It wasn’t likely, but the aliens were damned close, and no one really knew what their equipment could and couldn’t do.

  Kilgor bit his lip as the Hothri battleships approached. There weren’t that many of them, but each was big and extremely powerful. Behind them were thousands of transports each one packed with Hothri warriors. The Brig Rats might not stop them, but if things worked as planned, they’d thin ’em out and slow ’em down.

  Wires was back. “Phase two’s ready, sir. Standing by.”

  Kilgor crossed his fingers. “Thank you, Captain. Implement phase two.”

  It was the order that Dolby and Stein had been waiting for. Dolby flicked a switch and a series of explosions marched across the upper surface of Defender Seven’s hull, culminating in a flash of brilliant light.

  In the meantime Stein’s blunt fingers danced over a keyboard and caused the platform to vent a tremendous amount of heat. Enough heat to simulate a sizeable explosion.

  Elsewhere across the ship weapons fell silent, radars went dead, radios clicked off, sensors powered down, and locks cycled open to space.

  It was a trick, a rather old trick at that, but one which the Hothri might fan for. The hull explosions had been real enough, all arranged by Red, but were directed outwards to cause as little damage as possible.

  Kilgor hoped that the explosions, along with the heat loss, and the cessation of electronic activity would fool the bugs into believing that Defender Seven was dead. If the trick worked, the Hothri would get a nasty surprise. If it didn’t, the Brig Rats wouldn’t be around to worry about it, and bugs would roll on by.

  Kilgor had nothing to go on except for a few low powered detectors. What he saw made him squirm and grit his teeth. The Hothri battle wagons were well within range now. Were they falling for it? Or simply waiting ’til they couldn’t miss?

  Light flared as the lead ship punched a hole through the platform’s hull. The energy beam came so close to Freese’s grunts that it momentarily warmed the deck under their feet.

  Kilgor held his breath waiting for the waves of missiles, the jagged spears of alien light, but nothing happened. Then he understood. The bugs had prodded Defender Seven the same way a human might poke the body of a rabid dog.

  Was it dead or just pretending? Well, there was no reaction, so most if not all the humans were dead. Now to make absolutely sure. Kilgor imagined a Hothri admiral detailing a transport to check things out.

  And sure enough, as the battlewagons began to exchange blows with the heavily fortified missile batteries on Arista’s surface, two transports peeled off from the Hothri fleet and approached Defender Seven.

  Kilgor swallowed hard. Two! Holy Sol, one would’ve been challenge enough, two was damned near impossible. How many bugs did those things hold anyway? At least a thousand. That meant something like two-thousand bugs altogether, or odds of two to one, which was more them anything Kilgor had anticipated. Of course the swabbies would fight, too. That would even things a little.

  Kilgor decided to take a chance, He chinned a button and spoke into his throat mic. “All right, Rats. You know the plan. Avoid contact until I give the word. Then grease ’em. Good hunting and good luck.”

  Then came a long wait. The bugs were cautious. Hours passed. They sent out scouts, big things which moved with slow deliberation and wore body armor which echoed the insectoid lines of their bodies.

  Kilgor could see the tanks on their backs and knew the aliens were breathing oxygen mixed with a trace of methane. If the Hothri managed to conquer Arista, everyone assumed that they’d introduce methane into the planet’s atmosphere, both to make themselves comfortable and kill off the human engineered ecosystem. Relentless, implacable, ruthless. All were words that described the bugs.

  The Hothri scouts signalled the “all clear” and more bugs came on board. Hundreds of them. Kilgor watched via the tiny low powered surveillance cameras which Wires had installed in all the main corridors. The bugs filled the main entry locks and pushed out from there.

  Timing was everything now. If Kilgor moved too soon a substantial number of Hothri would be left outside, and if he acted too late, they’d run right into his troops.

  Finally, when Kilgor estimated that the Hothri were no more than fifty yards from Red’s troops, he opened the command channel and yelled “now!”

  A lot of things happened at once. Every lock aboard Defender Seven irised closed and welded itself shut.

