty dumb, even for you, Rev,” Hussein said.

“I don’t know. ‘Give me a gat.’ Short and sweet,” Tomiko said.

“Shit, you like it just because Rev said it,” Hussein said.

“Bite me,” Tomiko said with a scowl. “And now I’m going to call it a gat just because you said that, and you can go screw yourself.”

“Well, I—”

The general alarm blared across the camp, and then every speaker, either mounted or on their quantphones or tabs, erupted with “We are now in Condition One-Alpha. All hands return to your commands immediately and mount up.”

The Marines froze for a moment, and the announcement was repeated. And this time, someone cut in, her voice almost squeaking, “This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. The tin-asses are in the system!”

23

Rev never even made it back to the barracks for orders. They were told to arm up, and for Rev, that meant getting to the IBHU armory. He left the others and ran, dodging Marines as they tried to get to their posts.

He wasn’t the first one there. McAnt was getting hooked up by Daryll and the new tech while Pierson waited his turn.

“What’s going on, Corporal Pelletier?” Pierson asked.

“You heard the announcements. The tin-asses are invading.”

“But New Hope? Why us? What do we have here that they want?” he asked, his voice cracking.

“Hell, Pierson,” McAnt said from the donning station. “Does it matter? They’re coming, and it’s going to be up to us to stop them. And no matter what, there are a lot more of us than there are of them. Two Marine divisions and a Navy squadron, not to mention a whole shitload of leeches who’ll fight if it comes to that.”

McAnt was probably right about the numbers. The Centaurs were always outnumbered, but they succeeded in most of their invasions. They always seemed to just have enough to defeat the local forces.

It was that “most” that gave Rev hope. Some planets were able to throw back the invasion. That was usually because the local Navy made the cost too high for the Centaurs to bear, and they gave up, but several times, it was the local militia, army, or Marines that threw the Centaurs off the planet. And not just by holding them off until reinforcements could arrive, but by defeating the Centaurs in battle.

Yellen, a Manifest Destiny Sphere world, for example, sent the Centaurs running about five years before. And if an MDS militia could do it, Rev thought that New Hope, with trained Marines, could do it, too.

“Can the Navy hold them off?” Pierson asked.

“I don’t know,” Rev said.

He wasn’t going to blow smoke up Pierson’s ass. It was possible that the squadron could turn back the Centaurs, but already suffering losses in the battle in null space, several more ships had been detached to fight in other systems. The last he’d heard, they only had three ships at the planetary station. Human ships had an advantage in system fights, but that could only account for so much.

“Pierson, you’re up,” Daryll said as the new tech ran McAnt’s checklist.

The big private hesitated a moment, and Rev had to say, “Just like training, P4. Just like training.”

The private nodded and stepped into the station. The recovery arm scanned Pierson’s retina, then whipped over to Pierson’s slot, extracted his IBHU, and ran it back where the separate application arm took it and held it place at the private’s shoulder. Daryll stepped up and started manually making the connections to attach it.

Rev looked down the armory slots. There were twenty-four of them, but Pashu was the only IBHU still in one of them. Three IBHUs in the regiment. Three out of four with Wheng’s loss.

Fifth Marines in First Division had five IBHU Marines, with Randigold the most experienced. That meant nine of them on the planet. If they were supposed to be the ace in the hole for the Marines, nine of them weren’t going to make much of a difference.

But we aren’t the ace in the hole. That’s our gats . . . hell, Tomiko’s got me calling them that now.

“OK, Pierson, get Taneesha to run your checks. Rev, you’re up,” Daryll said.

Rev shook his head clear and stepped into the station. It still wasn’t as automated as the mech donning stations, but it was a far sight better than having a couple of strong backs horsing it into position.

“Hey, Rev!” McAnt shouted as he started to leave. “Keep your head down, and I’ll buy you a beer when this is all over.”

“Not if I buy you one, first!”

McAnt gave a salute with his IBHU, then was out the door. Rev couldn’t help wondering if that was the last time he was going to see the corporal. Morbid thoughts better left buried, but he couldn’t help it.

He was barely aware of Daryll making the connections. “You’re done. Go get checked.”

Rev stepped off the station. “So, what’s going on with you?” he asked.

Daryll shrugged. “Don’t rightly know, to be honest. Hang around here, I guess, in case I’m needed.”

Rev lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “It’s likely that Nguyen’s getting targeted. It might be safer if you and Taneesha wait it out somewhere else.”

Daryll put his hand on Rev’s right shoulder. “I appreciate the thought, but we’ll see how things go. We’ll be where we’re needed.”

Pierson had just finished up his checklist. He waited as Taneesha jacked into Rev and started running the tests.

“What are you waiting for, Pierson? An engraved invitation?”

“Just . . . I wanted to ask you . . .”

“Pierson. You’re trained. You know what to do, and you’ll do fine. You get to your team, and if you see Sergeant Reiser, tell her I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Sure, corporal.” He started to say something else, then stopped.

“What, Pierson?”

“I just wanted to say, thank you. I appreciate your help. I know I’m not much of a—”

“You’re a Marine, damn it, Pierson. That’s what matters, and not everyone can say that. Now get to your team because they’re waiting on you.”

The big private didn’t say anything else, but he nodded and took off at a jog.

“Nice pep talk,” Taneesha said as they went through the readings.

Pep talk for Pierson or for me?

“OK, I’ve got you all green. The Mother be with you.”

Rev stepped off the testing station, waved to Daryll, and ran out the door.

“Run a full check.”

<Roger.>

Taneesha might have given him the green light, but it was the smart Marine who didn’t take anyone else’s opinion on something like that. It wasn’t her life on the line, after all.

<All systems green. Full combat load. Power at ninety-eight-point-seven percent.>

At least he didn’t have to go to the ammo locker to get armed. The IBHUs were kept maxed out in power and munitions at all times.

“I guess we’re a go, then. You ready to take down some tin-asses?”

<I was programmed ready.>

“Is that a joke? As in born ready?”

<I think it was. Bad timing, given the circumstances?>

“No, good timing. It was even sorta funny.”

Punch wasn’t constantly asking to tell jokes anymore, but his timing was getting better. Instead of worrying about Pierson, instead of wondering whether he’d see McAnt again, he needed to focus on what was coming.

They may not have been born ready, but the three of them had been given an amazing weapon, and they’d received the best training the Corps could give them. Now it was time to put all of that to work for them, and pity the Centaur who was in their way.

As he ran outside the building, he could see the tops of the downtown buildings of Swansea in the distance. He couldn’t imagine the panic that must be happening as evacuation plans were dusted off and put into action. Beyond those buildings, his family would be gathering their go-packs, and he felt the pull to go to them, but he knew the best thing he could to keep them alive was to stay with his team and fight.

Take care of them, Dad.

Rev had to dodge vehicles and people, but within minutes, he was coming to a halt outside the barracks. “Where’s Tomiko, Hus-man?” Rev asked Hussein as he came running out of the building.

“She’s right inside,” Hussein said. “She’s looking for you.”

Rev bounded up the steps and through the front doors. Tomiko was telling Strap something, and the older but junior Marine nodded and ran back down the passage.

She looked up and saw Rev. “You ready to go?”

“Pashu’s green, but I need my assault pack. It’s in my room.”

“Then you better get your ass in gear and get it. We’re moving out in three minutes.”

“Three minutes?” They were about to be invaded, but still, they should have a little more time than that, he thought.

“The Amethyst is gone, Rev. All hands lost.”

Rev felt a jolt. The Amethyst was the first ship he’d been on. He knew many of the crew.

“The other two ships aren’t going to last much longer,” Tomiko continued. “The captain says we can expect the first wave in just over forty minutes, and Nguyen could be targeted before that. So, yeah, three minutes. We need to get out of here and disperse so we can hit the bastards hard as soon as they set foot on New Hope soil.”

24

“Here they come,” Lance Corporal Porter said.

The team came to a stop, turned, and looked up into the sky. High over the western horizon, a dull black disk descended. Rev had seen Centaurs land before in the recordings, but never in person.

The disk was too large to be in the air, as big as a cruiser. It just wasn’t natural. No human ship that size, or anything close to it, could do that. Forget the physics required, but the exhaust of a ship that size would fry anything on the ground for hundreds of kilometers.

But the Centaur ships didn’t have human-type engines. The media called their drives anti-gravity engines, but the scientists weren’t united in what they thought they actually were. But the bottom line was that their huge landing craft could land and debark hundreds if not thousands of paladins and coursers.

The Centaur ship started to sparkle in the air as human self-defense energy weapons reached out to it, hitting its defensive shielding. A missile of some sort struck it, the explosion a bright flash but not hampering the ship in the least. And the Centaurs fought back. An explosion in the distance was probably an artillery battery being destroyed.

Centaurs didn’t even need a ship to put them on the planet. Their armor had limited capabilities to both descend to a planet and take off from it, but even coursers could be shot down. Not so the big ships like the one Rev was watching. They were a much, much tougher nut to crack, almost an impossible one if the public perception were true.

Rev didn’t completely buy that. The Navy could sometimes defeat Centaur ships, so why not ground-based weapons? But whatever weapons New Hope had, they weren’t slowing down the Centaur ship.

“Where’s it landing, do you think?” Strap asked.

“Looks like around Kerrville,” Rev said. “I’ve got cousins who live there.”

“Hope they got out,” Tomiko said.

The civil defense plan was for a massive evacuation of the cities and towns into the countryside. New Hope was not densely populated, and the hope was that by dispersing, enough people could live long enough for the Union to send forces to drive off the enemy. And it was the New Hope Marines’ mission to fend off the Centaurs, keeping them occupied, until those forces could arrive.

Only this time, Rev didn’t think there would be a rescue. Part of that was because the Corps was stretched thin, and they couldn’t rely on allied forces who were fighting in their own territories. But a larger part was that just as they were leaving the base, the orders came down to use the virus grenades, putting the infection plan into effect.

If the Council wanted to infect the Centaurs, then they didn’t want to kill the Centaurs in place. They wanted enough to escape so that they could become vectors back to their homeworld, and that meant if the citizens of the planet had to be abandoned, well, in their view, that was a small price to pay for the greater good.

So, if the planet was going to be saved, they couldn’t count on outside help. It would be up to the forty-thousand Marines and sailors of the New Hope military forces.

* * *

The teams watched silently as several columns of smoke rose over Swansea. It seemed surreal to be sitting here in what was a beautiful summer afternoon, the sun approaching the horizon. Their rally point was one of the Three Amigos, three conical hills in the Tristan Provincial Park where civilians like to climb on the weekends for the view. It felt so normal, despite the fact that Centaurs were now on the ground. Invaders, here on New Hope. Rev felt he should be fighting now, not sitting quietly as he looked over the forest below.

The Centaurs might not be there yet, but they were coming, and he should be focusing on tactics. He was human, though, and he couldn’t help but worry about his family and friends. He trusted his stepfather, but what about Mr. Oliva? The man had no family and not many friends outside of the VGW. And the place had to be a madhouse. For all the lip-service given to a possible invasion and how to evacuate the city, no one thought it would actually happen. New Hope was not especially noteworthy, and it was well within human space.

Rev hadn’t seen any civilians as the team rushed to their rally point, but with the Marines trained for rapid reaction, that could just have to do with timing. Right now, under the densely forested canopy, most of the city could be on the move.

He hoped.

“What next?” Radić asked.

“We’ll know soon enough. The skipper’s getting our orders now,” Tomiko said. “But it’s gonna be epic, so gird your loins and put on your warrior face.”

There were contingency plans upon contingency plans on the shelf, and even with no comms, the Marines knew what to do. Despite being without normal comms, however, which had been knocked out shortly before the ships started landing all over the planet, they had means to communicate. Buried and shielded landlines snaked throughout the planet, linking the underground command posts with each other and the unit rallying points scattered through the countryside.

“How close to Kerrville did that thing land? Can you tell?” he asked, shifting his gaze to the south to where the smoke there had by now dissipated.

<Probably right on the eastern outskirts of the town.>

“What are the chances that there are survivors?”

<Centaur SOP is to clear a landing zone before a ship comes in to land.>

Which means killing whoever is there.

Rev already knew that in his heart, but it still hurt to have Punch confirm it. He hadn’t seen his cousins since he was conscripted, but they were still family, and something in the neighborhood of 20,000 people lived in the town. He just hoped that some escaped before it was targeted.

He shook his head and shifted back to Swansea. That was the population hub of the province. He didn’t know what was causing the smoke there. It could have been the Centaur ship leaving, giving a parting shot to soften up the city. And, truth be told, it could also be looting. Even when faced with an alien invasion, some people would sink to their lowest level, as hard as that was for Rev to imagine.

“Hey, the skipper wants us all now,” Greenie Sjberic said as she came up to the viewpoint. “He’s got word.”

Rev spared one last look to the city, then followed the rest as they went down to the landline hub near the public restrooms.

“Gather around,” Captain Omestori said. “OK, it’s about like we figured. There might be four hundred tin-asses on the ground twenty clicks south of here. With all our drones and orbital platforms knocked down, the numbers are still a little fuzzy, but we should be able to narrow that down as our CWVs get situated.”

The Civilian Watch Volunteers were two-person teams who were tasked with manning observation posts throughout the planet, each connected with landlines. Up until now, they’d been mostly a social organization, what many Marines considered military wannabees. They got a small stipend and a jacket with a patch, and they met once a month, mostly to drink beer and hang out.

Now that the shit had hit the fan, Rev hoped they would rise to the occasion. Without them reporting in, the Marines’ missions would just be that much harder to prosecute.

“Two ships landed at Anastasia, and so it looks like the only three on the continent. At least six made planetfall on the mainland. So, we have to figure somewhere between three and nine thousand tin-asses on the ground right now.”

Hopefully closer to three thousand.

Nine thousand Centaurs would be a tough row to hoe with only forty-thousand Marines and no Navy support.

“We have to assume that the tin-asses here are going to be heading to Swansea, but we’ll hopefully get some more clarification on that. I’m sorry that’s about all I’ve got now on the enemy situation, but it is what it is.”

“As of the moment, except for air assets, we are close to full strength. Air is down to thirty percent, with most of those who attacked the ships being lost. The prepositioned air and those that managed to get to the caves are about all we have, but their use will be coordinated with division.

“I know this isn’t much, but I did get our orders. As per the planetary defense plan, our tank and mech assets will be moving to intercept forces heading to the city. They will not become decisively engaged. If the tin-asses want Swansea, they’ll take it.”

There were a few sighs at that, but everyone knew that was the plan from the beginning. New Hope was its citizens, not the buildings.

“Hopefully, though, some of the surprises left behind will catch some of the bastards. Make them pay for that real estate.

“But now onto our mission. As you know, we were supposed to be flank security for the heavy forces. But with the gats, that has changed.”

Rev stole a glance at Tomiko. You’ve got him calling the grenades gats now, too?

“The Council itself has ordered us to employ the gats, and with that, we, and the rest of the infantry, are the real points of main effort. The heavy forces are still going to do what they’ve always been planned to do, but that is now just to focus the tin-asses’ attention. To make this perfectly clear, the commander’s intent, and in this case, the commander is the Director Prime himself, if not the Council, is to infect the tin-asses, not destroy them.”

“And what about our families, sir? What about the people of New Hope?” Gizzy Incrit-Kole asked.

“I know, I know,” the captain said. “I asked the same thing. I was told they’d get back to me. But until I get a response, I have to reiterate, our mission is to infect the tin-asses. And that is what we’re going to do.”

“That’s bullshit,” Hussein muttered.

“No, it isn’t bullshit, Sergeant Černý,” the captain snapped. “And I expect no pushback on that.”

“But—”

“No pushback, Sergeant. But that doesn’t mean the tin-asses are off-limits, as far as I can tell. We need to make our defense look real, and the armor and mech will be trying to kill them. Anything else could alert them that something is up.

“And as we engage, if we managed to kill some,” he continued, this time pointedly looking at Rev, McAnt, and Pierson in that order, “then all the better. And I’ll add this. It’s one thing to let a tin-ass retreat, if it came to that. But until I hear different, if it comes down to a tin-ass or a citizen, I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure it’s the tin-ass that goes, even if that’s at the cost of my life. Have I made myself clear?”

There was a chorus of ooh-rahs at that.

“And all this starts now. We’re to move to the intersection of Highway Eighty-three and the Old Forrestal Road and link up with Alpha Company again. Together, we’re going to be sniping tin-asses from the flank as armor and mech engage them from the front.

“Let’s get these bastards sick!”

25

“Bundy! Hold up!” Rev shouted as he, Tomiko, and Orpheus sprinted to catch their friend.

Bundy paused on top of his Avenger, and his face broke out into a huge grin. He jumped down just as the three reached him.

“I didn’t know if I was going to see any of you,” he said, accepting their hugs.

“Hell, when these two heard it was your platoon, they grabbed me, and then we found you. Not that you’re easy to miss,” Orpheus said.

“Yeah, I guess not,” Bundy said, patting the side of his tank with a tired smile.

“Was it rough?” Rev asked.

“Yeah. Lost a lot of friends yesterday.”

“Respect to the fallen,” Rev, Tomiko, and Orpheus said.

Tanks and armor had hit the Centaurs as more than a hundred advanced onto Swansea. They hadn’t been expected to hold the Centaurs off but rather delay them so that more civilians could be evacuated. And if they attrited the numbers, all the better.

The word was that they hadn’t done much to the waves of paladins and coursers and had suffered serious losses. Rev hesitated to ask the next question.

“Anything on Ten?”

“She took a hit. Pretty bad, I heard, but she was alive still alive when they evac’d her. That’s all I know, though.”

The joy in seeing Bundy was tempered with the news, and Rev had a sinking feeling that bad news was going to be a common refrain in the coming days.

Bundy’s new driver stuck her head out of the cupola and slapped her hand on the top of the tank.

“I guess that’s my cue. Pretty ballsy for a lance corporal, but what are you going to do?” He turned around and hopped up on his tank.

“Take care, and don’t do anything stupid, you hear?” Rev said.

Bundy paused. “From what I know of your mudeaters plans, Rev, that goes double for you.” He turned back and disappeared inside this ride. A moment later, it started off, quiet for a hunk of armor that big.

“Well, I think that’s our cue, too,” Orpheus said. We’re moving out in about ten minutes. Come give me a hug.

“Thanks for getting me. It was good seeing Bundy, even under these conditions,” he said as he wrapped his arms around Tomiko.

He shifted to Rev, and as they hugged, he whispered, “You heard Bundy. Don’t be a damned hero. Run fast.” He broke the embrace and jogged back to where Alpha was staging.

“And that’s us. Let’s go,” Tomiko said.

Tall Trees Provincial Park, flanking the Spizzo River, had been one of Rev’s favorite places to go to as a kid. It was surreal now, with frenzied activity among the redwoods. Planted over eight hundred years ago, they’d seen much of humankind, but Rev didn’t think they’d had Marines preparing for battle under their branches.

“Mother protect you,” he whispered to the old giants.

“About time you got here,” an agitated Nix said as they ran up to the team. “The master guns has been looking for you, Miko. I had to cover. You’d better find him before he explodes.”

“Thanks, Nixie,” he said, blowing him a kiss before rushing off.

“Really, thanks,” Rev said. “It was good to see him before he took off.”

He almost said, “see him one last time,” but luckily, he dodged that. It was never good to attract the attention of the gods of war.

“Everything OK?” Nix asked.

“You remember Ten, the tall blonde tanker? You’ve met her at the club before.”

“Yeah, I met her. Did she . . .?”

“No. At least, we don’t know for sure. Got messed up bad, I guess, and was CASEVAC’d.”

“Sorry about that.”

“It is what it is. It could be you or me next.”

Nix winced. Mentioning that wasn’t as bad as saying “one last time,” but for the superstitious, anything should be avoided.

“Any changes?” he said to get past that faux pas.

“Nope. Meet them at the upgrade where the armor and we do our thing, then Alpha moves in to gat them.”

“Gat them? Miko’s got you calling the virus that, too?”

Nix gave a sheepish smile. “Hell, if you can’t beat them, join them.”

“I’m a man of principals, I’ll have you know. I refuse to buckle under her tyranny.”

“Yeah, tell that to her face,” Nix said with a chuckle.

Badem came up and said, “We’re ready.”

“Gotta go, Rev. Make sure everyone’s ready to fight and all.”

“Inspect that Hus-man guy carefully. I’ve heard bad things about him,” Rev yelled loud enough for Hussein to hear.

The sergeant gave Rev the finger. “Eat me, Corporal.”

Tomiko returned. She gave Rev an obvious one over, then made the sign of the cross and acted as if she was throwing water on him.

“What are you doing?”

“The most honored master gunnery sergeant wanted to make sure I inspect each of my serfs before we step off. I just inspected you. You pass. Now I must proceed and doeth the same to Strap, Carp, and Radic forthwith. Time is a-fleeting before we sally forth.”

Every Marine handled upcoming fights differently. Miko sometimes leaned to being goofily dramatic.

“You are one crazy Marine, Miko,” Rev called after her.

Not that he’d have it any other way.

* * *

Rev watched the road from his perch on one of the many chunks of rock that littered the way centuries after the road was cut. If the command had guessed correctly, Centaurs would make their way up the gorge before long. Rev thought that was a good guess.

For all their tech, the Centaurs were pretty predictable. Maybe that was because of the tech, though. While it was shifting a bit now, they had been far stronger than the opposing human forces since the start of the war, so they might not see the need for intricate tactics or innovation. While they were making more use of drone-eyes to screen their forces, for the most part, they just went where they wanted as if confident of blasting through any opposition.

Rev hoped that arrogance would be their downfall.

Being armor-heavy, without infantry, they were limited to roads and open spaces, and if they wanted to get up on the Plains of Reston, then Highway 72, flanking the Spizzo River, was the only real way up for fifty klicks either way. The highway climbed 1,500 meters in a series of steps over six klicks to the Marines who were now waiting for the CWVs to spot them, hoping their position was a good one.

Rev turned to look behind him. Bluebonnet Meadow was one of the many relatively flat spots along the gorge, the last one before the plains. The river slowed down, surrounded by hundred-meter-wide marshy banks before the trees took over again on the slopes. At over half a klick long, it offered clear fields of fire for the tanks.

The hope was that the wetlands would either keep the Centaurs on the road or slow them if they left it. The three tanks would engage from the front, then shields on max, retreat up the last step up to the plains where they would split up and attempt to get away. Rev would let the Centaurs pass, and once the tanks opened fire, engage from the rear. The infantry, from the cover of the trees, would pepper the Centaurs with grenades. Most would be the normal, anti-armor grenades, which would not have much of an effect. They were going to be used just for show. Interspersed among them would be the virus grenades.

If all went well, some of the Centaurs would be infected and break through the Marine force . . . without too many of the humans getting killed in the process. And this was what had Rev stressed. He understood trying to kill every Centaur in sight. And this location would help in that kind of a battle. But to fight hard enough to mask the use of the virus, but not so hard as to kill them all, was a new mission, and one he didn’t like in the least. Being hesitant would be a good way to get everyone killed, if history was any indication.

If it were up to Rev, the Marines would focus their attention on saving the civilians, fighting as hard as they could. The Marine way. As far as the virus grenades, snipe at them from the maximum range of the launchers. A small Raider team could do that without becoming decisively engaged—and keeping well away from the virus itself. And if the Centaurs realized something was up, well, if the virus was as good as advertised, then what would it matter?

But Rev was not in charge. He had his mission, and he would salute smartly and march on.

“You doing OK?” Tomiko asked, climbing up to him.

“We got word from the CWVs? They’re coming?”

“Nah. Not yet. I just saw you sitting up here and wanted to check you out.”

“Just getting the lay of the land a little better.”

“You already walked it four times.”

Rev shrugged. “I just hope we’re going about it the right way.”

“Me, too. Mind if I take a seat?”

Rev patted the rock beside him, and Tomiko sat down. “This place is sure beautiful. Seems almost sacrilege to be fighting here,” she said.

“We used to go to the park every couple of weeks to see the trees. Sometimes, we’d keep driving up here, go up to the plains and Horryville, and get some Banjo Fries before heading back home. We always went to this one little trailer along the main drag there. Really good fries. And right here,” he said, pointing to the small parking area alongside the road, “I’ve waded in the river more times than I can remember. Never thought I’d be back in this situation.”

“The galaxy sucks sometimes.”

He didn’t have a reply to that. They sat there, side by side for ten minutes until Radić started climbing to them.

“Sergeant Reiser, they’re coming. We just got the word.”

“I’m coming!” she yelled back before turning to Rev. “Orpho was right, Rev. Don’t be a fucking hero. Engage, then get the hell out of the way. We want some to get away and bring the gat with them, and you making some dramatic gesture won’t affect that.”

Rev laughed and said, “Not quite the pep-talk I’d expected, but yeah, I hear you. Now let’s get this thing done.”

* * *

The first drone-eye flew into the meadow. Unlike human mini-drones, the Centaurs’ were about fifteen centimeters across and easily spotted. No one really knew if they were in communications with the Centaurs themselves or were independent units, mostly because they didn’t seem to affect the Centaurs’ actions.

They were armed with a small, laser-like energy gun, but Marine body armor could deflect it. Without the armor, however, it could be deadly, something with which Rev had firsthand experience on Preacher Rolls. The team’s guide, probably an OD operative, had been killed by a drone-eye right in front of him.

They were also vulnerable to Marine weapons. An infantry Marine, armed with an M-49, could take one down if they could hit it.

Rev waited, watching from his position. The drone-eye had to be noting the tanks ahead and the Marines in the trees, but it merely continued, thirty meters above the river until a single blast sounded from the trees, and the thing tumbled into the water below.

And so, it starts.

An M-49 could take out a drone-eye, but a 40 mm shotgun shell, fired from the grenade launcher, was much more effective.

There had evidently been some debate on whether to engage any of the drone-eyes, but as knocking them down never seemed to affect what the Centaurs did, the decision was made to station two-person infantry teams along the road leading up from the park to the meadow to drop a few.

Rev had carefully picked his position behind a large tree trunk that had been deposited by one of the spring floods. All around him was marsh except for a path of dry soil, one of the trails made to allow people to walk down to the river. It wasn’t that obvious, and Rev thought it might give him an advantage if it came to that.

He twisted his body around to look up through the trees to where the team was positioned. Tomiko leaned over and gave him a thumbs-up, which he returned.

“If you’re going to give me my shot of adrenaline, I guess you can start.”

Punch didn’t say anything, but Rev felt the now-familiar sense of excitement as his warrior started to surface.

“Systems check.”

<Power, ninety-two-point-three. Munitions at one hundred percent.>

“You ready to start juking and jiving?”

<Ready.>

“Or, should I ask if you’re ready to be a decoy?”

<Ready for that, too.>

I may be a decoy, but that doesn’t mean I can’t kill one.

<If I can remind you, please insert your nose filters.>

“Damn, I forgot. Thanks.”

Rev wasn’t going to be firing any of the virus grenades, but he was going to be close to them. He didn’t really trust the filters to be much protection, but they were better than nothing.

Rev slipped them in, then watched where the highway entered the meadow, waiting for the first sign. He wished he knew how many of the Centaurs he faced, but evidently, whatever means they had for the CWVs to get word to them didn’t include the ability to relay a count.

And then the first paladin stepped into the meadow, its twenty-two legs stepping like some huge, mutated scorpion. Rev ducked down lower. His signal would be the tanks opening fire.

He put his hand on the ground but the marshy soil absorbed any vibration the big brute was causing as it walked along the road. Rev’s ears were still good, though, no matter how quiet the Centaurs were. He heard another, then yet another paladin enter the meadow until something bigger, with more legs, caught his hearing. Rev poked his head up. Three paladins were in a column leading a courser. Rev had fought one of the behemoths on Tenerife, dropping it in a river as a last resort. But he didn’t have a bridge handy to drop out from beneath it.

I didn’t have Pashu then, either, he thought as his inner warrior shouted for attention. I want that bastard!

But he had to wait for the tanks.

Another paladin appeared behind the courser. That made five Centaurs. If Rev had any concern about how to “let” one of them escape after being infected, that went right out the window. With only the three tanks and him, even with Alpha switching to Morays, wiping them out would have been a tough task, and if successful or not, it would have resulted in huge Marine casualties.

Come on, tanks!

The blast almost took him by surprise, and all three tanks fired at once. Explosions enveloped the first paladin, but it emerged unharmed and started firing. But that wasn’t Rev’s fight.

“Range to the courser?” he asked as he jumped up and started running forward.

<One-oh-three.>

Shit, too far.

Rev changed direction to the last paladin, Pashu ready to fire when a sixth paladin crossed into the meadow, its pedestal already oriented toward Rev.

<Right!>

Rev was already moving off his firm path forward as the blast hit where he’d been, steam from the marshy ground around the path erupting in a cloud.

“Range?”

But he already knew it, having established a range card to various landmarks. He needed ten meters, and he surged forward. The ground sucked at his feet, slowing him down. The second to last Centaur was moving off the road to engage the tanks, thank the Mother, leaving only the last one targeting him. The pedestal rotated, ready to engage him, when with a shout, Rev lunged forward and landed on his belly in a splash of water and mud. He fired, hoping he was in range, and the paladin shuddered, the pedestal stopping.

The tanks fired once more, and this time, the lead paladin went up in a violent explosion, the blast wave rolling over him, pushing his face back down into the water.

“Give me a shout when I’m charged.”

Rev raised himself on his right elbow and leveled Pashu, switching to Morays. The paladin hadn’t fired its defensive belt, but neither had it self-destructed, so it was still alive. Rev had his Morays minimum arming range taken down to ten meters before the invasion, and now he was glad. He fired, the missile clearing the distance in an instant. The missile impacted at the base of the pedestal, the explosion blasting it off. Still, the paladin didn’t self-detonate.

Rev didn’t stop to wonder why. All he knew was that without a pedestal, it didn’t have its main weapon.

He turned over and only then took in the rest of the meadow. Grenades were arching in from both sides, slamming the Centaurs. Puffs of mist told him that at least some were the virus rounds.

<Charged.>

The last paladin had gotten off the road on the far side, where the ground was more solid. That left the courser, still on the highway, as his closest target.

“Range?”

<One hundred and eleven meters.>

The courser was firing ahead, presumably at the tanks.

“About time to get out of there, Bundy!”

Rev got to his feet and started running forward to close the distance while the big beast was firing forward. An explosion reached for the sky up the highway, and Rev knew that at least one of the tanks was gone. He couldn’t stop to take that in. He had his target.

Several airborne shapes shot across the meadow toward the trees, and Rev faltered. These were something new, not the drone-eyes. They started firing, and with effect. A Marine dropped.

Tin-asses don’t innovate my ass!

These things were new, and they could evidently defeat infantry armor. There had to be at least a dozen of the things. The number of grenades cut back as the Marines took in the new threat.

He gave a glance at the courser but ordered “Twenty-degree dispersion on the cannon. Power at fifty percent. Two seconds burst.”

He’d fired like this on the range, but as it was only for a test, never in combat. He’d had no reason.

Making sure he had a safe shot with no Marines in the background, Rev stood and shot into the air, sweeping it across his front. At least four of the new drones fell out of the sky.

And now Rev was a target. There was no cover, except for . . . Rev wheeled around and sprinted to the immobile paladin, feeling the killer-drones bearing down on his neck.

He was working from instinct, but with Centaurs, that was a big assumption. It was the only one he had, though.

Movement to his right caught his eye, and Nix was stepping out from cover and ducking to clear the tree branches, firing into the air above Rev, and yelling, “Move it, Rev!”

Rev doubled down, almost diving at the paladin. He spun around, back to the thing, as a drone hit the ground behind him. Nix gave a raised fist in victory.

Another drone had been heading at him, but then it pulled away. Rev’s instinct had been right. Like humans, the Centaurs had protections in place against friendly fire. The drone turned and—”

“Get back!” Rev screamed, but it was too late. Sergeant Nix crumpled face-first to the ground.

“Fuck!” Rev shouted in helpless rage.

<Charged.>

Rev fired again, sweeping that drone and two more. He switched to his 20mm and filled the air, more in anger than in hopes of hitting anything.

The recall sounded, a siren that signaled pulling back. If any of the tank crews were still alive, they’d be retreating, as would all the infantry, moving back to their rallying points. But the drones kept striking, each time more Marines dying.

He looked to Nix, hoping to see him get up when Badem ran forward, hooked his hands through Nix’s harness, and started dragging him back under cover.

“Come on, Tulip!” Rev said.

<Charged.>

Rev raised Pashu to clear the air above Badem, but he was an instant too late. The PFC dropped just before Rev took down the drone.

Another wave of anger swept through Rev as he stood there, wanting to lash out.

“Rev, pull back,” Tomiko’s voice cut through to reach him.

But he didn’t want to. He wanted to make the bastards pay. He turned to his right, where the big courser was still firing up the highway, slowly advancing.

The paladin behind him shifted, and Rev jumped back. He was too close to use his Moray. He pulled a Phoenix out of his thigh holster, ready to try and repeat history when the paladin rose into the air.

Rev watched it, mouth gaping open. The paladin swung a little, as if not totally in control, before it started rising quicker.

<Charged.>

“Give me the normal settings,” Rev ordered, raising Pashu.

<Your orders are to let some go, and without a pedestal, this one is not a threat.>

As if a wave was washing over him, Rev suddenly started coming down from his battle high.

“Rev!” Tomiko screamed.

He looked into the trees but didn’t see her. And he realized that as long as he was there, she wouldn’t leave. With a sigh, he lowered Pashu as the paladin gained speed and altitude. He watched it for a moment before he turned and started running toward the team’s rally point.

* * *

Rev stood over his two fellow Raiders. Badem had fallen over Nix as if trying to further protect him. Nix had died saving Rev, of that he was sure. That hunk of Centaur drone fifty meters away was targeting him, and Nix had exposed himself to take it down. Badem, the guy who wanted everyone to like him so much, he wouldn’t leave Nix out there, and that cost him his life.

Rev helped Doc Paul roll Badem off Nix. The doc took out his biometer and ran a scan of each of the Marines’ head. With a deep sigh, he shook his own head and said, “Just like the others. No chance of a resurrection.”

“Respect for the fallen,” the rest of them said.

Rev has expected as much. Whatever the new drones had used, it destroyed the nervous system, including the brain.

