Accord of Valor

Kevin O. McLaughlin

Role of the Hero Publishing

Copyright © 2017 by Kevin O. McLaughlin

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales in purely coincidental.

Contents

Introduction

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

Loved this story? Don’t miss the exciting Starship Satori series!

Introduction

About the Author

Exclusive for fans of the Accord series!

Find out how the story started… When Captain Nicholas Stein set out to stop one enemy ship, and set in motion events which shaped the course of human history for decades to come.

http://kevinomclaughlin.com/accordoffire/

Chapter 1

Thomas Stein

The trip from Mars out to Venus had been easier than we had any right to expect. The Archimedes was on her maiden voyage, which was always when a ship was most likely to have problems. She’d done very well, though. For a shakedown cruise, the trip had been wonderfully uneventful.

But now we’d arrived and the landing was proving to be anything but. We’d barely cut into the upper atmosphere, and the wind speed was already showing at two hundred kilometers per hour. And rising. How the hell did people fly through this shit?

The Archimedes was a specially designed drop ship, and ought to be able to weather the storms. Most ships were designed to fly only in space. They had huge drives, powered by massive fission engines. Some were being built with fusion engines. Those drives could send the ships through space at speeds faster than the human body tolerate. We had special suits that helped keep us alive and breathing during the worst accelerations.

Other interplanetary ships were built more like shuttles, designed to ferry people and goods to and from a planetary surface. They had both the engines for interplanetary flight and a set of drives enabling take-off and landing. My father often used couriers that could manage both tasks when he traveled between worlds. They were incredibly expensive to build.

The Archimedes was something else. It didn’t look anything like our other ships. From the outside it resembled nothing so much as a massive whale. It had superb nose armor and a roughly teardrop shape. It was our first infantry drop-ship and a key part of Dad’s new plan to expand our influence by being able to rapidly put feet on the ground anywhere we needed to go.

“Stop side seat driving,” Kel growled from the pilot’s seat next to me.

“I didn’t say a word!” I protested. I was beyond glad to have her flying this tub. Not just because she was my fiancée, either. She was also the best pilot in the Mars Space Service. If anyone could get us through this storm, it was her.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she replied. “Your hands clenching the seat are eloquent enough. Relax.”

I tried. Really, I did. I managed to pry my fingers loose from where they were clutching the chair under my butt and put them back on my lap. Then we hit another massive gust that rocked the ship almost sideways, and I was clinging to the chair again.

Kel shook her head, chuckling under her breath. Flying was her bread and butter. She loved shit like this. I was happier out in space. She fired the planetary drive, and it felt like a big hand slammed me in the chest as we accelerated down deeper into the soup. We were going fast - dangerously fast.

Venus had seen a lot of terraforming work over the last fifty years. And maybe in another hundred, it wouldn’t be so bad. What used to be seven hundred kilometer an hour gusts were down to perhaps half that. A surface temperature of over eight hundred degrees was down to a middling four hundred or so on a cool day. It was still hell.

Solving the problems of bringing humans here to live had been the opposite of the issues on Mars. Mars had too little atmosphere. Venus had too much. Runaway greenhouses gases had superheated the planet, and the massive pressure on the surface would crush an unprotected human like a tin can.

Engineers had solved that trick here the same way we had on Mars: digging in. Protected underneath layers of basalt, the colony was mostly a set of tunnels sealed off from the deadly surface. From that first foothold, people had been able to begin scrubbing the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. With enough years, Venus might eventually be a lot more habitable. Sometime long after I was gone, people might even be able to breathe on the surface.

In the meantime, the thick atmosphere still meant powerful storm winds, and they rocked the Archimedes hard as we drove our way down through them. There was a series of alarming cracking noises from the starboard side of the ship as the pressure gradient increased. My ears popped.

“Normal,” I said over the intercom to reassure the crew. “The ship is adjusting to the pressure.” Like an old Earth subMarine, there would be a lot of odd noises as the ship descended. I hoped that was what we were hearing, anyway!

Kel didn’t appear worried about the descent. With her at the helm, I really wasn’t, either. It was just an awesome distraction from my real concerns, which had little to do with her flying skill and a lot more to do with my role in this mission. I had command of the Archimedes. I was also the guy ordering around her crew - including the special infantry unit the ship was designed to transport. I’d commanded ships in battle before, but I was way out of my depth when it came to organizing an infantry unit. This was our first live field run, and I was sweating about it.

And then we were through the worst of the winds. Down nearer to the surface the air pressure was still too high for the winds to move as quickly. I watched the wind speed indicator plunge rapidly down into the double digits and continue to drop.

“We’re close to the surface,” Kel said. “Hold tight - braking!”

The ship fired its massive thrusters, blasting away at the air beneath it. Our descent slowed. We broke through the clouds - I could see the ground beneath us now. We were dangerously close to becoming a smear on that flat rocky surface. But Kel kept her hands dancing over the controls, and we leveled off. Then she brought us down slowly to the ground. There was the smallest bounce as the landing gear caught the drop-ship’s massive weight and absorbed it.

“See?” Kel said. She shut down the drives. “Nothing to it.”

I stayed in my seat another few moments. No sense standing up if it was just going to reveal that I was shaking in my boots.

“For you, yes,” I said.

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Kel said. She undid her buckles and stood up, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Tell your Dad we’re in.”

I tapped the radio, bringing up a connection with the Hermes. My father’s flagship was in orbit around Venus. It had been a massive effort to rebuild her after the battle. The overhaul had taken months. But we’d have been even longer trying to build a new carrier from scratch, and Dad wanted the Hawks back in business as soon as possible. The Hawk fighters were one of our best weapons.

“Hermes here,” a voice replied to my hail.

“Get me the Admiral, please,” I said.

There was still only one admiral in the MSS - my father, Nicholas Stein. He was maneuvering the Hermes toward Venus Station, an orbiting platform built for supplying the colony below, and with luck eventually for trade with the people living there. From the station, he’d take a shuttle down to join us. I wasn’t sure if I envied him or not. The Venusian shuttles were specially designed to handle the trip, and their pilots had a lot of experience dealing with the wind. But they weren’t as big as the Archimedes. And they didn’t have Kel.

“Stein here,” my father said. His face appeared on my screen.

“Dad, we’re on the ground. We’ve landed a little out of position,” I said, checking our landing grid. “Think the wind blew us off course a bit. I think we’ll take the Growlers in from here.”

“Understood. It’ll be a good test for them,” he said. “I’ll join you soon as I can. Got a few things to lock down here.”

“Everything OK up there?” I asked.

“Just an issue with one of the missile bays,” he said. “No problem, but I thought I’d go check into it.”

“Can’t just let the mechanics have their fun?”

“Always good to show the flag,” Dad replied.

He did a lot of that sort of thing. He’d show up with a wrench in his hand to help with repairs, or eat a meal with the men in the regular galley instead of the officers’ mess. I noticed that I’d picked up the same habit, and it seemed to make a difference. My people listened to me when I said things - not just because of my rank, but because they knew I listened to them, too.

“Don’t get your dress uniform too covered with grease,” I said with a smile.

“I think I’ll manage,” he replied, the dry tone showing his good mood. “See you soon.”

He cut the link. I undid my straps and headed for the ship’s hold. Dad had faith in my ability to do this job right. Why couldn’t I feel as sure? I shook my head to clear it. Time to get my people moving.

Chapter 2

Thomas Stein

The Archimedes had a small crew compartment in the nose. The bridge was just a pilot and copilot seat. Then there was a pair of barracks rooms with bunks for crew to sleep in. A small head and tiny galley. The accommodations were spartan even by MSS standards. But then, it wasn’t designed for maximum comfort. The ship was heavily armored. It would take direct missile shots and probably shrug them off. It would let me land right in the middle of a hot zone and deploy my teams there.

Most of the ship was taken up by the hold, which was where I was headed. It was an enormous space. It had to be – the bay was mostly filled by three Growlers and a lot of battle armor.

Another innovation based off old ideas, the Growlers were half tank, half infantry transport. They looked like the bastard offspring of a lunar buggy and an armadillo. Wheels with independent carriages would let them traverse rough terrain without trouble. The engine in the back would provide power for the vehicle for months at a time. Each had a main gun, a pair of smaller anti-personnel guns, and anti-missile systems. And they would house an entire squad of infantry.

I loved being in space, but I had to admit that I liked these things. They had a sort of crash through whatever was in their way style to them that just made me smile.

“Armor up!” I said as I entered the bay. “First and second squads are with me. Third squad will remain behind to cover the ship.”

There was a chorus of affirmative answers, and the squad leaders took over directing their men and women from there. They didn’t need me micro-managing them. I’d picked up on that from the first week. Leading infantry was still a new experience for me, though. I’d led small fire teams in the past, for short periods of time. But this was different. Trying to think in terms of coordinating all these people was more complex than I’d imagined. I found myself trying to channel Chief Acres’ spirit often.

I still missed the old Marine and wished he were here. If he could see this, he’d quirk a smile for sure. The ACREs armor was named for him, after all: Armored Combat Rifle Equipment. The new weapon we hoped would keep the balance of power swinging our way.

My armor was racked up on the wall. It was open, hanging there like an inside out metal skin. Which was a pretty apt description. Putting it on was a wild experience.

I stepped up to it, leaned back against the wall, and pulled straps down across my chest. Then I pressed a button, and motors whirred to life all around me. The leg plates closed around my calves first, then around my thighs. There was the smallest hint of a pressure change on my skin as they sealed themselves off. Then the torso armor locked itself down over my hips, my abdomen, and my chest. I held my arms off to the sides and slid my fingers into the waiting gauntlets.

That was the signal for the arm armor to lock itself down. Plates swiveled on their hinges and slid into place, locking over my wrists, forearms, elbows, and upper arms. Shoulder plates clanged into position.

The stuff was heavy. It easily weighed in at a hundred pounds, and I hadn’t even collected my weapon yet. But the armor was filled with scores of small motors which gave my muscles an assist with moving around. Sensors inside the armor would pick up electrical impulses as I started to move a muscle. Then the motors would cut in to help give the movement more strength.

I picked up my helmet and put it on. Instantly a heads-up display came to life. I could use voice commands to control the HUD, giving me access to a variety of information. Right now, it was telling me that most of my infantry had gotten into their armor even faster than I had. We’d been drilling it for weeks, and these people were already excellent. I consoled myself that a third of them were still slower than I was.

An icon on my HUD flashed for an incoming call. It was Staff Sergeant Irons, my platoon sergeant. We were sticking with roughly Marine rank and organization for this fledgling force, even though many of the men came from other service backgrounds. It seemed to make sense. Irons was an old Marine from Earth, and had been a friend of Acres. He’d been Dad’s first pick for the job. So far, he’d been sterling at getting these men molded into an effective force.

“What’s up?” I asked, taking his call.

“You sure about leaving one squad behind?” he said. “The Admiral seemed to think he wanted the full force for the demonstration.”

“We can bring the others once we have a better sense of the situation on the ground,” I said.

“Little paranoid, sir?”

“It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you,” I replied.

“I hear that.”

Earth had been very quiet for the last year. After smashing the fleet they sent to wipeout the Mars colony, I’d hammered out new Accords with them - the Accord of Mars. Earth got nothing. We had a ship constantly patrolling their orbit. They were barred from weapons in space of any kind, just like the old Lunar Accords. We were not. If looks could kill, Choi’s would have dropped me on the spot, but he signed the Accords. With my ship in orbit ready to drop a rock on his head, he had no choice and he knew it.

But it wasn’t going to last. There were maybe a hundred thousand souls out in space now, between Luna, Mars, Venus, and a few scattered bases in the asteroids. And that was counting a serious boost in immigration over the past year. Not everyone on Earth was happy with Choi after we’d released all the footage we had. Of him, admitting he was responsible for the UN bombing. Of Perrault’s actions in space, commanding the Dreadnought. Choi managed to avoid charges somehow, but his grip wasn’t as strong as it had been.

It was strong enough to worry me, though. Also, that he’d just taken everything we dished out. They had barely argued against the particulars of the agreement. That told me they had no intention of honoring it in the long term.

The UN still had full control over Luna, and nominal control over Venus. We were working to show support for the Venusians right now in hopes of changing that. Because there were almost ten billion people on Earth. Humans in space were outnumbered a hundred thousand to one by those on Earth, and Mars needed every ally we could get.

The Mars Accords were a stopgap. Earth was going to break them. We all knew it, felt it like the pressure change of an oncoming storm. We just didn’t know when it was going to happen. Playing it safe was always the best bet.

Which reminded me that I had another person to check in with. I opened the channel. “Kel, you all set in the Valkyrie?”

“Waiting on you kids,” she said.

“Thanks, love. You’re clear to lift.”

“I will watch the empty skies for you dust-eaters.”

There was a roaring sound as she took off. The Valkyrie was to our armored infantry unit as the Hawk was to our spaceships. It was a close air-support fighter. Something like a helicopter, it had thrusters which would let it take off and land even on an airless rock like the moon, and enable it to come close to supersonic speeds if it needed to, even in soup-thick atmosphere like we were facing on Venus.

“First and second squads, load up on the Growlers,” I said over the radio.

I bounded across the deck to follow my own order as the men around me scrambled toward the war machines. The armor took time to get used to. I’d been training in it alongside the other men here for three months, and we were finally getting a good grip on using it effectively. Those motors made everything you did…more. You were stronger, could jump farther, run longer. The suits’ armor would shrug off anything short of a direct missile impact.

There were only about fifty of them in existence, and forty-two of them were right here in the Archimedes with me. A show of force, to demonstrate to Venus that Mars was planning to remain a serious player - one they should ally themselves with.

I passed the men buckling themselves into the seats inside Growler One and walked forward to take my place next to the driver. It would work. I could feel that. This force was solid. Strong. We’d make a great impression.

“Let’s roll out,” I said.

“Aye, sir,” Lance Corporal Rosa said. She was Latina, spoke English with a heavy accent, and was built like a truck driver. None of the people in this unit were small. We’d made one batch of the stuff, and while it resized itself to fit the wearer’s body some, it only had a few inches of tolerance. Everyone in the unit was roughly the same height and build.

Rosa was my driver because when we ran the trials, she’d managed to get the Growler airborne going over some of the dirt mounds we’d placed as obstacles. Most of the other drivers went around them. Some of them tried using the main gun to blast through. Rosa went over. I liked her way of thinking outside the box. With the lower gravity on Mars, she’d been able to get enough velocity going to climb right up the side of the mound - and the Growler had proven to be tough enough to survive the fall on the other side.

Guts and ingenuity on the fly. That was the sort of person I wanted in the driver’s seat. Some of the men disagreed. At least one had lost a tooth jamming his jaw shut when the Growler landed. But having her in that seat might save our lives someday.

The hatch on the belly of the Archimedes swung down. The way was clear, and Rosa took the Growler out into the dusty Venus afternoon.

Chapter 3

Nicholas Stein

Before leaving the bridge, I took another look at the scan. We were still on approach to Venus Station. We would be docking there shortly. But we had been bumped from our position in the docking queue by a large cargo transport from Earth.

The timing was inconvenient. More than that, it was suspicious. Earth just happened to have a massive shipment of supplies arriving on one of their largest ships at the same time we were here for our diplomatic mission? The ship wasn’t armed, I was sure of that much at least. Our ship the Constellation was in orbit around Earth. Every ship leaving Earth’s orbit was scanned carefully.

Of course, we couldn’t see what was inside the ship. Not without searching each and every one, and we simply didn’t have the manpower for that. I was damn sure that dropping off supplies was only one of that freighter’s missions. The trick was going to be figuring out what else they were up to, and ideally out-thinking them.

“I’m on my way to missile bay four,” I said. “Maintenance is still having some issues there.”

“Yes sir,” Glenn said. “It should be smooth sailing from here.”

“Don’t count on it,” I said. I watched the supply ship ease in closer toward station. “Keep an eye on our company over there.”

“Will do,” Glenn replied.

“Launch a few of the Hawks,” I added. “Have them fly over and check that ship out.”

“Aye, sir.”

I left the bridge knowing that the ship was in good hands. Glenn was a pro. He knew what he was doing, and he was right. At least on the surface. This whole mission should be a milk run. Thomas and I would link up with the governor of Venus, and their ruling council. We would show the flag. We would impress them with a few new toys. And hopefully, we would win their support. My goal was to eventually create some sort of governing body for all of humanity. Something which would have representatives from every far-flung outpost, base, and colony.

We were reaching farther and farther from our home world. It wouldn’t be long until we had colonies on Jupiter’s moons, and then perhaps beyond. If we were going to survive this expansion, we needed to create new systems for organizing and governing.

In the meantime, getting my hands dirty would take my mind off my worries, at least for little while. Thomas was right. I tended to grab a wrench when I was bothered. I found it help me clear my thoughts to work with something real for a little while.

On my way out to the faulty missile bay I grabbed a spacesuit and hauled it along. It was hard to tell whether the malfunction was in the interior electronics of the bay, or perhaps somewhere in the mechanical parts outside. The repair might involve a spacewalk, so it paid to be prepared.

“Attention on deck!”

The two men floating in the corridor outside of the missile bay brought themselves into a semblance of attention. That wasn’t as simple as it sounded, in zero gravity. We had made adjustments, moving the Navy into space. But it worked.

A third man was already inside the bay, starting work. He nearly clocked his head trying to join the others. I waved him back with a hand.

“At ease,” I said. “I’m here to help, not to bother you.”

“Yes sir,” the mechanic in the bay said.

“Glad to have you, sir,” another man said. My eyes flicked to his name tag. Olson. I didn’t know the name of every crew member – yet. It was something I was working on. I made a point of learning the names of every person serving with me on every ship I commanded. It was a point of pride.

They looked anything but glad to see me. Having your commanding officer stop by while you were working could be a nerve-racking experience. I knew that. It was part of why I did things like this. I wanted the men to see me, to work alongside me. Respect and authority come from more than just rank. Tomorrow I might have to ask these men to die. What right did I have to ask such a sacrifice of people I’ve never met?

“What seems to be the problem?” I asked.

“We’re not sure, sir,” Olson said. “We think it’s something in the relay circuits.”

“You think that,” the other mechanic replied. His name tag read Raymond. “I think the launcher is throwing back an alert because of a mechanical failure.”

I looked from one man to the other. They both seemed bright, and they were good at their jobs or they wouldn’t be here. Which meant either one of them might be correct. I sighed. In this was an easy fix, it would’ve been done already. Well, I had come down here to get my hands dirty. It looked like I was going to get the chance after all.

“Let’s dig in and figure out which it is,” I said.

“Aye sir,” Raymond said.

I pushed off in the wall and glided toward the open hatch. The missile compartments were not spacious. As I slipped inside I felt some sympathy for Thomas. He had spent an extended period stuck inside one of these things with Acres. The missile pods on the Hermes were much roomier than the old one that Thomas had stowed away in. But it was still a cramped space.

The other technician was opening a panel with a testing device in his hand. He peaked back over his shoulder when I bumped into him, but didn’t break from his task.

“Nice to see you down here, sir,” he said.

“Nice to be here,” I replied. “Petty officer…?”

“Choi,” he said. He looked back over his shoulder and flashed me a winning smile. “No relation.”

Choi was the name of the United Nations president. The man behind the original pirate attacks. The man who tried to execute me. The person who had bombed his own people, then tried to blame Mars for the horrific act. And the leader who’d been responsible for the near annihilation of all human life on Mars just a year ago.

It was a common name. But I could understand why someone in the Mars Space Service might be sensitive about sharing the same name. I wasn’t one to judge someone by their name. But this Choi couldn’t know that for certain.

“Glad to have you on our side,” I said.

“Glad to be here,” he said.

Below me Raymond was tossing the spacesuit I brought up into the compartment. He followed a moment later. It was starting to get crowded in there. Olson joined the three of us, and the space was pretty much packed to capacity. Olson turned back and sealed the hatch. We were now cut off from the rest of the ship. I raised an eyebrow.

“Standard safety protocol, sir,” Olson said. “If we accidentally blow something up in here, we don’t want to take the rest of the ship with us.”

“Not that anything is gonna blow up,” Raymond said. “This isn’t our first time.”

“Make sense to me,” I said. “Now, how can I help?”

“You can start by holding this scanner for me, sir,” Choi said.

I caught the small box easily.

“I’ll be testing circuits,” Choi said. “If I find a bad one…”

“I’ll see the readout on my screen here,” I interrupted. I returned his earlier smile. “Not my first time, either.”

“Good enough, sir,” Choi said with a wry grin. “Thanks for coming down to help.”

“My pleasure,” I said. I looked down at the scanner display, watching it intently. It was all well and good to chat with the men, but I was here to contribute, not talk around the water cooler.

I was still staring at that damned box when the world seemed to explode around us.

Chapter 4

Thomas Stein

We’d arrived at the Venus colony, called Amtor by the residents. The name was drawn from some early story supposedly set on the planet, back before humans knew what the surface was really like. Amtor was a grand sounding name for what looked like a big radio tower, a landing pad, and a pair of gigantic hangar-type doors into two sturdy stone buildings. But then, most of the colony was hidden below the surface. We’d become like ants, burrowing in deep to find places to live outside our homeworld.

“Pull up in front of the hangar, Rosa,” I said. There wasn’t any welcoming committee, but that didn’t especially shock me. Nobody was going to want to sit out on the surface here for very long. The temperature gauge was reading about three hundred degrees Celsius out there, and the wind was kicking a steady stream of dust across the bare basalt, coloring the air a dirty light brown.

“Not the place I’d pick for a vacation,” I said. But then again, Mars wasn’t much better - airless and cold, almost the opposite of Venus.

“No, sir,” Rosa said. “It’s a shit hole.”

“It’s their home though,” I replied. “So let’s be nice?”

“Aye, sir,” she replied. But her tone didn’t sound impressed.

I got up from my seat. Time to test these suits out. I went to the airlock, but a hand caught my shoulder before I could pass through. I turned and saw Irons smiling at me.

“We have Privates to be the guinea pigs,” he said.

“And miss all the fun?” I replied. “I’ll be fine.”

He sighed and let go. Sooner or later he was going to get used to how I operated. Or not. This was only a temporary command for me, after all. I would be back in a space ship eventually. Not commanding ground pounders, no matter how much I enjoyed spending time with these men.

And I had enjoyed the training. We’d been through several months of intense work together. I knew each of these people, and they were at the top of their game. Whoever took over this job was going to be a lucky man.

Once I was inside the airlock, I told the console to equalize the pressure. Here, that meant adding more pressure to the chamber where I was standing. I could feel it building up against the suit. I imagined it would have been more like moving underwater than moving through Earth-like atmosphere, but I couldn’t tell. The motors in my armor compensated for the extra pressure perfectly. The outer door opened once the pressure was equal, and I bounded clear of the vehicle.

The wind blew grit against my armor, pinging gently against the metal with a hissing sound. I activated my shield, and the hissing went away instantly. The shield was a little trick with electro-magnetism. It worked a lot like the shields our ships used to force particles and micro-meteors away from the hull when we were moving fast. At very high velocity, even a grain of sand could punch a hole in a ship. We used shields to keep the random bits of matter in space away while moving at high speed.

The suits worked in a similar manner, keeping matter away from the armor. It stopped the wind-blown sand completely. In theory, it should also stop shrapnel cold, and slow bullets enough that the armor would be able to better withstand even direct hits. It hadn’t been tested with a person inside. We'd had an unsurprising lack of volunteers.

The shield also drained charge from the suit rapidly. I walked around outside for a few minutes, and the power gauge was already starting to drain. It wasn’t something you could just leave on all the time.

“Kel, you nearby?” I asked over the radio.

“Overhead,” she replied. “All clear from here.”

I switched channel from our scrambled military frequency to the Amtor base frequency. “Amtor, this is Commodore Stein. We’re outside. Permission to enter?”

“Roger, we see you,” came the immediate reply. “Sorry about the wait. We were admiring your space suit and arguing over the mechanics involved. Doors are opening now.”

Engineers. I could picture two guys on the other side of that radio, debating heatedly over whatever it was that had caught their eyes. “Thanks,” I said. “Little warm out here.”

Actually, I wasn’t too warm at all. The suit was keeping me at a tolerable temperature. I hadn’t noticed any shift when I stepped out of the Growler, which meant things were working as they should. We still needed to give the laser packs a good field testing out here, but everything else looked awesome.

A bright flash overhead caught my attention. I looked up and saw the strangest atmospheric disturbance. Lights shimmered and blossomed, swirling like a flower unfurling its petals. The light was mostly red, but purples, yellows, and blue streaks shot through the whole. It was like a nebula was spinning into being right over my head.

“My god, that’s beautiful,” I said aloud into the radio. “Do you folks get displays like that all the time?”

“No. In fact, we’ve never seen anything… Hold on.” The voice on the other end of the line seemed a little panicked. I felt the first shot of adrenaline hitting my system. If this was something new, then it might be something dangerous.

I dialed up the resolution on my helmet camera and looked more closely at the colors. Those were clouds! The dense upper atmosphere had been disturbed somehow. Massively so. The effect was still too far away to gauge for sure, but the winds had already been moving at hundreds of kilometers per hour. This new speed had to be a couple of times that fast. And the wind was stretching out, reaching down toward the ground.

“Shit. Everyone inside, now!” I hollered over the radio. “Archimedes, brace for impact. Kel, you need to land in the hangar.”

“Already on my way in,” she said. “What the hell is that?”

“I don’t know, but it’s coming this way.” I could see her ship diving straight at the open hangar doors. Which were beginning to close. What now?

“Amtor, this is Stein. We need you to keep these doors open. We have a small aircraft landing,” I said over their radio channel.

“Negative, Commodore. We don’t know what that is, but its showing extremely high energy readings. We can’t risk compromising the base,” they replied.

“I just need one more minute,” I said. She was almost in!

“We can’t risk it.”

The finality in that statement rocked me. The man speaking to me from inside had already written Kel off. He was going to close the doors, lock her out.

“Like hell,” I said.

Chapter 5

Thomas Stein

I had to stop those doors from closing long enough for Kel to get inside the hangar. I knew from experience that she could shoot through a narrow opening and stop on a dime. I just needed to leave her a gap big enough for her Valkyrie.

"Growler One, Growler Two - take up positions just inside the doors," I said. "Side by side, block the doors from closing."

"Aye sir," Rosa said. "And when they cut this buggy in half who's gonna get blamed? I'm gonna get..."

"Rosa, your radio is still broadcasting," I said.

"Shit."

I smiled despite the severity of the situation. Rosa was something else. Luckily, she was also a dynamite driver. She had her Growler in position in seconds. The other one pulled up alongside hers. Each stood in the way of one of the massive doors.

Which continued to close. “Base, this is Stein. Stop those doors, damn it!”

No response. I watched helpless as the doors continued to push in. They were massive things, driven by powerful motors. I could hear the whine of the engines as the doors hit the sides of the Growlers. It slowed their closing - but impossibly, they kept moving, pushing the Growlers in toward each other. The heavy troop carriers skidded sideways a couple of feet before coming to rest side by side. Then the battle started in earnest. The doors strained to close against the armored hulls, but the Growlers were holding.

It left only the smallest passage above them for Kel to fly through.

“I’ve got the doors,” I said over the radio to her. “Think you can thread the needle?”

“Sure,” she said. Her voice was brittle with tension. “It’s stopping on the other side that’s going to be a bitch. Get everyone clear.”

“Move it, people!” I hollered. “Get to cover.”

I followed my own advice, tucking myself in against one of the steel girders supporting the massive concrete ceiling. A few moments later Kel’s Valkyrie shot through the narrow opening. She was already braking, trying to stop her forward motion as best she could. One of the wings clipped a door and sent the Valkyrie into a spin. It twirled around, crashing down hard against the floor and scraping to a halt a half dozen feet from the far wall.

“Kel!” I shouted. I was already running for the downed craft, shouting orders as I went. “Growlers, get your asses inside. Everyone else, stay down.”

The Growlers pulled free from the doors with a sound of shrieking metal, letting them lumber closed at last. The last of the daylight from outside vanished as I reached the cockpit and grabbed hold of the canopy. Part of the ship was on fire, and it was carrying live ordinance. The whole thing could go up at any moment. Time to see how strong this armor really was.

Then a massive shock wave hit the building, shaking it around like we were in an earthquake. I knew that had to be the atmospheric disturbance outside. Whatever had caused it had to be huge, a massive discharge of energy. To move the air with that much force…? I couldn’t even imagine what might be able to do that.

The lights in the hangar exploded and went out. My suit switched on lights automatically. The armor was hardened against electro-magnetic pulses, and that must have saved my electronics from frying. Score one for Martian engineering.

I tensed my fingers and the armored gauntlet bit into the steel shell holding the canopy in place. Then I yanked hard, and the whole thing came away from the metal frame. Kel was inside, trying to free herself from her restraint harness. I could see blood on her face inside her suit helmet. Her eyes met mine.

She knew how badly damaged her ship was. Between the flames and the explosive munitions the ship carried, we both knew what was about to happen. I could see the hopelessness in her eyes, the certainty that she was about to die.

“No!” I shouted. I reached down and ripped the harness loose. Then I grabbed a handhold on her space suit and pulled her out of the cockpit. With her body clutched tight to my chest, I turned and bounded away from the vehicle as hard as I could. We sailed away from it, the powerful leap carrying us in a high arc across the massive hangar.

I was still airborne when the Valkyrie blew.

The concussive force of the explosion carried me further than I’d intended. I tried to turn sideways as we were carried through the air so I wouldn’t crush Kel when we impacted the wall. It worked - more or less. We crashed against the concrete hard. I heard her muffled cry through the suit, and she went limp in my arms. I glanced at the readout on my display, showing me the medical status of all my people. She was still alive, but her vital signs didn’t look good.

“Marines, with me,” I said. “We need to get her inside.” And we needed to find out what the hell had just happened. I’d never heard of anything like this before.

“The hatch is sealed, sir,” one of the Marines said.

I opened the radio frequency for Amtor again. “Base, this is Stein. Doors are closed, but I have a wounded person out here. Please open the inner doors.”

They had about three seconds, and then I was going to order my men to blow the door open. The hell with diplomacy. Kel’s life was at stake.

“Understood, Commodore,” a voice replied. “We’re cycling the lock now. Bring your people inside. A medical team is standing by.”

“Thank you,” I said. My breaths were still coming fast, my arms shaking as the adrenaline left my system. “Any idea what the hell that was?”

“We were hoping you might tell us,” the voice replied. “It looks like the explosion originated from your ship. We’ll talk more when you’re inside.”

“Our ship?” I asked. Dad was still on board the Hermes! What had happened out there? Was he alive? Either way, there wasn’t much I could do for him right now. I focused on what I could do: save Kel.

“We didn’t have anything on the Hermes that could cause a detonation like that,” I said. I still couldn’t think of anything that would cause a release of that much energy. The math was too complex to do in my head, but the explosion had to be orders of magnitude more powerful than any nuclear warhead produced. I forced myself to remain focused on the present and spoke to Amtor control again. “We’re on our way in.”

I switched back to our military channel. “Marines, move into the airlock. Let’s stay sharp. Our welcome here hasn’t exactly been rosy so far.”

One squad led the way in, weapons held at the ready. I followed right behind them, shoving aside my worries about my father for the moment. No matter what sort of reception waited for us on the other side of that door, Kel needed medical help fast. I was going to get her some.

Chapter 6

Nicholas Stein

I tasted blood as I came slowly back to consciousness. It was a disorienting experience at first, like my mind was slowly surfacing from a deep slumber. The first thing I realized was that everything hurt. My head especially, but my entire body was in pain. Gradually my senses gave me more feedback about my situation.

I was weightless, in free fall, and the space where I was floating was utterly black. The sensory deprivation was enough to make me wonder if this was some sort of strange dream.

But the throbbing in my head and the coppery taste in my mouth said otherwise. I slapped the cargo pocket on my pants leg and found my tablet there. I reached down and pulled the device out, pressing a button to turn it on. Light filled the compartment. It wasn’t that bright, but it still stung my eyes after being in the dark so long. I wasn’t alone in that feeling either. Someone else groaned behind me.

I looked around the compartment, memories rushing back. I was still inside the small missile compartment where I’d been assisting with repairs. The other three men were all here, drifting about. The groan had come from Choi, who was starting to come around. I turned to face him. Pushing off gently against a wall, I floated alongside him and brought him up against one of the walls.

“You all right?” I asked.

“I think so?” He didn’t sound sure. He was pale, but aside from a gash on his forehead seemed mostly unharmed. “What happened, sir?”

“I don’t know. Let’s check the other men and find out.”

I went to Olsen first. He was floating loose and still out cold. I snatched him out of the air and brought him to rest against a bulkhead wall. Then I pushed off toward Raymond. He was the closest to the hatch of any of us. He seemed unconscious, but he wasn’t floating. As I drew closer I saw why.

He was pinned to the hull, a chunk of jagged metal protruding from his abdomen just below his right ribs. The sharp chunk had blasted its way clean through the steel frame next to the hatch and punched its way into him. Seeing him was grotesque, like a human being pinned in a butterfly collection.

I was loath to touch him and wake him up. The pain would be incredible. The man was better off unconscious. I wasn’t even certain he was still alive until I saw a pulse fluttering rapidly in his neck.

Careful to not disturb him, I drew in closer to inspect the wound. He was leaking small bubbles of blood from his belly, but the metal that speared him had also mostly closed the wound off. For now at least, he was better off not being moved.

Then I heard something even worse - a soft hiss. The sound of air escaping through a narrow pathway. I listened carefully. It was definitely coming from the hole the chunk of metal had made. Like the wound in Raymond, it had mostly closed off the hole it made into the compartment. Mostly, but not entirely. We were leaking air.

But the space on the other side of that bulkhead was a corridor. It should have had pressure. If we had air leaking through that hole, it meant that things were even more dire than I’d imagined. There was vacuum on the other side of that hatch. Something had gone very badly wrong on the ship.

There was a tiny terminal on the inside of the hatch, a small computer which would be networked to the rest of the ship’s computers. I turned it on and was relieved to see that it still ran, although it was on backup power. I tried to connect it to the main computer.

