Squinting, I peered out into the daylight, seeing a series of bright, bright flashes. Whatever was going on, it was leaving afterimages on my retinas. I was baffled at first, but then I thought hard. When had I seen that kind of weaponry before? It looked kind of like a belcher, but the angle and intensity were wrong… It was kind of like a cross between a belcher and an 88, if I had to guess.

  Then I had it. Only one kind of fighter carried a gun like that—giants. Graves had finally sent the reinforcements he’d promised me ten long minutes ago, and they were arriving just in time.

  The giants were Blood Worlder behemoths, the biggest form of humanity to ever have been bred for war. Graves had released his 2nd giant platoon, some of our best troops.

  Their energy weapons fired bright beams that swept the Tau out of existence. All of a sudden, the head-long rush of Tau surrounding the tower halted. In fact, it reversed.

  They stopped lashing bolts at the hatchway. They had bigger problems. They were stumbling back, dying, looking upward in terror.

  Grinning, I grabbed my morph-rifle and shouldered it. Then I switched the selector to full-auto. It was time for some payback.

  The last members of my shredded command sallied out of the broken siege engine behind a wave of giants. The big bad-ass humans were freaky to watch. They weren’t too smart—but they didn’t have to be.

  Standing six meters or more in height, they had thicker legs than a normally proportioned human and smaller heads. That was all due to physics—you needed huge bones and muscles to move that kind of weight around, and bigger brains would only have gotten in the way of their purpose.

  Striding with calm contempt, they carried beam projectors and massive generators on their backs. These power supplies served two purposes: they fueled the projectors and also formed a glassy, shell-like shield around each of the giants.

  The Tau fired at these terrors, giving ground and backpedalling in fear. Their lightning guns caused the giants’ personal shields to flicker and buzz—but they held.

  In return, the giants swept them away with wide gushes of energy. To me, they looked like troops carrying flamethrowers. The Tau melted away to ash at the slightest touch, and they soon broke and ran.

  In between the giants, my team and I caught opportunities to sneak in a shot. We gunned the runners down at range, whooping and hollering as they died.

  It was exhilarating. If you’ve ever fought to the death and then been given an unexpected reprieve at your darkest moment, you know what I mean.

  We showed the Tau no quarter, running them off the battlefield—and that’s when I realized we still had a problem.

  One of the giants had gotten ahead of the others. He plunged into the dome and vanished. Then a second monster excitedly followed him and did the same.

  These behemoths weren’t easy to control. When they got their bloodlust up, they became wild with excitement and charged after runners.

  “Hold!” I roared after them. “2nd Platoon, fall back! Stop, boys! Let them go!”

  The giants weren’t listening. I ran after them but halted at the edge of the dome. Around me were a dozen panting Clavers. They looked bewildered and bone-tired.

  I knew I should turn and go back. But if I did that, if I withdrew to the safety of the siege tower—which was now burning and sending up a column of black smoke into the ruddy sky—I would be abandoning the giants. They’d run after the Tau until they killed them all, or they perished themselves.

  Lifting my tapper, I pecked out a quick message and sent it—then I plunged into the glassy shield of the dome without waiting for a reply.

  My text message said: Graves, Tau broken, I’m following the giants outside—McGill.

  That was it. He would have to figure out the rest, and whether or not he was going to do anything about it. My only worry was that I was possibly perming myself, but it wasn’t a powerful concern, just a nagging thing in the back of my mind.

  After all, I’d lived a long, long time already. Maybe it was my day to go out.

  -50-

  The Clavers followed me right out of their safety zone under the dome. Say what you will about their dim-bulb brains and ugly faces, they were loyal to their leaders. That was more than I could say about half the troops in Legion Varus.

  Outside the dome, the landscape was hellish. Before it had been frozen and wild, full of pines, snow and fresh scents. All of that had vanished. The air was thick with acrid smoke. The ground itself was blasted and baked. Even a few boulders had cracked open like eggs. The Tau had released so much energy trying to crush our dome that the very dirt outside was radioactive. Even the air shimmered in places with residual heat.

