

#

#

# Unknown Worlds

by

## JB Steele

Copyright © 2016

JB Steele

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 All Rights Reserved

This book or any portion thereof including the cover, are the sole

property of JB Steele and may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of  JB Steele

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

* * *

Published by Smashwords, Inc.

 in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-3108529-7-8

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Steele Writing Enterprises

6579 Bill Lundy Road

Laurel Hill, FL 32567

* * *

###### Any similarities between any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Questions about differences between real and fake, I leave to the fans.

Dedicated to every bookworm that ever flew high on the wings of imagination.

Let's fly.

### Foreword

Hello! Welcome to my stories. I'm very glad to have the chance to entertain you for a little while. In this book, you'll find certain little flights of fancy, in different eras. I wouldn't want to give away too much in my foreword, but I would like to mention this. If you like the good guys Getting Things Done, well, there's a distinct possibility that you'll see that happen. Read on, and let's see what's out there!

-JB Steele

### The Falls of Beta Tucanae

Light spilled into the viewer of the desperately fleeing starship. A lucky hit on the _Nadiradze_ had caused the hyper engines' coolant holding tank to rupture and vent to space. The engineers were working on something to fix it, but with the battle currently going on it wasn't easy.

 Captain Nelson Quinn took a quick breath. His ship was fighting for her life after being ambushed by a particularly ruthless fanatic element of the theoterrorist nation-state "Collective Planets of Anarchy." The name was clunky, in many people's opinions, but their technology wasn't. The Republic of Stars that Captain Quinn served had been fighting the Collective for a little over fifteen years, and still held a very thin technological edge, but the enemy was getting closer and closer. As for the ship, her flex drive was still working, and that was red-lined in an effort to dodge the other ship's attacks.

The captain scanned his readouts, then snapped his orders.

"Comms – rebroadcast our need-help call on Fleet frequencies and get us some backup. Guns, set up torpedo spreads for here, here, and here," he indicated where he wanted on his touch panel, "and XO, find out what's taking the engineers so long! Go to Engineering if you have to, but find out!"

A ripple of ayes responded and the lift doors rattled shut as his executive officer left the bridge to motivate the engineers.

"Incoming spread, one-nine-three mark three-zero! Multiple spread! Look like plasma burners!"

"Countermeasures! Helm, roll to port ninety degrees! Guns, fire your panel!"

More affirmatives. The tactical officer's voice cracked betraying the fear of this unholy mess they were all in. She had kept working on what her captain wanted, and pounded the fire control key after the last few keystrokes detailing her strikes. Her voice stabbed out.

"On the way!" The ship shuddered as the torpedoes left.

Not for the first time, Captain Quinn wished for the new invention that some of the newest capital ships mounted. Energy shields had recently been created that shrugged off the impacts of asteroids and explosions from torpedoes like so much confetti. The power requirements was so great, however, that relatively small ships like his had no way to handle it. He didn't have it, he reminded himself for the thousandth time, and sternly told himself to be content with the new phased-bonded composite armor upgrades. That at least helped, but the ship still shook fillings out of the crew's teeth. Now he wished for better inertial damping systems.

The _Nadiradze_ shook as the second and third torpedo countermeasure spreads were shot out one after the other in spasms. For all the worlds, it seemed like the ship sneezed. No one remarked on it, since they all happened to be a little too busy at Action Stations.

"Evasive action, helm! Three-one-six mark eighty-one!"

"Three-one-six by eight-one, aye!" The helmsman's voice snapped, and the ship canted toward a sextuplet star system.

The bridge doors rattled open again, and the captain absently thought to himself that the doors really needed to be fixed. The first officer climbed through the entryway. He was smudged and oily, with a few rips in his uniform. An eyebrow was burned off and that side of his face was red. His voice was still strong as he reported.

"Skipper, engineering reports that a makeshift tank is in place. We've suffered casualties in some of the ratings and Ensign Benson was killed. Chief O'Reilly reports that the hyper engines can run enough for power generation, but not hyper-skipping."

The tactical officer broke in.

"Sir! Direct hit from one salvo, close hit from another, and clean miss on the third! Enemy's hurt!" Captain Quinn clenched his fist.

"Set up another spread, fire it, and send them to hell!"

The captain's voice was hard and emphatic. His eyes flashed green fire. The tactical plot updated with a static symbol showing the enemy ship and the star system that his ship was boring deep into. The captain's eyebrows drew together and his eyes gazed in complete concentration. His gaze fell upon the huge molyalum panel displaying the tactical plot.

Before the tactical officer could acknowledge his orders, the communications officer broke in.

"Sir! Distress call from the enemy!"

"Belay those firing orders, Lieutenant Mayer, but hold 'em ready!"

Lieutenant Meyer's "Aye, sir!" was ignored as the captain crossed to his comm officer. The young man looked up at his captain. The executive officer was close behind, and turned around so he could listen in and also keep a wary eye on the tactical plot.

"Sir, there's still some damage to my equipment, but I am positive there is a distress call emanating from that Collective ship." The captain grunted.

"Hail them, Mr. Wicker. Get their information and needs. We'll see. XO," he turned to address his first officer. Lieutenant Wicker hit the switch to call out to the other ship and hailed them.

"Yes, sir." Captain Quinn shuddered as the exec turned to face him, with one eye literally on the tactical plot and the other eye on him.

"Jesus, Marty, that still freaks me out," Captain Quinn complained.

"Sorry, skipper." The other eye joined its twin in a fluid motion and the first officer blinked. Captain Quinn shook his head while gesturing toward the plot.

"While Lieutenant Wicker's busy with them, get on the horn with our Marines and get them ready for boarding actions on that ship."

The other man grinned at his captain.

"I anticipated you, sir. Before I left Engineering, I got a call out to them and got them moving. They're ready, the moment you give the word."

The captain smiled wolfishly. Marty was a damned good man and a damned good exec. He was going to be a hell of a captain one day soon, and his CO didn't care to think about having to look for another good first officer.

The young communications officer motioned to the pair. Captain Quinn leaned down, while the XO turned his one eye back to the plot.

"What do you have, Mr. Wicker?"

"Sir, they report sporadic life support failure and loss of some of their command personnel and enlisted." Captain and first officer shared a look. The captain spoke.

"Good. Less for us to worry about. Go on."

"They report that their drive bottle is losing containment and could go at any moment."

Captain Quinn grimaced.

"Lieutenant, are your intraship comms repaired yet?"

The communications officer's panel blinked, and he replied with a grimace.

"Some of it, sir. I've got Sickbay, all the torpedo bays, the shuttle bay, the Marines, and the mess hall. That's it." The XO shook his head.

"And on this class of ship, Engineering was supposed to have uninterruptible links to the Bridge." The Captain sighed, and shared a commiserating look with his communications officer. Lieutenant Wicker, for his part, shrugged helplessly. He couldn't do anything about it except report it and work around the problem the best he could.

"Well, Commander, we'll have to do it the old fashioned way. You're the runner, since I don't have anyone else. Get down there and tell Chief O'Reilly to prepare for emergency docking and away boarding. Take the team she assigns and get the Marines loaded along with medical personnel. While you talk to Chief O'Reilly, Lieutenant Wicker will call Sickbay and the Marines and get them turned out and ready. Lieutenant, send the med people to the Marine bay. Got all that?"