No response from server.

I tried again, using the Stein override codes. Even if the ship had been taken over, my codes would get me back in.

No response from server.

I leaned back and thought for a moment. If whatever had hit us was big enough, the bridge computer might be out of commission. But the ship was dotted with scores of smaller computers networked into the mainframe. I set the computer to begin trying to connect to each of them in sequence. If I could get it to connect to some of the other nodes, maybe I could get an idea what was going on.

No known nodes available for connection.

“Damn it!” I swore. I wanted to hit the console in frustration, but restrained myself.

My voice woke Raymond, though. He coughed small beads of blood and drew a sharp, gurgling breath. Then his eyes opened all at once and his hands reached down to his belly. He felt the steel protruding there and started crying softly.

“Choi, we have a medical kit in here?” I asked.

“First aid kit coming down to you, sir,” he replied. He unhooked it from the wall and tossed it my way. I opened the thing and found what I was looking for - a small syringe filled with hydrocodone. I pressed the auto injector against Raymond’s arm and gave him the dose.

It took a minute or so for the meds to take effect, but I could tell that the pain was easing off as his breathing eased. He looked up at me, tears still beading from his eyes.

“We that badly fucked, sir?” he asked.

“I’m still trying to find out just what happened,” I said. “But hang in there. I’ve gotten out of worse messes than this.”

“Than this?” he asked, gesturing at the steel in his guts.

“You’re parked in orbit over a colony. All we have to do is get you planetside and they’ll get you patched up.”

“OK, sir,” he replied. His face was still grim, and there wasn’t any hope in his eyes. I’d have to see about changing that.

I tapped more keys on the terminal and got the same response again. Clearly, that approach wasn’t working. For all I knew the problem was on our end, and the terminal had lost the ability to broadcast out.

That was something I could test. I still had my smart-watch. A computer in its own right, it ought to be able to connect to any computer on the ship the same way the terminal could. I punched in the codes to try.

I got the same results as I had for the terminal - except that the watch did connect to the terminal in front of me. Which meant the problem wasn’t on this end after all.

Something had gone very badly wrong out there. Of all the dozens of computers on the ship, not a single one was still broadcasting or able to receive. What the hell had happened to my ship?

Chapter 7

Thomas Stein

The inner doors opened and my Marines poured through, startling the handful of medical techs standing just on the other side. I hadn’t been sure just what we were going to find in there. The reception had been bumpy so far. But it looked like the worst of my fears were for nothing. No group of armed men stood there waiting to shoot us down as we came through. Just a few medical people and a stretcher.

I lay Kel’s still form down on their stretcher. Her face was pale through the glass face plate. I could see that she was still breathing, but she’d been hurt and I had no way of telling how badly.

“Impact injuries,” I told the medical team. “From the crash, and then again from the explosion.”

“We’ll take care of her, sir,” one of them replied. They hooked up an EKG, checked the reading quickly, and then they were rushing her away.

“Rosa, go with them and keep an eye on things,” I said.

“You got it, sir.” She stalked off after the medics, who glanced back over their shoulders nervously before hurrying along.

Was that all they were sending for the welcoming committee? I wasn’t expecting a red carpet, but some sort of official greeting would have been nice. Something had happened out there, and I wanted to know what. But at the same time, I didn’t want to deliberately offend our hosts. I doubted they wanted my men and I wandering aimlessly about the colony tunnels, so I decided we were better off waiting to see what these people did next.

The room we were in wasn’t really large enough for the number of people I’d packed inside it. The walls, ceiling and floor were all made from the same vaguely grey paneling. I rapped it with a knuckle. It felt like some sort of plastic or silica compound. Probably what they used to keep all the space air-tight down here. The colony had been hewn from rock, but there would be fissures and cracks in any natural surface. Keeping an equalized pressure meant having man-made interior surfaces.

We did the same thing on Mars. We’d been at it longer though, so our materials tended to be a little sturdier.

I didn’t have long to wait for more company from Amtor. Two men and a woman strode down the corridor toward us only a minute or so after Kel was whisked away. The man in front was older, with white hair and a salt and pepper beard. He was thin, looked fit despite his age, and I recognized him at once. He had to be Samuel Reed, the UN-appointed governor of the colony. This was the man my father was hoping he could convince to throw off the yoke of the United Nations and join Mars as an independent colony. But Reed’s power came directly from the UN. Without them backing him, there was no guarantee he would retain it.

The younger man behind him must be Martin Jones. His skin was dark, a deep brown like dark chocolate. He was clean shaven with a short military haircut. He'd be more my counterpart in the negotiations. I’d never met with the man before, but we’d corresponded via email. He gave me the sense of someone who was interested in seeing change, and might be useful in helping to make it happen.

The woman was an enigma. I didn’t know her at all. She was older, perhaps the same age as Reed, but her eyes were sharp and bright.

I popped off my helmet and tucked it under my left arm. Then I reached out to offer Reed a handshake. He took my hand in his own, giving a formal shake. But his face was still grim.

“Governor, thank you for your invitation to visit,” I said. “I’m sorry that we seem to have arrived at a bad time.”

“That was a damned dangerous thing you did out there,” he snapped back. “You could have jeopardized the entire colony to save that one pilot.”

We locked stares for a moment. “I don’t leave people behind, Governor.”

He looked away first with a harrumphing sound.

“Well, it ended up working out, and we’ll make sure your pilot receives good care,” the woman said. “My name is Grace. I’m the lead scientist for Amtor. You have no idea what might have caused such a massive atmospheric disruption?”

“None,” I replied, shaking my head. “I’d love to see your data though. How is the Hermes? Was it damaged?”

All three of them looked away from me. None of them would meet my eyes for a moment, which meant the news was bad. Bad enough that each of them wanted someone else to be the one to break it. Jones sighed and looked back up first.

“It’s gone, Commodore. Your ship was there before the disruption, whatever it was. But after our scans cleared? The Hermes is just…gone,” he said.

“I need to see the radar data.” My voice was harsh even to my own ears, but I couldn’t help it. These people might have convinced themselves the Hermes was destroyed, but I wasn’t going to believe Dad was dead until I saw it with my own eyes. They had to be wrong. Nothing could just take out a ship like that. There would have been a battle. Dad would have radioed to us. Plus, he would have seen the attack coming. Even if Earth had someone come up with their own fighter craft, he would have been able to fight back.

“Of course,” Grace said. “Follow me, please.”

“I’ll show your men to the barracks that we’ve set aside for them,” Jones said.

I nodded my thanks to him. Then I made a small gesture with two fingers toward my eyes at Irons. He caught the signal and gave me a small nod. He’d have men keeping a constant watch. Something had gone deadly wrong with this trip already, and we had no idea what had even happened yet. In my experience, that meant things were probably about to get worse.

Chapter 8

Nicholas Stein

Trying to connect to another computer wasn't getting me anywhere. Either all the computer systems on the Hermes - except this one - had gone out of commission at the same time... Or the Hermes was destroyed. Utterly gone. It wouldn't be enough to just blow the ship up. More of the computers should have survived an attack, much like this one had. Something had hit the ship hard and fast. Something we hadn't expected, some new weapon perhaps.

Which meant all of this was a trap. Thomas was down there in the thick of it. All the crew on board the Hermes were probably dead, except myself and the three in here with me. And we were very likely going to join the rest of the crew very soon.

I floated there for a few long minutes, letting the severity of the situation sink in. We were somehow alive in this little compartment, but without life support we wouldn't last long. And I doubted anyone even knew we were alive.

"Sir, it's getting cold," Choi said.

I snapped myself out of the mental hole I was digging for myself. We weren't dead yet. And if nothing else, I owed it to my people to do what I could for them.

"Right," I said. "Air will be getting thin too. Where's that space suit?"

"Up here," Olsen said.

"Strap it in up there with the helmet off and the front zipped open," I said. "And set the oxygen recyclers in the suit to max."

"One suit, four people," Olsen said. "Our breathing will outstrip the recycler."

"It buys us time," I said.

"Time for what, sir?" Olsen asked.

"Time," I said, turning back to the console, "to figure out just what the hell happened out there."

I couldn't reach any outside computers, but I still had this one. The missile computer was all about tracking, telemetry, and...radar. I had excellent scan records. I pulled them all up, going over the data.

Everything was normal, until it suddenly wasn't. Literally one second the ship was fine. The next second there were no more data feeds coming in from the rest of the ship; it was gone.

I went over the scan information we had from those last few nanoseconds. It took a while, going over it almost frame by frame. But finally I found what I was looking for.

"There!" I said, stabbing the screen. Choi and Olsen peered over my shoulder from behind, but it was Raymond who spoke up first.

"What did you find, sir?" he croaked. He couldn't see the screen from where he was pinned. His eyes looked tired, but at least he was still feeling a little curious.

I scrolled back to the thing I'd seen. "What do you make of that?" I asked.

It was a massive burst of high energy particles, almost like a tiny pulsar had appeared next to our ship for a moment and then vanished. In fact, looking more closely, I saw that there was some sort of solid object in the center of the cone of particles. They all extended from that object.

"Some sort of high energy beam? Olsen asked.

"No way to get that much energy from so small a device," Choi replied. "I'd guess maybe a solar mirror array or something like that, but we're seeing particle activity here, not solar radiation."

"What kind of particles?" Raymond asked.

I looked over the data. "It's a mixed bag," I said. "It looks like standard background particles. Just a lot of them."

There were high energy particles all over space, but never so many of them all in the same area. Barring events which generated massive pulses of such things, it wasn't something I'd heard of before. Any event I could remember which might generate a pulse as big as this one ought to generate mostly one sort of particle or another. But this mix...?

"It looks like someone scooped up a ton of the things randomly and plunked them all down on us," I said.

Raymond nodded. "Because that's what they did," he rasped.

He had my attention. "How?"

"Ever heard of an Alcubierre Drive, Admiral?"

I hadn't, but evidently the other two engineers had.

"No way," Olsen said. "That's sci-fi wishful thinking."

“Not anymore,” Raymond said. “That data set fits the theoretical model.”

“Explain,” I said.

“The Alcubierre drive is a theoretical drive, sir,” Olsen said. “The concept is to use a ring of exotic matter surrounding a ship to actually warp space, allowing a ship to travel from one point to another at speeds that seem to exceed the speed of light.”

“Seem to?” I asked. Faster than light travel was still supposed to be impossible, at least at the last physics classes I’d taken. Admittedly, those were decades ago, but I thought I’d have heard if the concept had changed so dramatically.

“Because it’s not actually moving faster than light, it doesn’t break relativity. The drive would in theory bend space, making the distance shorter,” Olsen said. “But the ‘exotic matter’ required doesn’t exist. It’s a theory, not a practical device.”

“Didn’t exist until now,” Raymond rasped out. I had the sense this was an argument these two had been through before. “One problem was that mathematical models showed the drive would pick up particles as it went along, and then release them when it stopped folding space - all at once, in a massive burst of energy.”

“And you say what we saw here matches the expected output?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.”

I looked over at Olsen. He shrugged. “It matches the model more or less, yes sir. But the odds are better it was some sort of massive missile.”

“Our scans didn’t show anything big enough to produce an explosion that large,” I pointed out.

Olsen shrugged again. “I don’t know, sir.”

“I think I have the radar working again, sir,” Choi said. “It might be fuzzy, but we should be able to see what’s going on out there.”

I tapped the screen and asked the terminal for a current update. It flashed, and then resolved a new set of images. All around us there was a small cloud of debris objects. That had to be the Hermes - what was left of her. I gritted my teeth, grieving the loss of all those people. Glenn was gone, along with so many others. It looked like this pod must have been jarred loose from the ship during the explosion, and then sheltered from the main blast by the bulk of the Hermes itself. Otherwise we’d have gone up with everyone else. It was possible there might be other survivors out there somewhere. Without power, without life support, they’d be trapped in some other little airtight coffin until they suffocated. Unless I could save them somehow.

Something odd was happening over at the station. The Earth ship had docked, but now it was disgorging a small fleet of shuttles. It looked like a dozen or so landing craft. I made some mass estimations and guessed that had to be their entire cargo. The ship wasn’t armed, but that didn’t mean what it carried was harmless.

“Shit,” I said.

The shuttles were headed for the surface. For Thomas.

Chapter 9

Thomas Stein

I followed the trio down a long hall, then up a ramp. A secured door at the end of the ramp opened to Grace’s palm print. Reed stepped past her, then she ushered me forward.

“It’s going to be tight in there,” she said. “It’s not a large room. Perhaps your men...?”

“I can take them down for some food,” Jones said. “It would be my pleasure to show them some proper hospitality.”

“Sounds good,” Grace said.

Irons locked eyes with me for a moment, deferring to my judgement. I could tell he didn’t like the idea of splitting all our people up, but we didn’t have a lot of choices right now. It might be better to play nice while we figured out what was going on. If I was going to find out what happened to my father, I needed these peoples’ help, not their antipathy. I nodded to him. He and the other men followed Jones back down the ramp, then turned left along a side passage.

“He’ll take good care of them, Commodore,” Grace said. “Please, come inside.”

She was right to send the others elsewhere. The space was cramped. It was bigger than most ship bridges, but smaller than the control center on Mars Station, and a lot smaller than my father’s command room down on Mars. I had to be careful in my suit not to bang into things as I stepped through the doorway. Two techs were working inside, a man and a woman. Reed was leaning over their shoulders, looking at something on the screen.

“I don’t know,” the woman was saying. “It looks like they’re coming from the docked supply ship, but they’re not responding to our radio messages and I’ve lost contact with the station.”

My ears perked up. “What’s coming from the ship?”

Dad had mentioned the Earth ship. It was one reason he’d been delayed. They were supposed to be carrying crucial supplies for the base here and had been granted docking ahead of his ship. The Hermes couldn’t land, so she was stuck in orbit waiting. I leaned in and looked at the screen. A dozen small dots had departed the space near the station and were making their way toward the surface of Venus.

“Are those your shuttles?” I asked.

“No,” Grace replied. “We only have two shuttles to ferry supplies and personnel in, and they’re both still on the station. Try to hail those ships again.”

“This is Amtor calling unidentified ships,” the tech said into her microphone. “Please respond.”

“Amtor, thanks for calling,” a voice replied in a thick Texas drawl. “This is General Alexander Newman. I am approaching the surface with a United Nations liberation force to assist you in dealing with any remaining Mars rebels.”

Combat shuttles. Those things were all combat shuttles, and they were making their way straight for us. The stalemate was over. I’d been worried about when Earth was going to strike, and now they had. Somehow they’d destroyed the Hermes, and now they were coming to clean up what was left.

“We have destroyed the rebel ship in orbit,” Newman continued. “Along with the one they had illegally patrolling Earth orbit, and their network of command at Mars Station.”

My blood ran cold. Was that even possible? The Constitution was one of our best ships. Her anti-missile systems were almost as good as the Hermes. Those on Mars Station were better than either ship - we’d made damned sure that the station was well defended. How the hell had they managed to take out three hard targets so quickly and effortlessly? It had to be some sort of new weapon, but what?

The game had changed, and I was already three steps behind. Newman was a legend. He’d fought in the US-China war, back when my father had served, and had been one of the most brilliant minds on the battlefield. Hell, I’d studied some of his strategies in school. I wracked my brains for whatever other information I remembered about the man. He had a reputation as honest and honorable, but also as being one of the most ruthlessly efficient generals who’d ever lived.

“New targets on track!” the tech called out.

I checked the screen. Six new blips had appeared out of nowhere, moving rapidly across space toward the shuttles. They weren’t more ships - they were moving too fast. They had to be missiles. I backtracked where they were coming from, but there wasn’t anything showing in space there.

Then I did a little mental math. If there was anything left of the Hermes, that was just about exactly where it ought to be. I laughed.

Reed glared at me. “This isn’t funny.”

“No, it’s not,” I agreed. “But someone from the Hermes is still kicking up there. Those are missiles, and General Newman is about to get a rude surprise.”

Was it my father, somehow still alive out there? If anyone could live through that explosion, it would be him who found a way. I had hope. Not a lot of hope, but I clung to that thread.

“They’ll think we’re firing on them, you idiot!” Reed said. “They’ll attack us.”

“You think they were coming in here to say hello?” I asked. “Those are combat shuttles, full of soldiers. Once the UN sets down here, they’re going to be in direct control. They know you invited us here. How long do you think they’ll let you stay in charge, if they take over?”

He glared with me, but I could tell he didn’t have a good counter-argument. He knew as well as I did that they would replace him in a heartbeat. If he was lucky, he’d be asked to quietly resign back to Earth. If he was less lucky… Choi wasn’t known to be the most merciful of men.

The combat shuttles poured on the speed, trying to get into the atmosphere in time to evade the attack, but they weren’t designed to outrun missiles that had been built to kill interplanetary ships. One after another the blips on the screen converged with each other. When it was all over, only six shuttles remained, braking hard as they entered the upper atmosphere.

Half of the attack was gone. It would throw a wrench into Newman’s plans. I had to hope that would be enough. He might not know about the battle armor, which could shift this fight a little further to our side, but I couldn’t know that for certain.

“No further communication from the shuttles,” the tech said. “They’re breaking formation. It looks like they’re heading to multiple landing sites.”

“Where are they going?” I asked.

“These two are headed for your landing site,” Grace pointed out. “Then two more for each of our power generation stations.”

“How bad is that?” I asked.

“We use geothermal heat to power the base. Efficient, given the nature of Venus. But the best sites were also unstable, so we built the power plants there, and the base itself here on more geologically stable ground,” she said. “The plants are redundant. If one goes out, the other can handle the load.”

“But if they take both offline?” I asked.

“We lose everything,” Grace replied, her face pale. “No power, no life support. Everyone in the base would be dead within hours. Men, women, our children… All of us.”

“We’re defenseless against this sort of attack, damn it,” Reed said.

They were in this mess because of us. And we weren’t going to get off the planet without a fight, either way. Better to deal with the enemy on the ground first, and then take the fight back to the skies. I wasn’t going to stand by and allow the UN to slaughter this colony just to get to me, anyway.

“You’re not defenseless, Governor,” I said. “You have us.”

Chapter 10

Nicholas Stein

I felt a little bit of grim pride as the missiles slammed home into the UN shuttles. We’d fired every missile we had, once Choi was able to get fire control routed to my console. The pod’s missile tubes were empty now and we were a sitting duck, but the birds had done their work. Half of the enemy attack force was gone.

If nothing else, I’d bought Thom a little breathing room.

They had to be pretty pissed off over there. This was a masterful stroke on their part. If the broadcast was telling the truth they’d hit us everywhere, just about all at once, and devastated our forces. But plans don’t survive contact with the enemy. By shifting them a little off balance now, I was jeopardizing their entire operation.

Now we needed to see what they would do in return. I didn’t think we would have to wait long.

“Picking up new tracks coming from the station,” Choi said. “Looks like missiles.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. Their ship had passed by our inspection. They should have made sure the damned thing was unarmed. In an ideal world they would have searched the cargo, too. But I knew that our crew was understaffed and overworked for such a job. There was no way to search all the traffic flowing out of Earth. Just too much of it.

“Slow tracks,” Choi said. “They do look like missiles, but they aren’t coming all that quickly. Maybe something they mounted to the station in a hurry after they arrived?”

“That makes sense,” I said, examining the incoming objects. They were moving much more slowly than the usual ship to ship missiles. If we were in a proper combat vessel I doubted we’d be in danger at all. As things stood we were sitting ducks. “I don’t suppose any of you brilliant engineers have an idea about getting this little pod of ours moving?”

“Not enough to matter,” Olsen said. “We could evacuate all our air, but it wouldn’t move us enough to escape the missiles anyway.”

“And breathing would become a real issue,” Raymond said. His voice was just above a whisper. The man was dying right in front of us, and there was nothing I could do for him.

My watch beeped. I jumped.

It was an incoming call. I quirked an eyebrow. It was a very unusual time and place for someone to be trying to reach me. My watch had a transmitter of its own, so it would work outside of an existing network. But the range was very short. It could only reach a few miles away. Who was close enough to reach me?

I tapped the watch to answer the call. “Stein here.”

“My god, sir! We hoped it might be you. We thought you were gone when the ship went up.”

“Who is this?” I demanded.

“Lieutenant Carlson, sir. I’m leading the flight of Hawks you launched right before the Hermes was destroyed. You saved my life with that order.”

“Lieutenant. Any other crew appear to be alive out there?” I asked.

“No sir. I scanned the wreckage looking for you, and your pod was the only source of heat that I could see. Sorry sir.”

“No sorries. We’ll be glad of a pickup, if you can manage it,” I said. “The UN ship fired some missiles, they’re coming our way.”

“Can do. We’re dark right now, running silent. Soon as we light up our drives we’ll show on their screens, but the Hawks should be able to get in and out before they can do anything about it.”

A pickup was going to be tough. We had one space suit between the lot of us, and no airlock. There was no pressurized way to get us into the Hawks. We were going to have to be exposed to vacuum, at least for a little bit.

Thomas had been through that. He’d been out in open space, and Keladry had flown close enough to catch him as he drifted out of an enemy vessel toward her. He’d almost died, even from those scant few seconds in space. The human body wasn’t designed to last long under such circumstances.

We had four men in here, and four Hawks capable of picking us up. It was going to be touch and go getting each of us into a Hawk before we all died. We had a little time to set things up though. The Hawks could position themselves just right so that when we opened the pod up we could drift right over to them.

“OK, Lieutenant. I’ve got three other men in here with me. You’re going to need to coordinate pickup with your other pilots,” I said.

“We’re jetting that way right now,” he replied. “We’ll be in place in about a minute.”

“Get yourselves ready,” I told the engineers.

They looked frightened, but determined. By the time the Hawks were near they’d clustered around Raymond down by the hatch. He was going to have the toughest time of this. When the hatch opened, the spike protruding from him was going to shift as it came loose, and he knew it. He was pale and panting rapidly. I leaned close.

“You good for this?” I asked him.

He flashed me a grim smile. “Does it really matter? If we stay here, we’re dead. What’s the worst that can happen?”

He still didn’t look happy, and we both knew that the bravado was just that. Death could be instant by missile, or slow and painful. The difference between the two was as wide as space. I clapped his shoulder gently, trying to show appreciation for his courage.

“You need to get into the space suit, sir,” Olsen said.

I shook my head, starting to argue that either we were all making it out or none of us were. But Choi and even Raymond both nodded their agreement.

“It makes sense. One suit. One of us at least will make it to the Hawks without trouble,” Choi said. “You’re most likely to make their lives a living hell for what they did to the Hermes. You get the suit.”

“Besides sir, that way you can hang back a bit. Let the rest of us out first and maximize our chances of reaching the fighters alive,” Raymond added.

That last thought won me over. I still felt like something of a coward putting on the space suit, but Raymond was right. Not only could I hang back a bit. With the suit on I could help guide the men toward the Hawks, assist them in getting safely aboard the fighters. It might be the difference between life and death for these men. I set aside my misgivings and put on the suit.

We were ready as we were going to get. I received another signal from the Hawks.

“We’re in position,” Carlson said. “Waiting just outside the hatch.”

Not a moment too soon. The missiles were only a few minutes away. I looked around at the men trapped in here with me. Each of them nodded.

“Do it,” Raymond said.

I yanked the lever to open the hatch up, ready for the hiss of air as everything evacuated our little lifeboat and we were all flushed into space.

But nothing happened.

Chapter 11

Thomas Stein

I’d assembled my teams up in the surface hangar again. There wasn’t much time. Before long the combat shuttles would reach their destinations, and we wanted to be moving before then. If they took both power stations, the colony would be between a rock and a hard place. They’d have no choice but to capitulate to whatever demands Newman made of them.

Worse yet, Newman could simply execute all of them by blowing the stations or shutting them down. Without power for life support, the colonists would all be dead within the day. His men could just move in and clean up the mess. I didn’t know if Newman would go that far, but given who he was working for I couldn’t be certain that he wouldn’t.

I opened a private channel to Irons to consult with him. “We’re in a mess here. Your thoughts?”

“Well, we’re not as bad as we would have been,” he replied. “Half their force is gone. That makes a big difference.”

“Agreed,” I said. I still felt grossly over my head out here. How was I supposed to take an untried unit dressed in barely tested combat armor against one of Earth’s greatest generals? I was a ship captain, damn it. This wasn’t my field. It was time to ask for some advice. Irons didn’t have as much experience as Acres, and I missed my old friend’s cool head. But Acres was dead, and Irons was here. “What do you think we ought to do?”

“I’m assuming you don’t want to make for the ship and get the hell out of here,” he said

“And leave these people?” The idea was appalling. “We came here to convince them to join us, to show them we could defend them. We can’t run at the first trouble.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, well. You’d be surprised. Some green officers would just want to run for home in a mess like this, sir. I figured you’d be made of sterner stuff, but you never know.”

“I may be new at this sort of fighting, but I’m not green.”

“Point taken,” he replied. “Our ship has a squad of armored men there, and the ship’s guns. I think she can take care of herself. I’ve already alerted the squad that they have trouble coming.”

Which I’d neglected to do. Damn. “Good thinking.”

“I think we should bring both of our mobile squads to take and hold one of the power stations,” he said.

“We could split our force and stop them from taking either station,” I said. That had been my first thought. Now that the enemy was at half their expected strength, we could match them at both landing sites and stop them cold.

“Keeping one power station is crucial. Keeping both is a bonus. Given who we’re fighting, taking the safer course is the better bet.”

“That makes sense. I’m going to leave a few people here at the colony itself then, just in case. We can’t leave them completely defenseless.” Can’t leave Kel completely defenseless, was what I was actually thinking. I didn’t know if Irons was able to sense my real concern or not, but he didn’t argue the point.

Ten minutes later we were rolling out, headed for the power generation station just west of the colony. Both Growlers were side by side, churning up the Venusian soil as they raced across the surface. We didn’t have much time. Two of the combat shuttles were still making a beeline for the same target we were.

“Roof gunners, be ready. If you get a bead on one of those shuttles…” My voice trailed off.

“Don’t worry sir. We’re tracking them. I don’t think they’re going to give us a shot, though.”

They didn’t. The shuttles landed on the far side of the power station from our approach, never getting close enough to fire at them on their way in. It was almost certain they knew we were coming. They probably had a good view of the Growlers, too. They’d know we had armored vehicles coming their way. General Newman would be working out a plan to deal with the armor. I needed to figure out a way to throw a little chaos into the works.

“Irons, he knows we have tanks. But he doesn’t know we are tanks,” I sent over the private channel we shared.

“What are you thinking?” he replied.

“Give him what he expects. And then hit him with what he doesn’t.”

The Growlers roared in at full speed toward the UN position. They’d dug in along the ridge ahead, but we were almost into our firing range. Another few seconds and the tanks would be able to pepper their hiding spots with cannon fire.

All at once the ground in front of both tanks erupted, explosions throwing sand and rock high into the air. Both tanks fell forward into the holes, their engines screaming bloody murder.

“Back the tanks out of there!” I ordered over the radio.

The drivers tried, but the tanks were stuck fast. The explosions blasted deep enough divots that each Growler had dropped nose down and wedged in place. It was a neat trap. I hadn’t seen the lines of missile fire, so they must have placed mines. How Newman had managed that while also building up the position on the ridge was beyond me, but he’d done it.

“Get out of there,” I radioed to the drivers. They didn’t waste any time. The Growlers were sitting ducks out there, and I had to assume Newman had a plan for finishing them off. It was going to be up to me to make sure he couldn’t take the tanks out, but I didn’t want to risk the drivers.

They were the only people aboard the tanks. The rest of us had gotten off a few miles back. Using terrain for cover we’d bounded forward, past the tanks. While Newman was digging in and watching the really obvious tanks coming his way, we’d been bounding alongside them on the ground. Now I had one squad of powered armor on each side of his little ridge.

Down in the valley below the drivers had exited the tanks and were firing up at the ridge, exchanging laser fire with the UN troops. They were pinned down hard though. If they tried to run from the tanks they’d have all the UN fire pouring down at them. We needed to get the heat off them fast.

Before I could order my men up the hill, two streaks of yellow fire flashed down from the hilltop. The missiles slammed into the Growlers, exploding in brilliant flashes. Damn it, I hadn’t counted on the possibility of losing both Growlers in this operation. But Newman was fast, his troops disciplined and excellent.

“Let’s move!” I shouted over the open channel. I bounded up the ridge, darting between boulders as my armor turned each step into a four-meter bounce. “Take that hill!”

Chapter 12

Thomas Stein

Laser fire pattered off the boulder beside me, showering me with fragments. I bounded forward, automatically looking for the next bit of cover I could find. I returned fire as I went. I didn’t think any of my shots hit, but even keeping the enemy heads down was useful. I reached the rock and paused for a moment, taking stock of the situation.

We were two-thirds of the way up the ridge now, but beginning to bog down under heavy fire. The powered armor might protect us from some shots, but not all of them. I’d already lost two men from my squad as we advanced. Neither of them was badly hurt, but both had suffered holes in their armor. We had emergency patches that kept a soldier from dying if applied quickly enough to a suit breach, but the patches were a lot weaker than the rest of the armor and prone to failure if one moved about too violently. That effectively took those men out of the fight until we could do a better repair.

“Greer, Lucas - hit that sniper with a rocket,” I said. “Marsden, Shinev, you’re with me as soon as the rocket is away. We’re pushing through.”

“Aye, sir,” the men around me chorused.

We couldn’t afford to get stopped up in this ascent. The enemy had backup out there, reinforcements they could call in. We really didn’t. The squad we’d left at the ship couldn’t come help us. They were under attack themselves, and until I knew more about the weapon the UN troops had used on the Hermes I didn’t dare order the Archimedes into the air.

The longer we waited here, the more likely the enemy were to bring in more troops and make our lives even more miserable. Somewhere out there on the other side of the ridge was Irons and his squad, but the UN troops were jamming our radios somehow. I couldn’t tell if they were faring better than we were - or worse. I couldn’t count on them getting to the top in time to help us.

The team I’d ordered to fire a rocket lit the weapon off. It streaked a few feet over my head. That was my signal to get moving. The high explosive ought to take down the sniper shooting at us, but even if it didn’t finish him off it was certain to keep his head down for a critical few minutes. That was all we needed.

I pushed off hard on the rock in front of me at the same time as I leapt upward. The augmented strength of the suit carried me up and over the boulder. I hit the ground running on the far side, two of my troops following close behind. Three fast bounds brought me up to the sniper’s position. Scattered laser fire from higher up the ridge pinged down around me, but I ignored it. I had to reach that spot, make sure the sniper was down so that the rest of my troops could advance.

He was already dead when I arrived. He’d dodged the rocket’s full blast, but fragments of blown up rock had punched through his suit in a half dozen places. The heat and pressure of the Venusian atmosphere had broiled him in his suit.

More shots landed around me. I ducked as a UN-fired rocket roared by overhead. It blew up a few feet to my rear, pelting my armor with bits of rubble that the EM field kept away. One big plus of our armor over the UN troops - those fragments would have killed me in an ordinary space suit. Marsden landed in the little depression next to me, panting hard.

“Where’s Shinev?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Damn it,” I said. We were taking serious casualties, and we couldn’t afford it. I almost considered calling for a retreat, but we really had nowhere to go. If we lost this ridge, then the UN would hold both power plants for sure. They’d be able to kill everyone back at the colony - Kel included. With our Growlers gone, we’d have a damned hard time getting clear of their shuttles, anyway. We had nowhere to go but up.

“Lucas, take Bravo Team and bound around to the left,” I said over the radio. “Alpha with me, give them cover fire.”

What was left of Alpha strung themselves out alongside me, firing upward at our assailants. If we could keep them occupied enough, Bravo could get into a position to flank them and cut them apart. It was a classic tactic, and one the enemy would surely know… But it was classic because it worked and was difficult to combat.

A laser pinged off my helmet. I could hear the sizzling sound of cooking metal, and feel the heat passing through the steel plates as the beam tried to punch through. I was lucky - the shot failed to find a weak spot and my armor held. I resolved to do a better job of keeping my head down, though.

Bravo popped a smoke grenade signaling they were in position to begin their assault.

“Time to go, Alpha!” I said. “Pop our smoke!”

Every member of the team tossed a smoke grenade upward as hard as our augmented strength could manage. They fell in amidst the enemy positions, spewing out thick plumes of smoke into the air. The wind speed was strong enough that the stuff wouldn’t last too long, but it ought to be just enough.

“Now!” I shouted. I left my cover and surged up the hill. Bravo would be coming in from the left as we came upward. Faced with two threats, and unable to see well through the fog, we ought to overwhelm the opposing force quickly.

Someone shouted and went down a bit to my right. Another beam hit me, burning off some of the armor from my chest. I kept running forward and shooting. We had to break through now, or we were never going to make it.

Then we were in the middle of our own smoke. I couldn’t see the enemy troops at all, just little bits of light flickering through the roiling fog. I headed toward the nearest of those and almost tripped over a UN soldier. He had a rifle in his hands and was laying prone, facing down the hill in the direction we’d come from. For a moment both of us froze in place.

Then he rolled, trying to bring his rifle up around to shoot at me. I didn’t have time to shoot him back. Instead I reacted out of instinct, raising my left foot and stomped down hard. I caught the soldier on his helmet, the hardened faceplate shattering as my armored leg drove down. He wasn’t going to be shooting anyone else.

Another soldier came running at me through the mist, shooting as he came. Two shots pelted off my armor. I fired my own weapon and holed his suit in the middle of his chest. There wasn’t any blood. My laser was hot enough to cauterize as it went through. He simply fell forward on his face and stopped moving.

I heard cheering through my radio and realized it was from my squad-mates. The smoke was clearing, and the enemy was dead. We’d broken their line. I felt like I ought to be celebrating with my men, but all I felt was sick inside. We’d lost too many people. So had the enemy. It was all a tragic waste, spurred on by greedy politicians in their never-ending battle for power and control. It had to stop. But before I could deal with the source, I needed to fight their minions.

