“No you don’t!” Harris shouted, holding down the trigger on his rifle. He hammered the target in the ass and back, and it seemed to work. Having taken dozens of hits, the soldier fell and crawled feebly. We kept pecking at him until he lay still.

  By then, everyone had recognized what we were shooting at. Harris turned to me as more pods landed and popped open, and still more fell from the sky.

  “Bears, sir?” he asked, his eyes wide with alarm. “The bears are dropping right on top of us? This is crazy.”

  “Armor-piercing rounds,” I shouted, calling to all neighboring units. “Use only armor-piercing ammo, or you’ll get no joy.”

  My com channels buzzed and chirped with acknowledgements. It was confirmed officially. We were fighting bears again, bears from Rigel.

  These guys were small, but they were tough and strong. Worst of all, they had armor as good or better than the suit I was wearing right now. In my whole unit, only Gary and I had a kit that could match this enemy.

  It was going to be a rough day.

  The firefight continued without a break, and it was mostly one-sided. When the bears landed nearby in their drop-pods, we could usually take them out in the first minute or two. A few managed to crawl away to safety and find cover.

  The ones that worried me much more were those we didn’t see land. Pods were dropping all over the rough land, and they were steadily disgorging fresh troops that were out of range. We killed a dozen of them, maybe—but the rest managed to find cover and slink away.

  Finally, the shower of drop-pods stopped falling in our vicinity. After that it fell quiet out there in the open, beyond the rim of our crater. I couldn’t see them, but I knew the bears were gathering strength and numbers, organizing into units. Soon, they would assault our strongpoint—they had no other choice.

  “They didn’t counterattack,” Harris said. “That’s weird.”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not. They would have been killed if they’d charged our position. They’re grouping up somewhere. This land is so pockmarked with holes and craters, they could be hiding anywhere.”

  I turned to Kivi, who was working her equipment at the bottom of the crater. “What have you got on track? What are the buzzers reporting?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve lost half of them already. I can’t fly more than five meters off the deck without getting them blasted.”

  “Huh…”

  Crawling to the rim of the crater, I used my HUD to look around. I didn’t see any anti-air systems set up, but maybe the bears had managed it.

  All around our position, we could hear firefights in progress. Bears and men struggled in knots here and there on the landscape. My tactical maps showed where these hotspots were, but it hardly mattered. When you’re in the middle of a battleground all that matters is the men at your back and the enemy within range.

  While we waited, we got another call from Primus Collins. She was quickly becoming my least favorite officer. “McGill? Why are you still squatting in that crater? Get up and get moving. Head for the dome breach point—now!”

  “Yessir, Primus!”

  Heaving myself up, I ordered my lights to charge out first. I told Barton the heavies would cover her men—but really, they were going out there to see if they could attract any fire.

  They ran like rabbits, terrified and almost helpless. Wearing thin spacer suits and carrying snap-rifles, they were no challenge at all to any bears they might run into, and they knew it.

  Not one of them was shot down, however. The moment they’d made it a hundred meters or so, I ordered Harris and his heavies to advance behind them, then brought up the rear with the specialists.

  In this kind of situation, luck was as important a factor as anything else on the table. The only way I knew of to increase our odds was to move quickly. The shorter the timespan we were out running around in the open, the less time the enemy had to zero us and attack.

  So, we ran for it. Three waves of troops hustled over the broken landscape. Boots slapped in mud and crunched on pulverized gravel. We got halfway to the finish line before we ran into trouble.

  The lights discovered the bears first, just as they were supposed to. Snap-rifles chattered and cracked. They threw themselves to the ground and threw grenades into an abandoned ditch.

  Blue-white flashes glowed all along the trench. Barton had trained her troops well. They couldn’t do much to a bear, but they were giving it their all.

  “Lights, go to ground, and stay there,” I ordered. “Harris, advance to that ditch and finish the job. My weaponeers will be there as soon as they can.”

