I reported to Graves, and he was oddly jazzed about the news.

  “Only four of them? That’s all you’ve seen?”

  “That’s it, sir. Plus that wounded bug that came off the ceiling.”

  “He hardly counts. This is excellent. I’d expected light resistance, but this barely qualifies. I’m going to accelerate our time schedule.”

  “Sir?”

  “Move faster, Adjunct. Stop checking every hatch. Run to the next level up, and then the one after that. Push hard. Let’s regain the territory we lost a few days ago.”

  “Uh…”

  A circle of eyes looked at me. I didn’t want to have to reward their bravery with a suicidal set of commands—but that wasn’t up to me.

  “You’re not losing your nerve, are you, Adjunct?” Graves demanded, sensing my hesitation.

  “No sir! We’re on it. McGill out.”

  The platoon didn’t make a sound. They all stared at me, hungry to learn their fates.

  “Why the hell is everyone looking at me?” I demanded. “Moller!”

  She cracked two recruits in the back of the head. One of them was Cooper. She didn’t like him anymore than anyone else in authority did.

  The spell was broken, and my people were scanning for the enemy again.

  “Okay,” I said, “Graves ordered us to move ahead. We’re going to pick up the pace. No pausing to check doors and passages. Just run right past.”

  “Um…” Carlos said. “Excuse me, Adjunct? Could you just shoot me right now?”

  Carlos was a smartass in the best of times. Worse, his jokes and complaints were contagious. I could see Cooper was already smiling and opening his mouth to make a similar remark—but he never got the chance.

  Spinning around to face Carlos, I unleashed a shower of snap-rifle rounds. Purposefully, I aimed high, drawing a sparking line of bullets in an arc across the roof of the passage and ending that spray very close to his left ear.

  Carlos showed me big, round eyes behind his faceplate. He didn’t move, as he could tell from long experience I was in a killing mood.

  “A suicide squad doesn’t need a bio,” I told him. “And I don’t need any grief coming out of you, either.

  “I get it,” he said. “Sorry, Adjunct.”

  Cooper’s comments, whatever they might have been, had died in his throat. His face was tight with fear all over again.

  “Good,” I said. “Platoon, advance. Double-time!”

  We ran off into the darkness without a glance back.

  -34-

  We pushed them back all the way to the outer hatches.

  I, for one, could hardly believe it. We’d taken days to lose that same terrain, and now we’d won it back.

  We weren’t the only ones who’d noticed. Graves had called up the entire cohort, pushing hard on every front. We’d posted troops along the way, so we could legitimately claim control of several new levels and kilometers of territory in between.

  I poked a few buzzers out of the hatch in the roof, examining the exterior hull. It was a wasteland. We’d come here seeing a vast expanse of unfinished metal. Now, it was scorched and pitted for as far as the eye could see.

  “McGill?” Graves called me as I examined the scene remotely.

  “Yes, Primus?”

  “Are you still moving forward?”

  “Negative, sir. We’ve reached the outer hull. Unless you want my lights to try to capture that, we’ve come to the end of the line.”

  He chuckled. That was a rare thing.

  “That’s excellent. We’re filling in behind you. The Vulbites have abandoned this region. They must have stretched themselves too thin by trying to take—”

  Right then, Kivi rushed to my side. She pushed her portable screen into my face. I frowned, looking at what she was trying to show me.

  It was a view of the outside. In the lower foreground, I saw a dozen kilometers of gently curving space factory. Up high—from our point of view—was the disk of the planet. It was night there now, and it looked even darker and murkier than usual.

  But none of that was too interesting. What was important was a silver disk—a broad flat disk, that was moving up from the planet to the space factory inside that very long umbilical tube.

  “Uh…” I said, “Primus Graves?”

  “What is it, McGill?”

  “I’m forwarding you my tapper feed.”

  Graves watched the buzzer input, and he began cursing.

  “Dammit. They’re sending up more reinforcements. This is very disappointing. Just how big of a garrison did Rigel leave out here on this shadowy, godforsaken rock?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” I admitted. “But at least this shows that we’re hurting them.”

  “They’ll drive us back. They’ll outnumber us again, even with two full legions. We’ve got revival machines and reinforcements, but this war keeps escalating.”

  “What are my orders, Primus?”

  “Hold your position. I’ll get back to you.”

  Something like three minutes went by. We watched the umbilical disgorge more troops onto the space factory then the disk platform rolled back down the long, rippling tube again. I had no doubt it would soon bring yet another fresh load of troops up to join the fun. It was depressing to watch.

  Finally, Graves came back online. His voice sounded defeated.

  “I couldn’t talk them into it,” he said. “We’ll never win this if we don’t sever that reinforcement line. They’ll keep coming, sending as many as they need to defeat us. Eventually, a fleet of starships will show up and finish us.”

  “What about our own fleet, sir?” I asked.

  “That’s classified, McGill.”

  I laughed with a hint of bitterness. “Classified? Who am I going to tell?”

  “That doesn’t matter. The disposition of our fleet is always classified.”’

  His words made me think. In fact, I realized after a few seconds what he was hinting at, whether he’d meant to or not.