“It’s not over yet,” I said. I tromped upward toward the top of the ridge, hoping that Irons had fared as well as we did. The rest of the squad followed, ready to make the enemy troops pay for our losses with their own blood.

Chapter 13

Nicholas Stein

I checked the screen again. The missiles were still inbound, slowly tracking toward our location. We didn’t have long until they arrived and blew the hell out of our little life-raft. The Hawks would be in danger if they were still in the area, too. They had some anti-missile defenses, but their strongest asset was their maneuverability. Floating in space as they were, they were sitting ducks.

The men were working on the door furiously, trying to figure out why it wasn’t opening. The entire missile pod had been ripped clear of a ship as it was blowing up. It was a miracle that we’d survived at all. If the hatch hadn’t been sealed when the Hermes exploded, we’d all have died instantly in the blast. Now that same door was trapping us inside, though. It was maddening.

“Lieutenant Carlson,” I said, speaking to him through my watch’s communications link.

“Here, sir,” he replied. “How’s it going in there?”

I eyeballed the engineers arguing over how to open a door. It would’ve been a funny joke, another time. It didn’t feel funny just then.

“They’re working the problem. Any chance the Hawks can take out those missiles?” I asked.

“We can try, sir,” he replied. “If we close with them to engage we might be able to take them out, but we may lose some of the fighters doing it.”

Which was what I was worried about. There were only four fighters, and precisely four of us trapped in this missile pod. If we lost even one fighter we would lose the ability to extract all the men. I was still determined to get them all out. Even Raymond, whose pale face would have been still as death except that his teeth had begun chattering.

Worse yet, it would be the loss of precious and irreplaceable assets. We had damned little left around Venus to fight off this attack. Every man, every ship, every gun we could bring to bear mattered. Losing even one Hawk might be enough to hand us a defeat. I wasn’t willing to risk it unless there was no other way.

“You want us to try, sir?” he asked. He seemed game, if hesitant.

“No. Hold off for now. Let’s see if we can get this thing open.” I cut off the link and turned to the men working on the door. “How are we doing?”

“It’s a bust, sir,” Choi said.

Olsen slowly nodded agreement. “The damage to the door is too severe. The only way this thing is opening up is if you cut it open.”

Their manner was grim, even resigned. I wasn’t having it. We’d made it this far through ingenuity and cunning. We’d figure out this problem too.

“Do we have a tool to cut it?” I asked.

“We do, sir. We were coming in here for maintenance. There’s a torch in our repair kit,” Choi said. “It’s…what we think you should do.”

Olsen nodded, but he couldn’t meet my eyes. Something was up.

“What’s the catch?” I asked.

“It’s going to take about five minutes to cut the hatch,” Choi said. His voice shook a little.

“We have about six minutes until those missiles arrive,” I said, checking the numbers on my screen again to be sure. “It’ll be tight, but we can do it.”

Raymond chuckled, a dry laugh that was empty of humor. I hadn’t even realized the man was still conscious. Or perhaps he’d just awoken again. I looked at his pale face and frowned. He shivered, and grimaced with obvious pain. I’d failed him. I knew it, then. There was no way I was getting him out of there. It would take too long, and he was too far gone. Even if he somehow survived the time it would take to cut the door he would never survive the exposure to vacuum which would follow.

“We’re all dead men,” Raymond rasped out.

“Not if we work quickly,” I said. Raymond, I might not be able to save. The others I thought I could.

“Sir, he’s not wrong,” Olsen said. “We’re going to have to cut the door. Or you will, really, sir. Cut through the door. A bit at a time.”

Choi blinked, tears shedding from his eyes and flickering off in little balls. He nodded. “The cutting will take five minutes. We’ll lose atmosphere in here after about one.”

I froze in place, immediately understanding what I’d been refusing to see. The locking mechanism was badly damaged. It wasn’t just a matter of cutting a bar and then the whole door would pop open. We were going to need to vent atmosphere during the cutting process. I was the only one in here wearing a space suit. The others would suffocate.

Olsen grabbed the torch and went to the door. “I’ll get started,” he said. “There’s no time to spare. The missiles will be here soon enough.”

“You’ll need to take over for him when the air…when he can’t continue anymore,” Choi said.

I ground my teeth together inside my helmet. I wanted to rail against this, to find another way. But I knew damned well that there wasn’t one. If there was anything else we could accomplish in the time we had, these men would at least be suggesting it as an option. That they were simply going ahead with a plan which doomed them to an unpleasant death told me everything I needed to know.

“Damn it. I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t dishonor their sacrifice by offering to take off the suit and give it to one of them. They’d refuse. I knew them well enough to know that. I was The Admiral, after all. The best chance of Mars recovering from this debacle was probably my surviving the next five and a half minutes.

“Don’t be sorry,” Raymond said. “Make it count.”

Then his head jerked back before sagging against his chest. I didn’t need to check his pulse to know that he’d stopped breathing. Neither of the other men checked, either. They simply continued cutting.

A whistling sounded in the small space, audible even through my suit. Olsen had punched through. The air was evacuating the compartment rapidly. Choi gasped, his hands going to his throat as he struggled to breathe in air that simply wasn’t there anymore. Olsen went more quietly, passing out with only a few heaving gasps before he succumbed.

As much as I wanted to look away, I made myself watch the two men die. Anger boiled up inside me. I grabbed hold of that fury and picked the torch back up. I still had the rest of the door to cut loose.

Once I was done with that task, there was going to be a reckoning. The people who did this would pay for it.

Chapter 14

Thomas Stein

Irons and his team trailed behind what was left of my own. Both of us were down several troops. We’d left a pair of able men behind to guard the wounded, holding the same ridge we’d fought so hard to take, while the rest of us pressed on toward the power plant.

The shuttles which had dropped off the UN troops had lifted away again. We hadn’t been able to catch them, and our own rides were destroyed, the drivers both wounded in the blasts. Moving on foot was swifter with the powered armor than it would have been with regular space suits, but it was still a long walk over rough terrain.

Worse yet, without the Growlers we had no means of recharging the armor. The internal batteries were excellent, and would keep us going for a while yet. But every step, every shot, every nod that was augmented by the armor’s motorized skeleton used up a little more of that remaining juice. I tapped through to the power level readout on my suit’s HUD. Most of the men were still above seventy percent charge, but some were as low as half. We needed a way to recharge, and soon.

The power station would solve that issue for us, if we could get there soon, and if it wasn’t already occupied by the enemy when we arrived. Which wasn’t going to be the case if we kept slowing down. I noticed that the men I’d put on point had stopped.

“Lucas, what’s going on up there?” I asked over the radio.

“Picking up some weird shit on thermal, sir. You’d better come have a look at this.”

I grumbled under my breath, but made my way up to the front of the column of men. He was right. When I turned on thermal imaging the whole area looked hot. Small pockets of even higher temperatures were scattered about, but even the cool spots were still much hotter than the terrain we’d seen so far.

“Natural formation?” I said aloud.

“Seems to be. It looks like it extends for a couple kilometers in every direction,” Lucas said. “Not sure what it is, though. You want us to go around it?”

I really didn’t want to go through it. The whole thing gave me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. But on the other hand we couldn’t afford to go that far out of our way, either. “Irons, you hearing this?”

“I am. What’s your call, sir?” he replied.

“I was asking what you thought.”

“I think we might be screwed either way. If we drive through and it turns out to be a volcano about to blow, we’re all dead. But if we go around and General Newman gets more troops out there to take the power station, well, we won’t survive that either,” he said.

I thought about that a minute. It wouldn’t take him long to reinforce such a key location. He knew where we were headed. By now he’d have some idea what we were capable of, in terms of firepower. He’d have the upper hand in the engagement to come unless we could somehow get there before he could reinforce the place.

“We go through,” I said.

“Aye, sir,” Irons replied. He began barking orders, and the men spread out a bit more than they had been. That seemed like a sensible precaution. If something bad happened, maybe some of us would get through.

I put my foot down on the hot spot. No alarms. The ground didn’t sink away beneath my boot. There was no sign it was different at all. I wouldn’t even be able to tell if it weren’t for the thermal image being displayed on my helmet screen.

“Let’s move as quick as we can,” I said.

“Double time!” Irons called out.

We made excellent time as we entered the hot zone. It looked like the worry was for nothing. The ground remained firm, and there was no sign of any problems. The on-board computer was estimating that the zone only continued for about another kilometer. We were going to be through this mess before we knew it.

The heat flare was so sudden that I almost missed it.

Ahead and off to my left the thermal scan lit up like a small star. The computer damped down the display so that it wouldn’t blind me, but I knew that spot had become suddenly and intensely hot. There was a scream from one of my men, and then a plume of something hot blasted skyward from the ground.

I froze in place, watching magma patter down from the tiny volcanic eruption. The men scattered away from the site, but it was already beginning to cool. Corporal Zeffies wasn’t going to be continuing on with us, though. He’s been too close when the thing blew. Not even our armor could survive being blasted with molten rock.

Should we turn back? Was it too late to turn around? I glanced back behind me and saw the men still running forward. Some of them were dashing to were Zeffries had been. I knew they were already too late to save him. His vital signs had flat-lined on my screen the instant his scream stopped. He was dead. Some of the other men were still sprinting dead ahead into the mess.

I glanced ahead, where the men were slowing down. They were looking for orders, I realized. Orders from me. Damn it, what the hell was I doing out here? I was a spaceship captain. This was entirely out of my element. The area we were standing on was a death-trap. Even as I stood there thinking about it another funnel of magma flew skyward from a second micro-eruption. This time no one was hurt, but it was purest chance. We were in the middle of a death trap.

“Sir!” Irons grabbed my arm, speaking to me over our private channel. “You need to take charge, sir!”

“And do what?” I asked.

“The worst thing to do when there is a threat is nothing,” he said. “Act!”

I swept my gaze over the field, wondering where the next hot spot would explode. Should we withdraw? Press on? I hesitated, still unsure what to do, all the while knowing that every second we remained in this place I was putting even more lives at risk.

Chapter 15

Thomas Stein

There had to be some way to find our way through this mess. I wracked my brain, and then had an idea.

“Ground tremors,” I said.

“What?” Irons asked.

“Don’t worry about it, got a plan,” I said.

If this didn’t work, he wasn’t going to be able to berate me for doing it anyway. I’d most likely be dead. But I had a good feeling about this. I was pretty sure that I could wend my way through the maze of invisible bombs about to blow up beneath our feet.

The entire plain was like a minefield. The problem therefore was finding the mines, so that we didn’t step on them. If the explosions were really caused by mines made of metal or something else we could detect, that would be simple. But they weren’t. They were natural occurrences.

“Everyone get behind me,” I called out over the general channel. “Single file, stay close. Be ready to run when I say run and don’t lag behind.”

Natural occurrences which were the result of heat billowing up through the basalt rock the plain was made of, heat and magma from beneath the plate boiling up toward the sky and breaking through whenever it found a weak spot.

Those weak spots weren’t random. They might appear to be, but they were caused by weak spots in the rock allowing the hot material to bust through. The breaking of the underlying rock ought to be putting out tremors, shaking and movement that I should be able to detect.

“Lucas, send up a drone,” I said.

He sent one up. Little aerial robots, the drones had a variety of tools available which made them excellent battleground spies. One of those tools was especially key right now, though. The drone had sensors designed to pick up the movement of troops coming our way by detecting micro tremors through the ground. If the thing could pinpoint the location of men marching toward us through their foot-falls, I was willing to bet it could also locate the vents before they blew us up.

I was sweating a lot. I checked my internal temperature - was the outside heat somehow compromising my suit? But no, it still read a steady seventy degrees. The sweat must be my nerves.

“OK. Have it scan for movement,” I said.

“Sir? You think the UN troops are coming?” he asked. He looked confused.

I stared across at him without saying a word. He hesitated only a moment and then followed my order. It didn’t matter if they didn’t understand why I was asking for something. It was imperative these men learn that they needed to follow orders directly. Lucas was one of the newer troops, pretty green if I recalled correctly. Not everyone in this unit was prior military. I needed to weld them into something solid.

The drone zipped to the ground a few meters ahead of me. I tapped into its feed, and it was like seeing a map of hot-spots open up in front of me. Just for good measure I had it overlay a thermal map - which was hard, because everything here was hot. The images matched up well. I had my hot spots. We could zip through there, and then there, and then…

“Follow me!” I said, then set off at a jog. There was not telling how long the information I had would be good. New jets were pluming every now and again, but I kept us far enough from them that no one was injured. We were about two thirds of the way across before the enemy reminded us they were out there, watching us.

“Incoming missiles!”

Lucas was still manning the drone. That was the only reason we had any warning at all. It was programmed to ping in a variety of ways, and it must have been using radar to watch the skies. I linked into the feed. Sure enough, there were three small rockets speeding our way.

“Leave the drone here. We run for it!” I said. They must have locked on to the drone somehow. If they’d been able to see us earlier, they would have used missile fire then. We sprinted away from the drone as fast as our legs could carry us. This whole area was geologically unstable. When those missiles exploded, it was going to make one hell of a mess.

By leaving the drone behind we lost the ability to see the vents before they blew. One of them exploded upward a short distance behind me. It was close enough that my suit’s temperature spiked a little from the heat. I heard someone scream over the radio, and then the cry cut off. I didn’t have time to stop or even slow down. Any second now the missiles would slam into the broken crust behind us and shatter what was left of it.

Up ahead was the power station. Like the colony itself, it had been built to last, designed to withstand even the harsh extremes of this planet's environment. I scanned the horizon but saw no sign the enemy had beat us here. If we could make the station we'd be safe, at least for a while.

"Make for the station!" I shouted.

I wasn't sure if anyone heard me. My words were drowned out by the roar of explosions as missiles impacted the ground nearby. Like I guessed, the missiles were homing in on the drone. We'd come a good half kilometer in our mad dash since leaving it behind, so we were outside the blast zone. That wasn't what I was worried about.

I watched the explosions go off, one after another. The missiles pummeled the fragile basalt, tearing the rock to shreds and flinging chunks of it into the air. It wasn't the rock that bugged me either. We were too far away for it to damage our armor.

The ground shook even after the missiles stopped exploding. I could imagine all that volatile heat and pressure underneath the basalt crust. It had been leaking out for ages in small spurts - those blasts that had killed my men. Now the missiles had wreaked havoc on the crust. Like a hole punched in a stopper, everything pent up beneath was about to burst free.

The ground exploded upward, blasts of steam, ash, and bits of molten rock shooting a kilometer or more into the sky. Most of my men had made the power station, and I turned back to join them, doing a mental head count. Then I caught sight of movement out there on the blasted plain between myself and the budding volcano.

My helmet magnified the view. Two of my men were out there. One was clearly injured. The other was helping him hobble along. Behind them I could see a pyroclast building. The massive storm of superheated ash would overtake them any moment. They weren't going to make it.

Chapter 16

Nicholas Stein

It took just over five minutes to get me safely ensconced in one of the Hawks. The others had all jetted off to a safe distance at my order, so that only one was at risk from the incoming missiles. Once I was aboard, that one joined the others, putting on as much acceleration as the fast fighter could manage so that it cleared the area before the missiles detonated.

Explosions lit up the night behind us as we soared away.

“Got a problem, sir,” Lieutenant Carlson said. He was flying my fighter. “One of the missiles picked us up.”

“Are we fast enough to just outrun it?” I asked.

“Sure. If we were both starting from zero, we’ve got more acceleration. But it’s already built up a lot of velocity. It’s going to be close.”

I tied my tablet into the fighter and pulled up the display, then wished I hadn’t. It wasn’t like there was much I could do about a missile anyway. This was going to be up to Carlson’s piloting skills. All I could do was sit there and watch that blip rapidly gain on us.

“Hold on!” Carlson shouted. The Hawk banked with sudden ferocity, changing vector as sharply as the little craft could manage. The pilot had spun the ship and then used the main engines to alter our course. We had to be burning at ten gravities or more. I struggled to hold on to consciousness, focusing on the tablet screen to stay awake. The blip showing the missile was coming closer to us, fighting to come about. It was going to be very close.

It flashed by, there and gone in a split second, but near enough that spotted the engine burning like a shooting star zipping past us. I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but we weren’t out of the woods yet. The missile was still trying to turn and pursue my Hawk.

“Hang on sir, we’re making a run,” an unfamiliar voice said over the radio.

At first I wasn’t sure who was speaking. There was a flash of gunfire behind our ship as two of the other Hawks opened up on the missile, blazing away with their nose cannon. One of them must have gotten the targeting right - the missile exploded in a massive flash.

“We’re clear, sir,” Carlson said. If he was shaken by the close call, he wasn’t showing it. A good man. I was going to need those cool nerves of his soon enough. “What are your orders?”

“Have the Hawks run silent for a bit,” I said. “I need to consider our next move.”

“Aye, sir.”

I needed to get to the surface to support Thomas. That much I knew. Even with half their forces gone, the UN troops would be a deadly adversary. The Hawks would never survive the drop through the thick Venusian atmosphere, which meant I needed to grab the drop shuttles from the station orbiting the planet.

But if I simply rushed in and tried to take the station, they’d see us coming from a long way off. Even assuming we survived the missile barrage, boarding an alert station full of UN troops seemed like a poor choice. There was this new secret weapon to contend with as well. If my engineers had been right and this was some sort of Alcubierre drive powered weapon, then Earth could fire it at virtually any target in space that they wanted to hit. If we took the station they’d simply destroy it and us with it.

No, I needed some way to sneak aboard the station. If I was right, though, that problem was about to solve itself. If Earth followed their usual procedures, they were going to provide me with precisely the means to accomplish what I needed.

“Scan nearby space,” I ordered.

“What am I looking for?” Carlson asked.

“Ships,” I said.

“Our ships? Do you have another ship stationed out here somewhere?”

“No,” I said. He waited briefly for me to go on, but I didn’t expand the thinking. Better that he see what was out there without my biasing his search.

He sighed and went to work. The Hawks had a strong array of passive sensors, and he was using all of them. I had the feeds from his computer reporting to my tablet, so I was seeing everything he did. Technically I could have run the search myself using the tablet as a control device. I had override commands for all the Hawks, and anything else in the Mars Navy. But part of me wanted to see if he was bright enough to figure out what I had in mind by himself.

“I’ve only got one ship on nearby scans,” he said at last. “It’s a freighter, inbound from Earth. It’ll be at the Venus station in about two hours.”

“Yes, they’re sending another ‘freighter’ to Venus,” I said.

“You think it’s more troops?”

“I’d bet it’s nothing but,” I said.

“You sound way happier about the idea than I’d have thought you would be.”

“I am happy,” I said. More or less, anyway. It would be an incredibly high risk operation. This was more Thomas’s bailiwick these days than it was mine. I hadn’t pulled this sort of rush-in-dare-all attack since… Well, not since the old war, before the Lunar Accords were first signed. “We’re going to take their ship. And then we’re going to use their ride as our key to take the station without anyone knowing it’s us.”

“If they get out even one radio signal that they’re being hit…” he trailed off.

“Then we’ll be toast. Choi won’t hesitate to use their new weapon on his own ship, not if he knows he can take me out in the process. We need to take their ship without them reporting the attack,” I said.

“Sir, begging your pardon, but that’s impossible. Even for you.”

“Not impossible. Just god-damned hard,” I said. I tapped my tablet a few times, working out coordinates for the intercept. It was going to be tight, and if anything went sideways we would be done for. But then, I was already supposed to be dead, wasn’t I? Everything I did from here on out was for the men who had died to keep me alive long enough to hit back.

I would strike for them. Choi was going to rue the day he re-opened this war.

Chapter 17

Thomas Stein

I was moving before I stopped to think. There wasn't time to second guess myself. I bounded forward, using the lower gravity and the powerful motors in my armor to take massive leaps toward the pair.

"Stein! What the hell?" Irons said into my ear. He was on our private channel. Good man. I didn't need my folly broadcast to everyone.

"Get them inside," I huffed. I was breathing hard with the exertion of moving so fast. The armor helped augment my run, but it was still hard work to move as fast as I was. "If I screw this up, you're in charge."

"Damn it, sir," he said.

He sounded frustrated, and I couldn't blame him. I wondered what my father would have done in this scenario? Probably something much more brilliant and refined, but I wasn't him. All I could do was be myself.

I touched down an arm’s length away from the two men. The wounded man looked up at me, startled. It was Marsden, the man who had helped me during the battle for the ridge.

“Sir?” he said.

“No time,” I replied. I grabbed his arm and threw it over my shoulder, then looked over at the soldier who was supporting his other side. “On my mark, we jump. Land, jump, repeat. Fast as we can. Ready?”

The wind was already blowing hard behind us. I could feel the heat building against the back of my armor. Any moment now that pyroclastic cloud was going to roast us alive.

“Go!” I roared.

We leapt. With both of our suits propelling the three of us, and the wind roaring at our backs, we flew a dozen meters before touching down again. As soon as we landed we were aloft again, eating up terrain with each leap. There was no time to look back, and I was glad. If I’d been able to peek at the wave of destruction about to wash over us I might have frozen. Instead I stayed focused on the task. Land, jump, hold our balance while gliding through the air, then land and repeat it again.

The station was just ahead. Two men were standing in the open doorway, beckoning at us, shouting something that I couldn’t hear over the blood roaring in my ears. We took a last bounding jump toward shelter and safety.

Then the wave hit us. It smacked into the rear of my armor like a giant hand had slapped me. I lost control of our glide. We weren’t heading for a gentle landing anymore, we were clinging to one another and hoping for the best. Alarms chimed inside my helmet as the heat spiked.

We passed through the open doorway. I had a sense that men were struggling to close it behind us, but I was still hurtling through the air. The room was big, and we cleared about half of it before crashing to the floor in a heap.

“Ow,” I said. My head hurt. My ears were ringing. I tasted blood, and figured I must have split my lip. The armor was giving me just about every alarm noise that a machine could make, and the inside of my helmet was flashing red. We’d built these things tough, but I didn’t think anyone had thought to include surviving volcanic eruptions in the design specs.

“You two OK?” I asked the other men.

Marsden groaned and looked up at me. “I feel like a lobster after it’s been cracked and boiled, sir,” he said. “But I’m here. Thanks to you.”

Irons stalked over toward me. I could feel the heat from his eyes. I winced a little, getting ready for a lecture. I knew I’d been dumb. Commanders don’t rush off to save someone. Of the entire team, I was the one the UN was most interested in. I was also the guy with command codes and other information vital to keeping the entire unit alive. If I died doing something stupid, the survivors would have an impossible mission ahead of them.

“Listen, I know…” I started to say, hoping to cut off the lecture.

“That was damned fine work out there.” He laid a hand on my shoulder and smiled.

“What?”

Irons canted his head to the side a little. “Thought I’d be pissed? I am. But you lived through it and learned something, didn’t you?”

“I think so, yeah,” I said.

“Good enough. Strip your armor off. I’ll have one of the men run diagnostics and repair whatever he can manage in the field. We’ve got breathable air in here.”

I took off my helmet and sucked in a lungful of it. It smelled of sulphur, and the room was warmer than I’d have liked. But a little bit of breathing room was more than I thought possible just a few minutes before. I glanced around at the troops, checking who was still with us. A few of them returned my examination with relieved grins. One of the grizzled vets among them gave me a sharp, approving nod.

The crazy stunt I’d just pulled had won me some points with the platoon. That wasn’t why I’d done it, but I’d take it.

“Let’s get some medical attention for anyone who needs it, and make sure our armor is plugged into the power units so we’re at full charge,” I said. “We took the station, but I doubt Newman is going to sit around on his ass. Get some rest and eat something, but be ready to move.”

The chorus of voices calling out “Aye, sir” was steady and sounded confident, not ragged. I felt a sense of deep satisfaction at the sound.

Chapter 18

Thomas Stein

I wolfed down a packaged ration that tasted like salt and carbohydrates, thinking back to the stories Acres used to tell me about his days on active duty. Crappy rations seemed to be a universal constant in the military, no matter the era.

Thinking about Acres just made me miss the old Chief all the more. If he were here, he would help sort this whole mess out. He’d tell me when I was going off target, and help guide me to do the right thing. Irons was a good man. He was excellent at getting the men to accomplish whatever tasks I set them to, handling all the minutia of getting things done. But he was looking to me for leadership. I couldn’t count on him to call me out if I screwed up. There was nobody here who would do that. I was in charge, not just of myself but of all the rest of these people. Their lives were literally in my hands, and it scared the hell out of me.

After eating, I explored a little bit, as much to walk off sore muscles as anything else. The power station wasn’t much of a base. It was more of a large shack built into a rocky cliff face. Below this command level were massive turbines, powered by thermal activity. Those turbines provided enough power to keep the colony alive. In a pinch, this one station could supply all the energy the colony needed. Provided we held this place, Newman couldn’t just turn off their lights.

Which meant he was going to have a strong interest in making sure we couldn’t hold the place.

“What’s the status on the armor?” I asked Irons.

“They’ll all be at full charge soon,” he said. “Some light damage to a few of them, including yours. But overall, they’re holding up very well. This is one hell of a shakedown we’re putting them through.”

“No kidding,” I replied. We hadn’t been expecting to drop into a shooting war on this trip. It was a miracle these untested rigs were holding up as well as they were.

“Sir, your battery pack got a little scorched out there. I’ve had Lucas reinforce it, but I don’t think it’s going to get above ninety percent capacity.”

That wasn’t good, but it was better news than it could have been. The battery units were stored in our backs, so mine probably took the brunt of the heat during the last of my mad dash earlier.

“I’ll be careful about expending power,” I said.

“Don’t get shot in the back, either,” he replied wryly. “The patch is good, but if it’s punctured…”

He didn’t really need to go on. The battery packs were armored to hell, but if one of the things blew out, it wouldn’t be pretty. A really, really hot fire was about the best possible outcome. Worst case, it would make some fantastic fireworks. In either case, the person wearing the suit wouldn’t survive the experience. That was the drawback to having so much energy contained in such relatively small packages.

“Sir, we’ve got a combat shuttle inbound!”

I walked swiftly to the control console, where Private Batra was monitoring for signs of enemy activity. Her screen was lit up with a video feed of the scene outside. The volcano had died down some. In the distance lava bubbled up onto the surface, flowing slowly out over the plain, but it was far enough away that there was no real threat to the installation.

She pointed to the screen, where a flying object was coming into view, growing larger as it approached. The shuttle looked like a snub-nosed airplane, with stubby wings. Massive thrusters kept it aloft.

“That’s a cargo shuttle,” I said, recognizing the design.

“They’ve repurposed it,” Irons said. He pointed at the screen. “See the missile racks under the wings? That’s likely what they fired at us out there on the fire plain.”

“Creative,” I said.

“You didn’t give them much choice.”

He wasn’t wrong. I’d ceased hostilities from Earth by blowing up most of their space infrastructure. I’d allowed them to evacuate first, but I’d blasted the hell out of every major spaceport and ship-building site. My hope had been that the carnage I’d wrought would mean we’d have decades to prepare for renewed battle. But they’d been more creative and focused than I’d expected.

“Get everyone back into armor,” I said. “We’re about to have company.”

They were swinging wide, coming in a round-about flight path. At first I thought they were scouting for us, but the answer was much simpler. They were flying around the volcano they’d created. I grunted. Would serve them right if the mess they made took them out, but it looks like that wasn’t going to happen. It gave us plenty of time to arm up though, which I was grateful for.

The shuttle descended toward the ground with a lazy manner, and the bay doors opened. UN troops in space suits came up. Their rifles were up, and they were moving at a good pace, but I wasn’t detecting a real sense of urgency in their movement. They weren’t walking like it was a lazy day in the park, but they seemed less alert than I would have thought.

“Oh my god,” I said.

“What is it?” Irons replied.

“They think we’re dead. They think we died in the explosion,” I said. “Look at the way they’re moving. It’s a reconnaissance maneuver, not a movement to contact.”

He watched the screen and then nodded. “I think you’re right, sir. How does this help us?”

I walked over to my own armor. It was time to get ready for a fight. This time, it was our turn to spring a little surprise on the other side.

“We let them think they’re right,” I said.

Chapter 19

Nicholas Stein

The setup was harder than the actual assault would be. At least that was what I was hoping, because setting the operation up had been damned near impossible. Linking up with a moving ship in space wasn’t difficult. The Earth ship approaching Venus was a civilian transport vessel. It wasn’t a scheduled run, and given recent events I felt safe assuming the ship had been co-opted by the military. This wasn’t food or medical supplies. The ship was carrying more troops to assist General Newman in his takeover of the planet.

As simple as linking up with the ship would be, we needed to do it without their being aware of our presence. That was a damned sight harder. The Hawks were equipped with the best stealth tech that we could make, which was excellent. But if we started firing thrusters all over the place we were going to show up on their radar anyway. The entire operation was therefore about tiny boosts, small bits of thrust. Just enough, no more - if we were off by even a little we would have to give ourselves away too soon.

We’d managed it, at least as best I could calculate. The ship was coming straight at us, closing the gap at just a few meters per second. The Hawks were lined up directly in its flight path, powered down enough that they were virtually invisible to scans. They wouldn’t see us until we chose to let them, and by then it would be too late.

But we needed to do more than blow the ship up. That would have been easy. We needed to take the ship, and use it as a transport to get aboard the station. If Earth knew we’d taken it, they’d simply blow it up with their new weapon. We had to be incredibly covert.

Which is why I was sitting out on the wing of Carlson’s fighter instead of inside the cockpit. If this went sideways I was going to have a hell of a hard time holding on, but there was no other way to get the job done. Besides, I’d done this sort of thing once before.

“I still think it should be me out there instead of you, Admiral,” Carlson said over the radio.

“I can’t fly this bird anywhere near as well as you can,” I replied.

“You did this before sir, back in the war… Won’t they expect the same trick again?”

During the war which first spawned the Lunar Accords, I’d taken a troop of Marines out into space where we’d waited for a Chinese vessel that had just nuked the lunar colony. We’d boarded her while in flight, taken the ship, and sent it along with its remaining missiles home to make a very large crater in the middle of China. It ended the war and forever stained my conscience.

My palms were sweaty at the thought of trying to repeat the experience. It had been hell the first time. I doubted it would improve with an extra twenty years of age.

“They think I’m dead, remember?” I said. “Besides, I’m not boarding them this time. I’m taking the short-cut.”

“If you say so, sir.”

He wasn’t sure, and I couldn’t blame him. Hell, I wasn’t sure, and I was the one out there on the wing waiting to board the ship. There wasn’t much that I could say to ease his mind. All we could do was wait.

The ship continued steadily toward us. We were in luck - exactly where I wanted us to be, looking right down their snout. All four Hawks were floating in space in close formation, directly ahead of the nose of the oncoming ship.

“They’ll pick us up before too long, sir. Stealth or no, these ships aren’t invisible,” Carlson said.

“You’re one of those glass half empty sort of guys, aren’t you?” I asked him.

“Yes sir. Keeps me alive.”

“How does it keep you alive?” I asked.

“Well, to be fair, it’s really only that it hasn’t killed me yet. Probably will someday.”

I laughed aloud at the joke. “Trust a pessimist to be pessimistic about the outcome of pessimism. You’re a rare man,” I said.

“A real live pessimist? Yeah, we’re a dying breed,” he said.

“Just tell me as soon as you’re in range for a one meter target lock on your guns, and we might live through this yet,” I said.

“Aye sir.”

As we floated there by thoughts drifted back to Thomas. I had to believe he was still alive down there, fighting the UN forces. I’d slashed the opponent’s force in half, but they would still have a lot of troops. Of course, Thomas had our powered armor, which ought to put up one hell of a fight. But the enemy had Newman. That alone balanced the scales. I wouldn’t want to face Newman in a land battle. In space…sure. He was a ground-pounder at heart. But he had as good a head for overall strategy as anyone I’d ever known.

“Stay focused, Thomas. Get him to make the mistakes,” I muttered.

“What was that, sir?” Carlson asked.

“Nothing. How long until range?”

“Ten seconds, sir.”

I waited, counting them away in my head. I could see the ship well enough now. Like most civilian ships, the bridge was in the nose, with a heavily shielded window out into space. It was an odd affectation. I didn’t place a window on my combat ships, and I usually placed the bridge as deeply inside the ship as I could manage to better protect it.

But old habits die hard, and astronauts had insisted on windows from very nearly the first manned trip into space. This ship had the same feature. That would be its undoing.

“We’re in range, sir.”

“Fire.”

I hung on tight as the fighter plus her four sisters spat a hail of bullets down toward the nose of the ship. We accelerated gently forward at the same time, closing on the vessel as we blazed away.

Chapter 20

Thomas Stein

Booted feet rattled on the floor just over my head as the UN troops poured into the power station. The room-clearing operation they were doing was damned near by the textbook perfect. They moved fluidly across the space, checking doorways, searching dead spaces. These guys were good. Impressively so.

It wasn’t going to help them.

I couldn’t hear their words. The space suits they wore muffled their voices too much. But it wasn’t hard to get a sense what they were saying: “Clear!”

What they would be feeling was relief. If they’d thought we were alive in here, they wouldn’t have come in this way, and they wouldn’t have landed in the manner they did. No, they were pretty sure we were dead, and now they were simply confirming that. But confirmation bias is a hell of a thing in war.

“Now,” I said.

Irons hit a button and a string of tiny mines we’d implanted in the walls blew outward. Each mine had enough explosive to take them out in the enclosed space anyway. But they each also had a few hundred small metal disks attached in a manner that would turn the disks into spinning razor blades propelled by the detonations.

One mine would probably have done the job. We’d set up six. I believed in making sure.

As soon as the mines went off we were moving, bounding up the stairs from the lower level where we’d been hiding two armored bodies at a time. I reached the door first and flung it open.

“Move, everyone! We need to take their shuttle!” I followed my own order and sprinted for the main door, trying to keep from looking at the carnage around me. The men hadn’t had a chance. They’d been cut to ribbons by the combination of the explosion and the disks. I’d never seen so many people so instantly and completely destroyed. I could feel my stomach turning over and shifted my eyes away from the mess that remained, focusing on the exit door instead.