  Harris marched right through the lights and moved up to the ditch. They hosed down the place—but the bears still had some fight left in them. Six of them cracked shotguns into my heavies, then charged close with force-blades. A fast-moving, vicious fight broke out.

  In the end, our superior numbers won the day. We killed all the bears, a full squad of them, and lost only four men.

  After taking a minute to patch the wounded and catch our breath, we were up and running again. The breach, which was unrecognizable now with all the digging and machines parked there, came into sight.

  A company of scared engineers were hunkered down there, hiding behind drone dozers and automated walking machines we called pigs. They welcomed us in relief.

  “McGill?” asked the man in charge. I recognized the sapper, it was Centurion Roth.

  “Hey, Roth. I heard you got captured by the Mogwa. How’d you get away?”

  He shook his head. “That’s kind of a secret… well… I got mad when they kept shocking me with some collar on a stick—so I ripped it off my neck and ran off.”

  I laughed. “I would have done the same thing.”

  Roth pointed out to the battlefield all around us. “What the hell is going on? We had two units here to cover us, but they were called away.”

  “It’s chaos. These crazy bears like to drop right on top of our positions—they’ve done it before.”

  His face went blank. “Bears? You mean like, from Rigel?”

  “That’s them.”

  “What the fuck…? How did they get here? What are they doing in the Mid-Zone?”

  The question was a legit one. Rigel was pretty far from this place. The bears hadn’t fought a hot war with us for years, but they’d always been our enemies. Now, somehow, they showed up all the way out in space, thousands of lightyears from their homeworld. It didn’t entirely make sense, unless…

  I had a sudden thought, one that I didn’t like too much.

  “What if these bears decided a while back to bypass Earth?” I asked Roth. “To go around Province 921 and just plow right into the Empire’s belly? Here in the Mid-Zone, it doesn’t seem like these people are accustomed to fighting off invaders from the frontier.”

  “Huh…” Roth said. “I don’t like the sound of that. It makes sense, though. The Mogwa must be weaker than we thought.”

  “Yeah…”

  I told him then about my new orders—that I’d been directed to enter the dome and talk to the Mogwa about Winslade.

  Roth wished me luck, but he didn’t seem to hold out much hope for my chances. “Those Mogwa are crazy. They don’t seem to get that we’re here to help them. They have a terrible attitude.”

  “You’ve got the right of that. Galactics are always ungrateful and cock-sure. Don’t worry, I’ve dealt with them before.”

  With that confident statement, I left Roth at the breach site and walked through his crude, still-narrow tunnel under the dome. A hundred steps later, I led my unit out into the open. We found ourselves standing in fields under the glassy dome once again.

  -35-

  The first thing I did was huddle-up with my troops and tell them their new rules of engagement. Legion Varus boys tended to shoot first and ask questions later—that wasn’t the way I wanted to do things here today.

  “You mean we’re supposed to take it up the butt if these guys start shooting at us?” Carlos complained. “Why don’t we just nuke the lot of them? Ungrateful pricks.”

  “They’re all that and more, Carlos. But this is a diplomatic mission. We’re supposed to fight side by side with these guys, not against them. Let me do the talking. Keep your guns slung!”

  They grumbled and milled around, tossing angry glances at me and the towering buildings of the city in the distance.

  “Hey, Sargon!” I shouted. “What are you doing with that belcher?”

  He had it on his shoulder, and he was sighting on the nearest building with it. Startled, he turned to me and lowered it sheepishly.

  “I was just using the optics to scout, sir.”

  “Well, knock it off! Aiming at things with your weapon tells folks that you’re an invader trying to blast a farmhouse. You’ve got your cock out at a funeral, Veteran.”

  “Yessir.”

  He reluctantly slung his belcher, and we began marching toward the nearest signs of habitation. It didn’t take long for us to walk smack into a nest of Mogwa marines in their power-armor.

  Lifting a hand and throwing them a grin, I hailed them as friends. They encircled and advanced, turrets at the ready.

  “Lay down your arms and surrender, animals,” a booming voice said in standard. “Your invasion has failed. There will be no plunder, no orgy of blood.”

