“Uh… what? Graves? No, sir. All he’s done is assign us our posts and send warnings when the Vulbites attack in their thousands. I probably should get back to my unit, actually. They’ll soon invade the complex, and I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

  Her eyes came up to meet mine. “You really think the Rigellians will send reinforcements out here?”

  “Of course!” I said. “It’s a vital industrial center. That’s why they beat us here to capture it. They know the score. By now, their garrison commanders have reported our attack back to their homeworld. It’s only a matter of time until their real force arrives.”

  Galina flopped back on her bed.

  It was an inviting pose, but I didn’t molest her. I let her stew, considering reality.

  “I’ll never get my rank back,” she said. “This was a setup from the beginning. He promised glory, but gave me a hopeless task. Drusus—”

  “Now, hold on,” I said. “He didn’t know there would be an extra million centipede troops out here. I think he honestly hoped the place would be deserted. It’s not your fault the plan didn’t work out—the flaw was strategic, not operational.”

  She licked her lips while lying on her back, staring at the ceiling.

  “You are naïve,” she said. “One wouldn’t think that was possible—but you are. Deech hates me. Drusus wants to neutralize me. I’ve been boxed-in out here, damned no matter what I do.”

  I let her think for a few seconds more, then I spoke in a gentle tone. “What are you going to do, Tribune? Call home for more legions? That’s what I’d do.”

  “That would be a display of weakness, and you know it.”

  “Losing badly and getting our entire legion wiped would be a worse disaster.”

  She sat up slowly, her eyes narrowing again. She focused them on me.

  “This is why you really came here tonight, isn’t it?” she asked in a deceptively quiet voice.

  “What? No, sir! I came to show you Winslade’s drone—and to see you too, of course. That’s the God’s-honest truth.”

  She stared at me, sighed, and nodded her head. She’d bought my lies.

  “All right,” she said. “I will consider requesting reinforcements. Now, however, you must head back to the front. Another attack will be coming soon.”

  “Uh… what kind of attack?”

  “They’ll breach the hull. They won’t do anything too drastic—they don’t want to wreck the factory any more than we do. But they will attack.”

  “Right,” I said, “what are our orders, sir?”

  She frowned at me. “To hold, of course! To kill so many they’re forced to retreat. Graves will push them back. I have faith in him.”

  It was my turn to frown in concern.

  I set my glass down on her tiny bar and turned to go. Adjusting my kit in the mirror, I was surprised when she came up behind me.

  Looking in the mirror with me, she fluffed up my hair and cap, even though she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach.

  “You know,” I said, “I think this is about the first time we’ve parted ways without either of us raging at the other.”

  Galina smiled in amusement. “You’re probably right.”

  I left then, and I walked straight past the vet I’d tangled with hours ago. He watched me go, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Normally, I’d have said something to goad him—but I didn’t have the heart. A battle was coming, and I knew it was going to be a bad one.

  Due to pride, hope, or just plain cussedness, Galina wasn’t going to call for the reinforcements we so desperately needed. I’d failed in my mission to persuade her, and I wasn’t sure what to do next. Things were playing out just the way Leeson had said they would.

  Returning to the space factory and my unit, I was met with suspicion from everyone.

  “McGill!” Leeson shouted. “Imagine seeing you down here with us lowly grunts! Maybe we should all gather around and get your autograph. Here, you want to sign my helmet?”

  “Come on, Leeson,” I said. “It was your idea.”

  “Yeah. I said you should go off and talk to the brass. But you stretched that into spending the night AWOL. That’s pure McGill.”

  Harris came up to me next, and he got into my face. He wasn’t in a joking mood like Leeson was. Not at all.

  “Well?” he demanded. “When are they coming? Will it be Victrix, or Germanica?”

  “What?”

  “Our reinforcements, you damned fool!” he said, suddenly angry.

  He got that way when he was scared—but that was something he’d never admit.

  “Oh yeah… about that…”

  “Don’t tell me,” he said, walking away and shaking his head. “You just spent nine hours chasing tail, didn’t you? Did you forget what you were supposed to be pushing for? Did you even mention it to her?”

  “I did,” I said. “I truly did. But she wants us to give Varus one more shot. She’s not convinced we need help. Not yet.”

  Harris gave a bitter laugh. He crooked his finger to me, beckoning. “Come here, take a walk with me.”

  Wary but trying to looking unconcerned, I followed him. He led me into a long, empty passage.

  He paused there, in the attitude of someone listening closely.

  “You hear that?” he asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “Take your helmet off. Go on, do it.”

  He took his off, so I followed suit. We both listened for a moment.

  Then I heard it. A squeaky, grinding noise.

  “You hear that?” Harris whispered. “Their sappers are drilling into the hull—all over the place. They have this facility all mapped out. They know where every duct is, every passage and chamber.”

  “So they’re drilling holes? So what? If they try to make one big enough to wriggle through, we’ll know and shoot them the moment they try to invade.”

  Harris laughed bitterly. “You’re not getting it. They aren’t drilling big-ass holes with augers. They’re making small ones—and filling them with shaped charges.”