Rev walked a few steps closer to the meadow. Alpha was already bringing out bodies to the parking area. There were a lot of them. He’d seen Orpheus and Malaika, and felt guilty for his relief. The other Marines were just as important—they had just as many family members who would mourn their passing.

He didn’t know the numbers yet. Only a dozen or so wounded, but maybe a hundred dead. One tank was destroyed, too thoroughly to know if it was Bundy or not. And only a single Centaur killed, and not even the one Rev had hit.

Yes, that had been the plan, but somehow, Rev didn’t think it was worth it. The virus wasn’t even a proven weapon. For all he knew, the Centaurs could take their equivalent of an aspirin and be fine.

And what of Bluebonnet Meadow? It had been saturated in the virus. Would it recover? They said that it wouldn’t harm Earth life, but then why the filters? Why tell the Marines not to let the aerosol touch them?

Other Marines had started to gather the remains of the killer-drones. The engineers might be able to find out something useful from them, but only if they ever got the Centaurs off the planet. And after getting their asses handed to them so thoroughly, Rev was beginning to wonder if that was even possible.

But there was one more thing bothering Rev, and he was almost afraid to think about it. In the middle of the battle, when Rev had been ready to kill the fleeing paladin, Punch had refused and order and reminded him of their mission. Then he’d cut off Rev’s warrior-juice.

Not that he’d overtly said no, and he still hadn’t acknowledged that he was controlling Rev’s fighting spirit. But what it boiled down to was that he hadn’t done as Rev had ordered him. The fact that Punch was right didn’t change that.

Punch was a tool to feed him data, to help him fight. He could tell jokes and run music or shows. He could monitor Pashu. But what if he was more than just a tool? Then the question became who was really in charge, and who controlled whom?

26

<Power is down to two-point-one percent.>

“I guess it’s time.”

He signaled a halt, then knelt, Pashu pointed forward. Tomiko made her way to the front.

“What do you got?”

“I need to change my battery. Down to two percent.”

“OK, I’ll tell the master guns. Radić, take point.”

Rev waited until the private moved past him, then gratefully took a seat on a fallen tree trunk. He rotated his left shoulder. The strain of carrying Pashu’s weight was beginning to wear on him. Not that her seventy-plus kilos were overly heavy, but she perched on the end of his shoulder, not nicely centered. And the harness under his skin felt like it was bunching up, which was impossible, of course. But it sure felt that way.

He rested the edge of the cannon’s muzzled on the trunk beside him for a few moments, relieving the stress.

Come on Reverent. Stop being a baby.

Truth was, he was still depressed about the fight at Bluebonnet Meadow. Losing so many Marines, including two of his friends, was bad enough, but to kill just one Centaur was grating at him. The master guns had reminded him that their mission had been to let them get away, and Rev realized it, but it still made him angry. A couple more kills, particularly the courser, would have been better.

And if he were being honest with himself, his overall depression was probably why he was beginning to resent Pashu. Without her, he knew many more Marines would have been killed by the killer-drones before they could get away.

Hopefully, they’d have a better mission when they linked up with the Second Team. Something where they were allowed to actually kill the enemy of humankind.

What a concept!

But they weren’t going to get to the link-up with him sitting on his butt feeling sorry for himself. He pulled his assault pack off his back and took out one of his two spare batteries. This wasn’t a standard-issue powerpack. Bright white with “Sieben” emblazoned across it, the battery wasn’t tactical. But it supposedly was matched to the IBHU, giving it more precise power that resulted in a better beam.

Rev has his suspicions that any battery could do, but that Sieben had purposely designed the IBHU so that only this battery would work, thereby ensuring themselves of many downstream sales.

He reached back to remove the old battery, but try as he might, he couldn’t quite get it. He’d never replaced the battery before, letting Daryll or one of the other techs handle that.

“Well, crap. One more thing to report. This has got to be fixed.”

He called out for Tomiko.

“What now?” she asked.

“I need your help. I can’t replace my battery.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope.”

“Un-fucking-believable. They think you’re always gonna be with the techs? Idiots. Here let me see.”

She stepped behind Rev and asked, “I see the slot. Just press the release?”

“Turn counterclockwise, then press.”

He could feel her at his back, then heard, “OK, I got it out. Hand me that one.”

He held it over his shoulder, and she took it. He could feel her press against him, then heard a click.

“OK, it’s in.”

Rev frowned. His indicator hadn’t lit up.

“No, it’s not in right. Try again.”

“I got it right,” Tomiko grumbled, but she removed it, then snapped it in again. “There.”

Still nothing.

“Punch, run a power check.”

<Zero. No power.>

He raised Pashu, then lowered her. She worked better with the external energy, but in an emergency, she could take power for movement or to fire her missiles from his body for a limited time. He hoped that the motion might jiggle some bad connection.

“I still have nothing,” he said. “Try again to make sure it’s seated right, OK?”

Tomiko jumped up on the log, leaned over his shoulder, and said, “Look, Rev. There’s only one way it can go in, and it snapped in fine. I closed the lid and locked it. I put it in right.”

“But I still don’t have power. Can you try one more time?”

She rolled her eyes but jumped back down. He could feel her remove it, then put it back in.

Pashu remained dead.

“Nothing. Can you give that battery to me?”

Tomiko grumbled under her breath, too low for even Rev’s augmented hearing to pick up, but she took it out and handed it to him. He examined it, not really knowing what he was looking for. But nothing stood out. It should work.

“I’m going to give you my last one. Let’s hope it works, or I’m going to be pretty useless.”

He passed it back to Tomiko, and once again, he could feel as she snapped it in. A moment later, the cover was latched and turned.

Immediately, Pashu came to life.

<Power at ninety-nine-point-seven.>

“OK, OK, that did it, thank the Mother,” Rev said with relief.

“I told you I did it right. Freaking Sieben, giving you a shit battery. Kinda sucks.”

“Yeah, sucks big-time.”

She jumped off the log. “Well, hopefully, that one will last until we hit one of the supply caches. And for this one?” she said, waving the faulty one before flipping it over her shoulder and into the undergrowth. “I’d be asking Sieben for a refund.”

27

“Wow. This is pretty impressive,” Rev said as they walked into Tensing Station.

“Always did love my engineers,” the master guns added, hands on his hips as he surveyed what they’d done to what was the first refueling/rest stop between Swansea and Anastasia.

The Everest House, a large, garish building with a model of the Earth mountain rising from the roof, was the focus of the station, but combined with about a dozen smaller outbuildings and small homes, it created an active community.

Forty-seven klicks from Swansea, Rev had only been there once back when he’d been eight or nine, and all he could really remember was the “yeti jerky,” apple cider, and a large robotic yeti that welcomed visitors into Everest House.

But he still could see the transformation that had taken over the waystop. The engineers and sappers had been hard at work creating a trap for the Centaurs. The question was if it would work.

Tensing Station was located at the top of the grade. To the southwest, the highway descended through the mountains to Swansea. To the northeast, the highway crossed the high plains until it descended into Anastasia over a hundred klicks away. On either side, several peaks extended out into the plains. There was one way in and one way out.

The engineers were transforming the settlement, erecting walls, digging ditches, and creating obstacles. It looked like at least two homes had been razed. Rev couldn’t quite grasp the pattern yet, but that could be because they weren’t finished.

A shirtless, muscular Marine with a molecular bonder saw them and walked up. “You my Raiders?” he asked before noticing Rev and then McAnt. “Yeah, I guess you are. Lieutenant Suarez, Third Engineer Platoon.”

He held out his hand to Captain Omestori.

“So, what do you have going on here?” the captain asked. “All we really got was to come here and link up with you. I mean, we can see what you’re doing, but what’s the plan, and why us?”

“Why you, I don’t know, sir. I just needed bodies, and you got tasked. What we’re doing is trying to set ourselves a little trap that will allow us to get in close with the tin-asses and get them infected. But we wanted a little more active combat power, and you’re it.”

“You got MG(B)-93’s?” the captain asked.

“Some. The sapper platoon has more that they’re rigging up as boobytraps.”

“Boobytraps? You can do that?” Master Gunnery Sergeant Tuala asked.

“Come on, Master Guns,” the lieutenant said with a laugh. “You’ve been around engineers long enough to know we can do about anything. And sappers are almost engineers.”

“Right. Sorry. So, you’re setting up a kill zone here. What makes you think the tin-asses will come here? There’s an awful lot of nothing between here and Crymych.”

The sign Rev had read coming into the Tensing Station had said it was the last stop for food, power, and fun for eighty-six klicks, so the master guns’ question was valid. Between here and the little town of Crymych was open plains with nothing much to attract the attention of the Centaurs. With so few of them in an invasion, they tended to the more populated centers.

“This place has its own powerplant, of course, and the owners shut it down before evacuating. But one of my sergeants had an idea, and we ran it up the flagpole to get it approved. We think we can disguise the plant as a Class Three facility, then turn it on.”

“Class Three?”

<Typically used for factories.>

“So, you turn it on, and they think this is a factory that needs to be investigated?” the captain asked.

“Well, they probably know there’re no large buildings here, except for the Everest House, so maybe more like a mine.”

<Or a mine.>

“We think they’d got to send something up here to check. And with what we’re doing here, we can canalize them—”

“So, you can hit them with the grenades and booby traps, and if they come in force, you’ve got us in the mix.”

“You got it, sir.”

“So, when you are expecting to turn on the power?”

“Probably tomorrow, so we’ve got a lot to do.”

“And us? What do you want us to do until then?”

“Well, I’m guessing you want to look at the lay of the land to figure out where to deploy your Marines. Let me know where and we’ll dig you some bunkers. But I could also use some warm bodies for grunt work.”

“Thought so.” He turned to the three teams. “Master Guns, you come with me while we figure out just what we’re going to do. Third, you’ve got security.

“Top Thapa and Gunny Okafor, you heard the lieutenant. Take your teams and follow him. Until further notice, you’re day laborers.”

* * *

“Why wouldn’t the tin-asses just fly over all these obstacles?” Radić asked as they waited in the bunker.

“They could, but they like to stay on the ground,” Tomiko answered.

“Not the one that Corporal Pelletier shot at the meadow.”

“They can fly, but they don’t usually, unless it’s to get away.”

They don’t usually have big drones that attack, either. Until they do.

The fight in Bluebonnet Meadow still weighed heavily on his mind. He knew he had to let it go before the next fight, or it could slow his decision-making, and in his current role as a decoy, that could be fatal.

“Well, I’d just hop over them if I could,” Radić said.

“And I’d stay in this bunker if I could. Fight from here, all nice and cozy.” Porter stretched out her feet and kicked the front wall of the bunker. “These combat engineers sure know how to do their job.”

“Not me,” Tomiko said. “We’re a stationary target.” She looked at Rev, expecting him to chime in.

“Nice now. But maneuverability is what’s going to keep us alive,” he said, to her approval.

They’d been in the bunker for just under an hour, ever since the powerplant had been turned back on. Two by four meters and two meters deep, it was two hundred meters from the first major obstacle. Covered with a beam-scattering overhead, the Marines could see what was happening through three wide-angle optical cables, like overgrown versions of the Raiders’ individual Optisights. The overhead had two settings. Now latched shut, it could open just enough so that weapons could be used, or it could completely open, allowing the Marines to egress and rush into the fight. During a couple of dry runs, the four Marines could open the overhead and be out on the ground in just under two seconds.

Engineers being engineers, they wired every bunker so they’d have comms. Voice-activated, they’d work no matter what the Centaurs might try to do to jam them.

“How long before they get here?” Radić asked.

“Geez, Radić. Don’t you ever get tired of your own voice?” Tomiko asked. “Give it a rest. They’ll get here when they get here, if they come at all.”

“Just trying to prepare myself,” the PFC muttered quietly.

Rev leaned back and brought Pashu across his lap, letting her rest there. She was really dragging down on his shoulder, and he wished he could take her off, even if for only ten minutes. But of course, if the Gods of War saw that, then that’s when they’d bring the Centaurs. It always worked out that way.

He brought his right hand across his chest and under his armor, prodding at the harness underneath his skin and muscles. He could swear it felt bunched up, and no matter how hard he tried to press it down, as soon as he moved, is started bunching up again.

“You still can’t tell if the damn thing is screwed up?” he asked Punch.

<There are no sensors attached to it.>

“Well, I know this isn’t normal. One more thing to tell Doc C.”

With a sigh, he leaned forward again, looking out through the optical cable that covered the area in front of them. He’s already walked the ground, but now he was studying it, gaming out his routes for different possible scenarios. Some of the obstacles and buildings could give him cover. Others could only give him partial cover. But he didn’t want to be standing there under fire with his thumb up his butt while he decided which way to go. He wanted to have the area burned into his mind so he could react instinctively.

He was selecting a way forward if a single paladin was approaching from the highway when the landline buzzed. Tomiko gave him a raised eyebrow as she picked up the receiver.

“Yeah, yeah. Roger that. We’re ready, Master Guns.”

She hung up and turned to the others. “Six coming up the highway. Five paladins and a courser.”

“Five and one again. Not a coincidence, I’m betting,” Rev said. “Must be their new tactics. Did he say how far out?”

“Just passed the top of the grade. We’ve got maybe five minutes.”

“What about those new drones?”

“Didn’t say. Just to stand by. Nothing’s changed yet.”

“Stand by to stand by,” Strap said.

Rev was really beginning to hate the phrase. Everyone said it, and he’d thought it was clever the first time he’d heard it. Now, it just grated on his nerves. That didn’t mean it wasn’t accurate, though. That was exactly what they were doing. Their actions would be totally dependent on what the Centaurs did. It could be that they’d sit this out in their bunker if the Centaurs detonated enough booby traps, or it could be an out-and-out assault.

Rev was betting on the latter.

“Systems check.”

<Power, eighty-one-point-three percent. Full ordnance load. All systems green.>

“I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

He didn’t actually tell Punch to start giving him his warrior juice, but he felt a little stirring within his body. He still wasn’t sure that his battle buddy did that or if it was in his imagination, paranoia gone wild. But he wasn’t fighting it, so if that was what was happening, so be it.

“Everyone, nose filters. Strap, and Radic, check your loads again,” Tomiko said.

There were two clicks of the launchers, and both said, “Shotgun.”

“And Porter and I’ve got the gat.”

After Bluebonnet Meadow, more of the Marines were loading with the shotgun shells first for the drones. With the boobytraps, sappers, and combat engineers, there should be enough virus loads so that the Raiders could focus on defense.

“And I’ve got Pashu,” Rev said, slapping her barrel. “I’ve got a hankering for a courser.”

Tomiko shot him a look. “Nothing stupid, Rev. We still have to let them escape.”

“I know, I know. Just joking.”

But was I? I really don’t know.

“Not the time for jokes,” she said, almost sounding mollified.

Maybe you know me better than I do myself.

“Hey, there they are,” Radić said, pointing at the south-facing optical feed.

“Let me see,” Rev said, almost pushing the PFC out of the way.

A paladin was coming up the highway into the station. Another three hundred meters, and it would hit the detour the combat engineers devised. They’d built a small building right across the highway, then laid almost five hundred meters of fake highway that wound through a warren of barriers, kill zones, and boobytraps.

“Now let me see,” Tomiko said, tapping him on the shoulder. He surrendered the view piece. “And here comes the second.”

Rev went back to the front and looked out the front-facing feed. Soon enough, they’d come into its view. The first major question was if they’d follow the fake roadway. To Rev, it looked pretty realistic, but who knew what the Centaurs had at their disposal. And even if they knew it wasn’t the original road, would they care? Their arrogance in facing humans often surfaced in their seeming lack of adjusting to human presence.

“This is it. Remember, hold fast until I give the order,” Tomiko said.

Rev listened with only half an ear. He wanted to see that courser. And if it came to that, it would be his target. If he was going to distract them, why not go for the most powerful of the six?

“Any updates on courser vulnerabilities?”

<No updates. Weakest points are at the base of the pedestal and right rear quadrant. But weakest is relative.>

“Think Pashu can take one out?”

<Sieben thinks so.>

“What do you think.”

<It is possible.>

Which is better than impossible.

The first paladin strode into his feed’s field of view. It was only thirty meters from where First Element was hunkered in their bunker, but it didn’t pause. A moment later, the second one entered, following in trace of the first as they walked down the highway.

By the time the third one strode into view, the first was at the barrier. It didn’t hesitate but followed the fake road.

“We’ve got a nibble,” Rev said.

“Strap, anything?”

Strap’s area of observation was to the rear. The Centaurs rarely surprised humans with their tactics, but now wouldn’t be the time to have some Centaurs paralleling the visible column, ready to pounce if they had to exit the bunker.

“No flanking column. No drones, either.”

The second paladin turned at the detour as the third paladin appeared into view, and Rev watched for the next one to appear. As expected, the courser lumbered ahead, and Rev’s heartbeat raced ahead. He’d managed to dump one in the Muddy River on Tenerife, but the one four days ago had gotten away unscathed—as planned, but it still gnawed at him.

Another barrier, this time a wall, blocked the road. A path had been cleared to the side, with obvious tire tracks in the dirt. Rev barely noticed, as focused as he was on the courser.

“And, the dumb shit didn’t even hesitate. Look at that,” Tomiko said.

Either it’s stupid or doesn’t fear what we can do to it.

That self-confidence angered Rev even more. The helplessness he felt at the Meadows came rushing back as a wave of fury, their arrogance bringing it to new levels, and at that second, he knew he was going to kill that courser.

The first paladin passed behind one of the residences, and when it emerged on the other side, Tomiko said, “Get ready. It’ll hit the first booby trap in another twenty meters.”

Rev tore his gaze off the courser for a moment. The first paladin kept advancing, and as as soon as it reached a light pole, its front legs hit an almost invisible monomolecular line, tripping the two grenades—one a virus grenade, the other a normal one, attached to give the appearance of a bigger bang.

The paladin didn’t pause, but its pedestal started to traverse. And from two sides, engineers and sappers rose from bunkers and spider holes to launch a volley of both types of grenades. Rev got his feet under him as the grenades arced to the column of Centaurs.

Three of the Centaurs detonated their self-defense strips, exploding most of the grenades in midair, little white puffs of virus blown about in little whirlwinds. A few hit on or near the armored beasts.

The paladins moved off the road, trying to target the Marines, who had ducked back into their holes. The courser kept moving forward as if unfazed by the fire.

“Are we going?” Radić asked.

“Steady,” Tomiko replied.

The second paladin hit another tripwire, setting off a boobytrap. It fired off a burst from its cannon, but it didn’t look like it was aimed at anything specific.

The line buzzed. Tomiko picked it up, then set it back down.

“They’re going to do a second volley. We’re up. Wait for the signal.”

Rev felt a rush of excitement. He’d known it would come to this, but now it was a reality.

“Range to the courser?”

<Two hundred, thirty-one meters and closing.>

Too far. But it’s getting closer.

The paladins seemed to be seeking targets, firing indiscriminately into the buildings. If the engineers and sappers popped up now from their positions, they’d be mowed down.

Two white flares shot into the air. One of the paladins reacted, blasting one with its cannon, but its purpose was accomplished. With a shout, three Raider teams emerged from their bunkers, darting to pre-selected positions where they had some cover. Rev fired one of his Morays at the courser as he ran to the low wall to his right and got below it.

And the paladins reacted. Now that they had targets, their cannons aimed in. Rev prayed that the engineers were right in that the various pieces of cover, which looked like random hunks of cerrocrete or infrastructure, would stand up to the paladin’s cannons.

And, as luck would have it, his was tested right away. Five seconds after he hit the deck, he could feel the cannon fire flow around and over the wall, his skin tingling. As the beam passed, he risked a look. The courser was still moving forward, but closer to him, a paladin leveled one of the outbuildings not sixty meters away as it swept its pedestal to its left.

“I’m going,” he yelled, firing another Moray as he bounded over the wall and sprinted forward. He had the thing’s attention. The pedestal started traversing back as Rev made it to his next position. He fired once, still too far for Pashu to be effective, but close enough to catch the thing’s attention before he ducked behind what looked like a normal boulder.

He couldn’t see them, but McAnt and Pierson should be doing the same thing. If they were the target, then the engineers wouldn’t be.

Rev heard a grenade launcher fire, and for a moment, he thought the sappers and engineers had fired their second volley, but then he heard, “Drones!”

He looked to his right where Strap was reloading and firing at something overhead.

Crap. That’s all we need.

At that moment, the engineers and sappers rose up again, firing another volley. Grenades arced up again with more making it through. The paladin in front of Rev got hit three times, white puffs almost enveloping it.

With that volley, the engineers were out of virus grenades. The mission was essentially over. All that they were waiting for was the recall, but that couldn’t happen until the Centaurs were lured or chased away.

Raiders up! Now we earn our keep.

“Get ready!” Tomiko shouted as she rose to her knees and added her virus grenade to the cause.

A drone flew into Rev’s line of sight but out of his range, and he considered taking a shot at it with his 20mm gun when it stopped dead in the air. It lowered a few meters then blasted away at the ground beneath it.

Rev frowned in puzzlement when the top of a spider hole right next to where it fired popped open, a Marine with an M-49 rising up to take a shot at it. But the drone fired first, dropping the Marine.

And in a flash, Rev realized what had happened. If the killer-drones had the same wide-angle scanning capabilities as human drones did, then by firing that second volley, the engineers had revealed their positions.

The drone crabbed to the left and fired again, and what looked like a spiderhole cover blew open and fell shut.

“We can’t go!” he shouted as he jumped out from behind his cover and started sprinting. He knew the closest paladin could acquire him, but he had to trust his speed. His legs churned as he closed the distance.

“Give me the drone specs,” he shouted.

There was no hesitation this time.

<Done,> Punch said, putting in the same power and spread as in Bluebonnet Meadow.

Rev raised Pashu and fired once, dropping the drone as it started to crab over again. Feeling the paladin behind him, Rev dove to the right and scrabbled for cover. But no shot came. Rev turned to his side, and the paladin was moving to Rev’s left, toward Second Team’s area. A Moray flew out, glancing off the top of the hulk, and the paladin continued, its scorpion legs covering the ground at a good clip.

Rev raised his body up, and three hundred meters away, five or six drones were methodically making their way over the ground, firing straight down. Rev couldn’t see their targets, but that was about where the sapper platoon had been dug in.

“Cover me, Miko!”

He bolted forward, trying to close the distance.

<Charged.>

Another figure ran toward the drones, and for a moment, he thought it must be McAnt, but this was no IBHU Marine. It was Private Harisa, charging recklessly across the ground and vaulting a low wall. She stopped about twenty meters away from the single-minded drones, raised her M-49, and fired her attached grenade launcher with the shotgun round. Parts of one of the drones exploded in the air, the main chunk turning over as it fell to the ground.

Standing tall like someone out of a classic western holovid, she chambered a new shell, aimed, and fired again. Another drone down.

Rev wondered how they could be so focused as to not see her, but all the better. She fired twice more, killing both times.

Movement caught Rev’s eye as he ran, and he turned his head to see the paladin closing, but not with him. It was closing with Harisa, the big cannon coming around to bear on her.

Rev instinctively fired at it, but with the drone settings, he didn’t faze it.

“Lieutenant, get down!” he shouted as he switched to his Moray. He fired, and he hit it flush, but it didn’t seem to have any effect.

His shout got through, however, and Harisa turned around. He could see her spot the paladin, her eyes getting larger, but with a tightened mouth, she turned back and calmly dropped the last two drones. Only then did she try to move, but it was too late. The paladin fired its cannon, and she disappeared into a pink mist.

“Give me the damn regular specs.”

This time, Punch didn’t argue. <Done.>

Rev raised Pashu, but he didn’t have to ask the range. The paladin was too far and heading away, its cannon firing. Another Moray hit it and, once again, there was no effect.

What the hell is going on? Three hits at least, and nothing? Did the tin-asses upgrade their armor?

If they had, this was not going to be good.

A huge explosion rocked the station, the shock wave hitting Rev hard. He spun around. Everest House was a smoking ruin. The courser fired again, and what was left went up in flames and smoke.

Whatever the courser had fired, it wasn’t an energy weapon, and it was powerful. But why had it fired on the—”

Well, no shit.

The power station wasn’t really in a mine. It was in the Everest House. And the Centaurs wanted to make sure it wasn’t operable.

Rev was angry, but not the hot anger of crazytown. It was the cold, icy anger of revenge. Ignoring the fighting going on around him, ignoring the drones that somehow didn’t target him, he started running toward the courser. It was going to die, and he was going to kill it.

He angled off to the right, hoping to cut it off. After darting between two buildings, he put his back to the wall of one and peeked around. The courser was returning, smashing through one of the walls the engineers put up.

“Range?”

<One hundred and forty-two meters.>

He pulled up his overlay. With the courser coming back, he saw a route, making use of the buildings for cover, to get within forty meters by the time it reached that first barrier.

You’re mine, asshole.

Rev darted ahead, across the side street, when a blast sounded behind him. He glanced back just before he reached cover on the other side and slid to a halt, his feet gouging the dirt.

In the open area before the first row of buildings, Strap was down and motionless. Doc Paul was kneeling over him, M-49 aimed high as he fired shotgun round after round. A drone exploded and showered the two with debris.

Courser forgotten, Rev shouted at Punch to change back to the drone specs as he broke into a sprint. Doc Paul twisted his head, then hopped over Strap to put his body between the Marine and an oncoming drone. He waited too long, Rev thought, until he fired. At almost the same instant, he jerked, then fell forward, dropping his weapon and catching himself with one arm.

And then Rev was in range. With a sweep, he blew the last two drones he could see, quickly closing in the two Raiders.

“You got anything?”

<No drones in the immediate vicinity.>

Rev slid to a stop next to Doc and Strap.

“You OK, Doc?”

“I don’t know. I took something there,” Doc gasped.

Strap was on his back, eyes closed, one hand clenched into the claw, a sign of serious nerve damage.

“What about Strap?”

“Alive. That’s all I had time for.”

“Let’s get him out of here.”

Doc tried to help, but Rev grabbed Strap and flung him over his shoulder. He pulled Doc to his feet, then started sprinting back to the nearest buildings. A paladin strode by not even a hundred meters away, but its attention was toward the center of the station as it passed out of sight.

They reached the same building behind which Rev had just taken cover a minute or two ago. Rev laid Strap down as Doc collapsed heavily beside him. His right arm hung limp, but he took out his bioscan and started running it over Strap.

“He’s alive. Not in good shape, but he can make it if we get him treated,” Doc told Rev.

“Stay with him,” Rev said. “I’ve got to get going.”

He stood when the top half of the building exploded. Rev was picked off the ground and flung twenty meters backward. He instinctively reached out with his arms as he crashed into the ground. Pashu’s muzzle hit first, digging into the dirt, and his body was flung over that point to smash into the ground.

Rev was dazed, and he fought to keep consciousness. He twisted his head around to his fellow Raiders. Doc was sprawled out, but he was already struggling to get back up. Whatever had hit the building had hit high, and enough of the lower meter or so had survived to protect Strap and the Doc. Rev wanted to call out, but he couldn’t get his mouth to engage.

Another blast leveled the next building, the shock wave washing over him. Energy weapons shouldn’t react like that against inanimate objects, but his brain couldn’t put together the dots. And then the courser appeared in the wreckage, like a rampaging elephant. Rev had assumed it was going to head back down the road. It, evidently, had other ideas.

Rev tried to sit up, pulling Pashu’s muzzle out of the dirt. He managed to pull her across his lap, then struggled to draw a bead on the courser, which fired its cannon again, hitting something out of Rev’s sight.

<The IBHU’s circuit is down.>

“What do you mean? What circuit?”

It was only then that he noticed the red flashing light on his display.

<Your connection with the IBHU is down.>

Rev ignored Punch, aimed the best he could, and fired. Or, at least he gave the order to fire. Pashu didn’t respond.

“Fix her!”

<I’m trying to run back-up routing, but it isn’t working.>

“Shit,” he said, his mind numb.

He tried to fire another Moray, and to his surprise, the missile took off. To his even bigger surprise, it locked onto the courser and hit it solidly. It might as well have been the bite of a gnat, though. The courser didn’t seem to notice.

“Die, you sucker,” Rev tried to yell, but it came out with a series of coughs.

The courser, now fifty meters away, seemed to take up Rev’s entire field of vision. He could feel the vibration of the ground each time one of those twenty-four legs hit. Another paladin appeared beyond it, but Rev barely noticed.

The courser veered to its right, knocking over what was left of one of the residences. A Raider jumped up and bolted away, trying to get some distance in order to use their Moray. It looked like Gizzy to Rev’s dazed mind, but he couldn’t be sure. He wanted to cheer her on, but that wouldn’t help her. He fired his fourth Moray just as Gizzy stopped to wheel around, adding her missile to his when there was a flash from the side of the Centaur. Gizzy was already moving, but not quickly enough. As the Morays exploded uselessly against the Courser, Gizzy was hit high, her lower torso flung backward onto the ground.

The Moray’s weren’t having any effect, and Rev tried to will his cannon into working. But it remained a quiet hunk of machinery.

Where the hell is McAnt?

Maybe he could stop the beast.

The courser turned toward Rev, Doc, and Strap. It fired its cannon twice more, but Rev couldn’t tell if that was random or targeted. Rev was more worried that it was going to trample the two Raiders.

“Doc! It’s coming. Get Strap out of there!” he managed to croak loud enough for Doc to hear.

Doc didn’t argue or ask questions. He grabbed Strap by the harness and started to drag him deeper into the station. Rev got to his hands and knees and began to crawl, not really knowing what he was going to do. He had two more Morays and his 20mm, but he didn’t think that twenty could fire without external power.

He was going to find out.

Rev moved to a sitting position, Pashu ready for when the courser emerged from behind the last remaining standing building. Seiben thought that the 20mm could pierce a riever. Rev was going to find out what it could do to a courser.

The huge Centaur appeared, just forty meters away. Rev tried to fire.

Nothing.

It was what he expected, but still, it hurt.

He reached into his holster and pulled out one of his Phoenixes. He’d killed a paladin with one, but in the shape he was in, he didn’t give himself much of a chance. Hell, the thing had to see him, and it could take him out before it got close enough for Rev to try a toss.

The ground vibrated with each step, the vibration traveling up his spin, jolting his head.

“You still there, Punch?”

<Still here.>

“Any brilliant ideas?”

<I’m afraid not.>

“Well, then, here goes nothing.”

Rev cocked his right arm, ready to throw the incendiary grenade. Just ten more meters . . .

But the courser was suddenly surrounded by distorted air. Rev thought his bruised brain was playing tricks on him, but the courser reacted violently. It jerked to the side with the reflexes of a cat, quicker than any paladin had shown. Its pedestal started to swing around to its rear, and beyond it, running through the rubble, Rev caught the unmistakable outline of an IBHU.

“McAnt!” Rev screamed aloud in joy. “Kill that fucker!”

But as the Marine got closer, something was wrong. McAnt wasn’t that big. He was much . . . Pierson?

Not believing his eyes, that was Pierson—big, soft Pierson—charging forward, screaming like a berserker.

Rev dropped his Phoenix and fired another Moray, hoping to distract the courser, but the thing never flinched. It was focused on Pierson, finally bringing its cannon all the way around.

“Juke!” Rev shouted, but Pierson realized the danger, too. Still screaming, he dodged to the right and almost immediately back to the left. The cannon belched, but unbelievably, whatever kind of kinetic round it fired, missed. Pierson kept coming.

Now, less than eighty meters away, Pierson juked again, this time dodging behind what was left of one of the buildings. The courser followed with its pedestal, ready to blast the Raider as he emerged on the other side. Rev managed to stand as he craned his neck to watch, hoping against hope that Pierson would outrun the pedestal.

But Pierson had other ideas. As the pedestal traversed, he reappeared—but not on the far side of the building. He’d doubled back and come out right where he’d disappeared. And now, seventy to eighty meters away, he was only spitting distance from being within range.

The courser realized its mistake, and it started to swing back, but with two strides, Pierson raised his IBHU and fired. From Rev’s angle, he could see the air around the courser distort, and the Centaur seemed to shudder. Its right legs collapsed, canting the thing, and the pedestal stopped moving. But it wasn’t dead. The right legs kept trying to move it, and there was a flash from the left side, the side facing Pierson, and the same kind of flash that had killed Gizzy.

But the ground well short of Pierson exploded upward. Evidently, the cant was too much for it to compensate.

Pierson slowed to a walk, but he kept advancing, IBHU aimed in at the thing. Rev yelled at him to get back, but the private ignored him.

Shouting and the sound of a Moray exploding from Rev’s left dragged his attention away from the courser. A paladin was at top speed, breaking through buildings and obstacles as it came to the courser’s rescue, its cannon shimmering as it fired.

Rev felt helpless. The Morays weren’t having an effect, but they were his only option. He hefted Pashu around and fired his last missile, just as the paladin, 145 meters away, was climbing over one of the combat engineers’ obstacles. The missile ran true, hitting the exposed underside. This time, the Moray pierced the armor, the pedestal on top blowing off in a gout of flame. A moment later, the paladin self-detonated with a huge fireball, the blast demolishing the half-ruined cafe beside it.

“Self-detonation!” he yelled at Pierson as he turned back to the Raider.

Pierson had stopped thirty meters away from the courser, his IBHU trained on it. He’d stopped screaming, and the IBHU’s muzzle was wavering just a bit.

“It’s going to self-destruct,” Rev yelled again.

This time Pierson seemed to hear. He looked over at Rev, and their eyes met. He gave his usual goofy smile, shrugged, and fired his cannon.

Rev hit the deck and hugged the dirt as the courser went up in a hellstorm. His face was slammed into the ground, and all went dark.

28

“OK, steady, and ease it closer,” Rev said.

Tomiko and Porter shuffled in half a meter until they were holding Pashu up and alongside his shoulder.

“Right there, stop!”

With his cannon down and no Daryll around to troubleshoot it, Rev was doing the only thing he could think of—the field-expedient power down and power back up. Tomiko and Porter had, with more than a little difficulty, been able to remove Pashu from his sleeve. But removing something was easier than connecting it, and the last two attempts to hook Pashu back up had failed. They couldn’t line her up.

If they couldn’t do it, then maybe they were going about it the wrong way. Rev had the most experience in this, so he was going to try connecting him to Pashu, not the other way around.

