“The passageways are barely high enough to stand up straight.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve got plenty of headroom. The real problem was where to put the troops. They finally added troop modules on the external hull, egg-shell thin domes on the flanks for the troops to huddle in.”

  “That sounds safe… and comfortable.”

  “It will be neither of those things. The point is, we haven’t yet had time to build our own vessels with armor-piercing cannons.”

  “Why is a battlecruiser needed at all on this trip out to Tau Orionis?”

  She looked at me sidelong. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this in a private briefing. The public presentation will be happening on Wednesday. That leads me to why you are here. I don’t want resistance on this mission, McGill. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it will be uncomfortable and—”

  I put my hands up to stop her tirade. “I’ll tell you what. How about I play cheerleader on this one? I’ll get the centurions to rally for the mission. Even if it means we’re all crammed into a battlecruiser like sardines.”

  “Really? Why?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to bring up Cooper yet. She wouldn’t respond well to that, since I wasn’t really supposed to know about his secret scouting mission, any more than I was supposed to know about this one. “I just want to help out, that’s all.”

  She looked me up and down once. “I don’t believe you, but I’ll accept the help. From this moment forward, you’re my cheerleader with the lower ranked officers. To answer your previous question, we need the battlecruiser because this substance, this tough material they make on this planet—well, it takes a hard punch to break through it.”

  “And we assume their ships may be built with this? To make tougher hulls?”

  “Exactly.”

  I nodded, understanding the logic. “What about the zoo legion? We aren’t going to have to share air vents with Blood Worlders, are we?”

  “No. There’s no room for them. There will barely be room for the human troops.”

  “Great…”

  After that, she went on and on. She gave me a run down on the planet’s mass, density, gravitational pull and atmosphere. I soon stopped listening because I’d learned all I needed to know.

  Legion Varus was headed back out to the stars. With luck, we’d find Cooper’s remains. That was all that mattered.

  -18-

  Cooper had been sent out to the newly discovered planet by the strange tech known as casting, but it hadn’t worked perfectly. The connection had broken before he’d died, meaning Earth couldn’t be sure he wasn’t still alive, no matter how unlikely that was. Therefore, he couldn’t be revived.

  Despite this complication, they’d gotten enough data from Cooper’s fuzzy, short-lived transmissions to know they’d hit the right planet. The mix of crystalline structures laced with collapsed matter was just right. Our target world had been chosen.

  “This mission is to remove a key strategic advantage Rigel has enjoyed all along,” Galina told the assembled troops as we stood in parade formation, ready to board lifters. “Ever since the first time our soldiers fought with these vicious bears, they’ve been considered superior to humans. Once we gain the ability to make tough, light armor like theirs, this advantage will be lost forever!”

  There was scattered applause in response. I could have told her—actually, just about anyone in Varus could have told her—that the bears were damned tough fighters, armor or not. Still, we appreciated the plan to improve our gear.

  While she kept strutting around and speeching, something she loved to do in front of a captive audience, I soon tuned her out. I wasn’t even focused on her curves, which were cut just about as perfectly as any woman’s could be. Instead, I was thinking about the mission.

  This trip into the unknown was for more than gaining useful tech, for me, it was about recovering Cooper. The main obstacle in that regard was finding his remains. We knew where we’d sent him, sure, but unknown planets tended to be large. Even a one degree variance in his coordinates might place him far from our landing zone.

  Accordingly, when we finally marched aboard the lifters and took off, I called upon Natasha Elkin for help.

  Natasha was the best tech I knew and quite possibly the best tech in Legion Varus. She should have gotten promoted into the officer ranks by now, but she’d been held back due to various discrepancies in her service record.

  “Forget it,” she said the moment I contacted her, “I’m not going off-script and hacking the external cameras or something. Not today, James.”

  She always called me by my first name, even though I was her centurion. I let her get away with that mostly because she was a friend and we’d once been intimate—but also because I so often needed her special skills.

  “Listen, listen,” I began. “I don’t need anything against regs. All I want to know is how closely we can pinpoint a set of coordinates using that caster-thingie at Central.”

  Natasha was quiet for a second. “I don’t know what a ‘caster-thingie’ is, James.”

  “Oh… right. I forgot, it’s a secret. Damn…”

  I have to explain at this point that I wasn’t forgetting anything. I was baiting a hook and dipping it into the water. With any luck, Natasha would bite.

  She had one critical personality flaw. She loved new tech gadgets, especially something that was cutting edge.

  “I can only surmise from your random statements that you’ve had experience with this… thingie?”

  “Yeah… maybe.”

  “And it involves teleportation?”

  “Yeah, yeah… but listen: I probably shouldn’t be talking to you about this. You aren’t cleared for it.”

  She hesitated again. “Since when has that bothered you?”

  “Never has, much…” I admitted. “But you’re right. We have to be cautious. I’ve involved you in advanced projects far too often without going through proper channels. I’ll contact Floramel about it.”

  “Floramel?” she asked, bristling a little. “Why her?”