The UN troops had left both airlock doors jammed open, which left the way ahead clear. I bolted straight for the shuttle, two of my Marines close behind me.

Bolts of laser fire flashed over my head as I exited the power station. It was no surprise they’d left a few troops behind in the ship, but the door gunner guarding the rear end of the ship was unexpected. They’d definitely made more than a few modifications to the vessel.

I fired back, aiming as best I could as I ran. My fire pattered the rear end of the ship around the man, making him duck down to avoid being shot. I didn’t hit him, but at least I messed up his shooting back.

The shuttle’s engines were still warm, and they were done waiting around. They must have had a good idea what had happened inside, and they weren’t waiting around. Those powerful engines blasted hard against the ground, lifting the shuttle into the air.

I had one shot at stopping them. I jumped. The shuttle was still low enough that my leap carried me right up onto the deck next to the door gunner. He stared at me with wide eyes.

Lucas landed beside me, and a second Marine tried to jump but just missed, his fingers clinging to the lip of the deck as the shuttle lifted higher into the air.

“Help him,” I said. Lucas reached over to grab the other man. Meanwhile, the UN soldier seemed to think I’d forgotten about him. He grabbed the heavy laser mounted in front of him and tried to turn it on us.

“Bad move,” I said. I’d have rather take a prisoner or two, but I couldn’t afford to take chances out here. I swatted him with one arm. The blow was hard enough that it knocked him clear of the platform. We were already about fifty feet in the air and climbing fast. I didn’t give him good odds on surviving the fall, but my men would grab him if he did.

The two Marines beside me were ready to go. I kicked in the door, entering the main bay of the shuttle, ready to blaze my way through a squad of bad guys. It was empty, though. No welcoming party inside. They’d put all their troops out to clear the building except that one?

Moving quickly but cautiously, we crossed the hall. “Keep your eyes out for booby traps,” I said. The last thing we needed was to be caught by the same sort of trap we’d just sprung on them.

The shuttle was empty except for the cockpit. Lucas looked over at me and shrugged. Then he kicked the door hard. The locking mechanism shattered, and the door swung inward.

The cockpit was occupied. I heaved a small sigh of relief. If this place was empty I really would have been suspecting a trap. I didn’t know if Newman was ruthless enough to sacrifice a squad just to trap me, but I needed to be more careful.

The men didn’t seem surprised to see us. It was a cramped space, with just a pilot and co-pilot. Lucas blocked most of the doorway, leaving me to peek around his armor. I tapped him on the shoulder.

“Let me talk to them. I think you’re scaring them,” I said.

“Good.” But he backed clear, letting me step into the space he was vacating.

“Gentlemen,” I said, using the suit’s external speakers. “I can fly this shuttle without any trouble. Turn this bucket back around and land it where you were, and you get to live a while. You’ve got three seconds, and then I rip you out of those seats and do it myself.”

“Will you consider us prisoners of war, sir?” the pilot asked me.

I thought about that a moment. Part of me didn’t want to. Part of me wanted to get back at these people for the damage they’d done and the lives they’d shattered. But that wasn’t who I wanted to be.

“Yes,” I said.

They shared a look, but didn’t hesitate long. The shuttle banked hard to the left, pivoting on one wing to bring us back where we’d come from.

“Damn, sir!” Lucas said over the platoon radio net. “I thought you said I was scaring them! You spooked them good.”

“Oh, did I?” I grinned back. “I guess I meant you weren’t scaring them enough.”

One blow landed for our side. Let’s see how Newman would respond to losing one of his last shuttles. I didn’t think we were going to have to wait long for him to respond.

Chapter 21

Thomas Stein

The shuttle settled back down onto the ground in front of the station. I heard cheering over my radio, and grinned. My Marines were cracking jokes and laughing, radio protocols be damned. They were in excellent spirits, and with good reason. We’d been harried and run around, but this time it was our turn to strike a blow back at the enemy.

Gaining the shuttle bought us a mobility we hadn’t had since losing the Growlers. We could take the fight to the enemy, or regroup with the other personnel who were still pinned down at the Archimedes. I could go get Kel and fly the hell away from this place, if things got really bad.

Before, I’d been considering waiting around to see how Newman would react. Now I realized that would be a mistake. We had won the initiative. That gave us a short period of time where he would be the one reacting to us, instead of the other way around. We could take him off balance if we moved quickly. I signaled Irons on our private channel.

“Have you managed to contact the Archimedes yet?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. They’ve got a platoon of soldiers more or less besieging them. It’s an even fight right now. The ship is keeping their troops pinned down, but if they try to lift off they’ll be vulnerable to missile fire from the enemy shuttles,” he said.

“OK. Check with the other men, see if anyone besides me is qualified to fly the shuttle. I want to get someone in here I can trust,” I said.

“Already checked. With Flynn down for the count, we’ve only got two other pilots,” Irons said. “Lieutenant Mackenzie, and you.”

“And Mackenzie is…?”

“Back on the Archimedes. Had to leave someone there who could fly the thing, sir.”

I grunted. It was a problem, but it wasn’t the end of the world. “OK. I’m going to take the shuttle out to go pick up our wounded. Soon as I land, I’ll have the guys with me take our prisoners inside. Lock them up someplace safe.”

“Prisoners?” he asked. “The pilots?”

“Yeah. They surrendered on the basis of being prisoners of war.”

“Understood, sir. I’ll make sure they’re stowed someplace safe and out of the way.” He paused before going on. “Your father would have just killed them.”

“Are you saying I should have…!”

“That wasn’t a complaint, sir. Just an observation. You did well. We’ll be ready for them when you arrive.”

There was no way I could help thinking about what he said as I came in to land. More than just about anything I was tired of the comparisons with my father. The man was a legend. It was damned hard to live up to that sort of thing. But I thought in fairness that I’d done pretty well on my own. Was Irons right? Would Dad have simply killed the pilots? What did that say about me, and about him?

I touched down, but only stayed long enough for the men to jump off with the prisoners before kicking the shuttle into the air again. There were four wounded men back on the ridge, with two other Marines guarding them. I hadn’t liked leaving them behind in the first place. Too much risk that Newman would happen across them and take them all prisoner. It was good to be able to go back after them.

The shuttle was a brick. It wasn’t anything like our combat vessels, or Dad’s courier. It had poor maneuverability, no stealth, and crappy scanners. That’s why they hadn’t known we were still alive. These men were used to trusting their scan systems, but they were used to military grade equipment. The shuttle was a quick and haphazard upgrade to a civilian vessel.

Keeping the ship close to the ground seemed like the best bet. The last thing I wanted was for Newman to get a good bead on the shuttle and start shooting at me. I needed to be quick about this run, though. The more time that went by, the more Newman could work out his own next moves. I could feel the seconds slipping away from me.

“This is Stein in the shuttle,” I broadcast over our secure radio channel. The shuttle radio might be linked in to Newman’s system. My suit’s was not. We hadn’t been able to reach the team that I left on the ridge before, because they were too far away. I listened, hoping they were all right and would respond.

“We’re here, sir. You here for a pickup?”

My suit linked in to his radio signal and gave me his position. I guided the shuttle that way, slowly settling toward the ground at the same time. I wanted this to be a quick op. Grab the men and get airborne again as fast as we could.

“Yes. Setting down now,” I said. “Make your way to my position as quickly as you can.”

I tapped the controls to lower the rear hatch as the shuttle shuddered to a stop. I was turning away from the control panel to help get our wounded aboard when my screen lit up. I froze in place as the screen flashed, went fuzzy, and then resolved into the image of a face.

He was about my Dad’s age, with platinum hair that was cropped short. He had a hard jaw, thick eyebrows, and steel blue eyes that glared out from beneath them. A little scar ran across his forehead. He had another one his cheek. I knew the face at once, of course.

“General Newman,” I said. I settled back into my seat again. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Thought it might be you flying the shuttle, Stein,” he said. “That was a neat trick, ambushing my team and then stealing their craft.”

“Thanks. But you’re not calling to flatter my tactics.”

“No, I’m calling to ask you to surrender,” he said.

“And why would I do that? We won the last round,” I asked.

“You won a battle,” he acknowledged with a nod. “You’ve got good men there, and that armor you’re wearing is something we hadn’t anticipated. Well done.”

“But?” I asked. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Why contact me now? He had some new bit of information, or something else had changed.

He shrugged. “Thomas, you did good work here. But it’s all over. You did your best. The war is finished. Your side lost. There is no shame in surrender.”

“What do you mean?” I’d be damned if it was. Someone was still fighting out there in orbit. I still had a ship. Mars would never have just given up, even if they had taken out Mars Station. People would still be out there fighting back.

“I have a cargo ship full of reinforcements headed this way. They’ll be at the station in orbit within the hour. Earth is sending a brigade of troops, just for you. You ought to be flattered, son.”

“I’m not your son,” I replied. “I suspect that most of those troops are being sent to deal with my father, not me.”

“Oh.” He looked shocked, and then sad. “I thought you might have known. Your father survived the destruction of his ship, yes. The old bastard managed to hole up in a missile pod and somehow live through it all. But we took out the pod shortly after he fired on my shuttles. It was destroyed.”

Which didn’t mean he was still on board the thing. He would have known they would return fire and gotten the hell out of there somehow.

“In case you’re thinking he got out…” Newman said.

“It had crossed my mind,” I said.

“There wasn’t much left of the pod, but we did bio-scans. There was a little DNA residue there. Several people. One of them was him. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Your father was one of a kind.”

My head whirled. Was he telling the truth? If he was, then we were about to be completely overrun. I couldn’t hold against a combat brigade. We were having enough trouble just keeping Newman at bay with the small group of men he had. Reinforced, he’d be a nightmare.

The best chance seemed to be to get back to the Archimedes and get the hell out of Dodge. We would be risking whatever weapon Earth had used on the Hermes, but it was that or certain failure by staying.

“Why call me at all?” I asked.

“Because I wanted to see if you’d come over. The fight is done. I’m mopping up here. Other men are finishing off the last bits of resistance on Mars. Your father is gone, Clarke is besieged. You’re one of the last heads of this rebellion left on the loose,” Newman said. “Have to say, it would go a long way toward ending this entire mess if you would surrender now.”

“After everything Choi did, he expects me to just give up now?” I snarled.

Newman hesitated. I watched his eyes flicker, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell me something and was making sure no one else was near enough to hear him. He lowered his voice before going on. “There’s more going on than you know. Choi’s an ass, but he has reasons. Surrender and I can tell you.”

What possible reason could validate everything I had seen Choi do? He violated laws and ethics with wild abandon. He had killed people with such a casual attitude that I doubted the man was even bothered by the murders. He was responsible for so damned much death and destruction. I was curious about what Newman had to say. But whatever story they had concocted that let Newman sleep at night, it would not be enough to validate the things Choi had done.

“No,” I said. My voice was level and firm, which surprised me.

My answer didn’t seem to shock Newman. “Too much like your damned old man. What comes next is on you, then. Newman out.”

He closed the link. I sat there wondering what the hell he had been talking about. I was worried about my father. I was worried about Kel. I was frightened for all the people back on Mars who were counting on me.

Me! It was just me out here, and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Choi had men like Newman working for him, people with more years in the military than I had alive. How the hell was I supposed to fight something like that?

One step at a time, I figured. I took a deep breath, trying to still my nerves. All I could do was take things one step at a time. If I continued trying to do the right thing, well, at least I’d be able to know I stood for something right to the end.

Chapter 22

Nicholas Stein

The nose of the enemy ship was broken and twisted. My pilots had done their job well. Most of their fire had blasted through the window, shredding the interior of the bridge.

“Bring us in as close as you can,” I said.

“Aye, sir,” Carlson said. I could tell from the tone of his voice that he thought this was a crazy plan. It really wasn’t that difficult. It simply required extremely precise accuracy on several difficult things.

First, our course needed to be dead on target. A fraction of a degree out of alignment, a little too fast or too slow, and we would have missed the target. Second, it required the Hawks to place their fire with incredible accuracy. A meter too far in the wrong direction, and they’d blow the control computers to bits. We’d still be able to destroy the Earth ship then, but I wanted to do more than just blow it up.

This was the third tricky element. Carlson needed to get me in close enough to jump across, and then I needed to hack their control computer quickly enough that I could deal with the hundreds of soldiers on board the ship before they could respond.

I jumped across, sailing freely in space between the two ships. Tricky, this. The opening was a mess of twisted metal. The ship used transparent aluminum for the window. Although the Hawks’ fire had blasted it apart, it didn’t just shatter like glass would have. It twisted and deformed like metal instead. I had big gaps I could glide inside through, but it would be like entering the open mouth of a shark. I broke my forward motion on the outer hull and then carefully inserted my legs into the gap.

A sharp tug on my left thigh was all the warning I received that I had snagged my suit on one of the jagged bits of metal. I froze in place, not daring to move a muscle. There was no telltale hiss of air escaping from my suit. The fabric hadn’t torn. I kept the leg as still as I could manage and slowly reached down to unhook the suit from the metal.

It came away without a rip. I continued into the bridge of the ship. The consoles were shot to hell, full of holes from the barrage of fire. Bodies and parts of bodies floated in the room. The gunfire had been very thorough. At the far end of the bridge the doors to the rest of the ship had sealed. Out there in the rest of the ship they’d know something had happened in here, but not what. Not yet. That wouldn’t last. I had a short window before they got that door open to act.

I glanced around the bridge, looking for a working console. Any working console would work. I found what I was seeking in a corner of the bridge. A single damage control console had survived. That was going to simplify things greatly. I quickly linked my tablet to the console with a hard line, and then clicked the transmit button.

The tablet was linked into Carlson’s Hawk, which had a military grade combat computer with near-AI level power behind it. The Hawks didn’t have close to the computer capacity of my larger warships. They were never expected to function in the manner circumstances were demanding. But this ship wasn’t a military ship at all. It was a civilian transport vessel that had been co-opted by UN forces.

Adding military hardware as upgrades would have tipped their hand. They’d left the old computer in place, which meant it was hackable. Easily so. It was just going to take time.

There was a banging on the door, and muffled voices calling out in alarmed tones. “Sir? Are you all right? What’s going on in there?”

I hoped that I had enough time to make the connection. If I didn’t, I still had Carlson’s pistol belted to my side. In a pinch I could hold the bridge for at least a few minutes. Or I could call in fire from the Hawks, but they might do more damage, and I still needed the ship intact.

Every minute that went by increased the chances Earth would hear that the ship had been hit. Choi would know it was me. He’d blow the entire ship up to get to me. I was sure of it. I had to get this situation under control quickly.

A light flashed green on my tablet. The Hawk’s AI had overcome the ship’s computer. More flashes, user interfaces appearing on the console and my tablet. The ship’s computer was giving me everything. I had access to just about every control on the ship. Excellent.

My fingers flew across the keyboard, working as rapidly as I could at the quick hack. There are some things you just cannot ask the ship’s computer to do. Certain actions which it has been programmed never to take. The trick then was to find a way to accomplish what you wanted anyway, to fool the computer into doing the thing.

I wanted the air evacuated from the ship. But a ship won’t do that. It’s been programmed to ignore such a command as an error or otherwise invalid. To get the air out, I needed to trick the computer.

Lights flashed, and even though I couldn’t hear them in the vacuum around me I knew that sirens were sounding through the rest of the ship. I’d set off the fire alarms. All of them.

The pounding on the door became louder and more frantic.

Fires were every bit as much a problem on ships in space as they had been on wet navy vessels. Having things combust in an enclosed space filled with high quantities of compressed oxygen was a nightmare. Fail-safes would cut in immediately.

First the doors would slam shut, cutting off the affected area. Sirens would sound for a few seconds, warning any crew inside to get into their emergency equipment. Then the ship would evacuate air from the compartment, venting it out of the affected area.

It was a highly effective means of fighting ship-board fires.

But what I’d done was fool the ship’s computer into thinking it had fires in every compartment on the ship. All of them at once. Right now it was venting the air from the entire ship.

A few fast crew members might be able to get into a suit. It wouldn’t help them. The computer would keep thinking that the fires were blazing away. Those areas would remain on lockdown. And I’d reserved all computer access for myself alone.

For the bulk of the ship’s population? For the hundreds of UN soldiers that were housed on board, headed for Venus? I doubted that more than a few would even know how to get into their suits in time. Ground-pounders, the lot of them, they wouldn’t have the drill experience required.

It was a dirty, brutal tactic. If there were any other way to win this battle, I’d take it. But it was no less than they’d done to my ship. Choi had driven the war to this new level. I would need to be willing to match him if we were to have any chance of winning.

Throughout the ship, I knew people were dying. Part of me hated myself for doing this. Those people were cold, in the dark, with the air being sucked from their lungs. I’d made terrible decisions before and shouldered the burden. I steeled myself to manage this one as well. I had the uncomfortable feeling there would be more moments like this in the days ahead.

Chapter 23

Thomas Stein

The men had nearby finished loading our wounded aboard the shuttle when I got a radio call from the Archimedes. I hadn’t even thought about trying to reach them, but of course the shuttle would have a strong enough radio to reach greater distances than our personal devices.

“Stein here,” I said, picking up the call.

“Sir! Glad we reached you,” the Marine on the other end was out of breath, practically babbling.

“Slow down. What’s the problem? Newman’s men assaulting the ship?”

“No sir,” he said. “They’re still out there, but they seem content to keep us pinned down. They’re firing on the power station though, sir.”

It took me a minute to realize who it was he was talking about. My first thought was that the men Newman had left attacking the Archimedes were somehow shooting at Irons, but that made no sense. They were miles away from each other.

“Who is shooting at the power station?” I asked, clipping each word out slowly.

“The ship. In orbit, sir. It’s fired a missile.”

“Shit,” I said. “Thanks for the heads up.”

I cut the comm link off before I snapped the man’s head off. He was nervous and worried and obviously inexperienced. Some of our people were pretty green. I had the feeling most of the newer soldiers in my squads were already dead, but there were a few total greenhorns still safe on the Archimedes.

Mostly I was angry with myself. I knew that Newman would try something, and I should have expected this. He had the other station. He didn’t need to have both to threaten the colony. He just needed to have the only one still functioning.

The men were all aboard. I warmed up the shuttle’s drives. “Everyone back there grab a hold of something and hang on tight. I’m locking the hatch. This is gonna get bumpy.”

“You need a copilot, sir?” a Marine with corporal stripes asked from the doorway.

“You have flying experience?” I asked.

“Do drones count?” she replied.

“It’s better than nothing. Sit down,” I said. I slapped my hand on the radio as we lifted away. I had to warn Irons. Taking out the missile was going to be hard, and if I screwed it up he needed to be able to get the Marines out of there before the missile hit.

“Irons here.”

“Orbital spaceship just fired on your position,” I said. I checked the shuttle’s radar. I was already getting telemetry on the missile. “It’s going to impact in about five minutes. I’m moving to intercept, but if I’m probably not going to get two shots at this thing. If I miss…”

“We’ll begin evacuating right away,” he said. “Good luck, sir. Irons out.”

I fired up the shuttle’s engines, juicing them for every bit of power I could muster. We had some serious ground to gain if I wanted to intercept that missile. For about the hundredth time I wished Kel were here. This whole operation would be a lot more certain with her on the stick. Truth was, I wished she were here for a lot more reasons than that. If this station went down, Newman would have everything he needed to force the colony to capitulate. They’d have no choice at all. Then Kel would be in the hands of the enemy. I had to get her out of there, but how?

My targeting computer beeped at me, bringing my full attention back to the task at hand. Whether I was the best person for the job or not, I was the one who was here. I’d brought the shuttle on track to intercept the missile at a roughly right angle. I’d get a good clean shot as the thing passed by in front of my nose.

“What’s your name, Corporal?” I asked, as much to pass the time as anything else.

“Kovak, sir. Xandrie Kovak.”

“Well, hang on, Kovak. This is going to get rough.”

“Yes sir.”

The turbulence was incredible up this high. As thick as the atmosphere around Venus was, the wind speeds were incredible. Combined the velocity and pressure was enough to overwhelm most lighter shuttles. This one was large, heavily built, and able to take the beating. Even so it was difficult to keep it on course.

The fire controls were crap, too. The whole thing had been jerry-rigged into place. Wing mounted missiles and slapped together firing mechanisms. It felt a little like we’d been pushed back to the tech that we’d been forced to fight with at the beginning of the war, when no one had real battleships and everyone was using whatever pea-shooters they could strap onto a spaceship.

It would have to do. I fought to bring the targeting reticle to bear on the oncoming missile. Every time I got close, the wind hammered my shuttle from the side, beating us off course and throwing my aim.

“I can aim the missile, sir,” Kovak said.

“Are you sure?” I asked. If we missed…

“Yes sir.”

“Make it count. We’re not going to get another shot.”

“Aye sir. Taking the fire control now.” She bent forward over her console, working frantically to lock in on the missile in time.

I watched the range drop precipitously. Ever second brought us closer. She needed to get that lock and fire in the next ten seconds, or we were going to miss the shot. “Kovak…”

“Almost…got it!” she said. “Firing!”

The shuttle rocked as two missiles detached from the wings and sped off to engage their target. I waited, breathless. There was nothing else we could do right now. Either they’d hit, or they wouldn’t. It was out of our hands.

On my screen the blips of our missiles closed, right on target. But at the last minute the missile veered away sharply and kicked out a plume of heat. Was it damaged? Breaking up? Our missiles collided with the heat field, their small targeting computers believing that was most likely to be the missile they’d been aimed at.

But it wasn’t. The enemy missile had set of flares, or some other sort of anti-missile defense. Our shots had impacted the flares without harming the target at all.

“Shit,” I said softly. Somehow that didn’t really express what I wanted to say.

The missile streaked past our shuttle, still pouring on the speed as it headed toward the ground. I sent the shuttle diving after it, getting every ounce of speed I could muster from the shuttle’s drives. We were in a maximum speed dive.

“Can you get a lock on the thing again?” I asked.

“No more missiles, sir,” she replied. “I’ve got an idea though. How close can you get to that thing?”

“How close do you need to be?” I asked.

She held up her laser rifle. “This close.”

“You’re going to shoot it down with that?” It was a crazy idea, but hell. It might just work. I didn’t have any better ideas. “OK. I’ll get you near enough. Get out there and make it happen.”

Chapter 24

Thomas Stein

The shuttle shook, buffeted by winds and shaking from the heavy acceleration. I knew I was putting far more stress on the ship’s frame than it had ever been meant to sustain. I just had to hope that it would hold together long enough to catch the missile.

I was gaining on it. The distance between us was closing rapidly. How near was I going to need to get?

“Kovak, I hope you’re ready,” I said over the radio.

“Just about, sir!” she replied. She sounded annoyingly cheerful for someone who had to be hanging on to the outside of the hull by now. On a shuttle flying hundreds of miles per hour through a gale blowing hundreds of miles an hour in another direction. Marines. I wondered if I would ever really get them. The attitude had an appeal though, and I found myself grinning despite the gravity of the situation.

“I’m about as close as I can get,” I said. I could see the missile through the cockpit window now, a blaze of flame from its thrusters.

“Firing!” she replied.

I watched as laser beams flashed by the window. She was out on the right wing. Damn, but that was impressive! I had no idea how she’d gotten out there, and wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Her laser fire flashed past the missile. It fired lateral thrusters, flashing sideways out of our way. I cursed and corrected my course to match it. The thing was state of the art, a superbly built ship to ship missile. How had Earth been building shit like this without us knowing about it? And what other surprises did they have in store for us?

“Sir, it’s going to dodge any incoming fire,” Kovak said. “I’m going to need it to sit still for at least a few seconds before I can fry it.”

“I don’t think it’s going to sit still,” I said. I checked the board to see where Irons and his people were. They were still well inside the danger zone. “Irons and the rest of the platoon are dead if we can’t stop this thing. Any ideas?”

“I dunno, sir. Can you get closer?” she asked.

“How much closer?”

“Spitting distance.”

“I’m on it,” I said. I wondered if the missile would let me get that close, or if it would jet away, perceiving the shuttle as a threat. Its evasive maneuvers had slowed its descent a little though, so I was able to catch up with it more easily this time. Sure enough as soon as I got close it fired thrusters to get away. I was ready for the move though, and followed right behind. I matched the missile course change for course change, keeping us less than fifteen meters apart. Barely, but I held to it like a tick. I thought Kel would have been proud.

“Wish me luck, sir,” Kovak said.

I saw something flash past me. I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but then I saw the telltale plume of the shield from a powered armor activating. The wind outside was so fierce that the shields were turning on to prevent damage to the suit.

As I watched, the shielded suit shot across the gap between the shuttle and the missile, then latched on to the thing.

“Kovak, what the hell are you doing?” I asked.

“Fired a tow-line,” she sounded breathless and scared. “Only way, sir.”

I wanted to smash the console in front of me. This wasn’t what I wanted! She was over there alone, frightened, and ultimately doomed. There was nothing I could do to save her. She was already firing her laser into the missile body, burning through into the brain of the thing. I looked down at the timer. The missile was going to impact in thirty-three seconds. She was right. There really was no other way.

What could I say to someone who had just given her life so that her fellow Marines could live? I had seconds left before she blew the missile to bits, a few scraps of time to think of something to say that would make it meaningful to her.

But I realized it already had meaning to her. That’s why she had done it. Nothing I said would add to the honor she already felt for her sacrifice.

“Godspeed, Xandrie Kovak,” I said. I shifted the shuttle hard away from the missile. I didn’t want to be anywhere near it when it blew. “And thank you.”

“Doing my job, sir,” she said. “Just like everyone else.”

Those were the last words she said before the missile exploded.

I sat in stunned silence, thinking about Kovak’s sacrifice. It was one of the bravest things I had ever seen. She’d launched herself across to the missile - an incredible feat in its own right. But she’d known from the outset it was a one-way trip. Either she would be able to blow the missile, and die in the explosion, or she would fail and die when it impacted. There was no coming back. She’d gone in without hesitating.

Could I do the same, if the need arose? I hoped so. If I wanted to be worthy of Kovak’s memory, I would have to be ready to do the same as she had, if the time came that I was the logical choice to give my life. It was a frightening thought, and at the same time brought a sense of peace.

More alarms sounded in the shuttle. I checked the radar and froze. Three more missiles had been fired from orbit. All of them were aimed at the surface, at the power station. My shuttle was close to the station now, but there was no way I could land, grab the men, and take off before the missiles hit. I could take one of them down by crashing the shuttle into it, but that would still leave the other two.

“Irons,” I said, opening our private command channel. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“I take it the good news is that the missile isn’t blowing us to bits, since it was due to hit about half a minute ago,” he said.

“Yes. One of our Marines sacrificed herself to take it out,” I said.

“How did…? Never mind. What’s the bad news?” he asked.

“Three more missiles inbound. I can’t stop them all. How’s the evacuation proceeding?” I asked.

“We’re mostly clear of the danger area. I think we should be all clear before the missiles impact.”

“Do what you can,” I said. “I’ll rendezvous with you as soon as the debris has settled for pickup. Take cover before the impact. Three missiles are going to be big. I’m sorry I can’t come get you.”

“Don’t you dare, sir. It would be useless. The explosion would tear the shuttle to bits.”

“I know. Doesn’t mean I can’t wish I could do more. Good luck. Stein out.”

I sat back in my restraints, watching from afar as the missiles drove in toward the surface. Their explosions lit up the sky, sending massive clouds high into the air and mountains of debris in all directions. They hadn’t spared the explosives for these weapons. They were truly massive impacts, each one cratering the surface. The cloud of debris spread past the area where I knew Irons and the rest of my people were hunkered down. I swore under my breath and brought the shuttle down toward the area.

Chapter 25

Nicholas Stein

I’d managed to restore most of the ship’s control functions to the console. I could steer the ship, although the course for docking at the space station orbiting Venus was already plugged into the computer. I didn’t need to do much there. It was already taking me precisely where I wanted to go.

The station was sending me radio queries as I made my approach, but they didn’t seem to suspect anything. The last thing I wanted was to talk to them live. I was well enough known that they might have recognized my voice. Their computer system almost certainly would have. There was no way I could conceal all the damage to the ship’s nose from their scans, either. Rather than trying to pretend nothing had happened, I used the damage to construct a plausible lie.

“Bridge damaged by debris impact. Have moved controls to backup systems, but radio offline,” I typed. I pressed send.

“That is irregular. Be ready for immediate complete inspection on arrival,” came the reply.

They were suspicious, but it looked like they were buying it at least in part. I’d have to hope that would be enough. So long as they didn’t just blow this ship to bits before it docked, my plan ought to work fine.

The docking procedure was all automated. I didn’t need to remain on the bridge to oversee anything, so it was time to head into the rest of the ship and get ready for company.

The place was a charnel house, or it would be once it warmed up a little. I’d left power on for all the doors, but kept the heat and air offline. The supply ship was massive. Most of the ship was a huge open tube, with the bridge on one side and engines on the other. The tube was big enough that it fit another six combat shuttles, and had basic g-berths for hundreds of men. An entire damned combat brigade, sent out here to take this backwater planet. All of them dead now.

I shook my head. If the UN was sending this many troops to Venus, what the hell was happening on Mars?

From the bits of radio chatter I’d been able to pull in from the surface, it seemed like Thomas was still alive and fighting down there. I was glad to hear it, but wished he could get his forces the hell off the planet. If I could take control of the space station, he might be able to do that. We could communicate and coordinate at least.

“Time to leave a few surprises for the company,” I muttered. The ship had a massive munitions depot. The first thing I did was borrow a bunch of their explosive munitions. They also had a handful of aerial combat drones, each armed with missiles. Those were useless in space, but they might prove helpful on board the ship.

The Hawks were outside, attached to the underside of the hull. The ship was big enough, with numerous enough protrusions that it was unlikely the powered down ships would be noticed.

There was a loud clang as the freighter connected with the station’s docking arm. The walkway would seal, or try to seal and find out there was no atmosphere on this side. They’d send a force over to see what was going on. After that, it would be up to my surprises to take the down. I was going to be outnumbered, but I’d fought against bad odds before.

“Looks like you could use a hand,” a voice said from my radio.

“Carlson?” I said. I pivoted in place. There he was, large as life. “How did you get aboard?”

“Pretty much the same way you did, sir. Leibur will be here in a few minutes, too. Took him a little longer to get in.”

“And your fighters? I was counting on having air support,” I growled.

“To do what? Blow the station?” he asked.

“If need be, yes.”

“You’ve still got the other two Hawks out there, sir. Each of them has enough missiles to do the job, and there’s no opposition fighters to worry about. Just a couple of ships at dock,” Carlson said. “Your need us in here more than you need us out there. Sir.”

He wasn’t wrong. It was the smart play. Even a couple of extra guns might make all the difference in the world in the fight to come. Every pair of hands would help. “Can you shoot one of those?” I asked, tilting my head toward a stack of rifles left behind by the dead UN troops.

“Yes sir.”

“Grab one and as much ammunition as you can carry. Equip Leibur if he arrives in time and…”

“Here, sir!” a third voice said. Leibur entered the main bay, coming from the bridge area where he’d probably entered by way of the hole we’d made.

He was a sandy haired kid with freckles. Even younger than Thomas. Shit, but we had youngsters fighting in this mess. Kids his age ought to have been in school learning how to become people, not flying warships and carrying rifles. But there we were. There didn’t seem to be a lot of choice about it.

“Grab a gun. Take cover,” I said. He scurried to obey as more clanging sounded from the outside of the airlock. They were prying the door open. Any moment now they would be through, and all hell was going to break loose.

I pushed off hard from the deck, sailing through the midpoint of the hold, and checked my momentum on one of the shuttles. I activated my magnetic boots, locking on to the shuttle’s hull, and pulled out the remote for the drones. I switched it on, and six black box-shaped objects lit up with soft LEDs.

The men were behind cover, which was good, because they UN troops finally had the door open. I’d set anti-personnel mines in place around the entrance hatch - around all the entrance hatches, actually. Just in case they got suspicious and turned creative about their mode of entry. But they’d come right in through the main airlock door, and I had heavily seeded the space just inside.

As soon as the door opened, the mines went off. Ten mines, each releasing ten thousand small bits of frangible metal. They’d tear right through a space suit or light armor, but generally bounce off a reinforced hull plate. I wanted to take the station, not destroy it.

I had no idea how many men had been in the airlock before a hundred thousand speeding fragments of death poured through them. There wasn’t enough left of the bodies to identify them, much less count them.

“Phase two,” I said, and switched the drones to active mode. The first two streaked forward through the airlock tunnel. The place was painted red with blood. I ignored it. These weren’t the people who’d blown up my ship and killed my crew, but these men worked for those people and that was good enough for me.

Some men on the far side of the tunnel had survived. They were trying frantically to close the door.

“We’ll put a stop to that,” I said. I pressed a button and one of the drones fired a rocket down the corridor. It detonated on the door before it was half closed, twisting the metal and sending flames into the corridor beyond.

I woke the other two drones and sent them down after their siblings. Then I pushed myself back down to the deck. I grabbed a rifle and started into the tunnel, weapon at the ready.

“You two coming or staying?” I called into the radio. Neither of the pilots had moved.

“We’re with you, sir,” Carlson said.

“Make sure your mag boots are locked,” I said.

I had three of the drones mag-lock themselves to the wall of the airlock tunnel. Then I had the fourth zip past the broken door. As I’d figured, on the other side was another door - the only thing keeping air inside the station from flowing out over us all. Those doors were built of tough material, designed to last. They had to be, since they took so much abuse for such a key system.

They’d never been designed to survive five rockets fired at point blank range, though. The drone unloaded every round it had, expending its missiles in a rapid-fire pattern that peppered the airlock door. I had the briefest glimpse of the door breaking apart before flames and wind overtook the drone and killed it.

The rushing wind told me it had done the job, though. The station was breached. It was venting air into the vacuum. “Phase two down. Now for the tricky part,” I said. I stalked forward down the hall using my mag-boots, weapon at the ready. We still had a fight ahead of us, but the odds had just become a hell of a lot more even.

