The bright light of morning found me and my men in a good mood. We ate and drank in our makeshift bunkers—most of which were piles of overturned furniture. The bears were nowhere to be seen. Soon, I found myself fielding calls from various officers.

  “You’re still alive?” Primus Collins asked. She seemed both amazed and pleased.

  “That’s right. It was a little rough out here, I’ll admit. Pretty touch-and-go just before dawn, but it was nothing a tough band of fighting men couldn’t handle. These bears have a rep, sure, but it’s mostly hype.”

  She laughed. She’d finally come to understand when I was bullshitting, and today she seemed to appreciate it. “Whatever, McGill. I’m glad you’re still among the living. Now, I need you to return to the water plant. We’ve got new problems.”

  “Uh… what kind of problems, sir?”

  “Brass problems. There’s been a shuffle at the top of the Mogwa commanders. I don’t understand it, but when I call headquarters, there seems to be total confusion. They keep talking about mass casualties, but I—”

  “Mass casualties? How? On what front?”

  She sounded rattled. “I—I don’t know. Last night, things began going wrong in the center of the city. The Mogwa command center sent out a few confusing messages. Something about poison, disease… I really don’t know. I don’t understand it.”

  My mouth fell open, and my gut fell away from me. I pulled my helmet off my head and let it fall to the floor. Inside it, I could hear Collins’ voice still squeaking my name.

  I didn’t care. I felt sick, because I thought I understood what was happening. I’d been watching it happen for a full day now.

  Standing up, almost reeling, I staggered to the doorway of the smoldering building I was sheltering within.

  My eyes rose up to gaze into the sky. There, high above the skyscrapers, strange projectiles were flying again. Every now and then, one sailed by overhead. In the daylight, I could see them more clearly. They were trailing something… vapor, perhaps? Or dust?

  What I suspected—no, what I knew in my heart of hearts—it was a terrible thing.

  Those streaks in the sky… they were projectiles. They were canisters, probably. Canisters full of poison. A formula that had once been secretly stored on Earth in an old, old book…

  It was a bioweapon. A terrible compound designed to kill only the Mogwa.

  And if I didn’t miss my guess, it was killing them right now. All of them.

  Billions of them…

  -46-

  “McGill? McGill!”

  I found my way back to my helmet and put it on. I listened to Primus Collins as she ripped me a new one, but I didn’t really process anything that she said.

  “Sir,” I said when she took a breath, “I know what’s wrong and how to fix it.”

  When she finally broke off her tirade, I explained. I told her about the Mogwa bioweapon and how the spooks at Central knew they had it. I never mentioned my own prominent role in distributing it, of course.

  Collins didn’t believe me right off. She called in to headquarters, and she talked to Tribune Kraus. After hearing that I’d given her this grim warning, Kraus contacted me personally.

  “Centurion McGill?” he said. “What kind of dark fantasy are you spreading rumors about?”

  “I wish that’s all it was, sir,” I said. Then I began to explain.

  I’d first discovered the formula back during the Home World campaign, decades ago. Various players—including the Cephalopods—had been seeking it even then. Over the years, it had been traded and lost and burned and rediscovered. One of the last homes it had found had been with the Rigellians and the Skay.

  Tribune Kraus was horrified. He was also pensive. “If you are correct… then they must have manufactured it in massive quantities. Then they came here to use it—to massacre the Mogwa wholesale.”

  “Yes. That’s what I think happened. This planet is the perfect proving ground. The test case to teach them how it might be applied on Trantor, the Mogwa home planet.”

  “Stunning…” Kraus said. “All right. This puts us at a historic juncture. So many of the Mogwa commanders are out sick—even those who’ve managed to struggle into this planning center look unwell. I see their roster is full of those who are either gravely ill or deceased. The population at large has been affected as well. We’ve seen them falling ill, collapsing in the streets… it’s diabolical!”

  “That it is, sir. The stuff is completely inert for humans and near-humans. Squids too, I’d wager. Can you warn the populace? Can you get them to shelter in their homes and filter their air?”

