Armed GPI personnel and doctors came through every hour. They brought food, bedpans and stethoscopes. None brought relieving medicine, not even aspirin.

  By the sounds, some of the sick soldiers died that night. Others did the next day. There was constant vomiting. No matter how many times or who asked, the GPI people told them nothing.

  After a week, the youngest soldiers seemed to recover. They left. Two weeks later, half the cots were empty.

  Colonel Mike Steele yet suffered stomach cramps, cold sweats and vomiting. He was beginning to think he would never recover. Whatever the Corpocracy had done, it was going to kill him.

  At the end of the third week, Steele finally began to feel better. He ate meals again instead of just nibbling on crackers. He regained some of the weight he’d lost.

  “Do you feel any different?” the Kurdish doctor asked him one day.

  Two GPI sergeants stood behind her, watching and listening keenly.

  “Should I feel different?” Steele asked.

  The doctor did not reply. Something about the way she stood told Steele she had said too much.

  After they left, Steele began to examine how he felt. The next meal, he marveled at how much he put away. It was more than he usually ate.

  In fact, over the next few days, he realized he’d eaten an enormous amount of food. His weight stabilized at a lower amount than before, and no matter how much he put away, he didn’t gain more weight. He also discovered that he kicked off his blanket most nights, as he was burning up.

  The Kurdish woman checked his temperature the next day.

  “Well?” asked Steele.

  “It’s normal,” she said.

  “Then why do I feel hot all the time?”

  She glanced back at her escorts and looked at him, shrugging.

  Steele left the infirmary the next morning. He was one of the last to leave.

  They took him by jeep to the Arizona camp. There, he rejoined the other WSA soldiers. There were fewer men now. He found out that seventy WSA soldiers receiving the yellow glob injections had died. That was about six percent of the total. Why hadn’t he been one of the unlucky?

  Several days later, the training intensified as the cross-country runs lengthened. Some days, they went out in teams instead of a mass group. Then, the GPI instructors gave a combat blade to each. Midway through the fifth run, the men learned that huge vicious hounds gave chase. The barking gave it away.

  “Come on,” Steele shouted. “We’ll beat them to the cliff and climb our way out of this.”

  The soldiers sprinted. Steele marveled at how fast he covered the uneven rocks and gravel. He’d never run this fast before or for as long.

  It was the injection, he realized.

  The soldiers sprinted for the cliff. Choppers and drones watched from overhead.

  Then, foaming, practically rabid hounds bayed with savagery, racing into view from behind. There was a huge pack of big dogs. The soldiers weren’t going to beat the beasts to the cliff.

  “Listen up,” Steele shouted. “About face and get ready.”

  The soldiers did, and a swift, savage battle ensued as the men desperately fought for their lives against the vicious hounds. In the end, they lost two soldiers before slaying the wild-eyed brutes.

  “What’s going on, Colonel?” a frantic soldier asked, with blood staining his face and neck. “Why are they doing this to us?”

  Steele studied his bloody knife, remembering the fight with the huge hounds. He’d been stronger than he should have been.

  “Colonel?” the soldier asked.

  Steele looked at the soldier. “I don’t know, son. We’re training for something. This…” Steele let his thought trail away. The GPI people had captured them for a specific purpose. In time, the corporatists would let them know what it was. For now—

  Remember all this savagery, Steele told himself. Wait for your chance at payback. Until then, survive.

  -49-

  ORBITAL STATION HERMES, LOW EARTH ORBIT

  JUNE 2061

  The little scientist known as Rumpelstiltskin to the CEOs—Manfred A.S. Huber—vomited into an emergency bag as the rocket plane glided toward the docking bay of O.S. Hermes.

  O.S. stood for Orbital Station. It was one of the first erected nine years ago. It followed the common ‘wheel-and-spokes’ satellite design. The wheel, the main living and working quarters, spun in space in order to provide pseudo-gravity to those working on the station. The spokes were large corridors leading from the wheel to the central station hub. The hub was where spaceships, rocket planes, and thruster-pack pilots entered and exited.

  Diminutive Huber breathed heavily in his rocket-plane seat. He hated weightlessness. He hated being in space, even in Low-Earth Orbit. He dreaded the idea that someday Anwar Gray would order him to the moon or to the large habitat at LaGrange Point 5.

  Huber had come up to O.S. Hermes in order to meet with James Petty. Gray had convinced Petty to oversee the First Space Fleet’s construction.

  It was supposed to consist of three giant Orion-type spaceships.

  The last six months had been the most hectic of Huber’s life. As the premier scientist on Earth, Gray had insisted that Huber have a hand in everything.

  The last six months had been endless meetings and studies of spaceship designs and immediate prototyping, as humanity had run out of time against the invading aliens.

  That was according to Director Gray.

  The first idea had been to develop an improved NERVA system as first broached in the 1950s and into the 1970s. NERVA stood for Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application. The idea mandated nuclear thermal propulsion or NTP. The nuclear reactor would heat hydrogen propellant to high temperature before expelling it through a thruster to produce thrust.

  Such a mid-to-late-20th-century NERVA engine could have theoretically produced twice the thrust of the chemical rockets at the time. That would have allowed greater performance for deep space missions.

