Winslade made a ‘hurry up’ spinning motion with his fingers, but I ignored him.

  “It’s going to take all of us,” I said, building it up. “Not just with one fleet leading and taking all the hits while the others come in late.”

  “Come, come, McGill,” Winslade said, not trusting me at all. “Let’s not waste everyone’s time, please.”

  “I’m getting to the point, sir. I’m getting there. Our big problem is range. The enemy Crystals outrange us. We’re going to have to be mighty close-in to drop troops or bombs, for example.”

  “That is self-evident, McGill.”

  “Not entirely, sir. Not entirely... What I propose is that we use the power of hyperspace.”

  They stared at me questioningly, but a few of them were already beginning to catch on. They were starting to frown, wrinkling up their noses as might anyone confronted with a new and unpleasant stench.

  “That’s right,” I said. “We have to hyperjump from here to our destination in one-go. We have to squat right on top of their planet, with no warning. Then we’ll begin the bombardment and the troop deployment from—I don’t know, maybe two thousand kilometers out?”

  “Two thousand kilometers is absurd!” Captain Merton shouted. He’d jumped to his feet like I’d stung his big ass. He hammered a big fist on the table, making the holograms dance. “It’s unthinkable! You know our hyperspace engines aren’t that precise. Next to a gravitational source like a planet, we can’t be sure where we’ll come out. If we try to come out within a few thousand kilometers… half of the Scorpio will appear in the atmosphere or in the ground itself!”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “How about ten thousand kilometers out? Still close enough to launch a quick assault, but ninety-percent plus safe for every ship in the fleet.”

  “Let me hear and understand your concept, McGill,” Sateekas said. “You’re proposing a grand and brave opening. We’ll hyperspace-jump right on top of the planet, close enough to launch an immediate surprise attack. That will, as your cowardly captain suggests, cost perhaps ten percent of our forces at the outset. That’s apart from every bit of damage that those crystalline ground batteries will no doubt wreak upon us immediately afterward.”

  “That’s right, Grand Admiral. You’ve got the gist of it. As far as I can see, it’s the only way. If we’re going to drop bombs, we’ve got to get in close enough to do it. Jumping in close is dangerous, but it’s the only way to beat their range advantage. If we just fly at them in normal space, they’ll be able to shoot at us for hours before we can reach them. I’d say we’ll lose ninety percent of our fleet if we go that route.”

  “And what about after we fire off all of our ordnance?” Winslade asked. “What then? Do you think we’ll be able to knock out all those ground batteries?”

  I shook my head. “Probably not. That’s going to take ground forces—which is what I’d recommend.”

  “Hmm…” Winslade said, tapping a stick-like finger on his narrow chin. “If we dare entertain this tactic… I’d add a detail. All our capital ships that survive the jump should immediately hyperspace out again.”

  Armel looked happy about that idea. He wanted to cut and run as soon as possible. “We’ll cycle-up our warp engines and leave enemy orbit just as fast as we came in.”

  “What do you think, unworthy servant?” Sateekas asked his Nairb sidekick.

  “The solution is suboptimal,” the Nairb said. “Without detailed numeric data, I can make no analysis of these wild claims and generalities.”

  Winslade turned toward me. “Any more details for our number-crunching friend, McGill?”

  “Well, sirs,” I said, laughing, “I’m no math-surgeon. You guys have to tell your nerds to figure out the numbers. I don’t know exactly how many more ships we’d lose with the traditional approach, or what the optimal target warp-in point would be.”

  This caused a great deal of babbling to erupt. Everyone began to work calculations on the battle table that was between us—everyone except for me, that is.

  I leaned back in my chair and knit my fingers behind my head. As far as I was concerned, my job was done—except for the part about dying hard during the attack, of course.

  Even the Mogwa could be seen scratching away in a strange alien script. Finally, the Nairb’s voice piped up.

