Stomping out of the tent, I was less pleased by the exterior world. Scanning the skies, I saw it was predawn. The frosty landscape was about as cold as it got out here on Ice World, and I wasn’t a fan.

  Searching around the village for Galina, I didn’t find her. I did, however, walk past a load of Claver-Threes. They reflexively reached for their weapons when they spotted me. Their hands froze on their rifles, and they stared. I watched their arms twitch, and their fingers make squeezing motions. It must have been hard on them, as their every instinct was to shoot me down.

  “Hiya boys!” I said, distributing good cheer and hearty back-slaps to every snarling, beast-like clone I passed by.

  They bristled, but not one of them did so much as nod in return. Rude.

  A surprising amount of work had been done since I’d been murdered by my supposed girlfriend. The biggest change consisted of a squadron of space-fighters parked in the snow between the village and the southern wall.

  “Would you look at that,” I said, breathing out puffs of steam. Curious, I walked to the spacecraft and whistled.

  Almost immediately, a Fleet MP approached me. “Centurion? This is a restricted area. I’m going to have to ask you to step back.”

  “Are these fighters from Dominus?” I asked.

  “Yes sir, they are.”

  “Wow… sometimes a lot happens while you’re dead. When did they come down? How did they get through the dome?”

  The Fleet puke looked annoyed, and his eyebrows were frosted with ice. I couldn’t blame him for being out of sorts, as he’d somehow drawn guard duty in the snow.

  “Sir, I don’t think I’m supposed to—”

  “Aw, come on. I’m no Claver. I’m asking a legit question.”

  “Yeah… I guess that’s true. It’s insane that we’re putting our spacecraft right here on the ground next to all these Clavers. In answer to your questions, the fighters were flown down a few hours ago. Right now, they’re bringing down a lifter full of armament and fuel for them.”

  “Huh… what’s the point? I mean, what’s their mission?”

  The guard shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. I’m just serving the night shift out here with orders to keep everyone away from the fighters.”

  “Where are the frigging pilots?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.

  He pointed downslope sourly. “They’re down there, in the village.”

  “Drinking beer and dancing with each other, huh? I get it. Say, what if I get you a hot mug from the village?”

  “That would be really cool on your part, sir.”

  I smiled at him, and he smiled back. I’d made a friend.

  Right about then however, my tapper began buzzing. I cursed with each buzz that vibrated my forearm. A few seconds later the damned thing lit up and started talking to me. I wasn’t happy to see Graves’ ugly face staring up at mine.

  “McGill? Where are you? My personnel-tracker has counted twenty-one wasted minutes since your revive. Get to the southern wall and join your unit.”

  I opened my mouth to object, but he was gone. My tapper went dark again.

  “Damn…” I looked at the MP. “Sorry Chief, but you’re going to have to wait awhile to get that drink.”

  “No problem, Centurion. I’d rather be here on guard duty anyway. That wall… it’s bad out there I hear.”

  “Is that right? Well, it was nice talking to you.”

  Without hurrying one iota, I ambled up the hill toward the southern wall. As I got closer, I began to frown. I’d really done a number on these fortifications with that warhead. Now, I almost regretted my effectiveness. The hole was about thirty meters wide, and it looked like there were a lot of cracks radiating out from it. The whole wall had to be unstable.

  The opening itself was crowded with big soldiers. Most of them were Blood Worlders—the heavy trooper types.

  The big men didn’t look happy. They were cold and miserable. Sure, they’d been issued some flappy parkas that looked as big as circus tents, but I knew their kind was from a hot planet. This world must be a living hell for them.

  Even so, they weren’t complaining. It wasn’t in their nature. They milled around in the breach, balefully eyeing the cracked puff-crete over their heads. Now and then a chunk of masonry broke loose and thudded onto one of their helmets.

