Manfred went on for some time about my imagined plan of action, but I didn’t care, and I wasn’t listening. I was thinking of the brass up on Berlin.

  It was time to contact acting Tribune Winslade.

  -39-

  I wormed my way, mostly on my belly, back to our next closest trench line. It wasn’t our original hash-mark of ditches we’d dug when we’d arrived. It had been abandoned by another unit, so we took up residence within.

  3rd Unit was in sorry condition. After fighting to Manfred’s trench then back again, we’d taken heavy losses. One out of every three of my men had been lost.

  It did my heart good to see that very few of the survivors were complaining. After all, we’d accomplished our mission of keeping Manfred’s position from being overwhelmed. Along the way, we’d killed our fair share of the enemy as well.

  Catching my breath, I had a chance to think. Immediately and unbidden, an idea formed in my mind. I didn’t like the idea. I didn’t like it at all, but once considered, I couldn’t shake it.

  Sometimes a thought occurs to a man which is so monstrous, so heinous in nature, that it’s hard to wrap your head around it. Today was such a day for poor old James McGill.

  Deciding I wasn’t really taking any action, that I’d just thought of something evil, I could look into the idea without any guilty feelings. I used the blood-crusted computer that Manfred had let me keep.

  Very soon, the idea led to action. I couldn’t help myself. Connecting Manfred’s rig to Kivi’s, I was able to open a channel up to Berlin. The big battlecruiser was parked in orbit over our heads, but we’d never seen it with the naked eye. The atmosphere was too hazy.

  I spent a few minutes coming up with a good message to hijack Winslade’s mind. It had to be short, but impactful. A hook, essentially. Something that couldn’t be ignored, even in the heat of battle.

  In the end, I sent out just four words in a subject line, and I texted it tapper-to-tapper through the channel I’d managed to keep alive.

  I’ve got the answer.

  That’s all I said. It was short and sweet, and designed to elicit a response from a curious rodent like Winslade.

  Sure enough, my tapper was buzzing a few minutes later. Kivi had watched this process throughout, and she eyed the red print on my arm with concern.

  “Aren’t you going to answer that, Centurion?” she asked.

  “I surely am… in a minute.”

  The buzzing carried on, and the red print kept flashing and tickling my arm. I took a deep breath and a swig of that sweat-tasting juice they gave us all the time. I grimaced. It was full of protein and a little sugar, but I’d never gotten used to it.

  “Is that Graves?” Kivi asked.

  “Specialist, move on down the line, please. No listening in, either.”

  She reluctantly retreated, and I turned on the secure-channel option. Then I answered Winslade’s incessant buzzing.

  “What is it, Tribune?” I asked. “The bears are setting up to rush us again, and I—”

  “Don’t you think I know that, McGill? I’m staring at the operational map right now. You aren’t sending me private notes as a prank, are you?”

  “Oh yeah, that message. I’ve got the answer, sir.”

  “So I’ve gathered. Can you please elucidate?”

  “Uh… If you mean explain the answer, I certainly can. But first, sir… is this line truly secure?”

  Winslade didn’t answer right away. Instead, I saw the encryption meter tick up a few notches. He’d typed in some security codes only a higher officer had access to.

  “There,” he said, “unless Drusus himself has secretly stowed away aboard this overcrowded ship, no one will overhear you. Now, please tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “I’ve got the answer. I’m talking about how to get rid of these bastard bears… and our other problems.”

  Winslade’s face loomed alarmingly large in my tapper screen. He was leaning close, whispering into his tapper. After a moment, all I could see were his lips, and his wet-glinting teeth. I touched the black-out option so I didn’t have to look at that.

  “McGill, I’m very busy. Tell me your answer right now, or I’ll have you flayed alive.”

  “Yes, sir. Here’s the deal, when they hit us, when they hit us hard—bombard our encampment. Kill everyone down here. Kill the bears, kill us—kill everything and everyone. Later, you can decide who to revive.”