They nodded.

"Then get on it."

Captain Quinn turned back to eye the tactical plot and the door rattled shut behind his fast-moving first officer. In the private recesses of his mind, he wondered what would be found on that alien ship. He hoped that if it was a trap, that his old ship would survive it.

###### < = >

Marine Second Lieutenant Colby Powell listened to his CO relay Captain Quinn's orders. Commander Fulton was a pretty good guy, but that eye thing he did gave him and a bunch of others the willies. The Marine commander, Major Ferguson, had listened to the executive officer's verbal orders, then turned to his go-platoon and delegated. That happened to be Powell's Second Platoon, and now he and his Gunnery Sergeant was doing a quick inspection of the platoon's members and their combat load-out.

Several of the group had non-regulation blades on hand, but he carefully chose to ignore that fact. A few times, the gunny met his eye with a careful non-expression, but the young lieutenant wasn't fooled. Gunny Pierce couldn't hide the gleam of slight avariciousness, but didn't comment either. Lieutenant Powell would have bet that his gunny would be asking questions later, if only to get his own blades. He made a mental note to make sure he told the gunny to get one or two for him too.

Each squad got through the hurried inspection, and the military axiom 'no combat ready unit ever passed inspection' was going through the platoon leader's mind. While they finished up, Commander Fulton suited up to go with the platoon. He was the only man that Lieutenant Powell or any of his Marines knew that routinely wore two blasters for use in boarding actions. Legend was that he shot ambidextrously, with each eye aiming independently. No one was quite sure of this, since no one was brave enough to bet him on a shooting match. All the Marines wanted to keep their pay – or at least, lose it among themselves.

Powell was re-wrapping a utility strap that wasn't molding correctly, when he felt Gunny Pierce brace to attention. He did too, and met the eyes of Commander Fulton. The man's glance was measuring.

"Stand easy, Lieutenant, Gunny. Are we ready?"

"Yes, sir, loaded hot and locked tight. We can move on your command."

"Good! But," and he motioned the gunny closer as he closed the distance, "something about this whole thing doesn't feel right here. Pass the word to keep sharp." The sergeant nodded.

"Beg pardon, sir, but do you have anything specific?"

"Just something that didn't add up earlier. On the bridge, Lieutenant Wicker reported that the Collective ship out there had sporadic life support failure. Regardless of what their political leadership is or isn't like, their engineers are top-notch. They don't just get 'sporadic life support failures.' Unless, that is, whoever supervised the construction of that ship out there was doped up on something. That's unlikely," at this the Marines nodded in agreement, "so watch your asses." More nods, more seriously.

An intra-ship hail whistled from the communications unit on the wall. One of the enlisted Marines answered it, then nodded to the unseen speaker and looked around for someone. He met the first officer's eyes and gestured respectfully toward the comm unit. Commander Fulton acknowledged the corporal with a raised forefinger and turned back to the other two.

"If it were me, I'd draw a little more ammo for load-out. Never happens to be enough rounds, you know. Not that I personally waste any, but still. Never hurts to be careful about things like this." He jerked his head in a short nod and moved off to answer his call. The gunny stared after him, then shook his head.

"Well, that settles it for me. I'm definitely not going to match him." The lieutenant started in surprise.

"You're the Corps' second runner up in marksmanship. If you won't, I damned sure won't! But he's got a damned good point. Move quick and see about more rounds."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Gunny Pierce braced to attention and set off. Soon the sounds of extra energy clips being given out was heard, are the gunny returned with extras for himself and the lieutenant. The first officer returned, and made a winding motion with his hand.

"Shuttles are ready, Lieutenant. Let's get moving."

"Aye, aye, sir. Gunny! Showtime!"

###### < = >

Gunny Pierce watched the alien ship through the view-ports of the first combat shuttle. The platoon was split in two, with the lieutenant in charge of one half and the gunny in charge of the other. Weapons were very much in evidence and tension was fairly high, but everyone was dealing with it.

The second shuttle had the ship's first officer and Lieutenant Powell in it, along with the other half of Second Platoon. Before the platoon had boarded, the lieutenant had spoken to the Marines and told them what he could. Granted, it wasn't much, but then it didn't take much to know that it wasn't the best situation in the galaxy. The gunny reflected that it never was, to be honest.

As the shuttles approached the hove-to ship, the shuttle's astrogator noticed some anomalies in his sensor readings. The two ships were positioned half a light-year from Beta Tucanae, and his spectrometer was starting to act up. One of the stars in the six-star system was throwing off differing photonic wavelengths, while the others were rock-steady.

Since there was still about twenty minutes to go before they docked with the alien ship, he called his fellow astrogator, posted on the second combat shuttle.

"Bobbie – are you getting anything strange on your instruments?" A pause, then a puzzled soprano tone came back.

"Yes – my gravimeter is pinging back and forth. It's showing problems with one of the stars out there, in that sextuplet system."

"What about the other stars?"

Another pause.

"No, nothing."

A third pause, from the first astrogator.

"It's strange for something to happen to both shuttles. Maintenance on this is tight, or Chief O'Reilly would have some new bulkhead decorations in her quarters."

"That's for sure. I've told our pilot and he suggests telling the ship."

"Yeah, I'm on that. Be careful. Out."

###### < = >

Lieutenant Commander Webb, the ship's chief astrogator, presented the captain with the take from the shuttles.

"Sir, it's iffy. The shuttles are docking soon, but I hope they hurry. I really don't like that waveform variance, especially without knowing the exact age of that one star here." He indicated a certain star that was provisionally labeled as a red giant. "It's throwing off jets of radiation like it's trying to go supernova any minute now."

"Seriously? Literally any minute?"

"Yessir."

The terseness of the answer was an answer in itself. Captain Quinn knew his chief astrogator wasn't given to flights of fancy or exaggeration and anything he said was to be taken with all seriousness. He also knew that if that star blew, they was too close to it – and would be for at least thirty hours even at best speed away. Given the state of the _Nadiradze's_ hyper skip drives and the repairs still being carried out, there was no point in moving away. The wavefront would catch them easily.

"OK. Lieutenant Wicker, flash message to Commander Fulton, scrambled. Give him the same information that Commander Webb just gave me."

"Aye, sir."

"Guns, be as unobtrusive as you can, and get everything warmed up and loaded. Then double check all of it."

"Aye, sir." The tactical officer's voice was more firm and confident. Captain Quinn nodded and turned back to Lieutenant Wicker.

"Any open lines to Engineering yet?"

"No, sir, not shipboard, but Commander Fulton brought back a hand-held for your use. It was a little wonky and I wanted to make sure it worked. It's ready and set for Engineering."

Captain Quinn took it was gratitude and brought it to his lips.

"Cheng?" A moment passed, and a harried voice answered.

"Aye – what now?"

A muffled chuckle ran around the bridge, despite the tension. The Captain's face was still, but something suspiciously similar to a snort escaped, which changed to a reasonably convincing coughing fit.

"Chief, I know you're busy, but there's a potential Level Two stellar event about to happen. Maybe in the next little bit and I want us ready to move if we have to."