  The NERVA program had died in 1972 due to budget cuts at NASA. It had never been revived.

  With the improvements in the technology of 2060, the corporations could have made an NTP engine considerably more powerful than the old ‘70s NERVA.

  The advanced NTP system could theoretically allow them to construct a spaceship that would reach Neptune, under ideal conditions, in 7,417 days, or about 20.3 years.

  Obviously, the advanced NTP engine was out, as it was far too slow. Solar sails were out for the same reason, and the solar winds did not blow as hard the farther one went from the Sun. Ion engines were also out, as they would propel a spacecraft at a substantially slower velocity than the NTP.

  In the end, the solution was obvious to Manfred A.S. Huber, known as Rumpelstiltskin.

  The only propulsion system humanity could build in 2060 that might get a spaceship to Neptune in time—where the alien generational ship orbited—was an Orion-style nuclear pulse propulsion ship.

  The Orion project had been considered as far back as the 1960s. Later, treaties that forbade anyone from exploding nuclear devices in space ended any consideration of Orion vessels.

  When Huber told Gray about the Orion vessel, and the complications involved—

  “Damn the complications,” Gray said. “We’re building Orion ships.”

  “We don’t exactly know how,” Huber said.

  “Learn,” Gray said.

  “That will take time,” Huber said.

  “How long?” demanded Gray.

  “Ten, maybe fifteen years,” Huber said.

  Anwar Gray stared at Huber. A terrible and slow smile slid into place. “I give you a month.”

  “Sir, I hate to say this, but that’s impossible.”

  “Two months,” Gray said. “But that’s it, my final offer.”

  “I might be able to find a design and prototype in two years.”

  Director Gray sighed as he leaned back against his couch. This had been up in his fortress in the Himalayas. “You have six months to create a working design and immediate prototype. Time runs against us, my friend. You’re a genius in several fields. Now it’s time to put all that to use for humanity’s sake.”

  “Sir, I don’t have the needed personality to force people to work at that mind-numbing pace, especially not for months.”

  Gray nodded. “You’re right about that. James Petty will help you there.”

  In the rocket-plane seat, Huber remembered how he’d paled at the news. He feared James Petty. Everyone knew that.

  “Sir—”

  Gray held up a hand. “That’s final. I want to begin assembling the first Orion vessel in six months. The spaceship has to hold eight hundred space marines and the needed crew to fly the ship.”

  “Sir—”

  “Rumpelstiltskin,” Gray growled. “You will obey me in this. You will exceed my expectations because otherwise we may soon all become extinct.”

  Manfred A.S. Huber nodded. He understood that. The aliens out there, they were obviously working furiously to build more spaceships. That seemed clear. Humanity had to hit the aliens fast, a few years from now at most. Otherwise, it would likely be too late.

  On the rocket plane that had finally docked at O.S. Hermes, Huber laced on Velcro-soled shoes. Then he planted his feet on the carpet and began to lurch his way to the exit. It was time to meet James Petty and help with the latest scientific problems.

  Already, corporation factories on Earth had changed or were still changing their assembly lines. The designs and prototypes had passed the super-fast trials. Construction of the first Orion spaceship would begin in three days.

  The laser launch systems had been working overtime, sending up masses of equipment and parts. Every available orbital thruster, rocket plane and shuttle had already been dragooned into the project. Tens of thousands of space welders were undergoing emergency training.

  If the corporations hadn’t already had a crash construction course for finishing the orbitals in place, none of this would be possible. Now, Gray and the Council had demanded a five hundred percent increase.

  The idea was to construct three Orion spaceships with armored hull plating, launch missiles and magnetic railgun weapons, in one amazing year of AIs, robots, and humans working 24/7.

  Unfortunately, Petty had already encountered the first major hurdle in constructing the ships.

  Huber knew this meant his expertise was needed.

  There were a lot of working pieces on this. Earth had become a kicked-over anthill. All the while, the aliens built what they needed on Titan.

  Huber felt his gut clench and heave. He halted in the aisle, gritted his teeth and willed the last contents of his food to remain in his stomach. He couldn’t vomit now. That would be a disgrace.

  After twenty seconds, Huber started walking again. He’d won this one. Would he and humanity win the others?

  -50-

  Manfred A.S. Huber’s, aka Rumpelstiltskin’s, oversized head ached. His stomach only felt a little better. He’d been helping CEO James Petty for the last ten and a half hours, solving one technical issue after another.

  The two were in a huge office inside the wheel of O.S. Hermes. There were comm screens on three of the walls, or bulkheads if one wanted to be technical. Petty sat at a truly massive desk with five comm speakers. Secretaries came and went. Some stayed and took notes or recorded Petty’s orders. All of the secretaries were statuesquely gorgeous. Petty often stood too close to them, and he patted their asses or commented on their stunning features. They all wore miniskirts that were far too short along with outrageous high heels.

  “It’s good to be the king,” Petty had told him more than once.

  Huber understood the reference, even if women had never found him compelling. If they truly understood the excellence of his mind, they might think differently. Most of them, however, were too retarded to understand his brilliance, and that was a damn shame.

