“Oh… I see the problem now—you’re a coward.”

  The navigator’s smug expression faltered. “How’s that, sir?”

  “If we choose a point fifty thousand kilometers out, what are the odds of actually hitting the planet?”

  “Uh… I’ll have to do some calculations,” the navigator lady said in a faltering voice.

  “You go do that,” Galina said. “I would estimate they’re lower than five percent. Merton, in the meantime you’ll plan for an invasion assault from fifty thousand kilometers away from the planet.”

  “That’s still pretty far out,” Captain Merton replyed. “We’ll have to use lifters, or possibly jump troops with teleport harnesses. Which do you think would be more viable?”

  “Do I have to do everything? Go figure it out.”

  Merton left with a sour nod. Galina was good at demanding things and delegating work, I had to give it to her. I knew the navigator and captain would work to give her the most they could from Dominus.

  “If you don’t push these people, they pad everything in the name of safety,” she told me when they’d both left.

  We walked together to the tactical battle table which already had the Mintaka star system laid out. There were seven planets, but we were only interested in one of them.

  Galina chased off a bunch of lieutenants and a commander, and then she laid her hands directly on the controls for the planning table. She spread her fingers, causing the view to zoom sickeningly toward the planet in question.

  “Ice World,” she said. “Everyone who watched your spy video likes the name. I don’t know what’s wrong with Mintaka, but I’m not going to make a fuss about it.”

  “Good thinking, sir. Simple names are always more appealing.”

  “James, you’re the only legionnaire who’s been to this frozen rock. How do you suggest we do this?”

  I glanced at her in surprise. “Uh… shouldn’t we let Merton and his boys come up with a plan before we go second-guessing?”

  She showed me her teeth, and she lowered her voice. “Think like an officer. I’m going to be briefed by people who hate me. I want to sound smart. Give me your gut plan, and I can always decide if their plan is better.”

  “Oh… sure, I get it.”

  Galina looked pleased. She often preferred to let other people do her thinking for her—even the thinking she was about to assign to herself. I had to admit, her method was definitely easier than using your own brain.

  Looking at the map, I thought it over and began narrowing things down. “It all depends on how far out we are when we arrive in orbit. If we’re really close—in other words, a few thousand kilometers, we can use the drop pods. That seems unlikely, though. That navigator lady will cheat, see. She’ll tell you she’s aiming for fifty thousand out, but she’ll put gravy on that ‘cause she’s a chicken—just like you said.”

  “Right. Of course. Obstruction at every turn, I must expect that.”

  “So… let’s say she hits right on, that would put us at maybe seventy thousand klicks out from the planet. Way too far to use drop pods.”

  “You think that bitch will actually bullshit me by twenty thousand?”

  “I sure do. Captain Merton might even insist upon it.”

  Together, we glanced across the bridge. Not far away, the navigator and captain were having their own huddle over a similar table.

  Galina snarled. “I should have them shot preemptively—but anyway, continue.”

  “Right, so there are three ways to do this. We can use drop-pods—but we’ll almost certainly be too far away. We can use lifters, but they can be shot down, and they’ll give the enemy lots of warning.”

  “And the third way?”

  “We mass up some boys on Gray Deck and pop down with a teleport attack right from the get-go. They’ll have no warning, no nothing.”

  “That is optimal… but teleport harnesses are expensive, and we can only send perhaps a hundred jump-troops at a time. How many armed enemies did you count down there?”

  “Well… I can’t really say. It was a valley in the mountains—a big place. The problem was I was in the middle of a snowstorm. I couldn’t really count heads, see.”

  “All right, all right… let’s guess there are a thousand Clavers. If I send you with a unit of our best, can you kill them all before the lifters get down with help?”

  My mouth sagged in unhappy surprise. “Me? And a hundred men? I don’t know. I can do some damage, sure. I might be able to stay alive until relief comes—maybe. But I don’t think I can win a firefight with such a small number against all those Clavers.”