  Stein turned on the lights, and more importantly the heat, making it harder for the Hothri to use their infrared vision.

  Wires flipped a switch and filled the corridors with random radar and sonar signals designed to jam, or at least hinder, the bugs built-in motion detectors.

  And, with those things accomplished, Dolby fed power to the remaining energy cannon, and blew both of the Hothri transports into their component atoms.

  The bugs could still attack them of course, but it would cost two-thousand of their own troops, and Kilgor hoped even the bugs would bulk at that. Apparently they did balk because no attack was immediately forthcoming. He chinned the command channel as he released his harness.

  “Red, Freese, Bugs, it’s party time, and our guests have arrived. Let’s show ’em a good time.”

  Marines opened fire all over the ship. The bugs died in droves at first. Surprised, confused by sensory jamming, and locked inside a durasteel combat zone, the Hothri took incredible casualties.

  But the bugs were tough, and it wasn’t long before they managed to regroup and launch a spirited counterattack.

  What ensued was some of the worst fighting in the Hothri-human war. The battle for Defender Seven lasted for two full rotations, a bloody cat and mouse game played inside a metal cage, in which no quarter was given or asked.

  The bugs were determined fighters and outnumbered the Brig Rats nearly two to one. They knew they were locked inside Defender Seven and gloried in it. They would win, and a thousand annums from now the poets would still praise their valor.

  But humans had some advantages too. For one thing they were, as Wires put it, “rats in a trap,” with nowhere else to go. But they were something else as well, they were proud, and determined to hold what no one thought they could.

  But there was something else too, an advantage no one thought of until later, something which eventually turned the tide. The Brig Rats weren’t normal. Most were psychopaths, homicidal maniacs, sociopaths, thieves, perverts, and worse.

  The Brig Rats killed without compunction, without hesitation, and without mercy. Like Bugs, many of the humans enjoyed the violence and revelled in the opportunity to express their twisted psyches.

  This give the Brig Rats something close to berserker status, and generated powerful emotions as well, emotions which rolled over the Hothri like waves of darkness.

  Locked in a durasteel trap and besieged by human emotions the like of which they’d never encountered before, the Hothri gave in to despair.

  Eventually the Hothri broke. By ones, twos and threes they ran, blasting their way through welded locks, spilling out through holes in the platform’s hull, shooting each other in their haste to get away.

  Finally, after the last Hothri had been killed, Kilgor stumbled down a hall. Stein was dead, as were Red, and Freese, but thanks to the second engineer, the corridor had been pressurized.

  Elsewhere, Dolby was still taking potshots at Hothri ships, Bugs had started a new finger collection, and Wires was in contact with Arista HQ.

  Together with the other defense platforms and the moon bases, Defender Seven had delayed the Hothri for more than five days. It would be two more before the aliens landed in force. As Kilgor continued down the passageway he hoped it was enough.

  Bodies lay everywhere, human and Hothri alike. The bulkheads were scorched, pocked, and smeared with blood. The butcher’s bill was high, at least four hundred Brig Rats killed or wounded, but it could’ve been worse. Much worse.

  Up ahead Kilgor saw a pile of bodies where the Hothri had attempted to take the sick bay and been repulsed by medics and walking wounded.

  Was Susan somewhere in that pile? Her eyes empty of all life? Another name for his list of casualties?

  Kilgor groaned as he tripped and fell against the bulkhead. There were two fingers missing from his right hand. His suit had pumped him full of drugs and blood volume expanders, but the effects were wearing off.

  Then Kilgor was there, stepping over the bodies, praying he wouldn’t see Susan’s among them. Wait a minute, no, the face belonged to someone else.

  Suddenly Susan was there, holding him up, pulling the visor up and away. She saw the stumps and called for help.

  Hands grabbed Kilgor and lifted. Machinery hummed, needles slid through skin, and voices droned medical terminology.

  Kilgor felt strangely light, as if he might float up and away but knew he couldn’t. That would be deserting his post, running, fleeing in the face of the enemy.

  Outside the battle for Arista still raged, but Kilgor looked up into calm gray eyes and smiled. His world was won.