  My face fell, and I looked at the ceiling. The squeaking and grinding began again. It could have been my imagination, but it sounded like this hole was being drilled a bit to the left of the last one. The situation reminded me of when we got rats in the attic in springtime.

  “You hear them?” Harris said. “These Vulbites aren’t stupid, see? They’ll plant small charges. They’ll blow them all at once, depressurizing all the chambers along the outer decks. Then, they’ll flood in. Thousands of them, all at once. There won’t be any warning, because the explosions will be coordinated.”

  “Hmm…” I said, thinking over his idea. “That way, there won’t be much damage to the equipment. They wouldn’t have to open the whole place to space.”

  “Right. Surgery, not butchery.”

  So saying, Harris put his helmet back on and leaned against a wall.

  “Here,” he said in a hushed tone. “Lean right here for a second.”

  I did so, warily. After a while, when the squeaking began again, I felt a vibration that must have been transmitted through the walls into my boots and pack.

  “You feel that?” Harris asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s the sensation of doom, boy. The Devil is tapping on our shoulders. We’re about to be up to our assholes in bugs.”

  I didn’t say anything. It was pretty clear Harris was right.

  Thinking hard, I tried to come up with a solution, but I drew a blank.

  “When do you think they’ll hit us?” I asked him.

  “The second they’re all set up. Not too long now—hours, not days.”

  Nodding, I agreed with him.

  “Dammit, Galina,” I said aloud. “Why’d you have to be born so vain?”

  Harris laughed, but there wasn’t any joy in the sound.

  -26-

  The Vulbites were clever. They’d drilled more than just holes for explosives. They’d sunken listening probes into the hull as well.

  When we were at our lowest ebb, the artificial moment we called “dawn” in our cycle of time, their listening devices detected the drop in activity.

  That’s when they hit us.

  It was when all the explosions, alarms and shouting began throughout the vast complex that we knew they’d been listening up there. They’d waited until they’d noticed a marked reduction to our movements and energy levels—in that moment, they struck.

  We weren’t ready. A soldier can only stay alert and tense for so long. Once a man’s done that for twenty or thirty long, long hours, the edge is gone. Adrenalin counters that natural state of fatigue, but it isn’t perfect, far from it.

  Staggering up, fumbling with weapons, releasing incoherent shouts—we tried to pull it together.

  Vulbites dropped through the roof, but not directly into the chamber we were holed up in. Oh no, they were too cunning for that. They came down in every surrounding passageway, cutting off our unit from everyone else.

  The truth was that we just didn’t have the numbers to cover this place. Nor did we have the kind of warship that could be tasked with cleaning them off the roof of the complex. We were a ground force spread thin, and they outnumbered us.

  Thousands poured into the passages. A savage battle began.

  We hadn’t been idle, of course. We’d set up traps for them everywhere. Automated turrets chattered like sprinklers. Grav-grenades went off with blue-white flashes, tearing the enemy apart.

  Just as great as our shock was, theirs had to be even worse. They died, and died. Squirming bodies piled up, forming wriggling mounds of flesh in the passages.

  But another wave came minutes later, right on the heels of the first one. This wave crawled on the walls and the ceiling, avoiding the littered floor. They crawled closer to us, using the bodies of their fallen comrades as cover.

  We had well-positioned firing squads at every open hatch. We sprayed the attackers, killing them at a steady rate.

  But then, as they kept advancing despite losses, one of them managed to lob a smoking sphere of vapor into our midst.

  It popped, and a black acidic fog roiled up around our legs. It ate into our suits, making the polymers—anything that wasn’t glass or metal—melt away.

  Soon, our suits had breaches, and our air leaked out. Worse, the acidic vapors began to leak in.

  “Squad, vent the chamber!” I ordered.

  “McGill—?” Winslade called out in alarm, but he didn’t finish. He began screaming instead. The black vapor had gotten into his suit. His flesh began to liquefy.

  My people jumped in the low-G and slammed fists on the releases. The top hatch, the big one, blew open.

  There was so little pressure left that the door flew away into space almost silently.

  The last of our air managed to suck out the vapor with it as it fled into nothingness. The black vapor was instantly rendered ineffective. It had spread out too thinly in space to burn us any longer.

  We had new problems, however.

  “Vulbites!” Harris called out. “Up top!”

  They were crawling to the new, unexpected breach we’d created and poking their weapons into it. They showered us with fire, and we returned the favor.

  Running my eyes over the numbers, breathing hard, I tried to take account of the situation. We’d lost Winslade, and about half our troops.

  “Leeson?” I called out.

  There was no answer. His name was red on my HUD.

  “Harris? You still with me?”

  “Until Hell freezes over.”

  “Okay, let’s do something.”

  “Something crazy?” he asked me.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m game. We’re dead anyway. Lead on, McGill!”

  I jumped up to the hatch we’d blown open. There were a few Vulbites up there but not many. Most had already entered the complex. They were down in the passages now, digging deeper, trying to crush us.

  “Unit!” I shouted. “Follow me! Up and out!”

  Sargon was still among the living as were several of the heavy troopers. They followed me without an argument. Harris brought up the rear, firing with controlled bursts whenever he saw a Vulbite poking up from cover.