  She nodded, her eyes reflecting the blue glow of the holo table. “Good enough. All right, I have a plan. Now, go back to playing the dummy.”

  “Yessir.”

  When Merton and his crew finally approached, they laid out a plan. Dominus would pop down to within fifty thousand kilometers—God willing—and we’d send out five lifters of troops to invade. The lifters would take nearly an hour to land by their estimate.

  “That’s it?” Galina demanded. “What about a teleportation commando group to lead the assault? I don’t want them watching us and preparing for a full hour before we land. I might even lose lifters if we play it that way.”

  Merton looked mildly surprised. “Bold… but yes, we could do that. How many commandos?”

  “One unit. Enough to give them some heartache from the beginning.”

  “All right,” Merton said, eyeing the maps. They were sketchy, but they were all we had. The planet was an icy wilderness of forests and mountains. “I have an additional suggestion: let’s scan the planet before we launch the commandos.”

  “That will waste time! Why does everyone in Fleet want to slow things down?” Galina demanded.

  “A thrust well-aimed is worth the wait, Imperator. If we can locate their air defenses and send the commandos there, they’ll do the most good. Also, a ten-minute delay will give the lifters that long to get closer. We’ll detect their sensors pinging at us and drop McGill’s unit right on top of them.”

  “Uh…” I said. I was beginning to feel alarmed. Why was it everyone with twisty pieces of gold fabric on his arms thought I should be fed to the nearest cannon as fast as possible?

  Galina had no such qualms, however. “You’re right, Merton. I like it. McGill—get your men ready. According to the repair estimates and flight times you’ve got about a hundred hours to prepare for this attack.”

  “That’s mighty considerate of you, sirs. You can count on old McGill to get the job done right.”

  “Yes, yes—dismissed.”

  That was the kind of girlfriend Galina was and always had been. She had a heart, sure… but it was kind of dark and rough, with a rock-hard surface and precious little room for any nonsense inside. In short, it was as if a lump of coal thumped away in her chest.

  After bringing the bad news about leading the assault on Ice World to my module full of troops, they looked like a sad pack of hounds. But they quickly pulled together despite their worries, and we started drilling and doing regular ready-checks every eight hours.

  Two evenings later we got the ship underway again, and Dominus flashed off into a shiny new warp-bubble. The night after that, I was summoned by the Earth’s smallest imperator. I checked on her location hopefully, figuring I might wangle another nice dinner down on Lavender Deck—but it was not to be. Galina was on Gold Deck, and that meant she must still be working.

  “Damnation…” I muttered to myself. “There are precious few breaks for the wicked on this ship.”

  Still grumbling, I hurried off toward the lifts.

  -31-

  The command staff looked like they’d discovered a new kind of turd when I arrived on the bridge. Every navy puke present—even the marine guards—sneered in disgust.

  I ignored all this negativity and swaggered toward Turov and Merton without a second glance at their lesser minions.

  “Hello sirs, what can I do you for?”

  “This will be your final pre-assault briefing, McGill,” Imperator Turov informed me. “Please pay close attention.”

  “Uh… okay.”

  Merton gave me the run-down personally. “Centurion, we will be approaching our target planet soon. We’ll collapse the warp field and reenter normal space as close to the atmosphere as possible. With any luck, we’ll be in orbit and near enough to begin our assault immediately.”

  He showed me lots of arcing lines and numbers. These were the planned trajectories the lifters were going to take. I tried to stifle a yawn, but I pretty much failed.

  “Am I boring you, Centurion?”

  “What—? Noooo, Captain-sir. I’m riveted, really I am. Please continue.”

  He did so, but I didn’t absorb much of it. The short version was my team would wait until the enemy fired on the lifters. If they had anti-space missiles or beam emplacements, we’d see them fire at the incoming invasion ships. The moment they did, my jump-unit would be given the coordinates and the all-clear to attack.