Chapter 26

Thomas Stein

The ground beneath me was rugged, even more blasted than the usual rocky surface of Venus. Those missiles had pummeled the terrain, gouging massive impact craters where the power station had stood. I brought the shuttle down as swiftly as safety allowed. Maybe a little more rapidly than I ought, given that some debris was still rolling around down there, but my people were out there somewhere. They needed me.

“Hang on everyone,” I called out to the Marines in the shuttle’s rear compartment. “This is going to be a rough landing.”

The weather, never good, was worse than usual. Superheated air had formed a massive pressure wave emanating out from the explosion’s center, and now the air was rushing back in, making a turbulent mess.

I flubbed the landing, bouncing twice on landing gear that screamed in protest before the shuttle settled solidly onto the ground. It had held together. Couldn’t ask much more of the ship than that.

“Irons, we’re on the ground,” I said into the open net. “Can you hear me?”

No response but static. The blast was screwing with everything though. It wasn’t shocking that radio wasn’t sending very well through the mess outside. I fiddled with the controls, looking for a way to boost the signal. Even if he couldn’t respond, broadcasting to him would give him my coordinates. It might give the same information to General Newman, but that was a risk I had to take.

“Irons or anyone on the ground team, shuttle is here for evac. Please respond,” I said.

I had to pick them up and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. Newman can control of the only remaining power station. He’d use it to blackmail the colony into surrender. They’d have no choice. It was give in to whatever demands he made or suffocate. Without power, the colony was dead.

My bigger concern just then was Keladry. She was still back at the colony. I didn’t even know if she was conscious yet; I hadn’t heard any reports from the colony at all. They were radio silent, at least to me. If Newman found her, knew who she was, he’d have a deadly weapon in his hands. I wasn’t sure that I could keep fighting if he threatened Kel.

I saw movement in the dust storm outside the shuttle. Squinting, I tried to make out what was there. Was it Irons and his people, coming to join me? Or were we going to get some unpleasant company? There were definitely shapes moving around out there, but the dust swirled too intensely to tell for sure who they were.

“Marines, we’ve got movement out there. Not sure if they’re friends or foes. Be ready to deal with either,” I said. I was still broadcasting over the platoon network. “Ground team, is that you closing on our position?”

“Affirmative,” Irons said. His voice sounded pinched and tired. “We could use a hand. Got some wounded out here.”

I saw the lead figure stumble through the cloud, bearing along another Marine in a fireman’s carry across his shoulders. More shapes came forward. Some staggered, some limped, and others dragged still bodies toward the dubious safety of the shuttle.

“I have men on their way, hang tight,” I said.

It took just fifteen minutes to get them all aboard and set up a triage station so that we could begin treating the worst hurt. Several people had lost suit integrity, saved only by quick actions of their team-mates. We had three concussions, a half dozen people with broken bones, but remarkably no fatalities.

“Damn, Irons. You didn’t lose a single Marine. That was incredible work,” I said.

“We would have died to a man if that first missile had impacted. You bought us time to get clear,” he replied.

I shook my head. “Wasn’t me. It was one of our people - a woman named Kovak.”

I explained what she’d done, how she had leapt from the shuttle across to the missile while both machines were flying at hundreds of miles per hour using just a tow line to draw herself in. How she had given her own life to save the others.

As I told the story, some of the other men gathered around. By the time I was done, I realized that the entire platoon was listening in. They were grim faced, but nodding to one another. They didn’t see Kovak’s death as a failure on my part. They saw her sacrifice as the ultimate expression of what they all wanted to stand for, I realized. Not that any of them wanted to die - but they were all willing to do so if it came to that. Maybe more than ever. Her death hadn’t just saved the platoon. She had revitalized them and given them a renewed sense of purpose.

The radio squawked, diverting my attention. I walked back to the cockpit and tapped the volume up so that I could hear who was talking. I figured it would be Newman, calling to crow about his victory, but I was surprised when I heard Martin Jones speaking instead.

“This is a mayday from Amtor Colony. We have lost all power, repeat, lost all power. We are operating on battery reserves, which will not sustain continued life support long. Military forces fighting on Venus, we beseech you - the citizens of this colony are noncombatants, please restore power.”

“Shit,” I said. Newman had just cut their lines. He wasn’t even talking to them first. “He’ll simply kill every person over there? That doesn’t make sense.”

“More likely he’s just giving them a taste of what he can do,” Irons said. “Then he’ll give them a call, once they know he’s serious.”

“They’ll fold in a heartbeat,” I said. It wasn’t a question. I couldn’t really blame them, either. They had nothing at all to defend themselves with.

Irons nodded. “We’re down to less than a dozen fully functional troops here, sir. What’s the plan?”

I wanted to go rushing back to the colony to extract Kel. Irons knew that, too. If the colony was still broadcasting then they probably hadn’t been attacked yet. I could still potentially get a team in there, grab Kel, and get out before Newman’s people arrived.

Or we might end up pinned down, unable to leave. I winced at the thought. My remaining troops were divided, and half of the Marines I had with me were hurt. I needed to consolidate my forces to have the best shot at accomplishing anything here.

“We need to get back to the Archimedes,” I said. “Regroup, get our injured into a proper medical bay, and then take the fight to them.”

“The ship reports they have a platoon of UN troops and a shuttle pinning them down,” Irons said.

“I think we can handle that,” I said. “Kovak’s move gave me a few ideas.”

I turned to the rest of the Marines assembled around me. “You ready to hit them back and free up the rest of our people? Then we blow this dust ball and get back to Mars where we’re needed.”

“Just aim us, sir,” Lucas said. “We’re a go.”

Chapter 27

Thomas Stein

The shuttle’s engines roared as I pulled back on the stick, bringing the nose up. We shot over the top of the ridge line. The UN troops were arrayed beneath us, dug in to fighting positions around the Archimedes. They’d been expecting an attack from the ship. They hadn’t prepared very well for a fight from the air.

I brought the shuttle into a stooping dive, following the contour of the rocky surface beneath us. We’d come in fast and furious, skimming just a few hundred meters over their heads.

“Light them up!” I shouted into the radio.

In response, beams of blue light shot from the wings of the shuttle, burning into the positions of the men below. There were a few shuddering explosions as we flew by. A couple of my Marines had tossed some grenades overboard for good measure.

“That should shake them up a little,” I said. “Everyone OK out there?”

“Yes sir, starboard wing still hanging tight,” Lucas replied.

“Port wing good to go, sir.”

I’d stationed two Marines on each wing. They’d strapped themselves in place, using a combination of their mag boots and cable. With their lasers, we effectively had an armed shuttle again. Sort of. It was tricky flying with them riding on my wings, but it was the only way to arm the ship short of cutting holes in the deck to shoot through. We might still need this thing to be space worthy, so I wasn’t willing to go quite that far yet.

“Expect company, people. They’ve got a shuttle in the area,” I said. “Our job is to draw the thing away and…”

I was cut off by the flashing warning lights and a klaxon on my console. The radar was picking up incoming objects. The threat system was detecting radar hitting us hard. Someone had locked on with a targeting system. There were two slow moving objects and two fast ones.

“I take that back. Two shuttles, and they’re firing missiles. Hang on!” I said.

The obvious solution would be to fly toward the Archimedes. The drop ship had an excellent point defense system. It could probably take down the missiles hunting us. Unfortunately the pilots coming at us were damned good at their jobs, and knew that too. They’d fired at an angle that put the missiles between us and our ship. To get inside the Archimedes point defense perimeter I’d have to fly almost directly toward the missiles.

There was no way we would make it in time. The missiles would blast us to bits before we were even close.

I brought the shuttle up on the port wing, praying those men out there were as well strapped in as they said they were. Otherwise they were going to have a hell of a long fall with a bad ending. The armor was tough, but we hadn’t built them to fly.

We swept around in a sharp arc. The first missile spat past us and then started to swing around. I was trying to keep track of two missiles coming in from two different vectors now. It was hard to keep it straight in my head.

“Sir, that second one is right on our tail,” Lucas said.

“You think you can do anything about that?” I asked.

“Maybe. Can you keep us straight and level for about five seconds?”

That would cause the missile to stop swinging so wildly. The men would be able to get a clearer shot. But if they missed, there was no way the missile would. It would blast us out of the sky. I decided to risk it.

“Make it count,” I said.

A booming sound blasted through my cockpit, and the shuttle jolted forward with enough force that my restraints barely kept me in place. At first I thought we’d been hit, but I still had throttle control. Which was a good thing, since the other missile was coming at us from our starboard front. I sent the shuttle into a sharp dive and it flashed by overhead. Another explosion told me the men had managed to take it out as well.

“Good work! Now let’s see if we can do something about those ships,” I said.

There were two of them, flying side by side straight at us. I flipped the ship into as tight a spin as I felt I could manage with the men, but I left the throttle at about fifty percent and started gliding slowly down toward the ground.

“Sir, you OK in there?” Lucas asked.

“Just fine.”

“They’re shooting again, sir,” he said.

“Noticed that,” I replied. Two more missiles coming right at us. But this time I was ready for them. I’d carefully oriented our vector, and then let the enemy think they’d hurt us. I brought the throttle up to maximum, blasting forward. We couldn’t outrun the missiles, but they’d take a few extra seconds to reach us, and that was all I really needed.

Behind me I saw that the shuttles were in hot pursuit, burning their own thrusters as hard as they could. They fired more missiles. Damn, they really wanted us down. They must have expended all their ordinance. Six missiles in the air, winging their way at my shuttle. If any of those missiles hit, we were toast.

My Marines were shooting back, but their fire wasn’t going to be very effective until the missiles were a lot closer. It was a risky play, and luckily not one I needed to use again.

“Archimedes, this is Commodore Stein. We have a little problem on our tail. Think you can help us out?” I called out over the tactical net.

“Yes sir. Full countermeasures standing by.”

The Archimedes was tucked into a little valley. That was both security and trap for the ship. If the Archimedes took off while enemy ships were hovering nearby, they’d have a few critical moments where they might be able to damage or even destroy the ship as it lifted above the ridges on both sides of the valley.

But it was also a brilliant defense, because anything flying above the valley could be targeted by the Arch’s point defense systems long before it came into line of sight, and obliterated before there was any chance it could react.

We streaked over the edge of the valley, and the sky behind us exploded into an inferno of gunfire and missiles explosions as the ship’s defensive fire took out all the missiles chasing us. Guns that were designed to take out ship to ship missiles in a space battle had little trouble with these slower moving cousins.

The shuttles almost realized their error in time. The pilots were so intent on chasing us down that they’d lost track of where the aerial battle had shifted. They realized as they saw their missiles detonate where they were and tried to veer away in time.

But they were simply moving too fast. They’d jumped to full speed to chase me. These ungainly shuttles didn’t have the ability to turn fast enough at this velocity. They soared out over the edge of the valley even as they started to turn clear.

The shuttles moved even slower than the missiles, even at their best speed. Two more fireballs graced the Venusian sky.

I switched frequencies back to the platoon channel. “Irons, how are things down there? You need air support?”

He’d brought the rest of our fighting force up on the rear of the UN troops right after I’d strafed them. The plan ideally called for us to support them during their assault, and I hoped that we’d been able to do enough.

“We’ve pretty much cleaned it up, sir. Your run messed them up bad. When we showed up a few of them put up a fight, but once they realized what they were up against some of them just started throwing down their weapons,” Irons replied. “The last ones gave up right after their shuttles went down.”

We had the ship back. I wanted to feel elated, but it felt way too soon. This was a victory, but the bad guys still held most of the cards.

“Meet me inside the Archimedes,” I said. “We need to move to stage two.”

“Aye, sir.”

I wished that he didn’t sound so damned confident in me. He didn’t even ask me what I had in mind to do next. He just trusted that it would work. Which meant that by the time I landed this shuttle and headed inside I was going to have to figure out what the hell stage two ought to be. I didn’t have the foggiest idea yet, but whatever it was, it needed to be brilliant.

Chapter 28

Nicholas Stein

The entire station went into lockdown after the airlock breach. Every section was left to fend for itself, doors slamming down to cut off the loss of air. Which was precisely what I wanted. After all, somewhere on the station the UN troops likely still had the original station staff held as prisoners and hostages. I wanted to free those people, not execute them.

Being cut off from one another by blast doors should also make it harder for any troops Newman had left behind to coordinate with one another. For certain they knew there was something messed up about the ship I’d snuck in on. But guessing from the number of body parts left after the mines went off, I’d taken down a squad sized force. How many more men had the general left in orbit? He’d taken twelve shuttles to the surface. When I blew half of them up right out of the gate it had thrown a major monkey wrench into his plans. He had to be hurting for men on the surface, yet I hadn’t seen him send a single shuttle back to the station for more troops.

That had to mean he’d only left a skeleton crew up here in the first place. He couldn’t pull any more people down from orbit because he simply didn’t have any to send.

“Stay sharp,” I said. I’d been watching the two pilots with me. Carlson looked appropriately nervous, but Leibur was behaving like he’d seen too many action movies. “Move slow, stay close.”

“Aye, sir,” Carlson said.

“Can’t believe we’re doing this. This is so cool,” Leibur said.

I rounded on him. I wanted to pick him up and toss him against the wall, but instead I reined in my temper. “This is in no way cool. People are dying down there on the surface. People are going to die up here. And while we are screwing around on this planet, people are probably dying back on Mars.”

He ducked his head quickly. “Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Do your job so we can get the hell away from this rock and get back home where we’re needed,” I said.

There were still three drones remaining, and each of them was armed with a small stock of rockets. I let my rifle hang freely from its sling and pulled up the remote. The drones had been hovering behind me in ‘wait’ mode. They woke as soon as I brought the remote to active. These tools were going to spell the difference between winning and losing up here.

I left one drone patrolling behind us, a precaution to ensure no one could sneak up on us from the rear. The other two I sent on ahead. They zipped around a corner and met another blast door. The doors were going to be an issue for us as well as for the enemy. It was going to take time to bypass each one, and the clock was ticking. I stalked up to the door and opened the panel, working at an override on the controls.

That was harder than it sounded. The doors were built to not open when there was air on one side and no air on the other. The entire point of the design was to prevent decompression. I wondered if there was a way we could make that work a little easier for us.

“Carlson, go back and shut the first blast door you come to. I’m going to try to get atmosphere back in this compartment,” I said.

He turned to go. He made it about as far as the corner before I felt the shudder of an explosion and saw flashes of light from our rear. I whirled in place as fast as I could in the mag-boots and saw Carlson diving back for the shelter of the little hall where we stood. Bullets stitched a steady beat against the station wall, some of them pinging off the drone I’d left hovering behind us.

The drone was the source of the explosions. It had spotted someone coming at us from the rear and fired. It was continuing to lay down suppressive fire, but it only had so many rockets.

“Can’t reach the controls, sir!” Carlson said. The panel which would shut the blast doors was directly across the lane of fire where the drone and whoever it was shooting at were blazing away at each other.

“Come help me open this door,” I said. I grimaced. The locking mechanism was excellent, and I wasn’t having any luck at all. I couldn’t blow the door open - we were too close. We couldn’t back up or the people behind us would have clear shots at us. They had us pinned unless I could open this door.

“I’ve got it!” Leibur shouted.

Before I could stop him, the kid dashed out across the hall at a mad sprint. He was through the hail of bullets in a flash, his entire body slamming against the far wall right next to the panel. His left hand slapped down on the release button, which dropped a set of blast doors between us and the attackers.

Immediately air began pumping back into the hall. The safety measures on the door I was trying to open sensed the restoration of atmosphere and allowed me to override the lock. The door slid open.

Leibur slipped away from the wall, drifting clear. At first I thought he was pushing off to rejoin us. I was going to give him a serious talk about safety and waiting for god damn orders before taking rash action. But then I realized that he wasn’t headed back. He was just drifting there against the wall.

A string of bright red bubbles was spewing from his suit.

“Shit,” I said. I unlocked my mag-boots and pushed hard against the wall, sailing down the length of the hall to reach Leibur. I grabbed him as I sailed past, letting my legs take the impact against the wall and reactivated my mag-boots so that I didn’t drift away again.

He was bleeding badly from more than one wound. I’d thought he had made it across unscathed somehow, but he hadn’t. He was still alive, but as he turned his head to face me he coughed. A string of blood bubbles spilled from his mouth and bounced around the inside of his helmet.

I unclasped the helmet from his space suit so he wouldn’t drown on his own blood, knowing as I did so that it was already too late. He was losing too much blood, pumping the stuff out of his body. There was nothing I could do. I shook my head sadly.

“Got the door shut, Admiral,” he coughed out.

“You did,” I said.

“You need to go,” he said. He choked for a moment. I could see the fear and pain stenciled on his face. “God, it hurts.”

Then he died in my arms. He gave a hard jerk and stopped moving. No more breaths. His eyes looked blankly into nothing.

There was a banging sound on the door behind me. The UN troops on the other side were working on the blast door Leibur had given his life to shut. They were running into the same problem I had. The door didn’t want to open when there was atmosphere on one side but not on the other. They were working hard at something over there, though, either prying the thing open or setting explosive charges - I couldn’t tell which.

“He was right,” Carlson said softly. “We need to go.”

“No,” I said. “We’re done running from these people.”

I pulled the drones back in toward our position and anchored them in place. The one which had been keeping the UN troops pinned down was out of rockets and was badly damaged, but it had taken video of the entire confrontation. Scanning the feed, I could tell there were at least six men in that hallway. That had to be the majority of their remaining force. It was time to finish this.

Chapter 29

Thomas Stein

I hadn’t managed to figure out what I was going to do by the time I’d landed the shuttle next to the Archimedes. The situation was a mess, and I had no idea how I was going to get us out of it. I exited the shuttle, the wind blasting my armor with grit and sand. My shields lit up briefly, keeping the stuff from scouring the surface of the armor.

Newman had the colony. The right move would be to blast away and get back to Mars. Our people there needed us. The Archimedes was perhaps the last combat ship Mars had left. Maybe the last one left anywhere in the system. We’d been watching Earth carefully. While they’d clearly been able to spring a few surprises on us, I doubted they had a hidden fleet of armed ships somewhere. The best they could have would be a few trading vessels with missiles bolted on, like the one orbiting Venus.

Dangerous, sure. But against a ship like the Arch, they would be in deep trouble. Even as small as it was, the Archimedes was built for war. It would tear up a flotilla of lesser vessels. With just that one ship, I might be able to turn the tide of the battle for Mars.

If only I hadn’t left Kel at Amtor! I’d kicked myself for that decision more times than I could count, and I wasn’t feeling any better about it as time passed. I couldn’t leave her there in enemy hands. I just couldn’t.

Then there was the threat of whatever weapon Earth had used against the Hermes. Had they somehow planted a bomb on the ship? Stealth mines? A new type of missile? I really had no idea what we were dealing with yet. All our remaining eggs were in one basket, and as tough as that basket might be, it was still terribly vulnerable until we knew what that new weapon was.

The airlock cycled, letting me inside the ship. A Marine saluted as I boarded. I snapped him back a nod, too lost in thought to offer more. I popped off my helmet, letting fresh air fill my lungs. The suits could get a little rank after a while, and I’d been wearing this one for too long.

I needed information. The best place to acquire that would be the ship’s cockpit. I’d been out of touch for too long, fighting Newman’s troops in the field. It was time to take a better look at the overall picture.

“Lieutenant Mackenzie, how’s the ship?” I asked as I stepped inside. The cockpit was tucked inside the nose of the ship. A brilliant display showed the outside in vivid imagery, but it was just a set of computer screens. Several feet of armor plating divided the cockpit from the outside. That was one thing Dad always ensured in our combat ships - the control center was always placed in a secure spot, well armored and damned hard to hit.

“Good enough, sir. Some weird shit happening out there though,” Mackenzie replied.

Mac was the XO for the platoon, and I’d left him in charge of the ship while I was away. He was also the only other trained pilot we had, aside from myself and Kel. He sat in her chair, ready to bring the Arch into action at a moment’s notice if I called for it. I approved.

“Was that you who did the stellar job with the guns a little while ago?” I asked.

“Yes sir,” he replied. He tried to keep his face impassive, but I could see the corner of a pleased smile sneaking out.

“That was damned awesome,” I said. I slumped down into the co-pilot’s seat, grateful for a chance to relax for a few moments. My eyes burned. How long had it been since I’d slept? Since any of us had? I’d lost track somewhere along the line.

Irons came up into the cockpit, still in his armor. Mackenzie wasn’t suited, which was a good thing. It was cramped enough in here with two power armor suits. I wasn’t sure a third would fit. As it was, Irons hovered in the doorway rather than coming in. He passed me a steaming mug.

“Coffee, sir. Thought you could use some,” he said.

I took the cup gratefully and sipped. The liquid was scalding, bitter, and more than a little welcome. I needed to be sharp, but all I felt was tired and fuzzy. The caffeine might help me fake it a little longer.

“Thanks,” I said. Then I turned back to Mackenzie. “What sort of weird were you talking about?”

“Lots, sir. First off, take a peek at this,” he said. The main screen flickered and was replaced by radar images. I checked the time stamp. This was from hours ago. I watched as the Earth ship fired missiles at the area where the Hermes had been, where the debris field remained. That was where someone had fired on Newman’s shuttles from. The missiles impacted and blew something to hell. But I saw a few missiles drift off like they were targeting something else - something small.

“What is that, Mac?” I asked, pointing at the spot the missiles veered toward.

“Watch,” Mackenzie said.

The missile course twisted and arced. And then it exploded.

“It was chasing something else,” I said.

“That’s my take too, sir. Something that wasn’t showing up on radar,” Mac said.

“Something stealth. Damn. Dad launched Hawks before the Hermes blew,” I breathed. That could change a lot. It meant we were not completely alone down here. “Was it Hawk missiles firing on the shuttles?”

“No sir. Those shots were definitely ship to ship missiles. They came from the main missile batteries of the Hermes, near as I can tell,” Mac said.

I sipped more coffee. Someone - from what Newman had told me, probably my father - had managed to stay alive through the destruction of the Hermes, and then fired missiles at the UN shuttles. The UN had returned fire and destroyed the missile pod, but the Hawks had been nearby. Had they managed to pick up whoever was left alive from the Hermes?

“That’s not all, sir. Another Earth ship arrived at the station about an hour ago,” Mackenzie said.

I grunted, frowning. “Knew that was coming. Newman bragged to me that they had another combat division on its way. How soon until their shuttles breach atmosphere?”

“That’s the odd thing, sir. They docked at the station,” he said, tapping his keyboard to call up a different radar feed. “But they haven’t launched shuttles yet. I did get a burst of transmissions from the station shortly after they arrived. Scrambled, so I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but…”

What the hell was going on up there? They should have launched shuttles by now. Were the Hawks interfering somehow? Maybe the UN troops had seen the Hawks on their scopes, and were nervous about sending out more shuttles while the fighters were still in the area? I felt like I was trying to put a puzzle together with only half the pieces.

The console flashed with an incoming transmission, breaking into my thoughts.

Chapter 30

Thomas Stein

There was only one person who would be likely to call us. Until we were airborne we wouldn’t have line of sight to be able to reach the Hawks. It had to be Newman. I stabbed a finger into the accept button, and the General’s face flashed onto the screen.

“Stein. Still alive, I see,” he said.

“I’m good at that,” I replied.

“I’ve decided to offer you another shot at surrender,” he said.

“I think we’ll need to decline, sorry,” I said.

“Really?” he replied. Without explaining more, he shifted sideways, letting me see the space behind him a little better. I sucked in a breath. I knew that room. I’d been in there not long ago. He was sitting in Amtor’s control room.

“I have something of yours,” he said, his lips forming a thin smile. “She took out five of my men before we captured her. Quite the hellion.”

They had Kel. My vision went a little red, and I heard a roaring in my ears. I forced myself to calm down, taking a deep breath and using the mask of sipping my coffee to try to cover my reaction. But I could tell from the look on his face that he’d seen. He knew that he’d stung me. He’d finally discovered a way to hurt me personally, and now he was going to weaponize it.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“You. Just you. I’m allowed to offer you the same deal the UN offered your father, way back when. Amnesty for all of your people, in exchange for your surrender.”

I blinked. That really was the same offer they’d given Dad, back when he had first violated the Lunar Accords to save Earth. He’d taken the deal to save all of the rest of us who’d been involved. Newman was using that against me; he knew that I would be inclined to accept.

“Why?” I asked. “I’m not my father.”

“No, but he’s dead. Clarke is under siege and will fall soon. You’re the bastard who blew apart every major space-port on Earth and set back our infrastructure half a decade,” Newman said. “You’re the last major face of this little revolution left unaccounted for. They want you bad, Stein.”

I glanced over to where Irons was standing. The man’s face was impassive. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but I knew that he was watching me closely. He wanted to see what I would do, what I would say. I saw him nod a little, almost imperceptibly.

It still seemed strange to me. Just a couple of years ago I was fresh out of school. I had my first command on a trading ship, running back and forth between Mars and the asteroid mining facilities. I was ferrying air, food, and water one way, raw minerals the other. Then everything changed.

Somehow I’d turned into the top name on the United Nations ‘most wanted’ list. I wasn’t sure if I ought to be proud or horrified. I felt numb. Because it was Kel who would suffer if I made the wrong call here. I remembered my father’s reaction when he found out I was being helming captive on the Dreadnought that Earth used to attack Mars, last year. He hadn’t hesitated. He’d simply sent in his Hawks to blow the ship up anyway.

I escaped, but that wasn’t the point. Even if I hadn’t, Dad would have mourned and moved on. He did what he needed to do without remorse or regret.

“Well, Stein?” Newman said. “If you surrender now, I’ll release the woman with the others. If not, she’ll be executed tomorrow for terrorism and murder.”

That was bullshit and we both knew it. Kel wasn’t a terrorist. None of the members of our military were. But if Mars had truly fallen then were we still fighting for a nation anymore? Or had we become pirates ourselves, instead? I had no idea if he had the law on his side, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t look like he was bluffing, and an illegal execution would still leave Kel just as dead.

I wasn’t my father. I couldn’t let the ends justify the means.

“All right, General,” I said.

He blinked, waiting.

“I will surrender myself to you in two hours, at Amtor.”

“Glad to see you can listen to reason, Stein. Come over in the shuttle you captured. Your ship stays on the ground until you’re in custody or the deal is off. We’ll be here waiting…” Newman replied. I tapped the button to end the call, cutting him off. I was done listening to him.

There was silence in the cockpit.

I could still take the easy way out. Just surrender, and it would all be over pretty rapidly. Mars would belong to the UN again; my people would likely go free. I might be executed, but I thought they would be more likely to keep me around as a token prisoner anyway. No sense making martyrs. Choi was far too smart to let personal feelings overcome political expedience.

But no. That wasn’t me. I’d never given up on anything.

“Irons, ready the men,” I said. “I want the last Growler ready to roll in fifteen minute with every able-bodied Marine on board in armor.”

“Sir?” Mackenzie asked. I could hear the confusion in his voice. I looked at both men. Mac looked concerned, but Irons was smiling.

I felt a strong sense of relief. Irons was a man I respected. He’d been watching me, to see what I would do. Some of the tension was gone from his jaw now. It was good to see I’d lived up to his expectations. Now my job would be to see if I could exceed them.

“I’ll make it happen, sir. I gather you have a surprise planned for the General?” Irons asked.

“Oh, absolutely,” I said.

Mac was grinning now. “We’ll be ready, sir.”

There was a lot to do, and we had a time limit. I had every intention of meeting General Newman. But he wasn’t going to like the meeting as much as he thought he was. If I was the last face of the Mars Republic left able to fight, then I’d be damned if I gave up everything we had worked so hard to achieve.

Chapter 31

Nicholas Stein

I felt cold as I anchored Leibur’s body to the floor, activating his mag-boots so that his body would not drift away. The flow of blood had stopped, but my suit was heavily decorated with splotches of red where bubbles of the stuff had splashed against me. Spheres of red still hovered weightless in the hall. He was just a damned fool kid, trying his best to serve me and help me accomplish my mission. Now he was dead, another person killed in this endless game between Earth and Mars.

When was it going to end? I tried looking ahead into the possible futures, but there wasn’t one I saw going well for us in the long run. Earth had all the advantages. More people, more resources, more wealth, and therefore they had more power. We could fight the United Nations, push them back down into their gravity well over and over. They’d just rise back up again and smash what we’d built, and we’d have to fight for our freedom once more.

What we needed was a way to win. Not just a Pyrrhic victory, but an absolute one. A final win that would stop their attacks for good.

I’d accomplished that once before. During the final days of the US-China war, when it seemed like humanity itself might be wiped out by the fighting, I captured a Chinese ship laden with nuclear weapons and then sent it back to their largest city. That one devastating blow ended the war. I was hailed as a hero. The fighting was over, and just in time. We were able to recover, rebuild, and move on once more.

I saved the world that day, and all it cost me was a chunk of my soul. Was that what it would take to finish this fight? If that was the cost, could I pay it again? I didn’t know, and hoped that I would never have to answer that question. But the more this conflict dragged on, the more certain I became that it would require something equally dramatic to end the fighting.

First I needed to deal with the immediate threat, though. The UN troops on this station and on the ground below were a problem for now. The rest would have to wait for another day. The enemy was still working on the door. They’d have it open before too much longer.

I stood my ground in the hallway, waiting for them with my rifle ready. Carlson was hidden around the corner. From the point of view of the men outside the hall, it looked like they only had one person to deal with once they busted through the door. It was a good bet they’d caught a view of my face on some camera, so they knew who I was. If I wasn’t at the top of Choi’s most wanted list, I’d eat my space-suit. They were rushing the job of hacking the door, trying to get in so they could catch me.

All of that meant they weren’t paying nearly as much attention as they ought to be.

They should have been paying more attention to where my drones had gone, rather than assuming the damaged one throwing sparks next to me was the only one I had. If they were on their game, they also would have been checking the pressure levels in the compartment where I was standing. They were assuming it had normal pressure, so they were braced for a burst of wind when they finally got the door open.

But the compartment wasn’t at a standard one atmosphere of pressure. I’d cranked it up to three. My suit was rated to handle that, but it changed everything about the decompression when the door finally slid open. Instead of a brief, strong wind, they were faced with a maelstrom. They were in vacuum. Every bit of air from my compartment vented into theirs as soon as the hatch slid open, blasting all of them with wind.

I used my mag boots to hold myself in place. It wasn’t quite enough - the boots began to lose their grip under the force of the decompression, but that’s why I had the busted-up drone anchored next to me. The magnetic grapples on the drone were much stronger than my mag boots, and it gave me something to hold on to while the wind howled out of my section of the station.

They had mag boots too, of course. Like me, theirs were not quite enough to keep position against the blast of air. Four of the men managed to find something else to hang on to. The two who’d been closest to the door when it opened couldn’t find anything to grab and went tumbling down the passage. Without gravity or friction to slow them down, they were going to hit hard when they came in contact with something.

I opened fire on the other four before they could engage me. The troops tried to shoot back. I ducked behind Leibur’s body, using it to shield me from their shots. Time for the next phase. I nodded to Carlson, who was holding the drone remote. He pressed a button.

My other two drones spun on their anchors, pivoting so their rocket launchers hung out into the corridor. They fired a short burst of missiles each. The rockets erupted in a series of bright flashes, blasting apart the remaining troops. The whole fight was over in about ten seconds.

“Holy shit,” Carlson said, staring out into the smoke-filled passage. Bodies and bits debris floated out there, mute testimony to the carnage that the rocket blasts had caused.

“No time to waste,” I said. “We need to get to the control room.”

He nodded, and we went to work. Once we had the door secured again, refilling the corridor with atmosphere was easy. Breaking open the door was harder, but we managed. We didn’t meet any other troops until we’d arrived at the control room.

“Two of them inside, sir,” Carlson said, darting back. He’d peeked through the small window in the doorway.

“Did they see you?” I asked. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

I tapped out a short series of commands on the drone remote. These things were a good asset. I’d have to see about adding some to our regular arsenal after this was over. Assuming there was a later to do such things in. Once the command set was entered, I went up to the door.

I knocked, hard, twice.

Then I stepped back from the door and let the drone slide up to the window, rocket rack deployed.

“I’m sure you’ve got a camera out here,” I said, using my suit’s external speakers. “You can see me and hear me. Your other men are all dead. Either open the door and surrender, or I use this drone’s rockets to blow the door apart and you with it. Your call.”

I let them think about it for about a minute. Sometimes it was best to let someone stew a little. Then I started counting down. “Ten. Nine. Eight…”

The door opened at seven.

Chapter 32

Thomas Stein

The shuttle blasted up huge plumes of dust as I settled to the ground. Amtor hadn’t opened the hangar doors so that I could land inside. I hadn’t expected them to, not with the UN forces in control. That didn’t mean I needed to make it easy for them. I set the shuttle down on some flat ground about a football field’s distance away from the hangar. Then I shut down the shuttle’s engines and waited to see what they would do next.

Newman had to be expecting a trick or a trap. He might have Kel as his prisoner, but I still had a combat-ready ship, a shuttle, a tank, and a whole bunch of ticked-off space Marines. The battlefield on Venus was anything but decided. He wouldn’t feel settled until I was in his custody, whether I’d agreed to surrender or not.

I didn’t have long to wait. The shuttle had only been on the ground for a few minutes before the hangar doors rumbled open. Half a squad of UN troops poured from the gap, marching across the open space to my shuttle while more armed men covered them from the doorway.

It was a smart move. Enough men to take me if I was playing the surrender straight up, but not so many that it would be game-over for Newman if it turned out there was a squad of armored Marines waiting in the shuttle.

I popped my helmet back on. Ditching my armor wasn’t an option. It was my space-suit, after all. There was no way I could cross the open ground without it. I looked wistfully at the rifle leaning on the console beside me. I couldn’t bring it. All they needed was an excuse, and those men would start shooting. I’d probably get myself killed and all of this would be for nothing.

The rifle was staying put. I stood and left the shuttle cockpit, walking to the back of the small ship. It seemed empty now. It had been so full when my men were crammed inside. Now it was just me, and I felt terribly alone. I reached out to tap the button to release the hatch, then thought better of it. The smart move would be to establish radio contact with the soldiers outside first. They were skittish enough. I activated my radio and broadcast in the open.