  Tribune Kraus didn’t seem to hear me. He was too busy talking the whole thing through. “It makes sense now why the enemy pressed so hard to gain control of food and water supplies. They planned to poison them. That approach might have been even more effective than this aerial spread.”

  I blinked and thought that over. I figured Kraus was right. The bears had been pushing for targets that fed and supplied the great City. All along, we’d figured that was because the situation had devolved into a siege, and they wanted to starve the people into submission. Sadly, their real plans were far more grim.

  “Tribune? Who is in command there on the Mogwa side?”

  He shook his head. “The field marshal is gone. I think he’s probably dead. There are some subordinates around, but most of them are ill. They should be—”

  I stood up and snapped my fingers in his face. He blinked at that, then he frowned. He wasn’t accustomed to my particular flavor of disrespect.

  “Sir, you need to take command,” I told him. “You have to do it now. Without leadership, the city will fall for certain.”

  Kraus chewed at his lower lip. “How am I going to get Mogwa citizens to listen to me? They refer to us as animals with regularity. They’ll see me as we might see a dog that’s trying to drive a car.”

  “You’re right about that… you need a stamp of legitimacy… I’ve got an idea.”

  I told him my plan, and he wasn’t keen on it at first. As time was short, and he didn’t have anything else in his head to pull out and save the day, he eventually agreed. He sent a skimmer to my location for pickup.

  Swept up aboard the aircraft, I stared out of the rearmost window and watched the streets fall away and shrink to vague lines. From the air, this sector of the City we’d fought so hard over didn’t look like much. It was an island of damaged buildings inside a blackened ring of destruction. I hoped Primus Collins and Trickle would do all right on their own. Part of me didn’t like leaving the Blood Worlders down there in the midst of a burning patch of rubble—but it wasn’t up to me.

  Turning myself forward, eyes-front, I gave myself a shake. This was big. This was a mass extermination. The Mogwa were in real trouble, and I’d had a hand in their demise. As much as it pained me to admit it, I owed them whatever help I could give. Sure, they were annoying prissy assholes most of the time, but they didn’t deserve to be erased from the cosmos.

  When I landed back at headquarters, I was sent a message summoning me to the main nerve center. I ignored this order and went downstairs, going deeper into the big building.

  A few sickly Mogwa tried to interfere, but I brushed past them. One Mogwa Marine coughed and fell out of his chair as I swept past, and I continued without breaking my stride.

  In the darkest, most isolated cell in the prison underneath the city’s military headquarters, there was a cell block distinctive from the rest. Walking into the place, I saw a few Mogwa who were dead on the floor. A few others were crawling around, wheezing. I picked up the pace, worried that I was too late.

  At last I found him. Sateekas was huddled inside one of the last cells on the right. I thought maybe he was dead already, but he stirred at my approach.

  The doors were all open, as some AI script had recognized this was a legit emergency and opened the cages to release the inmates. Sateekas, however, had chosen to stay in his cell. He hadn’t come out to escape or find help.

  “Sir? Grand Admiral, sir?”

  I stood over him and eyed him critically. He lifted bloodshot eyes in my direction. He took a breathing device from his mouth for a moment, and he whispered to me.

  “Gas…” he said. “I think everyone is affected.”

  “Not me, sir. But you keep that breather up to your face. Don’t pull it away until we can get you into an environment-controlled suit. Don’t worry. You’ll be right as rain in a moment.”

  Then, without asking permission or even telling him what my plan was, I scooped up the Mogwa in my big arms and carried him the hell out of there. A few alarms sounded, and a light or two spun and flashed—I ignored it all.

  A few flights up I’d seen a locker with emergency gear. As we were on a comfortable planet, there wasn’t much in the way of spacer suits, but I got a fire suit out instead and pulled it over Sateekas. He complained as I nearly broke his thin bones while stuffing limbs into the numerous armholes.

  “Sorry sir, sorry. Don’t worry. You’ll be feeling better soon.”