  We were good, you have to understand. Earth men of the past, they only had one life to spend learning all the ins and outs of combat. When they became true experts, should they live so long, they were usually too old to be at their peak.

  We had unfair advantages. The minds of old, experienced killers and the bodies of youthful men and women—we had it all.

  Our shots were more accurate, more precise, and more decisive than the enemy could hope to be.

  Most of my recruits and heavy troopers had perished, but I recognized one face inside a helmet.

  “Cooper?” I called out. “Is that you?”

  “Yes sir. I’m still alive.”

  “Good. I have a job for you. Scout ahead. Find me a path. Feed it back to me via your tapper.”

  “The enemy will trace that, sir,” he said.

  “That’s right.”

  He didn’t groan. He didn’t even respond. He just stared at me.

  “Are you up for this?” I asked him.

  “Where am I going, Adjunct?”

  I pointed. “That big, fat umbilical over there. I want you to lead us to it without running into an enemy concentration. It should be easy to do. Most of the Vulbites are inside the complex. They aren’t expecting a counterattack—not out here.”

  Cooper eyed the umbilical. It looked like a giant air conditioning duct, and it reached from the belly of the space complex all the way to the surface of Dark World. From our perspective, that was “up” but it really didn’t matter what you called it.

  He didn’t ask any more questions. He just rushed off into the dark, weaving between the obstacles, dashing from one scrap of cover to the next.

  Sargon came up to me. “He’s a good kid,” he said. “You doing this just to kill him?”

  “What? No.”

  Sargon looked me up and down. “He told me he took a shit on your desk back at the Mustering Hall. Says it was the worst thing he ever did.”

  I laughed. “Nah,” I said. “I’m not pissed about that—not anymore.”

  Sargon smiled. “I told him that. I told him the boss doesn’t hold a grudge—not after several solid killings. Not sure if he believes me, though.”

  “He’s a bright boy. After another dozen trips through the revival machine, he’ll be fully educated.”

  Sargon laughed and stepped away from me.

  What was left of our unit moved as a scattered group. We maintained a distance of about five meters between us, just in case the ground lasers noticed us and tried to burn us down.

  As we covered ground rapidly, I noticed a vast number of small, dark holes in the hull at our feet. They weren’t big enough for an armored man to pass, but they would fit a light trooper—or a Vulbite.

  We reached the umbilical after about ten minutes of rapid progress. The shocker was that Cooper made it all the way out there, still very much alive.

  We’d only encountered and killed a score of the enemy on the way, mostly wounded types and communications-relay troops working equipment. Rushing them by surprise, we took them out one by one.

  I knew we were living on borrowed time, of course. Either the enemy would send out a counterforce, or they’d use their planet-bound beamers. One way or the other, they’d kill us eventually.

  But sometimes, in the heat of battle, a small force can flank and take significant action. I hoped this would be one of those times.

  We reached the umbilical, and we began to set charges. The whole thing was relatively flimsy. Torn loose from its moorings, it should rip loose and fall down into the atmosphere, burning up and collapsing of its own weight.

  “Unit Three?” a familiar voice buzzed in my helmet. It was Primus Graves. “McGill? Are you the one who’s out there on the roof?”

  Only Harris and I could hear Graves, as he was using command chat, and the other officers were all dead.

  Harris looked at me, and I looked at him. We were both breathing hard.

  “Just stay quiet,” Harris said. “You’ve got mute on, we both do. Just ignore him and set these charges. This whole thing will be over in five minutes.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “McGill, damn your worthless skin, answer me!” Graves bellowed.

  Looking at Harris, I knew what he wanted. If the umbilical was destroyed, the complex would be worthless. It would take months or even years to repair. We’d probably be recalled, or reinforcements might be dispatched. Either way, the meat-grinder would stop grinding for now.

  But I was thinking of bigger things. We were in a war, after all. Earth needed this planet. Drusus had carefully laid out the case for that, and I for one had been convinced he was right.

  “This is our forward base—” I said to Harris.

  “Oh now, hold on, McGill!” Harris shouted. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone and turned into a law-abiding citizen all of a sudden! This is over! I don’t want to crawl on top of this tin can for one more—”

  “Primus Graves?” I transmitted. “McGill reporting, sir. We’re at the base of the umbilical.”

  “What the fuck are you doing out there, McGill? Do not, repeat, DO NOT blow that strategic asset. Do you copy that?”

  “Yes sir. I wouldn’t even consider it. We’re just ambushing Vulbites as they come up from the planet to reinforce.”

  Harris was hanging his head and groaning. Sweat dribbled and spread over his helmet’s faceplate.

  “All right,” Graves said. “Hold out as long as you can. Graves out.”

  When the contact closed, Harris didn’t raise his head.

  “We were so close, man,” he said. “So close…”

  “Don’t worry, Harris,” I told him. “I’ve got a better idea.”

  He lifted his head again. “Are you shitting me? Don’t mess around. That’s not cool, McGill. Not today.”

  “I’ll tell you all about it later—if it works out.”

  With those words, I flipped open my faceplate.

  It was a bad move. I should have shot myself instead.