  Pushing my way through the throng, I saw another mass of heavy troopers. These poor bastards had the unenviable job of clearing away the dead that choked the pass outside. They had walking drones known as pigs to help, and a few true giants, but it looked like hard work anyway. I guess the brass had figured the Tau could use our dead for cover, so the frozen bodies had to be pushed back outside the dome.

  Checking my tapper, I located my own unit. My troops were stationed up on the wall itself. I marched up there, disappointed that there wasn’t an elevator built inside the wall.

  Several long minutes later, I stepped out onto the wall top. Immediately, a frozen wind howled into my open faceplate.

  “Holy moly!” I complained. “It’s frigging freezing up here!”

  “McGill?” Harris rushed up to me. He had that intense look on his face he usually had when we were about to go into battle. “Centurion, sir, I need you to straighten out Leeson.”

  “Uh… how’s that?”

  “He’s gone crazy. He’s set up his 88s on the top of this structure.”

  Looking around, I saw Harris was right. As a combined arms unit, we had a variety of weapons and troop types in our team. There was a platoon of light troopers, another of heavy, and a third of auxiliaries. Those specialists were Leeson’s babies.

  “So what?”

  Harris lowered his voice. “Sir, we don’t have to be up here on the top of the wall. I’d rather be down low, on the inside of the breach. We could back up the heavy troopers if they can’t hold. If we planted those 88s just a few hundred meters on the inside of the wall—”

  “Come on, Harris. Sure, its blue-balls cold up here, but there’s nowhere better for an 88 to get a good sweep pattern than up high. Leeson’s doing it right.”

  “With all due respect, Centurion—that’s nuts! The enemy is going to come right through that dome, and they’re going to get lit up by our artillery. Two other units are up here, but several are deploying on the inside of the wall, at ground-level. Given the choice, why the hell are we up here with our asses hanging out in the breeze?”

  I was beginning to get the idea that everything wasn’t hunky-dory in 3rd Unit. Leeson was my second in command, being the most senior with his officer’s commission date. He liked his 88s, as that was his best weapon and artillery was near and dear to his heart.

  Harris, on the other hand, liked surviving battles intact. He didn’t want to kill more of the enemy than anyone else in the cohort—he wanted to walk away with all his parts still attached to his body.

  I could appreciate the opinions of both men. If we could choose our ground… it was a serious decision.

  “Sir,” Harris pressed me. He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “My armored platoon can’t do much up here. We can throw down a few power-bolts from our rifles, sure. But I can’t use my force-blade. I can’t—”

  “Suck it up, Harris!” Leeson shouted. He’d spotted us talking, and he marched over to greet me. “You’re wearing that Vulbite-made suit again, aren’t you McGill?”

  “Looks that way.”

  Leeson whistled. “Has Harris convinced you to play chicken inside the walls yet?”

  I shook my head. “No, but he’s working on it.”

  “It’s not chicken to want to meet the enemy head-on!” Harris interjected.

  “Hmm…” I said, thinking about their opinions carefully. Up here, Barton’s light platoon could play sniper. Leeson’s weaponeers could burn down hundreds of attacking Tau—but Harris was left waving his dick in the wind. He was right in saying his team was disadvantaged.

  “Okay,” I said, “here’s how we’re going to play this. Harris and I will go down into the breach and deploy there with the Blood Worlders. Leeson, you’ll stay up here with Barton’s lights. It means splitting up, but I think the risk is worth it on this occasion.”

  No one was completely happy with this compromise, not even Harris. Since I was in command, they did as I ordered. Soon, thirty-odd armored warriors were setting up to plug holes that had appeared in the Blood Worlder line at the bottom of the wall.

  Once we were in place and organized, we didn’t have long to wait. Less than an hour after I woke up and drew my first ragged breath, the enemy assault began.

  -45-

  When the shooting started, I was squatting in the very hole I’d blown open in the southern wall. It wasn’t a safe spot—it wasn’t even a good spot—but it was where I planned to make a stand.