Looking over his shoulder, he tried to eyeball the alignment, then he leaned into her as his two teammates held her steady. To his surprised, she seemed to click into place. Lights lit up his display.

<Connection made and booting up.>

“Shit,” he said in relief, shutting his eyes.

“Shit? It didn’t work?” Tomiko asked.

“What? Oh, no. That was a good shit, not a bad one. She’s booting up now. I’ll see in a moment if we’re green.”

The lights cycled around until a single, beautiful green one shined steady. Rev lifted her, feeling the ease of movement. It wasn’t as smooth as before, and there was a slight hitch as he raised her above the horizontal, but she was moving on external power, not vampiring off his body.

<Charged.>

Rev raised Pashu and fired into the air.

“She looks good,” he told Tomiko.

“Thank the Mother. Carp, go track down the captain or the master guns and tell them Rev is back up,” she told Porter.

Even with that worry off his shoulders, Rev still had so much on his mind. “Strap?”

“Doc says he’s not as bad as he looks. I mean, he’s fucked up, but he can recover. The engineer corporal who’s in charge now sent a landline message for some sort of transport for the wounded.”

Rev raised his eyebrows at that. If a corporal was the senior combat engineer left, they must have taken pretty heavy casualties.

“You should have seen Doc, Miko, blasting killer-drones out of the air. He wasn’t going to leave Strap for anything.”

“Does that surprise you? Doc is Doc.”

“No, it doesn’t surprise me. But it was good to be a witness.”

“Pierson, though, that surprised me. Did you see that . . . that . . .”

“That soft, ex-Ninety-nine Marine?” Rev prompted.

“Yeah, now that you put it that way. I mean, Pierson? He was an animal.”

“Took out a courser. Probably saved a lot of us, and he certainly turned the battle.”

Rev hadn’t actually seen the end of the battle. The courser’s self-destruction had knocked him out, and it took a couple of minutes while his nanos assessed his condition then slowly brought him around again. But the moment the courser had gone up, the remaining four paladins had broken contact and sped back down the highway.

“Don’t get me wrong. I saw him, and he was amazing. But if it was going to be any one of you, I would have bet money on you or even McAnt—”

She stopped at the mention of McAnt. What remained of his body, if anything, hadn’t been located yet, only a mangled chunk of his IBHU.

“Respect for the fallen,” Rev said.

This had been an expensive mission. McAnt, Harisa, Gizzy. And those were the only ones he knew for sure. More Raiders, combat engineers, and sappers were KIA. He looked toward the highway down which the four paladins had retreated, hoping it was worth it.

It didn’t feel like it to him, though.

“Well, if you’re combat-ready now, let’s go find out how we can be useful,” Tomiko said.

Rev rotated Pashu around a few more times. She wasn’t perfect, but she was combat-capable. With McAnt gone, if Pashu was still down, that would have left only Pierson. And despite what Rev had witnessed an hour ago, he felt much better knowing that hadn’t put it all on the private’s shoulders.

29

“No batteries for me?”

“Sorry, Rev. No,” Tomiko said.

“Shit! How the hell do they expect me to fight if I don’t have freakin’ power!” he shouted into the treetops.

“What are you at now?” Tomiko asked.

“Sixteen freaking percent.”

“How long will that last you?”

“If I don’t have to use Pashu? Maybe a day. A little longer. If we engage, who knows?”

He could ask Punch for some numbers, but Rev didn’t want to hear what they were just now. He’d ask later for various projections, but for the moment, it would just piss him off more.

When the food, water, and munitions caches were made, there was no such thing as an IBHU, and the developers of the system didn’t take power into consideration. If they had, they would have made the system work on standard battery packs instead of a unique design with different specs. There wasn’t even a way to jury-rig anything in the cache to make it work.

“Take six of the Morays, and, if you can, husband the power. Don’t use your beamer unless you have to.”

Rev shook his head. Pashu supposedly cost almost as much as a Shrike, and that was a lot of money and effort for a Moray launcher. Here he was, attached to a certified Centaur-killer, and he was afraid to use her and run out of all power.

He took the Morays, putting two in the rails and the other four in the holster on his back, then refilled water and combat rats. He sat on a fallen tree and closed his eyes for a moment.

He hurt. His body was telling him he needed a break. Two weeks with Pashu attached was in some ways more difficult than the time he spent in the EVA suit on the asteroid. True, here he had fresh air and sun in his face, but gravity was making him resent his IBHU. She’d kept him alive during the fights, but now, she was dragging on his shoulder. The jolt she’d taken at Tensing Station hadn’t helped either. Punch said everything was back to green, but he was sure she was out of whack. So, now, even more than before, he was sore and inflamed at the sleeve. Not only that, but his harness was pulling so that every step felt like a mouse gnawing at him from the inside.

“How long since my last neuralgia block?”

<Two hours, forty-six minutes.>

He grimaced. He knew it hadn’t been long enough, but he’d hoped for something a little later. It was the only thing that helped, but he couldn’t take it at closer intervals than eight hours, or his reflexes would suffer—not something a Marine wanted while fighting Centaurs. Doc Paul might be able to hook him up with something that his nanos weren’t equipped to give him, but for some reason, he didn’t want to let anyone know he was suffering. It was stupid, he knew. The master guns, as his team leader, and Tomiko, as his element leader, deserved to know if he wasn’t at a hundred percent. But he still hesitated.

“OK, let’s form up. We’ve still got time, but I want to be in place long before the tin-asses get there,” the master guns said.

With a barely suppressed sigh, Rev got to his feet and moved to the front of the column, where he waited until the team leader gave the order to move out. On every movement, he was point, which made a lot of sense. He was able to react quicker than anyone else on the team, and while the rest of the Marines could take down a drone with their M-49 or attached grenade launcher with the shotgun round, that still took aiming and possibly several shots to hit it. With Rev, a single measured pulse with his beamer was enough to seal the deal.

The ambush location was only eighteen hundred meters from the cache, an easy hump. And this entire AO was exquisite, Rev had to admit. The combat engineers had done an amazing job, as always first with subtle barriers that would nudge any Centaurs heading toward the Grace Canyon resorts toward a deceptively difficult path, then progressively canalize them into a sweet kill zone that sappers and engineers had riddled with booby traps and some impressive mines. The Raiders had been told that there was even a deadfall that the engineers were betting could take out a riever for sure, but maybe even a paladin.

This spot had been ready since the second day of the battle, but no Centaurs had moved in that direction until now. Three had been spotted by two different CWV teams as they headed up Bluetop Road as it wound up Bluetop Creek, and if they kept coming, they’d be walking into the ambush.

Despite his physical discomfort, Rev started to feel his old friend, adrenaline, start to make its presence known. He could feel his warrior coming on, and the ache faded away. With their gats expended, this was a kill mission, pure and simple, something the team could sink their teeth into.

A Raider team against three paladins certainly wouldn’t be an easy kill, even with Rev and Pashu. But even one would be a moral victory, if nothing else. With the Centaurs still holding Swansea, the Marines needed all the moral victories they could get.

Rev led the team cross country. Centaur drones could be anywhere, but they tended to follow the roads. Particularly in the foothills, that made sense when fighting armor. The gullies and slopes cut by years of snowmelt and rainfall pretty much limited armor mobility. But mechs could traverse the terrain, much less ground pounders. For an enemy so highly developed in so many ways, sometimes they could sure be dumb.

They reached the far side of the ambush site, a thirty-meter-high cliff on the far side of the creek. With Bluetop Road blocked two hundred meters back, thanks to an engineer-created rockslide, the flat grassy area on the near side looked like an easy way forward. But a small diversion in the creek now soaked the ground with water, which would make the paladins’ twenty-two legs sink deep into the marshy soil.

Slow movement and no way forward meant the Centaurs would either try and cross the creek and scale the cliffs—which was possible but not probable, even for a paladin—die in place, or retreat. And Rev’s mission was to make sure they would pay the price for trying to run. The Morays weren’t proving very effective, but his cannon could kill, and if they hit one of the mines, that should be enough to tally a couple of Centaur kills.

Rev took his position at the front of the ambush, where he had clear lines of fire into the kill zone. When the Centaurs moved through, he was going to let them pass. The ambush would be kicked off beyond him, and if they tried to retreat, then he would open fire with his beamer first, Moray second, hoping to cut them down.

The team would immediately pull back whether any Centaurs survived or not and try to put some distance between them and their position before the inevitable response.

Rev settled into place on his stomach, then pulled his tarp over himself. He should be essentially invisible to outside observers, just another piece of the forest floor. Now it was just time to wait.

* * *

The beetle trundled across Rev’s line of sight, just centimeters from Rev’s tarp. It reached the chunk of wood Rev had placed there to break up his outline even more. Its iridescent green shell almost sparkled in the late afternoon light as it tried to climb the wood until it toppled over backward.

Just go around.

But with legs flailing, it finally righted itself to try again, and with the same results.

Stupid beetle.

Once again, it flailed its legs until one caught on the edge of the branch, and it turned over.

This time, as it started forward, Rev broke protocol. He reached his hand out from under the tarp and lifted the branch. The beetle didn’t seem to notice and marched on, oblivious of the giant who was clearing the way for it.

You’re welcome.

He brought his hand back when a soft scruff caught his attention, and he froze. There was nothing in the kill zone. Then, there it was again, but behind him.

“What do you need, Miko?”

“Hell, I knew I couldn’t sneak up on you.”

Rev smiled. It could have been the master guns, but whoever it had been sounded smaller, and that left Tomiko as the only other Marine who might have broken her position.

“You holding up OK?”

Rev didn’t bother turning around. “My damn diaper’s full, but other than that, yeah, I’m still alert and ready.”

Tomiko chuckled. “That’s what you get for being an oversized gorilla with an oversized bladder. I’m still pretty dry.”

Rev’s crystal pouch had some absorption capacity left, but that would be gone if they were stuck in the position much longer. In an ambush, he wasn’t going to back off his position and take a leak. He’d actually been surprised that Tomiko was crawling around, element leader or not.

“Master Guns says we’re gonna stay until nightfall, and if the tin-asses haven’t come, then pull back to Checkpoint three-oh-six. So, when you hear the signal, start off, and we’ll follow in trace.”

“Got it.”

“OK, I’m heading back. Just be ready.”

“Where were they last spotted?” Rev asked before Tomiko could back away from the ridgeline.

“Team Six Twenty-One saw them at the bend in Turtle Road at zero-seven-twenty this morning.”

Rev pulled that up to his retinal display. If the Centaurs were at that spot that early, they should have been here at least three hours ago, given their normal rate of advance. Either they were moving much slower than normal, they’d stopped for some reason, or they’d turned back.

“OK, thanks, Miko.”

He listened to her crawl away as he deflated. This looked like it was going to be a bust. They hadn’t had contact now for three days, and Rev was itching for action. The sooner they could end this, the sooner the planet’s survivors could start to rebuild.

But maybe, just maybe, the Centaurs would still come. Rev tried to project his senses forward, seeking any sign of the enemy. But even the birds were quiet.

Along with his disappointment, his aches returned. Add being flat on his belly and his body weight pushing down, his harness was digging into his skin. He could take another dose of the blockers now, but if they were going to lie in wait for another two hours, he decided to wait until then.

The sound didn’t register with him at first, just a little background noise, but it grew in intensity until he noticed it. It took a few more minutes before he realized what it was. A ship was descending in the distance with the nerve-numbing whine of a Centaur vessel.

Ambush forgotten, Rev pulled back his tarp and looked up, but the trees blocked his view. Twenty meters away, Radić was doing the same.

“All hands, on me!” the master guns bellowed.

Rev jumped up and ran along the ridgeline, aches no longer relevant. His mind was racing. The Centaurs were sometimes known to reinforce planets they took, and if they were landing more fighters, then Rev didn’t see how they could possibly fight them off.

“I’m canc’ing this,” the master guns said as Rev, the last one in the line, reached him. “Corporal Pelletier, take point, and push it. We’re going back to the last cache. I need to get on the comms and find out what’s going on.”

Rev started down the backside of the ridge when a break in the trees revealed the entire plains across to the Rusty Mountains. And in the distance, where lingering smoke obscured most of Swansea, a Centaur ship was landing. Rev and Radić paused for a moment to look before Tomiko told them to move on.

Rev bounded down to the bottom, then led off at a quick pace. They still didn’t know where the three paladins that were heading their way were, and if that ship was an indication of reinforcements, then the planet couldn’t afford to lose a single Marine to a stupid loss of tactical concentration.

The movement to the ambush site from the cache had taken eighty minutes. The trip back took seventeen. Rev pushed to the far side and took a knee, Pashu trained outboard. He had a better view of the plains now, but the ship wasn’t in sight.

The master guns went straight to the hidden receiver. Rev’s focus was forward security, but he couldn’t help himself from trying to pick up what the master guns was saying on his end of the line.

Finally, the team leader said, “Everyone, listen up. That ship we saw has landed at the university athletic complex. We don’t know anything else at this time. Our orders are to stay here until the situation becomes clearer.”

“Do we know what happened to the three paladins that were heading our way?” Radić asked. “That might tell us something.”

Rev turned to look at the private, surprised that no one else had thought of that. Including the master gunnery sergeant. He nodded and got back on the line. Thirty seconds later, he put the receiver back and announced, “They reappeared, hightailing back the way they came at eleven-fifteen. So, about half an hour after we got into position.”

They could have gone back because the ambush had been compromised, but Rev’s gut told him that wasn’t the case. If not that, though, then what?

The sun slipped past the peaks of the Rusty Mountains, and Swansea faded away in the shadows and smoke. Lights that would normally appear remained dark.

No one spoke. If they were like Rev, their minds were whirling with possibilities. Not knowing what was happening was excruciating.

The master guns kept picking up the receiver every five minutes or so, but he had nothing to relay to the team until a full hour later. “There’s an open message on the line. If any tin-asses are encountered, we’re ordered not to engage and let them proceed.”

“What do you mean, Master Guns?” Hussein asked. “Just let them attack us?”

“I don’t know what the message means. I’m just relaying it.” He paused as he considered it, then said, “OK, this is what we’ll do. If they attack, fight back. If they’re attacking any citizen, fight back. Otherwise, keep your heads down and let them go do whatever the hell they’re doing.”

“What the heck is going on?” Rev muttered.

“Do you have any ideas?” he asked Punch.

<I don’t have enough input to even give a possible explanation.>

“What about that ship we saw landing. You know what it is?”

<It had the characteristics of what we designate as an AS-40.>

“Which means what?”

<It is just a class of ship with the same outward characteristics. What that might indicate in this case is unknown.>

Well, that sure cleared up things. So glad I asked.

Rev’s shoulder was aching, so he shifted to the right and knelt by one of the benches, letting it take some of Pashu’s weight. He caught Tomiko watching him closely, but she didn’t say anything, and he didn’t volunteer anything.

“Go ahead and give me the blockers.”

<Roger. Starting delivery.>

Even with a nano infusion, it would take at least ten minutes for it to take effect. Rev was counting down the minutes when the whine of the Centaur ship twinged his inner ear. He stood and looked toward Swansea. The enemy ship rose out of the smokey darkness, crabbed away from the mountains, and with unnatural acceleration, shot into the night sky. Nine sets of eyes watched until it disappeared from sight.

Eight of those sets of eyes swiveled to stare at the team leader. The master gunnery sergeant picked up the receiver and listened.

“What are they saying,” Hussein asked. The team leader held out his hand, palm forward, to shut him down.

The team members started to edge closer to him, but the master gunnery sergeant was intent on what was being said on the other end of the line. Finally, with the entire team clustered around him, he lowered the receiver and looked up, his mouth half-open.

“Well?” Hussein prompted.

“Uh . . . our orders are to stay in place. We’ll have more specific orders soon.”

“And? The tin-ass ship?”

“They’re gone.”

“Yes, we saw the ship leave,” Rev said.

The master guns turned from Hussein to Rev and said, “Not the ship. The tin-asses. They mounted up and left. And not just here. All over the planet, their ships have come in to pick them up,” he said, his voice becoming animated.

“The command is urging caution. They don’t know where the ships were taking them. It could just be a redeployment of forces, and we’ll be fighting again tomorrow. But from all appearances, they’re abandoning New Hope.

Rev’s mind was numb as he tried to grasp what the team leader was saying. It didn’t seem possible. Someone took his hand, and he turned to see Tomiko standing there.

“Can it really be true?” she asked.

“Did you hear what I just said?” the master gunnery sergeant asked before shouting out for everyone to hear, “We won! We took back New Hope!”

30

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

Rev stood at attention, his eyes locked straight ahead as the recording faded into silence. He’d heard the ancient hymn too many times over his service as a Marines, but always on foreign soil. Krissy, Staff Sergeant Montez, Kel Dean-Ballester, Bintang Tanuwijaya, Nicte Yazzie, Sisi Wheng. All making the ultimate sacrifice, far from their birthplace. This time, though, in front of the ruins of the Camp Nguyen chapel, it somehow hit harder. This brought the real cost of the war home like an emotional hammer.

Most of the chapel was gone, but in front of what had been the sacristy, six stands were lined up. Rifles, helmets, and other items were placed on a table to the side.

Tanks and mech suffered more casualties, but every single loss was one too many.

Colonel Destafney stood silently to the side, his hair grayer, almost matching his metallic face. He looked older and sadder, not like someone who’d just commanded the Marines who’d helped throw the Centaurs off the planet.

Sergeant Major O’Hara hadn’t survived the fight, and Sergeant Major Perez, the First Battalion senior enlisted Marine, was filling in. Along with the chaplain, this was going to be a long day of ceremonies for the three of them.

The regimental chaplain got up as the strains of the hymn faded away. He looked at the gathered Raiders for a long moment before he made some brief comments about righteousness, about sacrifice, about families and friends. Rev let the words pass through one ear and out the other. He was thinking about those they’d lost.

Colonel Destafney was next. He said a few words about each of the fallen. Rev wondered how many times he was going to have to go through that today, and he understood now why the man looked defeated, even after what had to be considered a resounding victory.

Captain Omestori, his leg in a healing chamber, didn’t have a speech prepared. He called the platoon to attention, and Master Gunnery Sergeant Tuala cleared his throat before calling out in a steady voice, “Acacia, June.”

“Here,” the lance corporal from Second Team responded.

“Anderson, Ji.”

“Here, Master Gunnery Sergeant.”

“Awara, William,” the master guns continued.

“Here.”

Rev started sweating. He knew what the next name would be.

“Badem, Tubba.”

Tulip, you were a good Marine, my man.

“Private First Class Tubba C. Badem,” the platoon sergeant said, his voice slightly louder.

The master guns waited a few more seconds before calling out a third and final time, “Tubba C. Badem.”

Only silence greeted him.

“Private First Class Tubba C. Badem, killed in action, August 2, 3830, Wales Province, New Hope,” he intoned.

Radić and two of Badem’s boot camp friends marched forward and turned to face the photo. Radić placed a rifle in the stand in front of the photo, then put a helmet on top of the rifle. One of the other Marines placed a pair of boots in front of them both, and the third reached over and hung Badem’s dog tags from the M-49. The three Marines saluted and marched back into the formation.

“Černý, Hussein,” the platoon sergeant continued his role call.

“Here, Master Guns.”

“Etherington, Rene.”

“Absent but accounted for,” Top Thapa responded.

Rev knew this wasn’t the only time he’d hear that during the ceremony. Two other Marines had been CASVACd to the temporary aid station.

“Fiorelli, Imminata,” the platoon sergeant called out.

There was no answer.

“Hospitalman Third Class Imminata S. Fiorelli.”

Rev had been treated by Doc Imm in sick call, and he’d only recently transferred over from Recon after Doc Sue had been lost on the Kearsage. He didn’t know the corpsman well, but she’d seemed like a good teammate.

“Hospitalman Third Class Imminata S. Fiorelli.”

The silence was almost too hard to take.

“Hospitalman Third Class Imminata S. Fiorelli. Killed in action, August 2, 3830, Wales Province, New Hope.”

Doc Paul, a chief from the regimental aide station, and Greenie Sjberic took the honors for her before returning to the formation.

“Gantz, Mordechai.”

“Here,” Strap said in a weak voice.

Rev had been surprised to see Strap show up. He’d been taken to the underground aide station after Tensing Station. He was torn up from shrapnel and burns, and had a skull fracture, two broken bones, and some internal damage, but nothing was going to keep him from attending the service. Captain Omestori had picked him up and brought him to the ceremony.

After Strap’s name was called, Rev listened for the next name. He knew what was coming, but he could feel the tension build up as if maybe, possibly, she would answer.

“Harisa, Jamila,” the master gunnery sergeant called out.

“Second Lieutenant Jamila M. Harisa,” the master guns said, with a heavy emphasis on the rank.

Rev broke the position of attention and looked around. She had been a private, not a lieutenant anymore.

“Second Lieutenant Jamila M. Harisa,” rang out one last time, and Rev realized that even if she’d been busted to private, the command still considered her a lieutenant. A small act of defiance, maybe, but one with which Rev heartily agreed.

The platoon sergeant waited a few moments, then went on. “Second Lieutenant Jamila M. Harisa, killed in action, August 7, 3830, Wales Province, New Hope.”

The captain, Top Thapa, and Colonel Destafney took the honors, placing the M-49, helmet, boots, dog tags, and photo in position. Then Captain Omestori added something else. He took a battered gold bar from his pocket and pinned it to the photo before the three of them stepped back and saluted.

And right after Harisa was, “Incrit-Kole, Giselle.”

Rev had butted heads with the sergeant before, and more than once. But he respected her, and he knew the Corps was weaker with her loss.

“Sergeant Giselle Incrit-Kole.”

“Sergeant Giselle Incrit-Kole.”

Someone’s voice reached the formation from behind the chapel, then someone else shushed whoever had been talking.

“Sergeant Giselle Incrit-Kole, killed in action, August 7, 3830, Wales Province, New Hope.”

“Jun, Kim,” the master guns said.

“Here.”

“Krill, Leander.”

“Here, Master Gunnery Sergeant.”

Two more names were called, then, “McAnt, Thesbian.”

There was no reply.

“Corporal Thesbian T. T. McAnt.”

And yet one more time. “Corporal Thesbian T. T. McAnt.”

When there was still no answer, the platoon sergeant said, “Corporal Thesbian T. T. McAnt, killed in action, August 7, 3830, Wales Province, New Hope.”

Rev stepped out of the formation and joined two of the Marines from First Team. He placed the rifle on the stand while the other two took care of the rest. Before he stepped back to salute, Rev reached out with his social arm to tap the barrel of the rifle. “Brothers in Steel, McAnt.”

Rev didn’t step back into formation but stayed by the table.

“Nix, Prestor.”

“Sergeant Prestor L. Nix.”

Rev had hoped for a moment that the master guns would give him the rank he had taken away from him, but it was still sergeant.

“Sergeant Prestor L. Nix.”

Rev felt a lump in his throat.

“Sergeant Prestor L. Nix, killed in action, August 2, 3830, Wales Province, New Hope.”

Tomiko and Hussein joined Rev. Once again, Rev took the M-49 and placed it in the stand. As he watched the other two finish the memorial, he could feel the tears form and start to slide down his cheek. The tears weren’t just for Nix. They were a culmination of the Marines he’d known and lost. They were for Swansea and the civilians. They were for the unknown fate of his family.

“Respect to the fallen, my friend,” Rev whispered.

He marched back into formation and listened as the final names in the roll call were called. The rest of the ceremony consisted of Marines and sailors standing up and saying a few words about each of the fallen, but Rev didn’t listen. He already knew the temper of their steel and didn’t need anyone else to try and tell him more.

The remarks were cut short by a master sergeant who needed to clear the area and put new weapons, boots, and photos up. The six Raider memorials were picked up and taken to a waiting trailer. The platoon was dismissed, and outside, the sapper platoon was waiting their turn.

Rev caught sight of Sergeant Delacrie standing just beyond what used to be the chapel’s front door. He started to go to the man, to tell him he would have been welcomed to join the formation, but the sergeant turned and walked away before Rev could reach him.

31

“Anything?” Tomiko asked, coming up behind him.

“No. Nothing.”

“Well, they’ll show up. Let’s get on back. Rumor has it that they’ve got some field showers up and running.”

Rev stared at the board for a moment longer. Just because his family wasn’t listed there didn’t mean much in and of itself. There were probably fewer than ten thousand names listed, with more being added all the time as they were recorded from wherever they’d taken refuge. He just had to be patient.

“Earth to Rev. Shower?”

Rev had to admit that sounded pretty good at the moment. A shower, maybe some hot food, and getting Pashu off his shoulder. For someone who’d been so enraptured with his IBHU, he was now beginning to resent her. His body was aflame, but there wasn’t much anyone could do about that for now. All he could do was take her off and have a brief respite.

“OK, let’s go.”

The Centaurs may have left, but the command wasn’t taking any chances. So, an hour after the Heroes Ceremony, where they’d said their goodbyes to their six fallen comrades, they received a partial resupply and were sent back out to their rally point in Tristan Provincial Park.

But it was evident that wasn’t the only reason they were sent away. Camp Nguyen was heavily damaged, and it no longer had the ability to support even the diminished regiment. Better to keep the Marines out in the countryside and rotate them in as they could. And now, after two days out, the Raiders had the next twenty-four hours in the relative comfort of the base.

Relative was stretching it, though. As Rev and Tomiko reached the ballfields where the team had been assigned, nothing much had changed from that first night after the Centaurs ran. Marines were still staked out on the grass, which was now little more than dirt. If it rained—and from the looks of the sky, that was certainly a possibility—the place would become a quagmire.

At the far end of Field 3, a shelter was being erected—not an expeditionary shelter that could foam up in an hour, but as in hammering and nailing wood beams the old-fashioned way. And in the back of . . .

“Look, the rumor was right. That’s a twenty-person field shower kit,” he told Tomiko, nudging her side with his elbow.

“Hallelujah,” Tomiko said with a sigh.

Rev scanned the fields. “There has to be five hundred Marines here, though. And look at that queue.”

At least fifty Marines in various stages of undress were lined up, waiting their turns.

“Don’t care. I’ll spend our entire freakin’ break in line if I have to. So, let’s find the team and get something to eat so I can get clean.”

The two made their way to Field 2, then scanned the Marines until Rev spotted a shirtless Hussein. They made their way down the cleared pathway to the team. Radić was still in his armor and on his back, fast asleep, and Hussein had stripped down to his trousers.

“Word to the wise, Hus-man,” Tomiko said, leaning in and sniffing. “You might want to get over to the showers.”

“I’ve got weapons watch,” Hussein said, pointing to where the team’s weapons were stacked together. “But as soon as Carp gets back, I’m going. Speaking of which, what’s good for the gander . . .”

“Oh, I know I smell like a cesspool. And as soon as I grab a bite to eat, I’ll be heading over. But what about him?” Tomiko asked, pointing at the sleeping Radić.

“He’s got the watch later, so he decided to catch some Zs now.”

“If you two help me take Pashu off, I’ll take the watch so you two can eat and shower,” Rev said.

“You sure? You don’t want to come along?” Tomiko asked.

“I just need to get this damned thing off for a while. So yeah, I’m sure.”

“I’m not going to argue,” Hussein said.

All the care taken back in the IBHU armory was forgotten as he had the two jerk the connectors free and then horse the thing to the ground. Daryll, or especially Doctor C, would have an attack if they’d seen how they took it off, but Rev closed his eyes and smiled as he stood without that dragging weight on his shoulder. And it wasn’t just the shoulder. The harness under his musculature was pulling every which way on him, and without Pashu, eighty percent of that stress on his body was gone.

“You sure you don’t want to go?” Hussein asked.

“No, really. Let me just relax for a bit here. I’ll watch the weapons and sleeping beauty here.”

“Do you want me to wait so we can go together?” Tomiko asked.

“No, really. I’m just going to chill out.”

“OK, have it your way. I guess it’s you and me, Hus-man,” Tomiko said, linking her arm in his. “See you a little later, Rev, and maybe we can try and track down the posse.”

Rev was worried about his family, but he and Tomiko didn’t know yet who, if any one of their group, had made it. Hopefully, they’d find out before they left the camp tomorrow.

“Sounds like a plan, Miko.”

They walked off together, and Rev shucked his armor, then sat down near the stacked weapons. His social arm was buried in the rubble of the IBHU armory, but even if he had it, Rev didn’t think he’d attach the thing.

As he sat, he started worrying about Bundy, Ten, Yancey, and the rest, and the worry gnawing away like a little mouse was getting to him. He needed something to take his mind off of it, but what? He’d taken responsibility for the weapons and gear, so he was stuck here until relieved.

And then he had to laugh. He owned one of the largest collections of entertainment known to man. With all the combat, he’d forgotten about it, but here, surrounded by five hundred Marines, he thought he could afford the distraction.

“Hey, Punch, where did we leave off with Flight of the Raven?”

<Season Five, Episode Three. Where Lord Landerman was about to—>

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. No need to narrate it. Let’s just spool Episode Four and find out what happens next.”

<Sure thing. And Rev . . .>

“Yeah?”

<It’s good to have you back.>

That surprised Rev. What the hell does that mean?

Good to have him back? He was never gone. Punch was embedded in his brain, after all.

Sure, ever since the invasion, he hadn’t been exchanging jokes or having discussions over non-consequential things, but they’d been in combat, so their interaction had directly related to that. Rev might be mistaken, but as he thought about it, the change had happened after Punch refused his command up at Bluebonnet Meadows.

Did he miss our chats?

He started to try and frame how to ask his battle buddy without seeming to be crazy, but the credits were rolling, so Rev leaned back against his armor and settled in to find out how Lord Landerman was going to deal with his rebellious youngest son.

* * *

Radić was still conked out, and Rev had already moved on to Episode Five by the time the rest of the team returned from chow.

“You coming with us to shower?” Tomiko asked.

“I’ve got the watch, now,” Porter said. “Go ahead, if you want.”

Rev asked Punch to stop the feed and stood up. Over at the showers, the line was longer now. He could feel the siren call, but his empty belly was complaining as well. Combat rats might give a Marine all the nutrients and calories needed to fight, but it hardly filled the hole that needed real food—even G-rats.

“I’m going to grab some grub. I’ll probably meet you over there.”

“We’ll save you a spot,” Tomiko said.

Rev headed over to the chow line, which was essentially vats of G-rats on an assortment of tables. It was help-yourself with two harried civilian workers popping the vats to heat them and replacing the empties. Each vat was designed to feed fifty people, but these were Marines who’d been on combat rats for going on three weeks now. Young, hungry Marines with big appetites. They were demolishing the vats.

The line moved quickly, though, and Rev reached the front. He didn’t bother to try and pick what he might like best. It was food that would fill his stomach, and that was what mattered. Wishing he had his social arm to make it easier, he grabbed a plate and had to put it down beside the vat to fill it with what looked to be rice and some sort of meat, then snagged a naan. He dipped the flat bread into the meal and shoveled in a mouthful before he picked the plate up and tried to find an empty spot on the ground.

“Rev!”

He looked around and saw Orpheus sitting with some other Marines. He wended his way through the sitting Marines as his friend stood to greet him.

“Good to see you, man,” Orpheus said, giving Rev a hug and slapping his back, almost spilling Rev’s meal. “Come, sit down and tell me what’s happened.”

Rev acknowledged some of the greetings of the others as he took a seat. Between being embarked on the LaSalle with them and the first battle, he recognized most of those sitting there.

“Did you see Miko? She was just here eating.”

“She made it? Thank God. You’re the first of us I’ve seen. But you and Miko. That’s great.” He paused, then in a more subdued voice, said, “I haven’t gotten word about Ten yet.”

“Me neither,” Rev said.

Rev was concerned about everyone in the posse, but especially about Bundy, who he hadn’t seen since just before the battle at Bluebonnet Meadow, and even more especially Ten. The nine of them had an amazing string of survival, with only him and Yancey even being wounded, but if you roll the dice too many times, eventually, they’ll come up snake eyes.

“I’ll keep my eyes open. Hopefully, they’re fine,” Orpheus said.

“How about Mala?” Rev asked, fearing what he might hear.

“Malaika? She’s made it, I think. Hey, Possum, you hear anything about Lemon?”

One of the other Marines said, “Got touched up a bit over at the canyon engagement, but she’s back with Second now.”

“We’re rotating by platoon,” Orpheus told Rev. “Second will be in tomorrow.”

And, of course, we’ll be back out in the bush then.

Still, it was good to hear. Looking around him, if this was everyone left from Alpha Company’s Third Platoon, then they’d been hit pretty hard in the fighting.

“Hey, you guys deploy all your vaccines?” Orpheus asked.

“Vaccines?”

“Yeah, that’s what we’ve been calling the Ninety-threes.”

Rev huffed in amusement. “You do know a vaccine prevents disease, not gives it.”

“Yeah, well, what do we know? We’re just dumb grunts,” Orpheus said with a laugh. “But did you use all of them?”

“After our second clash, after we split up. All expended.”

“Us, too. You think they worked?”

Which was the million-credit question, of course. Something caused the Centaurs to leave, and they did it at the earliest timeline on when the virus could have been taking effect. But there were lots of reasons that they could have pulled out. They’d made a habit lately of retreating once opposition got to be too strong or if the combat stretched out too long. They seemed to be going for quick, decisive victories. But with comms essentially destroyed, Rev didn’t know what had happened on the rest of the planet.

The team had discussed this ad infinitum, but they hadn’t come to a conclusion. Rev had to think the infections must have at least had an impact, unless the R & D folks were completely wrong.

Rev started in on his hot chow as he and Orpheus compared notes. After their combined fight at the meadow, Alpha had moved closer to the city while the Raiders moved out toward the foothills. Alpha had three more fights, one in the Dorchester neighborhood near Rev’s own Beakerville, and that was where they’d taken most of their casualties. Rev didn’t specifically ask, but from the way Orpheus was describing it, it was an outright defeat. And with their virus grenades exhausted and few to no citizens left in the city, a wasted battle from a strategic sense.

More Marines and sailors filed through the line, and the area was getting crowded, so Orpheus and his platoon mates left, but not before the two friends exchanged hugs again and promised to find each other before they headed back out.

Rev’s belly was feeling almost full for the first time in three weeks, and he considered heading through the line again, but from what he could see, the two civilians might run out of chow. Better that more people get something than for him to get stuffed.