  Since Floramel was a near-human Rogue Worlder, she’d been genetically selected for her scientific know-how. Natasha was jealous about her having her own lab and all. She was also jealous because I’d had an intimate relationship with her, after Natasha.

  “Well, she’s got the clearance,” I said. “She’s not as imaginative, and she probably won’t help anyway, but—”

  “Just tell me what this is about—no wait, I’ll meet up with you at the aft lounge.”

  Berlin wasn’t as roomy and comfortable as good old Legate had been, but we were doing our best to adjust. In a way, it was kind of cool to be aboard a battlecruiser. But in another way, it was cold, crammed and unforgiving. For the Rigellians, I’m sure this warship had been massive and roomy, but tall humans like me found themselves ducking in every passageway. The external troop pods and even the troops themselves were clearly afterthoughts as well.

  Natasha showed up at the lounge in seven minutes flat. When she walked rapidly into the chamber, I hid my grin behind a mug of beer. She was falling for my bait, hook, line and sinker.

  She flumped down beside me and ordered a drink. In a hushed tone, she told me what she’d learned. “I looked into your device.”

  “The casting thingie?”

  “Shhhh! Yes. There are some posts about it on the dark grid. There’s some speculation on the base technology… That’s how I know you’re not completely full of shit—this time.”

  “Uh…” I said, less than encouraged. “How’d you do all that while trotting over here?”

  She shrugged. “I multitask. So, let’s talk. This is some kind of new, hush-hush teleportation system. I get that. Where do I fit in?”

  I heaved a deep breath, and I looked around. I did everything I could to look reluctant. My fish was on the hook, but she had to be sure she wanted that bait before she noticed she was being reeled in.

  “It’s Cooper. This whole mission—it’s all about Cooper, what he found out there.”

  “They teleported him—almost all the way out to Rigel? That’s like a thousand lightyears.”

  “Give or take, yeah. The trouble is we lost him. He’s not coming back unless we find him during this mission.”

  Natasha looked troubled. “What can I do about it? Do you have the exact coordinates?”

  “No. But somebody does. I want to look into it, where we’re going to set down—the planned LZ if there is any.”

  “That’s not good enough. We’re talking about an entire planet here, James. Let’s say I could narrow it down to an area the size of Central City. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?”

  “Sure does!”

  “But it isn’t. Thousands of hectares… I’d have to figure out a way to trace his body with a sniffer unit, maybe…”

  Her mind was already churning. I drank my beer with a new sense of purpose. She was about to convince herself that all sorts of skullduggery was required, and I wouldn’t have to do a thing.

  But suddenly, in the midst of my next beer—which, by the way, was tasting even better than the first one had—she turned on me with a dark look in her eyes.

  Naturally, I had no idea what she’d been prattling on about for the last several minutes. To my mind, my work here had been completed the minute she glommed onto the idea.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “Saving Cooper is great and all that—but I need something from you, first.”

  “Uh… what’s that?”

  “Get me in to see this casting device.”

  “I can’t. It’s back on Earth, inside the holiest of holies in Central. We’re lightyears away from there now.”

  “I know—I mean afterward. When we come home. You have to promise.”

  I frowned at her. “Saving Cooper isn’t good enough? You want perks too?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Yes it is.”

  She thought it over. “James, I’ve been passed over for promotion for months. Almost as many times as you have.”

  “Huh…” I said, not liking the sound of that. No one had ever talked to me about an imminent promotion—but Natasha was on the inside, effectively. She could read anyone’s tapper feed if she wanted to. I knew the techs could do that, and they often did.

  “Did you think I planned to stay as a noncom for decades?” she asked. “I’m good at what I do.”

  “You’re the best.”

  “But I don’t move up. I never move up. That’s because of you and your schemes. You’ve cost me a lot.”

  “But I’m entertaining,” I argued. “And this is a good cause.”

  “It is, or I wouldn’t even consider helping. All the same, when we get home, you have to get me in to see that casting device.”

  “Okay…” I said at last, giving in.

  We shook hands, downed our beers, and parted ways. She was on a mission now, and when that girl got a task into her head she was all in—like a coonhound combing the woods in springtime. She wasn’t going to let go of it for nothing.

  -19-

  The voyage out to Tau Orionis took three weeks. That was pretty amazing, considering the distances involved. Along the way, we had a fair number of complaining new people to contend with. They weren’t happy about the cramped quarters, and neither were their drill instructors. In truth, there wasn’t much room to exercise and train in.

  We no longer had a Green Deck. Instead, we had a pressurized hold full of junk. They stretched something that looked like canvas over all of the junk—but it wasn’t just canvas. It was our best tear-resistant material, called Lot-K, from some company back on Earth. It was the same stuff we used to make uniforms for light-troops and crewmen.

  “This cloth is the best we’ve got,” Harris marveled, fingering the fabric that covered the walls, the ceiling and heaping mounds of metal gear. There were all sorts of things hidden under the layered Lot-K tarps, and it really hurt if you fell on one of them.

  Harris seemed enamored with the fabric. He naturally liked anything he thought might save his life. Conversely, he hated anything that might threaten it.

