“3rd Unit has reached the mine, Primus.”

  I couldn’t help but feel a bit prideful about that report. Graves took a moment before he came online.

  “How the hell did you get in there so fast?” he demanded. “The rest of them are bogged down with some kind of explosive drones coming at them.”

  “Those little things?” I asked. “They’re like horseflies. They bite and sting, but it’s nothing a full-grown man can’t get past.”

  I saw Graves’ face on my tapper, and he rewarded me with a rare smile. “That’s a good attitude. I’ve got new orders for your hard-charging unit: get into that mine and shut it down. Establish full control as quickly as possible.”

  “Uh…” I said, regretting my boasts. “We’ve lost a third of our troops just getting here, Primus. To push them to the bottom of a hellhole pit like this one, without support… I don’t know…”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft, McGill. You made it through some crystals, but you’re not done yet. You and your men can forget about taking showers, smoke-breaks, and watching vids on your tappers. You are hereby ordered to advance to contact, and destroy all opposition. I’ll shame the other centurions into joining you as fast as they can. Graves out.”

  That was it then. I stood up and eyed Sargon and Leeson. Barton walked up, panting a little, and she looked at me quizzically.

  With an effort of will, I forced myself to grin. “Faithful officers, I’ve got some great news!”

  All three of them groaned and kicked at the sparkling earth under their boots. They weren’t fooled for a second.

  -31-

  As I rousted my men and ordered them to perform their second death-defying advance of the day, I wondered if I was cut out for higher rank. After all, it took a certain heartless nature to do the job of a primus or above. Even though I was a centurion, I didn’t set missions. I might tell a given individual they were on point, but it was quite something else again to order thousands to do or die.

  A centurion-level officer could always point upward, passing the blame figuratively as he was simply relaying the demands of the distant brass. Men like Graves, Winslade and others of a similar nature were the norm in the upper ranks. They were a different breed who thought of troops the way a farmer thinks of his herds and flocks. We were a means to an end.

  “Up and at-em!” Sargon roared, slapping anyone who dared slouch or hang back. Just moments ago, he’d been complaining in low tones that the men needed a break—but you wouldn’t know it by watching him in action. He was kicking ass all up and down the line.

  In fact, it seemed like he was pushing them harder than usual. He was getting them to move despite their shock. It was a good policy, so I imitated his strategy with any stragglers I spotted.

  Soon, we were up and marching again. There was no immediate opposition, so we didn’t linger. We trotted over the rim of the crater and approached the central drilled-down hole. Once there, we didn’t stop. We slid down the first of the glittering earth walls that formed spiraling steps.

  Still, everything was quiet. There was no gunfire, no crawling mines, no missiles—nothing. With a growing sense of unease, we moved deeper into the ground.

  After half-falling, half-skidding down the third step, we finally spotted something. We’d run into a team of miners operating heavy equipment.

  The workers were nasty-looking aliens from Rigel. About a meter tall with random tufts of fur, they resembled a cross between a bear and a mythical troll. To say they were ugly would be putting it mildly.

  In one way, I was surprised to see these bear-dudes doing their own physical labor. Usually they employed less sophisticated creatures like Vulbites to do menial tasks. But maybe this mining installation was so crucial, so strategically valuable, they didn’t trust slaves to work here. They were so busy, in fact, so focused they didn’t notice us right away. Perhaps they thought their barrier would keep us out forever.

  “Unit,” I spoke into my tapper quietly, “advance to the edge of the step. Let’s have a look.”

  My troops bellied up to the edge and aimed their rifles over the side. Directly below us—on the fourth barren, shelf-like section of the corkscrewing roadway—about fifty miners were herding some mighty big pieces of machinery down toward the bottom of the mine.

  The big machines were about four stories tall. They had black earth dripping from their forward scoops and saw-toothed plows. These were clearly digging machines, and they seemed semi-intelligent, shying away from their comparatively tiny handlers who paced all around them.

  Now and then, one of the big mining machines tried to stray, turning back toward the road behind. But the Rigellians persisted, slapping at the huge tires, flapping their hands at collision avoidance sensors and the like. They wanted to force the trundling mining automatons to move down the long spiraling ramp toward the bottom.

  “That’s where the mining machines went,” Leeson said by my side. “Weren’t you wondering where the diggers had gone?”

  “Uh… not really. I’ve been looking for something to shoot.”

  Leeson made a wry face, but he nodded. “Okay… now what?”

  “We’ll rush ahead of them a ways, then ambush them. Shoot every bear down, but leave the robots alone. Maybe we can use them to mine this place later on.”

  Leeson trotted ahead. He ordered his weaponeers to stow their missiles. They were to use belchers set to their widest aperture settings. They were to use broad anti-personnel beams only.

  Less than three minutes later, we ambushed them. Screeching in rage, the bears that survived our initial blistering wave of fire rushed under the mining machines for cover.

  “That’s it!” I called out. “Slide down the cliff and mop up! Sargon, lead the charge.”

  My Varus men attacked without hesitation. I had to hand it to them, even after a long, long day of violent death, they were still ready for more.

  I jumped down with the second wave. We met the miners who were huddled under their confused robotic machines.