A pause. Lieutenant Wicker's sharp ears faintly caught numbers being recited in some strange language.

"Yes, sir, I understand. I need to set up some things here."

"All right. Captain out." Quinn sat down in the command chair to wait. It never got any easier, he reflected.

###### < = >

Both of Commander Fulton's eyes were completely focused on the message board he had just been given. He never expected any good news anytime the Collective had ships of any variety nearby, whether they had been involved or not.

"Oh, hell no!"

Lieutenant Powell was instantly on guard. The first officer gave him the message board and waited for his reaction. It didn't take long.

"Oh, shit!"

"Yeah. 'Oh shit' is right. Get that to the other shuttle and tell them to be ready. If that thing shows any more signs of blowing, we will get back to the ship and hard-dock outside. We'll evacuate the shuttles, then blow them off on the way into hyper. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"We're just a few minutes to docking. Move."

The Marine sped off, and the first officer checked his twin blasters. Everyone aboard was suited up, and the boarding teams also had armor. The view of the alien ship came closer and closer, and just as the other shuttle made contact, the Marine lieutenant came back in. His rifle was in his hands.

"Message acknowledged, sir."

Fulton nodded, then turned back to the hatch. The other Marines arranged themselves in breaching formations, and they all waited for the lock to cycle and the light to turn green. Outside the hull, the festering star raged on, with its calmer brothers standing serenely by.

###### < = >

Gunny Pierce followed his Marines through the hatch into a calm, slightly moist environment. Except for the chill in the stale air, it could have been a jungle. The bulkheads seemed to be there just to encase recessed pots all over the Collective ship, wherever he looked. He didn't think that these plants performed a carbon dioxide scrubbing function, like Terran plants. In fact, he'd never seen a plant that had blue where the green went and oozed purple sap into waiting receptacles with a burner unit underneath.

His earpiece buzzed.

"Gunny, got a tango. Unarmed, seated in a chair next to what looks like a display unit."

"On the way."

This was strange, he thought suspiciously. Collective soldiers thought the only good human was a dead human. He walked faster, moving through the alien ship with the ease of a long term Marine noncom. He rounded the corner to see a Collective soldier just as described. The mentioned display unit had a tortuously lettered note in English to the effect of 'power switch.'

"Gunny? You're not going to do what I think you're going to do, are you?"

The query came from one of the platoon's longer service sergeants.

"Yes, I am, Donnie. That star out there isn't giving us the opportunity to take our time, you know. If it blows up, what are they going to do to me? Shoot me?" There was no answer.

Gunnery Sergeant Bruce Pierce, ROSMC, walked up to the screen, and despite himself pressed the switch. The other Marines tensed, in case it was a bomb switch, but the screen simply lit up and displayed a screen of text.

WE ARE IN DANGER.

Gunny Pierce knew that much already. The screen changed, after a moment.

I SPEAK YOUR LANGUAGE.

A picture of the alien flashed upon the screen, then faded out. Gunny Pierce raised an eyebrow.

"OK, so you speak the language. Prove it."

The alien's face contorted, the oversized mandibles giving a whistling sound as he breathed.

"I am pleased to do that."

"Good enough. Now tell me just why the hell we shouldn't blow you and all your buddies away?"

"We sent a distress call, and despite what our two cultures have done to each other, we have never abused intergalactic distress law."

One of the younger Marines nodded. The gunny saw this and motioned him over.

"Is this true?"

"It is, Gunny. They could be considered galactic lawyers, quibbling over details, but being scrupulous."

"Crap. I hate lawyers."

The alien wheezed and it took a few minutes to establish that sound of laughter. Gunny frowned at this, but the alien raised a clawed hand.

"My name is Athotan. I have heard that many times before, and I think," he coughed politely, "that many cultures do."

Gunny Pierce muttered, "And I don't blame them one bit."

The alien continued.

"My commander proposes a truce, while we explain our position." The Marine snorted.

"Your 'position' will be to be blown out of space if you make the wrong move. I can't accept a truce," Pierce growled.

"No, but your officer in charge can, under the direction of your captain."

Damned lawyer. He was right.

"And why should I ask him in here if I don't know you or someone else won't shoot him?"

"Distress laws forbid it, of course."

Gunny Pierce had no answer for that. He motioned a private over and told him to get Commander Fulton. After a few minutes, he appeared with wary glances around. Lieutenant Powell came with him. The gunny conferred with the two officers, then stepped back. Commander Fulton walked up to the alien. The Marines tensed up with weapons at the ready.

"What is your rank or position?"

The alien's visage appeared taken aback at the directness of the blunt question, but he responded after standing in apparent respect.

"I am the ship's third officer and cleric."

"Where is your captain?"

"My captain is waiting for you on the bridge."

Commander Fulton nodded.

"I'll accept a cease-fire provisionally and under local condition, under the stipulation that any aggressive actions toward us will result in a broken cease-fire and the deaths of you and your shipmates. I will not accept a truce, as that is something for duly appointed diplomats to hammer out. We do not have time. Accept it or leave it."

The alien officer nodded.

"Your name is Athotan?" The alien nodded, and Commander Fulton went on. "I know the star outside appears about to go nova from all sensor readings. That won't be good for any of us. I have no time to waste."

The Collective ship shook and atonal alarms blared. The alien skittered and fell back into his chair. The screen blanked and pulsed a green outline. Two more aliens ran into the room and stopped short, with the muzzles of the Marine's rifles aimed at them. Commander Fulton's earpiece went off with a call from the Nadiradze.

"Fulton, go!"

"Sir, that was a gravity wave from the star!"

"Is it lighting off?"

A moment passed, during which the ship settled and Commander Fulton drummed his fingers on his leg.

"No, sir, but it doesn't look good. Captain says to, um, 'watch your ass or kiss it goodbye.' Direct quote."

"Yeah, no kidding. Tell him a cease-fire is in effect. More to come. Fulton out."

He turned to Athotan, and cast his eye on the two new aliens. One wore a more elaborate uniform.

"And who are those two?" Athotan stood up rigidly.

"This is our captain, and this is our ship's medic."

Fulton grimaced, and nodded to the Marine Lieutenant. Lieutenant Powell rapped out an order.

"Present arms!"

All the Marines presented arms and he rendered a salute himself. The alien captain returned the salute with an odd motion of his arm. When he dropped his salute, Lieutenant Powell quietly intoned, "Ready, two," as Fulton dropped his salute. The Marines settled in to a watchful pose.

"Sir, I am Commander Martin Fulton, Republic of Stars Navy."

The captain whistled a complex series of tones, and Athotan slowly stood and said, "Commander, I need to translate. My captain doesn't speak or understand English." At Fulton's nod, he continued. "He thanks you for your military courtesy."

The alien captain whistled again, and Athotan said, "We cannot move. The radiation burst burned out a good deal of our systems, and I suspect that your position behind us relative to the star may have shielded you and allowed your ship more protection."

Commander Fulton considered that. Under current cease-fire protocols, his group was legally protected, and the things that the captain said made sense. He traded glances with Lieutenant Powell and Gunny Pierce. The two Marines didn't look pleased, but they both nodded.