“UN troops, this is Commodore Stein. I’m alone, unarmed, and about to exit the shuttle. Please respond.”

There was a moment’s pause. “We understand and accept your surrender.”

That would have to do. I tapped the panel, and the hatch at the back of the shuttle slowly lowered, turning itself into a ramp. Outside four men had rifles at the ready, their aim clear. While my armor was damned good and would likely stop most of their shots, being unarmed and a target was nerve-wracking.

“Gentlemen, I am here at General Newman’s invitation,” I said, raising my hands slowly to show I held no weapons. “I came alone and unarmed, as he requested. Please escort me to your leader.”

I managed not to grin as I added the last. I’d always wanted to say that. I couldn’t help thinking of the last time I’d exited a vehicle to be surrounded by UN troops. Back then an old friend of my father’s had come to my rescue and told them to back off. This time I was on my own. Nobody was going to get me out of this mess but myself.

“Follow us,” one of the guards said. “No funny shit or we put holes in you.”

“If I were going to do anything, I would have come in here with a platoon of Marines and blown the shit out of all of you,” I replied, walking slowly down the ramp. I let my hands settle to my sides as they lowered their rifles a fraction.

“You might have tried,” the soldier said.

I stared him in the eye without a word. I don’t know what he saw on my face, but he looked away before I did. Two of the soldiers set off toward the hangar, rifles at rest. I followed, the other two men falling in behind me. As soon as we were inside, the hangar doors slid slowly closed, shutting off the light from outside. For better or worse, I was in the belly of the beast. It was going to be up to me to get out of it again.

Something caught my eye. They had four men manually shutting the hangar doors, laboriously rolling the heavy things closed with big hand-cranks. The lighting was wrong in here, too. Different from how I remembered it. The space inside was dim, barely lit at all by a few emergency lights. The power was off in Amtor.

They brought me to the airlock and cycled it. The electronics for the airlock were either still working on emergency power, or the UN troops had hooked them up to some additional power source. Like the hangar, the space inside was lit only with emergency lights.

I had eight soldiers around me now, and four more were waiting just inside the airlock. Newman was taking no chances. Once we were back in atmosphere, the men carefully checked me over for weapons.

“Suit off,” one of them said.

“That wasn’t part of the deal,” I said. I had expected this, of course, but I wasn’t going to lose the edge of my armor without putting up some fuss. “This is my space suit, and you’ve disabled the power in the colony. We have a breach in here, I’d rather have my suit handy.”

“We’ll keep you safe. Take the stuff off. That doesn’t look like any space suit I’ve ever seen,” he replied. His rifle was edging upward again.

They didn’t know what they were dealing with, then. They might have some idea that the suits weren’t typical space-suits, but they didn’t know about the armor’s full capabilities. If they’d been aware of what I could do in this thing, they would know that even with twelve armed men there was a decent chance I could kill at least half of them before they damaged my armor too much for me to continue. Their rounds would be frangible - designed to break on impact so as not to punch holes in the colony walls and expose everyone to vacuum. They’d glance off my shields. The enhanced strength my armor’s motors gave me would turn me into a devastating weapon in my own right.

They didn’t know. I filed that away and played it close to my chest. The less information I gave them about what I could do, the better.

“Listen, guys, I’m not trying to be a jerk here. We’re all spacers, right?” I looked around at them, raising my palms in a placating manner. “You’d be as uncomfortable as I would, without an environmental suit in a place like this. How about I take off my helmet? Would that make you feel better?”

“That should do,” the squad leader replied. “We’ll need to cuff you as well. Sorry.”

“Won’t make it easy for me to get my helmet back on if there’s a problem,” I pointed out. Actually, the cuffs would barely slow me down. Unless they were made a lot stronger than anything these guys were likely to have, I’d be able to break right out of them. But they didn’t have to know that.

“I’ll put it on you myself if anything goes wrong. Fair enough?” he said. “But enough of this shit. General Newman is waiting. We need to get you in there.”

I took off my helmet and clipped it to a hook on my belt. “I suppose I have no choice but to trust you.”

“Not really, no,” he replied with a grin. Now that I was doing as he asked he seemed a lot more confident. He pulled out a pair of heavy handcuffs and clamped them over my wrists. If he’d known that I would be able to smash the little bands of metal apart with a small twist of my shoulders, he’d be a lot less confident, but as it was the soldiers seemed to think I was properly restrained.

Then they led me off into Amtor to face my nemesis of the day.

Chapter 33

Thomas Stein

Newman wasn’t in the control room, where I’d expected to see him. He’d set up inside a larger conference room instead. It must have been intended for use as a meeting hall for the colony residents, maybe with entertainment purposes as well. The front of the room was a stage, with seating rising up toward the rear like a theater.

The lighting was better here, and I heard the rumble of a small generator. Newman wasn’t taking chances with his own power. But even here, deep inside the colony, the UN troops were all in space suits with helmets nearby. No power meant no air circulation, and no backup systems to cut in and secure an area if there was an atmosphere breach. If one thing went wrong in this place, everyone without a suit might be dead very fast.

I checked my helmet to ensure it remained firmly attached where I left it. The armor was great, but it wouldn’t keep me breathing in a vacuum without the helmet.

“You've got him? Good. Bring him down here. We need to talk,“ Newman said. He was in the middle of the stage, standing there like he was conducting an orchestra.

The soldiers marched me down the center aisle toward the stage, allowing me to take in the rest of the room as we walked. Newman had moved a lot of the stage. Some of it looked like it had been ripped from the colony control room, but much of it had the rugged, made to move look of military gear. The dozen or so personnel working in the stage-turned-operations center moved about their jobs fluidly, with the look of long practice. I didn't recognize any of them.

I did know some of the faces seated in the audience seats, however. Newman had all the colony leaders sitting there. Reed, Jones, and Grace were all there, along with another dozen people I didn't know but assumed were important people from Amtor‘s infrastructure. Newman was keeping his enemies - and potential enemies - close.

As I grew nearer I saw one more familiar face on the stage, seated and tied to a chair. But it wasn't who I was expecting. The shock at seeing her was so great that I froze in place for a moment, and had to be jostled into motion again by the guard behind me.

“Keep moving,” he said. “Don’t make the General wait.”

I started forward again, casting my eyes down to hide my reaction. When Newman said he had one of my people, a woman who’d been a ‘hellion’, I’d assumed he had captured Kel. I’d left her behind at the colony, after all. She was behind enemy lines, or in a place captured by the enemy anyway, because I’d gone away and left her there. It didn’t matter that there was no way I could have gotten her back to the Archimedes, or given her the sort of treatment that she needed on board the ship even if I had. The guilt had been crushing anyway.

Except it wasn’t Kel tied to the chair. It was Lance Corporal Rosa. The name tag on her uniform said Flynn. She’d switched clothes with Kel and been taken prisoner instead of her. They’d captured the wrong hellion.

Rosa was gagged as well as bound, and even if she could speak she wouldn’t be able to safely tell me where Kel was. But as I let my gaze slide up to where she was held, her eyes met mine. She blinked, twice, slowly. It wasn’t a nod. That would be giving away too much. But there was no sadness in her eyes, just resolution.

They didn’t have Keladry. She was still free. I wanted to look around the room again and examine the colony leaders, but there was no point in giving General Newman any more information than he already had. Were they shielding her? Hiding her somewhere? They had to be. The colony leaders knew precisely who’d been left behind here. Kel, Rosa, and two other Marines to watch over them. They had to be keeping that information from Newman, which meant they were not completely cowed.

“Where are my other Marines, General?” I asked as I walked onto the stage.

“Dead, sadly. They fought gallantly, but they were overcome,” he said. He stepped forward and rapped my chest-plate with his knuckles. “Powered armor. Damn good stuff. Your father’s got a hell of a mind. With a little more time and a lot more people, you folks might have become a real force using tech like this.”

“You never know. It might still happen.”

He shook his head. “Your little insurrection is over, Stein. Earth’s orbit is clear again. Mars is all but won. I know you’ve got a couple of fighters in orbit that survived the death of your father’s flagship, but they’re not enough by themselves.”

“Well, you have me now. When can my people go?” I asked.

“We’ll take them into custody and then release them after this mess is concluded,” Newman replied. “Now that we have their commanding officer, your remaining troops should fall into line quickly. They’ll disarm. We’ll take their ship. They’ll be prisoners briefly, but you have my word - I will hold to the promise I gave you. They’ll be released as soon as I can arrange it. Once the fighting is truly done, they can go home to Mars and live life as normal.”

“That wasn’t the arrangement we made,” I said, arching an eyebrow. I’d been expecting the deal to change somewhat. I did appreciate the man’s honesty and his reassurance that my people would be taken care of. Newman’s reputation was one of honor and cunning. The man seemed to be living up to both parts equally well.

“I can’t very well let an armed warship and a platoon of power-armor Marines loose while the fighting is still resolving itself,” he said.

“No, I suppose not,” I replied.

His eyes narrowed as he looked me over. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” I said. I glanced at the wall where a clock gave me the local time. Any minute now.

Newman noticed my look. “Something interesting there?”

“Just checking the time,” I replied.

All at once, the power snapped back on. Lights went live that had been out. Air began circulating again through ventilations systems which had been shut off or running on battery power. The colony practically roared to life around us as electricity surged through every circuit that had been shut down, waking every dormant system in the place.

Newman’s eyes grew wide. He turned to his staff behind him. “What the hell is going on? I didn’t order power restored yet.”

“It’s the power station, sir. They’ve restored power from the site,” one of the techs replied.

“Contact them and find out what’s going on. I want that power back off until we have the situation here completely under control,” Newman said.

“I’m trying, sir. No contact.”

He whirled on me, then, his face incredulous. “This is your doing, isn’t it Stein?”

I couldn’t help but smirk a little. I was feeling smug. “You play chess, general? Check.”

Chapter 34

Nicholas Stein

Hacking my way into the UN ship’s systems wasn’t as much work as I’d feared. The ship was just a cargo vessel, after all. It lacked military grade hardware - including computer firewalls. The station’s computer was more than up to the task of cracking through the meager protection they had over their files. Once I was inside, there was a wealth of information waiting. General Newman had detailed files on all of Earth’s plans. There was even some data about their new weapon.

It was an Alcubierre device. Raymond had been right after all, back in the missile bay. The details were spotty, but somehow Earth had been able to create small quantities of the ‘exotic matter’ required to make the drive operate.

It wasn’t enough to power a ship. That would require massive quantities of the stuff. But they had been able to generate enough to create drives for several small projectiles. Then Choi had arranged for the matter to be smuggled up to Earth’s moon with regular shipments and supplies. There it had been weaponized, used to create little implements of destruction.

When the drive activated, it curved space around the missile, making it appear to go much faster than the speed of light. It wasn’t, though. If I understood the concept correctly, the missile skipped across regular space-time. It picked up bits of particle matter in its wake as it went. Those particles went relativistic, and when the drive cut off, releasing the missile back into regular space-time, all the particles released all of their energy at once.

The result was a massive explosion from a relatively tiny package that was utterly invisible to detection until it hit.

They’d taken down the Constitution in orbit around Earth with one of them. That must have been dicey to target. The wake could transmit enough energy to the atmosphere of a planet to generate hurricane force winds. They’d used other missiles to take down the Hermes and Mars Station.

Worst of all, I had no idea how many more of them there were.

“What’s next then, sir?” Carlson asked. He’d been reading over my shoulder. I let him. We needed this information to get out, and the more people who knew it the better. I wasn’t immortal, something which had been driven home with force of late. I leaned back in my seat and sighed.

“We’ve slowed down the invasion of Venus. Mars still needs us, though. Our best bet is going to be to grab Thomas and his Marines, and then get all of us back to Mars,” I said. “If we can arrive before the fighting there is over, we might be able to rally and fight back.”

“How do we get there, though?” Carlson asked. “If they can just blow a ship up whenever they want with one of those missiles?”

“They need time to get one of them up to speed. It’s not like they can simply fire one and instantly annihilate a target,” I said. The missile needed time to build up enough particle matter to create an explosion on arrival. How much time, I didn’t know.

We had two ships here, plus the station. Plus four Hawks. Together with the Archimedes, it was a decent flotilla. I’d done quite a lot with much less before. But Carlson was right. If we took off for Mars, they’d simply blow us to bits long before we arrived. They would have all the time they needed to target our ships and hit us with Alcubierre missiles.

A pinging on the console got my attention. It was an incoming message. I checked the signal. It was coming from Earth, and it was encrypted. I didn’t know what they were saying, but I had a feeling that not answering would likely be bad.

“Any of you boys want to help me decrypt this?” I asked over my shoulder.

We still had two UN troops captive. They were young, skinny, and looked more like computer techs than soldiers. Probably why they were up in the control room instead of out there with the rest of their people fighting me. But if they didn’t cooperate, Earth was going to rightly assume the station was compromised. They’d deal with the problem firmly. Most likely with another missile. I turned around to face them.

“This isn’t a joke, boys. Your bosses on Earth are calling. If we don’t answer, they’re going to blow this place up,” I said. “If that happens, I will be long gone. You will remain tied to those chairs. And this station - the only source of supplies for those innocent colonists on Venus - will be destroyed. Let’s not play this game.”

“Sorry, sir. No can do,” one of them finally replied. “We can’t give you classified information like that. It would be treason. Sir.”

The other nodded his assent. He looked more scared than his buddy, but he was going to back his play anyway. They were being good little soldiers, but it was going to get a lot of people killed.

“Carlson, go find out where they’ve stowed the station staff. Get them on board the ship we captured and shove off. This is going to go badly, I think,” I said.

“Aye, sir. What about you? The Hawks are still docked with that ship,” he replied.

“I’m going to try to talk sense into these kids. Failing that I’ll take the other ship.”

We couldn’t afford to lose either ship. This stroke had taken out most of our remaining fleet. We had little remaining, and I was guessing most of our other ships had been docked at Mars Station when it went down. These might be the only ships remaining in Mars Navy control. We needed every ship we could get.

Carlson went off to follow my orders. I hoped the colonists on the station staff wouldn’t give him too much trouble, but I was confident they would be grateful for the rescue. Meanwhile, I watched that little tell-tale light continue flashing the urgent ‘incoming message’ signal. Earth was going to want an answer soon. How long did I have? There was no way to know.

“Last shot, boys,” I said. “Then I’m getting out of here.”

They shook their heads again.

The message light stopped blinking. Damn it, I was out of time. I needed to be gone from here before that missile came calling. How far away was going to be good enough? I had no way of knowing for sure. I stood and turned to go, but the blinking resumed, catching my eye again.

This time the signal wasn’t from Earth. It was from Venus. From the colony. It wasn’t encrypted. This was a call I could just answer. Was it Thomas? Or Newman? What the hell was going on down there, anyway?

There was one way to find out. I thought I had a little time left before Earth blew the hell out of this place They’d want to be sure, before they burned a missile on their own people. I settled back into my seat, steeling myself for what might be either very good or very bad news, and then pressed the receive button.

Chapter 35

Thomas Stein

Newman stared at me for a long moment, his expression a blank slate. I wasn’t sure if he was going to laugh or have me shot. It was a little unnerving. His cold eyes assessed me carefully, and I could see the quick mind behind those eyes examining the situation in detail. Then he snapped a nod and turned back to his team.

“You’re not going to be able to reach the power station,” he said. “It’s Stein’s Marines. He must have had another of those tanks on his ship. He’s sent them to take it. Contact the space station instead. We’re going to need the other combat brigade after all. Get them down here.”

He turned back to me. His face was flushed with anger. “You’ve just killed all your men, and a hell of a lot of mine. For nothing. You can’t win, damn you.”

“I have to try, General,” I said.

“Sir, we’ve got contact with the space station,” a soldier said from his console.

“Put it on speaker. I want to talk to whoever is in charge up there, get them the hell down here ASAP,” Newman said.

There was a crackle of static as the speaker system was engaged and the radio transmission came to life.

“Newman, you’ve got a problem,” the voice said over the speakers.

I gaped. I knew that voice. I wanted to sag in relief, to call out to him. But I wasn’t sure precisely what his game was yet, and I didn’t want to blow his play. I waited instead, listening.

“Who is this?” General Newman replied. “Put me through to your commanding officer at once.”

“I don’t have a commanding officer, Newman. Don’t you know me? We’ve worked together once or twice before,” the voice replied.

Newman froze, recognition finally flashing across his face. I could see sweat beading on his forehead. He knew who the caller was. He knew precisely what that meant for his combat brigade in orbit.

“Admiral Stein,” he drawled. “You’re a damned sight harder to kill than any man has a right to be, you old goat.”

“I keep telling people that,” my father replied over the radio. “But they keep trying anyway.”

Newman laughed, a deep belly laugh. I was surprised. He and dad were talking like old friends, not enemy combatants. Then I remembered Perrault - the admiral who had led the fleet against Earth. He and Dad had been friends once, too. The upper echelons of the military were a rarified place. I supposed you got to know the other people living there, after a while.

“I take it my combat brigade isn’t coming down here anytime soon?” Newman asked.

“Sadly, no,” Dad replied. His voice sounded grim. I knew what that meant. He’d killed them. I wasn’t sure how, but he’d managed to take out an entire combat brigade, a ship full of people, without Newman getting wind of it.

“That does complicate things,” Newman replied.

“I don’t suppose you’d just surrender, if I called for it?” Dad asked. “If I am reading the sensor logs right from up here, our Marines have just retaken the power station. The Archimedes is airborne and headed your way as well. I think the fighting here is over, Alex. We’ll treat your people well, in accordance with Geneva Convention standards, if you toss it in now.”

Newman scratched his chin, staring hard at the radio. No one in the room said a word. His people let him think, and I didn’t want to say anything which might make him decide to keep fighting. I practically held my breath, hoping that he would make the right decision. We could save so many lives if he would just surrender.

“Nick, I’m afraid there’s one more bit of intel you don’t have yet,” Newman said. My heart sank. I already knew what he was going to say.

“Oh?” my father replied.

“I have Thomas here. With me,” he said. Then he drew his sidearm and aimed it at my face. “With a gun pointed at his head.”

My father laughed.

Newman’s eyes shot up. “Don’t believe me? Say hello to your father, Thomas.”

“Oh, I believe you,” my father said before I could open my mouth. “Alex, did you hear about what happened the last time someone captured my son and tried to use him against me? That man died a short while later, along with his flagship and hundreds of crew. You go ahead and keep Thom if you want. We’ll chat about your ransom of Red Chief situation later, assuming you live that long.”

“Damn it, Stein!” Newman said.

“My ships are on their way to your position with enough firepower to level it, and you with it. Don’t think I will hesitate for even a moment. Admiral Stein out.”

The broadcast ceased. I was on my own…again. Not really a shock. Dad would never have surrendered for me. Newman was grabbing at straws. He was boxed in, fighting a losing battle. But he could still do a lot of damage on the way out if we didn’t find a way to contain him.

I was still trying to figure out how the hell to do that when blasts of laser fire ripped across the stage. Two men went down in the first shots, their bodies pierced by the blasts. I raised my arms reflexively toward my face - just in time. Newman still had his pistol aimed at my face, and he squeeze the trigger in reaction to the sudden gunfire. His shots rebounded from my armored arms.

With a flex of my shoulders I smashed the handcuffs apart, diving toward the ground at the same time. My body hit Newman around his knees, the weight and momentum smashing him to the ground. His pistol skittered away across the stage.

More gunfire was flashing by overhead, both laser light and regular munitions. I recognized the laser fire - that was from the rifle my Marines carried. Who did we have inside shooting? My people couldn’t possibly have arrived in time.

I used the distraction to pop my helmet into place. Immediately I had readouts and radio contact restored. There was only one other combat armor suit active within tactical network range. I stared at the icon on my screen and my on-board computer gave me a data feed on the user. It was Kel!

“Good to see you up and about,” I said to her via the radio.

“Getting tired of saving your ass,” she replied.

“Hey, I had this under control!”

“Suuure, you did,” she replied. I could almost hear her eyes roll. “Get up and help me. There’s a lot of these goons.”

I grabbed a rifle from one of the fallen soldiers and popped up firing. Most of the targets on the stage were down - either hit, or cowering behind cover. Another squad of UN soldiers was trying to come into the room through the main doors, though. I aimed in that direction and squeezed off bursts of fire.

Behind me Rosa had tipped her chair over, taking herself out of the line of fire. She was still bound and helpless, though. I needed to get her out of there before someone had the bright idea of using her as a hostage.

“Going for Rosa,” I said.

“Covering you,” Kel replied, her voice sharp.

Laser blasts skimmed by in front of my face, pinning soldiers back to the floor. One of them managed to get a few shots off anyway. They pinged against my armor, reflecting off the field. I knelt beside Rosa, set down my rifle, and grabbed the ropes holding her wrists together with both hands. I had to be careful. With my armor’s strength I could pull on the ropes hard enough to cut her hands off, rather than break her bonds! I put the smallest strain on the cords, working to pull equally in both directions to avoid pressure on her skin. I heard her gasp anyway, then suck in a breath.

The ropes parted away and she grabbed her wrists, rubbing at them.

“Hold on. I’ll get your feet loose too,” I told her.

She ripped off her gag as I broke the ropes holding her feet in place. Able to move better, she darted under a console desk. It wasn’t the best cover in the world, but it was better than nothing.

“Thanks, sir,” she said.

“Glad to help. How’d you end up captured instead of Kel?”

She made a face. “Wasn’t my best plan. But the colonists helped. She was still injured, so they hid her when the UN soldiers came in. To make sure she got the medical care she needed. But by the time she was conscious, Newman had cut power.”

“I’m guessing they were less interested in playing ball with him by then?” I asked.

“Pretty much, yes sir.”

Then the room shook, a hard rocking that almost sent both of us back to the floor again. A crashing boom accompanied the mini-earthquake. My armor let me stay up, but anyone without that sort of enhancement was thrown to the floor.

Chapter 36

Thomas Stein

I glanced around the space. Newman was still down, unconscious. Most of his troops were pinned or dead. Kel was still up near the top of the room, up in the nosebleed seating. The colonists had taken cover as best they could. None of them were armed. All they were trying to do was stay the hell out of the way. Another massive boom shook the room. This time the ceiling tiles rattled and dust sprinkled down from above.

“What the hell is that?” Rosa asked.

“I’m pretty sure that’s our ride, shooting down the blast doors,” I said. “We’re about to have a lot of company in here. Just sit tight. Help’s on the way.”

Assuming they didn’t blow up the colony on their way in, anyway. The Archimedes had main guns perfectly capable of taking down the outer doors. They were designed for blowing up ships, not finesse.

“Irons, you blasting your way in, or just taking the place out?” I asked over the radio, hoping he was near enough to get through.

We were. “We’ll be down in just a moment, sir. Had a few people think it was a good idea to block armored Marines. We’ve assisted them in reassessing that position.”

I chuckled. “Things are dying down in here, but we could use the rest of the platoon for mop-up. Let’s clean the rest of the rats out of this place.”

“We’ll be right down,” Irons promised.

Which meant all we needed to do was hold the room just a little longer. Newman still had a fair number of soldiers around the base, though. We weren’t out of the woods. As I had the thought, two more of his men took up firing positions in the doorway. I snagged my rifle, their bullets snapping into my armor with loud pinging sounds, striking sparks with each shot. Damn, those hurt! They were punching right through the field, which meant they had switched over to some sort of armor-piercing ammunition. I raised my own weapon and returned fire.

Kel’s laser fire lit up the room as she opened up on the doorway, burning holes in the frame where they were hiding. The rough silicon based material the panels were made from didn’t have a chance against her shots. They punched right through, burning holes in the soldiers hiding behind them.

“Sir, Newman is gone!” Rosa said.

I looked over to where the General had been laid out. He wasn’t there anymore. Swearing under my breath, I started in that direction, looking for him. I kept my rifle at the ready. I didn’t really want to shoot the man. He might prove useful, and he hadn’t been too big an asshole. He’d kept Rosa alive, after all. And he’d more or less kept his word to me once he gave it. I had too little experience with honorable opponents to wish them dead.

He lunged at me out of nowhere. I’d missed his hiding place entirely, and he hit me from my right side, knocking my rifle out of alignment with his first blow. His second hit slammed something into the joint of my shoulder. Sparks flashed, and a row of blinking red lights appeared in my visor display. What had he done?

I managed to turn toward Newman, but I’d lost control over my right arm entirely. The rifle slipped from a hand that I couldn’t control at all anymore. It clattered against the floor. Newman was there, a heavy knife flashing in his hand. Sparks still jetted from the joint of my shoulder armor where he’d stabbed me. That hadn’t been an accident. He’d known precisely where to strike.

“I spent some time examining that armor your men wore,” Newman said. “Always good to know the enemy’s weapons.”

I brought my left arm around, parrying his next blow, but the one after that hit my chest armor, skittering against a plate there before sliding into a gap and sticking. More sparks flew. He’d nailed me a second time, and more alarms went off inside my helmet as additional systems failed. I was impressed. The man was amazing. If it had been me fighting someone in combat armor with nothing but a knife, I’d have been beaten to a pulp inside of a minute.

“You can’t win, Newman. Even if I go down, there’s a whole platoon of armored men on their way in,” I said.

“That doesn’t mean a soldier stops fighting,” he replied, stabbing again. I blocked, but only just. I couldn’t let him land any more blows. My armor was already bashed up enough.

I needed a way to end this fight before one of us got hurt more badly. I blocked another slash. Then I whirled in place. Without control of the arm, my spin sent it swinging out away from my body. It crashed into Newman’s side. I felt something crack beneath the blow and winced. The force of the impact picked the General up off his feet and sent him tumbling several feet through the air.

He crashed to the floor in a heap. I grimaced even more deeply, and went to his side. He was unconscious, but at least he was still breathing. I reached out to his wrist with my still-functioning left hand. Sensors in the glove did a quick check of Newman’s vital signs. He was hurt and out for the count, but he would live. He might be spending a while in a medical bay, though.

“Irons, how are things going up there?” I asked into the radio. The room was half filled with smoke from burned panels and machines. Small fires were burning in one corner and up by the doorway, both likely set by Kel’s laser rifle. But the last enemies in sight had tossed down their arms. Rosa was tying them up while Kel used her laser to ensure they didn’t get any sudden ideas about trying to fight back again.

“We’re inside, sir. Minimal resistance. Be down to you in a moment.”

I walked over to where the colonists were just beginning to rise out of hiding and called out to them. “It’s pretty much over. Are any of you hurt? We’ll get the injured medical attention.”

“Grace was hit,” Jones said, standing up. I glanced down and saw the colony’s lead scientist laying on the floor, a dressing over her belly. She was pale, and the dressing was covered with blood.

“We’ll get her treatment immediately,” I said. “Hang in there, Grace.”

She nodded at me, her lips a thin line. “I’ll be all right.”

“No thanks to you,” Reed said, rising. He swung his arm out to encompass the mess, and we had made something of a mess of the place.

“Thanks to me, you folks have at least a fighting chance of staying free,” I said. “But I wouldn’t count on it. The UN will send more troops. They’re going to make sure this place never turns into another Mars.”

I thought about it a minute, unsure what Choi would do. Would be declare martial law here? Would he simply bring everyone home? It was hard to say for sure. It wasn’t going to be pleasant for anyone remaining with the colony, though.

“We could use more hands. Any of you who want to come with us are welcome,” I said.

Reed opened his mouth to retort something, but Jones laid a restraining hand on his arm, and he subsided, glaring at Jones and I both.

“I’ll pass the word along,” Jones said. “But people have a lot wrapped up in this place. I don’t know that many will want to go.”

“I understand,” I said. I stepped clear of them. More of my Marines were pouring in the doors at the top of the room now. They were linking up with Kel. I saw two of them carrying a stretcher and motioned them down toward Grace. The sooner we got her medical attention, the better off she would be. I had a feeling they would need her intelligence for what was coming their way.

I’d said that I understood, and I supposed I did a little. After all, for me it was Mars that was home. That was the planet I wanted to protect. But this place? With only a couple hundred people, and just the bare elements of survival? It seemed to me like they had always been strained to the breaking point, and things had only gotten worse. I wondered if any of them would survive at all, if we left them here.

Chapter 37

Nicholas Stein

Our withdrawal from the colony space station had been just in time. My little chat with Newman almost caused me to overstay my time aboard, but I’d managed to get onto the freighter and disengage in time. Both ships were hundreds of miles away before the Alcubierre missile impacted near the station.

It was the first time I’d been able to observe the weapon at work. The effect was gorgeous at that range. The missile flashed back into real space, releasing all its built-up particle matter, each one moving at a significant percentage of the speed of light. The particles shot out in waves, creating an incredible display as they impacted dust and other particles already in space around the station’s orbit. For a brief moment a nebula woke in space over Venus, brilliantly shifting blues, greens, and red flashing as the particles collided and discharged their force.

The station was obliterated almost instantly. The speeding particle matter annihilated it. It wasn’t the series of explosions one might see with a missile attack. One moment the station was there. The next it was vapor and shattered chunks of metal, the energy in the Alcubierre wake ripping it apart. The force of the wake continued on, smashing into the planet’s atmosphere and sending hurricane force winds speeding to the planet below.

It was the better part of an hour before atmospheric conditions had calmed enough that radio traffic could resume without issues. We spent that hour bringing both captured ships in as close as I could to Venus’s thick atmosphere. The engines were straining to maintain orbit at this low an altitude, but the ship would be harder to spot there. The last thing I needed was for Earth to realize we had their vessels and to send another missile. This was a weapon against which we had no defense.

I punched in a radio call to the colony. The screen flickered and came to life with a picture of Thomas’s face. I heaved a sigh of relief. I’d hoped that he would be able to pull something off and manage a win against Newman, but it was one thing to hope your son was all right, and another entirely to see that he was.

“Thomas. Thank god. When Newman said he had a gun to your head…”

“Seems like I’m about as hard to kill as you are, Dad,” he said.

“I’m glad. What’s the situation down there?” I asked.

“We have the colony back under local control. Newman is alive and locked up in their medical center. We have a few dozen of his men prisoner here as well. A lot of them just dropped their weapons and surrendered toward the end,” he said. “It’s a mess down here. The Archimedes had to blast its way into the hangars up topside. They’re a wreck. One power station is down, and the other is damaged. These people don’t want to evacuate, though. They want to stay here and repair the place.”

I could hear the frustration in his voice, and I sympathized. But I also understood the colonists’ point of view. This was their home. They had a right to stay and try to make it work. These people were smart enough to know that they would have an uphill battle to survive in the months ahead. One damaged power station and no space station to receive new ships and supplies made for a tough road ahead. But…

“It’s their home, Thomas. And their lives. They have a right to try to preserve their world. We need to worry about ours,” I told him.

I had no word from Mars at all. From what I’d seen of the UN plans, Mars Station was likely gone. What we had here was probably all that remained of our fleet. If they were hitting Venus with over a brigade of combat troops, they would have sent many times more men to Mars. With no space-based defenses remaining, the battle would be on the surface. Defenders would fight them in the halls and warrens below the rocky soil, where our people had dug in against just such a possibility.

That was assuming there was anyone left there fighting at all. I hadn’t been able to raise anyone from Mars via the radio. For all we knew, that battle was already finished.

“You want to head to Mars, then?” he asked.

“It seems the best bet. We can retake the planet, and then figure out our next move from there,” I said.

“Dad, how did they take down the Hermes? Newman was talking like they’d destroyed Mars Station as well.”

I filled him in on the new weapon, both what I had learned about it from the UN computer and what I had seen when they fired on the station. The Alcubierre missile was unnerving. It changed the nature of battle in space. With it, Earth could take out virtually any ship they could detect, and obliterate it completely. No station was safe. No ship could move along any vector without being targeted. Since the missiles were effectively little ships themselves, for all I knew even evasive action would be useless. The missiles might be able to correct their course in flight and hit a target even if it changed vector.

To my surprise, Thomas laughed when I finished talking.

“What’s funny about all this?” I asked. It was too close, for me. Too grim. I saw nothing to laugh about and my face probably showed it. Thomas’s own smile vanished quickly when he saw my look.

“Sorry, Dad. Just thinking about how they built this thing. ‘That’s no moon,’ indeed,” he said. “So they’ve got a new weapon. It seems to me like our next objective has to be to take the thing out.”

“I disagree. We need to get back to Mars. Our people need us, Thomas.”

I was profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of launching a new assault. Earth had us badly outclassed in this. Until we found a way to restore the balance of power, it would be better to simply lay low, retake what was ours, and rebuild. Thomas was staring at me through the screen, a quizzical look on his face.

“We don’t even know if there is still a Mars to fight for,” he said. He raised a hand and went on before I could reply. “No - I hope there is too. But you’re missing something about this weapon.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve seen the data on what the particle matter did to the atmosphere on Venus. Between the two blasts, massive energy has been dumped into the soup down here. The colony scientists are telling me they expect a drastic increase in mean wind speeds for a long time to come as a result,” he said. “Think about what that means for Mars.”

“Nothing much,” I said. “Mars doesn’t have much of an atmosphere to stir up. There isn’t enough air to make a hurricane there.”

But even as I said the words, I realized what Thom was getting at. All that energy still had to go somewhere. A planet with a thick atmosphere like Venus was well protected by that shield. Even Earth, with a thinner shell of air around it, would see little particle energy reach the ground. It would be stopped by the millions of molecules of air between space and the ground.

Mars had no such defense. An Alcubierre missile fired against the planet itself could be made to explode near the surface, venting its full fury into the ground. The particles would smash into the crust, releasing a massive burst of radiation. It might not be lethal to the people living below the surface. The Mars colony was already well shielded due to the need to block out cosmic and solar radiation. But would that be enough to stop a close-range burst of this magnitude?

“All they have to do is fire that weapon at Mars itself, and they’ll fry us all in our beds,” Thomas said. “If we retreat now, we lose any chance of taking that weapon out, and they have a permanent knife to our throats.”