  Fire ripped loose in both directions the moment my men were down amongst the machines and able to bring their guns to aim under them. The fight wasn’t entirely one-sided. The enemy had rivet-guns, which were surprisingly effective at close range. After all, the rivets had to be accelerated to a velocity great enough to punch through puff-crete. Hammering away at us, they drilled holes in armored and unarmored alike.

  What was more critical, however, was the suits the miners were wearing. The miners had armor, much like the armor worn by Rigel’s soldiers.

  I arrived with the second wave to support the first. The bears were taking the worst of it, but they weren’t beaten yet. Already, a dozen of my men were down or wounded.

  Using my morph-rifle, I put burst after burst downrange aiming at any black-clad fuzzy short guy I could get a bead on. They retreated under the wheels of their monstrous machines, and we whipped their tails for them as they ran.

  “We’ve got them on the run!” I roared. “Advance!”

  We surged forward—but before we could finish them the situation shifted again. All of a sudden, the huge mining machines swung around ponderously and bore down on us.

  “They’re sending their mining drones at us!” Sargon called out.

  It was true. Like a pack of cowboys starting a stampede, these sneaky Rigellian bastards were driving their enslaved machines at our lines.

  The big machines lit up, as if activated for digging. Conveyor belts ran, dribbling earth-like spittle. The threshing metal teeth in every scoop and vacuum hose clattered and whirred.

  “Throw grenades under those machines!” I ordered. “I don’t care if you wreck them!”

  A dozen pulsing blue bombs were tossed under the advancing line of giant robots. Treads were blown off, and a few bodies went flying—but still, most of the enemy bots continued to advance.

  “Go underneath!” I ordered next, as we were being pressed back against the cliff-like wall of earth behind us. “Take the fight to them!”

  We surged forward, dodging shovels and clattering claws that sought to crush us. Some men perished, but many made it under the machines.

  Unsurprisingly, there was only a meter or so of clearance under the bots. That was ust enough for a Rigellian bear to stand and walk upright—but not a human. We were bent double, some on their knees, some on all fours.

  Despite the fact we had armor and proper guns, there was a vicious fight under those massive treads. The bears, civvies or not, were from a species of apex predators. Not a one of them was a chicken in a fight. They were all vicious, natural-born killers.

  Sometimes men were caught by the treads as the milling machines began to wander again, moving in confusion without direction. They seemed to want to go back to work. Now and then, a distracted pair of combatants, man and bear alike, were crushed to pulp by those spinning metal treads.

  In the end, however, the bears were defeated. We outnumbered them, and we were better organized and trained. They were only miners, not soldiers.

  With perhaps twenty men left alive, I let the mining machines trundle off to do whatever they’d been programmed to do. They left behind a steaming mess of blood, flattened carcasses and moaning wounded.

  “We won!” I called out loudly. “Good job, troops!”

  There was no chorus of cheers to greet my declaration. Not this time.

  Sargon had been right. We’d pushed them too far.

  Twenty long, long minutes later, I crawled on my belly and reached the lip of the final step. From here, I was able to peer directly into the black hole at the bottom of the pit-like mine. Curious, I zoomed in using my officer’s helmet at full magnification.

  That’s when I saw it. A shimmer of light in the darkness. A familiar wavering gleam. It was an active set of gateway posts. I’d stake my balls on it.

  I contacted Graves immediately and relayed the view. He came online and his face peered up at me from my tapper.

  “Good work, McGill,” he said. “There’s only one mission left for your team to perform today.”

  I didn’t bother asking what the mission was. I didn’t bother asking for mercy, either. It would have been pointless.

  “On it, Primus,” I said. “You can count on 3rd Unit.”

  Graves nodded. “Godspeed.”

  Sucking in a deep breath, I prepared my mind and body for the final push. I was exhausted, wounded in a few spots, and numbed to almost everything around me.

  But none of that mattered. We had to destroy that gateway before it brought through reinforcements from Rigel.

  “McGill!” It was Barton. She was the only one of my adjuncts to have survived the day. She was pointing upward, and I frowned at her, then turned and followed her gesture.

  Something was hovering above us. It was like an aircar, but open on the sides. Aboard it were a dozen bears in spacesuits.

  I knew several things at once when I laid eyes on those bears. For one thing, these were proper troops, not miners. Worse, they were flying one of those open-air flitters they liked. They were like flying chariots. Mounted on the back of each was a heavy beam weapon—about the equivalent of one of our famed 88s.

  Secondly, I knew these bears had come through that gateway I’d just spotted. They’d come from Rigel to reinforce the mining installation.

  Lastly, I knew we were doomed.

  “Take them down!” I roared, and every gun we had was lifted to a tired shoulder. Beams, pellets and mini-missiles stormed up at the aerial platforms.

  But they weren’t as easy to take out as they looked. They were shielded, and most of our small-arms fire flashed and spanged into sparks and flashes of plasma. Then the return fire came back at us.

  Sweeping beams flooded the battleground. Four of them crisscrossed the mud and the dead. The beams sent a gush of radiation that transformed my men to charred bone and dust before my eyes.

  A few seconds later, it was my turn. I was melted down, and I joined my comrades in death.