"Okay, Captain, let's get this set up."

###### < = >

The bridge of the _Nadiradze_ was quiet. Various instruments worked while emitting muted beeps or whirs. The Captain sat in the command chair, silently drumming his fingers on the padded armrest. He heard a junior science officer being coached through a different type of passive sensor sweep, and got up to observe. He placed a hand on the senior science officer's shoulder with a finger on his lips to indicate silence. The man nodded as silently, to not distract his subordinate. The junior officer watched his screen for a moment, then tapped an area in the corner. He looked up, startled to see his captain, but addressed the senior science officer.

"Sir, what is that? Doesn't that look like a derelict?" He noticed a fast-blinking indicator, and flipped a switch. An inset window popped open, and the data taken from the activated sensor scrolled onto the screen. He stared at the stark information, then turned quickly to his superior officers with shock in his voice and frozen on his face.

"Sir, it says there's a low-power flight data transponder belonging to the Stonewall. But she was lost with all hands six months ago!"

Captain Quinn looked down at the note of despair in the younger officer's voice, as the older science officer asked him, "With all the ships lost in this area, how do you remember this particular ship?"

The junior officer sat up straight with fire in his eyes.

"My baby brother was serving on that ship. His last letter to me was sent the day before it went missing."

Captain Quinn bunched his fist.

"This is too much coincidence. Ensign, sit back and relax a moment. Jake," this time to the senior science officer, "active sensor sweep. Mask it as a check on that misbehaving star out there, but bury a data-dump command to activate stealth mode on that data recorder. Good thing they're rated for two decades before they fade out."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Ensign, you're getting the credit since you found it, but watch how Jake does this. You might need to show your junior officer this trick one day."

"Yes, sir. And thank you."

"Son – you earned it. Keep doing your job as good as you've been doing this. What a shame it had to be that ship."

Captain Nelson Quinn sat in his chair with a sense of foreboding in his heart. It wasn't something that he liked to think about, but it seemed that it was about time for the other shoe to drop. If so, he wanted it to happen and get it over with.

The sound of a strident beep and a science station chair spinning around with a thump interrupted his thoughts about footwear and decreasing heights.

"Sir! There are more recorders reporting! Three others, aside from the Stonewall! All with battle damage!"

The captain surged to his feet.

"Alert One! Dedicate a link and suck those recorders dry! Plot their locations for pickup! Comms, recall boarding party!" He picked up the hand-held and re-tuned it for the Marine Bay, without waiting for Lieutenant Wicker.

"Captain to Marine Bay! Priority Alert! Boarding party two, last shuttle, support action! Get to the alien ship and cover the boarding party's withdrawal!"

The hand-held squawked in his hand.

"Aye, aye, sir! Undocking in four minutes!"

"Thank God for those endless drills," Captain Quinn muttered.

Lieutenant Wicker slammed his fist down on his console.

"Captain, very strong jamming on all frequencies! I can't get the boarding party!"

"Jamming from where, Lieutenant?"

"From the Collective ship! They just powered up!"

"Full power to Comms! Draw power from the hyper drive and send a directional blast right at that ship! Burn through that jamming and trigger the emergency beacons on everyone's earbugs!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" The lieutenant was punching buttons and flipping switches like mad.

"Tactical, target that ship's engines and prepare torpedo spreads!"

"Aye, aye, sir!"

"Captain, Marines are undocked and on the way!"

"Well, that was quick," the captain muttered.

The lights dimmed as Lieutenant Wicker's signal slashed out with a rumbling hum. He followed that up with a second and third blast.

Silence reigned on the bridge for a tense moment, then Lieutenant Wicker's panel lit up with green lights.

###### < = >

The emergency recall blasted through the boarding party just before a mob of armed aliens rushed into the room from concealed doorways. Commander Fulton drew both blasters and dropped into a shooter's crouch, with Gunny Pierce at his back. His eyes narrowed, then separated focus, and the dual blasters moved independently. They tracked on aliens moving in from different doors and heads blew apart.

Gunny Pierce, like all Marines, was a rifleman first. Moreover, he was a High Expert Marksman, with three clusters. Each shot punched jagged holes in thoracic cavities, and each target was serviced with the cool efficiency of decades in military service.

Lieutenant Powell saw the alien captain raise up a bludgeon, aiming for Commander Fulton. He aimed his rifle and pulled the trigger.

The rifle jammed. Powell cursed and swung the butt around, catching the alien in the temple. He dropped with a thump. As the alien captain fell, the lieutenant saw Athotan pull a truly wicked shard from concealment in his collar and step toward the deadly first officer.

A splotch of brown blood erupted into the charged air. Athotan fell, crumpled into a twitching mass, as Lieutenant Powell looked into the eyes of the Marine watching all of them. He tossed a jaunty salute, and quickly cleared the jam on his rifle.

Commander Fulton's earbug beeped. He flicked the tiny talk switch and bellowed, "Fulton!"

The captain's voice responded, through a hail of static. He sounded focused, and the executive officer recognized the tone. The imperative tone of his voice made Fulton wince.

"Sitrep, Marty."

"Skipper, we're in a firefight and slinging shit! Need backup!"

An unseen grin blossomed on Captain Quinn's face.

"Glad to. In fact, I anticipated you. Fall back to your shuttles and return to the ship. By now, there should be more Marines covering your exit."

"Understood!" A few shots rang out, clearly broadcast over the link. "XO, out! Lieutenant! Get us out of here!"

Lieutenant Powell looked around. The passageway was clear, and the alien captain was groaning. He jerked the alien onto his feet and Gunny Powell snapped restraints on him. Powell leaned toward him and spoke.

"Move wrong and you die." The alien shook his head in assent dazedly and the two Marines glanced at each other. The alien did know English, after all. Commander's Fulton's voice rang out.

"More Marines on the way! They're covering our retreat!"

Lieutenant Powell got his attention.

"Sir, we got a POW here!" The first officer's eyes hardened, but he nodded.

"Your responsibility. Bring him."

At his gesture, a squad of Marines took point. Another squad assisted with the fallen, and the third squad covered the rear.

More Collective soldiers rushed them halfway to their docked shuttles. At first glance, it seemed that there were at least two squads, in light armor. Gunny Pierce nodded to a few of the privates, and they pulled out non-regulation grenades. Several of those took care of the opposing force. Commander Fulton spun to look at the gunny.

"Grenades? Seriously?"

"Sir, must have missed seeing those on preflight inspection, sir. It was a bit hectic, since we had to get over here pretty quick, so ... "

His voice trailed off, and butter could have maintained its cohesive form in his mouth. Commander Fulton squinted at him.

"Mmmm. I see, Gunny. Carry on."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Lieutenant Powell's earbug winkled at him during the byplay and a terse message informed him that the dock was secure.

"Commander, the way's clear!"

"Good! Speed it up people! I want a double whiskey when this is all over!"

So they did. The third shuttle had docked and the Marines there made sure they got on. The three shuttles undocked in record time and took off at full power toward _Nadiradze_. Commander Fulton punched the intercom switch on the flight deck.

"XO to _Nadiradze_. Extract successful, some casualties and one POW."

"Good, Marty. Flank speed, we got torpedo spreads set. Move your ass."