  Overhead, the Tau ships were closing in on Ice World. A common misconception among Earth folks is that the Tau are cowardly and disinterested in everything except money. While that second part was generally true… the first part wasn’t.

  I’d seen the Tau armies in action back on Tech World. Sure, they were a small people, and they were more interested in playing tug-of-war over a penny than military affairs, but when they got riled, they could mass-up and become a powerful foe with their vast numbers.

  The Tau invasion ships didn’t simply charge at Ice World, despite their superior numbers. Instead, they came into orbit on the far side of the planet and then slid around toward Dominus on both her eastern and western flanks. With twenty-plus small ships closing in on each side, Dominus fired a barrage with each of her broadsides, sending shells both east and west around the planet’s equator.

  Overhead, the battle was hard to make out, but there were hints. Dominus had fired all her cannons, and the warheads were flying toward the enemy at fantastic speeds. Thirty-two streaking vapor trails were visible in the sky.

  These warheads moved like dumb weapons at first, but then they veered at the last second toward the dodging enemy ships. A dozen hits were recorded.

  “Ha!” Harris shouted. He was watching the legion officers’ broadcast of the battle, just as I was. “Did you see that, McGill? We swatted down a lot of those flies!”

  It was true, but I wasn’t ready to cheer yet. I watched as the enemy ships fired back. Each small gunship had a single cannon, it seemed. Over forty shells moved on track, creeping toward the larger ship that was directly overhead.

  Right after her broadsides hit home, Dominus chose to wink out. She’d gone to warp, probably moving to the outskirts of the star system.

  It was a wise move—if a cowardly one. She outranged her opponents, and she’d struck them hard, but she couldn’t afford to absorb the Tau counterattack.

  “And now she’s gone,” Leeson said over my unit’s tactical channel. He was calling down from the top of the wall, where his platoon had deployed. “That was some razzle-dazzle on Captain Merton’s part. He flew the coop, and he’ll live to fight another day.”

  Carlos even came over to my location just to complain. Apparently, even the noncoms were sharing the feed. “That was sheer chickenry! I bet running off was Turov’s idea, wasn’t it, McGill?”

  It was true of course. I’d checked her status the moment the big ship left orbit, suspecting the same thing Carlos was suggesting. After all, Galina had run from unpleasant battles on previous occasions.

  “That’s right,” I told him, “now shut up, or I’ll have you dig in the trenches.”

  He scuttled off while I examined the skies. I kept a grim watch on my tapper as well. There was one troubling fact that I couldn’t ignore. “Adjuncts…” I called over tactical chat, “order your men to take cover.”

  “What?” Harris asked. “Do you see the Tau on the ground already?”

  “No, but those shells they fired are still on track. Take a look—then get your men to safety!”

  “Oh shit…” Leeson called from the wall top. He’d figured it out, too. “Those shells aren’t going for Dominus—not anymore. There’s only one other target worth shooting at on this planet.”

  We all looked up at the shimmering dome that covered the entire stronghold.

  “Do you think the dome will hold, sir?” Barton asked. She was up on the wall with Leeson, and I had no doubt she was staring upward and squinting at the sky like the rest of us. At any second, our eyes expected to be met with blinding flashes.

  To confirm our suspicions, Graves broke into the audio on every channel a moment later. “This is a planet-wide alert. We’ve got multiple thermonuclears in-bound. All personnel, seek shelter immediately. Dig a hole in the snow if you have to.”

  Up on top of the wall, pandemonium broke out. Leeson had been in the safest spot on this flank an hour ago, but now his high ground seemed like a deathtrap.

  “Leeson, Barton,” I called out, “leave the artillery in place and retreat down inside the wall itself. Harris, we’ll move into the breach in the wall and ride it out.”

  “But sir, what if the wall comes down? It’s been structurally compromised—besides, there are like a hundred Blood Worlder fat-boys milling around down there.”

  “You got any better ideas, Harris?”

  He pointed toward some bunkers to the west. They were sunk into the side of the mountains. They doubtlessly linked up with the caves in the area.