  There was no way Earth could hold Dark World without having a serious fleet stationed here. We were an advanced ground force, a rapid-deployment formation making a surprise attack. But once we took Dark World, assuming we could even accomplish that much, the enemy could always send a serious fleet to smash us all to dust.

  The only counter to that was the deployment of Earth’s fleet to this location. Drusus had said that was the long-term plan, to establish a base out here to build ships and control the region.

  But how much of our existing fleet should Drusus send? All of it?

  That would leave Earth defenseless.

  That was the terrifying calculus of interstellar war. We really didn’t know how many ships the enemy had, and they didn’t know what we had, either. We lived in haunting uncertainty about these simple facts.

  Launching an all-out assault might end the war, but it was insanely risky. The enemy could then send out a relatively small task force, catch you unprepared and wipe out your homeworld.

  The stakes had never been higher. Humanity hung in the balance. We had to take territory, but to do so we had to risk losing our entire species.

  It was at times like these that I was glad I was carrying a rifle around. When I screwed up, a few extra people came out of a revival machine. In comparison, it was no big deal.

  “Primus Graves?” I said suddenly.

  He paused, as I’d interrupted him. He’d been giving me a list of captured decks, body counts and the like. That stuff always bored me, so I hadn’t bothered to listen.

  “What is it, McGill?”

  “What if I could take care of this… problem we share?”

  Graves was quiet for a second. He knew what I was suggesting. He knew me better than most.

  “This is big, McGill. Everyone would know.”

  “It could be… sort of an accident.”

  Graves snorted. “No one would buy it. Turov, Deech, they would all want you permed.”

  “Yeah… but do you think we could win the battle if I did it?”

  “Of course. Right now, we’ve got a direct line to Earth—but they have a direct line to the planet. If one of us loses that source of reinforcements, it will break the cycle and give the victory to the other side.”

  “Why can’t Deech see that?”

  “Because it’s not in her orders. She’s not here to perform tactical miracles or make real strategic decisions. She’s here to—”

  “Advance her career?”

  “I wasn’t going to put it that way, but…”

  “All right, sir,” I said. “We’ll scout the area.”

  “Scout? Just scout?”

  “Are you sure you want details, Primus?”

  He was quiet for a while.

  “No,” he said at last. “I guess I don’t. Graves out.”

  After he was off the line, I signaled my light troops. They gathered around, and we huddled up.

  “All right,” I said. “Time to say good-bye to your gonads. We’re going up and over.”

  “Out there?” Carlos squawked.

  “That’s right.”

  Cooper threw his rifle down, fuming.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, waving back Veteran Moller who’d been about to kick his ass.

  “We had a deal,” he said. “Now it’s all blown!”

  I thought about that. I’d said that if we finished our mission parameters, Cooper would get rank. This push out onto the hull was icing on a shit-cake, and he didn’t want to eat it.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Our deal stands. You got both of us this far—so the deal’s good.”

  Cooper stared at me, blinking for a second. Slowly, he began to smile.

  “That’s great, sir!”

  “Now,” I said, “pick up your weapon before I have Veteran Moller shove it up your ass and stomp on your dick.”

  To emphasize this threat, Moller made a stomping motion with her right boot.

  “Yes, sir!” Cooper said, grabbing up his snap-rifle and checking it out. “No damage, sir. All indicators in the green.”

  “That’s lucky for you, splat,” Moller said.

  “Okay,” I said, looking around the group. “The buzzers show that the umbilical carried its load right into the station. They still control the loading bays. We’re going to advance over the hull itself, using any cover we can find, and scout our way to the umbilical.”

  “The umbilical?” Carlos demanded. “Weren’t we there already?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “But we failed that time. This time—we’re doing it.”

  Carlos grinned. “Promise I get to die?”

  “If you don’t, I’ll shoot you myself to make sure.”

  “You’re such a tease, sir,” he said. Then he turned to the recruits. Most of them were looking bewildered and shocked.

  “You see this shit right here?” he asked them. “This is what I’ve been talking about. This is the James McGill I’ve known for decades, the magic-man I’ve been telling you kiddies about. You’re all going to die soon, be confident about that, and maybe you’ll even go to prison afterward for a while—but you’ll get to see something cool. Something so cool that it’ll almost make everything worthwhile. In fact, today’s scheme reminds me of Tech World—which they now call Trash World by-the-way because of this man’s—”

  I signaled Moller, who stood up and approached Carlos. Her long arms reached for him.

  Carlos shut up in a hurry, but it wasn’t good enough.

  It’s hard to stomp on a man’s dick when he’s wearing a spacesuit, but I had to hand it to Moller—she did her damnedest.

  -35-

  The battle proceeded at an alarming rate. The Vulbites, shocked by heavy losses and our doubled strength in numbers, had been pushed back. They were collapsing, but they’d wisely decided the one region they couldn’t afford to lose was the area directly surrounding the umbilical loading bays.

  Like a gigantic elevator lobby, the decks around the base of the umbilical were dedicated to cargo transfer. Large chambers, warehouses, loading equipment and even robotic transports systems dominated the area. This zone had become a beachhead for the invading Vulbites.