  “It is feasible,” he said. “My estimates are that we’ll lose no more than twenty to twenty-five percent of our fleet using this unorthodox tactic. That’s assuming, of course, that every vessel goes back into hyperspace again to escape enemy defensive fire.”

  “Does that include,” Sateekas asked, “the previous ten of my force, which you erased just for having transported themselves so close to the target world in the first place?”

  “Yes,” the Nairb said, “that number is included in the estimate.”

  There was a lot of frowning, a lot of complaining. A general hubbub rose up in the room.

  Arguments broke out. Some said twenty-five percent was insane. Others said it was better than turning around and going home right now, because that was essentially the alternative.

  I was prideful and puffing myself up as I leaned back in my chair, confident that I had once again cut to the chase. Anyone who spent five minutes on this tactical problem had to realize my approach was ballsy, but it was the only viable move. The only one that could succeed. When the enemy outranged you, you had to get in close. The only way to get in close in a spaceship was to use a hyperjump.

  Now, we could have done something else. We could have attempted to teleport troops or bombs directly to their surface, for instance, from way out here.

  But every report said the enemy had shielded themselves against such assaults. Hell, bombs like that hadn’t even worked against their spacecraft until human troops had gone with the bombs to serve as organic detonators.

  The officers argued and carried on, but at last the Mogwa waved his limbs for attention. They would have probably ignored anyone else, but they did listen to the Grand Admiral. This was his big day, after all.

  “I think McGill is right,” he said. “I’ve even looked at the possibility of teleport bombing with suiciders, the way we did against their ships. Unfortunately, while we have plenty of organic guidance systems,” here I realized he was referring to me and my men in a rather impersonal way, “we are in short supply of bombs. We simply don’t have enough—we used the vast majority to destroy the enemy fleet.”

  That unknotted my guts a notch. I hadn’t much enjoyed playing detonator the last time around.

  “I would recommend, McGill,” Sateekas went on, “that when you land your troops upon this world, you go naked, as nature intended. Warriors such as yourself have no need of clothing or weaponry. This will render their gravity beams ineffectual.”

  I knew, of course, that no Mogwa would be caught dead or alive anywhere near a battle unless said alien was tucked inside one of their mini-tank battle suits—but that’s just the way the Mogwas thought. We were like sheep or cattle to them—perhaps even less important than that. We could be thrown against enemy walls to dash our brains out as needed, to die and to kill until their enemies were overwhelmed. In their eyes, we were like a herd of rabbits wearing suicide vests.

  “There are many details to work out,” Armel objected. “This might take days to perfect. We need to refer the task to our most qualified technicians.”

  There was some general agreement with this notion. Although I don’t think a single one of the important brass members there liked my idea, they were all coming around to the acceptance that nothing else was going to actually do the job.

  I almost nodded off to sleep as the meeting dragged on. I had my hands folded over my belly, and my head was lolling around over the back of my overly comfy conference chair.

  Then a loud bang sounded, and I jerked awake. Sateekas had slammed a limb down on the table painfully hard.

  “Let us adjourn,” he said. “We will seek refreshment. We will discuss this further. Our technicians, our battle computers, they will all work together to come up with an optimized version of this plan to see if it is workable.”

  “Rigel will not commit to such a plan without being forewarned and made privy to every number and every detail of analysis that is available,” Squantus said loudly.

  “I will grant your cowardly request in this case,” Sateekas responded.

  This set off a fresh bout of quarreling. I came to think that perhaps Claver had been right in the first place. This was probably exactly what a council meeting with all the top Galactics looked like.

  A lot of petty infighting, jockeying for position, hatred for past wrongs, and an overwhelming cloud of self-interest and arrogance were obvious in the positions taken by every member there. No wonder the Empire was falling apart.

  There was no Emperor ruling the Core Worlds these days. The Imperial forces were reeling back in every known frontier province. Earth academics had done predictive models that showed within a few millennia the Empire would either be reduced to the Core Worlds alone—or utterly destroyed by internal strife and warfare.