  “What the hell are we supposed to do in here?” I asked, looking around. The fabric-covered chamber was maybe fifty meters long and half as wide. It came to a snub-nosed point at one end, where the prow of Berlin was, and a blank wall at the other. The ceiling wasn’t all that distant either. It was maybe ten meters over my head.

  Harris shrugged. “Maybe we could each take three of these hills of covered junk—the biggest ones—and put a flag on them. Whoever captures the other team’s flags wins.”

  “All the flags?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure, why not?”

  This was the haphazard way Legion Varus planned out our training exercises. We came up with a method of exposing troops to stress, deadly weapons and the thrill of victory. Then we set them loose on one another and picked up the pieces afterward.

  “No point making them win with all the flags,” I said. “That’s just the same as an all-out to the death arena fight.”

  “Hmm… Maybe four of six?”

  I shook my head, looking around. “Five out of six. That will add some strategy to it.”

  “How so?”

  “A cagey commander will fall back to his last two flags, and let the others come at him, gunning them down from cover.”

  “Maybe,” Harris said doubtfully. “Who runs each group?”

  This was an important choice. We had enough recruits and space for two squads to face off, fifteen per side plus their noncom leader. People who led such exercises got a chance to show off their skills, and it sometimes led to advancement.

  “Sargon vs. Moller,” I said.

  “Sargon is never going to be an officer.”

  “You said the same thing about me—and I said it about you.”

  Harris eyed me sourly. “Okay. You’re on. I’ll go organize the squads.”

  “Hold on!” I shouted after him as he moved away. “You’re not going to go hand-pick Moller’s troops. That’s not going to happen.”

  The truth was Sargon and Harris had a kind of rivalry going between them. Sargon wasn’t a respectful veteran-ranked noncom. He was sort of the opposite of respectful, like me. Moller, on the other hand, was strictly by the book. Harris liked her better, and everyone knew it.

  “I’d never do such a thing,” Harris lied.

  He should have known better than to lie to a master, but I didn’t bother to call him on it.

  “We’ll bring them both in here, show them the lay of the land, and let them pick their squads from the pool, one at a time.”

  “Like we’re playing kickball or something?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  He grumbled, but I outranked him, so things went my way. Soon, we had thirty-odd scared-looking noobs in the chamber with us. They eyed the strange tan colored fabric covering everything. A few touched the mountains, but pulled their hands away quickly. Sharp objects, even when covered with Lot-K, weren’t comfortable to the touch.

  I loudly explained the game to them, and I planted the flags on each of the six equipment mounds. They eyed the whole setup doubtfully—especially Sargon.

  “This is bullshit,” he said immediately. “I call bullshit, Centurion.”

  “How’s that?” I asked in a mild tone of voice.

  Harris was already glowering at Sargon, and Moller was shaking her head. Neither of them liked his tone.

  “The two sides aren’t even,” he said. “The one toward the prow is screwed. They’ve got one hill right back there in the nose of the ship. The other side is clearly given an advantage. They’ve got two hills right up against the back wall, which means you’ve still got to take one of those to win. All you have to do to beat the squad at the prow is push them back to the nose of the boat.”

  I looked around, and I saw what he meant—but I didn’t think it would matter much. Once one of these fights got going, it didn’t proceed in an orderly fashion. It would probably turn into a chaotic shit-show mighty quick.

  “Fine!” Harris boomed. “The whiner wins! He can have the back end of the boat. Moller will take the prow.” Moller looked mildly alarmed.

  “But!” Harris continued. “She gets first pick of this litter of retards to fight on her side.”

  I turned to Moller. “Is that okay with you?”

  She nodded. That was Moller in a nutshell. She wasn’t prone to speeches or complaining.

  “Sargon?” I asked turning to him.

  He eyed the recruits for a moment, then nodded. “All right.”

  “Okay then, line up, troops!” I shouted, and they formed a line along one side of the hull. “Moller, who do you pick to be your first recruit?”

  She looked them over critically. “What kind of weapons are we using?” she asked. I was impressed. That was exactly what she should ask before choosing.

  Lifting a shock-rod, I flicked it on, and it crackled in the air.

  “Shock-rods,” I said. “No spear-like shaft to mount them on. No snap-rifles, grenades or combat knives. Just the rods.”

  The shock-rods looked like an old-fashioned policeman’s night-stick. They packed much more of a punch, however, due to their ability to numb limbs and daze anyone who was touched anywhere near the skull with one.

  Moller nodded, looked over the group, and chose a rangy-looking, long-armed galoot. He was young with shifty eyes and a reach that would’ve impressed a gorilla.

  The long-armed ape immediately trotted to her side. He picked up a shock-rod and flicked it into life experimentally. It hummed and shimmered, building up a charge.

  Moller’s strategy was already clear. She was going to recruit people with reach. The first one touched by a shock-rod was usually the man with the shorter arms.

  Sargon eyed her man skeptically. He chose a man who was small, light and quick on his feet. He had the build of a soccer player, rather than a basketball man.

  The choices went back and forth. As always, when the pickings became slim, they became more choosy. The least athletic recruits went last, shuffling almost in shame to their squad leaders.