A marine sapper lit off a charge, and the door burned around the lock. The heat and light was intense, and it flickered like burning magnesium. Finally, the door fell open with a resounding clang.

  Inside, we were treated to a shocking sight. All the crewmen were already dead. Many of them were floating in ghastly states of repose. To me, it looked like they’d died when the outer hull of the ship had been breached by our invaders.

  On the far side of the engine chamber, which was the size of a basketball gym, the nose of an alien craft poked through the skin of the ship. I could see where drill-marks had bitten into the ship’s hull and torn it up. Some kind of sharp point, like a spindle, was lodged in the outer wall of the ship.

  As we watched, the tip of this spear point spread open. and we could see it was hollow inside. Without orders, all of us began laying down suppressive fire, aiming into that expanding hole.

  The thick walls of the battlecruiser groaned as fantastic forces were applied. Somehow, the tip of the assault ship was still spreading open, widening the breach in our hull. Fortunately, the seal was as yet airtight, so the engine chamber was still pressurized. We all had our visors down anyway, just in case.

  Marine Captain Khan turned his head in my direction when bears stopped coming in through the hull breach. The invasion module was still spreading, however, opening up the side of the ship like a pair of pliers in reverse.

  “McGill,” Khan said, “cover the passageway for me. Marines, advance!”

  The marines surged forward and left us behind. I posted my troops all around the open doorway. If Khan wanted to go it alone in there, well, it was his game to play.

  Khan and his marines surged onto the deck of the big room. The artificial gravity was disabled, so they immediately began to float. I had to hand it to them, they took this in stride. They’d been trained to switch from gravity to floating and back again.

  The mouth of the invasion module stopped opening, which made sense, as it was about as wide as it could get. The nosecone of the device was now spread out like a flower, with sharp angular triangles of metal touching the wall all around it.

  In the center was that dark, dark hole. It was black inside, as black as space.

  “Grenades out! Fire in the hole!”

  Several of the marines lobbed grenades inside. A pulsing blue radiance grew and grew in intensity. Suddenly, the rippling flashes began. These were inevitable, but no less dramatic for that. A few bears came rushing out in the final moments, but they were blown apart and shot down.

  After that, the marines seemed to relax somewhat. They’d killed a group of invaders. It appeared that everyone aboard the invasion module was dead.

  I wasn’t so sure, however. Troops from Rigel were many things, but to my experience, they’d never been easy to kill. It was often difficult to stop them at all once they got rolling.

  Suddenly, as the bravest of Khan’s point-men dared poke his helmeted head up into the yawning invasion ship, a new monstrosity appeared.

  Gliding out of that dark, dark hole, a robot of sorts appeared. It wasn’t like normal robots—at least not the ones I was familiar with. It floated, rather than running on wheels or treads. For propulsion, it seemed to have dozens of independently moving nozzles. These were clearly attached to some kind of hot propellant, because you could see jets and puffs of plasma firing out of them at random moments.

  The marines backpedalled, and we all opened fire—but it was too late. The thing glided into the chamber and automated turrets spun, raking us all with power-bolts.

  The firefight that ensued was brief but violent. Out in the passages, my Varus troops were shielded from the worst of it. Khan’s marines were shredded to the last man, including Khan himself.

  “Close the door!” I roared, and my men all helped me, putting their backs into it.

  The robot examined the dead, distributing killing bursts to any marine that still twitched. But as the door swung closed, it took notice of us and zoomed closer. Its hindmost jets flared, and the numerous cameras and turrets swung toward us, seeking fresh targets.

  We slammed the door closed in its face and spun the wheel home. A thousand power bolts struck the interior of the door, sounding like a hailstorm of steel on steel.

  -41-

  Adjunct Erin Barton and I exchanged worried glances. Whatever that thing was in there—it wasn’t going to die easy. You could just tell.

  “Winslade?” I called over command chat. “Tribune? Are you there?”