  When no one was looking at me, I stood up, yawned, stretched, and headed for the refreshment table. To my utter shock and dismay, it had been removed.

  “Where’s the food?” I asked.

  One of the waitresses spoke up in reply, “I’m so sorry, sir. It’s been moved to the dining hall.”

  That made me smile broadly. “And where, exactly, is that?” I asked.

  She turned away and led me down a passageway that went deep into the guts of Gold Deck. I followed her and found the banquet room. A sumptuous repast was being laid out for all, me included.

  Even if no one else wanted me to attend this banquet, I knew that Sateekas would. So, I stubbornly refused to be dislodged. Like a tick in a dog’s ear, I planted myself in front of the buffet and, as fast as they brought food out from the kitchens, I began scooping up two plates for my own personal consumption.

  It was moments like these that made up for everything else. Sure, I was kicked around during these high-level meetings. It generally didn’t pay to be an infamous loudmouth who liked to hobnob with the brass.

  But being constantly dragged into nonsense meetings did have a positive side. This kind of food, that was the twist. That’s what made it all worthwhile to me.

  -27-

  “McGill?!” squawked a female voice. Like so many others before her, her tone was strident, shrill, and flat-out angry.

  I turned my head with a guilty start. Primus Collins marched toward me, but she wasn’t giving me her pursed-lip stare of disapproval. Nope. Instead, she was showing me some teeth with an outright snarl.

  “Hi there, Cherish,” I said in a cheery tone, “I got you a plate right here.”

  This was, of course, a sheer lie. I’d stacked up two plates, and then I’d noticed this really big, tall lobster-cream-pie thing. It looked mighty good. The third plate I’d reserved for this special item. I didn’t quite know what the heck it was, but I planned to enjoy it to the fullest. I’d scooped the crown off it, in fact, and slapped a dollop down on the biggest plate I could find.

  “McGill…” she said between those tightly clenched white teeth, “that cake isn’t for humans. It’s for the Mogwa. We had it imported as a specialty for him—for his tastes.”

  “Oh…” I said, eyeballing the pie. I stuck my finger into the creamy sauce, gave it a little swirl, and tasted it. Cherish glared at me the entire time I went through this process. “The sauce isn’t too bad…” I said. “Is this meat here safe to eat?” Using the serving spoon, which I had purloined from the buffet, I tapped at the lobster-like meat.

  “I’m curious too. You should try it,” she said. “Maybe it will poison you.”

  I frowned at this idea, thinking it over. I finally shrugged and took a bite.

  “It’s pretty good,” I said. “Not exactly like it looks. It’s not lobster, I’d say. It’s more nutty-flavored, you know? Like escargot or something.”

  “You took the crown off the pie, McGill?” a gravelly voice asked. Graves was here now, and he was almost as pissed off as Cherish herself. “Get away from that food, you gluttonous moron.”

  It was my turn to pout a bit as he snagged one of my plates, and Cherish snagged another. I was left with a big pile of Mogwa sauce with some unknown mollusk swimming in it. Shrugging, I took the plate to the nearest table, sat down, and began to chow.

  “Primus Collins,” Winslade said as he entered the room, “I’m giving you an assignment.”

  He pointed at me where I sat at a separated and lonely looking table. “You are to keep an eye on the biggest variable in this room.”

  They both looked at me. Cherish didn’t look terribly happy. With a sigh, she came over and sat next to me.

  “How’s that food, huh?” I asked her. “This is a great spread. Earth has gone all-out. There’s squab, too, over there. Did you know Mogwa love squab?”

  She wasn’t talking to me. She was staring at her plate, poking at it, and chewing in a rather deflated manner. I was trying to cheer her up, but it surely wasn’t working.

  “Uh…” I said, “is something wrong, Cherish?”

  She aimed her fork at me and jabbed it in my direction. She didn’t actually poke me and puncture the skin or anything, but I certainly didn’t think it was a friendly gesture.

  “That’s it, right there,” she said, “that’s the sort of thing you keep doing.”