I raised my arms in frustration. He was right, damn it. I wasn’t sure how I’d missed seeing that earlier. My need to get back home and protect what I’d built had gotten in the way of my ability to think things through to their inevitable conclusion. It made me nervous about my judgement. What else had I missed? What other times had I allowed my emotions to cloud my reason, when it came to Mars? I was not used to second guessing my thoughts.

“You’re right,” I said at last. “But I don’t see how we can get close enough to the weapon to take it down. They’ll destroy our ships before we are anywhere near it.”

“I have some ideas about that, but I don’t want to discuss them over the radio. I’ll join you in orbit on the Archimedes shortly,” he said.

He closed the connection and I closed my eyes, massaging my temples and feeling older than I ever had before. When had my son become the one calling the shots here? It was surprising. I recalled his first toddling steps like they were yesterday. When had he surpassed me when it came to strategy?

That thought brought a smile. I felt like experience might still give me a little edge in that regard, for a while yet at least. But it was a good feeling, ultimately. It was proof that despite the times I’d screwed up as a parent, the end result had been a good one. Thomas would be a better man than I ever was. As a parent, I felt that there was no higher mark of success.

Chapter 38

Thomas Stein

Getting the Archimedes into orbit was the easy part, even with the extra cargo we were taking on. The main bay was mostly empty now. We’d lost two out of our three Growlers, and the Valkyrie was gone. Instead we crammed two of the UN combat shuttles into the space those vehicles had occupied. I was certain they would prove useful in the battle to come.

I leaned back against my seat as the pressure of lift-off shoved me back. The Archimedes was buffeted by the furious winds of Venus. A smaller ship would have been torn apart. A lesser pilot would have crashed the ship. With Kel at the helm I was confident we’d make it, even with the increased fury of the ever-present storms circling the planet. Earth’s new weapon had hurt this world badly. I wondered how long it would take for things to return to normal. Worse, I feared what might happen if such weapons were turned against my own home on Mars.

This must have been what people felt like back in the 20th century, when nuclear weapons first became a threat. There was no defense against a nuclear missile, back then. No way to shoot the things down before they hit. No way to stop the devastation that an attacker could wreak with the touch of a button. The only surety anyone had been able to accomplish for decades was to build enough of the damned things that anyone who used one assured their self-destruction as well as the annihilation of the enemy. They called it ‘mutually assured destruction’, back then.

We were in a similar boat now, except it wasn’t mutual. Earth had come out on top in the tech war. They could obliterate all human life on Mars, shoot down any ship with impunity, and never fear a retaliatory strike. It was a deadly precipice.

I had confidence that we would in time learn to overcome this weapon as well. We’d learn its weak spots, and learn to shield against it or stop it before it struck. In the meantime Mars could build its own Alcubierre missiles, achieve parity and a ‘mutually assured destruction’ stance would prevent the further use of such weapons. It was unpleasant, but humanity had survived that before. We would likely do so again.

We could only reach that point if we were given enough breathing room to develop either our own weapon or a defense against it, however. Which meant that base on Luna from which they were launching the missiles had to go.

“Orbit in five,” Kel said.

“Thanks. The admiral will meet us in a shuttle once we’re in space,” I said.

“Good luck convincing him,” she said. She’d been present in the room when I spoke with Dad earlier, just off-screen.

“I think he’s on board. I just need to get him to sign off on the actual plan,” I said.

Kel chuckled. “The plan is why I’m wishing you luck.”

That I had seen the need for a strike but Dad had missed it was jarring. I was used to being two steps behind him when it came to strategy, not the other way around. But it was clear as day to me. Retreat was untenable. We might be able to win another battle for Mars, but Earth would be able to blast us to bits whenever they wanted. We had to hit them, and this might be our only shot at it.

Once the ship was in free-fall, I unclipped from my seat and floated back from the cockpit area down toward the center of the ship. Dad’s shuttle would dock there, and I wanted to meet him when he arrived. I got to the airlock in time. His shuttle was still on final approach. Irons was already standing by waiting, along with a pair of Marines as a security detail. I raised an eyebrow at the guards.

“The Old Man is a stickler for some protocols,” Irons said. “He’ll appreciate an honor guard for his arrival.”

“Even under these circumstances?” It seemed a little much to me.

“Especially under these circumstances,” he assured me. “You stick to the basics, even in battle. Keeps you alive.”

I grunted a response and we waited in silence while the shuttle docked. The airlock cycled, and finally opened to reveal my father. He lifted his space-suit helmet from his head, and I tried not to look shocked. He seemed old to me.

His face was haggard, with bruises under his eyes from lack of sleep and pushing too hard for too long. His hands had a small tremor as they settled the helmet to his side. I affected not to notice that. He wouldn’t want to seem weak. Instead I saluted my father and welcomed him aboard.

“Good to be here,” he replied.

“Coffee?” I offered.

“Please.” There was real warmth in his voice. “It’s been a long day.”

“We’ve got food and coffee set up in the conference room, sir,” Irons said. “Figured you could use something while you two hammer out a plan to save all our butts. If you’ll come this way?”

We didn’t really start the meeting until I’d made sure Dad had gotten some food along with his coffee. We all needed to be at our best for what was coming. Sleep would help, but some fuel would have to do for the moment. Time was running out.

“Thanks for coming aboard,” I said at last, setting down the warm bulb of coffee. It was designed to stick to the table in front of us, even without gravity. I couldn’t burn the engines to give us artificial gravity without risking detection. If Earth knew about us they’d blow us to bits. It was that problem we needed to overcome.

“Thanks for the refreshments. I gather you have a plan?” he said.

“More or less. But you’re not going to like it much. It involves sacrifice.”

“Of what?” he asked.

“Of those ships you captured,” I said. I pressed a button, and a display appeared on the wall. Images I’d prepared to illustrate my plan flashed across the screen.

To his credit, Dad didn’t immediately explode. He was drumming his fingers on the table impatiently by the time I was done, though.

“Both ships?” he said. “Why sacrifice both? They might be useful.”

“Because Choi knows I have the Arch here, and he knows we captured at least one ship, maybe as many as two. If only one ship returns to Mars, he’ll know we have at least one more out here somewhere. He’ll look for it,” I said. “It won’t be hard to find us, if he knows we’re coming. There are only two destinations worth going to. If we’re not going to Mars…”

“Then he’ll know we’re going to attack Earth,” Dad finished for me. “I understand. It hurts to lose two-thirds of our fleet on a ruse, though.”

“Those buckets? Dad, seriously,” I said. “The Arch is worth ten of them, easily. Probably more. This ship is probably the best combat vessel humanity has right now.”

“Point taken. Speaking of which, the ship is stealthy, but the drives are still going to show up when we use them. How do you propose to get to Earth without being seen?”

“I’ve worked out the math,” I said, waving an arm. Technically, the computer had worked out the math, but I’d checked the computer’s work. “We burn with the other two ships at the start, slingshotting around Venus with them to build velocity. But the Arch leaves early, changing our vector to head to Earth. We use the Hawks to build additional velocity and manage any minor course corrections. Their drives are smaller and won’t be as easily seen.”

“Meanwhile the other two ships…?” he asked.

“Make for Mars on autopilot, pretending to be us,” I said.

Earth would likely blow them to kingdom come, but then they’d think it was over. With luck, they would believe they’d killed us. Even if they sent a ship to check, it would take them days to arrive and examine the wreckage. By the time they found out the ships had been unmanned, we’d already have reached Luna.

As plans went, it was a Hail Mary pass. I knew there were flaws. Losing the ships was a big throwaway of resources, but I couldn’t think of another way to convince Earth we were dead. Then there would be the assault itself, a strike against a base whose defenses we didn’t know, with just the troops and equipment we had on the Archimedes. It was a serious roll of the dice, and I sat there on the edge of my seat while my father stared at the screen in thought. I’d never been able to predict well how he would react to anything.

In my heart I knew that going to Mars was the wrong call, though. If we went down that road, we lost even if we won. My plan was riskier, but at least we had a shot at regaining a balance of power again.

“We’ll do it,” Dad said at last. I relaxed a little, heaving out a breath. “One thing you missed. What will you do with your prisoners?”

“We could ship them out to Mars aboard the diversion ships?” I suggested.

“No, not on unmanned vessels. They might break free somehow and alert Earth. Besides, I think that would be a death sentence for Newman and his people. We’re opposing forces, but I don’t want to see my prisoners slaughtered,” he said.

“Choi would kill his own general?” I asked. The idea shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.

“I think Choi will stop at nothing to regain full control over humanity for Earth, and the UN. I don’t know precisely why he’s so fixated on this, but he is,” Dad replied. “We can’t leave them behind on Venus, either. They could break out, take control. Or even convince someone there to help them.”

“You want to bring them with us aboard the Archimedes,” I said. I let how unappealing that idea sounded to me leak into my voice. The last thing we needed was prisoners aboard the ship during combat.

“You’ve got a brig.”

“It’s not meant for long term use like this,” I reminded him.

“It will have to do. Besides, they might prove useful. I approve the plan,” he said. “Let’s set things in motion.”

Chapter 39

Nicholas Stein

The journey to Earth’s moon had been blissfully uneventful. Hours away, as near as I could tell we were still undetected. The moment of truth would be in the assault itself. That’s when we would discover if the small force we could bring to bear would be enough to destroy Earth’s doomsday weapon.

Thomas was already in armor with his Marines, on board the shuttles preparing for their drop. Flynn had taken over the fourth Hawk fighter - the one Leibur had flown before he died in my arms. She would lead the fighter wing in the battle to come. For now, all four little craft were attached to the outside of the Archimedes, but soon they would soar out to strike the enemy base.

I would command the Archimedes, which meant I had little to do for the moment. The ship was running silent. Every system which could be shut down, was. Batteries powered our life support. Only passive scanners were online. We’d reduced our visible signature as much as possible. Out in the deep of space, the ship would be virtually impossible to spot until we began braking maneuvers.

My wandering around the ship eventually brought me to the brig. I’d been avoiding the place, but it seemed to call to me now. Perhaps I was hoping for some sort of resolution. Alex Newman had once been a friend. That he’d been part of an operation to kill both myself and my son hurt almost as much as Perrault’s betrayal had.

Perrault had killed another of my friends. I still missed having the gruff but confident Acres by my side. But worse than his loss was not understanding why he’d been killed. Perrault had been a good man. Driven but decent, at least when we had known each other well. But he’d been prepared to slaughter every human being on Mars just to end our battle for independence. It jangled inconsistently with my memory of who he had been.

Now Newman too, whose reputation for honor had been well-earned over decades of long service. The man was a legend, and rightly so. He hadn’t slaughtered civilians, but from what Thomas had said he’d played that card as a threat. It didn’t match what I knew of the man at all.

The brig was tiny, with only three cells. Two of them were crammed full of Newman’s men, but he was set aside in his own room. Not out of respect for his position so much as for his cunning. He’d be much more dangerous with his men around him, and the last thing we wanted was a smart enemy loose on board the ship.

It also meant that I could speak to him in private. I snapped a salute to the Marine on duty, who returned it. I didn’t know Thomas’s people at all yet. I did appreciate his leaving behind one of the Marines to guard the prisoners, though. It was something we hadn’t discussed, but it was a good bit of attention to detail. The Archimedes had a small crew, aside from the Marine force. Once Thomas departed, there would be only six of us here, plus his lone Marine guard and a few injured Marines.

Then I went to Newman’s room and rapped on the door.

“Enter,” a voice said from inside.

I opened the door and floated in, closing it behind me. It was a bare space, with just a bunk and space toilet. Newman was floating just above his bed. The ship wasn’t accelerating, so of course there was no gravity. I let myself drift just inside the door.

“Accommodations satisfactory?” I asked, hoping to break the ice.

“Exemplary, as prisons go,” he replied. “I’m surprised we weren’t blown to bits, but have to say I’m not upset about it.”

“Your base targeted the other ships. Wiped them both out. The decoy seems to have worked, so far at least,” I said.

“Are we at Mars, then?”

“You know I can’t answer that.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding with a knowing grin. “You old goat. You went for the prize. I rather thought you would. You’re going to hit Luna.”

“Thomas’s idea, actually. I would have preferred Mars,” I said. There was no point in lying, and perhaps I could convince him to give me some truth by giving him a little.

“Your boy is good. The apple didn’t fall far with that one.”

“Thank you. I am inclined to agree,” I said. “This will all be over soon, one way or the other.”

“I only wish that were so,” he said, his face an ugly grimace.

I could see the pain in that face, the fear and loss hiding just below the exterior. What had happened to the man to make him feel that way? What had he seen or done that would make him look so?

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

He glanced up at me sharply. The look was gone, his face a mask again. “Classified. Highest levels only.”

“High enough so, maybe, Perrault would have had access?” I asked. I already knew the answer. Whatever the source of Alex’s pain, it had been the same that had turned Perrault into the monster he’d been at the end. I was close to something, some bit of truth that I needed to know if I was ever going to understand.

“You already know the answer to that question, Stein. Stop digging,” he said. “What’s at the bottom of this pit won’t bring you peace. Just nightmares.”

“Let me be the judge…” I started to say.

“No.” There was a finality to the way he said that one word which told me the conversation was over. I’d gotten all I was going to get out of him. For the time being, at least.

My watch pinged. We were closing on the moon. The Archimedes would perform a close fly-by, dropping the shuttles and fighters as we soared past. We’d loop around the moon, braking as we went, bleeding off speed and staying close to the surface to hopefully avoid being blown to bits.

I turned and left without another word. Alex didn’t have anything to add, either. What was this dark secret he was keeping, that had turned Perrault into the monster he’d become, and shook even Newman to his core?

I pushed the thought from my mind as I passed by the Marine on guard. There was work to be done. The rest would wait. I flashed the youngster a smile and he looked like a shark had just grinned at him. That somehow made me feel worse. Young soldiers never changed. They always felt anxious around people with a lot of rank on their collar. They didn’t know that rank tended to make a man worse, not better than them.

Chapter 40

Thomas Stein

The shuttle shuddered as the hangar doors opened, the last bits of air evacuating from the bay. We had two shuttles, but only one pilot - me. Kel was needed to pilot the fourth Hawk. Lieutenant Mackenzie would fly the Archimedes itself, with my father as copilot. But it left me as the one available pilot capable of dropping a shuttle down through enemy fire onto a hostile base.

We didn’t have the Growler. It wouldn’t fit in the shuttle. We did have every able-bodied Marine I could cram into a suit of armor stuffed inside like sardines. The unit had lost people and personnel back on Venus. Of the forty-two suits we’d started with, only thirty remained operational. Worse yet, we were down to only twenty-six combat-effective troops, counting Irons and myself. Two squads of twelve Marines each was how we’d split the unit up. It would have to do.

I’d left behind six people too injured to fight, on bed-rest under the supervision of the Archimedes medic.

Small jets of the thrusters pushed us outside of the bay. A moment later we were gliding alongside the Arch, carried along by our momentum. I flipped the shuttle around so that the main engines were aimed toward the moon. We were going to have to do a hell of a burn to slow down.

“Hawks are away,” Mackenzie reported over the radio.

I glanced at the dark form of the Archimedes, watching as the black shapes of the Hawk fighters flitted free with small burst of their own thrusters. I lost track of them almost immediately on visual. They were black against black, almost impossible to spot in space. My computer continued to plot their location and display it on my screen, though.

“Godspeed, Kel,” I said.

“We’ll keep you covered on your way in. Just keep that tugboat in one piece,” she replied.

Then the Hawks engaged their main thrusters, rocketing forward into the night. They’d arrive at the moon ahead of us, hopefully taking a bite out of any opposition and drawing some fire away from the slower, more vulnerable shuttle.

It was time to begin our own braking maneuver. I radioed the Arch. “We’re starting our burn. See you on the other side.”

“We’ll be there quick as we can. The Archimedes will draw the fire of any larger vessels Choi might have out there waiting,” Dad replied. “Thanks for leaving a Marine behind to guard the prisoners, by the way. That was a nice touch.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Irons, confused. He shook his head at me, his face as blank as mine. He hadn’t left anyone behind. The only Marines left on the Archimedes ought to be stuck in bed, too badly hurt to be moving around much. A cold feeling gripped my guts.

“Dad, I didn’t leave anyone.”

There was a pause. Then he replied. “Understood.”

“We need to abort,” I said. Something was very wrong on board the ship, and we’d taken all the able fighters away for this assault. We needed to get back there and make sure those prisoners were still locked down.

“Negative. You will do no such thing,” he said. “We’ve got this. You have your mission and your orders. Do your job, Commodore.”

I froze. More than anything, I wanted to say the hell with orders and go in guns blazing. We would retake the ship quickly and then get back out to the base. Except everything about this assault relied on timing and coordination. If we returned to the Arch, we’d be leaving the Hawks hanging out there without support. They were taking a huge risk to cover our descent, but they couldn’t cover us forever. We’d lose the element of surprise, the window for the planned attack - everything would be a mess.

He wasn’t wrong. My thumb hovered over the button to begin the burn for one more agonizing moment before I pressed it. The shuttle lurched as the powerful thrusters kicked in at full power, slowing our drop and shifting our vector. We were aimed like a missile now, dropping straight toward the lunar base like a fireball.

The Archimedes shot away from us, their own vector carrying them into a shallow orbit instead of a fast descent. I prayed Dad would be all right up there. Then I pushed the thoughts aside. Tell-tale warning lights were flashing across my console. We were being lit up by every tracking system known to man, from the looks of it.

“Multiple launches on the surface,” Kel said over the radio. “This is about to get hot.”

I watched the radar as the contacts resolved. Most of the launches were clearly missiles. They rocketed space-ward at high speed, blazing a trail toward their target - us.

But about a half dozen of those little blips were slower moving, building speed as they rose. Worse yet, they were falling into formation.

“Kel, they’ve got fighters,” I said.

“I see them. Preparing to engage. You get to the ground.”

The first volley of missiles was closing on us fast. Hawk anti-missile fire tore through them as they passed, taking out most of the things. There were still an uncomfortable number headed right for us. I did the only thing I could think of. I flipped the ship again. Switching on full manual controls, I brought the nose up ten degrees and left the thrusters firing on full.

I pressed a button, dropping countermeasures behind us as we flew almost directly at the remaining missiles. Flares drifted in space behind us, and ejection ports in the front of the shuttle pushed out little bits of sparkling chaff which broke up our radar signal.

The missiles lost our signal for a crucial few seconds. They re-acquired us almost immediately, but we were going very fast. They lost precious time overcoming their outbound velocity and coming back at us again. As long as I could keep our own velocity up, they were going to be hard pressed to nail us.

Of course, I couldn’t keep the speed up forever. We had to land. If we impacted the ground at anything like our present speed all we would do is add another crater to the moon’s surface.

“Kel, we could use a little…”

“Already on it,” she replied. “Hang on. Those fighters are giving us a hard time out here. We’ll bag your tails though.”

I checked the radar display of the battle outside. We’d already lost one Hawk, but half the enemy’s fighter force was gone. The Hawks were proving to be more than a match for the UN fighters. Whether that was Mars Navy tech at work, or simply that our pilots had a hell of a lot more combat experience in their craft I couldn’t say. One of the Hawks peeled off to engage our missiles while the other two kept the remaining UN pilots busy.

A short flurry of explosions later, and the missiles were gone. We had new problems, though. One of the fighters had decided to pick up where the missiles left off, and was zeroing in on our tail.

I flipped the shuttle, firing our engines to brake us. The fighter zipped past, narrowly swerving to avoid our ship as it flew by. For good measure, I shot two of our own missiles after the thing. They streaked off, tracking the fast-moving fighter. They probably wouldn’t be enough to take it down, but they’d keep it busy for a little while, which was all I needed.

“There’s surface guns,” Irons warned.

I saw the same alert on my console. The shuttle rocked as several shells exploded nearby. We were a sitting duck while we were slowing down like this, but there wasn’t much else we could do. I jinked and swerved, using the maneuvering thrusters to make us a harder target to hit as best I could.

There was a tearing sound and decompression in the back of the shuttle. Someone hollered over the radio. The shuttle started turning, almost dropping into a spin. A second round impacted us and we did start spinning. I struggled with the controls, fighting to stabilize our drop. We were still falling like a stone, and if I couldn’t get things back in hand we were going to be a smear all over the lunar surface.

Chapter 41

Nicholas Stein

The Archimedes shot around the moon away from the battle, our sensors pinging the entire area for all they were worth. We were announcing our presence to anyone watching by using so many active sensors, of course. There were two reasons for that. With the best sensors, the Archimedes could relay data to the smaller craft in our assault force, allowing them to sneak in a lot closer using only passive sensors. It also painted a big target on the Arch. As the ship with the best defensive capabilities, we wanted it to take the brunt of any attack.

“Multiple launches from the surface coming our way,” Mackenzie said. “Also got two ships breaking from Earth orbit. Their drive signatures read as freighters, but they’re making a beeline for us.”

“Armed ships, then,” I said.

“That would be my guess, sir. They’re making hard burn, and should be here within forty minutes. Looks like they’re planning a gravity assisted braking action, or they’ll shoot right past us.”

“They may be hoping to take us out with one pass. At the speed they’ll be traveling, our guidance systems will have a hard time targeting them,” I said. “All right, we have some time. You’ve got the ship, Lieutenant.”

“Sir?” He looked appalled.

“Dodge those missiles and get us back around the moon and into the fight as fast as you can. I’ve got to go deal with another issue,” I said.

Thomas said he hadn’t left any Marines behind. But there was a man standing there on guard when I’d been back there earlier. Perhaps it was just one of the wounded Marines, up and out of bed earlier than he ought to be. My guess was that we had a major problem aboard this ship, though. I needed to get it resolved before it turned into a crisis.

I hit the weapons locker just outside the cockpit. It opened to my retinal scan, and I grabbed a rifle from inside. It had been a while since I’d had to use one of these things, but it was like riding a bicycle. I threw on a combat vest loaded with magazines. Then I grabbed two more rifles and slung them over my shoulder, along with two more vests.

If things were as bad as I thought they were, I was going to need backup. I swung by the medical bay. There was one man standing inside, hovering over a patient in a bed. Six of the beds were filled with wounded soldiers, their vital signs flashing on screens overhead. None of them looked awake or at all able to pick up a gun. The medic gawked at me as I came in bristling with weapons.

“Sir?” he asked.

“No time,” I said. I checked his name and rank. “Ensign Jaeger. I think it’s likely that at least some of the prisoners are loose. Maybe more than one. We need to get in there and stop them. Any of these wounded men up for a fight?”

He shook his head. “Absolutely not, sir. Most of them are sedated and on pain meds. Some of them are unstable as hell. If I had any way to get them someplace that wasn’t a combat zone, they would already be there.”

“Then you’re with me. We’ll pick up others as we move.”

“I need to stay with the wounded, sir. If any of them get worse…”

“If the enemy take this ship, they’re all dead anyway,” I said. I’d blow the ship myself before I let her fall into Newman’s hands. The last thing we needed was a ship as strong as this under UN control.

“Sir, I can fight,” a voice croaked from a bed next to me.

“You don’t look up to standing, let alone fighting, son,” I told him. He didn’t, either. I could use any able-bodied person available, but I wasn’t going to haul him out of bed to become quick cannon-fodder if he couldn’t even fight back.

“Get me to my armor. Systems there will keep me up and moving. Mechanical limbs,” he muttered.

He was right, of course. The suit would detect his condition and pump him full of stimulants to keep him going. It would triage and treat any critical injuries, allowing him to remain functional well past what the human body could generally endure. We’d designed them that way. Any weakness in his real muscles would be compensated for by the motors driving the powered armor.

I couldn’t use the suits myself. I’d never been fitted to one, and hadn’t gone through the training required to synch with the things. I could probably put one on, but I’d seen the troops when they were first learning to use them. I’d wreck the ship, break myself, and be completely ineffective in combat. But this man…?

“What’s your name, son?” I asked.

“Marsden. Lance Corporal, sir. Your son saved my life, back on Venus,” he said, struggling to a sitting position. “I’d like to return the favor.”

One side of his face was scorched, and he had a blood-soaked dressing across his abdomen. Some lucky shot had punched through his armor. I couldn’t tell how badly he was wounded, but it was clear Jaeger was right. The man should not be up and about.

But I had to work with what was available. If that soldier I’d thought was a Marine had been one of Newman’s men, then they weren’t locked in at all. The guard had been armed, too, which meant Alex had found a way to arm his people. They were just waiting for the right time to strike. Every moment might count.

“We’ll get you to your armor. Jaeger, help him,” I said, passing the medic a combat vest and a rifle. He armed himself. No one in the Mars Navy was without combat training. Jaeger might be a medic, but he wouldn’t be aboard this ship at all without having qualified with weapons training. I dropped the extra rifle and vest in the infirmary. No sense carrying the extra weight. This was all the help I was going to be able to get.

Jaeger slid his arm under Marsden’s shoulder and helped him rise. The wounded man’s face went white as he stood. He wobbled on his feet, and I thought he would pass out. But then he steadied himself and nodded.

“Ready, sir,” Marsden said.

I led the way out of the room, rifle up and aimed down the hall. Nothing was moving. With as few crew as there were remaining aboard the ship, that wasn’t unusual, though. I still hoped that this might all be a mistake, and we would find Newman and his people still locked in their cells.

The doors snapped open to the large bay where the remaining armor still hung on racks. I walked into the room. The lights were dimmed a bit here, and shadows lurked near the Growler and the other shuttle. But still nothing was moving.

“Get him into the armor,” I said. “I’ll scout ahead.”

“Aye, sir,” Jaeger replied. The pair hobbled off toward the wall where the last few sets of armor waited. Thomas had more armor intact than he had Marines able to wear the stuff. I’d been wishing for more Marines to send with him earlier, but now I was glad we had a few of the suits still on the ship.

The door on the far side of the hangar bay was open. The corridor inside was darkened, and I narrowed my eyes at that. It should have been well-lit. The brig was back there. Past the brig were the engines. If Newman wanted to exact maximum carnage, that’s where he would head. There should still be three men down there, but Newman had a dozen. They’d be quickly overwhelmed.

I approached the hallway cautiously, rifle at the ready. Still no movement. There was no sign of trouble at all until I heard a single gunshot and felt something like a fist slam into my chest.

Chapter 42

Thomas Stein

The anti-aircraft fire continued to intensify as we approached the surface. I manage to bring the shuttle back under control again, circling around to dump more speed. We were venting air and plasma from the shuttle. My entire console was one big flashing warning light. I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to keep the thing airborne at all. If we’d been in an atmosphere, or in a stronger gravity well, we probably already would have crashed.

“Kel, we’re not going to be able to land near the actual base,” I said over the radio.

“Can you set down near those gun emplacements on the ridge?” she asked. “They’re keeping us away from targeting the base.”

“Can do,” I said.

I shifted our course fifteen degrees to starboard, burning more fuel to swing the nose around. We were still coming in far too fast for comfort, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. The ground rose precipitously in front of me as we soared in ever closer.

“This is going to be a bumpy landing!” I hollered back to the men behind me.

“It’s been a hella bumpy flight, sir!” one of the Marines replied.

“Oh, this was nothing. You shoulda seen the drop where I…”

Whatever he was about to say - and Irons likely chewing him out for chatter over the tactical net - was cut off sharply by the shuttle’s landing gear impacting the ground. We were still going too fast. The landing gear tore apart like tissue paper, ripping themselves to shreds in seconds as we screeched across the lunar rock. The shuttle hit hard belly down. We had already lost atmosphere, so there was no air to carry the sound. But we could still feel the metal and rock tearing at each other along the belly of the ship as we slowly ground to a halt.

I heaved a sigh of relief when we finally stopped moving. With shaking hands, I shut down the engines and turned off everything that I could on board the ship as swiftly as possible. If the gunfire or landing had damaged a reactor or a missile, we were still at risk for an explosion. Even shut-down wasn’t a guarantee of not blowing up, but it improved our odds. I wondered how the hell we were going to get out of there, because this shuttle wasn’t taking off again.

“Let’s get moving! We’re a target sitting here,” Irons said. The rear hatch of the shuttle dropped. Marines poured out the back. “First squad to port. Second starboard. Security positions!”

I unstrapped myself from the pilot’s seat and made my way to the back of the ship, snagging my laser rifle as I moved. I patted my chest, where Newman’s knife was strapped. I’d kept the weapon half as a trophy and half as a good luck charm. I’d barely survived that knife. If it could work that well for the General, I figured it might help me as well.

Outside the sky was lit by explosions and gunfire. I took a moment to let my vision settle down and orient myself. The base was built in the middle of a crater. From here I could see the launch porthole they used to fire their Alcubierre missiles. It was the better part of a mile away.

Gun and missile launch stations had been mounted on the crater wall, forming a perimeter of defense around the main base. We’d dropped only a few hundred meters from the nearest gun battery. The primary mission had been to take the base, so we could seize the weapon itself. I was thinking that was already a bust. But if Kel could drop a missile right down the snout of that launch bay, we might be able to blow the entire installation apart.

To get in there, she needed a clear path. That was our job.

“Take the guns, people,” I said. “First squad on point. Second overwatch. Bounding approach.”

The Marines broke into long, loping strides across the surface of the ridge, using the low gravity to take powerful leaps. One squad moved while the other covered them, and then they switched. This meant if we started taking fire that an entire squad would be ready to suppress any enemy who showed up.

But there was no enemy contact as we advanced. We reached the base of the guns - massive things capable of firing shells high above the moon’s surface. There was an airlock. My men were already setting charged on the outer door when I arrived.

“Fire in the hole!” one shouted. The outer airlock door blew apart. The inner door was still sealed. A few moments later that one too blasted apart. Air and water vapor evacuated from the area inside into space.

“First squad, point. Second, bring up the rear,” I said. I took a spot between the two squads.

“Contact!”

I threw myself back toward a wall. Bullets flashed by. My Marines returned fire, and the assault begin in earnest. The UN troops fought hard to hold every foot, but they were simply outmatched. Our armor was nearly proof against their shots, but they had nothing capable of blocking our laser fire. We pounded forward, one inexorable foot at a time. The soldiers retreated, taking cover and using the corridors of the gun base to their advantage. They had to know they’d already lost, but they were still fighting for every foot of ground.

“Thom, we’re taking a beating out here,” Kel said over the radio. “It’s down to just Carlson and me. How long till you can get that gun down?”

“Almost there,” I replied. I switched back to the Marine net. “Our pilots are counting on us, people! Push!”

There was a general roar of acknowledgement, and the Marines made one last surge. The drove forward, firing as they ran down the hall toward the UN soldiers still fighting to hold us back. The hallway turned from a shooting gallery into a melee, and at close range the unarmored soldiers were at an even greater disadvantage. My men tore through them like paper. The battle was grisly, but short.

It wasn’t without a cost. I passed the bodies of two Marines who’d been killed in the final push, their armor finally overwhelmed by point-blank rifle bursts. But we’d made the control room.

The door was locked. It lasted about six seconds.

I didn’t waste time trying to figure out the controls inside. I simply threw an explosive into the room and stepped back. The detonation tore apart the delicate machinery keeping the guns in action. Shrapnel cut circuits and slashed through computer targeting devices. The faint rumbling we’d heard every time the guns fired finally went silent.

“Guns are down!” I said, radioing our pilots. “You’re in! Do your thing.”

I raced through the halls, running toward the airlock door. I knew Kel would already be coming in. She’d fly by as near to the surface as she could. She would skim the surface, pop up briefly just to clear the crater wall before dipping back in again. I had to be there.

I made it outside just as the dark forms of two Hawks slashed soundlessly overhead. There was no noise. I could barely see them, even only a few dozen meters overhead. They were only visible for the plume of their thrust jetting out behind them.

Then they were past, blasting down the inside of the ridge, headed for the center of the crater. Missile streaked out after them. They fired off countermeasures to blind the incoming strikes. Most of the missiles veered off course, but one slammed into a Hawk and the fighter exploded. It was there one moment, and then there was an explosion and nothing was left but fragments.

I was pretty sure that had been Carlson’s fighter, and I felt horrible for being glad while at the same time still praying it had been him and not Keladry who’d died.

The remaining fighter rose up slightly just before reaching the base, and then fired two missiles straight down before flipping the ship in a display of aerobatics that would have been impossible in any atmosphere. I didn’t even understand the physics of the maneuver she’d just pulled, but the fighter was screaming away even as the missiles plunged toward their target.

All the enemy fire turned defensive, trying to lock and shoot down her missiles. One of them exploded, taken out by a lucky shot. The other one impacted. A massive explosion blossomed at the base of the crater. I waited, hoping for confirmation that it had gone into the Alcubierre missile bay. That we’d succeeded and all of this had accomplished something.

“Negative impact,” Kel said over the radio. “The missile hit their base, but the bay is still open.”

I firmed my jaw against the crushing hopelessness that I felt. Part of me wanted to sink to me knees and just give up. We’d come so far, tried so hard. But we’d failed right at the doorstep of the enemy stronghold. With the bay still open, they could take out our ships and even our home colony with impunity.

But I couldn’t let despair take over. Not while I was still breathing and had a fighting force behind me. This wasn’t over yet.

“Get out of there, Kel. We’ve got this.” Then I switched back to the Marine tactical channel.

“Assemble outside, Marines. We have a job to finish.”

Chapter 43

Nicholas Stein

The slug hit me hard in the middle of my chest. It took my breath away and slammed me to the ground. I gasped, trying to inhale. The pain was sharp, but once I was past the initial panic of being shot I realized that my combat vest had soaked the round. They’d aimed for my body, and the armored vest had kept me alive. I rolled to one side as more shots rang out, pinging against the deck. There was a little cover available behind a few storage crates. I tucked in there.

From my hiding spot I peeked out. I could see the gunman now. How many weapons did Newman have? If he’d managed to arm all his people then he would have had a lot more men guarding that doorway. There only seemed to be one.

Our weapon lockers were kept under biometric security. Even if he’d found a way to break free from the cell, odds were he had only gotten the one weapon as a lucky break. Some soldier had left it out while cleaning it, or something similar. I fired back, and the gunman ducked inside, letting the frame of the door soak my shots.