  “Let’s camp in there,” he suggested.

  I agreed, and we took his heavy platoon on a hike. I gave Barton and Leeson free range as well. They could do whatever they wanted to keep their men alive.

  It was likely that all our planning at this point was meaningless. The fusion warheads would either smash through the dome or they wouldn’t. If they did… well, just one of those warheads would be enough to wipe out every soldier assigned to the southern wall, shelter or no. Despite this likely outcome, it never hurt to take every precaution you could.

  As we reached the vacant bunker and piled into the cold dark interior, a compounded series of roars swept over us.

  “It’s the fighter squadron, sir,” Harris said. “Graves launched them early. Maybe they can do something about the bombardment.”

  I nodded, but I wasn’t hopeful. I suspected Graves had launched the small spacecraft in order to get them out from under this dome. If it was about to go poof, at least some of our assets would still be in the game.

  -46-

  Contrary to popular belief, force-fields don’t stop everything a powerful warhead can deliver. Sure, they can push back the shockwave, the fire, and even some of the radiation—but not all of it.

  There are different kinds of radiation, see. There’s particle radiation, of course, which consists of protons and neutrons blasted free of their home molecules. But then there’s the other kind… energy-based radiation. This consists of things like visible light, radio waves, x-rays, microwaves and infrared… All these things are harmless when generated by a low-powered source, but they become really nasty when released by a fusion bomb.

  Fearing that the Claver-made force dome wouldn’t be up to the test, we huddled inside our bunker. The limited space had quickly filled up with grunting Claver-Threes. It was kind of weird, huddling in a dark chamber with hundreds of strange men who had very recently been trying to kill you. In fact, whenever I crouched down nuts-to-butts with these primitives, they still reflexively grasped at their weapons. They strongly remembered their old conditioning, and their new orders were in direct conflict with all their instincts. After tensing up to do battle, they slowly forced themselves to relax. All that time you knew what they really wanted to do.

  To pass the time—which was only a dozen or so minutes, to be fair—I watched the streaming video feed from outside on my tapper. The big show began when streaks of light appeared in the sky over the dome. The warheads fell with arcing contrails of blue vapor behind them. It looked like fifty-odd comets were converging on us all at once.

  “We’re frigging doomed,” Harris said. “There’s no way in hell some bubble-wrap dome is going to hold up under that many shells.”

  “You could be right, but you’d best shut up about it for now.”

  Harris did close his big mouth, but the camera feed coming from outside spread virally among the troops. Some swore, some laughed, some hissed in frustration, and a few prayed.

  The dumbass Clavers did none of these things. They looked vaguely at the imagery without any change of expression. I doubted that they could comprehend the awesome forces that were descending upon us from the heavens.

  “Today,” Harris said to me, “we’re witnessing ironclad proof that ignorance truly is bliss.”

  I had to agree. The Clavers were definitely the only people in the bunker who weren’t shitting themselves.

  At last, the warheads began to make their final plunging descent. In answer to the attack, a volley of anti-air missiles were launched from our side to counter the attack. These shot up and looked like they were going to strike the inside of the dome, but instead the dome flickered out for a moment, allowing the missiles to pass by. Then it brightened again. The antimissiles vaulted upward, accelerating toward the falling warheads.

  At the same time, a dozen of Dominus’ fighters returned to the skies. They fired on the warheads as well, destroying a number of them.

  I was surprised by how things went when push came to shove. As they’d proven in the past, the Clavers running this fortress knew their business. They’d dropped their protective dome just long enough to release a barrage of antimissiles. My troops dared to whoop when they saw this, and the help from the fighters.

  We watched with our hearts pounding in our bellies. Sweat tickled in my hair, but I didn’t dare open my visor to scratch.

  The two volleys of weaponry converged. The antimissiles were moving fast, but I suspected they didn’t have much range. To confirm this, I saw a few falter and go dark, falling back to the surface of the planet.