The line for showers at the back of the ballfield was looking longer, if anything, and he didn’t really want to just stand there, so he turned and headed deeper into the camp to get a feel for the degree of damage. No one had actually said they had to stay at the bivouac site, and he’d always been of the mindset to act first and ask for permission later. If he wandered into some area that he wasn’t supposed to, he’d just apologize and head back.

Rev had already seen the chapel and the fieldhouse right after they’d returned, so he knew how badly they’d been damaged. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. Area D, where the platoon’s barracks were, was mostly a mass of molten metal and fused glass. The damage was too extensive for any single Centaur—it had to have been done by their ship.

He stood there silently for several minutes, looking to where the barracks once stood. Somewhere in that mass were his personal effects. His clothing, his new pad, his small collection of physical books. Those were nothing and could be replaced. But there had also been the holos of his family, his grandfather’s pocket knife, and the stuffed Marine Corps bulldog Neesy had given him the day he left for boot camp, and those could never be replaced, especially if . . .

He couldn’t follow that train of thought. He turned his gaze toward the city in the distance, wondering what had happened out there. And with a sudden burst of determination, he knew what he was going to do. Once again, act first, ask permission later.

Rev walked to the roundabout, then headed out on Dhawan Avenue. He wondered if he’d be stopped at the gate, but that proved to be needless. The gate had been slagged, and there were no Marines on duty there. He stepped through and kept on Dhawan heading into the city. It would take him at least an hour to get to Beakerville, but it wasn’t as if he had much else to do. The reason they were even in from the bush was to rest their bodies and clear their minds, and Rev couldn’t think of anything better to clear his mind than this.

Damage in the city was more intermittent than on base. There were sections of destruction, then some fairly intact buildings. A big orange tom sitting on the sidewalk, watching him walk by, was the first sign of life he saw, but here and there, another cat, a dog that trotted out to him, and finally a few people scrounging in the rubble were signs that Earth life was pretty hard to stamp out.

The people looked up as he passed, but except for one lady who waved and a man who called out to ask if the Centaurs had really gone, they left him alone. It took almost eighty minutes, not the hour he’d expected, to reach Beakerville. It seemed to have escaped most of the severe damage. Two hovers looked to have crashed, their burnt hulks in the middle of an otherwise undamaged section of the Crystal Terrace Drive, and Rev wondered what the story was on that. Hovers just didn’t crash. Their avoidance systems kept that from happening. But he could see it right in front of him.

He turned onto his street, and up ahead, to his relief, the home still stood. He broke into a jog, jumped the low fence, bounded up the steps, and pounded on the door.

“Mom, Dad?”

There was no answer.

“Neesy? Grover? Kat?”

Silence. He hadn’t expected to find them sitting at home, but still, it was something of a let-down.

The door was locked, and when Rev tried to scan his retina for entry, it didn’t budge. With the power out, that was what it was supposed to do. No problem. Rev counted out six of the stepping-stones that led to the backyard, pulled it up, and retrieved the mechanical key. A minute later, he was walking into the home.

It looked surprisingly normal. There were dirty dishes in the sink, and he could imagine his mother taking the time to put them there while everyone else was fleeing. But the place was clean with no sign of disarray. Almost no sign. When he went into the girls’ bedroom, neither bed was made, and in their house, beds were always made before people went on with their day.

Rev took a moment to make both beds, once again wishing he had his social arm. It had been over two years since he lost his left arm, but what with both issued arms, he hadn’t really gotten the hang of doing things with only his right.

“You can thank me later, girls, when you get back,” he said as he smoothed out one last wrinkle in Neesy’s blanket.

He went back to the living room and took one last look around before leaving, but then he thought better of it. He scrounged up a stylus and a plastisheet and wrote:

I am fine. When you read this, please get to the base and put your names on the Family Finder board near the chapel, so I know you’re fine, too.

Love you,

Rev

He placed it on the kitchen counter, then put the Happy Bear cookie jar on the top edge to keep it in place.

“Think they’re still alive?” he asked Punch after he locked the door again and returned the key to its hiding place.

<The evidence is strong that they were able to leave safely. As to their continued survival, I’m sorry, I can not even conjecture.>

Which is what he expected. Punch had a wealth of knowledge he could pull up, but guessing like this was beyond his programming.

Night was falling, and the shadows were getting long. Rev could make it back, take that long-delayed shower, get some sleep, and hope comms could begin to get restored before the team headed back into the bush. But he wasn’t ready. Instead of returning, he just started wandering. He passed the neighborhood MaxiMart and paused. A MaxiMart didn’t have the widest variety of food, with only a small shelf of naturals and their basic fabricated favorites, but to be honest, a Spaghetti and Maxiball sounded really good at the moment. The store would be sure to have them at the back of Aisle Three.

He was tempted, no doubt about it, but in the end, he sighed and turned away. It might be a cheap meal, but he had no way nor anybody to pay. And just taking one would be looting.

He crossed over to Willow with no particular destination in mind.

“Reverent, is that you?” a voice called out.

Taken by surprise, Rev spun around to see Mr. Szeth coming out of his house.

“Hi, Mr. Szeth. Yes, it’s me.”

“I thought so. Are the Marines moving back in?” he asked, then frowned as he took in Rev’s missing arm and lack of a weapon.”

“Not just yet, sir. I came back to see if I could find anything out about my family. Have you seen them?”

“Sorry, son, no. We’re at the Pine Creek Refugee Camp, and I don’t think your folks are there. I would have seen them.”

Another small blow.

“That’s OK. I was just asking.”

“They’re probably at one of the other camps. I’m sure they’re all right.”

“Yes, sir. I hope so. Uh . . . how is your family?” he asked.

“We’re all fine. We made it to the Wash and hid there. It got scary, I’m not afraid to tell you. There was fighting right beside us. But yesterday, some Marines told us to go to the camp, and they’ve got food and tents there. I’ll tell Mia that I saw you. She’ll be happy to know you’re OK.”

Rev was hoping to avoid mention of Mia. While his mother might still harbor the impression that he and Mia were a thing, that boat had long since sailed. Rev didn’t know if Mr. Szeth knew that, and he’d just as soon gloss over their past.

“So, Reverent. Um . . . when you get back, you won’t, you know, mention that you saw me here?”

“Sir?

“It’s just that at the camp, they told us to stay there and not come into the city. But I had to check to see if the house was OK. And I’ve got my collection, you know. Lots of them are one-of-a-kinds, irreplaceable, you know, and I know lots of people would love to get their hands on them.”

Rev kept the surprise off of his face. Mr. Szeth had a collection of Tarylyn figurines, and he bragged about them all the time. Twice when he was dating Mia, Rev had to stand and listen while the man showed him each one, giving its latest value. Rev didn’t see the allure of the figurines, but to each his own. For him to sneak into town to check on that, of all things, was so . . . so . . . so like Mia, he decided. Or Mia was so like him.

“Don’t worry, sir. I won’t say a thing.”

“Oh, thank you, Reverent. No need to get people excited when they’ve got better things to do, right? Well, I’m going to go back in and finish my inventory. You take care of yourself, and if you get the chance, come over to the camp and say hello to Mia. I know she’d get a kick out of it.”

“OK, sir. If I get the chance. And I’ve got to get going, too.” He turned and started off, not wanting to give the man a chance to keep the conversation going.

The irony of him looking down on Mr. Szeth wasn’t lost on Rev. But he justified it by the fact that he’d never specifically been told not to leave the base, and he was only trying to find his family, not some piddly-ass collection.

He kept walking as night took over the city. A few emergency lights shined here and there, but for the most part, the city was dark. Rev didn’t have any problem with that as his night vision kicked in. But he was feeling the effects of his harness. He might not have Pashu dragging him down, but the grating under his muscles wore at him. He’d just decided to return to the base when he realized where his subconscious was taking him.

The Veterans of Galactic Wars had taken a hit knocking out a large section of a wall, but it was mostly intact. He crossed the street to get a better look. A couple of booths were kindling, but beyond them, some chairs were still upright.

Rev didn’t bother to use the door. He just stepped through the broken wall and stopped to look around. The huge bar looked intact, and as Rev stepped farther inside, around one of the bar posts . . .

With a smile, Rev walked the length of the bar to the end. He picked up one of the barstools from where it had fallen, set it up against the bar, and said, “How’re you doing, Mr. Oliva?”

“I see you’re alive, Sergeant.”

“Corporal.”

“Huh. Corporal? I guess you’re a real Marine after all, not some kiss ass. I always said if you haven’t been busted at least once, you’re doing something wrong.”

“Well, that’s me now. So, you just hanging out?”

“Go ahead and ask what you really want to know.”

“OK. What the hell are you doing here?”

“This is where I’m supposed to be every night, son. Where else would I be?”

“How about at some refugee camp where it’s safe?”

“You see any damned Centaurs here, Corporal?”

“No, I guess not. But they were here.”

“And I missed thirteen nights coming in, the bastards. I couldn’t get out and about.”

“So, you stayed in the city the entire time?”

“Safer than me humping around the forest with my old legs. ’Sides, I wasn’t gonna let some damned alien run my life. After my dear Paula passed, no one runs it ’cept me.”

Rev hadn’t known Mr. Oliva had been married or that his wife had passed. In fact, he realized that as much as the man meant to him, he knew very little about his life. That was something he’d like to rectify. Having the planet invaded did tend to change how he looked at things.

“I’d like to buy you a beer, but Maude isn’t here,” Rev said.

“Don’t make no never mind. The taps need power, and unless you want to cut one of the lines and suck on it, you’re outta luck. For beer, at least, and my throat’s been mighty parched. But wait one.”

Mr. Oliva slowly got off the stool and walked around the end of the bar and to the shelves. Rev watched him reach up to a shelf lined with bottles, then count five bottles in from the right before he closed his hand around the neck. He used his other hand to guide himself back and onto his chair.

He unscrewed the cap, took a swallow, and held it out to Rev.

“You mean to tell me you had a bottle here the entire time, and you haven’t drunk it yet?”

“Don’t like to drink alone. So, you want a hit or not?”

Rev hesitated. First, he was still in a combat status, and he wasn’t supposed to drink alcohol. Second, he really needed to get back. He’d been gone over two hours now, and staying longer increased the chances that he’d get caught.

But third, he couldn’t let a vet drink alone, right?

“Of course, I’ll have a drink with you,” Rev said as he took the bottle and downed a swig.

“So, tell me about this Paula and how she managed to put up with a cranky old jarhead like you.”

Mr. Oliva’s face broke out in a smile, and he said, “Ah, my sweet Paula. Let me start at the beginning, then, back when I was a private—young, dumb, and full of cum—and I saw the most beautiful girl on the planet . . .”

32

“And that’s all over human space?” Strap asked, still quite a bit worse for wear but hooking back up with the team as they marched back in.

“Looks like it,” the master guns said. “There are a few places like us here that had been in combat right in the middle of all of this, including some of the indie worlds and stations, where the Council is trying to find out for sure, but the tin-asses are gone.”

“How many others were using the gat?” Hussein asked.

“No idea. They told us before that we were sharing the virus with the Fries and the Mad Dogs, but how many were actually employing it? Or how many Marines units, for that matter? I sure don’t know. It’s not like we’re back up to full comms, and keeping us peons in the loop isn’t a priority.”

Which was an understatement. The Centaurs had essentially destroyed all comms on the planet, and even pulling systems out of storage wasn’t having much of an effect. The Navy brought in a ship just to act as a nexus for communications and had sent down some repeating stations, but that was limiting the amount of comms for only the most vital. Division was giving twice-a-day updates, but they were only generalities.

Ironically, while there were out in the bush at their Ops, they got the updates quicker on the landlines. Back here in the rear, the master guns had to trek over to the regimental headquarters to find out what was going on.

“What about casualties?” Rev asked. “Any word on those yet.”

“Not yet. Nothing concrete, at least. But I did talk to Sergeant Major Perez. She said that Third Marines were almost wiped out, and First wasn’t that much better.”

“Respect to the fallen,” the Marines said.

First and Third Marine Regiments were part of First Division, over on Gold, New Hope’s main continent, and from the bits and pieces they were hearing, the fighting had been much fiercer over there with huge military and civilian casualties. Things had gotten pretty intense here in New Wales, especially for tanks and mech, so Rev didn’t want to think of how bad it might have been over there.

“That’s about all I have for now. Rest up, hang out, whatever. We’re heading back out tomorrow at noon.

“And you,” he said to Rev. “No word yet on anyone from Sieben or one of our armorers who can take a look at you. I’ll keep asking, though.”

Rev had expected as much, but there’d been hope that someone could give him some relief with his harness and shoulder.

“Any word on the bivvies?” Hussein asked.

They’d seen a few of the expeditionary bivouacs being erected over on Field 1 as they marched in, and all of them wanted the opportunity to get out from under the weather. The rain that hit them last evening at the OP had made for a miserable night.

“This is only our second time back to camp. Have patience. But those things go up quickly, so maybe next time?” the master guns said.

“Hard to imagine that I’d think an expeditionary bivvie was the height of luxury,” Rev said.

“Ditto,” Porter added wistfully.

The master guns laughed, then turned and left them to their own devices.

Strap stood and looked over to the chow line. “Not ready yet. Looks like another half an hour at least.”

“So,” Hussein said, scooting over to face the others. “Did we do it? I mean, did the damn virus work?”

They turned to Doc Paul as one. “Hey, don’t look at me? I sure the hell don’t know.”

“But what do you think?” Hussein persisted.

“We did what we had to do as vectors. Whether it worked or not is the question. But think of it. The minimum incubation period was two weeks. They pulled chocks here in two weeks. But you heard the master guns. They pulled chocks everywhere. Could we have infected them across the galaxy?”

“But it wasn’t only us, and how long did it take us to use the gats? Quite some time, right? I’d be willing to bet that other units used the virus before we did. Maybe in lots of places. The Mad Dogs were getting hit harder and earlier than us,” Rev said.

“Did we really give them the virus? I don’t trust them,” Hussein said.

Which Rev understood. The Manifest Destiny Sphere were allies only because the Centaurs were a common enemy. They believed they had the God-given right to rule space, and they weren’t always beholden to the Council of Humanity.

But they also had a strong military, and as the closest large power to the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, they’d taken more than their fair share of the Centaur aggression.

“Don’t trust who?” Tomiko said as she walked up to join them.

“The Mad Dogs. But glad you could join us, Miko. The master guns just briefed us. The tin-asses—”

“You can tell me later. You’re going to want to see this,” she said, cutting him off. “Come with me.”

“What’s this about?”

“Just come with me.”

Rev looked at the others, shrugged, then stood up. Tomiko could be a strange person, and for all he knew, she’d seen anything from a particularly interesting flower that survived the destruction to a captured Centaur that was spilling its secrets over a beer. And she was in a mood where she wasn’t going to tell, so he just followed as they passed the chow line and in the direction of the chapel and the prefab that was acting as the regimental headquarters.

Rev looked past her to the headquarters, trying to see if anything there might have caught her attention when she stopped by the chapel and pointed at the Family Reunification board.

Rev’s heart skipped a beat, and he stepped up Right there, where she was pointing, under the heading for Reston Plains Displacement Camp, was:

Pelletier, Maximillian

Pelletier, Elisabet

Pelletier, Grover

Pelletier, Neesalia

Psalki, Katerina

“Oh, my God,” he said, reaching up to trace the names with his finger as a tsunami of relief swept over him. Unabashed tears started flowing down his face. “They made it.”

He turned and enveloped Tomiko in a bone-crushing hug.

“I thought you might want to know, Rev.”

“Yes, yes, yes. Thank you, Miko. He turned back again as if afraid the names might have disappeared. “This is what you went to see when we got in? I wondered where you’d gone.”

“I knew you were waiting to find out about your harness, and yeah, I thought I’d take a look. A gunny saw me and said the updates were coming in another twenty minutes, so I just waited it out.”

Just like her. For a hardass, she’s really got a heart of gold.

“Well, thank you. I appreciate it.”

“I’m your element leader. It’s my job to take care of you,” she said as she gave him a shot in the arm. “But did you see where they are? Reston Plains?”

“Yeah, that’s . . .” and it hit him. The fight at Bluebonnet Meadows. The Centaurs had been moving up Highway 72, which led right to the Plains of Reston.”

“Yeah. Bluebonnet Meadow. Lieutenant Harisa and Nix. I think they helped save your family.”

Rev felt the blood rush from his face. He looked to the sky, touched his heart, then pointed to the stars. “Respect for the fallen, my friends. And thank you.”

33

“Your harness is all kinds of messed up, Rev,” Daryll said, looking at the readout.

“And that’s the technical term? ‘All kinds of messed up?’”

“Pretty much so.”

“So, tell me what the hell’s going on.”

“Your IBHU, Pashu’s weight, is what’s going on with your shoulder. The sleeve was not designed to be robust enough when considering the torque you’re putting on it. New sleeves are being designed, and you should get yours soon. But the harness, that is a little more complicated. From what we can see, the anchor points are breaking free.”

“Breaking free. Like they’re loose in there?”

“Some, yes. I can see it on my scans. And when the individual anchors broke free, the harness itself started pulling and shifting, and that’s what’s causing the pain. And each one that breaks free puts more stress on the surrounding ones, and then they break free, and so on. Getting blown head-over-heels didn’t do it any favors, either. The problem is that there’s not much I can do about it.”

Rev sighed and shook his head. He’d been thrilled to learn that not only had Daryll survived in one piece, but Sieben Intergalaxy had rushed this foam hut and all new equipment to replace what had been lost during the invasion.

But now, Daryll was telling him that he couldn’t do anything?

“So, what am I supposed to do?”

“According to the message board, you’re not the only person who’s had anchoring problems.”

“Oh, that sure makes me feel better,” Rev said with a scowl.

“It should. That means the company is working on it. But for right now, the guidance is to keep off your IBHU as much as possible.”

“Well, glad the tin-asses seem to have disappeared, or that could be just a little bit of a problem.”

“Look, I know you’re pissed, and I’m on your side. But there are teething problems with every weapons system, and you are IBHU 1, after all.”

“Yeah, I know you’re on my side. Sorry. I’m just sick and tired of this. I feel like I’m a hundred years old. And this is how I’m going to feel from here on out?”

“Surgery is an option. Take that harness out and put in a new one.”

Getting the harness put in sucked big time, but if it would help to go through that again, Rev would be for it.

“But the problem would probably reoccur, especially with the tracks already cut under your musculature. So, the project team is trying to figure out what exactly went wrong, correct it, and then see about fixing it for all of you who’ve had problems.”

“And with the war over, our priority just dropped, right?”

“Well, the war isn’t over. You know that.”

That was the official position of the Council. There had been no sign of Centaurs anywhere for almost two months now. The public sure thought the war was over, given the media coverage. But just because the Centaurs were gone, that didn’t mean they were defeated, and humankind was not going to let its guard down too early.

But Rev didn’t want to let go of the issue. Pashu had problems, and now there were rumors that the Manifest Destiny Sphere was working along the same lines with super-augmented soldiers.

“What about the Mad Dogs? I’ve heard they have their own version of an IBHU. Any truth to that? And are they having these teething problems, too, or is that only with the Union and Sieben?”

“I really can’t say.”

“Can’t say because you don’t know, or can’t say because you’re not allowed to?”

“Maybe a bit of both,” he said with a sigh. “I mean, I’ve heard the same things, and the engineers, you know what they’re like. They keep trying to guess what the MDS might be doing and how their efforts might differ from ours. If it’s even true, that is.”

Of course, whatever the MDS was or wasn’t doing really didn’t fix Rev’s situation.

“Well, for their soldiers’ sake, I hope they did a better design job. And so, for me, it’s just take two aspirin and go to bed?”

“Maybe, maybe not. There is one idea that’s being floated for a temporary, well, not a fix, but something to help minimize the pain.”

“And that is . . . ?”

“One of the suggestions is to create an external harness that will help support the weight and stress with the shoulders taking more of the burden.”

Rev winced at the thought. His shoulder was sore enough as it was.

Daryll saw the wince. “But that will be after the new sleeve. Anyway, the thought is to take some of the support requirements off your current harness, so at least no more anchors pull free. I might have the programming even by the end of the week if it gets the green light. I’ll get one printed up right away, and we can see how much it helps.”

Most of the surviving printers were working around the clock to restore infrastructure and necessities. But along with the rest of the equipment Sieben dropped in was a state-of-the-art TS-2000. If Daryll could get the program, that baby could print almost anything.

“And, you’ll like this. In gratitude for your service, the company is sending you a new Rycroft. It should arrive on Friday.”

Rev sure hadn’t been expecting that. With all that had to be done, a new prosthesis was not high on anyone’s radar. He should be pretty happy, but surprisingly, he wasn’t. He was grateful, but he was getting pretty good at life with only one arm, and with his shoulder constantly tender from Pashu, he didn’t know if the pain would be worth the convenience.

“Thanks,” he said, and left it at that.

“OK, then. Stop by again Friday afternoon, and we’ll see if we can’t get it synched. Other than that, unless you have any questions?”

“No. None.”

“OK, I’ll see you then. If you can send in Pierson on the way out?”

Rev stepped out of the building and into the crisp air. Fall was coming, a time Rev normally loved. Pierson was nowhere in sight.

“Pierson, where are you?” he bellowed.

The big private lumbered from behind the Sieben hut, fastening his fly. “Sorry, I had to take a leak.”

“And you couldn’t find a head?”

The private shrugged.

“Just go inside. Daryll’s waiting.” He shook his head as the Marine entered the building. He may have proven that there was a fierce warrior hidden under that goofy exterior, but he was still socially inept.

Rev headed over to the bivouacs. While not quite the same technology as Sieben’s little hut, anything to get them out of the weather was a moral victory. These were the same expeditionary bivouacs they’d used in Alafia, but Rev had a feeling that the “temporary” designation might gravitate to long-term. There was still too much rebuilding, and with the bulk of the Ninety-nines out doing public work projects, that left the base in a sort of limbo now that the comms and other vital services had been restored.

The bivouacs weren’t bad. They had power and enough running water to brush their teeth and wash their hands. Every Marine had their own rack. Each held forty people. There were only sixteen sergeants and below Raiders, so they were sharing with Second Recon’s Third Platoon.

Tomiko looked up from her rack where she was reading as he walked in. “What’d he say?”

“Not much he can do. And there are others in the same boat. Sieben’s working on it.”

“Sorry, Rev. That sucks. But I’ve got something that should cheer you up.”

“What’s that?”

“First, the governor has opened up lightly damaged areas in Anastasia and Swansea for people to reoccupy their homes. And before you ask, yeah, Beakerville is on the list.”

“Really? That’s fantastic! Maybe my family’s already on their way!”

“And there’s more.”

“Hell, that’s good enough. But what else?”

“After the governor made the announcement, General Sirirat put us on a port and starboard alert status. And when we aren’t on alert, liberty is authorized. Starting Saturday.”

“You mean . . .”

“Yep. If your folks make it back, you can see them this weekend!”

All of Rev’s frustration of the day disappeared as if it had never existed. In four days, he could possibly see his family again.

34

“That was good, Mom,” Rev said, letting out a burp, which made Neesy and Kat break out laughing.

“Rev! Manners! But, thanks,” his mother said. “It wasn’t hard with everything at the market.”

“Yeah, you said that, but that doesn’t make sense. Everywhere else, there’re shortages.”

“Now that we can go back home, all the little artisan farms are harvesting, Rev. The Centaurs didn’t destroy the crops. And without all the refrigeration and processors, most of the harvest can’t be saved. So, the farmers are trying to salvage what they can, and we get these lovely vegetables.”

“I guess. But it still seems odd when everywhere else has shortages. We’re still eating G-rats on base. Can’t hold a candle to this. What did you call it again?”

“Ratatouille. It’s an old-time recipe. And I’m glad you liked it.”

And he really did like it. He wasn’t just saying that. Somehow, his mother was actually becoming a good cook—as good, if not better, than the family autochef.

“Why don’t we go sit and relax until you have to leave. We’ll clean up later,” his mother said.

They moved to the living room, and Rev took a seat on the couch. Kat waited until he was seated, then sat on his left side, snuggling close. It was as if he had a little protector for his missing arm. Neesy took his right side, and his parents took their loungers.

“So, what were you telling me about school in the camp?” he asked Neesy.

“Oh, yeah. It was way worse. We had paper books!”

Rev laughed. “And what’s wrong with paper?”

“They’re heavy. And you have to turn the pages.”

“Oh, poor Neesy. I feel so sorry for you.”

She stuck out her tongue at him.

“Where did they get physical books?” Rev asked his dad.

“Part of the civil defense stores. Probably been there for a hundred years. They don’t need power, after all.”

Makes sense.

“I like real books,” Kat said.

“There you go. Good for you,” Rev said.

“Why don’t you take your nose out of Rev’s butt, Kat.”

“Neesy! Language! We don’t talk like that in this house. You apologize right now!”

Neesy scowled, but she said, “Sorry, Kat.”

Rev tried not to smile. With all the swearing in the Marines as common as breathing, Neesy’s nose in the butt comment was nothing and kind of funny. And probably deserved—Kat had been sucking up to him. But he kept a stern visage on his face.

“She didn’t use to talk like that until we got to the camp,” his mother said. “It was not a good environment.”

Rev glanced at his father, who looked like he was also fighting a smile. He caught Rev’s look and winked.

“Neesy took real good care of me in the camp,” Kat said, a peace offering.

That started a conversation on life in the camp. Rev mostly sat back and just listened, prompting them every once in a while. He was merely soaking it all in. He’d been so worried about them during the invasion, afraid he’d never see them again, so now, he was happy to just bask in their company. It would have been better if Grover were there, too, but he’d volunteered to be part of a community clean-up crew, and he was on duty that afternoon.

But finally, it was time for him to leave. The girls complained, asking him to stay longer, but he told them he had an appointment that he couldn’t break. He made his goodbyes and promised to try and come back soon.

He was feeling pretty good as he walked down the street. He had a long haul to get to where he was going. What few autocabs survived the invasion were relegated for priority trips only, and a Marine on liberty didn’t classify as that. But it was OK. The fall day was warm with just a hint of the coming winter, and his belly was full. Most of all, he and those he loved were alive. How could he complain?

It took him forty minutes to reach the park. He stood there a moment before he spotted her sitting on a bench. Circling around, he came up from behind.”

“Hey, Angel Wings! Fancy meeting you here.”

Mala turned around with a smile and said, “I thought you’d stand me up again.”

“I said I’d be here.”

“Yes, but when I’m competing with your family . . .”

Rev nodded in defeat. He had stood her up once before to stay with his family longer.

“And I stand heartily chastised for that long past mistake, milady,” he said, making a dramatic bow that would have put D'Artagnan to shame.

He hopped over the back of the bench and landed in the sitting position beside her. “So, what do you want to do?”

“You asked me to meet you,” she said with a humph. “You don’t have it planned? You don’t have your team to meet?”

“I’ve been welded to them for the last two months. I think they can survive without me for an evening.”

He didn’t say that even on a port and starboard duty section, every bivvie had weapons stored inside, and so there had to be someone left behind on watch. Tomiko, with no family she wanted to see, had volunteered to take the first watch. And it was only then that he thought to see if Malaika’s platoon would be off on the same day.

“Fair enough. And I feel the same way.” She put her hand on his knee and added. “I needed to get away for an evening, and you’re pretty good company for a snake eater.”

“And you’re not bad for a straight-leg grunt. And now that we’ve exhausted our compliments for each other, we need to figure out what we want to do.”

“Well, I might know something.”

“Give.”

“See that lady over there?”

Rev looked across the park where an older woman was sitting facing them. When she caught his gaze, she nodded with a knowing smile.

“Yes, I see her. So, what? You want to invite her over for a threesome?”

Malaika laughed, her trill like a little girl, and gave him a mock slap on his arm. “In your dreams, Marine. No, I was talking to her earlier, and she said there’s a little bar down the street that came through the invasion intact, and that included a couple of kegs. She said the owner, who’s her son, has rigged up a way to cool it, and he’s open for business.”

“His mother is shilling for customers? Good mom. But we can’t pay. The system’s still down.”

“She said he’s taking IOUs.”

“Like, we write on a piece of paper that we’ll pay this guy later?”

“Yep.”

“Well, then I don’t see how we can’t support such an entrepreneurial enterprise.”

Rev stood, made a half-bow, and presented his right arm to Malaika. “Will you accompany me, fair lady, to imbibe on alcoholic beverages?”

She giggled again, a tiny laugh coming from such a physically substantial woman. “Why I declare, fair sir. I would be most honored.”

She stood and linked her arm in his, and together, they strolled down the street to find out if the beer was really cold or not. Cold or warm, however, they intended to possibly tie one on.

35

“Can you believe that?” Hussein asked Rev as Pierson lay on his cot, head back, snores reverberating through the bivvie. “A fucking Platinum Nova?”

“You saw him, Hus-man. He was a freaking monster out there. Saved my sorry ass and a lot more folk as well.”

“I know, and I’m glad of it. But how can that lump of lard be the same beserker we saw out running around and killing a damn courser?”

“You know, I wanted to shitcan him when he first came here. Comparing him with Wheng—”

“Respect to the fallen.”

“Respect to the fallen. Between him and Wheng, I thought he was a lost cause. It was the master guns who said it was up to me to bring the warrior out of him. I guess he saw more in Pierson than I ever did.”

“Yeah, but a Platinum Nova. I mean . . .” he trailed off before he turned back to Rev and asked, “Does it piss you off?”

“Me? No. Why should it?”

“I mean, you know, you were supposed to get one before politics got in the way. And I’m not saying that Pierson didn’t do good, but so did you, so did all of us. And it is him and Harisa who are getting the PN.”

“Lieutenant Harisa deserved it,” Rev said, brooking no disagreement.

“No, I know that. She did. But Pierson? Over you or anyone else?”

Rev would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about that. But in his heart, he knew Pierson had brought his warrior with him to the fight, and he was not going to denigrate what the young man had done.

“Two Platinum Novas, though, for the same battle. I don’t think that’s happened before. Makes me wonder if all of this is for show. Like every swinging dick is getting the New Hope Home Defense Medal, you know?”

The new medal had just been authorized by the Directorate. It wasn’t unheard of for a planet to authorize a military award, and while junior to all Union awards, it could still be worn on the uniform, giving Rev now a grand total of five ribbons. But it meant nothing to him. Like others, he was already referring to it as the “I Was There” medal.

It wasn’t that Rev wasn’t proud of their service. They’d kicked the Centaurs off of their home, saving an untold number of lives. But he didn’t need a new colored ribbon to say he was there.

Hussein had a good point, though. With the apparent victory over the Centaurs, people were in celebration mode, and the government, both Union and New Hope, seemed to want to make sure backs were patted and hands shaken so everyone knew just how great and wonderful the leadership had been to get them through the crisis. And medals, with all the military pomp and circumstances, were good PR.

Tomiko came through the hatch and walked back to join them. Rev looked at her with the unspoken question.

“Same as everyone. Platinum Achievement with V.”

Which cemented what Hussein was referring to. Every single Raider was getting at least a Platinum Achievement Medal with the Combat V, which was the highest medal that could be awarded by a division commander. From the looks of things, it was going to be the standard for the Direct Combat Marines.

Individuals might get higher, into one of the three Novas. Top Thapa and Captain Omestori had been put in for the Gold Nova, which had to be approved by the commandant, and Lieutenant Harisa and Pierson were up for the Platinum Nova, which had to be approved by the Council, but given the current political environment, the recommendations should sail through.

“And you’re up next,” Tomiko told Rev.

“Last, but not least.” He stood up as Pierson let out a particularly loud string of snores. He looked to his rack where his social arm lay. Sieben and made good on their promise, and he had to admit it was a sweet prosthesis, but with his sleeve still warped, even that amount of weight could be uncomfortable. He decided to leave it there. It wasn’t as if he thought he’d need it just to talk to the captain.

“Good luck,” Hussein said, and Rev wanted to tell him good luck was getting out of a firefight alive. Good luck was having the Centaur beamer hit a meter to your right. Luck had nothing to do with the back-slapping the military conducted after the shooting had stopped.

He left the bivvie and headed to the company offices. The camp was coming together. Real construction had started, with the regimental headquarters going up over the location of the old one.

The company-level offices, however, were in a supply warehouse that had been spared destruction. Rev walked in and through the partitioned passages back to the Recon Company offices.

He knocked on the side of the hatch for the Raider platoon. “Corporal Pelletier, sir.”

“Come on in, Corporal, take a seat,” Captain Omestori said.

Rev sat, and the captain looked at him for a moment before saying, “I’m going to get right to the point. I put you in for a Silver Nova.”

Which surprised Rev. Yes, he’d killed Centaurs, but that was only because he had Pashu. He hadn’t been braver than Tomiko, Hussein, Strap, or any of the others.

“Unfortunately, the CG was told not to forward it.”

Which wasn’t a surprise. Still, it stung.

“You’ve got enemies in high places, Rev. It isn’t fair, it isn’t just, but that’s the way it is. The CG is going to plead your case to the commandant himself, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“You can tell her not to bother, sir. No need for her to get splashed with my shit,” Rev said, sounding more bitter than he’d intended.

“That’s not how she considers it. She wasn’t around for your Platinum Nova, but Colonel Destafney told me this morning that she was well aware of it and thinks the entire evolution stunk to high heaven.”

“It won’t matter, sir. Like you say, I’ve got enemies in high places.”

“But it’s still BS. I think . . . I’m not sure how to put this. But of all the Marines I know, you personally have done more for us to win this war than any single Marine in the Union, and I’m talking from four stars on down. I remember you with that paladin you took out with a Phoenix, and I thought that was amazing. Still do. Then recovering the body along with Sergeant Reiser—”

Rev looked up startled and started to speak, but the captain was having none of it. “Let them listen up. I don’t care. The tin-ass body you two recovered, which for all I know is how we developed the virus. The little girl you saved, then keeping the Fries and us from fighting on the asteroid. And then your IBHU, and I know how much that thing is hurting you now.

“My point is that you’re a helluva Marine, and that should be recognized instead of having D-4 crap all over you.”

Rev just looked at the captain for a long moment before he quietly said, “I appreciate your sentiments, sir. And that means more to me than any damn medals.”