  Our mission was to take out their anti-air batteries—if they had any. Once that was done, our secondary mission was to sow as much confusion and panic as we could until the lifters came down and the main assault began.

  “What about our fighters, sir?” I asked. “Or our broadsides?”

  “They might play into this action,” Merton admitted, “but probably not. We’re here to retrieve valuable artifacts, McGill—”

  “You mean steal the coins, sir?”

  “Crudely put, but yes. Blowing up those coins would be counter to our primary mission.”

  “I get it, sir. I truly do. When you rob a bank, it’s dumb to use a nuke.”

  “Yes… well… any questions?” he asked.

  “Yessir. How long until we light this bottle rocket?”

  Merton checked the displays. “Three hours, more or less. It’s hard to be precise. Our navigator is reading gravitational data continuously, trying to sense the mass of the target world.”

  “Only three hours? Holy crap, I better get going.”

  “You’re dismissed, McGill,” he told me.

  I spun on my heel and high-tailed it off the bridge. Once out of sight of the brass, I slowed down to a sedate walking pace. Three hours was lots of time. My unit was ready to scramble and launch in half an hour flat, but it always shortened worthless briefings if you acted like you were in an all-fired hurry to prepare.

  Whistling an old outlaw tune about republics and battles, I rode the lifts down to my module and chewed on some troops who were lounging. I soon had them running and jumping, stuffing away gear, counting ordnance and anything else I could think of.

  After an hour of the old razzle-dazzle prep time, they looked ready to fly to me. I led them all down to the mess and shared a final meal with the whole group. The troops always appreciated that sort of thing, when an officer ate with the grunts instead of with his peers upstairs.

  “Don’t let them stuff themselves,” Leeson admonished. “They’ll puke on the drop.”

  “That should only be a worry for the greenest recruits.”

  Leeson shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past some of our senior regulars…”

  “All right. Let’s have Moller play goalie. No seconds at the lunch counter.”

  This was done, and we soon returned to our module, picked up all our gear and marched to Gray Deck for the assault.

  Things like this always took longer than you would think possible. We stood around all trussed-up like Christmas turkeys while techs swarmed us checking wires and harnesses. Every battery was charged and double-checked for transmission six times over.

  This was more tedious than a regular drop-pod attack if you asked me. Instead of the exhilarating whoosh and chop of the pods slamming over people, there was very little movement. We were antsy, with no release in sight. Maintaining a high state of readiness for a long time was damaging for morale, so I had the officers lead the troops in a rousing chant to Earth.

  We sang the Unification Song, Glory to the Empire and even a single chorus of Our Mogwa Patrons. Finally, running out of ideas, I taught them Battle Hymn of the Republic, which precious few had ever heard before. They stumbled over old, unfamiliar words like hallelujah, but they seemed to like the tune.

  Primus Graves appeared on the deck when we were in mid-song, and he instantly recognized it.

  “McGill? Are you leading these troops in an open act of sedition?”

  “Sedition, sir?” I asked. “Only if that means keeping up spirits and making hearts soar before battle.”

  “Right… You know, I haven’t heard that outlaw song since I was called Lt. Ryan Graves, back when I was a pilot myself. But that was in a different service, and a very different time and place… Never mind, it was way before you were born.”

  “Uh… yessir,” I said, not knowing how to take this sudden contemplation from Graves.

  Primus Graves or Lt. Graves… either way, he was scary-old. He’d admitted to being in Legion Varus for a century—but how long had he lived before that? God himself only knew. I was sure he’d been rattling around Earth before the Mogwa ever showed up to annex our green planet, but I’d never learned exactly how old he really was. The only thing I knew for sure was he was one mean old bastard.

  “Okay,” Graves said at last, “everyone shut up and brace yourselves. We’re coming out of warp right now.”

  True to his word, we felt the big ship shudder. The power glitched, and it felt for just a second as if we were standing in two places at once—a transitional effect we commonly experienced when entering or exiting a warp bubble.