  The giants were well ahead of me, racing after the Tau and knocking the black, broken trees flat. Each of their massive footsteps sent up a puff of gray ash.

  “God damn if this isn’t Hell’s own kitchen,” I said, looking around and testing my dosimeter. We were taking some rads all right, but not enough to cook us. “Let’s have ourselves a quick look-around, boys.” I gestured to the sorry-looking Clavers I’d brought with me. “Maybe we can round up these giants when they get tired.”

  We advanced cautiously, and I recorded all the while. If nothing else, I could take the data back to Graves for brownie points. I knew he’d be pissed about losing his giants, and he was certain to blame me for letting them run off—although I had no idea how I could have stopped them.

  “Look over there… is that a landing ship?” I pointed due south of the dome, where a hump of metal could be seen among the crispy branches.

  The Tau drop ship was an ugly thing. It was aerodynamic only in the sense that a snail’s shell was. The ship was roundish, lumpy and built without art or careful science. I got the feeling the Tau had slapped it together out of spare parts, using anything they had that was curved and contoured in nature.

  “The Tau are running straight for that ship,” I told my bewildered pack of Clavers. “Let’s follow the giants.”

  Picking up the pace, I began to run downslope. Behind me, the Clavers humped and pumped in my wake. They weren’t sleek or light of foot, but they could get up and move when they felt like it.

  The giants caught up with the Tau, scooping up squalling little humanoids and crushing the life out of them with fists the size of basketballs. Invariably, they threw the body after the others who fled and then thundered in pursuit of fresh game.

  The Tau never turned to make a stand. They weren’t real troops, after all. They’d been taught to line up and fire their weapons, but that was about it. Faced with terrors like Blood Worlder giants, all they could do was run for their lives.

  When the chase reached the foot of the landing craft, things became interesting. A single nozzle rose from the roof of the spaceship. I knew in an instant what it had to be.

  “Troops! Take out that turret! Giants, Clavers—fire on my mark!”

  I used my HUD system to mark the deadly looking gun turret, but the giants and the Clavers mostly ignored it. A few of the giants tossed beams in that direction. A few Clavers hammered out a stream of projectiles downslope at it—but the turret wasn’t destroyed.

  After watching it pulse brighter and brighter for a moment, I gritted my teeth and made a hard decision.

  “Clavers! Dive for cover! Take cover, troops!”

  Even with this clear order ringing in the air, they did nothing but falter in their headlong charge until I fell on my belly in the ash. Then they finally followed my example. All around me were puffs of gray dust and grunting, confused soldiers.

  The pulsing gun turret released its payload at last. Essentially, it was a giant lightning gun, and when the blast came, it wasn’t a disappointment. A massive multi-pronged bolt lanced out from the tip, striking the ground a few hundred meters away in a dozen places.

  Tau, giants, burnt trees and rocks the size of pickups were blown apart and tossed skyward in burning fragments. I was impressed. I hadn’t known the basic Tau weaponry was scalable.

  The giants who survived this shower of electric bolts stood for a moment, dumbfounded by this unexpected development. It had been all fun and games to pluck limbs off the helpless fleeing Tau, but now things were suddenly different.

  Hooting and croaking in dismay, they reeled back and stumbled over the rough ground. Some had the presence of mind to fire their weapons at the gun turret, and a few tossed the flopping bodies of Tau in the ship’s general direction—but neither approach was effective.

  When half their number had been destroyed, along with most of the Tau, the giants finally turned tail and ran. They thundered back upslope toward our position.

  “Stay down!” I commanded my Clavers. “Keep your heads down on the ground!”

  We waited for a dozen heartbeats. Twice more during that time, the lightning turret gushed energy. Bolts flew farther upslope each time, chasing the fleeing giants.

  At last, the Blood Worlders reached our position and passed over us in a wild rush. Two Clavers were stepped on, one had his spine broken. He crawled grotesquely in the burning dirt.