  Winslade was quiet for a few seconds. “It would solve certain… personnel problems, but it seems extreme,” he said, “even for you.”

  “It is, sir. But I think we’re going to lose this fight anyway. If you blow them up with Berlin’s big guns while their forces are hitting us with everything they’ve got… well sir, by morning you can drop a freshly revived cohort, and I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that we can march right into that mine and take over.”

  “Dollars? Isn’t that currency forbidden? Never mind—don’t answer that. Let’s stay on point for once, shall we?”

  “I’m with you, sir. What do you think of the idea?”

  He was quiet for about two seconds. “On the face of it, the concept is insanity itself. I might be court-martialed upon returning to Earth.”

  “Nonsense, sir! Anyone who wants to stay in the top slot has to give orders that make headlines on the grid back home. Besides, there are precedents, and you’ll have won the battle with a single dramatic stroke.”

  “Such finality…” Winslade lamented. “Thanks for the thought, McGill. I’ll have to consider it. Hold a moment.”

  Turning my head, I saw Kivi had crawled near. I waved her off, but she was insistent. She showed me her computer screen.

  The red triangles were advancing now. They’d encircled us, and they were coming in for the kill.

  “Uh…” I said. “Whatever you’re going to do, Tribune, don’t take too long thinking about it. We’re about to be wiped out.”

  Winslade broke the connection then, and six minutes later we were up to our assholes in small, angry bears.

  They overwhelmed the forward trenches like Manfred’s almost immediately. Their approach was different this time, and ingenious. Knowing they had the advantage when they were at close range, they rushed us in groups of twenty. Each group was a tight squad protected by a mobile force-dome that had a radius of five meters or so. These domes crackled as they swept over the grasses, the fallen dead and the muddy trenches.

  We shot at the bears, of course. We even fired point-blank with belchers and mini-missiles, but not even our 88s could penetrate their mobile domes.

  Once these bubbles reached our trench lines, the sneaky little trolls abandoned the projector device they were carrying, deployed shotguns and leapt into the trenches.

  Then a desperate struggle began. It was hand-to-hand at times, and always bloody. We tore apart the bears with mines, automated turrets, force-blades and our own guns. They did the same to us with their enhanced claws and shotguns.

  Each alien was small compared to us, but just like bears back home on Earth, their muscle density was higher than that of a human. They were, gram-for-gram, more than our equals. Couple that with the nearly impossible job of penetrating their armor and, well, we were taking the worst of it.

  “Are we just going to wait until they assault our trench, McGill?” Harris demanded.

  He was angry and scared, and I couldn’t blame him. We’d fired a thousand power bolts each, and I doubted we’d killed a single enemy. They were going to hit us soon and wipe us out. It was as simple as that.

  “Tell the troops to prepare to charge,” I told him.

  Harris looked surprised for a moment, but then he seemed to consider. He nodded at last. “Will do, Centurion.”

  About a minute later, 3rd Unit got up as one and rushed the trenches that held10th Unit. We had the fun of at least surprising the bears, jumping into the trench behind them and hitting them in the ass. For a time, I thought we might even kill a whole enemy squad.

  Then two more bear squads showed up, and the fighting became grim. Soon, a man could hardly stand up straight on the sliding mounds of bodies. The mud and blood mixed together into a crusty soup.

  Taking a blast in the back, I never even saw the bear that finished me. In shock and dying, I pitched onto my face and squirmed there, groaning and struggling just to breathe.

  Before I died, however, I managed to roll over on my ruined back. Men and bears walked right over me, but I hardly felt it, or saw or heard them.

  Staring straight up at the heavens, I saw the skies light up. It was as if the sun had come up—but it was already high noon on Glass World.

  Seeing glowing streaks of fire descend, two sets of four in tight groups, I knew the U. E. Berlin had fired her big guns. The bombardment of Glass World had begun.