One man could still keep me from getting back to rear of the ship. That was all Newman really needed. He had enough people that even unarmed, they could probably overcome the three crew back in engineering.

“Marsden, you up and ready yet?” I shouted. His power armor was our only real shot, now.

A burst of blue laser fire riddled the area around the doorway. The gunman yelped and pulled back. I was pretty sure he’d been hit, but it seemed like he was still in the fight. Not that it mattered now.

Marsden lumbered across the deck in his armor, firing as he came. The gunman popped out and snapped off a few shots at the monster bearing down on him, but they glanced harmlessly off his protective field. Marsden’s gun was much more effective, scoring holes in the doorway, the floor, and finally in the gunman himself. The UN soldier went down to that last staccato burst of blue light without even time to scream before he died.

“Enemy combatant down, sir,” Marsden said. He sounded sharp again, less muddy. The suit was buffering his system with stimulants to keep him fighting. I hoped that his injuries were small enough that it wouldn’t cause any lasting damage, but I didn’t have other options either.

“Let’s move. They’ll be in engineering,” I said.

“Recommend you follow me in, sir. Just in case.”

I did as he suggested and let the armor lead the way. There were no more surprises waiting for us between the bay and the engine room, though. A quick peek into the brig as we passed by showed me exactly what I’d expected to see - and empty room, with empty cells.

The engine room door was locked. My personal print didn’t open the door, which meant they’d found a way to sabotage it from the inside.

“Marsden?” I asked

“Aye, sir,” he replied. I stepped away to give him room to work, and he reached into the door, prying at the metal where it met the frame. Motors whined as his suit strained against the haven steel. There was a ping as something snapped, and the door began to slowly roll open.

As soon as there was a gap, more gunfire erupted from inside. It sounded like only one weapon. So Newman had acquired two guns from someplace. Marsden grunted as several of the slugs impacted his armor, but he continued pushing the door open the rest of the way and then stormed inside.

Men rushed to meet him.

What followed was messy. The UN soldiers were well trained, but they were armed with wrenches and metal bars, not guns. Marsden’s laser rifle was useless in the sort of close-quarters combat he found himself in, but his armor gave him the ability to snap steel. What it could do to an unprotected human was truly terrible to see.

Still, there were eleven men in there fighting him. One of them managed to get a heavy wrench in against Marsden’s back, striking hard enough that I thought for a moment he would go down. I took a chance and snapped off a rifle shot, taking the wrench-holder down. Marsden kept his feet, but he seemed shaken. His blows were less coordinated. Something had been damaged in the suit, or perhaps one of his injuries was re-opened.

More blows rained down on him. I shot another of his attackers. He grabbed one by the arm, nearly ripping the limb loose as he tossed the man ten feet into a bulkhead. One soldier dove behind Marsden’s legs. I shot him, but it was too late - he’d already formed a bump there, and when two men pushed from the front of the armor, Marsden went over backwards. He crashed to the floor, his arms flopping feebly a few times before growing still.

I snapped off two shots, taking out the last remaining two men. They cried out as they fell. I rushed forward to check on Marsden. His armor gave me a vital sign readout. The man was still alive, but the suit was working overtime just keeping him that way. He needed more medical attention and soon.

The room was a charnel house. But there was one man still unaccounted for.

“Looking for me?” Alex Newman said from my left.

He was standing in front of a console, typing. The controls he was tinkering with could control virtually any system in the ship. I had no way of knowing precisely what he was up to, but I couldn’t let it continue. I raised my rifle.

“It’s over, Alex. Stand down.”

He shook his head. “Can’t do that. Too much at stake.”

He continued typing feverishly. Whatever he was trying to do, whatever system he was working to override, he had to be close to completing it or he would never be risking so much to get the last lines inputted. I couldn’t hesitate any longer.

He raised his finger to strike another key. In my mind’s eye, I saw his finger heading for the Enter key, preparing the final stroke.

I fired.

The bullet took him in the torso, hurling him from his seat. I stalked close, the rifle still at the ready, but it wasn’t necessary. I’d hit something vital with the shot. Alex was already coughing up blood, and a pool of red was growing beneath him. He had seconds left.

“Had to try,” he gasped out.

I lowered the gun. “Why? Why all of this, damn it?” I wanted, needed to know the answer.

He lowered his eyes, considering.

Then he told me.

Then he died.

Chapter 44

Thomas Stein

The crater wall was a hundred-foot straight drop to the bottom. For any ordinary group of troops, it would have been an obstacle that took forever to cross. Even for my Marines, on a planet with high gravity it would have been difficult. But with the moon’s low gravity, we did the only thing that made sense.

We jumped.

Kel had cleared out. The Archimedes wasn’t back yet from its orbit around the moon. With no other targets in sight, the gun emplacements on the crater wall all focused on us. Shells rained down, blasting bits of rock apart where we’d just been standing. Our shields flared as fragments of stone spattered against them.

“Keep moving as soon as you hit the ground. We have to reach the center,” I said.

“Sure. Just a short walk through hell to get there,” Rosa said.

She wasn’t wrong, either. My armor’s feed was showing the gun and missile emplacements, and they were all firing on us. I hit the ground, my knees tucking to absorb the shock of the fall. Without pausing, I bounded high again. Most of the Marines with me did the same, launching ourselves skyward as quickly as we could.

I heard a few muffled curses over the tactical net. At least a couple of Marines had landed badly, falling or skidding on the uneven surface. I opened my mouth to holler at them to get moving, push on no matter what.

Brilliant light flashed behind me before I could say a word. I could feel the heat of the explosion even through my shields and my armor. They didn’t even have time to scream. Four lights on my panel blinked out. Four Marines who were not going to be continuing the battle with us.

“We need to keep moving. Spread out, so they can’t target us in groups. Long bounds, and land erratically,” I said.

I landed and took off again as quickly as I could. The armor’s powerful legs carried me up and out scores of feet. In Luna’s gravity, we were like giant metal grasshoppers. It was our only chance of making the center.

More explosions lit the surface, blasting rock and debris high into the air. One shell struck close enough to my landing spot that I was thrown clear by the blast. I rolled as I landed, my armor still intact, my body bruised inside. With an effort I struggled back to my feet. My ears were ringing, but the suit still had integrity. I jumped again. I kept moving. There was nothing else we could do.

Another Marine’s icon went dark on my screen, and another after that. I lost track, unable to keep an eye on the display. I was too busy trying to stay alive, keeping just one bound ahead of the steady stream of missiles and shells that rained down around us.

Rosa had been right. We were in hell. The fires, the torment, the screams, they were all right there, everywhere around me.

I reached the base first. Kel’s missile had struck the smooth surface of the building which jutted from the Lunar soil like a chunk of pyrite, gleaming in the dim sunlight. She’d only missed the bay itself by a few meters. Instead, her shot had torn a massive hole in the roof of the structure beside it. Twisted chunks of metal partially blocked my access, but I fired my laser rifle as I descended, cutting some of them away.

More Marines landed beside me. Irons had made it through. Rosa was there. Another half dozen. And that was all. Of the twenty-four men and women who descended the cliff face, only nine remained.

“Move!” I shouted. “Everyone inside!”

They didn’t need a lot of encouragement. More shells were landing. I dropped in, the others with me.

The hallway within was lit only by flickering emergency lights. Kel had smashed the hell out of this place. We needed to get deeper, to delve into the core of their base if we were going to smash their weapon for good. We ventured deeper until we finally found a blast door which had managed to seal itself off.

“Take it down,” I told Rosa. She fixed explosive charges and blew the door down.

Rifle fire flashed up toward us. With a shout Rosa rushed in, taking multiple rounds as she rushed the attackers. The rest of us followed right behind her. Our armor saved us from most of the bullets, the shields flaring brilliantly as they soaked most of the impact from the incoming rounds.

Then we were in the middle of the defenders. Like knights of old, we hammered them with our rifles, using the things like pole-axes to smash down anyone who dared to stand against us.

An explosion rocked the corridor, throwing me into a wall. I rose and snapped off a shot at the enemy who’d tossed the grenade before he could fire another. We kept moving forward.

Irons found a set of stairs, and we descended deeper, more troops coming at us again, from both front and rear this time. We surged into them in the same way, trusting in our armor to protect us while we broke the back of the troops.

A signal flashed on my screen right after that fight. I eye-clicked the icon, and a small window appeared with my father’s face.

“Dad. Kind of busy here. The Arch OK?” I asked. I was a little breathless from the fighting we’d just finished.

“Coming into sight of the base now. We have two incoming ships, but we’ll deal with them. You’re in the base?”

“Deep. Going deeper. We’re hoping to find the control center and take it out,” I said.

“Newman broke loose up here. Raised some hell,” Dad said. He lifted a hand to forestall my worried questions. “I took care of it. But before he died, Newman finally broke and told me what all of this is about. Why Choi is so set on retaking Mars. Why Perrault turned. Everything.”

“What?” I asked. We were descending another level. His voice was growing fainter. There was finally enough distance between us and the surface that the radio was having trouble breaking through. But we couldn’t stop. If we let the enemy rally up enough men, they could overcome us even in our armor.

“I said ‘we’re not alone’!” Dad replied. He tried to add something else, but his communication broke apart into static.

We’d reached the bottom of the stairs, and I was out of time to ponder his message. The doors snapped open as we approached. Rosa and Irons led the way through the doorway, guns blazing as they ran in. There were five of us left. We’d lost more men somewhere above, during the battles to get this deep, and I had been too busy fighting to stay alive to give more than the barest notice of their passing.

The last of my Marines surged out into a huge room filled with machinery. I wasn’t sure what the purpose of the place was, but it had become a battleground. Soldiers lined a catwalk around the room. More were hidden in every nook and crevasse and firing position they could find. The entire place had been turned into a death trap, laid out especially for us. The room all but lit up as a hail of bullets flashed out toward us.

Chapter 45

Thomas Stein

The bullets sparked off the floor and lit up a brilliant display with our shields and armor. It was a deadly trap. A few seconds of this sort of fire, and we would all be dead. We could withdraw, but where? We needed to press on.

“Near ambush. Go!” I all but shouted into my radio.

One of my Marines went down under the hail of fire. Before any more of us could die I did as I had ordered and leapt skyward. I pushed the leg motors as hard as I could, gliding up the twenty feet to land on one of the catwalks. It groaned under the sudden addition of weight, but I was in the thick of them. It was a hell of a lot harder to shoot at me there.

I waded in, blasting away with my rifle. Men dropped, their suits holed, their bodies suddenly exposed to vacuum. The whole exchange was eerily soundless without air. My ears wanted to hear the bullets whizzing by and righting around me. All I could hear was the pounding of my own heart and the rasp of my lungs sucking in air.

Rosa had jumped to the far catwalk, while Irons and King stormed forward toward the foes still on the ground level. Without the hail of fire pouring down on them, they made good headway through the mess of people there.

I swung my rifle like a club, shattering the face plate of one suit. The woman wearing it fell away, clutching at her face. I slammed another in the ribs, sending him flying from the catwalk against a wall. A bolt from my rifle downed a third man. I was a moving machine of destruction. Alarms sounded in my helmet and lights flashed red as my suit took damage, but it retained integrity.

The men were fleeing. They were backing away now, shooting as they ran. That only made them even easier targets. I continued blazing away.

“Doors on the far side opening. Looks like reinforcements coming our way,” Irons warned.

I glanced down to see, expecting another horde of soldiers pouring into the room. But it wasn’t a group of people. It was simply one man.

He stood impossibly tall, at least eight feet in height. His suit was no ordinary space suit, either. It was all gleaming metal, with arms that ended in claws where the hands should be. The face was twisted, and looked alien. The entire suit had an uncannily smooth look to it, like it had been grown rather than constructed. It was unnerving to look at.

But it was undoubtedly power armor of a sort we hadn’t seen before. It shouldn’t have shocked me that Earth had been working on their own suits, but it was stunning that they’d made something that looked so strictly superior to our efforts!

The good news was that there couldn’t be many of the things. If they had a lot of them, they would have deployed them much sooner. This had to be some sort of prototype. I had to hope the four of us remaining would be enough to deal with it.

Irons and King blazed away at the enemy armor with their laser rifles. I was stunned to see their bursts glance away, refracted by the armor’s surface somehow. Our guns weren’t hurting it at all.

It surged forward, claws flashing, and grabbed King’s suit. It lifted him free from the deck with a surge of impossible strength. Even on the moon, moving that much mass should have been a struggle for the thing, but it heaved him skyward like it was no strain at all.

King screamed over the tactical net, and I realized with horror that the claws had punched right through his armor, stabbing the man within. Irons continued to blast away at it with no effect as it reached down with the other claw and began picking chunks of King’s armor off, tossing them aside like daisy petals from a flower.

He was dead before I could react. Then the thing stalked forward toward Irons.

“I don’t think so,” I growled. I grabbed my rifle in two hands like a club and launched myself into the air from the catwalk. I sailed down, crashing into the enemy armor club-first. The rifle hit with enough force to shatter my weapon. My mass drove the armored figure down to the floor. It rose to its feet quickly and backed away, assessing me. I glanced up at the head armor where I’d struck it - not a dent, not so much as a scratch on that pristine plating.

A comm channel opened on my HUD - an incoming message. I clicked to accept.

“We meet again, Stein,” said a familiar voice in chilling tones.

I knew that person. Was it even possible? “Choi?”

“In the flesh. Well, in the armor, anyway. I make a habit of facing my enemies when I can, you know.”

I did. I’d seen him do it before - when he tried to kill my father, when he tried to kill me with a bomb, and other times as well. He was no coward, even if he often sent others to do the actual work. “Is that you in the suit I just smacked around?”

“Indeed,” he replied. The armored form in front of me stretched like a cat.

“Pretty fancy. But you’re three to one now,” I said. The rest of his men had pulled back to watch the battle. “Maybe you ought to surrender.”

“I thought to offer you that option,” he replied. “Last chance. End this charade now, or die. I have no more time for these games.”

“Nah. I think I’ll stay the course,” I said. I lunged in with what was left of my rifle, aiming the blow for his ribs this time. His armor had to have a weak spot somewhere. He didn’t even try to block the shot, though. Just let me hit him. My rifle shattered completely, exploding into a shower of broken components and sparks.

I backed away, weaponless. Choi’s voice chuckled in my ear as he stalked in toward me, flashing those sword-like claws. He swung, the blades slicing through the air toward my head. I ducked and rolled clear, coming up just in time to dodge yet another blow.

He was slower than I was. The bulk of his armor seemed to slow him down some, or perhaps he just wasn’t as practiced wearing it as I was in mine. Whichever the case it gave me the smallest bit of breathing room facing him.

“Run, but you can’t hide,” he said.

Irons lashed out at him from behind, but Choi somehow saw the attack coming and lifted a foot, hammering Irons in the chest with a piston-like blow. Irons grunted and sailed backwards to crash against the wall.

Rosa fired her rifle in a steady beam at the armor. This seemed to have a little more effect than the short bursts. I could see the spot where she was aiming begin to heat up and even glow a little. Choi must have been aware of it as well. He picked up a crate from the floor and hurled it at her, knocking her off the catwalk to the deck below.

I used the moment’s distraction to slip in close and hammer a blow down on his knee. My fist shook with the force of the impact, and Choi staggered back. But he didn’t go down.

He did return his full attention to me, however. He stepped in close, claws flashing in the light as he made a grab for my armor.

Chapter 46

Thomas Stein

I dove back away from the claws again, letting them rip into a support column instead of me. Anything was preferable to letting him get a hold of me. I had no doubt Choi would kill me in an instant if he could. What I didn’t know was how the hell I was going to beat him.

It made no sense. Nothing we’d seen the UN troops field was anything like his armor. It was worlds away tougher than ours. The refractive plating was like nothing I had ever seen before. He was stronger, tougher, better built. We couldn’t have been that far behind Earth with our tech. They’d have wiped us out long since.

Something Dad had said that didn’t make sense before jangled again in my thoughts. ‘We are not alone’, he’d told me, before being cut off by distance. I’d thought he was speaking of the incoming ships, maybe. Or warning me the channel was being listened to.

Looking at Choi’s armor, I realized there was another possible meaning to his words.

“You didn’t make that suit, did you?” I asked as I scrambled back behind another support strut. Choi’s claws cut into it, slicing it apart. I wondered how many of those things he could shatter before the whole ceiling came down on us.

“Newman talked, did he?” Choi said. “No matter. Soon you’ll be dead, we’ll finish clearing the debris from the missile launcher, and your father will join you. That’s him up on the ship, isn’t it?”

“We work well together, what can I say?” I quipped. I was running out of places to hide.

“The father and son duo. Too bad you opted to fight me. I could have used you. Humanity could have used you. But it is too late now,” he said.

“Try me,” I said. “I’m really pretty agreeable when people aren’t trying to kill me or people I care about.”

He cut apart a third support strut trying to get to me. I glanced over my shoulder. The doors we had used to enter the room had snapped shut. I wasn’t going to have time to pry them open and get away. Not like I could just leave Irons and Rosa here, anyway, but I had no choice in the matter.

“Earth must be under one rule, don’t you see? They won’t deal with us unless we have one ruler for our entire race,” Choi said. “And what they won’t deal with, they destroy.”

“One ruler, like an emperor? Emperor Choi?” I scoffed.

“The Kyrelians don’t understand democracy. They don’t have a concept for self-rule,” Choi said. He backed away for a moment as he spoke, giving us a moment of pause in our one-sided melee. “They can’t conceptualize a difference between democracy and anarchy, and they view any anarchistic society as a potential threat.”

It took me a moment to understand what he was saying. He was talking about real live aliens. Beings from…someplace else. Things clicked into place. The sudden surge in tech represented by his suit, and even by the Alcubierre missile. The urgency behind his drive to unite all of humanity under his rule. Choi wasn’t fighting to take over. He felt like he was doing the only thing that could preserve humanity.

Regardless of whether it would take away everything good about humanity in the process.

I recalled the knife strapped to my chest and reached for it. The weapon was still there. If it had been tough enough to cut through my armor, maybe it would do me some good against Choi’s as well. He had to have a weak spot somewhere on that thing. I drew the blade, keeping it hidden in my right gauntlet. It was a big, heavy blade, made of some of the best metal I’d ever seen. The blade gleamed in a way that I recognized now - it was the same alloy as Choi’s suit.

“You’d sacrifice freedom then, for security?” I said.

“Yes!” he roared, lashing out again in a sudden frenzy. I tucked and rolled away. He predicted the movement better and stomped down with one of his legs. It caught me in the chest in mid roll, pinning me to the floor. I stabbed upward into the foot joint with my knife.

The blade went in shattering plates and breaking into the delicate circuitry inside. Choi pulled the foot back like he’d been burned.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

I waved the knife in front of me. “You’re not the only one with surprises here.”

I closed with him as he swung again, slipping under his arm. My knife raked along the chest plates, cutting through the armor. I slid past him, using my momentum to carry me out of reach. He whirled, slicing the air where I’d just been.

“You’d give up our rights just to satisfy some race of zealots,” I said, panting with the effort of evading his blows. “You’d have our entire race turn back on thousands of years of effort, on everything we have learned and done?”

I slashed into an arm as he reached out to claw me, drawing sparks and fire from the limb.

“Give up on the memory of every sacrifice made in the name of freedom?” I said. My voice was rising, hot anger burning in my gut. “We have fought for generation after generation to end tyranny and oppression, to stop those who would gain power over others just to bully and command them.”

My blade cut his other arm. Choi was backing away now. I had him rocking back on his heels, sparks flying from multiple openings in his armor. He hadn’t been counting on a fair fight. He wouldn’t have come out after me if he’d thought there was anything at all I could do which would actually hurt him. I lunged in, stabbing into the chest plate, hoping to strike the area I’d already damaged and finish this battle. But my blade missed the gap and skittered off instead, sending me off balance.

Choi seized the moment and grabbed me, both clawed arms wrapping around me. His claws couldn’t stab me from there, but he lifted me into the air with my arms pinned at my sides and began to squeeze.

Alarms sounded in my armor as the plating began to buckle. He’d squash me to jelly inside my own armor if he kept it up. There was nothing I could do to get away. Struggling did nothing against his armor’s superior strength.

“Yes,” he hissed. “You fool. I would sacrifice everything for the survival of our species. We will go on, at least. Which is more than can be said for you.”

“At what cost?” I asked him. “If we lose everything we have earned during humanity’s rise to where we are, is it worth surviving at that price?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. I knew that Choi had made his choice ages ago and wouldn’t change his mind now. My words meant nothing to him.

“I’d say that big ugly there needs to rethink his attitude,” Rosa said. She was standing a few meters away and had her laser rifle aimed at Choi’s head.

“That weapon won’t do anything to me,” Choi replied. He continued squeezing me harder. “Don’t worry, you’ll be next.”

“I wasn’t aiming at you,” Rosa replied. She fired her rifle - but not at Choi. The laser bolt slammed into one of the support struts immediately behind him. It blew apart. She shifted fire quickly and took out another one, and then a third.

The third one did the trick. A massive section of the ceiling above broke apart and came down. Choi dropped me, raising his arms instinctively to protect his head as the rubble came crashing down. Chunks of it smashed into my armor too, pinning my legs and nearly crushing what was left of my chest armor.

When the debris stopped falling, Choi was trapped. He was still struggling to free himself, though. Another few seconds and he’d be loose. I heaved the chunk of rock from my legs and pushed myself back to my feet.

Hobbling, circuits and motors near their breaking point, I pushed my armor those last few feet, climbing the rubble heaped around Choi. He saw me coming, saw the naked blade in my hand.

“You’ll doom us all,” he said. “Don’t do this.”

“If we die, then we will die fighting together, as humanity ought,” I said. “Not as slaves because some other race thinks we should be.”

I stabbed the knife blade into the neck joint of Choi’s armor. He gave a gurgling sound over the radio, and then his armor stilled.

It was over.

Chapter 47

Nicholas Stein

I strode up the steps to take my oath of office. Things had moved quickly since we returned to Earth with Choi’s body and evidence of what he’d done. There were inquiries and investigations. It turned out that Choi had been contacted many years before, and had been slowly working to being all of humanity under his sway ever since. For the good of the race.

Which was bullshit, and chillingly so. But enough men still saw the validity of his fears that there was an immediate call for someone, anyone, to lead the human race. Finally, someone got the idea of offering me the job. The media took up the banner and ran with it, pushing it on the populace. After all, I was Admiral Stein - hero of the last war, the man who saved Earth from Choi’s pirates, the person who led the fleet that finally defeated the UN President for good.

I flatly refused.

Humanity was at its best not when it was ruled, but when it self-governed. We made mistakes. We argued a lot. But ultimately freedom gave us far more than it took away. It was worth fighting for.

If we’d learned nothing else from the last century or so, we should have learned that lesson.

Since I wasn’t going to be Emperor, they offered me the seat of the United Nations Presidency instead. That I accepted, under the same term guidelines as every other president. I would not become their de facto king.

“Security good?” I asked softly.

“You’re clear, sir,” Irons replied. He’d survived the mess on the moon, injured but alive. Some time in a med bay and he was back on his feet, managing my security detail for me. Thomas complained about my stealing all his best people, but I promised him that I’d give him enough work to keep him too busy to think about it.

“How’s Thomas doing?” I asked Irons over the radio. “Settling into his new job?”

“Cursing your name in several languages,” he replied, chuckling. “I think he has more sympathy for your hatred of paperwork now.”

I returned the chuckle. “Tell him to get more admin staff, then. Fleet Admiral is a big job. He needs to hand the minutiae off to someone else.”

“He’ll figure it out, sir. He’s a smart man. You did well with that one.”

I hoped that I had. He’d won his way through that terrible final battle with Choi. He’d never faltered, even when humanity itself was on the line. He’d chosen ideals over survival. I wondered if I could have made the same choice. If Choi had told me what was at stake, would I have had the courage to make the same decision as Thomas, or would I have gone with the safer bet for humanity as a whole?

My past record on such decisions was spotty. Irons had it right. Thomas was a smart man, and a good one. Somehow, I had raised a son who was a better man than I was. Now he would be the shield and sword of humanity in a field of stars that we knew was much deadlier than we’d ever perceived before. There were other spacefaring races out there, races which had already reached out to Earth. At least some of them were likely hostile to humanity.

We hadn’t heard anything more from Choi’s Kyrelians since his death. Whether that was a good thing or not remained to be seen, but I was confident that we’d see them again. Probably sooner than we wanted to.

Defense of the planet would fall to a new generation now. I was old, and lacked the idealism for this new war. Men like Choi and myself needed to step aside - or be moved aside - to make way for the ones who would follow us.

I stepped onto the stage and swore my oath of office. I would serve my term, my sentence in office. I’d do my best to rebuild humanity’s trust in the United Nations, and to make it a body capable of ruling collectively and justly, with all nations and colonies represented equally.

The time would come soon enough for me to step aside. For Thomas though, I had a feeling the journey was just beginning.

Loved this story? Don’t miss the exciting Starship Satori series!

Ad Astra: Chapter 1

Dan tapped each dead soldier in the neck in turn, counting his kills for the evening. He came to six. Add in the bottle he was drinking, and he'd be at seven. That was still under budget. He figured this for a twelve-pack night.

He waved to the woman tending the tables, a middle-aged matron whose name he hadn't tried to catch. She'd made a few attempts to clear his growing pile of bottles away earlier in the evening, but he'd shooed her off. Dan wanted the physical memory of the drinks sitting right there, like a badge. The woman saw his wave, but didn't bother coming over. She just went to fetch another beer. He kept his eyes off her face. He didn't want to see her disdain, or worse, her pity.

Instead he brought his eyes back to the bar's TV, where the Ares rocket was still sitting on the launch pad. The countdown was frozen at four minutes and fifteen seconds. It hadn't moved for most of an hour now, last minute problems delaying the launch.

“Hey Joe, can we switch the channel? Missing the game here,” a burly man called to the bartender.

“Yeah, Joe. This shit is boring,” said another guy.

Both of them were lumberjack big, wearing dirty work clothes. None of which bothered Dan even a little.

“Don't touch that channel,” he snarled.

“Or what?” asked the first man.

“Wanna find out?”

“Man, don't mess around. Who wants to see this stupid rocket sitting there, anyway?”

“I do,” Dan said.

“Larry, you can't pick a fight with a gimp,” the guy's buddy whispered to him, loud enough that Dan could hear anyway.

Larry blushed, noticing Dan's wheelchair. “Hey, man, sorry. You can watch what you want.”

The bartender glared at Dan for a moment from behind his glasses, wiping furiously at a mug with a dishrag. But the TV stayed on the same channel despite what the local crowd wanted, so that was all right.

Finally the countdown kicked on again. Whatever the problem was, they must have solved it. There were four minutes left, now. Unconsciously, Dan activated his motorized chair and moved toward the TV. Three minutes left.

His eyes misted a little as the first plumes of steam appeared under the titanic rocket. The payload was a crew compartment and landing vehicle – and the first six humans from Earth to ever attempt bridging the vast distance to Mars. They'd be traveling for six months to get there, stay for six months, and then return. It was the adventure of a lifetime. It was supposed to have been the adventure of his lifetime.

He slugged down the last of the beer he was still holding. The bitter flavor matched how he was feeling. The matron plunked his new bottle down where he'd been sitting, and he reached for it without thinking, wincing as his back spasmed in protest. He grimaced. Wheelchairs went in reverse for a reason.

Less than two minutes left until takeoff. He leaned forward, willing himself into the cockpit of that ship with everything he had. He should have been there. Would have been there, if it hadn't been for a stupidly random accident. There was something ironic about being taken down by a mini coupe after surviving dozens of missions into space unscathed. He was one of the most experienced space pilots in the world. He'd fought hard to win his berth on that mission.

All gone, now. The driver who'd lost control of his car, crossed the highway median, and smashed into Dan's vehicle wasn't going to have his license back for a while, but that didn't help heal his badly fractured spine. NASA's policy toward injury as severe as his had no leeway. As far as they were concerned, he was grounded for good. So he'd taken the early retirement with full benefits and disability that the Air Force had offered. A good deal, but as a consolation prize it sucked. He had some buddies in Panama who told him that income would let him live like a king down there.

If only he could find some reason to live at all.

Fifty seconds left on the countdown. The numbers ticked away on the corner of the TV screen.

With thirty eight seconds left, Dan's phone rang. The sound startled him, but out of habit he answered it, not taking his eyes off the TV as he did.

“Dan Wynn here.”

He watched two more seconds tick away on the countdown before a distorted voice said “Dan! Was hoping to catch you. How're you holding up?”

“Who is this?” Dan asked.

“It's John,” the voice replied, after a short delay.

“John, you have any idea what you're calling in the middle of?”

Another brief delay, and then John said “I'm watching it too, Dan. Why do you think I called you now?” Dan could almost hear his friend's smile over the phone line.

“I think you're interrupting,” he said, eyes narrowing. The last thing he needed right now was a pity call. Even from an old friend.

Another pregnant pause. “Dan, I'm calling to offer you a vacation, and maybe a job if you want it. I need people I can trust, and you're top of the list.”

“I'm flattered, but–” Dan broke off in mid-sentence as the Ares rocket launched, huge plumes of fire obscuring it from view for a moment before sending it skyward. As it lifted into the sky, all his hopes and wishes vanished with it.

“Dan. DAN.” John's voice was still nattering at him on the phone. “Listen to me.”

“What?” Dan said. His voice sounded hollow to his ears.

“Vacation, Dan. You need it. And I can use you, if you want to stay on, after.”

“I can't,” Dan replied. “Still got paperwork to finish my retirement package, and the docs want to see me daily for rehab.”

“I've already cleared your paperwork up. Had a general who owed me a favor. And we've got doctors on site who'll continue your rehab. But I need you here, Dan.”

The little delays in John's responses finally made their way through Dan's muddled thoughts. A couple of seconds of pause, each time he spoke.

“Where are you, John?” he said, curiosity leaking into his voice.

“I'm on the far side of the moon, Dan. Want to come up for a visit?”

Dan almost choked on his beer. He'd been expecting...well, something. With John, it was always something. But not that.

Another short pause. “Put the drink down, go outside. Car should be waiting for you there. The driver will take you to the launch. That is, if you are still interested in going back into space?”

Dan stared a moment at the TV again, where the camera was still following the plume of fire burning its way into the sky. For the first time all day, he could look at the ship without feeling like he was being stabbed through the heart.

“I'm on my way,” he said. He turned off his phone, slapped enough bills on the table to pay for his beers plus a healthy tip for the scowling waitress, and went out the door.

John was as good as his word. The young driver was already waiting out front, standing outside a large black SUV hybrid with a wheelchair lift built into the side. He expertly hooked Dan's chair up to the device, chatting amiably as he worked.

“The boss was dead on right about you,” he said.

“Oh?” Dan replied.

“Yup. Called me, said you'd be out the door within five minutes. Took you three minutes thirty.”

“Well. John always did know what buttons to push on people.”

“He's good that way. I'm Andy. You're Dan Wynn, the astronaut?”

The simple question rocked Dan. “I suppose...I am. Again.”

The driver hooked straps from the vehicle to his chair to hold it in place. A few deft movements, and he was done. Dan was impressed; it usually took the taxi drivers a lot longer to get him situated. Andy tugged the straps a little, checked to make sure they were locked tight, and then slammed the door shut.

Dan saw himself in the rear-view mirror and winced. His hair had grown out a lot in the six months since his injury. He hadn't bothered to keep it trim, and now it was a dark, untidy mess. He ran his fingers through it, trying to restore some semblance of order without much success. He sighed and gave up. Short hair was so much easier to manage.

“Boss said to give you these,” Andy said as he hopped back into the driver's seat. He passed back a bottle of cold Gatorade and a travel packet of extra-strength Tylenol.

“Thought of everything, didn't the smug...” Dan muttered. John knew him too well. But he took the drink and the meds. Last thing he needed was to be hung over for a launch. He grimaced, and patted the leg bag hidden in his sweatpants. His urine drained there. The docs had said he had enough bladder control to do without, now, and they had been pushing him to ditch the bag for days. But he'd resisted. So much trouble to get into a bathroom, get up to use it. So much easier to just use the bag and Texas catheter. Now he felt embarrassed about the little condom-shaped device and the tube that ran into the hidden bag. He'd been drinking a lot tonight, and his bag was already mostly full.

“Andy, I've got a problem,” he said.

“Yeah?”

He winced. This wasn't fun to explain to a stranger. “I need to change out my leg bag. Old one is just about full of processed beer piss. I've got a spare with me, but you got something for the old one?”

Andy passed back a plastic bag. “Cap it, stick it in there and tie it off. Then rest, why don't you? We've got a longish drive ahead.”

Dan unhooked the bag and swapped in the new one, capped the old bag, and then placed it into the fresh plastic bag as the driver had suggested. He wasn't sure what to do with the tied-off bag and its contents, so he plopped it onto the floor. Wasn't going to make a mess now, anyway. It was time to get over himself and get rid of the leg bag crutch. He popped the Tylenol and leaned back as much as his chair would allow. He gulped down some of the sports drink.

Lulled by the gentle rumble of the vehicle, he fell into the first nightmare free sleep he'd had in weeks.

Want to keep reading? Check out the rest of the book today!

http://mybook.to/Adastra

Exclusive for fans of the Accord series!

Find out how the story started… When Captain Nicholas Stein set out to stop one enemy ship, and set in motion events which shaped the course of human history for decades to come.

http://kevinomclaughlin.com/accordoffire/

About the Author

When not practicing hobbies which include sailing, constructing medieval armor, and swinging swords at his friends, USA Today Bestselling author Kevin McLaughlin can usually be found in his Boston home. Kevin’s award-winning short fiction is now available in digital form at all major ebook retailers. His urban fantasies “By Darkness Revealed” and “Ashes Ascendant” are available in ebook and print. His latest stories, the “Starship Satori” and “Accord” series, are ongoing.

I love hearing from readers!

www.kevinomclaughlin.com

kevins.studio@gmail.com

FacebookFacebook

TwitterTwitter