  “McGill?” another voice came on. “This is Captain Merton, get off this channel, please. You’re not authorized—”

  “We’ve got big problems down here at Engine Room Three, sir,” I interrupted. “Some kind of flying robot has chased us out of the module and—”

  “Centurion,” Merton said sternly, “Marine Captain Khan will deal with this. Please—”

  “Khan is dead, sir. His whole platoon is dead. The robot shredded them.”

  There was a moment of quiet then confused voices talking over one another. In the meantime, the robot had stopped firing on the door, which lessened the noise level considerably. Unfortunately, I got the feeling it hadn’t forgotten about us. Instead, smoke had begun to come from the seals around the door.

  “McGill!” Barton said. “It’s burning its way through!”

  “Stand clear, boys!”

  “This is Tribune Winslade,” a familiar, pissy voice said. “How exactly have you screwed up this mission, McGill?”

  “Sir, the invasion pod had some bears in it, but behind the bears was some kind of robot. It’s aboard ship now, burning its way out of Engine Room Three.”

  “Are you suggesting the marines can’t handle it?”

  “The marines are dead, sir!” I shouted, as I clearly wasn’t getting through to them. “The marines are all dead, the robot killed them all!”

  “Why weren’t you in that room stopping it?” Winslade demanded.

  Right then, the door kind of… bulged. It was as if something fantastically strong had pushed against it. I had no idea how the robot was doing that—could it be liquefying the door?

  “It’s breaking out, sir! All defenders need to get to Engine Three!”

  I disconnected and ordered my troops to retreat. We set up a firing position at the end of the passageway, aiming exactly one belcher and eight morph-rifles at the oddly misshapen door.

  My tapper was blinking red again, but I no longer cared.

  “It’s coming through,” Barton said, and we lifted our weapons, sweating and staring until our eyes stung.

  The door burst with a rush of gas and white vapor. A swarm of particles swirled around it, and I realized what they had to be.

  “Nanites…” I said, but no one heard me. They were all blazing away, firing everything we had at the advancing monstrosity.

  Some of the rocket nozzles were knocked out. Even one of its gun turrets was blown off by a tight-beam belcher strike. But it kept coming.

  “It must be armored,” Barton said, “it’s constructed with the tough stuff from Glass World.”

  I had to agree, but it didn’t matter right now. We had to stop this thing before it wrecked the ship.

  The robot released rippling fire. Three of my men were taken out, then I lost my nerve.

  “Fall back! Fall back!”

  We hustled down to the next door and slammed it closed. Soon, the heavy metal barrier began to smoke and bulge like the last one had.

  “James,” Barton said, her eyes wide with fear. “That thing is eating the doors. It’s using nanites—is that what you said?”

  “Yeah. Melting its way through. We can’t stop it.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We need more men.”

  Erin shook her head. “They said that they’ve already landed the rest of Varus—everything we’ve got went down to the planet. All we’ve got left aboard are crewmen with pistols and cloth jumpers.”

  “They’ll be mowed down.”

  She nodded and breathed hard. She looked at me, hoping for answers.

  My eyes crawled over our surroundings. The ship’s klaxons were wailing—shrieking first high, then low. Yellow flashers spun and bathed the passages in a rhythmic light.

  My arm raised of its own accord. “What’s that bulkhead? Is that an airlock?”

  “That leads into the aft hold, I think,” Erin said, following my gesture. “Nothing there but cold storage. Gear, maybe a few maintenance staff.”

  I activated my com-link and called the bridge again. “Captain Merton?”

  “Merton here. Are you done wrecking my engines yet, McGill?”

  “Not quite, sir. Listen, we can’t stop this thing. It’s armored like the bear troops, but with a heavier layer. It’s melting through every door and taking almost no damage from our small arms.”

  “What do you suggest I do, then?” he asked. His attitude seemed to have changed. He seemed to finally be able to grasp that his entire ship was in danger.

  “Have you got us on your scanner, sir?” I asked.

  “Yes, we’re watching you now. It doesn’t look good, I must admit.”