  -40-

  When I woke up again, I had no idea when or where I was. I was kind of slow about returning to life, and I felt fuzzy. I could be on Glass World, Blue Deck on Berlin, or even back home on Earth a year later. None of these realities would have surprised me.

  “Did we win?” I croaked out, but no one seemed to hear me.

  “Get him up, push him!” a female bio said.

  “He’s a centurion—and he’s not able to walk yet, Specialist.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care about his APGAR scores or his prognosis. I want him off my table.”

  I was unceremoniously shoved off the gurney onto the floor. Fluttering my eyes open, I saw other men shared the deck with me. They lay in various states. Some were struggling to their feet. Some were shaking their heads and clawing at their eyes. Others were putting on uniforms—and a few looked dead.

  “We can’t keep rushing every grow!” the orderly said in hushed voice. “It’s going to get worse if we seed the chamber too fast!”

  “Shut up,” the bio specialist said. “We’ve got our orders, and we’re going to follow them. Recharge the tanks and start the next grow. Keep the juices flowing!”

  It took me three tries to get to my feet. Once I was up, I found myself swaying and blinking. It felt like I had the hangover to beat all hangovers.

  Then I noticed my toes—or rather, I didn’t notice them. I didn’t have any toes.

  “Aw, dammit!” I complained aloud. “No time to grow me some toes? Do you two clowns know how hard it is to run with no toes inside your boots?”

  The bio looked at me. Her face was uncompromising. “You’ve got fingers. That’s good enough to hold a rifle. I suggest you get one, get outside, and shoot down a bear.”

  “The bears are still coming?”

  “They sure as shit are, Centurion,” the orderly said.

  They went back to work, and I stopped giving them grief. Instead, I studied the troops around me. They seemed dazed and listless.

  About two minutes later, I had all the live ones up and hopping. They had on uniforms and boots that made them wince with every step. No one in the whole unit had been reborn with a single toe.

  “Stuff an extra sock up there,” I ordered. “It helps.”

  “Just how the hell would you know to do that, McGill?” Barton asked me as she complied.

  I looked at her. Years ago, we’d had a fling. Now, it felt like that happy time was a century gone. The memory was a pile of dust in my mind, and I could hardly believe it was real.

  “When it comes to double-time revives, this isn’t my first rodeo,” I admitted. “Suit up people! Walk as straight as you can, and move out!”

  At my back nine troops followed, staggering along like the walking dead. They were grim-faced, but they weren’t complaining. It was obvious to everyone that’d we’d been shit out of the machines early due to some overwhelming emergency.

  It was only as we exited Blue Deck that it dawned on me we weren’t on Glass World anymore. We were walking inside titanium walls. We had to be aboard Berlin—and if they needed fighting men aboard the battlecruiser, that could only be because we’d been boarded.

  “All right 3rd Unit,” I said to the nine who were struggling in my wake. “We’re in a defensive action. This ship has been boarded, and we’re going to repel the invaders.”

  Grim-faced and wincing slightly with every step, we plundered an armory and moved to where we found troops rushing toward the aft region of the vessel. The crew and the ship’s marines looked stressed, and even the Varus people I saw looked dazed and bewildered.

  Using my tapper, I sought out a tactical assignment from Graves, my primus—but of course, there wasn’t any.

  “Winslade…” I said aloud.

  Barton, the only one of my three adjuncts who was breathing again as yet, sidled close. “What about Winslade, sir?” she asked.

  She said this in a low, suspicious tone. She’d really become one of us after several campaigns. The girl was from Victrix originally, but that pedigree had passed by the wayside as the years rolled by. She now knew the score as well as anybody in the legion—well, almost anybody.

  “Nothing, Adjunct,” I assured her with a helpful lie. “It’s just that without Graves being out of the oven yet, Winslade is next up in the command hierarchy.”

  “Lord help us…” she whispered, and I kept right on smiling like I didn’t even hear her.

  Working my tapper again, I contacted Winslade. To my surprise, he answered immediately.