  I put him on the floor of the elevator car and propped him up. He had to at least look upright and functional. Who would follow an emergency interim leader who looked like death warmed-over?

  On the long ride up to the headquarters room, I explained the situation as best I could. Sateekas was aghast about the application of a bioweapon to a peaceful planet.

  “These barbarians…” he said. “I didn’t think they would have the gall to do something so… final.”

  His voice sounded kind of raspy. I was worried about it.

  “Look, sir,” I said. “The Field Marshal is dead. The revival systems are overwhelmed and unmanned. I think you have to declare that you’re in command of the Mogwa defense forces.”

  “Hmm…” he said, thinking that over. “It may have escaped your attention, McGill-creature, but I’m quite ill. I might not survive the day myself. Only my isolation in that accursed prison saved me from a more decisive dose of the bio agent.”

  “I’m sure that’s all true, sir. But it doesn’t change anything. The people need a leader. They need that leader to tell them what to do—to warn them about the danger. Down deep in the city, in the lower levels, the people haven’t been touched yet. Billions might still be saved.”

  He finally agreed to do what he could. He had me walk him onto the floor of the headquarters. There, he was met with snarls of displeasure.

  Various Mogwa officers approached us. They were all coughing and sweating, but they were united in their hate and distrust of Sateekas. It made me wonder about how, exactly, he’d come to possess that battlecruiser he’d flown to Earth. It was pretty obvious to me he had commandeered it without permission from anyone and flown it to the Frontier provinces to seek aid.

  That made me smile. This old bastard Sateekas was the only Mogwa I’d ever met that reminded me of myself.

  “Listen, citizens of the Empire,” he told the circle of unhappy faces. “We’re faced today with extinction. With utter annihilation. I’m not just talking about here, at this ignoble splinter-colony. I’m talking about all Mogwa everywhere. Even those who huddle in the Core Systems at Trantor are endangered.”

  They shouted at him. They accused him of all kinds of misconduct. Sateekas shrugged this off.

  “I, among all of you present, am the only official from the Empire itself. I am not only an ex-Governor of a neighboring province, but I was once a grand admiral leading a border fleet a thousand ships strong.”

  One of the exec officers dared to step forward. “You did nothing but lose fleets, Sateekas. You failed the Empire every time it trusted you. You failed us as well, bringing back these insolent slave-troops to protect us. They’ve done nothing!”

  “Not so!” Sateekas boomed, forcing himself to stand tall—or at least as tall as a Mogwa could stand. “Note this specimen here. This is the McGill-creature. A loyal servant of the Empire. He has slain countless Rigellians and even a few Skay.”

  This was scoffed at, but Sateekas made a signal in my direction.

  “Uh…” I said. For a long second, I didn’t get it.

  “Your records, fool!” Sateekas said. “Play them, as you once did for me!”

  Brightening, I searched on my tapper for nearly a full minute. That’s a long time when a muttering, angry audience is watching you. At last, I found some vids of the Skay dying at Clone World. I flicked this to the planning table, and I let it play.

  The Mogwa officers tried not to look impressed, but they failed. There were shots of Sateekas and his broken fleet in the vids as well.

  “You see?” asked one of the officers—it was the exec again. I figured he had ideas of taking command in the field marshal’s place. “All Sateekas does is die and fail.”

  “Could you have broken two Skay?” I demanded of him. “You heard me right. Sateekas lost his fleet, but he did so while destroying two Skay. Then I used commando techniques to take out the third—on his orders!”

  Sateekas carefully gauged how this was working on the Mogwa commanders. He could tell they were uncertain. “Let me ask you, who else here has fought in such vast battles? Who here among you will take the blame for this loss of Segin? Who will be labeled a failure over this desperate last stand?”

  They didn’t want to meet his eye-groups. They studied the deck, and they scowled and muttered.

  “Yes,” he went on after a coughing fit. “We must have a new leader, and that leader shall be me.”

  “By what authority?” demanded the exec guy. He was a stubborn dude.