"Moving my ass, sir. Out."

###### < = >

As the word came to Captain Quinn that all shuttles were docked safely, he paced to the tactical plot. A lurid radiation icon showed the position of the Collective ship.

"Sir! Status change! Enemy maneuvering to bring weapons to bear!"

"Oh, really? Guns, is your plot laid in?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, then, blow them to hell!"

"Aye, aye, sir!"

Two braces of torpedoes left the _Nadiradze_. The Collective ship was moving awkwardly to maneuver, with a good deal of personnel killed by the boarding party, and the remainder only mostly familiar with how to fight the ship along with maneuvering.

The torpedoes struck home, with the first brace disintegrating the engines and the second brace blowing enough holes in the hull to depressurize the entire ship.

Captain Quinn watched the tactical plot update with a slow blinking maroon icon for the enemy's position. The bridge doors rattled open and the first officer stepped through.

"Well, Marty? Nice walk in the park today?"

The executive officer grimaced.

"Could have been better, Skipper. We lost eight Marines in the first group, and four in the second. We didn't leave anyone behind."

The Captain nodded soberly.

"All right, Marty. Get yourself checked out. Send me your report in the morning. Oh, and we found some of our missing-presumed-lost ships out here. As soon as we grab up all the data, we are out of here. That star is getting worse and worse, and the Chief Engineer is very motivated in getting us up to speed."

"I don't doubt it. I'm out on my feet, Skipper." Captain Quinn waved him off.

"Go."

Captain Quinn walked over to Lieutenant Wicker's station as the doors rattled shut.

"What do you have so far, Mr. Wicker?"

Lieutenant Wicker grimaced.

"Sir, it's taking longer than expected. These three recorders had some other ships piggybacked. Sir, so far we've confirmed twelve ships lost out here. It seems that the Collective had set up a hunting blind here for our ships."

Silence, as the captain's jaw twitched. Then a beep warbled in front of a double tweep as Lieutenant Wicker acknowledged with a sigh.

"Done, sir. We can't remotely access the computer core of the one we found first. It's too far gone from the battle damage. Same for the others. We got some of the data from the Stonewall, but the rest, well..."

"Can you trigger a remote self destruct?"

"No sir, too far gone."

Captain Quinn sighed heavily.

"Okay, we need to get out of here. Guns, load a pair of torpedoes for each of our derelicts and let's give them a send-off. Helm, after that's done, set course for home. We've got new information to deliver that might turn the tide of this damnable war."

###### < = >

The _Nadiradze_ remained still as her torpedoes sent her companions in arms into eternity. She paused for a moment's silent respect, then turned for her home port and limped away from her battlefield at best speed. She carried her trophies and wounds proudly. Just over a day later, a bright flash dead astern heralded the collapse of a star of the Beta Tucanae system, as the supernova lit off and consumed the Collective ship that had once preyed there. Captain Quinn watched the flash on his repeaters, and smiled grimly.

There would be retribution.

The End

### Attack on the Castle

After the heavy rains, stillness abounded. The freshness of the air was complemented by the silkiness of renewed leaves. The recent dry spell had not been good for anything or anyone. The farmers breathed a sigh of relief in between their sighs of worry. Animals stared out at the still pools of water in troughs with a bit of disbelief still.

The hooded figure stood silently on the large flat rock and waited with a barely concealed air of impatience. Soon others emerged from the glen with mutters of discontent. About twenty-five in number, most of the group had wet clothing. A few had either found sufficient shelter during the heavy thunderstorms or had weatherproof cloaks, like the man on the rock. Here and there complaints could be heard, followed by corrections from the others. Some of those corrections didn't involve speaking but did involve blows.

He waited for the curses to subside, then smoothly descended from the rock in a deceptively powerful jump. He was of middle height and had strong shoulders, but that was all anyone could see. He wore a long cloak of the darkest green and a hood that concealed every other detail about him. A giant of a man pushed through the crowd toward him. He was the largest of the group, and confronted him at the base of the rock with an angry growl and a bared dagger. Markings on his body, long and unkempt stringy hair, a missing eye, two powerful scarred arms, and a foul disposition told the others that he wasn't a kind soul. He reached out for the hooded man with an enraged growl.

His target wasn't there at the base of the rock, as it quickly turned out. He had ducked away from the bigger man's grasp, and moved away several steps. The man in the green cloak drew a small keen blade that seemed to shimmer on its malevolent edges. The larger man felt a sharp cut across the small of his back, and enraged, turned to crush the other man. The giant's opponent stood ready several feet away, and waited for the larger man reach him. He didn't seem to be very worried. The others in the group of brigands formed a loose circle, and several men opened their mouths to start betting.

That is, only to snap their mouths shut as the aggressor collapsed on suddenly limp legs and numb hips. The fire in his lone eye changed quickly to alarmed panic and he screamed. The others heard him babble fearfully about poisons and a lack of feeling in his legs for a short moment, then the giant was silenced abruptly as a foot of steel pounded through his temples. His own dagger stood upright, pinning his insensate head to the ground. The jeweled pommel shook and glinted as the giant convulsed in his death throes.

As the smaller man stood with his small knife and the dead man's cloak in his hands, the hood fell back. The malicious evil in those bloodshot eyes froze the others, and they surreptitiously kept a collective eye on the hand using the cloak to clean the blade. The owner of that hand straightened and put the knife away, then reached deeper into the cloak for something unknown. The circle was widened as everyone quickly stepped back. The killer saw this. He threw his head back gleefully and chortled.

"Oh, it's not so bad as that, lads! He just forgot his place in this group! A simple mistake that was quickly rectified, and he'll be sure not to make that mistake again. Or any other mistake, for that matter."

His smile promised agony and a rapid demise for anyone who doubted him.

"Since no one knows me, I'm called Shul Ghost-walker."

A fearful shudder ran through the small crowd at this revelation. Shul Ghost-walker was a local legend, reputed to be a ravening madman with no respect for lives or property. No sheriff had caught him, and more than a few had lost their lives in gruesome ways. The King had a bounty on his head.

"That's not my real name, of course, but that's the one I live and work under. I bid you to gather around and listen. I have a job for this group, so long as everyone understands that there will be no problems. If there are any issues ..."

He waited for any questions, and finding none offered, gestured to the stiffening body behind him. No one doubted the consequences that he referred to for any "issues."

"So gather around, my boys, and hear what I have planned to do."

At the insistent gestures of the man in the green cloak, the group closed up. The dead man was given a wide berth, as the others moved around to hear what Ghost-walker had planned. No one said anything now, since they was unsure if he would stab anyone else. They watched as he quickly jumped onto the rock again – his pulpit to preach his message to the group.

"Boys, we're going to do something that will be told in tales and sung by bards all over the kingdom. Something that isn't original, unfortunately, but still worthy of note. There will be rewards for you, depending on how much you do for me, but I'm very fair. Each according to his ability and work, and how much effort you put in. For that matter, how much loyalty you show me."