  After the giants had rushed over my handful of men, I stood and chased after them. All around me, terrified dumbasses ran for their lives. Even the most ignorant of men bred for the purpose of war could be terrorized by unfamiliar weaponry.

  When I managed to stumble back through the dome at last, I laughed until I had an explosive coughing fit. When that passed, I laughed some more. I was just so glad to be alive.

  “McGill?” my tapper demanded. “McGill? Where did you go? I lost your signal for eleven minutes.”

  It was Graves. If anyone could count the time away from your post down to the nanosecond, it was my beloved primus.

  “Sir, I’ve got good news. We drove back the Tau and chased them all the way to their drop ship outside the dome.”

  “Outside the dome? Who authorized such a radical advance?”

  “The giants did, sir, when they ran off like jackrabbits.”

  About ten seconds of silence followed this statement, and I optimistically began to theorize that Graves had moved on with his day—but it wasn’t to be.

  “I see thirty-five missing giants, McGill. What kind of insanity did you get into? Where are my giants?”

  “Uh… I’m sure most of them are right outside the dome having their nails done, sir. I’m not in charge of those monsters—no one is. Not completely.”

  “Wrong. I’ve released my reserve platoons before without losing half of them in a single ill-advised charge. I can see why Armel hated you so much back on Storm World.”

  “Harsh words, Primus. Harsh words,” I said, but I was talking to dead air. He’d disconnected and moved on.

  Walking all the way back to the broken siege tower, which sat in the midst of the monstrous hole I’d blown in the wall itself, I took stock of the battlefield. As I calculated the dead and compared casualty rates, I began to grin. I grinned hugely.

  “We cleaned their clocks! There must be ten dead Tau for every man who’s face down on our side. They can’t sustain those kinds of losses. Whatever you’re doing men, you’re doing it right.”

  Most of them stared at me without comprehension. A few were humans who understood what I was saying, but they didn’t seem as elated as I was. The handful of giants that stood with grime-covered faces and blank expressions grunted and pointed in random directions, clearly bewildered.

  I ignored them all and whooped at the sky. As far as I was concerned, we’d won the day. The best part was I hadn’t even died yet.

  -51-

  Tired and dragging our feet, the survivors streamed down from the southern ramparts toward the central village. Fresh columns of Clavers, Blood Worlders and a unit from Legion Varus marched the other way.

  A broad-shouldered man wearing a centurion’s crest pumped his fist at me, then gave me the finger. It was Centurion Manfred, a rare fellow officer who enjoyed my style and shared my understanding of right and wrong.

  “Hey Manfred, don’t let your boys piss themselves. We cleaned things up for you.”

  “Is that what you call it? Your lot looks knackered to me.”

  “Uh… that sounds about right. I need a beer and a cot.”

  He laughed and waved me onward. We trudged to the central collection of tents, bunkers and buildings. In the first tent I entered, I found a cot with a one-legged man lying on it. He was a tech, and he was playing a game on his tapper.

  With a rude hand, I shoved him off into the dirt.

  “Hey… Centurion!? I’m still on break, waiting for my new leg.”

  “New leg? Shut up, or I’ll recycle you. That way you’ll have a fresh leg in half an hour.”

  Grumbling, he left the tent with a crutch under his arm and a lot of bad words under his breath. I didn’t get upset about his disrespect. If the bio people changed their minds about his new limb, he’d learn what being sorry really meant soon enough.

  The second my face hit the cot, I was out.

  * * *

  A few hours later I was awakened by a lingering touch on my spine.

  Waking up a Varus man in a weird way was never advisable. I lurched up with a snort, slinging drool and cracking open bleary eyes. I spun around, snatching at something skinny that had dared to touch me.

  To my surprise, I saw a tiny figure bounding away. “Big man is awake!” he said in a high-pitched voice. “He’s awake, brothers and sisters!”