  “By the authority of the Empire!” Sateekas declared. “No one on this planet wields greater credentials than I do. What’s more, I command the human forces on this world.”

  This line kind of stunned me. I glanced around the place—but Tribune Kraus was nowhere to be seen. Either he was off running his legion, or he’d decided to ditch the Mogwa headquarters entirely. Either way, I was glad he wasn’t around to hear this.

  Standing tall, I loomed over the sickly aliens. “That’s right. We came out here under Sateekas’ command, and we still answer to him first and foremost. It’s high time we executed the lot of you fops, and I’ll start with you.”

  Saying this, I put a pistol muzzle into the exec guy’s earhole. His eyes widened, and he peered up at me with vast hate.

  I turned to Sateekas. “You just give the word, Grand Admiral, sir.”

  “Who gave this beast permission to bring a weapon into our headquarters?” the exec demanded.

  Sateekas shuffled closer. “I did. Do you have an argument with that?”

  The officer’s eyes rolled in his head. He finally grunted when I pressed the gun barrel closer, bonking him in the skull. Mogwa have thin skulls, so I didn’t do it too hard.

  “I have no argument,” the officer said sullenly.

  “Good!” Sateekas said, as if he’d been given a hearty endorsement. “Brothers! Sisters! Put aside your petty jealousies and join me! The Mogwa army is broken, but we still command this rabble of slaves. Do not surrender to your fear or to the barbaric enemy. They are ruthless, and they will show you no mercy… and neither shall I.”

  Slowly, one at a time, the surviving leadership of the Mogwa military swore allegiance to old Sateekas. He was sick, and he was trembly, but he seemed to enjoy the process.

  Finally, as they finished this ceremony, he turned to the communications booth. He slithered inside and gave a stirring address to the populace. Say what you will about his command skills, he was a cagey politician when push came down to shove.

  He told the Mogwa people about the bio agent, and how to take precautions to avoid it. Then he gave the Mogwa troops orders. By this time, they were buttoning up all over the City, getting every kind of protective gear, gas-mask and suit of power-armor they could get their foot-hand things on. Sateekas insisted that no able-bodied soldier could allow themselves to be exposed to the air and the wind—these elements had become their enemy.

  Grimly sick but determined, the Mogwa and the four human legions prepared for a struggle to the finish with the Rigellian bears.

  This all came none too soon, as the enemy was reportedly advancing on all fronts.

  -47-

  After Sateekas had established a shaky hold on the command center, Primus Winslade suddenly showed up.

  I’m not a believer in conspiracies, but I don’t like amazing coincidences either. It seemed to me that someone had tipped him off. Either he’d planned it this way—to step in when the Mogwa coup was finished—or he’d been in hiding until things settled down. Whichever was the case, he was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, striding around the place and making loud “suggestions” to everyone.

  “McGill?” he said sternly when he spotted me. “Centurion? May I have your undivided attention, please?”

  I turned to old Winslade and gazed at him with a cautious eye. “What’s up, Primus? Where’s Kraus?”

  Winslade made an airy gesture with one hand. “Tribune Kraus has been arrested, I’m afraid. It was decided that he lacked subservience.”

  “Ah, I get it. That’s where you come in.”

  He tossed me a clouded look, but then seemed to think the better of it. “Regardless… with no one running around above the rank of primus, I thought it would be for the best that I step in. After all, I am the acting commander of Legion Varus.”

  “Who’s the acting commander of Victrix?”

  Winslade made that same fluttering movement with his fingers, dismissing my words. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. Whatever the case, he’s not here—and I am.”

  “I get it. You want to run the human side of this battle. Don’t worry, I won’t step on your glory-hounding. Not today.”

  Winslade came near and lowered his voice. “That’s good to hear. I thought I could count on you to see reason. These Mogwa are insufferable—as we know too well. Kraus wasn’t used to their odd ways. He insulted them or something when they started getting sick. They arrested him and tossed into some kind of dungeon.”