Another gesture to the dead body. The implied message was very clear. Everyone was very quiet, not wanting to trigger the madman. A rustle in the trees signaled the presence of other bodies. A few in the small gathering looked to see drawn swords, several staves, and a few arbalests. They looked back to see a knowing gleam in Ghost-walker's eyes, and waited for him to reveal the reason they all stood there. They knew that they could not escape, so waiting was all they could do. He did not disappoint any longer. The green cloak rustled when he spread his arms wide and issued his gleeful proclamation.

"We're going to kidnap the princess!"

###### < = >

Aleister Greyblade, Captain of the Guards for Castle Cairfield, squinted critically at the young man standing before him. He had doubts. More to the point, he was starting to regret leaving his door open to anyone who had something that they want to discuss. The youngster had been issued in by the Sergeant of the Guard with a suitably grave expression, but Greyblade had detected the gleam in the older man's eyes. The torches on the walls stood ready for the night, and the officer briefly entertained a thought about using one in a highly improper fashion on the Sergeant. He leaned back in his chair and continued his squint. He'd been listening to this boy for more time than he wanted to, already.

"Tell me again. Why do you want to be a gate guard?"

The youth puffed up at the question. Here was his opportunity to impress the Captain with his knowledge, competence, and all-around general ability. He stood tall and confidently delivered his reason for visiting.

"I want to keep the castle safe from intruders, learn about the workings of the castle's keepers, and become a knight – Sir!"

A fervent nod accompanied this bold statement, and Greyblade hid a sigh of disbelief at the rawness of this recruit. Seeing that the young man's eyes strayed from the garrison walls to the window where feminine laughter was quite noticeable, the captain mentally moaned in despair at what he had to work with. He decided to take this particular scrawny bull by the horns.

"More like, lad, you want to meet the Princess or one of the other maids for common and base means."

Greyblade had to stifle a laugh and school his face to stillness at the rapidity with which the young man's face fell in dismay, but it wasn't easy. Biting his tongue helped, a little. He couldn't remember the last time he himself been this pristine. He kept listening to hear the youth squeak as he moved, but was disappointed.

"But...."

"But nothing! Get that idea out of your head, right now! You enlisted with that in mind and you are finding out truth. Gods above and below! How you got through the basic training, I'll never know. If you're an example of what's being turned out nowadays, I'm going to despair for the safety of this castle! Now, boy, if you don't want to find yourself in more trouble, you need to think with the right head. Otherwise, you won't survive in the King's service. Now, no more. No more! Get back to your squad and don't come back here with that fool's talk again! You do, and I'll shove my foot up your ass so far, I'll be able to wiggle my toes and tickle your tonsils!"

The boy gaped at him. Greyblade slammed his fist down on his desk as hard as he could and bellowed at him.

"Get!! Out!!"

The boy fled, dragging his pride, and it was all Greyblade could do to wait long enough to not be heard bawling with laughter. He shook his head and bit his tongue again. Greyblade listened to the sound of the boy's feet running away from his office as fast as he could, knocking some things over and getting yelled at more by others. His sergeant came in after a few minutes, and saw the captain's purple face. After the explosion of mirth, Greyblade took a deep breath. He affixed a mock-angry glare on the sergeant.

"What are we coming to? Callow youths dreaming of adventures!"

The sergeant shook his head, a dour expression on his face.

"If by adventures, you mean in battle or under sheets, I'm afraid to say the first is much more probable. And judging by the looks of that one, never for the second."

He held out a sealed letter, in a gauntleted hand. It bore a thick wax seal, which looked very official. The governor's crest gleamed from the wax. If anything, the sergeant's expression got more solemn.

"This came a few minutes ago."

Greyblade's light mood evaporated as the serious tone in the other man's voice registered. The captain took the letter, and broke the seal. He read for a few moments, then stood quickly. He glanced at the sergeant.

"How much did you know already?"

"I only suspected, sir, but if that is a note about Ghost-walker, then it can't be good."

"Damned right it isn't. Turn out the guard and double it until further notice. Make all of them painfully aware that if I catch them sleeping on watch, they'll hang. Move quick. I need to show this to the King."

###### < = >

In the King's audience chamber, a line of supplicants was waiting. They ran the gamut from arguing over the ownership of a chicken to arguing over who owed who money, plus any number of other things. The King seemed bored, yet strangely interested still. He cared for his subjects, the Guards Captain knew, but sometime wearied of it. This was especially true when those under him failed to take care of matters that they should, and passed the problems up to him. Greyblade crossed over and whispered discreetly in the King's ear.

His Majesty stood up and addressed the subject kneeling before him.

"You are right. Chamberlain, see to it that this man is recompensed, plus half. Then take over here."

The King strode off without waiting for a reply. Outside the audience chamber, he motioned the Captain into a quiet corner. The King's expression was pained.

"Good thing you showed up. I was about to fall asleep."

Aleister Greyblade grimaced.

"Your Majesty, you might not thank me when you hear the troubling news I bring."

A kingly glance accompanied the raising eyebrow.

"Well, spit it out. What is it?"

Greyblade grimaced even more.

"Sire, we have just discovered that there is a plot to kidnap the princess tonight."

The King went rigid.

"By whom?"

"Shul Ghost-walker is involved, Sire. His reasons are as yet unknown. My informant is in grave danger and could only give me this much."

The King eyed the other man speculatively.

"Informant, eh? You're serious about getting rid of Ghost-walker, aren't you?"

"Sire, you know my reasons. I've lost too many people I love and too much else besides, to that man. I will see it stopped, even to my last breath!"

The King waved his hands placatingly, as the other man's voice rose.

"Softly! Walls echo in here. But, I understand. Well do I remember your beautiful wife Sianne, raped and broken by that man, and little Mairwyn. She died far, far too soon, and I think about her every day. I miss that little girl – but I well know that I can't miss either one anywhere near the same amount you do. Aleister, do what you need to do to set this aright. Have you made arrangements for the security of my daughter?"

"Aye, and for the rest of your family besides."

"Good."

The King stared unseeingly at Greyblade with a troubled mien. After a few minutes, Greyblade ventured forth.

"Sire, what else troubles you?"

A world weary sigh answered him.

"What you haven't been told, because the nobles keep it close, is that Ghost-walker is also Duke Mossy Breakwater, and he had put in a bid for my daughter's hand last month. I refused it."

Greyblade paused for a moment as he digested this new information.

"And tonight he's coming for her anyway, is that correct?"

"I fear you have it."

"Then Sire, I have more to do. By your leave?"

"Go, quickly."

The Captain hustled off, shouting orders when he turned the corner. The King turned to stare out the slitted window, his heart heavy. Outside the window, he could see the castle guards drilling in some formation or other, a few merchants headed for the main gate, and town children playing in the fields around the stone edifice. He could hear the faint sounds of blacksmiths and feminine voices calling to each other for this or that. The whickers and neighs of horses blending in with the occasional bray of a mule drifted up to him. After a few minutes of uneasy contemplation, the ruler called for his secretary. He awaited the arrival of the scarred man with tense impatience.

"Kenelm, I need messages sent immediately to Duke Golthem, Earl Blackwater, and Duke Hollow Glen." The King didn't bother listening for the man's acknowledgment, and waiting for him to be ready. As he waited, he mentally composed the words of the message he wanted to send. The three men he listed was only hours away at a hard ride, and one was a sole hour away.