“Hell, I’m sorry. I know I’m on my soapbox, but this kind of crap pisses me off. We’re Marines doing our job, and politics shouldn’t be a part of it.

“Anyway, as I said, your recommendation for a Silver Nova has been pulled. And it has been suggested that Colonel Destafney give you another star for your Gold Achievement Medal.”

Rev laughed out loud. “That’s precious, sir. I guess we can just call it my second consolation award.”

“That’s kinda what it is. But at the moment, it’s the best we can do on that front. But there is one more thing we’re doing.”

What now? A free steak dinner at the club?

“Colonel Destafney is vacating your reduction in rank.”

“What, sir? What do you mean?”

“When you got busted down to corporal. That’s gone now.”

“But how, sir?”

“Who signed your reduction?”

Rev had to think back. “I think it was Colonel Destafney, but the order came from HQ.”

“But he signed it. And any commanding officer who reduces a sergeant or below in rank can, as they deem fit, vacate the reduction within twelve months if that Marine shows excellent performance of their duties and remorse for their actions. You do show remorse, right?”

Rev’s mind was whirling. No, he didn’t feel remorse, but the captain was offering a lifeline, and sometimes, standing on principle when no one else cared anymore only hurt the victim. And, to be honest, he wanted his rank back. He thought he was OK with being a corporal, but with sergeant being dangled in front of him, he realized that he’d just been fooling himself. He wanted that extra stripe again.

“Uh . . . yes?”

“That’s what I thought. So, the colonel is vacating the reduction. By the end of the day, you’ll be a sergeant again with your original date of rank. And you’ll be getting back pay as well. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but think of it as a sort of redemption. And then there’s this.”

He reached into the small drawer in his field desk and withdrew a single sergeant’s collar insignia. “Master Gunnery Sergeant Tuala is over at Camp Falcon, but when we heard this might happen, he gave this to me. It’s only the one, so you’ll still have to hit the PX for another, but he’d be honored if you would wear this. It was given to him by a sergeant major when he first made sergeant, and he’d like it if you can keep the chain going.”

Rev reached out and took it. It was a little chunkier than the ones in the PX, and it felt old and steeped in history. Thinking back to their first meeting, Rev wondered why the master guns would give this insignia to him and not someone else. He had to have had lots of Marines make sergeant under his watch to whom he could have presented it.

Rev didn’t understand why the master guns chose him, but there was only one possible response.

“I’d be honored to wear this, sir. Honored.”

36

“So, I guess we can really plan your end-of-service party,” Bundy said. “It’s hard to believe.”

“Really hard,” Rev said, but not for the same reasons. He was amazed that all of them were still alive. He didn’t know the chances of that, and he didn’t want to ask Punch to figure it out. He wasn’t superstitious, per se, but with about four months left now, he didn’t want to jinx things. The Centaurs were gone to who knows where, but the galaxy was a volatile place.

He looked around the table. Nine of them, eight sergeants with Bundy, no surprise, a deep-selected staff sergeant. Too many losses in tanks, and those who’d survived had to move up.

He thought back to the day he’d forced everyone to promise to meet at the end of their enlistment, hoping that if they swore to it, then they would survive. In actuality, he thought they’d be lucky if two of them would have made it. Some were a little worse for wear—Yancey, Ten, and him, specifically—but they were all still kicking.

And now, with the just-released announcement, it looked like for some of them, their journey was over.

“Would you stay if you could?” Bundy asked him.

“Maybe. Who knows? But with this . . .” He tilted his head to his left arm. Bundy knew he didn’t mean his social arm but rather Pashu, “I still don’t know what they’re going to do.”

With the war over, the population was pushing hard for an immediate release of all conscripted Marines and sailors. A draft was against the New Hope Charter, and conscription for crimes was just too close to that for most people. And the planetary government, with the cost of rebuilding ahead of them, probably liked the idea of getting all those conscripts off the government rolls.

Some of the same people who pushed for the government to release the conscripts were also equally vocal about the IBHU program, citing the Torinth Accords. That left Rev, Pierson, and the other five IBHU Marines on the planet in limbo. Throughout the Corps, there were twenty-three active IBHUs and over a hundred in the pipeline.

Now PFC Pierson and a Sergeant Tsao from the Tenth Marine Division were being paraded around with their Platinum Novas on a publicity tour of the Union, but Rev wasn’t sure that was going to placate the critics. And if the program was stopped, Rev didn’t know what that would mean for him.

“I saw my dad yesterday. He said that I’ve still got my place in the BOCT if I want it.”

“Do you want it?”

“I really don’t know. It’s a good, secure job, and I’d be able to settle down and start a family.”

Bundy raised his eyebrows and glanced at Tomiko, who was deep in conversation with Ten.

“No, don’t even ask. I mean someday.”

“OK, then. Someday.”

Rev wanted to change the subject. “But what about you. That rocker on your collar looks pretty damn good. And a Gold Nova? You’ve got it set.”

“Well, the word I get is that we’re not getting tanks back.”

“No shit? The Corps is doing away with tanks?” Rev asked, astounded. Tanks had borne the brunt of the fight with the Centaurs . . . and suffered the highest casualty rate in doing so.

“Not the Corps. Just New Hope. We lost too many, and the cost of replacing them is causing some concern.”

“That’s just plain stupid.”

But once Bundy said it, it kind of made sense. A perverted sense, but he could see why politicians jumped on that line of thinking. As a provincial corps, the New Hope Marines were ninety percent funded by the planet. They fell under the command of the Union Marine Corps, but in many ways, they were more independent. Tanks were expensive to obtain and operate, and for politicians trying to uncover funds to rebuild, they were an obvious option for the chopping block.

Ironically, it could be the success of the IBHU program in killing Centaurs that might help kill the tanks. IBHU Marines were funded by the Union, not New Hope, and that would give the politicians cover. Killing tanks, however, ignored that IBHU Marines were a close-in weapon while tanks could kill at long distances. It also ignored that IBHU Marines themselves might be on the way out.

“So, what are you going to do if that happens?”

Bundy looked around at the others, then leaned close. “Keep this under your belt, but I’ve been offered a commission. I can take it and transfer designators to another combat branch.”

Rev’s mouth dropped open before forming into a huge smile. “No way! Congrats, man.”

“Ssshh. Keep it down.”

Rev lowered his voice even more. “Really, congrats. You’ll be a great officer.”

“I haven’t accepted it.”

“But you will, won’t you? I mean, you can’t be that foolish to turn it down.”

“Nah, I won’t turn it down,” he said with a smile.

“Lieutenant Bundy. It’s got a nice ring to it.”

“That it does, my friend. That it does.”

Bundy had always been the posse’s unofficial leader. Older by far, he’d been their anchor through rough times. If anyone was going to get a commission, it had to be him.

“You said no one else knows? Not even Ten?” With Ten in tanks, too, Rev figured she’d have been the first he’d tell.

“No. With her situation, I don’t want to, uh . . .”

Rev understood. Ten’s tank had been destroyed during the very first battle, and while she’d somehow survived, it had been real touch-and-go for a while. Her legs and higher up through her pelvis than Rev would have thought possible were gone. And with the Naval Hospital in Anastasia destroyed, she was here with them in Nguyen, waiting until she could be transferred somewhere, either on New Hope or off-planet, to start the long journey to rehabilitation.

Tall, willowy Ten, so quiet and unassuming, now stuck in a mobility chair. Rev watched her for a moment, still talking to Tomiko, their heads together. Her arms were fine, so she wouldn’t be a candidate for IBHU augmentation, and Rev didn’t know if he should be happy or sad about that. He was still on the fence about himself, for that matter.

She’d evidently been a good tanker, but he had a hard time picturing her running down a Centaur. But for all her subdued personality, she’d been the only one of them conscripted for a Class 2 crime, which was the worst a person could commit without being brainwiped. No one knew what she’d actually done, but it had been a topic of discussion on more than a few occasions, even this long after boot camp.

And suddenly, Rev had to know. “Ten,” he blurted out before he could engage his better sense. “Now, with us convicts getting released, and with full pardons at that, can you finally tell us what you did to get conscripted?”

The rest stopped their conversations. A couple looked shocked that he was so bluntly asking, but they all turned to see what Ten would say, their own curiosity needing to be satisfied.

Ten looked up in surprise, and Rev realized he’d probably overstepped his bounds. But her face broke out into a wry smile, and with a twinkle in her eyes, she said, “Probably not a good idea, Rev. I don’t think you could handle it.”

The table broke out laughing, and Tomiko high-fived her, but there were more than a few disappointed faces at the fact that the secret hadn’t been finally revealed.

Rev laughed, too, but he was both relieved that Ten didn’t seem to have taken the question poorly and disappointed that she hadn’t answered. She was still a mystery.

“Hey, do you know what she did?” he asked Punch.

<Yes.>

“‘Yes?’ That’s all you have to say? Tell.”

<I’m afraid I can’t reveal confidential personal information.>

“Not even to me?”

<Not even to you.>

“Well, heck. Then what good are you?”

Punch didn’t answer. By now, he understood what a rhetorical question was.

Rev hadn’t really expected Punch to answer the question, but it was interesting that his battle buddy had Ten’s crime in his database. That made Rev wonder about his own records and how widely distributed they might be.

He pushed that out of his mind and leaned back in his chair. It really was amazing that they were all still alive. And despite them all being in different units, in different military designators, he was as close, if not closer to them than to anyone else.

Cricket and Udu, the unlikely pair who, with the war over, had now settled on a wedding date. Quiet Ten. Bundy, their leader. Wise-ass, never serious Yancey, who had mostly recovered from his own wounds. Quick-witted Fyr, who came up with amazing and surprising observations on so many varied subjects. Steady Orpheus, who always had their backs.

And, of course, Tomiko. She was an amazing woman, closer to Rev than probably anyone else alive. Comrade in arms and friend, he knew their bond would never be broken.

This had been an amazing, astounding six years. And as he looked around the table, he knew he could not have gone through it with a better group of people.

37

“How does that feel?” Daryll asked.

Rev rotated his arm, then swung it across his body a few times. “Better,” he grudgingly admitted.

He hadn’t been too sure about the new sleeve, given that there still wasn’t a full-service Class 1 hospital on the planet. But Daryll had assured him that with his autodoc, they could take off the old sleeve and put on the new one using the same connectors. “Just like changing an impeller on a hover,” he’d said.

The old sleeve was more innocuous. If he was wearing a shirt, it might pass unnoticed. The new sleeve was bulkier, and it was far more noticeable. That didn’t matter, though, if it worked better. And while moving it still irritated his chest and back, it felt more solid, and the pain in his shoulder was almost an afterthought.

He raised his arm straight over his head, then immediately snapped it down. “That still hurts.”

“You still have lots of inflammation that’s built up over the last months. It’ll take time for it to recede, even with the anti-inflammatories. If we can take you to Wooster Station, we can get that cleaned up for you to speed up the process, but they turned down my request.”

Rev hadn’t even known that Daryll had asked or that going off-planet was even a possibility.

“Your readings are good. So, control shouldn’t be affected. I think this is going to work.”

Rev rotated his arm again, making sure not to fully extend it. It was better, no doubt about it. Maybe he was on his way back to normal.

“And that brings us to this,” Daryll said, getting up and moving over to one of his tables. He picked up what looked like some sort of light armor, a type Rev hadn’t seen before. It didn’t look robust enough to give much protection, but with all the war research, maybe it was something new.

He held it in front of him as he carried it back to Rev.

“And that is . . . ?”

“This is the harness support I told you about. I just got the programming last night.” He gave it a little shake.

From close up, it looked like a lumpy, black t-shirt, not like anything Rev thought would give him support.

“Let’s give it a shot and see how it feels.”

With more than a little misgiving, Rev let Daryll help him slip it on. It was heavier than he expected, and it firmly hugged him.

“Wait while I turn it on.” Daryll reached for the right side of the shirt and thumbed a small, recessed switch, flipping it to the down position, clicking it closed.

“Woah,” Rev said as it felt like it was tightening around him.

“That’s the anchor points you feel. The support is using a magnetic field to position them and help hold them in place. Let me scan you to make sure that’s happening.”

Daryll positioned Rev in the scanner’s field and turned it on. He studied the readouts for a moment, then smiled. “Just as they’re supposed to be working,” he said, sounding pretty satisfied with himself.

“So, this thing’s going to help me?” Rev asked as he tentatively moved his arms. The shirt was hugging him, but it didn’t seem to affect his mobility much.

“That’s the plan. The nodes will help keep your anchors in place, and these straps here,” he said, running a finger across a few of the bands that were embedded into the fabric, “should spread-load some of the support. Now, let’s hook you up to Pashu and see if it really does the trick.”

Rev turned to where Pashu was hanging in the corner of the room. He hadn’t had her on for several weeks, and he was suddenly anxious to find out as well. He twisted and removed his social arm as Daryll retrieved Pashu and wheeled her up.

With sure movements, Daryll slipped Pashu into Rev’s new sleeve, then ran the checks. “All green. I’m removing the hoist.”

Rev gritted his teeth as the hoist released, and he took on Pashu’s full weight. To his surprise, it was better. Much better. He stood and made some tentative movements. It wasn’t perfect. There was still pulling across his chest and back, and his shoulder ached, but it was a lot, lot better. And for the first time in too long, Rev felt the power that he now controlled.

This is why I love this, he thought, drawing down on an imaginary Centaur.

He gave a little lurch, and the jerk awoke more pain, but it wasn’t much at all. “I think this can work.”

Daryll gave a sigh of relief, and Rev realized that Daryll had been just as much trying to find a solution as he was. The tech hadn’t designed the IBHU, but there was still that pride of being part of a revolutionary project.

“There’s a feedback loop in the harness, so if you take it off, I can either make adjustments to tighten up the tolerances or print a new one based on the numbers.”

“Can I just keep this one for a bit, first? I want to walk around, maybe do a little juking and such to see how it holds up.”

“Yeah, sure. Of course. But I want to see you back here so I can check out the numbers.”

“Give me an hour or so.”

“You’ve got it.”

Rev wheeled about as if being surprised from behind by a paladin, and in doing so, he knocked his social arm off the tray. It bounced on the floor before Rev could grab it.

“Maybe you’d better do all of that outside where you’ve got some room?”

“Right. Sorry,” Rev said with a chagrined smile. “I’ll be back.”

He took two steps when the base siren sounded. Before it even registered, Rev was moving, bursting through the door, eyes craning to search the sky.

Not again!

His heart was in his throat as he searched, but the skies were unnaturally clear. That didn’t mean much. The Centaurs could still be coming in.

He wasn’t going to do any good here, so he broke into a run. Others were moving as well, mostly Marines with a sense of purpose. A group of five civilian construction workers tried to stop him, panic in their voices as they asked him what was going on, but Rev kept running.

By the time he pulled up in front of their bivvie, most of the Raiders and recon were there, standing in front and waiting for orders. Their weapons had been pulled from the racks, and all eyes were focused up.

“Do we know what’s happening?” he asked Tomiko.

“Not yet. The master guns is trying to find out.”

But it wasn’t Master Gunnery Sergeant Tuala who returned with the news. Lieutenant St. Mary, the recon platoon commander, came sprinting back first.

“The tin-asses are invading!”

“How far out?” one of the recon Marines asked. “What are our orders?”

“They’re not here. Not to New Hope,” she said.”

“Where are they, then?” Rev asked.

“By the Mother, they’ve invaded the Home System!”

38

All eyes were glued to the huge 2D screen. The civilian-band quantum repeater had been replaced within days after the Centaur exodus, but the satellite beaming commercial broadcasts to the population had only gone up a few days ago. So, with the military comms being utilized by the command, the recreation hall was packed with close to a thousand Marines and sailors as they tried to find out what was going on.

It was frustrating because the civilian newscasts didn’t have all the answers, either, but it was better than nothing.

A powerful Centaur Navy had appeared well within the system, which in and of itself was unique. Even more so than humans, the Centaurs popped into real space well outside the gravitational pull of stars and planets, then transited in. It was one of the few things that gave the human navies a small advantage.

The surprise looked to be total, from what the talking heads were saying. The fighting was ferocious, with the Home Fleet taking huge losses but whittling away at the Centaur ships.

Titan had taken hits, too, with domes lost. Rev hoped the people had been able to get into the tunnels under the surface. But he knew that was wishful thinking. One reporter was at the Knipper Dome when it was hit, the feed disappearing in a flash.

“Should have terraformed,” Hussein muttered, something he had long held.

Rev ignored him. Since the signing of the Writs of Humankind, the only planet in the system to be able to naturally sustain life was the Mother herself. Titan and Enceladus were only allowed to be paraterraformed, with shells encompassing the existing domes at the time. Even today, the sections of the shells went by the old dome terminology. The intent was to keep the home system non-political. Ironically, however, when the Council of Humanity was formed two centuries later, it took possession of the two moons.

“Any mention yet of landings?” Strap asked.

“I think this is punitive,” Tomiko responded. “What good is Titan going to do them? If the Navy can’t turn them back, they’ll slag it.”

“I’ve got a cousin there,” Radić said quietly. “She’s working for the Council.”

“Shit, sorry, man,” Tomiko said. “I didn’t mean that’s what’s gonna happen. I just meant that I think that’s what they want to do. But the Navy, they’re better than the tin-asses in-system. You know that.”

“If they do slag Titan, then you know we can’t stand for it,” Hussein said. “We’ve got to get to their homeworld.”

Easier said than done.

Rev was engrossed with the situation just as everyone else was, and there was a hollow pit at the base of his stomach, but would losing Titan, with fewer than a hundred million, or Enceladus, with . . .

“What’s the population of Enceladus?”

<Two hundred and thirty million.>

Would the losses of both moons be worse than the scouring of Yspliti or Beacon? Rev knew they had to find a way to crush the Centaurs, to make them keep out of human space, but just because the two moons were in the home system didn’t mean humanity could let emotions run wild and start making foolish mistakes. Whatever strategy the Council and military leadership could come up . . .

But the Council would be gone if Titan was scoured. Humanity would be headless. The national governments would be left in charge but fragmented and thereby less effective. Rev wasn’t sure why it took him so long to realize the ramifications of what was happening. It was a good, strategic move by the Centaurs. Cut off the head, then take on the body parts piecemeal.

“Come on, Navy. Do your thing,” he whispered.

The battle dragged on. Even with the short in-system distances, fighting took time. Ships had to maneuver in a game of 3D chess. Torpedoes needed time to transit, mines to maneuver. Energy weapons were quicker but less effective.

And one by one, ships were getting vaporized. Someone in the military was releasing information to the press, so every kill of a Centaur ship was announced to the cheers of the Marines and sailors. What Rev wanted was to know about human losses, too, as he juggled in his mind the flow of the battle, but that wasn’t mentioned.

“Do you think we can turn them back?” Tomiko asked Rev. “If we lose the Council and the military command, I don’t want to think of what will happen.”

Of course, Tomiko would have realized the danger, too.

“The home system’s got good defenses. I think you were right about this being punitive. They don’t want those two rocks. And if the Navy can just punch them in the nose hard enough, they’ll back off, like they’ve been doing for the last couple of years.”

“I hope you’re right, Rev. I really do.”

“. . . from the Naval Auxiliary Command on Enceladus reports that with the addition of the Final Stand Fleet, incoming reports indicate that the Centaurs may be retreating out past Neptune’s orbital plane . . .”

Whatever else she had to say was lost in the cheers. Rev had been a little concerned when the Final Stand Fleet, the mostly ceremonial picket around the Mother, made up of ships from every nation, had sent half of its strength to reinforce the main fleet, but he guessed that just showed how little he knew of naval tactics. Maybe that had been just enough to turn the tide of the battle. Now, it looked to be only a matter of time.

“Hey, Doc, what kind of ships were in the Final Stand Fleet?” Hussein asked.

“Hell if I know. I’ve been a Fleet Marine corpsman since I’ve been in. I know shit about ships,” Doc Paul said.

It wasn’t that funny, but Rev joined in the laughter. Relief had a way of making people giddy. And each report of another Centaur heading out, human ships in hot pursuit, made the relief even stronger.

“The Navy’s gonna make them pay,” Tomiko said as the newscast put up a graphic that tried to make sense of what was happening. “They lost too many ships to just let the tin-asses run.”

“They better not follow them into null space. That’s all I can say. For all we know, they’ve got a fleet waiting there in a trap,” Rev said.

“Stop being such a damn pessimist,” Tomiko told him. “Look, some of them are already jumping.”

“And how the heck does HSN know that? That’s just some programmer putting it on their display.”

Rev didn’t know why he was being a cynic, but his statement was true. HSN, while the largest centralized news network, didn’t have the ability to track what was happening. They had to go with what was being fed to them by the government, and Rev had developed a healthy mistrust for what was released to the public.

“ . . . too early to tell the extent of the damage, but from all indications, the surviving enemy is in retreat. Our Navy, the combined ships from all corners of human space, has rebuffed the attack,” the talking head said, her face flushed with excitement.

Rev couldn’t blame her. HSN broadcasted from Titan, and she’d been in mortal danger herself. Rev knew what it felt like to have the battle adrenaline flowing, then coming out the other end alive. If she’d lost a little of her calm, professional demeanor, then that was understandable.

“ . . . darkest day in history, but it has also been one of the best, where with our combined might . . . wait, I’m getting something new right now.”

The look on her face silenced the general happy hubbub in the hall.

“Are you sure?” she asked somebody off-camera. “This has been confirmed?”

With a shocked look on her face, she turned back to the holocam. “Citizens of Humanity. We are getting reports that three Centaur ships have emerged from null-space just outside of the Mother’s exosphere.”

What?

Ships just didn’t exit null space within the gravitational pull of a body. The math became too convoluted, and ships and crews ended up strewn across vast distances. It had been surprising enough that the assault fleet had jumped into the Home System at all, but in Earth’s exosphere? No human ship would try that, and Centaur ships had always seemed to follow the same restrictions.

“I’m going to switch over to Leif Talmage at HSN’s Earth Weather Branch. Leif, are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here, Willa,” a young, scarecrow-looking man said as his feed took over.

Rev never understood the allure the weather on Earth had for so much of humanity. But HSN and several other networks had an interlocking system of satellites beyond the interdiction boundary and dutifully reported the planetwide weather to the junkies several times a day.

The feed immediately switched to a planetary view, the beautiful blue-green ball that evoked such deep emotions among all humans. Rev gulped, knowing that she was in danger.

“I’m bringing up some feeds now,” the weatherman said. “But all we know at the moment is that three Centaur ships appeared in the exosphere, which is about four hundred kilometers from the surface of the Mother. The Final Stand Fleet is engaging . . . wait, I have something here.”

The view switched toward the night side of the planet over Europe, and a bright stream of flaming debris was hurtling down. “I think this was a Centaur ship, if I understand the feeds right,” he said, his voice cracking with excitement.

Rev wanted to yell out in victory, but the sight of the debris flaming made his heart lurch. No weapons of war had touched the Mother’s skin in centuries, and these were Centaurs. It seemed like sacrilege. He prayed they would burn up in the atmosphere.

“Yes, I can now report that the explosion was a Centaur ship.”

Another graphic popped up, this one showing the tracks of three ships on the screen, one ending in an animated explosion. The human ships were not on the graphic. Navy ships had transponders that made them invisible to commercial satellites, but if they could track meteors, they could track Centaurs.

“I’m going to switch to one of the other tracks to see if I can pick another ship up.”

The feed changed again, this time to the daylight side over South America. The cameras zoomed in until a dark, cylindrical shape could clearly be seen. It seemed to shimmer—human meson cannons hitting its shields. But it didn’t take evasive action, nor did it seem to fire back.

“Leif, what can you tell us about the progress of the enemy ships,” the first talking head’s voice came over the feed.

“Well, at the moment, both remaining ships are still in space, if I can put it like that. But the one on the screen now is approaching the Kármán Line.”

“What is the—”

<The Kármán Line is a somewhat arbitrary line that separates a planetary body from outer space. For Earth, that is at one hundred kilometers. It is also the limit for the Final Stand Fleet to engage targets.>

“What? You’ve got to be shitting me, Punch. If they get past that line, we can’t engage?”

<Human forces can engage. They are just not allowed to according to the Writ of Humankind Amendments.>

“Punch says if they pass that Kármán Line the weather guy was saying, then we can’t fire on them anymore.”

“That’s bullshit,” Tomiko said, looking at Rev in shock. “This is a fucking emergency. Of course, they have to keep going to prevent those bastards from ever placing a withered foot on the Mother.”

Rev totally understood, and he agreed. All his thoughts about Titan and Enceladus and their relatively small populations went out the window when Earth was concerned. There might only be forty thousand humans on the surface, but this was their ancestral home. This was the Mother. The thought of a Centaur on the planet made Rev shudder in horror.

The question in his mind was if the Final Stand Fleet agreed. Would they pursue the Centaurs all the way to the ground if they had to?

Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that, he prayed.

A thousand Marines sat in absolute silence, while light-years away, the drama unfolded. It wasn’t until the ship on the screen passed the Kármán Line, and human fire ceased, that they erupted in shouts of anger, drowning out the reporter’s explanation of what was going on.

Legal analysts were brought on to give their opinions, but not many Marines paid attention as they followed the Centaur ship as it cruised lower and began to traverse to the Mother’s surface. The shouts rose in volume when the Centaur ship disgorged a small vessel, like a shuttle, over Mexico. They watched helplessly as it descended, and gently settled down over an overgrown jungle, stone pyramids rising over the treetops.

For the first time in recorded history, aliens had landed on Mother Earth.

39

Four hours later, First and Second Raider Platoons were embarked aboard the frigate PUNS Pandia. Rev barely had time to breathe between the time the orders can down to prepping for the deployment to riding up on the shuttle. Even with Punch helping with the checklist, he had a sinking feeling that he’d forgotten something, and probably something vital.

A surprised Daryll was on board, too, with his junior tech Taneesha. He seemed excited to be part of . . . whatever this was. Taneesha, not so much. She looked scared.

“All embarked Marines and civilian personnel, please report to the Hangar Alpha,” came over the 1MC.

“Maybe they’ll tell us what the hell is going on,” Hussein said as the guide strips lit up to show them the way.

“What is going on is we’re going to kick those bastards off the Mother,” Tomiko said.

Rev thought Tomiko was right, but Hussein wasn’t the only one to be surprised by her statement.

“You really think so?” he asked, his eyes bright with excitement.

“Look around. Who’s here? Rev and Pierson. I saw that messed up IBHU. What’s her name, Rev?”

“Randigold.”

“Randigold. And one more getting off one of the other shuttles. There are seven IBHUs on the planet, and credits to donuts that all seven are here.”

“OK, Miko. Maybe so, but what makes you think we’re going to Earth?”

“Where else could we be going? We’ve got to get the fucking tin-asses off the Mother, but you think the Navy’s just going to bombard their asses? That’s the Mother, for Pete’s sake.”

“I hope you’re right,” Hussein said in awe. “Us, going to the Mother? Stepping on her soil?”

Rev was just as awestricken. With such strict limits, it was almost impossible for a citizen to ever set foot on the birthplace of humankind. The most even the wealthiest could manage was to take one of the tourist ships that made a few very high orbits before returning to Titan or Enceladus.

But he’d already come to the same conclusion as Tomiko had. Their emergency deployment couldn’t be a coincidence. He didn’t know what excited him more—the ability to visit the Mother, something he’d never dreamed of doing, or being part of the attempt to punish the Centaurs who dared corrupt her sacred soil.

They reached the hangar. Rev saw Randigold and Eichenbaum, the two IBHUs in Second Raiders. Another two IBHUs Rev didn’t recognize caught his eye and nodded a silent greeting. They were joined by a third a few moments later.

First Division on the Gold Continent had ten IBHUs before the Centaurs hit. Those three had to be the survivors. No matter what else happened, whether they really were going to Earth or not, Rev looked forward to getting together with his counterparts to see what they’d experienced. He didn’t see any of the t-shirt harnesses on them, and none had the enhanced sleeve, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t suffered the same as he had.

“Damn! Look who else is with us,” Doc Paul said as the final group entered the hangar.

Rev did a double-take. Hitching a ride on the frigate were Colonel Destafney, two other colonels, Major General Sirirat, Lieutenant General Begay, and a small entourage of staff officers and enlisted. Captain Omestori pulled up the rear, and he immediately broke off to join his platoon.

“Good news?” the master guns asked as the captain took his place.

“Maybe,” was all he said.

The Pania’s skipper, a full commander, stepped forward first. “General Begay, General Sirirat, and Marines. I’m Commander Neon-Filtzer, the skipper of the Pania. I’d like to welcome all of you aboard.

“This deployment took us by as much surprise as it probably took you, but the circumstances, as you all know, are dire, and my crew and I are proud that the Panny is being asked to respond. But we are not a troop carrier, so things are going to be tight. Please have patience while we make the transit to the Home System.”

Tomiko gave Rev an elbow to the side.

“What? I agreed with you,” he whispered.

“If you need anything, Master Chief Massie will be your point of contact.”

A grizzled master chief with an impressive, pronounced beer belly stepped forward and waved her hand.

“General Begay, I’ll be moving out of my stateroom so you can use that. Between that, the galley, and here in the hangar, those are probably our biggest spaces for whatever you need. And with that, I’ll turn it over to you General.”

The general stepped forward and made a sweeping scan over the gathered Marines and sailors. “You all know what’s happened, so I’m not going into details about that. But I want to bring you up to speed on what’s happening now and why we were yanked aboard this ship.”

A hundred Marines and sailors took in deep breaths and held them as they listened.

“First, we do not have a mission at this time.”

Rev could hear a hundred sets of lungs deflate in unison.

The general held up his hand in acknowledgment of the disappointment. “But we may very well end up with a mission. As we speak, the Council and military representatives are meeting at Enceladus, trying to come up with a plan. We don’t know yet what it’s going to be, but someone realized that as our hands may be tied concerning the use of normal weapons systems, our IBHU Marines might be an asset that can be used. So, the Union is sending all twenty-three in active service, including our seven from New Hope, to the Home System to stand by.

“Stand by to stand by,” Hussein muttered.

“The director prime himself made the decision at the recommendation of the commandant, who thinks you—all of you, not just the IBHU Marines—are perhaps the best weapons to use in a surgical removal of the invaders. The director prime is on his way to the Home System now as well, to offer our services.

“And yes, to whoever just whispered ‘stand by to stand by,’”

Porter turned to glare at Hussein, who kept his eyes locked straight ahead.

“You didn’t think I heard you, did you. But you aren’t the only ones to get augmented,” he said, tapping an ear with his forefinger. “And yes, we might be going over for nothing. But back in the early history of the various marine corps and naval infantries, there was a saying that the Marines were like fire extinguishers. It was kept behind glass, but if there was a fire, you broke the glass and pulled it out.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there is a fire right now. And if we’re there in the Home System, ready to be used, then the Council will, by the Mother, reach out and use us.”

“This isn’t a pleasure cruise, so, no matter how long we have to wait, I want you mentally, physically, and morally prepared to react at a moment’s notice. I want you to be ready to rid the Mother of the vermin who now infest her. Understand?”

A hundred sets of lungs screamed out an ooh-rah that reverberated through the hangar.

* * *

“And this thing really works?” Lieutenant Milei Macek asked, holding Rev’s external harness, twisting it back and forth, testing its strength.

“Not perfectly, no. But it’s a sight better than I had before. I think it’s the power that keeps the anchors in place.”

“Well, you’ve had your IBHU longer than any of us, so I guess it makes sense that you’d have the problems first. I’m just glad I’m not the only one. Wait. I didn’t mean it like that, of course. But that means there might be an answer.”

The First Division lieutenant, the senior IBHU Marine from New Hope, turned to Daryll and asked, “And you think you can print one up for Lance Corporal Thassom and me?”

“Me, too, sir,” PFC Marie del Mar added.

“You, too? Why am I only finding out about this now?” the lieutenant asked.

The PFC shrugged but didn’t say anything.

“To answer your question, I think I can. I’ve spoken with the chief in the ship’s machine shop, and I think we can make their VU-4500 work. Pretty close, at least.”

“So, that’s three of them?” the lieutenant asked, looking at each of the IBHU Marines. “None of the rest of you?”

When there was no response, he said, “Then let’s do it. If it works for Sergeant Pelletier here, even partially, then I think it’s worth the effort.”

Rev hadn’t been that surprised when he met up with the other six IBHU Marines and found out that a few of the others had the same issues as he did. None of the others were as severe as his situation, but as the lieutenant said, he’d had his the longest and had more missions than anyone else. He’d fetched Daryll to talk to the others. If anyone could help, it would be the civilian tech.

But it wasn’t just Daryll helping the three other Marines. Rev was happy to meet more of his . . . not posse. Not team. Not even Brothers in Steel. This was a sub-tribe, one of the most exclusive in the galaxy.

He was close to Tomiko and his team, he was close to his posse, he was close to Malaika, but no one else could really understand what he’d gone through. McAnt had been a good sounding board, but with him gone, he’d lost that. Pierson, although he’d proved to be a warrior, was almost an inert lump when it came to a discussion, and Randigold was at Camp Falcon. To be standing together with the other six made him feel among his own kind and not so alone.

“OK, with that out of the way, I want to discuss our cannons now. What issues or observations do you have that need to be addressed? And Mr. Begay, if you could stay and listen to see if you have any input, that would be appreciated.”

“It’s Daryll, not Mr. Begay. But of course, I’ll stay.”

It felt a little weird no longer being the senior IBHU Marine around. Although the lieutenant was not exactly in Rev’s chain of command, he was monopolizing the discussion, taking charge. But Rev didn’t care. Let him officer. That’s what they do, after all. An IBHU wasn’t going to change that fact of nature.

* * *

“When are they going to send us down?” Hussein bitched for the hundredth time, if it was once.

“Too many bosses, all trying to make sure their voices are heard,” Top Thapa said.

Rev thought that was probably true. Lieutenant General Begay, who was a god on New Hope, had left for Enceladus immediately after the ship entered the Home System, where he was probably serving coffee and donuts to those senior to him. The Union commandant and chief of naval operations joined all the other politicians and military leaders as they tried to come up with a viable plan to eject the Centaurs from the Mother.