  Willie Lawson Goes to War

  THE CONFERENCE room, like everything else on the Altar Corporation’s near-earth orbit space station, was heavily used, and in need of refurbishment.

  The friction caused by countless arms, printouts, and coffee cups had worn away large sections of the table’s phony wood grain and revealed the white plastic underneath, The two men eyed each other over this empty surface like boxers in a ring, The oldest spoke first.

  “I don’t like it.”

  Rawlings ran fingers through thinning hair and did his best to look sympathetic.

  “Frankly, Willie, neither do I, but we have no choice. When the front office says ‘Jump,’ my boss asks ‘How high?’”

  Willie Lawson scowled. His hair was cut so short that it looked like a cap of solid white fuzz. It made a dramatic contrast to his dark brown skin. His face was lean, with squint lines around the eyes, and a good solid chin. “Your boss is full of shit.”

  Rawlings sighed. Why him? Why did he have to deal with the crotchety old bastard? Because his boss was afraid too, that’s why.

  “Look Willie, I know how you feel about the Alice B., but try to look at it from the company’s point of view. The Alice is sixty years old—”

  “Sixty-one years old,” Willie put in, “the same age as I am.”

  “Right,” Rawlings said patiently, “the Alice B. is sixty-one years old, and therefore the most expendable ship in our fleet. The U.N. is short of ships, they’re going to take one of ours, and it would be stupid to give them a newer hull.”

  “It isn’t right,” Willie said stubbornly. “The Alice wasn’t designed for war. She’s a freighter, for God’s sake. She won’t stand a chance against the Feds.”

  Rawlings took off his old-fashioned wire-rimmed glasses and held them up to the light. He saw a smear and rubbed at it with his tie. It was a trick he used to buy time. Willie was right of course, the Alice wouldn’t last very long, but he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t say that the ship, like Willie himself, had lost its usefulness. Rawlings replaced his glasses and cleared his throat. “I think you’re overstating the negatives, Willie. I admit the Alice wasn’t designed as a war ship but she’s a tough old bird, and a Q ship isn’t a destroyer. All the Alice has to do is look vulnerable, lure ’em in close, and whammo! Fried Feds.”

  “So the decision is final?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Then I’m going with her.”

  Rawlings shook his head. “Willie, that’s impossible. The navy’s going to gut her, install weapons systems, and provide their own crew.”

  Willie stood. He was tall and whipcord thin. His dark blue shipsuit was old but clean. “Bullshit. The company’s got pull, so use it. Remind ’em that I’ve got a commission in the naval reserve, twenty-one percent of their common stock, and a bad attitude. Which would they rather have? A happy camper? Or a nasty fight at the next shareowners’ meeting?”

  Rawlings didn’t have to ask. He knew the answer. Willie Lawson was going to war.

  Lieutenant Peter Perko kept his face absolutely blank as he strode down the corridors of the U.N. battle station Winston Churchill. His uniform fit as if it had been tailored just for him, which it had. He anticipated each salute before it came, returned it with the same perfection that characterized everything else he did, and marched down the hall as if on parade.

  The fax, complete with the admiralty seal and the words ORDERS-CLASSIFIED, EYES ONLY, rested safely inside a zipped inner pocket. He could feel it there, heavy with potential, waiting to be opened.

  What would it be? A position of considerable responsibility certainly, something appropriate for an officer ranked number two in his class at the Academy, and number one in the Advanced Tactics School he had just completed.

  Yes, the number-three position on a cruiser wasn’t too much to hope for, or even number two on a tin can, or—his heart skipped a beat at the very thought—his own command. Something small but dashing, like one of the new S-class Assault Boats, or a Tac Ship.

  But whatever fate awaited him, Perko would enjoy or suffer it alone. By now his peers had already ripped their orders open and headed for the O Club to celebrate their good fortune or share their despair.

  Perko hated such occasions and avoided them whenever possible. Much better to celebrate one’s victories alone, hugging them close to be enjoyed over and over, than to throw them out like pearls before swine.