  For a few seconds, no one dared to breathe. We might, after all, have merged up with a solid object or—

  Overhead, the speakers began to blare. Klaxxons sounded and flashers spun. “Emergency! All hands, move to battle stations!”

  I signaled Natasha, indicating I wanted input. She flicked a gloved finger over her tapper, sending me a data feed. We’d worked out some channels to leech off while we were waiting around. I hadn’t been sure we’d need to see the big picture—but I was already becoming concerned.

  “Holy shit…” I breathed. “We’re right on top of the clouds!”

  Graves sternly examined the same data I did. “I see that. We can’t move farther away, either—not without warping.”

  “James,” Natasha said, stepping close to my side, “the bridge says this orbit isn’t stable. We’re going to have to jump again soon.”

  Graves gave her a hard stare, but he didn’t ask how she’d come up with command-level information so fast. He knew better than to question it.

  We felt the ship shudder. I looked around at the walls of Gray Deck. “Are we hitting the atmosphere already?”

  “No,” Graves said, “I don’t think so. That’s from Red Deck—they’re launching all the lifters. You’re feeling them kick Dominus in the ribs, that’s all.”

  That’s when I realized the battle for Ice World was truly in motion.

  -32-

  I looked around. The techs were scurrying everywhere, but they weren’t launching us—not yet. “Do we have a target, Primus? We need jump coordinates.”

  Graves gave his head a shake. “Right… shit. At this rate, you’ll land after the lifters do. Techs!”

  A few panicked faces circled around him.

  “There’s no time to pinpoint AA batteries. Put McGill’s team down right where he landed the last time.”

  They looked shocked, and they did nothing for about a second. Graves quickly exploded. “Move! Move! Move!”

  Techs scrambled like frightened mice. My own men hunched over their launch stations, and we all took tighter grips on our rifles.

  All of sudden, a squad of lights began to flash blue—then more of them did. A few others throbbed—but not everyone at once.

  “What’s wrong?” Graves demanded.

  “We’ve got a power overload,” one of the techs told him. “We have to draw on the engines to fire off all the harnesses at once. The problem is the bridge crew is building up a charge now as well. They must be trying to take the whole ship back into warp.”

  “What? You morons! Don’t use the ship’s power! Disengage from the engines. Use the batteries in their harnesses.”

  “But sir—McGill’s men won’t be able to port back.”

  “That’s too damned bad. Send them all—send them all now.”

  That was the last thing I heard, because the room started to strobe for me as well. Gray Deck was flashing in and out of existence.

  I brought my rifle to my shoulder and sighted along the length of it. If any Clavers were lollygagging in that cave down there—well sir, they were in for quite a surprise.

  With so many of us going down at once, we might have been screwed blue if we hadn’t been an experienced bunch. As it was, seven men merged up with the rocky walls of the cave—or with each other.

  I walked among the crowd, dispensing a bolt into the skull of any troop who was gasping like a fish, too crippled to fight. After thirty seconds, the rest of my unit had all reached the LZ. We were ready to fight and looking for targets.

  “Barton, take a squad out of the cave. Recon and give me a live feed. Kivi, buzzers—I want them everywhere. Let’s get eyes on the enemy, people!”

  Adjunct Barton led her first squad into the daylight. I’ll be damned if it wasn’t snowing again, just like the last time I’d been here. I suspected the weather was pretty predictable on this frozen rock.

  Checking the feed coming from the light troopers and the buzzers, I immediately became concerned. The base in the valley was thronged with new armament. A dozen sleek towers spun and aimed up into space. They fired up beams of lidar and other sensors. I saw them opening apertures.

  “1st Heavy Platoon, forward!” I ordered. “Leeson, get your weaponeers right on their tails. Fire on those batteries before they take out our lifters!”

  Total confusion reigned in the cave. It was too small for a hundred troops, and everyone was stepping on toes. I was no exception to this, rushing forward and shoving lights aside to clear my path.