Information back on the Pannia was sketchy at best, but from the bits and pieces they’d received, there were several competing courses of actions. One was just to stand back and hope for negotiations. Another was to hit the Centaurs and hit them hard, damage to the Mother be damned. Their stand was that the Earth had fared far worse environmental damage back before the Expansion, and she had recovered once, so she could recover again. The third was to conduct a surgical strike, and that was the one most likely to include the Marine Raider teams.

The big problem was that no one knew what the Centaurs had planned. The Mother was covered by more feeds than possibly any other piece of human real estate, but except for them cutting off all comms from the surface, they’d made no attempt at hiding their presence. Small teams of between ten and thirty Centaurs had taken up positions across the planet. Many were at historically significant sites, while others were seemingly scattered haphazardly without obvious rhyme or reason.

It wasn’t as if the Marines and sailors aboard the Panny were getting their information through the chain of command. They were out of that loop. But the civilian resources were being openly disseminated throughout human space. The human caretakers on the planet were cut off, as were the cams on the surface, but not those in orbit. Those on the ship could see Centaur activity from the HSN weather feeds, which had by now made Leif Talmage a household name as he brought everything to the public.

So few Centaurs should not be an obstacle to the combined might of every human organization, but the enemy had to know that. Given that knowledge, what were they doing? What did they have up their sleeves? And that was the main topic of discussion across the vast reaches of space where humans were glued to their screens and holopads.

The galley had become the de facto center of the ship. Normally used by the junior enlisted sailors, it was now regularly packed with Marines of all ranks and the off-duty crew as they watched the news feed. At the moment, the HSN feed was on again, showing what looked to be two mini-Centaurs at Angkor digging in the ground while the analysts discussed what they might be doing.

Initially, Rev had hung on every word the so-called experts said, but he’d quickly learned that they knew no more than he did. He just watched and waited for orders, whatever they might be.

One of the ship’s crew sidled up to Rev and asked, “Have you heard anything about the Mad Dogs?”

Just as the experts didn’t know more about the Centaurs, Rev didn’t know more about the Manifest Destiny super-soldiers. It had been mentioned in passing by one of the analysts earlier that their version of IBHU Marines were inbound, but Rev had no way of confirming or denying that. He was just a grunt in a ship. But because of his being an IBHU Marine, some of the sailors, in particular, seemed to think he had a personal conduit to the MDS rumor.

“Just what we heard this morning.” That was a safe answer, he thought.

“Can you guys, you know, can you beat them?”

“The MDS? They’re our allies. Our enemy is down on the Mother,” Rev said, a little taken aback by the question.

“Yeah, I know. But they’re bastards, and some of us were just wondering.”

Tomiko leaned over and interjected, “No fucking Mad Dog can take on a Union Marine.”

The sailor smiled and said, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He slapped Rev on the shoulder and threaded his way to the other side of the galley.

“I thought the Navy had standards as to who they allow in,” Tomiko said.

“Eh. I’ve had Marines ask me the same thing, too.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Can you beat up a Mad Dog android?” she asked with a laugh.

Rev rolled his eyes and turned back to the screen.

“Seriously, though. That’s why we’re waiting,” Tomiko said.

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t bomb the crap out of the Mother. I mean, she’s the Mother. But even if we thought that was the only way, the true Gaia-type believers would revolt. They’d freaking invade Titan if the Council OK’d it.

“And waiting for some sort of demand to negotiate is going to take time, and not just the Gaias are screaming for action. The normal folk are, too.”

“So, what’s your point?”

“How many of you IBHUs are here?”

“On the ship? Seven. All told with the other ships? Twenty-three.”

“And if we make you the point of main effort, you know, so you can kill the tin-asses without blowing the planet up, can we hit every one of them down there?”

“No. You know that.”

“And think of this,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Are the other countries just gonna want to hand the rescue of the Mother to the Union? Hell no. They all want to participate. And if the Mad Dogs have their own androids, they’re gonna be part of that. We acted first to get here, but the others, they’re not gonna just give us a free pass to run this show.”

She leaned back with a smug look on her face. But Rev couldn’t fault her logic. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure she was right.

The Marine in him wanted to move now. Whatever the two mini-Centaurs were doing in Angkor couldn’t be good, and the more time they gave them, the more time they could prepare nasty surprises for when the freeing of the Mother did kick off.

But this was the Mother, not New Mars, and she transcended political lines. Maybe it was best if this wasn’t a Union mission, but one with input from all the worlds of humankind.

40

Tomiko nudged him and pointed to the back where what had to be a dozen MDS IBHUs entered the hall. “Told you.”

“I never doubted you in the least,” he said as he studied them.

He’d heard the rumors, of course, but none of the details. It wasn’t fair to call them the MDS version of an IBHU Marine, he quickly realized. They seemed more like a slimmed-down version of a mech Marine that mated with a Ninety-nine in a power-assist frame. The soldiers were almost completely encased with some kind of armor, but he could see their faces and various patches of what looked like skin.

And despite his low opinion of all of those who’d asked if he could beat one of them in a fight, he couldn’t help but wonder that right now. None had what he could discern as a weapon, but they looked pretty impressive nonetheless.

He could feel their eyes on him and the rest of the IBHUs. Not knowing if they would be back to the ship—and more likely for the Union to show them off—they had been ordered to don their IBHUs, and as usual in this case, they were at the ends of the rows. The Mad Dogs couldn’t miss them.

The Manifest Destiny Sphere and Perseus Union had long been strategic adversaries, and they’d clashed in open war several times over the centuries, so it was difficult for Rev not to consider the question. Luckily, that was only an academic question for now. The Union and the MDS were allies, coming together with the rest of humankind to defeat the Centaurs.

And after six long days in the Home System, it looked like that might finally be about to happen. They’d gotten the message to proceed to Enceladus where the Marines were taken off and brought into the vast underground fortress that was the beating heart of the military might of humankind. Titan had the vast and bloated government agencies, but Enceladus was from where humanity’s might operated.

That’s not actually true, Rev had to remind himself as they’d been taken on a rail system to the vast hall being filled with thousands of people from militaries spread across human space. The complex on Enceladus was impressive, but the real might of humanity was spread across the nations that made it up. Here was where operations against the Centaurs were planned and coordination made, but with only a fleet and a division within the Home Guard, it did not directly command a strong military force.

Rev never thought he’d ever make it to this exalted headquarters. He was just a kid from the nether planets, hoping he could land an apprenticeship with the BOTC. And now look where he was.

And then it was taken up a notch when a voice said, “Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the Council-General of Humanity.”

Rev spun around, Mad Dogs forgotten, and a group of people walked in, led by a familiar figure as she walked down the aisle to the front, passing not two meters from Rev. His mother wasn’t much of a fan of the Council, but even she would be impressed that her baby boy had been that close to so much power.

“See if there is a public recording of this, and if there is, get a still of her passing me.”

<Roger. I’ll monitor what is released.>

Rev was sure that the meeting itself would be classified about a million ways, but the grand entrance was something the CoH liked to release so that the population knew that it was working for all humankind. And with all the attention on the crisis, more people . . .

Rev gulped. It was very possible that hundreds of billions of people might see Rev as the Council-General walked past him. It was too unreal to take in.

The great one took her seat, not addressing the crowd. A few moments later, another civilian, this one a slender middle-aged man in a bright blue whipple suit, complete with oversized lapels, stepped to the front.

“Citizens of humanity, I am Third Council Reuben Tsao-Miller,” he said with a distinct Hégémonie accent. “We are gathered here because of the insult the Scutum-Centaursians have inflicted upon us, a culmination of the war they’ve raged against all of humanity. And I use the word insult, but rest assured, it is more than that. Our Mother, our spiritual home, is in great danger. What the Scutum-Centaursians are doing could very well destroy the planet.”

There were gasps and more than a few shouts. The third council waited until they died out. “I am here to tell you that we will not idly stand by, hoping that the Centaurs will come to their senses and ask to negotiate. But we cannot bring to bear our full might against them for fear of what they seemed poised to do in response to the cradle of humanity.

“What we can do, however, is surgically remove the infection, minimizing any harm to the Mother. We believe we have the scalpels,” he said, waving a hand in the general direction of the Marines and Mad Dogs.

“If that doesn’t work, well, we can always escalate. But rest assured, we will not stand for alien scum on sacred soil.”

There were cheers as people jumped to their feet, Rev and the rest of the Marines among them. The third council’s speech might not have been the most elegant in history, but it delivered the goods. Humanity was ready to strike, and the Raiders were the tip of the spear.

41

The third council gave way to a series of military personnel who briefed the mission. Rev thought too much time was spent in the history of the conflict and the Centaur incursion into the Home System. Yes, it was interesting to see how they’d pulled forces away from the planet, sacrificing ships to do accomplish that, then in a laser strike, attacked with their three ships, two reaching the planet’s surface.

And he was surprised to learn that the military hadn’t just been waiting for orders. Union SEALs, Hégémonie Legion 2ème REP, and Frisian Commandos had attempted inserts to get eyes on the situation, only to have their craft shot down before they entered the exosphere. An Alliance ship, part of the Final Stand Fleet, had turned its cannon to target the Centaurs who’d landed at the base of Mount Fuji. No one was sure why it had done so, but it was immediately vaporized by a hitherto and still unknown Centaur weapon.

But how did all of that affect the troops going in next? The planners had to know that and take all of it into consideration, but not the trigger pullers. Rev sure didn’t see the time taken had much of an ROI. He wanted the nitty-gritty of what they were about to do, and it had taken over an hour to get to that.

There were forty-nine known Centaur positions on the planet. Most were located among the few historical sites that had been spared and not razed to the ground once the Mother was designated a sanctuary. The general plan was for all forty-nine sites to be targeted by Raider or Mad Dog teams, each built around an IBHU or Pit Bull, as the Raiders were now calling them. With more “super-augmented” soldiers, as the briefers were calling them together, than sites, a few of the sites would be targeted by two teams. Additional teams would be held back, ready to insert as needed.

Insertion for the Marines was to be done via PIS-31, while the Mad Dogs had two-person small insertion capsules. No fewer than four of the briefers stressed that the Centaurs had never targeted either of these two insertion methods before.

Of course, the Centaurs had never been willing to sacrifice ships to get small teams on a planet before, either, but Rev didn’t bring that up.

To make sure that the teams would get to the ground, dummy drops of pissers and Mad Dog insertion capsules would be made at the same time.

There was much more to the plan, with naval forces and follow-on ground forces, contingency plans, and a lot more that really didn’t pertain to him. If those came into play, that meant the Raiders would have failed and were long past being part of the fight.

At the conclusion of the main brief, each combat team was taken aside, assigned a target, and given a detailed brief pertaining specifically to them. Third and Fourth Teams, First Raider Platoon, were briefed by a Marine full-colonel. Their target would be the Centaurs located at Machu Picchu high in the Andes. Having fought on Roher-104, Rev has some experience fighting at altitude, so he’d been tagged with that, and that meant the rest of the team was as well.

There were at least nine Centaurs at the site, with two paladins and a riever. The rest of the centaurs seemed to be in a new, smaller vehicle. No one knew the capabilities of the new armor, but they had to assume they weren’t defenseless.

Despite the smaller armored vehicles’ capabilities, three combat Centaurs were no laughing matter. Rev had doubts he could take them out alone, but that was why the two teams would be with him. He, with his cannon, might be the point of main effort, but every team member would be armed with multiple Morays and Yellowjackets, both improved versions from the ones they’d had during the invasion of New Hope.

With all the facilities available to them, the combined team was able to run three simulations before time ran out. Twice, they managed to destroy the Centaurs. Once, the Centaurs destroyed them.

Then, it was time to go. For one of the most important battles in the last millennium, from brief to prep was only five hours when it should have been weeks. But the enemy rarely cooperates, and the Marines were going to have to rely on their training.

The colonel tried to debrief them on the last simulation as they rushed to the train for the spaceport. They would not be returning to the Panny, which didn’t have robust pisser capabilities.

Unlike Union military ports with the sailors in various colored shirts, this one was run by civilians. The master guns looked around, trying to see who to check in with, but they found him instead. A young woman, her blonde hair in a tight bun, ran up and scanned his arm chip. She gave a cheerful “Will you follow me, please,” as she led them to a small holding area complete with a set of bleachers.

A familiar face was already sitting there.

“Ting-a-ling, what are you doing?” Rev asked as he, Tomiko, Hussein, and two of Second Team’s old-timers rushed up.

“Can’t let you Union jarheads hog all the glory, can we?” he asked, taking their backslaps.

“This isn’t a coincidence,” Hussein said, stating the obvious.

“I got pulled from my station an hour after the invasion. I guess my folks saw this coming, and since I’ve worked with you . . .”

“And you Fries can’t let the Mad Dogs and us have free rein, right?” Carp said.

Master Gunnery Sergeant Tuala walked up and asked, “Who are you?”

“Silver-Master Tjivyrtzlin, Master Guns, but you all call me Ting-a-ling.”

“He was with us before, on Roher-104, Tenerife, and Alafia. He’s good people,” Rev said.

“OK, he’s good people. But what is he doing here?”

“I’m going with you. Observer status, and all. You should have a message on that.”

The master guns frowned, then got the faraway look in his eyes that some had when conferring with their battle buddies. The frown didn’t fade when he came back to the here and now.

“I don’t have observers in my team, Silver-Master Tjivyrtzlin,” he said, sounding like he’d mastered the name. “If you’re coming with us, you’re a fighter.”

“No problem with that.”

The civilian had been waiting at the master guns shoulder, and seeing her opening, she said, “If you watch that light there, when it turns green, please get your people on the lift. You’ll be raised to the tarmac in front of your shuttle. I’ll be here until then, so if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

She stepped to the side, the smile still fixed on her face.

“You heard her. Everyone, stay put. No one leaves. And Radić, I’m tasking you with watching that damn light. I want to know the second it turns green.”

“So, it is true,” Ting-a-ling said, tilting his head at Pashu.

“’Fraid so.”

“We heard the rumors, you and the Mad Dogs.”

Rev smiled. He didn’t know the Frisians called the MDS soldiers Mad Dogs as well.

“Pretty effective, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah, pretty.” Rev liked Ting-a-ling, and he’d almost sacrificed his career to keep from fighting Frisians, but he wasn’t Union, and Rev didn’t know what he could reveal.

But if he was going to be with them on the mission, he’d find out soon enough, and better he knew what Rev could and couldn’t do before the rounds started flying.

“Come over here,” he said, leading him to the top seats in the bleachers.

He only had time to explain his cannon and briefly start to go over the team tactics before the light turned green. It was go time.

42

Sorry, Mommy. Sorry, Mommy,

So the little bear said.

That’s OK, my little one.

And she kissed him on his head!

Geez, why can I get that out of my mind? Thanks a lot, girls.

“Give me some music. Anything!”

A moment later, “Descent Into Madness” took over. Rev grimaced. Given what he was about to do, that seemed too much like an omen. But Punch probably didn’t mean anything with it. If Rev remembered right, that was the first song Punch had played for him what seemed like decades ago. Before that, Rev didn’t even know his battle buddy could do that.

They’d come a long way together since then. Rev hadn’t trusted Punch in the beginning, refusing to even name him. He was still convinced that Punch was a tool of the psychs who monitored all the Marines and sailors, and since he was issued Pashu, he was even more sure that his thoughts and actions were under increased scrutiny, but he’d come to an easy acceptance of the AI. He was a tool, Rev knew, but a useful tool.

Especially now as Rev waited alone in his pisser. Rev didn’t like them in the least. He wasn’t in control, and in a few minutes, he would be shot onto the Mother and into a combat situation. He didn’t trust the briefers who kept reassuring everyone that the Centaurs wouldn’t shoot down pissers. If they really thought that, then why were they going to flood the sky with thousands of dummy pissers and Mad Dog capsules?

Hussein had said they probably had a twenty-five percent chance to reach the ground. He admitted that he had nothing on which to base that other than the SEALs and the rest getting shot down, and the others had yelled at him for being a pessimist and for tempting fate. Military people were a superstitious lot, and chances of survival was something never mentioned. But with Hussein bringing it out into the open, the seed had been sown.

Thinking in that vein was taking him down the rabbit hole. Once he had his feet on the ground, his warrior would take over, but for now, he was stressing, and “Descent Into Madness” just wasn’t quite thing to be listening to before an insertion.

“Hey, Punch, how come you haven’t told me a joke lately?”

<You haven’t needed one.>

“What? What the hell does that mean?”

<It means what I said. But I can also say you haven’t asked for one.>

Rev tried to think back. His battle buddy used to always ask to tell a joke. When had that dynamic shifted? Was it also after Bluebonnet Meadow?

“OK, then. If I have to ask, then please tell me a joke.”

<Why can’t you hear a Pterodactyl go to the bathroom?>

“I thought you got beyond these kinds of jokes.”

<Do you want something different?>

“No, that’s OK. Why can’t you hear a Pterodactyl go to the bathroom?”

<Because the pee is silent.>

Rev shook his head. “You haven’t gotten any better, you know.”

<I know.>

Rev was going to ask for another, something longer, when a voice came through the pisser’s speakers.

“One minute until launch.”

“Thank you.”

There was a pause, then the nameless voice added, “Our prayers are with you, Sergeant. May the Mother watch over you.”

“Thanks,” Rev said, but the sailor on the other side of the comms had already moved on.

It had been a little thing, but he appreciated it. And it helped him realize that this mission was much bigger than just the team and him. Humanity was watching, and that humbled him. He hoped he’d prove himself worthy.

Rev settled in to wait out the remaining seconds until launch.

Sorry, Mommy. Sorry, Mommy,

So the little bear said.

That’s OK, my little one.

And she kissed him on his head!

* * *

Rev’s feet hit terra firma, and relief warred with pure, unadulterated joy—relief because Hussein had been wrong, and joy because he was on the Mother, the cradle of humanity. He dropped to his knees and kissed the rocky ground as if he was in a poorly written holodrama. He didn’t care. He wasn’t a Gaian, those who worshipped the Mother, but it was impossible for him to be human and not be moved.

He popped free of his foil and stripped out of his flight suit, then folded both up. He was tempted to bring them with him, unwilling to sully the landscape, but their orders had been to stash them. Anything they carried that didn’t advance the mission was to be left behind. Others would clean up if they succeeded in defeating the Centaurs.

When we defeat the tin-asses.

He shook his head to clear it and stood. He couldn’t let his emotions get the better of him. He had to ignore where he was and treat this like any other combat mission.

“Run a system check.”

<Weapons systems green. Power at ninety-eight-point-three percent. Communications to both the command and your team members are down.>

Which was expected. The Centaurs were far more advanced at shutting down comms than humans were, so it would have been a shock if they’d been able to use them. That didn’t mean they were cut off from the rest of humanity. Rev looked up to the sky and resisted waving. While they couldn’t reach out to anyone, he knew that eyes were on them. Everything they did would be observed and recorded.

Rev turned to Montaña Picchu, the peak a klick south of the historic site easily visible with their night vision capabilities. It had been the team’s landmark as they descended. Their DZ was another two klicks beyond that, near the ancient terraces of Intipata, which was their rally point.

Before he could step off, Radić flew to a landing ten meters away from him.

“Imagine meeting you here, Sergeant,” the PFC said with a grin as he stripped off his flight suit.

“Yeah, what a coincidence.”

Rev waited until Radić was ready, and then the two started for the RP. Within a hundred meters, Porter and Tomiko joined them, and four moved into a diamond formation for better security.

There was no evidence that the Centaurs had ever left the immediate confines of the historic site, but if Rev were in their shoes—if they even used shoes, that is—he’d have at least early-warning sensors if not booby traps and other unwelcome devices blanketing the surrounding area. And he wasn’t the only one to think that. Initially, the terraces were supposed to be their DZ, but that had been changed at the last minute with the possibility that they’d be defended.

But the four faced no opposition and reached Intipata first, with the rest of the team arriving within four minutes.

“Glad you made this one, Hus-man,” Tomiko said as they gathered around the master guns.

Hussein gave her the finger. He’d failed to reach the DZ on Preacher Rolls and had subsequently missed the mission, and Tomiko loved to remind him of that at every opportunity.

“Quit your jaw-jacking,” the master guns said. “We’ve got a climb ahead of us, and we need to be in position in three hours. Any last questions?”

There were none. They’d gone over this too many times now, and the Marines were anxious to get it done. In two hours, the fate of the Mother could be determined. Not just here at Machu Picchu, but at the other Centaur positions across the planet.

The team moved out in a very fluid V with Rev in the middle. He still didn’t like the position. He felt he should be on point, but that had been nixed by higher headquarters. They wanted to make sure that Rev and Pashu’s cannon were there for the assault. He was the key in drawing the Centaurs out.

Some of the teams at the other objectives had a new, man-packed version of the braided beam cannon, but given the rough terrain, that hadn’t been feasible for this mission. Here, it was Rev and the rest with the improved Morays and Yellowjackets. Even Ting-a-ling was given Morays.

Of course, despite the weapons techs saying they knew why the Morays on New Hope hadn’t proven effective and that had been fixed, Rev didn’t place much confidence in that. In his mind, he felt he would have to be the executioner, at least for as many as he could before he fell.

Rev glanced back at Ting-a-Ling, who was bringing up the rear right of the formation. He was slightly puffing in the high altitude. The Frisians said they hadn’t augmented their soldiers, even their commandos, which Ting-a-ling was, but not many of the Marines believed that. It was obvious he was having more problems with the low oxygen levels than the Marines were. And this was nothing compared with their mission on Roher-104, where the Frisian had used supplemental O2. But it was because of the team’s success on that mission that they were given this one.

Movement was slow as they skirted Montaña Picchu to the west, making their way just under the ridgeline. The terrain was as tough as Rev had seen. It was pretty obvious why the Incas from so long ago felt safe in their cities. This was a hard country in which to launch an assault.

After 110 minutes, they were southwest of the ruins, just on the backside of the ridge. They spread out in a line, five or ten meters between them. The Centaurs were only three hundred meters away. And if everything was going according to the plan, Second Team would have reached Huayna Picchu, the peak six hundred meters to the north of the ruins, ready to provide supporting fires. Their DZ had been the sandy banks of the Urubamba River, and they should have had an easier hump to their objective.

The master guns slid along the ridge and sat down beside Rev. “Are you ready for this?”

“As ready as I’m ever going to be.”

“Just be sure you take out what you can before . . .”

“Before they nail me?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, you did, Master Guns. But that’s OK. I know what my job is. But even if I’m supposed to draw them out into the kill zone for all of you, I’ve got a feeling I’m going to do OK. They haven’t met Pashu before,” he said, patting his IBHU.

“Of course, son. If anyone can, it’ll be you. And we’ve got your back.” He started to move away when Rev reached out with Pashu and stopped him.

“But on the small chance that I buy it, I want you to retrieve the sergeant’s chevron you gave me. And give it to Strap when he finally makes sergeant. He’s a good Marine.”

The master guns didn’t try to bullshit Rev about his chances. He just nodded his head and said, “He’s a good choice. I’ll make sure it happens.”

Rev leaned back against the rocks. He felt . . . good. That only slightly surprised him. He’d been stressed out waiting in the pisser, wondering if he was going to make it to the ground. But now that he was here, facing what was probably going to be his last mission, he was at peace with himself. If he was going to die, then he couldn’t have asked for a better location than in the Mother’s embrace.

“How much time?”

<Sixty-three minutes.>

“Good.”

The sky to the east was beginning to show signs of dawn. Rev would have rather done the mission while it was still night. No one knew how well the Centaurs could see in low-light conditions—at least no one had bothered to tell that to the Marines in the field—but he felt more dangerous in the dark. With all the attacks kicking off simultaneously, though, that meant he couldn’t choose the conditions.

The horizon was pink when Tomiko made her way over to sit down next to him.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Probably more so from the ruins. We could see Papa Sun himself.”

“Soon enough.”

From their side of the ridge, all they could see of the sunrise were the mountains to the south. They’d have to climb another ten meters or so to be able to look directly east. But Tomiko was right. In less than an hour, Rev would be going over the ridge and down into the ruins.

And suddenly, he was glad the attack wouldn’t kick off until he could see Papa Sun with his own eyes, as humans had done since the dawn of time.

They sat in silence for ten long minutes. There really wasn’t much to say. They knew each other too well. But finally, Tomiko said, “Listen, Rev. You do what you have to do. Be fierce. Be deadly. Be a Raider. Get them out in the open, and then we’ll take it from there.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

She suddenly turned into him and pulled him in for a hug, her augmented muscles squeezing hard. Rev gave as much as he got with his right arm but more gently folded Pashu around her. He could feel her hot tears reach his chest.

“So help me, if you try to be a fucking hero, I’ll come on down and kick your ass.”

“I know you will, Miko.”

He gave her one last squeeze before he released her. She held on a few more moments before she let go and moved back to her position.

<Fifty-one minutes,> Punch said before Rev asked.

“Why don’t you pull up that overhead view again?”

An instant later, he was looking down on Machu Picchu from the day before. He zoomed in on the entrance to whatever the Centaurs had made under the ground. It didn’t look like much, but he couldn’t see what was underneath. None of the Navy or civilian scanners could get past the first meter, either. All they knew was that inside were three combat Centaurs and whatever else the others were. It was Rev’s job to make them come out where they would be picked off by the two teams.

If everything went to plan and the Centaurs cooperated.

But what if they didn’t come out? Well, according to Punch, back in the Twentieth Century, in one of the Asian wars, the Viet Cong had massive systems of underground tunnels, and the US Marines—and soldiers, he had to remind himself—went down into the tunnels to smoke out their enemy. They were called tunnel rats. Rev rather liked that. And if he became one of those tunnel rats, he thought his chance of getting out of this alive were much better. If Pashu’s braided energy cannon could disable or even diminish the strength of their self-destructing, Rev might just be able to take them one by one.

Rev studied the entrance to the tunnel and his route coming off the mountainside. He ran scenarios past Punch, letting his battle buddy tear them apart. Where he’d been peacefully watching the sky get light before, now he was getting into full warrior mode. He could feel the moment the adrenaline kicked in, something he was now positive was initiated by Punch. But as always, he didn’t care. He felt alive, ready to close with the enemy.

He was so involved that he was surprised when Punch said, <Five minutes.>

Rev looked past Porter to the master guns and gave him a thumbs-up. The master guns nodded and gave the signal. Slowly, the team started creeping up, stopping just short of the top of the ridge.

Rev could feel his heart pounding through his chest.

“Hey, I know it’s only been a few hours, but how about one last joke, buddy?”

<Why doesn’t a Marine Raider need a parachute to go skydiving?>

“Really? After we just came in by pisser?”

First “Descent Into Madness” and now this? This isn’t a coincidence.

<I repeat, why doesn’t a Marine Raider need a parachute to go skydiving?>

Rev thought about it for a moment, trying to figure out the joke. “Because we’re tough?”

<No.>

“OK, why?”

<Because they only need a parachute to go skydiving twice.>

Rev frowned, then it hit him. He chuckled. Then he had to bury his face into the crook of his arm to muffle the laughter that bubbled out of him. He opened his eyes, tears coming down, to see Corporal Porter ten meters away, looking at him with her eyes wide in concern. He got control of himself and gave her a weak thumbs-up.

“After all this time, Punch, you choose now, when the Mother herself hangs in the balance, to tell a good joke?”

<So, you liked it. Noted.>

“Yes, my friend. I liked it.”

And then it was time to go.

* * *

Rev slipped over the top of the ridge, keeping low. He didn’t want the Centaurs to open up with something longer range. He had to get down on the ground and challenge them like some gunfighter in the days of the old American West. Across the planet, other teams of Marines and Mad Dog soldiers would be kicking off their own assaults.

It was almost too much to hope that all forty-nine attacks would be successful, and Rev chose not to think of the consequences should even one fail. He couldn’t impact any of the other assaults. All he could do was make sure that this mission succeeded.

Below him, Papa Sun lit up the ancient site. It took his breath away, but he wasn’t a tourist. He had to focus. Rev shifted slightly to the right, half-running, half-stumbling down a small depression. There was no sign of Centaurs, which could be good or bad. It was good because Rev could reach the site, but bad because he needed them to react to him.

Rev reached the bottom of the slope and slowed down, Pashu at the ready, and took the green flare from his thigh holster with his right hand. The Centaur’s entrance was 135 meters ahead of him.

“Here we go, buddy,” he muttered aloud. “Get ready.”

He took two steps forward when Punch said, <Right!>

But Rev was already moving, dodging the instant the top of the paladin appeared at the entrance. Like a whale breaching, the Centaur shot up from the tunnel and landed with a thud on the ground. Its pedestal was raised, but the cannon wasn’t yet deployed, and Rev was going to use the few seconds that would take to his advantage. He could cover a lot of ground even in that short amount of time.

Rev pushed forward at an oblique to the paladin, waiting for Punch’s next command, but the Centaur seemed to be having problems with its cannon.

Tough luck for it, good luck for me.

He closed the distance, and Punch never had to tell him to dodge back.

<Seventy meters . . . sixty meters . . . fifty meters,> Punch said in rapid succession.

Rev fired Pashu. This time, there was no glow of the Centaur’s shields as they fought his cannon. The paladin collapsed, its twenty-two legs crumbling. There was no self-destruction detonation, but Rev knew the thing was dead.

One down, two more combat Centaurs to go. That was Rev’s easiest kill to date, but while he was surprised, he sure wasn’t complaining. He stepped to the side so he could see around the paladin hulk to the entrance as he kept one eye on his charge indicator for his cannon.

He risked a glance to the top of Huayna Picchu. He could see Second Team up there, covering him. He fingered the green flare in his right hand. If he popped it—or was taken down—the two teams would open up. And if Rev killed a second, the kill zone would become a free-fire area for the third combat Centaur. After that, the situation was more open as things progressed.

<Here comes another.>

But Rev had seen the next paladin rise like a huge drone. Its cannon was also stowed alongside its pedestal. Rev knew he had a few seconds, and he was already within range . . . but he was also in range of its self-defense belt. Rev was already crabbing, waiting for the green full-charge light.

The second paladin cleared the tunnel and settled beside the first. The thing’s cannon didn’t move, and finally, Rev’s cannon was charged. He fired. The paladin held up for a moment before it collapsed, just like the first. Also, like the first, there was no self-destruction. Two dead paladins were sitting there, like broken tanks from the Battle of Kursk.

Rev didn’t understand what was happening, and he didn’t like that. He should be overjoyed that two of the enemy were down, but it shouldn’t have been that easy.

One case where a cannon malfunctioning was something he could accept. The Centaurs were not perfect, after all. But two? Rev didn’t trust coincidences. He was sure the two paladins hadn’t tried to kill him. But why?

“Are those decoys? Are they even manned?”

<There isn’t any way to tell aside from physically looking aside.>

“What do you think? Am I being set up?” Rev asked as he wheeled about, looking for other signs of the enemy. “It’s too damned convenient that they have only one entrance, right?”

<Horatius Cocles.>

Rev had discussed Horatio at the Bridge often enough with Punch that he didn’t need to be reminded of the Roman hero. But the two paladins hadn’t tried to keep him out, so he thought the reference was misplaced. But if they were supposed to capture Rev’s attention while something else was going on . . .

Rev looked back to Third Team. Master Gunnery Sergeant Tuala was standing at the top of the ridge, loosely holding a Moray. Rev lifted his right hand in a question. The master guns gestured back at the Centaur entrance.

“This isn’t right, Punch.”

Why aren’t they fighting? Are they surrendering? If that’s the case, then why fight their way to Earth just to give up? There has to be something else going on here.

But if there was, Rev couldn’t figure it out. Something told him he needed to know, and if he made a mistake, the consequences could be dire.

But my job is killing tin-asses. How can that be a mistake?

He looked at the two dead paladins. They hadn’t tried to fight. He was sure of that now. But why?

<Here comes another.>

Thank the Mother for Punch. Rev had been worrying so much that he’d lost concentration, and even a tiny lapse would give a Centaur that advantage, beating Rev to the punch . . . except they weren’t even trying. And now, with the area a free-fire zone, both teams could engage.

Without thinking it through, Rev dropped the green flare to the ground and pulled out the red. He smacked the base on his knee and fired it into the air, indicating a cease-fire. He ran forward as the riever floated out of the entrance.

Rev still didn’t know what was happening, but his gut told him he had to find out. If he was wrong? Well, he hadn’t really expected to live out the morning anyway. If he was right, then there could be huge ramifications. Just what kind, he sure didn’t know.

“Pelletier, what the hell are you doing?” the master guns shouted from the ridge.

Rev covered the forty-five meters just as the riever touched down on the dirt, not even the slightest bit of dust rising as the legs flexed to take its weight. An arm’s length away, Rev trembled as he stood there, berating himself for making a huge mistake.

But the riever didn’t move. No pedestal rotating, no self-defense belt detonating. Nothing. Rev was aware of the master guns and others shouting, but he put his full attention on the beast in front of him. It was three-quarters the size of a paladin, but it was still huge, its light-sucking black hull unnatural and disconcerting.

Rev stood there, until as if acting on its own, his right hand reached out and touched it. The hull was surprisingly warm, with a very slight vibration, more of a hum than anything else.

“Please power down your weapon.”

Rev jumped back in surprise, Pashu raised and pointing at the thing. He couldn’t fathom what had just happened or where the voice was coming from.

“Please power down your weapon.”

“Why?” Rev asked, then mentally kicked himself for such an inane question.

“The Three wish to communicate with you. Please power down your weapon.”

Rev lowered Pashu, but he didn’t power her down. He looked back up to the ridge. The master guns was coming down, screaming at him to stop. Tomiko and Hussein were following.

“What are the Three?” Rev asked, not believing he was standing there talking to a Centaur as if it were a normal occurrence.

“The Three wish to communicate with you. Please power down your weapon. They will not communicate while your weapon is powered.”

“What do I do?”

<This is something beyond my programming. The decision is yours.>

Well, I wanted to find out what was happening. I might as go all the way.

He couldn’t believe what he was about to do. It made no sense at all, and it could be the biggest mistake of his life.

“Power Pashu down.”

Pashu became a dead weight hanging from his shoulder.

“Now what?”

Another voice reached up from the tunnel. “Step into the opening.”

Rev couldn’t see down into it, and he had no idea how deep it was. He was just supposed to hop into it? He took three steps forward, leaned over, and looked inside.

“Stop, Pelletier. I’m ordering you to stop!” the master gunnery sergeant shouted, breaking through to him. Rev looked back. The team leader had reached the bottom and was running forward his Moray on his shoulder and ready to use.