  And defeats . . . well, those were certainly to be endured in isolation, suffered through until the pain was little more than a dull throb. Then with back straight, and face blank, you ventured out to try again.

  Perko arrived in front of his compartment, punched in his access code, and waited for the hatch to hiss open, The room was tiny, barely large enough for a bunk, storage underneath, and a small desk with built-in computer.

  Perko stepped inside, heard the hatch close behind him, and sat on the folding chair. He undid two brass buttons, reached inside his jacket, and withdrew his orders. For a moment he let them rest in the palm of his hand, savoring the suspense, looking forward to what he would find.

  Then he ripped them open, scanned for the appropriate line, and read his fate: “To travel with all possible speed to Asteroid P-5678, there to join an undesignated ship-type freighter, accepting the duties of executive officer, and discharging the same in accordance with the rules, regulations, and traditions known to you.”

  For a moment Lieutenant Peter Perko stared at the orders in complete and utter shock. A freighter! A goddamned freighter! Surely there was some sort of mistake, a glitch in the BuPers computer, a screw-up by some incompetent clerk.

  He spent the next hour making com calls, one of which was relayed all the way to Earth and would cost him a full month’s pay. All to no avail. Everyone agreed. There was no mistake, no glitch, no screw-up. Peter Perko was about to become the XO on some clapped-out freighter.

  Shame rolled over Perko in a warm wave. Tears ran down his cheeks. How would he explain this to his father?

  Lieutenant Junior Grade Julie Christoferson held on as her Skipper, Lieutenant Tom Bowers, put the ship into a tight right-hand turn. Suddenly there were holes over her head where none had been before. Bowers jerked inside his harness and a gout of red mush rode the ship’s atmosphere out into the coldness of space.

  Momentarily safe inside her space armor, Christoferson swore as red lights came to life all across her control board. Her one remaining computer assessed the damage and delivered the news. It wasn’t good.

  Christoferson rolled the Tac Ship left, hoping to throw the Feds oft Europa appeared and disappeared under her. A dirty white slush ball, covered with a crust of frozen water, and cross-hatched with ridges of ice.

  At least the tankers were clear, their hulls full of precious water, already headed in towards the U.N. space stations that orbited earth.

  Now Christoferson’s job, and the job of the other Tac Ships, was to buy the freighters some time. Even if it meant dying to do it.

  The hull shook as the ship took a hit from a mini-missile. More red lights came on. Christoferson chinned the intercom. “Perez? Tembo? Do you read me?”

  Silence.

  Christoferson gritted her teeth. Dead. Both dead. Time to punch out. Sometimes the S & R people got you home in time for dinner . . . and sometimes they never showed up. It was up to the luck of the draw and your own personal karma.

  In order to reduce the chances of an accidental separation there were two separate operations for her to perform. Christoferson lifted a protective cover, armed the system, and pushed a button.

  Bolts exploded, vapor out-gassed, and the command module tumbled away from the rest of the ship, its radios bleating for help.

  Suddenly there was silence. Complete and utter silence, as another piece of debris fell into orbit around Europa. The delta-shaped command module tumbled end-over-end and had already started the long but inexorable fall towards the moons surface.

  It was then that Christoferson glanced toward Bowers and saw that his helmet, head included, was floating a foot over his body.

  She screamed and screamed and screamed, before the insistent bonging of the intercom brought her up and sweating from tangled sheets. A glimmer of sunlight outlined the fully drawn shade.

  The voice belonged to Porter, one of the Trauma Center’s orderlies, and more than a little smitten with Christoferson’s good looks.

  “Sorry to bother you, Lieutenant . . . but you said to call if your orders came in. Well, guess what, I peeked, and you’re second on some freighter! Neat deal, huh? Should be a piece of cake after what you’ve been through.”

  Christoferson thanked Porter and killed the intercom. Reaching over to her nightstand she grabbed a pack of illegal stim sticks and lit one. They were sending her back into combat again. She tried to feel something, anything, but couldn’t.

  Ironically it was a crisp, cold day, full of sun, and brisk with the promise of winter. The kind of day best used for raking leaves or tossing a football.