  It was a gremlin, a tiny man-like creature that also came from Blood World. He’d been standing on my back in my sleep, doing God-knew-what. Others of his kind peered in under the flap of my tent.

  I hated this particular breed of Blood Worlder more than any of the others. Gremlins were tricky, fast, and wicked in the mind.

  “Who are you?” I asked the creature. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m Ankou, and I serve the legions just as you do, you great oaf. I could have killed you in your sleep, you know. It would have been so easy...”

  Sitting up relatively slowly, I lifted a hand to yawn dramatically. The gremlin eyed me as I did this. His face was full of amusement and evil thoughts.

  Then I snatched the pillow from the cot and slung it at him with my off hand. I’d been reaching for it while pretending to wake up. Guessing he’d reflexively jump for the exit, I threw for the crack under the flap. The other gremlins vanished—but not Ankou. The pillow caught him in midair and knocked him flat.

  Laughing hard, I stood with my hands on my hips. “That was really funny, huh?” I asked him.

  Ankou bounced away from the pillow, sputtering. He rubbed the back of his skull where it had hit the ground with force. Pillows could be dangerous when they’re bigger than you are.

  “Very funny, big man,” he said. “I’m an HR representative for the legions, and I’ll remember you.”

  “I’ve already got you memorized, you little weasel. HR, huh? Tell me what you want.”

  “I’m here to escort you to a court of peers.”

  “Uh… a what?” I asked.

  “A martial court, imbecile. Your officer, Primus Graves, approved the request while you snored and farted for hours.”

  I snatched up a second pillow, but before I could toss it at him, he vanished.

  His words made me frown as I turned them over in my mind. A court? A court of peers? What the hell was this about?

  My first move was probably a bad one. I contacted Primus Graves.

  “Uh… sir? What’s this about me reporting to a court of some kind?”

  “McGill? Why are you standing around in a tent? You’re late for your trial.”

  “What…?”

  “Get with the program, McGill. The Blood Worlders have a voice in events now. They’ve singled you out as an abuser. Get down to the main bunker and face the music. Just let them get it out of their system, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  “Sir…? Since when do the Blood Worlders get to prosecute a Varus officer for doing his job?”

  Graves shook his head slowly. “You don’t get it, do you? Did you think that by perming Tribune Foam, your legitimate commander, you’d somehow avoid any kind of backlash? It doesn’t work that way, McGill. Not in a modern legion. Now, get to the court before you’re found in contempt. Here, I’ll mark the way for you on your tapper. Notice how the path goes nowhere near any bars.”

  When he’d finally shut up, I considered having a shower. Yawning, I decided to skip this step, reducing it down to taking a piss and pulling on a fresh uniform. After sprucing up my hair and my breath, I finally made my way to the central bunker in the middle of Claver town.

  The place was chockfull of freaks. There were all kinds of Blood Worlders and various Claver clones, too. Looming large at the entrance was a flock of angry-looking squids. I had to pass by them as I walked into the place with my chin held high.

  The squids were cold-blooded and cold-eyed. They stared at me like I was lower than whale shit. Cephalopods had never had much of a reason to enjoy my company, mind you, but today they seemed downright bitter.

  Right about then, I began to become concerned about the crowd. There were barely any real humans present. It was going to be hard to get justice from this group. They looked like jealous human-haters, one and all.

  Hmm… this all seemed so typical of Legion Varus. I’d just fought long and hard on the front lines, saving the ass of everyone in this circus-tent, but instead of toasting to my honorable sacrifice, they were going to stage a show-trial. I almost wished I’d let Tribune Foam live instead of perming him under Galina’s orders.

  With that thought in mind, I tried to reach her. Naturally, she wasn’t taking any calls. She’d probably heard about this situation and wanted no part of it. She’d thrown me to the wolves again.

  Turning my attention back to the crowd, I spotted the one that was running the show. In the center of this gaggle of aliens, a singular freak stood on a red cushioned throne of sorts. He was unique among them due to his unusual nature: it was Ankou, the very gremlin who’d come to awaken me.