“Oh, man. I’m sorry, Master Guns.”

Rev turned just as the master gunnery sergeant fired, and he stepped into the hole.

43

The blast of the Moray hitting the riever blew over Rev’s head as he gently descended the hole. He wasn’t weightless. He could feel the Mother’s pull. He could feel Pashu dragging on his shoulder, but he wasn’t falling. He was slowly descending as if in a floorless elevator. The farther he went, the lighter the shaft became, the stone walls glowing a muted light blue.

He wasn’t sure how far down he went—possibly a hundred meters, possibly a bit more. But whatever was lowering him deposited him gently on the floor. He turned around . . . and froze.

Facing him were three Centaurs. Not armored Centaurs, but three versions of Hank, the body he and Tomiko had recovered. They were not human, but there were enough similarities that freaked Rev out more than a little. That could be due to parallel evolution, Rev knew, but the briefs they’d had mentioned that their DNA was similar, too.

About a meter tall, their pale skin looked sickly in the blue glow. Each of them had what looked to be oxygen cannulas running into the three gashes he and Tomiko had assumed were Hank’s equivalent of a nose. If they were cannulas, they weren’t connected to a tank, however, the best Rev could see.

Like Hank, if these three had eyes, they weren’t obvious, and their two bony-looking arms bifurcated into three limbs topped with anemone-like tentacles.

“We welcome the opportunity to communicate with you,” the one in the front said.

Rev just stared at them. This was simply beyond his imagination. This . . . this tin-ass . . . was talking to him in accentless Standard. It may be a little formal usage, but it spoke better than many Marines he knew.

What was a Marine suppose to say to a Centaur? Their job was to kill them, not hold a conversation. But he had to say something.

“Who are you?” was the best he could do.

“We are who you refer to as Scutum-Centaursians.”

“I know that. I mean you. Who are you? And what do you want?”

There was a pause that reminded Rev of the way some people paused to consult with their battle buddy.

“We are the Three.”

Rev took back his previous opinion that they spoke perfect Standard. He had no idea what the thing was saying.

“What do you want with me? Why am I here?”

“We wish to show you something. Please follow us.”

They turned, almost in unison, and proceeded down the passage. Rev watched for a moment, and then after a glance back up the shaft, shrugged and followed. He was already this deep into it, and he might as well see it through.

He ran his right hand along the walls as he walked. He could tell they were the native rock, but they were completely smooth to his fingertip. Curious, he extended Pashu’s much more sensitive fingers. They couldn’t discern any variations of the surface. That this small group of Centaurs, with nothing that looked like heavy construction equipment, had created a tunnel like this was almost as impressive as the lift he’d ridden down to this level—and it was just one more piece of evidence that they were far more technologically advanced than humans.

The fact that humans had managed to hold them off so far was nothing short of a miracle.

Well, that and the fact that we’ve been willing to throw bodies at them.

There was no sign of the other Centaurs, and there were no branches to the tunnel. It just kept descending. Underground or not, Rev should know where he was. The Mother’s magnetic field was well known, after all, and it had been downloaded into his battle buddy. But while Rev had an idea of his location, it was rather fuzzy, which would be the best way to describe it.

They passed six mini-Centaurs, all quiet as they lined the walls. They weren’t quite the same as those on Tenerife, but the similarities were strong, and it was immediately clear that these weren’t manned. Which meant it was probable that along with the two paladins and the riever, there had only been six living Centaurs at this site.

And then they were at the end of the tunnel. The three Centaurs turned and faced Rev. Just beyond them, what looked like an upside-down saucer, the kind little kids used to slide on the snow, was on the ground.

“Do you know what this is?” the talking Centaur asked.

“No.”

The Centaur turned to the others. Rev couldn’t hear anything, but there was an annoying itch deep inside his ears. Rev wondered if they were telepathic but dismissed it. If their DNA had a passing resemblance to humans, then telepathy was probably out. Given their technological superiority, Occam’s Razor would indicate they had some sort of high-tech communicators, something like Rev’s battle buddy, and by using it, Rev’s own augments were reacting.

It turned back to him and pointed to the wall. “Please record this.” A moment later, a string of barely recognizable symbols flashed across the wall.”

“I don’t understand what that means,” Rev said as the symbols ceased.

<That is SESSI. It’s a somewhat arcane programming language.>

“Please upload that to your decision-makers.”

“I can’t. You’ve blocked off all communications,” Rev said.

The talking Centaur tilted its head in an almost human gesture, and Rev’s comms came alive.

“Sergeant Pelletier, this is Tango-Foxtrot-Three-Three. What is your situation?” immediately blasted over his comms receiver.

A second later, another voice reached out to him. “This is Admiral LaPlata. What the hell are you doing? I want an update, and I want it now!”

“Can you read this SESSI?” Rev asked Punch, ignoring the admiral for the moment.

<Not without the key. It was not in my initial download.>

“Do you think it’s a virus? All I did was a visual recording, so it should be safe, but I don’t want to upload it and end up taking down the entire system.”

<Theoretically, it could be. Do you think it is?>

“I don’t know.” He looked at the Centaurs. He didn’t see any eyes, but he was sure they were “looking” at him, however they did that.

The admiral was getting angry, screaming for Rev to answer.

Rev made up his mind. “I am with three Centaurs. They have a message they want me to send to you. It’s in SESSI, and I made a visual recording. I don’t know if it somehow contains a virus.”

The admiral shut up for a long moment, then came back and said, “We’ve isolated this feed. Send it.”

“Do it.”

<Done. And comms went back down the moment I sent it.>

“So, we’re cut off again. Figures.”

He looked at the Centaurs as they stood in silence. Even the talking one was quiet now as if they were waiting for a response. Rev was put off by their arrogance. They told him to send up the visuals, and like a good little boy, he did it. But he didn’t have to remain a good little boy. He was a Marine, and his mission was to kill the bastards.

They had no armor that he could see. All he had to do was to power up, and he could fry them. Hell, from the looks of them, he didn’t even need to power up. One blow from Pashu would probably break them in two. If they really were the only three left, Rev could end it right here and now, and the temptation was growing to do just that.

But he held back. Something told him that for good or bad, he needed to see this through.

“What is that thing?” Rev finally asked.

“You do not have a word for it in your language. As close as we can describe it, it would be a planet-breaker.”

Rev’s heart fell to the bottom of his gut, and his mouth gaped open as he tried to wrap his mind around that.

“A planet-breaker? Like that thing can destroy the Mother?” he finally managed to choke out.

“Yes.”

“You can’t just say yes and leave it like that!” Rev sputtered out, taking two steps closer, Pashu raised.

The Centaurs seemed non-plussed.

“Yes, it can destroy your homeworld. It is webbed now. You gave us the time to accomplish that.”

Rev took a step toward it, Pashu half-raised. The Centaurs didn’t try to stop him. It didn’t seem like something big enough to destroy the planet, nothing like the huge Navy weapons designed to scour a planet. But the thing had mentioned “webbed,” and Rev believed it. This was a very real threat.

“Is that why you’re here? You’re going to destroy the Mother?” he asked, forcing his voice to remain calm.

“No.”

Once again, the frustrating single-word answer.

Off somewhere down the passage, Rev could hear faint shouting, Marines calling his name. He tuned them out.

“So, you aren’t going to use this thing? Then why put it here?”

“We will not destroy your homeworld. You might do it.”

Which made absolutely no sense to Rev. He turned back to them. “I don’t understand what you mean. We don’t want to harm the Mother. Earth.”

“This is what you so aptly refer to as a dead man’s switch.”

Rev didn’t like where this was going.

“Once you kill the last Three, it will detonate.”

“The last Three? You mean like you?”

More shouts, this time louder, reached him, and Rev half-turned to the passage.

“There are four Three’s left. You humans have killed the others.”

“You mean at the other sites where you landed.”

The Centaur said nothing, but Rev’s mind was churning. If what it said was true, that meant that at forty-five other objectives, the Raiders and Mad Dogs had succeeded . . . but at what cost? And Rev’s gut said the Centaur wasn’t lying. The three of them that had emerged from the tunnel hadn’t fought. They hadn’t even deployed their main cannon, nor had they self-destructed.

But what was their goal? Why were they doing this? If they just wanted to destroy the Mother, then they didn’t have to land and set up a dead man’s switch.

There’s only one way to find out.

“What do you want out of this?”

Rev felt the little itch again, and he was sure they were discussing the question.

Finally, the spokes-Centaur said, “We are a dying people.”

Rev just stared at it. That was in line with the brief the Raiders had received, but it was different hearing it from a Centaur. And why was it telling him this? It was hardly something he’d have thought a race would tell their enemies.

“We are not much older than you on a galactic scale, but still, we’re dying. We have more deep-seated deterioration at a genetic level, and our reproduction rate is down. Our population has plummeted to the point where our very survival is in jeopardy.”

“So, why start a war? You’re losing more of your people,” Rev said, faltering over the word. They weren’t people. They were scum.

But in a way, it made sense. Every time humans started to inflict damage on an invading force, the Centaurs retreated. If the situation was as bad as it said, then any losses could be too much to accept. Whereas humans, with their trillions, could afford to lose soldiers and sailors and still survive as a species.

“We are searching for an answer, hoping to find something that will help us. There are rumors that in the long ago, some of us spread out to populate the galaxy, maybe even distant galaxies, and we hoped to find them, if they even exist.”

Rev didn’t think there were any hidden pockets of Centaurs in this section of the galaxy. They would have been discovered. But he didn’t say that.

“You didn’t have to fight us. You can communicate with us. Why didn’t you do that?”

“Do you communicate with rats?”

Rev frowned. Despite their differences, he could hear the condescension in its voice. “That’s different. They’re vermin.”

The Centaur remained silent, and that pissed off Rev even more.

So, we’re vermin, huh?

“Rats can kill, you know. And so can we,” he almost snarled.

“But they are still rats. And you despise them.”

The fact that what the Centaur said was true didn’t make Rev accept the entire concept.

“So, is that what this is? You’re the exterminators? You want to kill us all?”

The Centaur jerked its head back a few centimeters, and Rev could swear it was laughing. “We can no more eliminate your kind than you can eliminate rats. Even where we have cleansed a planet of your kind, there are still rats surviving.”

Rev wanted to lash out, to destroy that arrogant piece of crap. When it said “cleansed a planet,” it meant genocide. It took a tremendous strength of will to refrain, knowing that the fate of the Mother might rest in what he did over the next few minutes.

The shouting was getting louder. The team was getting closer.

“Tell me, then. If you don’t want to eliminate us, then what do you want?”

“We want you to save us.”

* * *

Rev’s mind was blank. What the Centaur said made no sense at all. His mouth gaped like a goldfish in the tank, but nothing came out.

Finally, he managed to ask, “Save you? How?”

“If we knew that, then we wouldn’t need you.”

He could make out Strap’s voice, yelling at him to hang on, that they were coming. If he had comms, he’d tell them to hold up. He had to get to the bottom of this.

“But we . . . uh, you are more technologically advanced than us. What makes you think we can do anything.”

“You are aware of the simian foamy virus, correct?”

Rev nodded. The SMV was a small parasite, one of many that have lived in human bodies probably since they came out of the African grasslands. They hadn’t caused many problems, nor had they provided a benefit. Until, that is, humans were hit by the GMM-26 pandemic. Hundreds of millions of people died until the connection was made. Those with higher populations of SMV survived; those with lower populations usually died. The parasite was grown in industrial quantities and spread throughout humanity until the tech developed to create nanos designed to do the same thing.

Rev wondered two things. First, how the heck did the Centaurs know about that? Second, what did that have to do with the situation?

“Yes,” he said. It was his turn for a blunt answer.

“You understand, then, how a lower life-form can save a higher one.”

So, you’re not even trying to hide the fact that you think you’re higher than us.

He had to bite his tongue.

“But we’re not an SMV. You haven’t told me why you think we can help you.”

The speaker turned back to the other two again, and they conferred for a moment. “You have already shown a proclivity for the life sciences.”

“Huh?”

“You have developed a plague that is ravishing our people. We can see what you did, but not how, nor how we can stop it.”

The gat? The virus? They can’t stop it?

Rev first felt a surge of elation, the thrill of victory. But the overturned saucer on the floor of the tunnel covering who knew exactly what brought him back down. Letting the virus kill off the people would not save the Mother.

But maybe that’s the price we have to pay for all of humanity. And wouldn’t a mother sacrifice herself for her children?

The thought was almost too much to bear, but there it was. He was tempted to mow the three down and just wait for the last few Threes, as it called them, to be killed as well.

<Ask for the specific action they want.>

Rev had half-raised Pashu, but Punch’s order, the first he’s ever made, shook him out of that frame of mind.

“You want us to save you? Do you mean stop the virus we created, or something else?”

“Stop the plague you unleashed first. But then use your biological capabilities to save our people. Don’t let us die.”

“And suppose we do? Then what. Then you cleanse our planets?”

“Did you exterminate the simian foamy virus?”

Rev didn’t want to admit that made sense. But why would humans trust the creatures that had killed so many of them? What possible motive would they have to step up and save an evil race instead of letting it die out? And that was assuming they had the ability to do so.

“Why should we do this? What would be our benefit?”

“Your homeworld would be spared in the immediate term. But we would stop all aggression, immediately leaving your territory. And as you are primitive in so many ways, we would share our technology with you. Nothing held back.”

Rev had flashes of Centaur ships, rising majestically off a planet’s surface without blasting everything underneath with its exhaust. Anti-gravity, the holy grail of human physics. That alone would boost the entire human economy.

But these are the enemy. Think of who we’ve lost. And most of all, can we trust them.

“And you can promise that?”

“We are a Three,” it said, as if that answered the question.

He could now hear footsteps running toward him. The team would be here any moment, introducing another dynamic into the situation.

“What if I agreed to this? Can you stop that planet-breaker?”

For the first time, the Centaurs seemed surprised by what he said. They conferred for a moment before the first one said, “You are not a decision-maker. You are a sergeant, a low-ranking human. How can you formalize an agreement?”

“I can. Take it or leave it,” Rev said. “My team is almost here, and I can’t promise how they will react.”

“We will not disengage the planet-breaker, but if your team does not kill us, then it will not detonate. If you can deliver what you promise with the plague, and if you agree to use your capabilities to save our people, then with those caveats, we accept.”

“What the hell have I just done?” he whispered.

<You have given Earth a temporary respite, at least.>

“But I can’t deliver. It was right. I’m just a Marine sergeant.”

<Then what you promised will have no bearing, and the Earth may still be destroyed. You have postponed that, and that gives humanity more breathing room to come to a solution.>

“There he is!” Strap shouted.

Rev spun around. With Strap in the lead, the entire team was running down the passage. He could see it in Strap’s eyes when he saw the Centaurs and started to raise his M-49.

“Stop!” Rev screamed, putting his body between his team and the Centaurs. “Don’t fire!”

With a confused look on his face, Strap slid to a stop. “Get out of the way!”

“I said stop!” Rev shouted again, putting every gram of authority he could in his voice.

Strap looked back as the master guns and Tomiko came up alongside him.

“Master Guns, do not fire. You can’t kill these tin-asses.”

“What the fuck are you doing, Pelletier?” the team leader asked, his eyes locked on the three Centaurs. “And why can’t we waste them. That’s our mission.”

“Because if you do, the Mother will be destroyed. They’ve got the planet rigged with a dead man’s switch, and if all of them die, it detonates.”

“What are you talking about?”

Rev pointed at the overturned saucer. “That right there. Or what’s beneath it. It’ll blow the place.”

“And how do you know that?”

“They told me.”

“Rev, are you sure about this?” Tomiko asked in a quiet voice.

“Yes, Miko, I am.”

“Pelletier, start at the beginning, from why you followed those tin-asses to what the hell line of BS you’re trying to feed me now.”

Rev took a deep breath and started from the paladins and the riever not fighting back, to meeting the Three and following them down the passage, to what they’d told him about their situation, and to what they wanted now.

“Did they give you any proof, or are you just trusting them?” the team leader asked when he was finished.

“Yes. I mean yes to the proof. At least, I think so. They had me visually record a bunch of code. SESSI, Punch said it was. And I sent it up the chain.”

“Comms has been out, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“They gave me a window. I sent it to some admiral.”

The master guns slowly shook his head. “So, we’re supposed to just stand here and wait? Are you still in contact with the command?”

“I’m not in contact now. And I’ve already . . . uh . . . I’ve already reached an agreement with the tin-asses.”

“You what?”

Rev looked back at the three Centaurs, who looked like they hadn’t moved a centimeter. He returned to the master gunnery sergeant.

“I said we agree with their demands. We’ll give them an antidote for the virus, and we’ll try to figure out why they’re dying. They won’t blow up the Mother, they’ll stop attacking us, and they’ll share their technology with us.”

It wasn’t just the master guns who were shocked into silence. Tomiko and the rest obviously couldn’t believe their ears.

“And what gave you the idea that you could go around making promises like that, for the Mother’s sake?”

“Exactly. For the Mother’s sake. It was that or . . .” He trailed off, giving the saucer a glance.

The master guns closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, then slowly let it out.

“Sergeant Pelletier, you are a nexus of chaos, do you know that? You attract it like flies to honey. And in your wake, you leave death and ruined careers. I was warned about you, but stupid me, I thought I could tame you. I evidently thought wrong.”

Rev didn’t think that was fair, and he wanted to protest. This wasn’t his fault, nor were any of the other things that had happened to him since he was conscripted. Everything he’d done was for a reason, and he thought the right reason. But he bit his tongue. He knew better than to challenge the master gunnery sergeant.

“Tell your friends there that you need to communicate with the command.”

“So, you believe me?”

“Hell, no, I don’t believe you. I think this is so much bullshit. But unlike you, Sergeant, I’m not taking responsibility for this. This is so far above my pay grade that I can’t even see it, much less take action.”

Rev caught Tomiko’s eyes. She didn’t give him a smile or a supporting nod, and that hurt him more than anything else. He turned and stepped closer to the Centaurs.

“It would seem that you are not a decision-maker as you said you were,” the Centaur said.

“You are mistaken. I am. But now, I need to report to my command to tell them what I’ve agreed to.”

The Centaur did nothing.

“Look. Letting me talk to my command is the only way we can proceed. If you don’t, my team is going to kill you. And if you are the last ones, then the Mother will be destroyed, and no one will know of your situation and what you need. The Mother will be gone, and any hope your people have for help will have vanished.”

One of the other two Centaurs said, “Wise words.”

Immediately, Rev was assaulted by a blast over his receiver. “I’ve got him!” a voice shouted, followed a moment later by the admiral.

“Sergeant Pelletier, do you see some kind of weapon? If you do, you have to deactivate it. It will destroy the Mother if it detonates. We’ve got troops inbound, but do what you can.”

“Admiral, I’ve got the three Centaurs here. They—”

“Kill them now before they set the thing off.”

“I can’t.”

“Don’t tell me what you can’t do, son. It might be up to you to save the Mother. I don’t care what they’ve done to you, you have to—”

“SHUT UP!” Rev said, at the end of his rope.

There was a moment of stunned silence, and Rev took advantage of it.

“Send up the recording of what’s gone on here. All of it,” he ordered his battle buddy. Then, to the admiral, he said, “I just sent you up a record. I suggest you watch it. The bottom line is that the weapon you just told me to destroy somehow is detonated by a dead man’s switch. If these Centaurs are killed, it will go off, and I guess you know what will happen then.”

“Sergeant—”

“I said shut up, Admiral. This is too important. The Centaurs have their demands, and in return, they’ll spare the Mother, stop the war, and transfer technology to us.”

The admiral hesitated, and in a tight voice, said, “We will look at the recording, Sergeant, and if I deem fit, I will forward it to the Council.”

That was the second time in just a few minutes that “Sergeant” had been used almost as a curse.

“How they decide to proceed will be up to them, but you are to watch over those tin-asses. I don’t want them getting anywhere close to that weapon. Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

Rev could tell that the admiral was fuming, but he was smart enough to know that he needed Rev right where he was and able to contact him. But as soon as this was over, if Rev and the Mother managed to survive, he knew the admiral would take his revenge on the upstart sergeant.

“Yes, sir,” Rev said, trying to put just as much disdain into the “sir” as the admiral put into sergeant. “There is one thing. All you and the Council have to do is put this in motion. I’ve already agreed to the terms.”

“I don’t believe I heard you correctly.”

“I said, I’ve already agreed to the tin-asses’ terms. You just need to figure out how to do our side of the bargain.”

“You are way in over your head, Sergeant, and we’ll have a reckoning, you and me, rest assured of that.”

“I’m serious, sir. I already made the agreement.”

“OK, I’ll play along. Why should I care whatever you might have promised the enemy of humankind?

“Because I was the senior military member at the scene.”

“And so?”

“The Torinth Accords, Paragraph 5.23.2. I came to terms with an enemy combatant, and we are legally bound by that agreement.”

He waited for a response. That had worked on the asteroid with the Frisians, but this was something much different. Not the least was that the Centaurs were not signatories. But it was worth a shot.

There was dead silence until another voice came over the comms. “Sergeant Pelletier, you are to stay in your present position. Keep this channel clear, and someone will get back to you.”

Rev turned around to the master guns. He’d heard everything Rev had said, and he could probably guess what the other side had said.

“Nexus of chaos, Pelletier. You do know, though, that the command doesn’t give a shit about the Torinth Accords, Paragraph whatever. They can ignore that if they want and stash you in a dungeon so deep underground that not even the rats can find you.”

Rev shrugged and said, “No, they can’t. If they want to ignore me, the Mother will be history, with you, me, and everyone else blasted into our component atoms.”

The team leader nodded. “You’re probably right about that.” He used the muzzle of his M-49 to point at the three Centaurs. “But do you really think they’re on the up-and-up?”

Rev shifted his look to Tomiko. She gave him a half-smile, her eyes broadcasting worry. He didn’t know if it was for him or for the entire situation.

“I don’t know, Master Guns. I really don’t. But they have more to lose than we do, I think. And this is just too important to us—and to them, I guess—for us to act without taking everything into account. And as my battle buddy reminded me, if nothing else, I’ve bought the Mother a little bit more time.”

The master guns grunted.

“Besides, it felt good to shove the Accords up that pompous admiral’s ass.”

44

“Nexus of Chaos. Hmph.”

Rev sat at attention, his eyes focused on a spot on the wall behind the desk.

The Commandant of the Union Marine Corps put down his pad, then leaned forward over his desk like a predator, with Rev as his prey.

“Was Master Guns Tuala right? Are you a nexus of chaos?”

Rev wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical, but he said, “No, sir. I don’t think so.”

“Are you saying the master guns is lying?”

“Oh, no, sir!”

Crap, I’m digging myself a big hole here.

“Good. I think he’d be pretty upset if you were telling me that.”

Rev risked looking down and catching the commandant’s eyes.

“The master guns and I go back a long way. Went to primary school together, he and his twin brother, and we all three enlisted right after graduation. Served with him in Three-Six, Twenty-Eighth Marines at the same time, too.”

Rev shifted his gaze back to the wall.

“The thing is, he may have a point. I’ve just gone over your records. For the fourth time, I might add. First, when you and Corporal Reiser found that tin-ass. The second time was for approval to become IBHU Number 1. The third time was when you went off the reservation with the Fries. And now this. Do you have any idea how often I have to go over an individual Marine’s records once, much less four times?”

This time Rev knew he wasn’t expected to reply.

“It boggles my mind that a provincial Marine could be at so many critical points in history. Nexus of Chaos is right, I think. But forget what I think for the moment. Why do you think you seem to be in the middle of everything?”

Rev didn’t know. He and Tomiko had even discussed it on the flight back from the Home System, before Rev was sidetracked to New Mars.

“I can’t help the situations I find myself in. But each time, I just do what I think is right, sir.”

“And have you been right?”

“I think so, sir. I wouldn’t change anything.”

The commandant sat back in his chair.

“Well, it looks like this time you were right. Again.”

Rev dropped his eyes from the wall and bore into the commandant.

“Sir?”

“This is still highly classified, but you’ll be cleared for the level of classification soon enough. Yes, it looks like you were right in what you did.”

“Is the Mother . . . ?”

“Still there, still beautiful. But it was a close call. Only two of their Three’s, as they call it, were still alive when we ceased operations.”

“And the planet-breakers?”

He hesitated, and Rev knew he was getting into things that the powers probably wanted to keep secret. But he said, “Still active and connected to the two Threes. But two more are coming in. They will be connected to the weapon somehow, so we’ll have four of their teams. A little safer than two.

“The negotiators are trying to get the weapon dismantled, but the tin-asses are holding firm, at least until they feel safe. It looks like that damn thing is going to be a Sword of Damocles for the near future, at least. Better than the alternative, though.”

The commandant gave Rev a conspiratorial look. “That was brilliant, by the way. The Torinth Accords, Paragraph, uh . . .”

“Paragraph 5.23.2. Second time I used it, but this time it was on purpose. My battle buddy told me all about it.”

“It was perfect. Admiral LaPlata was going to pop an artery, from what I heard.”

“I didn’t mean to make him mad, sir. I just had to get them to stop the attacks, and he kept going on and on.”

“Don’t worry about him. He’s an asshole and always has been. I served with him on the Joint Staff on Enceladus, and everyone hated him.”

“I didn’t think anyone would really adhere to that law, though. Not in this case.”

“Why the hell not? That sure got the civilian side of the house to support what you did. They’d always wanted a negotiated settlement, but the tin-asses wouldn’t cooperate, and the balance of power has been shifting to the military side. You not only found out the tin-asses wanted to negotiate, but you gave our diplomats the legal excuse to at least start the process.”

Rev would have liked to say he’d realized that, but this was the first time anything to do with the civilian leadership of the Council had even been brought to his attention. All he’d wanted to do was to save the Mother, and it had come so close to being a catastrophe. What had the commandant told him?

“You said there were only two of the Threes left?”

“Forty-nine objectives. Forty-seven taken. But a Mad Dog, of all people, saw the same thing as you did. He stopped their assault. Never got the info dump you did, but still. Evidently, the Mad Dog lieutenant didn’t have the hubris to think he could negotiate for all of humanity.”

Rev glanced back at the commandant, but he thought there was a little twinkle in the man’s eyes.

He took a chance. “Marines are taught to improvise and act, sir. We don’t wait for orders.”

The commandant laughed. “Touché, Sergeant.”

“But if I can ask, sir. What about the rest of their demands? I mean, the antidote, the help with their survival.”

“I don’t know for sure. The Council has taken over, and they’re not revealing too much to the military. And I’m just a Union officer.”

Just a Union officer? You’re the freakin’ Commandant of the Union Marines. You control more power than any single planet.

“But, from what I can glean, the antidote has already been released.”

“I trust our people have a little back door to it, in case the tin-asses double-cross us.”

The commandant looked surprised. “Who told you that?”

“Uh, no one, sir.”

Well, no one had told him that. He, Tomiko, and Hussein had discussed the antidote on the flight back, and they’d come to the conclusion that it would be a good idea.

“Son of a bitch. Nexus of Chaos indeed. Word to the wise, Sergeant. Don’t go around talking about that possibility. You don’t need any more attention on your head.”

“Point taken, sir.”

“Which brings me to what I’m going to do with you.”

“Sir?”

“You already have a lot of attention on you, and that isn’t necessarily a good thing. People notice underlings who stand out. Some want to bring them into their orbit; others want to crush them before they can grow strong enough to survive the infighting on their own. And you, my young sergeant, you’re seen as a wild card, someone unpredictable and who’s had an outsized effect on society.”

“But you said I’ve been right so far.”

“You are a true warrior, but you’re a babe in the political arena, no offense intended. You think being right matters? The same people who will thank the Mother you were there and you did what you did fear that the next time things can go horribly wrong.”

“Who says there will be a next time, sir?”

“Nexus of Chaos. ’Nuff said.”

“But if I’m doing the right thing—”

“Did you do the right thing in stopping a potential confrontation with the Fries?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what happened to you.”

“Uh . . . I got arrested, sir. Busted down a rank.”

“And D-4 remembers that entire evolution. They remember D-3 winning that fight to get you released, and they hate you for that. And others fear the chaos that seems to follow you wherever you go.”

“I’m just a sergeant, sir. I don’t have any power.”

“Soon to be staff sergeant. Oh, you didn’t know that? You got your date of rank reinstated along with your chevrons. You’ll be up for staff sergeant on the next board, and I’ve got a funny feeling you’ll make it.”

“Even if D-4 hates me, like you say?” Rev asked, the bitterness coming out in his voice. He didn’t deserve anyone’s hate.

“Luckily for you, D-4 has no say in military promotions. But let me ask you this. Do you even want to stay in the Marines?”

“I don’t think I have a choice. We’re all indefinite.”

“We were going to release all the convicts when we thought the war was over before. Sorry, involuntary enlistees. If this thing with the tin-asses holds true, then I think we’re going to be ordered to do that again. And as you are a—”

“Convict. I know what I am.”

The commandant nodded his acknowledgment and continued, “Since you are a convict, you’ll be released. Do you want that?”

A year ago, even six months ago, Rev would have said he wanted to stay. But all this extra attention, and the fact that there were evidently government agencies that hated him, to use the commandant’s phrasing, grated on him. He really didn’t like the limelight, and maybe it was time to withdraw from the scene. But he wasn’t going to commit one way or the other in this kind of situation.

“I haven’t really thought about it, sir.”

“Well, if you have enemies, you also have friends in high places, Sergeant. Given your record of service, and given your unique capabilities,” he said as he pointedly looked down at Rev’s social arm, “I think your retention would be approved. The question is where you would be assigned.”

“I’m a Raider, sir.”

“Granted. But it might not be the best place for you. Too much notoriety and too easy to find.” He shook his head to clear it. “But that’s for another time and place to discuss. I just wanted to call you in and have a little chat. I’ve never met a Nexus of Chaos, and I wanted to get a feel for the real person behind the records. But starting now, my staff will be debriefing you for the next two days. Please be as blunt as you can. Don’t hold anything back.

“And enjoy the stay. I can arrange a tour if you want to see the sights. The cherry trees in this hemisphere are blooming, and that’s something you shouldn’t miss. Just let your handler . . .” he paused as he checked his pad. “Uh, yes, Gunny Thalmond, let her know, and she’ll hook you up after my staff is done with you. Take a few days off. And after that, we’ll get you back to New Hope.”

The Commandant of the Perseus Union Marine Corps stood up, hand outstretched.

Rev, conscript sergeant, took the hand, just one Marine to another.

45

The next two months were as if Rev and the rest of the Raiders were in a holding pattern. They were kept on high alert, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice, but without an emphasis on training. And while the Raiders were kept confined to the base with orders to keep quiet about the events on Earth, the rest of the Marines were allowed to go out into town on liberty, see their families, and generally get back to a semblance of normality.

The main focus of the post-invasion galaxy, it seemed, was how the Council and the various governments wanted to spin what happened. Rev thought it was ridiculous to try and gin up some fake facts. The invasion of the Home System had been too widely disseminated to hide the events. But slowly, Rev and the rest could see the subtle changes, or at least, the slanting of the script. No one asked for their input, but they could see how it was no longer an invasion, but an attempt at negotiations to end the war that unfortunately ran into miscommunications. The landing on the Mother was an act of respect and an assumption that all negotiations would take place there.

And to Rev’s amazement, large swathes of humanity evidently believed it. Oh, there were some that voiced disbelief. The Children of Angels were resurrected and making noises, and various groups either wanted to pursue the Centaurs to their homeworld and destroy them or were accusing the Council of selling out humanity in exchange for the corporate acquisition of certain technologies.

“Think that’s our Three?” Radić asked as they watched the holofeed in the rec room in the newly built barracks.

Not all of Nguyen’s barracks had been rebuilt yet, but with the Raiders stuck on base, the command evidently thought they’d be easier to control in a building, so they’d gotten the very first one finished.

The feed showed three Centaurs being greeted by a small group of politicians. The voice-over said they were part of a delegation sent to coordinate with humanity so as to keep any flare-ups of violence from occurring.

“Doubt it,” Rev said. “With only two of the Threes on the Mother, they don’t want to take any chances.”

Rev knew there were now four Threes, but before leaving New Mars, he’d been told that was still classified, and none of his team had the need to know. He felt a little guilty about lying to his team right now, but orders were orders.

“Yeah, all we would need would be if there’s only one Three on the Mother, and one of those assholes suffers a heart attack, or whatever they have,” Tomiko said.

“And of course, they’re still hiding the fact that the Mother is wired to blow herself to Kingdom come,” Hussein said, repeating one of his constant complaints.

By now, no one was replying to that anymore. All of the rest of them could see what that kind of knowledge could do if that leaked out. Tomiko didn’t think that would ever surface into the light of day, and Rev agreed with that.

He wasn’t even that upset about being held incommunicado. It was boring. He looked forward to getting the keys to the jail, and he thought it was going too far, but it was probably for the best.

That wasn’t Hussein’s only complaint. The initial rumor had been that all of the assault teams were going to be put in for medals. Rev and the MDS lieutenant might even get the Hero of Humanity Medal. But if the invasion of the Mother wasn’t an invasion, then no one could have done anything worthy of recognition. To Hussein, if one took his rants at face value, it wasn’t a medal itself that mattered, but rather their erasure from history and being treated like “yesterday’s trash,” to use his most common description.

For Rev, it was barely a blip on the radar. He’d lost medals before, and except for his Humane Service Medal for saving Kat, they meant little to him anymore.

Tomiko reached out with her toe and nudged Rev’s elbow off the chair arm. “Whatcha got planned for the afternoon?”

“Watch the news. Maybe take a nap. Maybe two naps. Eat chow. Then it gets busy. Watch a show. Get a snack. Go to bed. You know.”

“Busy day. But how about a game of Knock On after chow?”

They’d played Knock On three days running, but then again, it wasn’t like they had a lot more to do. “You get the others and tell me when.”

46

The Navy doc studied the read-outs for too long, his face screwed up in concentration.

“Uh, how about it, Doc? Am I alive?”

“Oh, sorry. With your IBHU, I was just trying to see if there was any correlation to the numbers. You’re the first IBHU Marine I’ve tested, you know.”

Rev waited for the numbers as the doctor looked at him expectantly. “Any questions?” the doctor finally asked.