As the man set up, the King sent word for three of the stable's fastest horses to be made ready, and three of the castle's best riders to attend him directly. Presently, his secretary discreetly cleared his throat to indicate that he was ready. The King took one last look outside, then nodded and turned to face the other man. His secretary was waiting with a quill in his hand.

"Cairfield is soon to be under siege and attack tonight. I need fully equipped fighting men to report forthwith, as this attack has been determined to be upon the Royal Family itself. Send word out to those farther out to send troops as well. Move extremely quickly, as your oath to your liege lord demands."

The king waited for the secretary to finish the first copy, then looked at it and approved of it with a nod.

"Get the messages out within the next few minutes."

"Yes, Sire. At your command." The man busily set to work and soon had six envelopes sealed with wax, bearing the King's sigil. He distributed them out to the newly-arrived riders. The King had resumed his view outside, but turned to the riders with a hard expression.

"Make sure you put those letters in the hand of the people they're intended for. No chamberlain, no secretary, no knight with delusions of grandeur. Give each an extra to send to the others lying farther out. Report back."

The men nodded, saluted, and left at a run to the stables. The horses stood ready for them. They mounted up and tore out of the castle grounds as fast as they could.

###### < = >

The Captain had his hands full. The armories in the castle emptied, while edges were being put on swords, axes, spears, pikes, and anything else as quickly as possible. Armor was checked over as hurriedly, and meals were being gulped down. Sergeants and their officers was haranguing the men into formations and assigning patrol areas without care for diplomatic words.

"Sergeant!" The bellow was easily distinguished as coming from Greyblade. The fact that he was currently putting on chain mail and his weapons didn't seem to much matter to him.

"Aye." The man's earlier laconic tone was gone, replaced with a long service warrior's hard edge. He wore his mail and sword as though they were integrated parts of himself.

"Get conscript parties going. All the slackers, drunkards, roustabouts, and other such paragons of humanity, and put them on the outer walls with tough sergeants to mind them. If they won't be useful in times of peace, they damn well will be useful now."

"Got it."

"Good. Send Alec in to see me, wherever he is. I need a scouting party."

"Aye, sir." The man left, hustling out the stone doorway. Various people, intent on their own jobs, got out of his way quickly.

Aleister Greyblade turned back to his thoughts, and kept examining what else needed to be done.

"Get me the sentry officer of the watch!"

###### < = >

As twilight arrived, the unease among the guards in the castle grew. The soldiers had been told what was going on and weapons had been distributed out. A few of the younger soldiers stroked their sword hilts nervously and wondered. The archers had filled the time checking their bows and rejecting warped arrows. Now they stood ready. Aleister Greyblade waited for his scouts to report back, a forgotten ale and sandwich at his side.

A clatter at the main gate caught his attention. A bedraggled man was there, talking to the guards. The Captain recognized him and motioned for him to be brought in. As he was escorted in, Greyblade could see dried blood on him along with several uncared for wounds.

The man saluted weakly, trembling.

"Sir, Millerson reporting. We found the main force five miles from here, toward the coast. We tried to sneak out, but was almost completely apprehended. In the battle we killed all or most of their advance party, but I fear they will be here soon. I am the only survivor."

Greyblade nodded, trying to ignore the loss of an old friend.

"Get your wounds tended to. I need you to help with the defense. Eat something and do it quickly. Then get a blade, and join the group on the west side."

The man saluted again and left.

The preparations continued, until the castle was silent for the waiting. Full dark had arrived and the moon shone in the sky. Every ear listened, and every eye searched. Some unexplained noises had been heard but no one was sure exactly what it was, except that it wasn't the normal sounds of night time. A scout party was sent out to investigate.

A series of shouts rang out, a loud crash hammered the night air and a burning fireball arose, impacting on the arch above the portcullis at the end of its fiery arc. Another lofted through the air after a moment or two to drop into the courtyard. Flames shot up from forgotten carts and other items, easily ignited, and soon people dashed in to beat at the hungry fires.

Captain of the Guards Greyblade yelled up to the archers.

"Longbows, volley fire toward the trebuchet! Fire!" He knew bows couldn't possibly reach the range of the trebuchet, but he would have sent men out ahead of the war machine to attack the walls if he'd been on the other side.

His theory was proven correct, as he heard screeches and screams of pain outside the walls.

"Keep firing! Crossbows stand ready! Inner gate, close in!"

The inner portcullis came crashing down and as it landed, a loud bang was heard on the outer gate. A battering ram was in use there. The gate bulged in, but held.

"Get those walls covered up there!" he called as breaching ladders slapped up against the walls. Several enterprising soldiers with poles tried the lever the ladders away from the walls. It worked – sometimes. Another dashed up with a battleaxe, and chopped away at one leg of a ladder, then tipped it over with the imbalance. Seeing his success, he started on another one and raised his axe for a measured blow.

The center of his forehead sprouted a crossbow quarrel, and the axe fell from his lifeless hands. It severed another man's wrist as it fell and that man reeled back, stumbling over the edge of the castle walls. His screams, strangely louder than all the raging din of the battle, terminated abruptly in a sickening splat as his body intersected the ballista's inbound bolt. If nothing else, it helped deflect the huge bolt from its intended point of impact, and the line of soldiers held.

Greyblade drew his sword and sent a quick prayer up for success. Some of his men on the outer walls were dead already, from the trebuchet's impact alone.

More heavy smashes on the outer gate, and with a crash it broke free. A crowd of men burst through, firing more crossbows with very deadly accuracy. Right behind them was another crew with a heavy battering ram which shortly slammed into the inner gate.

The archers were fully engaged, although their numbers were dropping rapidly from the directed fire of the opposing force. Some of the castle's hunters picked up the bows from the fallen archers and began firing arrow after arrow into the horde of crossbowmen. Several fell back with injuries, while some simply died there while their appropriated bows falling silent again.

Greyblade noticed a small group breaking off from the main force swarming in and moving with a distinct purpose toward a little-used door. His instincts screamed a warning at him, and he grabbed three nearby guards, as they put down the attackers they fought.

"Sergeant Cromwell, direct this defense! You three, come with me!"

He pointed at the invaders. The two glanced at them, and nodded to the Captain. Together, they took off in pursuit. The group disappeared inside the castle halls, and the pursuers went deeper in. Sounds of fighting bounced off the hard stone walls, and so did screams, shouts, and the sickening notices that people was meeting their ends at the bloody hands of the invaders. Greyblade and his companions ran harder.

Swords were out and the battle for the castle was in full swing. Blades flashed and here or there a battleaxe sang its song of death. Every armed man was fighting for the castle, and most of the women were too. Their banshee cries wailed their fury and pain, as rolling pins, knives, and heavy handles beat upon every unprotected spot they could reach. Eruptions of flour blinded the attackers, and boiling hot cooking grease scalded them. Here and there, small fires licked out to consume the unfortunate soul that found himself thrown into them after being attacked.