  These low IQ, gorgeous females gravitated to men wielding power, or to those with great physical strength.

  In truth, Huber knew the secretaries were not dim in intellectual terms. He was simply so much higher that most normal or even half-intelligent people, that they all had trouble understanding him. Gray understood him some of the time, but Gray saw him as a tool, just as Petty did, just like all the CEOs.

  Huber sighed as he tabulated a scientific solution for the welders. The first sections of the potential Orion ship had arrived in Low-Earth Orbit. The sections needed to fit, to begin merging into the vessel they were going to need a year from now.

  Across the chamber, Petty hit the top of his massive desk with both of his balled fists. They made a hard, sharp impact.

  That caused Huber to jump and turn, startled. He didn’t like displays of physical prowess in his immediate vicinity. It reminded him too much of his schoolroom experiences when the normal boys would pick on him and push him around or slap his face. They all laughed if he screamed at them to leave him alone.

  Petty was breathing hard, glaring at him.

  Huber looked away.

  The big CEO wore his black suit and tie. He was a blocky, heavily muscled man with short, gray hair and stern good looks. He looked as if he could have been a football lineman in his youth.

  “Are you as sick of this as I am?” Petty boomed in his deep voice.

  “Sir?” asked Huber.

  “This is never going to work,” Petty said. “Surely, you realize that as well as I do.”

  “Director Gray believes it will work.”

  A hard smile spread on Petty’s face. “Gray has been running all of us ragged. He’s been upsetting the applecart downstairs as well.”

  “If you mean forcing the factories to switch to spaceship construction instead of military hardware to finish the skirmishes with the soverists—”

  “Yes!” Petty said, interrupting. “We’re giving the old-style bastards time to regroup. You’re supposed to be our ultra-genius. Surely, you see I’m right about that.”

  Huber squirmed under the man’s intense glare.

  “Are you too afraid of Gray to tell me the truth?” Petty said.

  “You know better than that, sir.”

  “You’re too afraid of me, aren’t you?”

  Huber dropped his gaze. It was too hard looking at Petty for long. It drained him. He did fear the man. He feared the man’s kind or prototype.

  “Gray won’t always be on top,” Petty said softly.

  A chill worked up Huber’s crooked spine. “Uh, sir, I’d rather not engage in that sort of talk. We have too much work to do.”

  “Bah!” Petty said, glaring now at his big hands. “This is too much. Gray is pushing too hard and changing everything on Earth.”

  “It’s the only way to get the Orion ships built on time.”

  “Not if we’d stuck to my grand strategy.”

  There it was, Huber realized. James Petty still thought they should keep the military space vessels near Earth. If the aliens crossed from Saturn to here, that would give humanity just that much longer to produce more, especially more long-range, nuclear-armed missiles.”

  “We’re going to throw a years’ worth of painfully constructed military hardware at a secondary target,” Petty said. “That’s madness. Gray might be throwing away the edge we need when the aliens finally come to us.”

  Huber rubbed the bridge of his nose. He hated how small his hands were, how stubby the fingers. Only child-sized rings fit his fingers. He wanted to wear rings, but didn’t dare wear the plastic ones children received.

  “You know I’m right,” Petty said. “Yet you use that famed intellect of yours to scratch Gray’s itch. You know this Orion assault is doomed from the start, don’t you?”

  “Sir, if I may be candid with you?”

  Petty’s features changed from seemingly suppressed rage to intensity for knowledge. Despite his bulk, strength, and steroid use, the man sought to know, to figure out. It was one of his chief powers. In the end, the CEO was a hardheaded, rational man, able to switch methods and goals if he thought it would help him win.

  “The alien fusion engines give the game away,” Huber said. “Those engines prove the aliens are light years ahead of us in those technologies. Likely, they have better beam weapons than our lasers. It is also probable they have experience in space battles. We have theories. But often, practical experience counts for more.”

  “I’m surprised an egghead like you should say that,” Petty replied.

  “In my own way, sir, I’m as much a realist as you are.”

  There was the faintest widening of Petty’s harsh eyes. “Go on,” he said.

  “If I’m correct about the superiority of alien technology, we stand no chance in the end,” Huber said. “Thus, the pirate method Gray talked about might be our only chance.”

  “First,” Petty said, “it wasn’t Gray’s idea but yours. Why not accept responsibility for that?”

  Huber shrugged uneasily.

  “Besides, you already explained the reason. You want to reverse engineer any of the alien technology we can bring home. Then you think we can out produce them.”

  “Greater industrial production is how most wars are won,” Huber said.

  “Ah, so now you’re a military expert as well,” Petty said.

  “I’m a realist like you, sir. Thus, we must strike at the generational vessel fast, before they’re ready and hope to take something critical from it.”

  “The theory has merit, I suppose,” Petty said. “The problem with all this is their technological superiority. They’ll see our Orion ships coming from kilometers away. If nothing else, they’ll move the generational vessel before we ever get close to it.”

  “I suppose you mean from billions of kilometers away,” Huber said. “I’m working on that angle, and I have a theory that could help us disguise our destination, at least for a while.”