“Yes, sir. What do the tests say? Am I OK?”

The doctor shook his head and said, “My goodness. I guess you would want to know that. I swear, I’m getting more and more absentminded every day.”

Which didn’t give Rev a warm-and-fuzzy about the man’s competence.

“Your SKRs are slightly up from a year ago. I think we need to watch those, and I’d recommend annual checkups once you’re back in civilian life. There was a blip in the Peshow percentage, but that may have been caused by your IBHU.”

“But Doctor Chakrabarti said Pashu, I mean, my IBHU, was external, and it shouldn’t affect my chances of getting the rot.” The doctor scowled, and Rev added, “She was the one who—”

“I know who she is, Sergeant. She works for Sieben, so her goal is to increase the company’s profits. I hardly think she’s got your best interests at heart.”

Rev felt a lump forming in his throat. “You mean she lied to me?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But just looking at basic science, if augmenting increases the chance of Weislen’s Syndrome, then don’t you think what they did to you could have a long-term effect? I just wouldn’t trust Chakrabarti’s word on it given her conflict of interest.”

“So, that Peshow thing you said, does that mean I’m getting the rot?” Rev asked, not really sure if he wanted to know.

“Don’t worry about it, son. You’re fine now, but I would want to monitor that. You’ll be fully covered as a civilian for the testing, so don’t put it off. Any other questions?”

“One, sir.” He hesitated, wondering if he should ask.

“And that is . . . ?”

“Uh, Sergeant Hu. Cali Hu. With Golf Company. We heard she’s got the rot. Uh, Weislen’s. Is that true?”

The doctor almost jumped back, and he stammered out an answer. “I can’t release any information about another patient.”

But Rev knew. His reaction and calling Cali a “patient” answered the question.

Cali was a casual acquaintance. They’d been in the same Direct Combat class after boot. When they set up the mobile testing hut for all of the augmentees in preparation for releasing the convicts, Rev and the rest hadn’t thought much of it. Just one more administrative action. Cali had gone through that first day along with her company, but she’d been immediately taken away after the test. The rumor mill had gone wild.

All augmented Marines and sailors knew that their chances of contracting the rot later in life had been increased, but that was something for the far future. When fighting the Centaurs, it faded into insignificance. But now, with the war over, people started thinking about a life after the Marines. They were the lucky ones to survive when so many hadn’t. So, when the rumors started spreading that Cali had contracted the rot, that hit people hard. To survive the Centaurs only to get taken down by the disease just didn’t seem fair.

And if she could get it, then any of them could get it. Instead of being a worry for the future, that worry was now.

The doctor, still a little flustered, dismissed Rev and told him to send in the next patient.

Respect, Cali, respect, he told himself as he started back to the barracks, feeling as if he’d just dodged a bullet.

47

“How you feeling, Sister in Steel?” Rev asked. Ten didn’t have her legs, so Rev tapped his social arm on the edge of her hospital bed.

“I feel fine. They’re just keeping me here for observation. Making sure there’s no reaction from getting zebrafished.”

“Was that like getting augmented?” Tomiko asked.

“No. Just a couple of injections.”

“And then what? What’s the process?” Rev asked.

Rev wasn’t about to go through regen himself, but since it could eventually be on his horizon, he was curious.

“Well, you know this was only the first step, getting the zebrafish DNA CRISPRed into mine, right?”

Rev knew the process in theory. Snippets of zebrafish—the Danio rerio—DNA would be spliced into Ten’s DNA, which would create the capability for regeneration. Once that had taken, her cells would be induced to start the actual process, growing new hips and down to her toes.

He just didn’t know how that all played out.

“Well, I got the injections this morning. If everything is cool, I’ll get discharged tomorrow, and then I have to wait six weeks until the next check.”

“Six weeks? That long?” Tomiko asked.

“That’s how long it takes. And if the results are good, they’ll hook me up to start the inducement process. Two weeks in bed.”

“Here at Tall Pines? You could do worse if you’re stuck in bed.”

“Maybe not. The naval hospital at Anastasia might be rebuilt by then.”

“Hope not. I mean, this place is beautiful. And who would have thought you’d come back here?” Tomiko said.

Rev agreed with her. Tall Pines Resort was where they’d all gotten their initial augments more than six years before. Then, it was to maintain secrecy. Now, with the naval hospital at Anastasia destroyed during the Centaur invasion, the resort was being used for long-term rehab and for people scheduled for regen. Without the large numbers of Navy and Marine recruits crowding the place, it had much more of the resort feel that it must have enjoyed before the war.

It was peaceful, and Rev was glad Tomiko suggested they make the trip and see Ten. The Raiders had only been released from isolation on Tuesday, and it was good to get both off Nguyen and out of the still heavily damaged Swansea, even if just for the day.

“After that, I guess it will be about two years in a chair and healing chambers. But when it’s all done, I’ll be dancing the night away again.”

“Hell, I never saw you dance before,” Tomiko said.

“I can learn. You don’t know what you miss until it’s gone. Rev knows.”

Rev nodded, but he didn’t feel the same way. He didn’t feel like he was missing something. He should, but he still had suspicions that he was being manipulated. If he resented Pashu, that could affect how effective he’d be in combat, so maybe he was being subtly nudged away from regret that he’d lost his arm. The thought had been simmering in the back of his mind for quite some time, but it was one he couldn’t voice, not if his suspicions that Punch served double duty somehow by keeping tabs on his mental health.

But for now, he didn’t have to make any decision. Convicts were not being released yet, but when the surprise order came out offering regen for wounded warriors, Rev’s name was not on the list of authorized personnel. But Ten’s name had been, and she’d jumped at the chance.

Then again, her position was different. Rev was still fully combat capable. Ten was not. With the loss of most of her pelvis, her prosthesis offered her only limited mobility, and she’d been stuck with administrative duties.

“You’re going to be a great dancer, Ten. And I want the first dance,” Rev said.

“You flirting with me, big bad Rev? I thought you only had eyes for someone else,” she said with a laugh.

Rev immediately regretted his joke. He could see Tomiko blush. He wasn’t sure why everyone seemed to assume that the two of them were a thing. They were brother-and-sister-in-arms. Anything more could be a liability in the trenches.

“Me? You know I’m a Casanova, always playing the field. Just promise me the dance, or I shall be crushed,” he quickly said with a dramatic flair and what he hoped was an old-time Italian accent. Anything to make this all a joke.

Ten giggled and held out her hand, “Why, good sir, my heart is a-flutter. I would be honored.”

Rev went to a knee and kissed her hand. He avoided Tomiko’s eyes.

“So, what about you two? How long are you visiting?”

“We’re taking the Navy bus back down at fifteen hundred. So, we’ve still got a few hours.”

“I do have a favor to ask,” Ten said, suddenly acting shy.

“Anything,” Rev said.

“Not to you, to Miko.”

“What do you want me to do?” Tomiko asked.

Ten reached over the bed and grabbed the pack on the floor beside it. She pulled out a little container that looked to be full of ribbons, ties, and clips.

“My hair is getting shaggy.”

“I was going to mention that, Ten. Looking like a civilian, there,” Rev said.

Most Marines kept their head shaved or their hair buzzed short. Ten had always kept her pale blonde hair bordering on the regulation limits, but now, it was quite a bit past that.

“Who’s going to hassle a wounded warrior like me?” she said with a sly grin. “But Miko, since it is getting a little long, can you braid it for me? I would love to see it all done up.”

Tomiko looked over at Rev, a wicked grin on her face. Rev understood immediately and nodded.

“I’ll be happy to, Ten. But first, you’ve got to do one thing.”

“What’s that?” she asked suspiciously.

“Tell us what you did to get a Class 2.”

Rev and Tomiko had discussed that on the bus ride up to the resort. Ten had never given up what crime she had committed, and for six years, it had been gnawing at the rest of the posse.

But Ten frowned, pulling back away from the two of them.

“Come on, Ten. We won’t tell anyone else,” Tomiko said. She picked up the pack of hair stays and shook it. “Look, baby blue. Perfect match. These will look pretty in your hair! Baby blue, baby blue.”

Ten gave each of them a soul-searching look, then said, “OK, if you really must. But really. Don’t tell anyone else.” Her demeanor changed, and she suddenly shifted from the defensive to almost a co-conspirator. Her voice dropped to barely over a whisper. “I almost beat a guy to death.”

Rev had been leaning in to hear, but now he jumped back in surprise. He knew she’d done something serious, but he hadn’t expected quiet, reserved Ten to have done something violent.

“No shit?” Tomiko asked. “You beat someone up? But wait. Getting in a fight shouldn’t be a Class 2. Cricket was conscripted for fighting, and he got a Class 7.”

Ten gave a satisfied-looking smile. “I wasn’t fighting. This asshole did something he shouldn’t have done. I went home after, but the more I thought about it, the more I refused to be victimized. So, I got myself a baseball bat, went back to his home. The bastard was asleep. So, I beat the shit out of him. I left the bat there, went home, and called the ambulance.

“To be honest, I didn’t know if he was alive or not, and I didn’t care. But I guess ‘premeditation’ jumps up the charge.”

Rev and Tomiko were speechless. Both had seen violence and death as Marines, but this was so unexpected.

Ten pointed at the hair stays. “OK, I told you. How about doing my hair now?”

“Woah! Sure thing, sister. Let me scoot behind you,” Tomiko said.

Ten leaned forward and Tomiko got onto the bed. She pulled out a brush from the pack and started brushing, and a look of utter contentment spread across Ten’s face.

Rev didn’t know what to do, so he just sat down on one of the plush chairs in the room. He watched as the two started talking, first about how Ten wanted her braids, then about a wide range of topics, some that made Rev decidedly uncomfortable. With a reserved, conservative mother and the only other female he’d lived with a child, none of these topics were things he’d dealt with before.

What was almost surreal, however, was that it was as if five minutes before, Ten hadn’t just told them about beating a guy senseless with a bat.

Good training for being a Marine, I guess.

It was pretty obvious that Rev was surplus for the moment. The walk in the resort’s garden he and Tomiko had planned to make before boarding the bus for the return didn’t look like it was going to be happening.

He settled deeper into the chair. “What do we have up?”

<Episode Three, Season Two, of “The Sundowners.”>

“Sounds good to me. Play it.”

Epilogue

“Were you ever scared?” Kat asked.

“Sometimes I was.”

“I was scared when I met you,” she said quietly.

“I know you were. But you are here now, right? So, it worked out.”

“But your . . .”

“I’ve got a better one now,” Rev said, rapping his forearm with his right knuckles.

He could tell she wasn’t buying it. But she didn’t challenge the statement. Instead, she asked, “But you don’t have to be scared now. The Centaurs are our friends now, right?”

Rev wasn’t about to go that far, but arguing politics wasn’t something he was going to do with two young girls. “Right, Kat.”

Neesy had been listening in, and she asked, “What did you do when you were scared, Rev?”

She’d changed so much since his last visit. She was still a little girl, but there were hints of a young lady showing through now.

“Oh, wow. Good question.” He paused to figure out how to answer when it hit him. “You’re not going to believe this, but sometimes, I sang a song.”

“A song? Really?” Kat asked. “Which one?”

“I think you know it. Here, let me sing a little of it.” He cleared his throat.

Sorry, Mommy. Sorry, Mommy,

So the little bear said.

That’s OK, my little one.

And she kissed him on his head!

Kat squeaked in delight, her hand over her mouth, and Neesy asked, “You’re not just saying that, are you?”

He looked to see his mother watching them, smiling as she shook her head. He could tell she thought he was just saying that for the girls.

For his mother just as much for Neesy, he said, “No, really. I did. And you girls gave me that.”

“I love that song so much. Can we sing it?” Kat asked.

“Girls, Rev said he had to leave. Don’t beg, OK?” Rev’s father said.

Kat looked up at Rev. Her eyes were begging even if she was not asking aloud.

“OK, one time. But I really do have to leave.”

Both girls squealed. The young lady Neesy vanished so that the little girl could reappear again.

Kat insisted that they put on the music first, so she had to get her pad. But within a few minutes, the holo was playing as Kat, Neesy, Rev, and their father were singing along while their mother watched, laughing, but demurring, when they asked her to join in.

As Rev expected, it wasn’t just once through the song. It was three times, the last time with Rev’s father pulling his mother out of her chair and dancing in the middle of the room. The girls jumped up at the refrain and joined them.

“Keep the visuals of this. I want to save it,” Rev told Punch when the song was over.

<I’ve filed it under Family.>

“Thanks.”

“OK, girls. I’ve got to leave now.”

“But—”

“Kat, you promised.”

She frowned. “I know.”

Rev got up and kissed his mother on the cheek. “Good meal.”

And he meant it. His mother was really improving, so maybe there was something to this “real” cooking that was becoming so popular.

He shook his dad’s hand, then hugged both girls. “You tell Grover I’m sorry I missed him.”

“He’s with his girlfriend,” Neesy said with just a hint of disdain. The young lady was back, the little girl gone.

“I know. But next time, we’ll all have dinner together.”

“Promise?” Kat asked.

“Promise. Pinky swear,” he said, holding out his little finger in the ancient oath-keeping seal. He locked his with Kat’s, then with Neesy’s.

He looked up at his father. “You ready?”

“Let’s go.”

The Gazelle had survived the invasion, and with autocabs still scarce, his father had offered to drive him. He’d said he didn’t want to put his father out but gave in when his father insisted. Now he was glad. It had allowed him to spend a little longer at home.

Home? he wondered as the hover pulled out. Is it really still my home?

For the last six years, he’d lived in the barracks at Nguyen, the Naval Hospital at Anastasia, and all around the galaxy. He’d even made it to the Mother, of all places. So, was his parent’s house his home? He wasn’t sure.

“You never mentioned your plans, son. We heard that all of you involuntary enlistees are going to be released.”

Rev patted the letter in his pocket. He had planned on showing it to his family, but the timing hadn’t seemed right.

“That’s the rumor, Dad.”

“So, it’s not true?”

“Who knows? They said that before, and then you know what happened.”

“You don’t think that will happen again, do you? I mean, don’t you think the peace is real this time?” his father asked in a worried voice.

“I think it is. But I can’t say what’s going to happen in the future.”

He hated to lie to his father. The release of the conscripts was a done deal. But he wasn’t a hundred percent sure what he was going to do yet.

“I hope it’s real,” his father said with a sigh. “And if it is, remember, that slot with the BOCT is still open.”

“So, I can settle down, get married, and have kids? Mom never asked me about Mia Szeth.”

“Woah, quite a reaction there, Rev. And your mother knows you and Mia aren’t a thing.”

Rev turned to his father, eyebrows raised.

“She’s pregnant, and we know you’re not the father,” his father said with a hearty laugh. “She and Witter Smith are getting married next week, in fact,” he leaned in and said in a hushed voice as if selling illicit drugs. “You know, I’m in close with Witter’s dad. I bet I could score you an invite.”

“Real funny,” Rev said. “Ha, and let me repeat, ha.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Your mother was never really sold on Mia, though. You were so out of that girl’s league.” He gave Rev a lopsided grin.

Which was news to Rev. In school, Mia was always one of the in-crowd where Rev was a hanger-on.

“No, your mom has got her sights locked on Tomiko or that Malaika girl. This isn’t a drill, Marine. She wants, I’m assuming, thirty or forty grandkids, so you better get working on that.”

“Dad!”

“Another big reaction there. But calm down. You’re her oldest, and she wants . . . well, she wants you to be happy. That’s all.” He paused for a moment, then added, “And I guess for her, she thinks that means you should be married and making little ones.”

“Well, she can tell it to Grover. He’s the one with a girlfriend, not me.”

“Noted. Sorry, I hit a nerve.”

“Oh, no, it’s alright. It’s just that everyone seems to want to see me hooked up with someone, and as a Marine, with the situation . . .”

“I understand. I was just joking around. You do what’s right for you.”

The Gazelle pulled in front of Leteeka’s. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Any time.”

“And sorry I jumped on you. I just . . .”

“Don’t worry about it. Here, lean over and give your old man a hug, then go have some fun.”

“Thanks. For everything,” Rev said.

He was sure his father knew he wasn’t thanking him just for the ride.

He stepped out and waved as his father drove off before turning to the bar. A large “Grand Re-Opening” banner hung over the door. There were indications of new construction on the outside, but it basically still looked like Leteeka’s.

Not so when he stepped inside. The bar was completely new, with real wood replacing the old white plasticrete. The floor was divided into two sections, the new one built where the old storerooms had been. All of the booths along the walls were upgraded, and modular tables populated the open spaces. Best of all, in Rev’s opinion, the owners hadn’t done away with the rail delivery system but rather upgraded it. Each of the booths and a few of the tables had a modern, sleek-looking arm, and as Rev watched, a pitcher of something went zipping across what looked to be an aqueduct or a mini-bobsled run instead of the old rails before it smoothly descended to one of the booths in the back.

The old rail system had been fun, but pitchers could be a little problematic, so people tended to walk up to the bar and carry them back. This system looked much better.

But Rev wasn’t here to ogle—not really, at least. He was here to see his friends. The place was packed, though. He had to survey both sections before he saw them in the very last booth in the new section.

“Look who’s finally made it,” Yancey said as he came up. Rev tapped Ten’s chair with his social arm, and Tomiko slid over on the bench, pointing to the spot she just opened up.

“You gotta see this,” Yancey said.

He turned to the ordering panel and said, “Give us a pitcher of Hausner Ale.”

“Coming right up, Yancey,” a natural-sounding voice said.

“See, it knows me.”

Nothing to be too excited about.

Once registered, any autoserver can identify a voice.

“There it comes,” Yancey said, pointing.

Over the bar, a pitcher smoothly rose on a thin rail of some sort. It reached the top and shot across the ceiling, branching off several times until it was overhead, where it suddenly slowed down, then lowered gently to the table.

Puzzled, Rev ran his hand over the pitcher. He didn’t feel anything.

“Electro-magnetics,” Yancey said. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“He’s been like this since he got here. He’s done almost all the ordering so far, which is fine with me. Let him pay,” Tomiko told him.

“That’s good enough for me. I’ll drink on his credit.”

He grabbed a glass and filled it but didn’t immediately take a swallow. He just sat there for a moment, looking at his friends. If this time the war was really over, then they’d all beaten the odds. Eight of them, from different designators, somehow making it through the battles that had taken so many others. He never really thought they’d all survive.

Rev had ups and downs in his career, to say the least, but on a personal level, this was what it boiled down to. They had all made it through, and right now, surrounded by his friends, he was content. He lifted the glass and drained it.

Cricket and Udu were sitting together, of course, Udu’s hand almost possessively on his arm. They were an odd couple at first glance, but Rev had begun to realize that they meshed well, two different pieces of a puzzle coming together to make a beautiful picture. It still amazed Rev that despite the war, despite their service, despite being separated by their different designators, they had found each other, and not only that, seemed to be making it work. As Rev refilled his glass, Cricket was discussing the menu of their rescheduled wedding with Bundy. It sounded like the couple was going all out.

In a silent, personal toast, Rev lifted his glass to the couple and drained it. Udu caught the act, gave a puzzled look, the turned back to her chat with Ten.

Hell, why am I giving silent toasts? What good is that?

“What’s my BAC?”

<Zero-point-zero-two.>

Good enough.

He refilled his glass and suddenly stood. “Hey, listen up. To the posse.”

“To the posse,” everyone shouted, lifting their glasses.

“Oh, God, he’s going to give a speech, and he isn’t even drunk,” Fyr said.

“Yes, I’m going to give a speech. And to be more accurate, I’m not drunk yet.”

“Ooh-rah!”

“After we lost Krissy—”

“Respect to the fallen!”

“After that, when we made our vow to meet at our End of Obligated Service, I don’t think any of us knew what was in store for us. And we’ve faced more than I could imagine. But whether it was the Gods of War or Saint Chesty himself—”

“To Saint Chesty,” Yancey shouted, and everyone had to toast again.

“As I was saying, no matter who was looking out for us, somehow, we all made it. And for that, I am so very grateful. I love every one of you, and you are my family. And now, with the convicts being released, I don’t know if we’ll all be here on our EOS anniversary. So, before we start to go our separate ways, I just wanted to tell everyone that no matter what, the posse will always live on. Marines or civilians, that doesn’t change the bonds that bring us together. Every one of you will be a part of my life until we pass this mortal coil.”

“Mortal coil?” Bundy asked. “You sure he isn’t drunk?”

Everyone laughed, and Rev sat down. It was probably a little too over-the-top and sappy, but he was glad he’d said it.

Bundy kept the floor. “So, if I may, how about a toast to Rev, our Raider extraordinaire with his amazing Pashu, the person who made us swear an oath to meet when all of this was over.”

“To Rev!”

Rev felt his face getting red, but he smiled and nodded to everyone.

“And if we can move on from the big oaf, I’ve got something to say.” Bundy started along the same lines of family and love.

Tomiko leaned her head close to Rev’s and said, “Pretty flowery. I thought you were gonna cry.”

“I almost did. Now listen up to Bundy.”

One by one, each of them stood up and said a few words, except for Ten, who spoke but stayed seated in her hoverchair. Rev half-listened and just sat, soaking in the atmosphere, the love. He hoped what he said was true. As some left the Corps and some remained, and some, like Udu and Cricket, got married and had kids, priorities changed, and life got in the way. He just hoped that the bonds between the members of the posse were unbreakable, and every one of them would be a vital part of him for the rest of his life.

“What do you think, Punch? Are we all going to remain close, no matter what?”

<That is impossible to say. There are too many variables.>

That disappointed Rev more than it should have. How would Punch know?

<But from what I have observed over our time together, I think it is very possible that you all do remain close.>

That made Rev feel inordinately better.

“And last, but not least, let me hand off the floor to Miko,” Fyr said.

Tomiko was a fireball, but she didn’t feel comfortable with public speaking, even among friends. She rose from her seat but didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Stand up,” Yancey shouted.

“Oh, bite me,” Tomiko said, and that seemed to break her hesitation. “Yeah, like you all said, I love you, yada, yada, yada. But, for me, it’s been more than that. Bundy, you’ve got your kids. Cricket and Udu, in two weeks, you’re getting married, for Pete’s sake. Yeah, married. Rev and Fyr, you’ve got your families, and my sister Ten, everyone loves you. Yancey . . . hell, no one loves you, so I’ll skip past that.”

Everyone laughed, and Ten reached over and pulled Yancey in to give him a kiss.

“I was going to say bite me, but if it gets me a kiss, keep talking like that, Miko!”

“Seriously, though. All of you have somebody on the outside. Yeah, even you, Yancey. But you all know my story. I don’t have anyone.”

She held up a hand to quiet down those who started to object to that characterization. “I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m just stating what it is. But that doesn’t mean I’m alone. I’ve got the posse, and that means more to me than anything else can. Like Rev said, in his own corny way, you will all be a part of me, way up until, yeah, we pass our mortal coil.”

“To Miko!” Rev shouted, and they all drained their glasses.

“And one last thing, in case you didn’t hear. The message hit the fleet this morning, and my best friend, Reverent Pelletier, made the list for staff sergeant. I think he deserves another toast.”

There were cheers and comments that Rev had better start saving for his wetting down.

Still standing, Tomiko turned, hugged Rev, and kissed the top of his head.

“Congrats, Rev,” she whispered into his ear.

“Way to go!” Bundy said, coming around the booth to shake his hand. “Now I won’t have to keep hanging out with all these low-life sergeants!”

“It won’t be for a while until my number comes up. Maybe six or seven months.”

Bundy frowned, then asked, “So, does that mean you’re staying in? They’ll let you?”

Shit! Open mouth, insert foot.

He really hadn’t wanted to discuss that today. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to do.

Oh, hell, who are you kidding? You’ve always known.

Sitting there, feeling the camaraderie, feeling the sense of belonging, had only confirmed what he was going to do. There had never really been a question.

“Excuse me, Miko,” he said.

She was still holding her arms around his neck, and she quickly let go and sat down.

Rev reached into his pocket and pulled out the envelope. He stared at it for a long moment, then slipped out the letter inside, a real letter, on official stationery. The kind people framed for their I Love Me wall. He handed it to Bundy.

“What’s this?” Bundy asked as the table went quiet, a little bubble in the hubbub of people enjoying the reopening. He read it, his face expressionless, until he looked back up and asked, “You going to do it?”

Rev just nodded.

“What? What the fuck is that?” Tomiko demanded, her voice getting a little strident.

Bundy held the letter out, and Tomiko snatched it out of his hand. She read it, her eyes getting round. Rev suddenly took close notice of his hand as if he’d never seen it before, and he could feel Tomiko stiffen.

“So, what’s the big deal?” Yancey asked.

Tomiko looked up and said, “This is from the commandant. Rev is getting orders to the Home Guard.”

There was dead silence for a moment until Yancey broke it with, “No fucking shit!”

Everyone started shouting their congratulations, with Fyr almost breaking Rev’s back as he pounded it.

“Hey, everyone. My buddy here’s going to the Home Guard!” Yancey shouted to the packed house.

Pitchers started flying across the bar’s delivery system, all heading to their table. Rev was embarrassed, and this was just one reason why he hadn’t wanted to broach the subject here. Sending someone to the Home Guard on New Titan was a pretty big thing, and here in a military town, it was even bigger.

The other reason he hadn’t wanted it to come out here was sitting silently beside him, not offering him congratulations. More booze than they could drink was coming over, and their own tab reading suddenly disappeared from their station. Someone, either the bar or a patron, and just wiped it clean.

Finally, when most of the excitement died down, Tomiko leaned over and whispered, “This is how I find out?”

“I just decided right now that I was going to stay in.”

“Bullshit, Reverent. The moment you got this, you knew you were going to accept it.”

Which was true. He hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, but deep in the back of his mind, he’d always known what he would do. And he also knew he should have told Tomiko beforehand. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she called him her best friend. As she was his.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you.”

“Damn right, you should have,” she hissed. “I thought you and I . . . we . . . fuck!” She sat back in the booth, arms folded across her chest.

Rev frowned. He and Tomiko had never discussed life after the Corps, not in any specifics. And when it got down to it, this was his decision. Not his family’s, not the posse’s, and not Tomiko’s.

For the next five minutes, she sat like a statue as Rev accepted the well wishes of other patrons, civilians and Marines alike.

Finally, she leaned forward again and asked, “Is this a done deal? Can you change your mind?”

“I’m not changing my mind, Miko. I’m sorry, but I want to do this.”

She leaned back and stared at the ceiling for a moment, then stood up. “Excuse me,” she told Cricket and Udu, passing through them to get out of the booth.

His heart a heavy lump, he watched her make her way through the people and out the entrance.

“What’s with her?” Cricket asked.

“She’s not feeling well.”

“She never could hold her booze,” Cricket said before turning back to Udu.

Rev stayed in his seat for another twenty minutes, the excitement he should have felt gone. He kept telling himself that Tomiko was at fault and this was his and only his decision. But he still felt terrible.

Finally, he’d had enough. He needed to get out of there. Yancey made him stay for one more round, but that was it. He made his excuses, promising to hold his wetting down before he left for the Home System.

Rev had to endure the backslaps of others as he made his way to the door, and finally, he was out. He looked around, but Tomiko was gone. He expected that, but he wanted to apologize and talk things through.

Maybe tomorrow. Stay away from the barracks tonight and let her cool off.

He was debating going home and crashing there when a voice called out, “Rev!”

He spun around. “To—”

Malaika was hurrying out of the entrance and coming at him. She was dressed to kill, in a cream, shimmery dress that hugged every centimeter of her body. The cream color and her dark skin made a stark—and attractive—contrast. Her face . . . it took a moment for him to realize she had makeup on. She looked . . . different.

“I thought you’d be here tonight for the reopening,” she said breathlessly as she pulled down at the hem of her dress, her smile radiant.

“Uh, yeah. I was meeting up with my posse.”

“I figured that.”

“So, what are you doing here? You with your platoon?”

“No, I came alone. I took a seat at the front of the bar so I could see everyone as they came in and out.”

Rev just looked at her, waiting for her to get to the point.

“Wow, you really are dense, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?” He was worried about Tomiko and a little tipsy, and he didn’t really have time for guessing games.

“I came to see you. We haven’t seen each other much since the invasion, and now with us getting out, I thought we could, you know, just talk.”

Oh, shit.

Rev could be oblivious sometimes, but not that oblivious.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed Malaika in that way before. She was a funny, bright, and attractive woman, and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t had a few daydreams of what could be between them. But the demands of the service were an obstacle in personal lives. He’d learned that lesson with Krissy, and he’d sworn not to go through that again.

“So, you’re getting out?” he asked, his mind grasping at anything to say.

She frowned. “I’m a convict, just like you. They’re kicking us out. And I thought that maybe, in the outside world, we could—”

“I’m not getting out, Mala.”

She furrowed her brow. “But you’re a convict. All convicts are getting released.”

“Not all of them. Like me.”

“But . . . they’re letting you stay in?”

“They asked me to. I’m going to the Home Guard.”

Her eyes got big, and she said, “That was you everyone was yelling about? I heard all of that, but it was all going on in the back. I couldn’t see who it was.”

“Yeah, that was me.”

Her body seemed to deflate, the smile gone from her face.

“Oh, my God, I feel like such a fool. Here I am, throwing myself at you, looking like a . . . a . . .”

“You’re throwing yourself at me?”

She closed her eyes for a long moment, then said, “By the Mother, you’re dense, Rev. Do you know how hard this was, getting up my nerve, getting dressed like this? I bought this dress a week ago,” she said. “I don’t know what I expected. It’s just been so long, and you, me, we seemed to connect. I’m sorry. I’ll let you go,” she said, spinning away.

“Mala!” he said. One word, low and firm.

She stopped but didn’t turn back to face him.

“Yeah, I can be dense. That’s been more than pointed out to me tonight. But I swore off relationships for the duration. I lost someone early on, and that taught me a lesson. It made a . . . I won’t form a bond that will destroy me if I lose it.”

“It’s OK, I understand,” she said with a little hitch in her voice.

Rev reached up, took her shoulder, and turned her around. Her eyes were glistening in the streetlights.

“You are an amazing woman. An amazing Marine. I’ve enjoyed every moment we’ve had together since we both died.”

She gave a little chuckle. “Yeah, I’m a good buddy, a great pal. Big giant Mala, she’s just one of the boys,” she said, her voice forlorn. “I mean, she plays rugby. She must like the girls. I’ve heard it before.”

“Stop it. I like your company, but not as one of the guys. You are an amazing woman.”

She smiled and then said, “But . . .”

And yes, there was that but. Rev was still serious about relationships in the service. He knew some couples made it, but he wasn’t sure he could devote all of his attention to someone while still serving as a Marine.

Suddenly, though, he didn’t want there to be a but. He didn’t want to always wander through life alone.

“You said you were throwing yourself at me.”

Malaika raised her hands over her face. “I’m so embarrassed. And I’m sorry for assuming anything. I didn’t want to put you in this position.”

Rev slowly but firmly lowered her hands from her face. “And what were your plans? What did you expect to happen?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s too embarrassing now.”

“Tell me.”

She dropped her eyes and toed the ground. “I got a room for the night. One of the temporary shelters they put up. One of my teammates is the night manager at the site, and when I told her about us, or what I thought was us, she did me a solid. Isn’t that so pathetic? I didn’t even ask you first. I just assumed.”

“Look, Mala, I’m going to the Home System. I don’t know for how long, and I don’t know what my life will be there. So, I can’t promise you anything.”

“Yes, I know. I understand. Really, I do.”

“No, you don’t understand. What I’m saying is that with no promises, no obligations, if you want me to spend the night with you . . .”

Her eyes lit up, then they turned to a scowl. “Rev, I appreciate what you’re doing, but I don’t need a mercy f—”

Rev stopped her with a finger over her lips.

“This isn’t a mercy anything. I like you. I always have. And I would love to get to know you better on a more personal level.”

“You really would like to spend the night with me?”

“Yes, I would. And we can’t disappoint your friend, right?”

She lifted her head and laughed, then punched Rev in the arm. Hard.

“No, I guess we can’t. And I accept, no promises, no obligation. Just two Marines.”

The hard-punching woman disappeared as she shyly linked her arm through his social arm. “It’s not far. We can walk.”

“It’s a beautiful night for a walk.”

She pulled him in tight.

Rev didn’t know if he was making a mistake or not. He didn’t know if this was going to go anywhere. But for one night, at least, he was going to rejoin the human race.

They walked in silence, both lost in their thoughts. But soon, maybe too soon, they were at the housing complex, rows of little geodome huts put up to house the dispossessed from the invasion. Rev let Malaika lead him as she followed the numbers until she came to a stop in front of one that looked exactly like all the others.

“Well, I guess this is it,” she said.

“Wait a moment. I need to take care of something first.”

“Is something wrong?”

He shook his head.

“Punch?”

<Yes?>

“Go to sleep.”

* * *

Rev will return in AN UNEASY ALLIANCE, coming September 2021. Preorder now on Amazon.

For updates on this series, be sure to join the Facebook Group, “J.N. Chaney’s Renegade Readers.”

Acknowledgments

Thank you to our amazing beta readers!

Kelly O'Donnell

James Caplan

Micky Cocker

Christie Strahler

Neil Rubenking

Tracy Beattie

Sharon Mendez

Mike Belanger

Eliss Wiltshire

Matthew Lewis Titus

Bill and Konnie Kampfer

Geoffrey Morse

Joshua Hopkins

Mike Belanger

Elissa Wiltshire

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About the Authors

J. N. Chaney is a USA Today Bestselling author, has a Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and fancies himself quite the Super Mario Bros. fan. He migrates often, but was last seen in Las Vegas, NV. Any sightings should be reported, as they are rare.

Chaney is best known for his Renegade Star series, the Variant Saga, the Messenger series, and Ruins of the Galaxy. For more on his releases, go to www.jnchaney.com.

* * *

Jonathan P. Brazee is a retired Marine colonel now living in Colorado Springs with his wife Kiwi and twin baby girls, Danika Dawn and Darika Marie. He was born in Oakland, CA, but has lived throughout the US and the world, and has traveled to over 100 countries.

He has more than 70 titles to his name in six different languages and is a two-time Nebula Award and one-time Dragon Award finalist as well as a USA Today Bestselling writer. Find out more by visiting his website at www.jonathanbrazee.com.