  “Uh… hah…” I said, walking forward with my hands up. “Can I talk to whoever’s in charge here, Mr. Mogwa sir?”

  One of the six-legged armored troops separated from the rest when he saw we weren’t causing a fuss. He advanced toward us.

  “Silence, slave!” he said with an external speaker that was punishingly loud. “You have failed in your mission. You are now a possession of the Empire.”

  “That’s not failure to us, sir,” I said. “We always have been servants of the Empire. We’re the local enforcers from Province 921.”

  The squinty-eyed devil in the machine advanced a few paces closer. He didn’t look terribly trusting, but then, I’d never met a Mogwa that was.

  “What are you talking about? You’re barbarians from—”

  “Yessir. Barbarian troops. Levies, mercenaries, whatever you’d like to call us. Grand Admiral Sateekas is our military master, and Governor Nox is our civilian leader.”

  “Nonsense!” he said, suddenly turning angry. “Sateekas is nothing. He is a failure. He commandeered our best warship and flew it away without authorization! We’ve been under threat of extinction ever since!”

  He shook an angry limb up at the sky. I glanced upward, following the gesture, and I began to understand the true nature of our situation.

  I felt a sudden sickness in my gut. Sateekas was an impetuous, overbearing, overreaching blowhard. He often took the initiative when commanding armies and navies—and just as often he got them wrecked. He had his heart in the right place—for a Mogwa—but he wasn’t terribly good at his job.

  The real nature of our diplomatic problems was now apparent to me. Whenever we’d invoked the name of Sateekas, we hadn’t been doing anyone any favors. We’d been pissing off the locals.

  The situation obviously required some hard maneuvering. I was going to have to switch my tactics and my approach. Fortunately, the Good Lord had seen fit to equip me with a highly flexible mind.

  “Mr. Mogwa, sir? Are you saying Sateekas didn’t bring that battlecruiser out from the Core Worlds?” I asked this with my best look of shocked ignorance.

  “Hardly. He stole it from Segin. He is a scoundrel, and a poor leader.”

  “Oh… then who is the rightful commander of your armed forces here on Segin?”

  “As far as you’re concerned, I am that individual.”

  At that point I made a big show of kneeling and lowering my helmeted head, like he was the pope come to dinner or something. “Please accept our apologies and our fealty, Mogwa Overlord.”

  The Mogwa was no lord. He was a marine officer. But I’d never met an alien yet that didn’t like to be told he was a bigger deal than he was.

  His power-armor’s mechanical legs squeaked and churned. He came quite near. He squinted at me, studying me and my reaction. At last, he spoke again in a more thoughtful voice. “It’s wrong I should speak so long with a creature that is so low in both caste and value—but I will finish this conversation, as it intrigues me. You are implying things we have not yet considered.”

  “Uh… like what?”

  “That your claims of serving the Empire might be in earnest. That you might have been duped by that scoundrel Sateekas just as surely as we have been.”

  I pointed a finger at him, and even though he was wearing walking power-armor, he recoiled a little. Maybe he thought I was going to shoot him with my finger-gun or something.

  “That’s exactly it!” I said. “We didn’t understand. We serve the Empire, not Sateekas. But he told us you guys were his slaves in turn.”

  “What? Such wild impudence—!”

  “That’s right. He said he was the local king out here, and he needed us to come out and put down a little rebellion—he wasn’t too specific, see. He also mentioned the dome and the rebels dropping rocks on it… But now I think we were misled. If you are the Overlord here, sir, I’m here to declare there are over forty thousand ground troops outside this dome, ready to swear fealty specifically to you.”

  The marine officer’s eyes lit up a little, and I couldn’t blame him. After all, who doesn’t like the sound of a personal army?

  “You will submit to my instructions?”

  “Damn straight we will. If… that is… you truly serve the Empire. You’re not some crazy rutting beast like Sateekas, are you?”