  “McGill!” he said, sounding as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as can be. In comparison, me and my men shambled like zombies. “I’m surprised you’re up and around already—but then I did put a priority signature on your revival order.”

  “Oh… thanks, sir. I’m assuming there’s a boarding effort underway? Or is it a mutiny?”

  “The former, I’m afraid. The bears must not have liked our successful bombardment on Glass World. They’ve sent out some patrol ships to fight back. Fortunately, during your brief demise, we managed to destroy the patrol ships. Unfortunately, they managed to reach us with assault modules first. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a situation on my hands and as much as I like to chit-chat—”

  “I understand completely, sir. But this isn’t a social call. I’m reporting for orders. You’re my next-in-line CO.”

  “Oh… of course… and we’d better keep that fiction alive to cover, hmm? All right, your unit is the only one revived right now from your cohort. You’re to support the anti-boarding effort forming up in the aft passages. Report there and follow the orders of Marine Captain Khan. He knows how to defend his ship better than you do.”

  “Will do, sir… but isn’t there some unfinished business between us?”

  “What? You’ve got to be kidding, McGill. We’re being boarded. You’ll get to see your sweetheart clone the moment this action has been completed—presuming that we survive it. Now, I’ll put you in touch with the marine captain in question—”

  He broke off, then the channel switched to a round-headed man who spoke with an accent and looked like he never smiled. “McGill? This is Marine Captain Khan. I am the commanding officer of Berlin’s defenders. You’re the Varus leader, yes?”

  “That’s right, Captain.” I’d already decided I wasn’t going to call this man “sir” as it would be inappropriate. The rank of centurion was equivalent to a marine captain, even if we were aboard his ship and in space at the moment.

  If I’d offended Khan, he didn’t show it. He stared at me with all the expressiveness of a block of wood. “The enemy assault shuttles have clustered near the engine chambers in the aft part of the ship. You will stand watch on the bridge, McGill, in case something goes wrong there.”

  Right off, I knew his game. He didn’t want me anywhere near his troops or his engines. He wanted me to play watchdog as far from the action as possible.

  “I’m sorry sir,” I said without hesitation. “My orders are to accompany you and participate in defending this ship.”

  Khan didn’t answer right off. He seemed to be fooling with his tapper. Finally, he looked back up at me. “Your orders have been confirmed. However, it says here that you are under my leadership. Do you accept this condition?”

  “Condition…? Uh… sure.”

  “Very well. Meet me at the pressure doors leading into Engine Room Three. You will back up my troops as we secure the area.”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but the screen had gone dark. Khan had cut the connection.

  “Rude bastard,” Barton said. She was hovering at my shoulder, looking on.

  “It’s his ship. He doesn’t want monkeys destroying his engines. I get all that, but we’re not as green in this kind of action as he might think.”

  After setting my tapper to lead me to the designated meeting point, I led the group at a brisk trot. There were plenty of curses and grimaces from each of my troops as we jogged along. Bouncing on their nonexistent toes was probably the worst pastime my troops could think of at that moment, but it couldn’t be helped.

  After several minutes of rapid advancement, we reached Engine Room Three and found Khan’s troops deployed and preparing to break in through a large sealed door.

  “What’s on the far side?” I asked, rapping my steel gauntlets on the door.

  Khan turned toward me, but there was no handshake, and no heartfelt greeting. There was no greeting at all.

  “The enemy is about to breach into the chamber.”

  “What about the crew inside?”

  Khan shrugged disinterestedly. “We will revive them later, assuming Berlin survives this assault.”

  Unable to find any fault with his logic, I opened my mouth to ask about any targets we should be careful not to shoot—but he turned away again.

  He had a full platoon with him, at least triple the number of Varus troops I had with me. I hoped this wasn’t everything we had to defend the ship with, but I suspected it might be.

  “Kill everything that moves,” Khan ordered. “Try not to hit the instruments. Blow the doors—now.”

  “Uh…” I said, but no one was even looking at me.