  The human troops, thousands of them, were now pressing in from all sides, trying to drive the Vulbites back toward the umbilical connection point. With time and perseverance, our commanders hoped to push them off the space complex entirely.

  Another load of reinforcing enemy troops was already on the way up, however. We could see them, riding their silver disk at a pace of something like a hundred kilometers an hour up toward the base of the space factory.

  We opened a hatch and Cooper sprang out of it like a gopher in heat. The strategic situation was laid out in easy sight. We sent up buzzers too—but human intel was always better.

  “Sir?” Cooper said. “They’ve got a full load on the elevator—it’s about two-thirds of the way up.”

  “I see it. Have you got any company on the roof?”

  “A few guards and spotters, maybe. No concentrated force in sight.”

  “But they might be stealthed.”

  “I’m no wizard, sir. I see what I can see.”

  “Roger that. Take cover, keep spying, and stay low.”

  Taking a minute to huddle with Kivi, we examined the data.

  “I don’t see a large force,” Kivi said. “They might have troops out there, lurking around with stealth suits—but I doubt it. The battle to defend the umbilical station is too critical.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “Okay, people. Good news! The mission is a go!”

  They all looked sick.

  Slamming my gauntlets together, I grinned at them. “This is it! This is what we get paid for! We’re going up and over the top. Today, I don’t want to see any lollygagging. Nobody holds back. We’ll make a fast charge to the base of the—”

  “Sir,” Cooper called to me. “I’m seeing something.”

  “Talk, Cooper.”

  “Um… looks like exhaust plumes. A lot of them, coming up the gravity well from the planet.”

  Exhaust plumes?

  I signaled Kivi urgently. She worked her equipment, and she soon fed me imagery.

  “We’ve got assault shuttles inbound,” I said, examining the evidence.

  My heart sank as I said these words. The Vulbites were pulling out all the stops. They were in trouble on the station, and they knew it. They’d decided to send up another wave of troops using ships.

  “Report it to Graves,” I told Kivi.

  “I already did,” she said. “Command says they know.”

  Everybody looked at me. Again, the enemy was escalating. Thousands more Vulbites would soon be crawling all over the roof of the space factory. We had maybe fifteen minutes to go before we were up to our asses in Vulbites.

  “It’s go-time,” I said. “We’ll never get another chance.”

  Our whole op was better-planned for this attack—at least, that’s what I kept telling myself.

  This time, we didn’t climb out onto the external hull kilometers from the umbilical. Instead, we’d chosen a spot that was as close as we could get without running into our lines—or theirs.

  When a pack of light troopers really decides to run, they can move pretty fast. We were in low grav, which allowed us to bounce around like rabbits.

  The scene was surreal. I’d been involved in many infantry scrambles and charges under fire, but I’d never done so while in orbit with a strange planet looming overhead.

  We were breathing hard, rushing for all we were worth. Maybe, at some level, we knew what was about to happen.

  Off to my right, there was a flash of brilliance. A whole layer of the outer metal of the orbital platform’s hull vaporized. Gases expanded in a gush then thinned out into an ashy cloud.

  Three names among my platoon members went red in that single instant, all of them struck dead.

  “Laser fire!” I shouted. “Spread out!”

  My remaining troops bounded away from each other, and some sought cover. We slowed down—which I knew was a mistake—it was only natural to try to save yourself.

  Rushing from one scrap of scorched metal to another, we kept advancing on the umbilical. It was close now, and it was shivering as the next transport disk was coming up from the planet.

  Somehow, some way, Command got wind of what we were doing. Maybe it was only a matter of noticing our transponders were outside the main hull. No one else was in the area.

  “Who’s commanding those troops on the outer hull?” a voice demanded.

  I knew that voice, and that imperious tone. It was Deech.

  After a half-second of indecision, I decided to put her on mute. In my book, it was far better to ask for forgiveness later than permission now. Although, knowing Deech, I wasn’t likely to get either one out of her.

  A few precious moments passed. The laser struck again, behind us and to my right this time. No names went red—a clean miss.

  There were only a few hundred meters left now to cross, and my troops had resorted to rushing from one half-assed scrap of shelter to the next. Everyone tried to keep a shoulder against some protrusion as much as possible, hoping it would save them from the ground-based lasers.

  “Troops!” I shouted on tactical chat. “I want you all to spring up and rush. That cannon has a cool-down cycle. If we run all-out now, it won’t have time to nail us again before we get into the shadow of the umbilical. Then, even if they do try to take us out, they’ll be doing our demolitions work for us. Now, GO!”

  I sprang up, and I saw several others follow out of the corner of my eye. Some hesitated—but most of them overcame their fear and raced after me.

  Another beam flashed—close this time. It ate the troops I’d left behind. I was down to a squad, no more.

  But we’d made it. We hugged the shadowy base of the umbilical, away from the laser cannon. We were all panting in our suits. I could hear the O2 hiss in my ears. Watching my gauges flutter, I tried to figure out how much air I had left while the readings fluctuated wildly by the second.

  “Kivi!” I shouted. “The weaponeers are gone. Fix me up some charges. We’re disconnecting this giant vacuum hose in the next ninety seconds.”