  “Huh?”

  “You keep calling me Cherish,” she said, lowering her voice.

  “Well, uh… that is your name,” I whispered back.

  We were both hunkering forward, hissing at each other at this point.

  “No, it’s not, McGill. Not as far as you’re concerned. I’m a primus. I’m your superior officer.”

  “Yeah, yeah. But you’re my ex-girlfriend too,” I said. “I let a lot of my subordinates call me James. You know, after a couple of decades of knowing each other, I kind of figured...”

  “Well, you figured wrong,” she said, interrupting. “It’s inappropriate. We no longer have any kind of informal relationship, and I want you to use my appropriate rank and last name, please.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, “geez, what’s gotten into your bonnet?”

  She showed me her teeth again, but her eyes were cast down. She was poking at her food. She wasn’t really eating anything, and I was beginning to get ideas about cleaning up her plate after she gave up.

  All too soon, I polished off the Mogwa sauce and whatever the hell that lobster-like thing was. I was thinking about going to the buffet for another platter, but I restrained myself. I was getting a strange vibe from Cherish, like she was about to say something. Something she figured was important.

  “James,” she said at last, “I think your behavior is tying the two of us together in the minds of other officers—like Winslade.”

  I looked over toward Winslade, who was indeed guiding the most important personages to a separate table. He was playing maître d’ seating them at the largest table at the front of the room. He placed Captain Merton and himself there, along with Tribune Armel. They were the highest-ranked people in the place right now, so I guess it made sense.

  Cherish and I didn’t rate, apparently. We were kind of the weenies at this shindig, but that didn’t bother me one bit. I’d never wanted a lot of rank, and I’d learned during my lengthy time with the legions that standing out and getting the attention of important people simply made them give you more work to do. Rank was all about stress, responsibility, and kissing ass. I wanted nothing to do with any of that stuff.

  “James, are you even listening to me?” Cherish asked.

  I glanced back at her and grinned. She’d been talking, I realized that now. “I sure am!”

  She shook her head and huffed a bit.

  Now, right there, I thought that she was being unfair. Here she was, calling me James all the time. Yes, sure, sometimes she said “McGill,” but now that we were in private, now that it was just the two of us at this table, she couldn’t be bothered to follow the formal rules she’d laid out for me.

  I shrugged my shoulders. I’d never been able to figure out the motivations of women like her. Over time I’d learned through sheer persistence and repeated harsh lessons when to shut up and when to go with the flow. So, while my natural behavior tended to piss off just about every female I’d met in my life, I still managed to be successful with them.

  “What I’m saying is,” she continued, “you keep on giving off signals to everyone around us that you and I are an item—when we most definitely are not.”

  “Got it. I hear you loud and clear,” I said. “You needn’t worry your pretty little head about it any further. I’ll call you Primus. In fact, maybe I’ll even call you ‘sir’ from now on. Would that make you happy?”

  Cherish poked at her food some more and shrugged.

  All of a sudden, right then, I got a shocker of a message from her. Maybe it was a message I was supposed to be getting all along.

  Cherish wasn’t really angry because I was calling her by her name. She was upset because I’d pretty much ignored her on this entire campaign. I’d pestered a number of other women, mind you—but not her.

  With this sudden realization, I decided to attempt a tactical shift in our conversation. “You know what?” I said, “I really think I have to explain myself.”

  Her face was still tilted down toward her food, but her eyes flipped up, boring into me. She was listening, and she was listening intently. “How’s that?”

  “I—well, I just don’t know how to go about things sometimes, you know? People think I’m some kind of Romeo, but I’m really not. I’m more of a ham-handed character when it comes to women.”

  She made a piffing sound and blew her bangs up in the air. Her eyes were cast down again, but she was chewing again, starting to eat. That had to be a good sign.

  “Well, anyways,” I said, “what I’m trying to say is I just didn’t know quite how to get around to… you know… asking you out on a date again.”