  “See the aft hold door? I need you to open that.”

  “Are you joking, man? That doesn’t go anywhere. You’ll be trapped.”

  “Yes, but if you also open the outer doors after the robot follows us… it will be sucked out into space.”

  “That’s a lot of pressure. You’ll probably go with it.”

  “I’m counting on that, sir.”

  Merton shut up for a second, then the big bay doors swung open. The hold beyond was full of water vapor and darkness.

  “Good luck, McGill,” Merton said, and the channel closed.

  In a rush, we ran for the hold entrance. By the time we got there, the door behind us gave way. The robot glided in our wake. A few stray bolts chased us, but we were inside and taking cover.

  “All right,” Adjunct Barton said. “Let’s strap ourselves down, entwine our feet in the rigging on these crates—”

  I grabbed her arm. She looked at me, startled.

  “That’s not how it’s going to go. We have to make certain that thing is pushed out of here. When the airlock opens, we have to help push it out.”

  She had wide eyes, but she nodded. She didn’t say a word.

  “Gentlemen,” I said, turning to the rest and giving them a grim smile. “I want to say that you all put up a good fight. It’s been an honor to serve, and it will be again someday soon.”

  “Yes sir,” they said in fatalistic voices. Legion Varus people aren’t exactly accustomed to death, but they do understand it, and they don’t shirk from it when duty calls.

  The robot glided in, stitching the room with bolts here and there. We ducked and hid among the crates, suckering it in closer.

  Soon, it loomed over our hiding spots. Twitching and lurching with puffs of flame from its independently operating jets, the thing hovered over us and spun. It found Adjunct Barton, and she couldn’t get away. It showered her down with power bolts. She was torn apart and riddled with black, smoking holes.

  Then, the klaxons began to sound again. More flashers, three of them surrounding the airlock, began to spin. Instead of a gentle equalizing of pressure, the big bay doors suddenly shot open.

  The airlock was exposed. On the far side of that were windows that led out into open space. These too shot open a moment later. They’d hit the emergency overrides and forced the computer to open both sets of doors at the same time. A great rush of air flowed out into space.

  “Grab it!” I shouted over the howling wind. “Grab on and shove it out!”

  Together, we sprang up and grappled with the robot. Two men died right off, having grabbed a gun turret that obligingly shot them full of holes. The rest of us managed to get a grip, and with grunting effort, we shoved the robot into the airlock and beyond.

  Breathing in gasps, I could feel a numbness spreading in my guts. I’d been wounded there, but I didn’t think it mattered at this point.

  With a fantastic effort, we aided the shrieking winds to shove the metal monstrosity out of the ship. Once outside, it began to struggle. It snipped off limbs with pincers. It gut-shot the men that clung to its hulk. The force of the struggle threw the robot and all of us who still clung to it into a tumbling spin.

  We hung on. Now and then, we could see the vast dark bulk of Berlin behind us. I waited until we were so far from the battlecruiser that I could see it in its entirety. The open door of the hold had been shut behind us as well.

  Then, with a sense of relief, I let myself die.

  -42-

  When I came back to life later that same day, I was in a pretty good mood. After dressing and checking my tapper, I noted I’d been invited to a debriefing. I walked up to Gold Deck with a smirk and a rolling step.

  However, once I reached the conference room, one glance told me there wasn’t going to be any party hats, cake or even a hearty handshake. Every officer present looked glum and irritable. This irked me, as I’d kind of expected to be treated like a hero. But that wasn’t in the cards today.

  “Hello, sirs. Centurion McGill, reporting for duty!”

  “That’s great, McGill. Take a seat, please.” Winslade seemed as sour as any of them. This seemed odd on the face of it. After all, hadn’t Graves died? Hadn’t I saved the ship for the second time in a week? In my opinion, some people needed to get over themselves.

  Captain Merton pointed a finger at me, and it seemed to me that finger was a bit shaky. He faced Winslade, showing his teeth. “There he is! There’s your man! He’s a one-gun wrecking machine.”