  -32-

  “What have we got?” a female voice asked.

  “Centurion McGill… from front lines? Says here he got all the way to the frigging mine.”

  “That’s bullshit. They told me no one got through those crystal mountains.”

  “It’s right. Check it yourself.”

  I tried to open my eyes, but they felt glued together. Someone sprayed liquid in them, and spread them wide. The liquid stung a little, but the blinding light was much worse.

  “We all died…” I croaked out. “We made it… but we died.”

  “Centurion James McGill,” the female bio read aloud. “You’re a goddamned hero. You know that?”

  “I sure as hell am.”

  The two laughed and worked on me, getting my mind and body fired up. Sometimes, revivals went smoothly. Sometimes they were rough. This one was right down the middle.

  I was soon standing, swaying, with a big headache and cold feet. The floor of the bunker was wet and freezing to the touch. They usually kept it refrigerator-cold in revival chambers. It kept the bacteria from growing.

  Less than ten minutes into my new life, I was uniformed and slapping doors open. I wandered up muddy steps to the outside world. The sun was up and the day was windy.

  All around me, the land looked abused. We’d come here to this lovely planet and dug in, tearing up grassy mounds and leaving black-earth wounds on the surface. Our bunkers and trenches were all like that, fresh-cut and unnatural-looking.

  Graves didn’t send me a note on his tapper. Not this time. He came to me in person.

  “Walk straight,” he said. “The men are watching.”

  Sure enough, there was a small crowd. I didn’t get it at first, but after a few cheers and clapping hands, I figured it out—they were there to see me.

  “Uh…” I said, blinking in the sunshine. My eyes barely functioned, but my mind was in even worse shape. “What’s this about, sir?”

  “You made it through. No one else got that far. A few units, copying your rush method, managed to break through the crystal badlands and advance to the edge of the mining pit. There, they were met with those flying platforms. Without heavy weapons… it was brutal.”

  “They got wiped out? Did they take down any of the aerial targets?”

  “Two were downed. Two out of four.”

  “I wish I’d been there to see that.”

  Graves gave me a small, cold smile. “A little revenge always does the heart good.”

  “Yes sir. What now? How are we going to get to that mine with their reinforcements flowing?”

  Graves expression changed. He was all stony stares again. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. Let’s go.”

  He marched away, and I followed. Around me, the small, cheering group melted. By the time we reached Gold Bunker, it was just me and him again.

  Graves walked up to a table that doubled as a holo projector and waved his hand over it. The table glowed into life. “Turov is waiting to talk to you,” he said. “She’s not in a good mood, and she wants to ask you some questions.”

  With that less than perfect introduction, Graves gestured. The screen glowed and light loomed up like a flame. The flame took the shape of Galina Turov’s upper body. The eyes swept the room, and they soon landed on me.

  “McGill…” she said. “You made it so far, but you failed anyway. Now, I have no choice.”

  “Uh…” I said. “What’s this all about, Tribune?”

  “It’s about your failure. Your abject failure. Graves owns some of it as well, but you are the focal point of this disaster.” Her voice began to rise in volume and intensity. “How could you have come within a hundred meters of those gateway posts and left them intact?”

  “Oh… that. Yeah... We never got a good shot at them. The moment we spotted them—”

  “You should have taken them out! That’s what you should have done, instead, you wasted precious seconds prepping and goofing around, sending loves notes to Graves, here.”

  I glanced at Graves for help, but he was giving me that stony stare again. He was no help at all.

  “Before we could act, those flying gunboats appeared and dusted us off.”

  “I know what happened,” Turov snapped. “I’ve seen the videos pulled from your tapper. You hesitated, and now I’m faced with a crucial choice.”

  “What would that be, sir?”

  “Whether or not to destroy the mine with an orbital strike.”

  That took me by surprise. “I thought that was off the table,” I said. “If Berlin fires into that pit, sir, there’ll be nothing left.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” she demanded. “How could you dream, in your wildest brain-dead fantasies, that I don’t know what will happen to the mine if we plug that hole? Obviously, we’ll have to rebuild it from scratch. There will be nothing left but a slightly deeper smoking crater than we have now!”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  Fuming, Galina began pacing around in circles. The automated camera pickups followed her steadily. As a result, her hologram appeared to be walking in place in the middle of the table.

  Graves cleared his throat. Turov stopped pacing and peered at him. “You have something to suggest, Primus?”

  “Just that you could contact Praetor Drusus and ask for his advice. Let the top brass take the responsibility, if you don’t want it.”

  Galina started pacing again. “Responsibility… Yes… That is the crux of the issue. I see failure ahead. This mission is no longer viable, due to McGill’s failure to act.”

  “Hey now…” I began, but she ignored me.

  “That doesn’t matter, of course. The highest officer present must take the blame for any failure, and the credit for any success. Therefore, it’s time to do what Deech would do.”

  “Huh?” I asked. “What Deech would do? You mean start sleeping with Drusus?”

  They both twisted up their lips in disgust. “No, you fool,” Galina told me. “She would pass the buck, as they used to say. She would make it someone else’s fault. No failures were ever successfully pinned on her.”