  “Certainly not. My credentials are bona fide and beyond reproach.” I threw my arms wide, and he backed up a step in alarm.

  His turret aimed itself at me while I grinned like an idiot.

  “This is a display of happiness, sir,” I told him. “We are at your command and eager for glory. Thousands upon thousands of us stand ready. If you want us to stay outside the dome and perish under the blasts of a thousand falling rocks from space, so be it. We’d be happy to sacrifice ourselves in any way you might imagine.”

  “Sacrifice? What is this nonsense?”

  “Well sir, our fleet got run off—you know that, right?”

  “We witnessed a battle and a shameful retreat, yes.”

  I nodded vigorously and got back to my feet. I pointed upward and stared at the clouds like I could see the battle from here. “It was a glorious struggle, but Sateekas chickened and ran out on us at the end.”

  The marine followed my gesture. “Yes… I’d heard such reports. It’s hard to credit his behavior.”

  “Mighty strange,” I agreed. “So, now that you command the biggest land army on Segin, what do you want us to do? We’re cut off, no fleet, no food, running out of supplies, but we’ll kill a few of those bears, don’t you worry. I bet we’ll drop ten percent of them before they burrow in here and slaughter every baby-Mogwa they can run down. Hell, your streets are going to be painted with blood soon, but don’t you—”

  “Shut up, mindless human. Listen to me, and heed my orders. I demand that you withdraw into the dome as quickly as possible. You will not spend your strength in a pointless struggle outside the protective shell of force. Such a strategy can only have come from the idiot brain of Sateekas himself.”

  I gave him that slack-jawed stare again. “I’m sure you’re right, Commander. Now, how do you want to do this?”

  “I must talk to the Council. Every border command unit must be compliant. It can be done—it must be done.”

  He began to hustle, and soon countless messages were relayed to the City and to the outside world. Less than an hour later, the beleaguered troops of Legion Varus and Victrix, along with their auxiliary legions, began to march into the safety of the dome.

  -36-

  Now, any right-thinking person would assume that I would be hailed as a hero by one and all once these arrangements were made. After all, we were facing certain destruction out there in the open, outside the dome.

  But noooo, you would have thought wrong. Dead wrong.

  “Seriously, McGill?” Winslade complained. “This is the best you could arrange?”

  “You’re not a captive any longer, sir,” I pointed out. “The Mogwa have accepted you as an officer of Legion Varus and everything.”

  “Yes, as a slave officer. A slave who leads other slaves, at best.”

  I shrugged. That sort of status just came with the territory when you were dealing with the Mogwa, or any other Galactic for that matter. I was almost sympathetic with the Mogwa in this instance. They’d taken a big chance. They’d invited thousands of unknown barbarian soldiers into their city, and they’d allowed us to camp out along the outskirts in the pig-shit fields and whatnot. They were even letting us eat off their land. To their minds, they were making huge concessions every which-way.

  “Well sir, you can go ahead and negotiate better terms for us anytime you like. The City is thataway.” I pointed off into the distance, where the buildings stood like mountains.

  Winslade sniffed. “I would, but you’ve spoiled everything. The deal has been struck, and once that step has been frittered away, renegotiations are a thousand times more difficult. I suppose there’s nothing for it—we’ll have to live with these humiliating conditions… for now.”

  He stalked off, and I frowned after him. Just what had he meant? Saying “for now” indicated he might be harboring some dark plans of his own. I tried not to think about it, and I soon dropped these questions from my mind entirely. That was easily done, as I really didn’t care much, anyways.

  Whistling as I walked out of our new headquarters bunker, I headed back to my unit. Coincidentally, the Mogwa had seen fit to clear the ornery Mogwa farmer off his land. My unit had been there front-and-center, so we’d confiscated his farmhouse.

  As it turned out, our farm soon became prime real estate out here on the fringe of town. I couldn’t even tell you how many primus-level scoundrels tried to come and chase us out of it. Most people didn’t even have a hole in the ground with puff-crete poured over it yet. An honest-to-God building was considered luxurious.