  I was beginning to grasp the situation. The brass had lost too much; they’d been pushed too hard. The robot, somehow, had become my fault.

  “Uh…” I said. “If by that you mean I managed to kill that robot, you’re absolutely right, Captain.”

  “Shut up, McGill,” Winslade said. “Marine Captain Khan, report.”

  That’s when my eyes first fell on Khan. He’d been sitting at the table the whole time, but he wasn’t a flashy man. He was quiet, even somber. In a monotone, he delivered his after-action report. It droned on for quite a while, and I soon stopped listening.

  “At that point, I died,” he finished up at last.

  All eyes then flicked in my direction. Unlike Khan, I was all smiles.

  “That’s when the real fun began.”

  They listened with concerned expressions while I explained how we’d lured the robot to the hold and out into space. I kept it short, as this meeting seemed like a huge waste of time to me.

  “That’s it?” Winslade asked at the end. “No more complications or—?”

  “Nope. We jumped on it and rode it outside like a mechanical bull.”

  Winslade turned toward another officer. I thought I’d seen her before down on Blue Deck.

  “Centurion?” Winslade asked. “How are our protoplasm supplies holding up?”

  “We’ve got enough—but we’re short on bone meal.”

  “Can you revive my whole legion again, or not?”

  “No sir. We have to request more supplies from Earth.”

  “Supplies…” Winslade said. “It’s always about supplies, isn’t it? But it’s worse than that. We not only have to regenerate our troops, we’ll also have to arm them. McGill left an army’s worth of gear down there on Glass World the last time he talked me into performing a mass-murder and worse—the utter destruction of most of my legion’s equipment.”

  “Hold on,” I interrupted. “I think I misheard something, sir.”

  Winslade and I locked stares. “I don’t think so. Did you, or did you not, request bombardment from orbit while battling with the Rigellian troops?” As he said this, he fingered his tapper meaningfully. I knew what that meant. He probably had a doctored recording of our discussion ready to go.

  Damn.

  “Uh…” I said, considering his question. Casting me as the decision-maker concerning the bombing of Glass World was a pretty big risk for Winslade to take. After all, I could confess that the whole idea had been to kill Graves, who was even now conveniently lingering in the death-queue.

  But I didn’t want to talk about that any more than Winslade did. Winslade still hadn’t upheld his part of our bargain, and I wanted no weaseling on that score. I hadn’t laid eyes on Abigail since Earth, and I felt she owed me some explanations.

  So, instead of blabbing, I smiled. “I did make that suggestion, sir—but I didn’t give the order.”

  Winslade accepted those words sourly as he couldn’t argue with them. Finally, he released a big sigh. He opened up a deep-link channel and reported in to Drusus back at Central.

  Watching Drusus go over the figures, I could tell he wasn’t happy.

  “You’re going to need how many kilotons of gear?” he asked. “This list… this is enough to outfit an entire legion. Do you realize that, Tribune? How did you lose everything?”

  Winslade’s fingers twitched like they were getting itchy. I knew he wanted to point at me and declare me the scapegoat—but he really couldn’t.

  “The enemy turned out to be better prepared than we expected,” Winslade said, almost whining. “We were forced to exchange assets after destroying their gateway. It became quite… bloody. Now, however, we have easy access to reinforcements while they do not. We’ll rebuild and dominate this world.”

  “Are you telling me it was your strategy to destroy Legion Varus and the enemy together? Why not just hit their army before you even landed?”

  “The enemy was building up in secret, inside the mine itself. We didn’t wish to dust off the entire mining operation.”

  Drusus and Winslade had a little staring contest after that. Finally, Drusus nodded.

  “All right. You’ll get your reinforcements—but not without strings attached. Drusus out.”

  The connection closed, and the meeting was adjourned. I lingered until the last man filtered out, then I approached Winslade.

  “Yes, yes? What is it, McGill?”

  “Sir… there’s the small matter of our bargain.”