At the keep's nave, knights in armor advanced in on the throng. Heavy shields in front deflected the crossbow quarrels, while swords swung down to shatter arms and crossbows alike. The crossbowmen found themselves decimated, and to a man, was destroyed. This cleared the way for the next wave to arrive, which came in the form of another fireball. It landed in the midst of the armored knights, and the fireball shattered as it hit the hard cobblestones. The firebomb had been made of flaming pitch and tar, and as it shattered, the fragments stuck onto each knight's armor. Every man felt the temperature inside his armor rise from the flames, but no one was able to put the flames out by himself. Some threw dirt on themselves and others, or barrels of water, or slapped the sticky pitch off by hand or by sword. Several knights succumbed to the great heat, and lay unmoving.

Greyblade was near a window when he heard a nearby horn sing out a melody. Several others answered it, and as he came to the window he quickly looked out. Some of the King's allies had answered the call for help, and Greyblade saw the rear and side flanks of the enemy attacked by the fresh troops. There were several units, but not quite as many as there were supposed to be. A fresh worry wormed its way into all the other concerns in Aleister Greyblade's mind.

 He and his men chased on after the small group, who seemed to know where they were going. A sharp sense of consternation made itself known to the Captain. The group was finding its way to the chambers of the King and his family, and doing it as though they knew the way like the back of their hands. Aleister Greyblade wondered in a distant corner of his mind about that, as he ran. How did they know exactly where to go, and without any apparent false turns? He told himself that after all this was over, he would find out. However, he was busy trying to protect his King and his King's family.

"Faster, lads, we've got to catch them!"

The invaders entered a large open room, and all of them came to a sudden stop as they recognized the King, standing patiently in armor beside a guarded door. He held a naked blade, richly ornate, but very sharp and deadly. Four knights in full armor arrayed themselves about him and by the door. Each one radiated deadly menace and cold purpose, even through the armor and helmets hiding their identities. Each one held a different weapon. A sword, every bit as sharp as the King's, a wickedly spiked mace, a scintillating deadly morning star, and an imposing bardiche all stood ready to shred attackers.

 One of the men broke from the group and challenged the King with great contempt.

"Get out of the way, you old fool! You refused me once. You won't do it again because I will kill you, tonight! I will defile the Queen and kill her, too, after my men have had her. I will put your puling son's head on a pike, and I will possess the Princess! I, Shul Ghost-walker, promise this!"

The King seemed oddly unmoved, even as the brigands with Ghost-walker raised crossbows at the royal presence. The rogue Duke was quite surprised when they fell, arms lopped off by Aleister Greyblade and the soldiers he had brought with him. An errant crossbow bolt caromed off the walls, striking fire with the metal head, and stuck into the back of a wooden chair. Two of the knights beside the door moved from their positions and stood in front of the King. The other knights, the one bearing the bardiche and the other bearing the morning star advanced to hem in Ghost-walker. Aleister Greyblade and his three men behind the rogue Duke completed the surrounding ring. The King spoke.

"Duke Mossy Breakwater, sometimes called Shul Ghost-walker, you have been exposed by your actions and by people loyal to the Crown. You have threatened the Crown with great bodily harm. You have attempted to kidnap the Princess, and have also attacked your Sovereign's lands and possessions. You have made war upon your Sovereign, and by my right as King, I sentence you to death. Your title is formally revoked. All of your lands and properties are forfeit, and will revert back to the Crown."

"You wouldn't put a hand on me, you decrepit old bag of bones!"

The King smiled.

"You're right. I wouldn't."

Ghost-walker stood straight in elation at this announcement and sneered, but the King continued.

"But these people would. Aleister, your revenge."

The rogue Duke was spun around roughly, and eyes widened in disbelief as he recognized the man behind him as one of the many he'd terrorized. The face was emotionless and the eyes empty as three and a half feet of sharp steel was rammed into his belly hard enough to separate the chain mail he wore. The steel-tendoned arm and the vise-grip hand twisted the blade halfway around, then withdrew it without a sound.

Ghost-walker sank to the floor, and screamed with pain as his life fled and the others stood around watching without pity.

###### < = >

The fighting was shortly stopped as the aggressors noticed the body of Shul Ghost-walker, Duke Mossy Breakwater carried out and thrown amongst the throng. Every man laid down their arms and was escorted to the dungeons below to await quick sentencing. The Guard secured the castle, and others turned to the job of fixing the damages.

The King sent word to the neighbors that did not respond to his call for help, and those worthies sweated out the sanctions that he decided to levy. The ones that did answer were rewarded richly.

Aleister Greyblade finished his work as the Captain of the Guard, and the King rewarded him with his proactive approach to tracking the rogue Duke with lands of his own. In fact, he was given the same lands, and title, once claimed by Ghost-walker.

No further attempts on the castle were ever repeated.

The End

### Tenuous Voyages

##### Chapter One

The console buzzed. M'reyne glanced at the panel, not seeing anything that warranted a great deal of consideration. The only thing on the readout was a notice that another freighter was passing within the scan boundaries of the auto-helm control. While that wasn't unusual, at least where the programming was concerned, it was still something to check out. It was still very dreary on the Silas Beta run, since none of the promised way point stations had ever been put in as promised. Instead, there were small landing pads on various large asteroid and small planetoids. This wasn't always a good idea, since it wasn't unknown for an asteroid to start spinning uncontrollably after the mass of a voyager ship upset the balance. Not every pilot was able to land their craft with precision, and no one trusted the computers to do it.

A presence appeared by M'reyne's side, and she looked up to see the navigator looking down at the screen. He groomed his luxurious whiskers thoughtfully.

"How far were the boundaries set this time?"

She sniffed. "I set them to a half-klick." That was, after all, what the manual prescribed. He grimaced.

"I agree with you on the distance, normally. We're not hauling normal cargo this time around, so set it for a full klick."

M'reyne did, but after doing that she looked up at the navigator. "Is there something that I need to be made aware of?"

"No. Need to know." He snorted dismissively, then ignored her and returned to his comfortable chair to resume his watch.

She didn't react, although inwardly there was a mental grimace. She was used to that. The engineer caste was considered one of the lowest in the pecking order. There were one or two others, depending on what work one did. There wasn't a lot of choice in what a Felin like M'reyne did. She didn't come from a privileged family, so when it came time for Assessments she had been Assessed into the engineer caste.

It didn't matter if she was interested in other things. Like everyone else subject to Assessments, she had reported to the local office to be sorted. Then like everyone else, she waited on pins and needles for three days to find out what the results were. When the ominous dark envelope arrived carrying the heavy paper form and she found out, her heart had fallen. Once the results came back for an Assessed Felin, then that was it. Whatever the form stated on the paper was what that Felin was expected to do for the rest of their lives. No other occupation would be allowed, so no other training would be provided. For that matter, no other training would be tolerated.

She didn't want to be an engineer. Oh, sure, the ability was there, all right. She had never had problems actually performing the work of an engineer, but it was mind-numbingly boring to her. She had no enjoyment of being an engineer, especially not in the postings that had been laid out for her. A Felin of her station didn't have any choices where to apply her trade, either. She went where the need was perceived to exist, whether there was actually a need for those skills or not. No one outside her family was interested in her desires to become a pilot.

M'reyne focused on the instrument panel as she input the correction that the navigator had ordered. She had learned a long time ago to keep her thoughts locked up in her head and never to let them play across her expression. There was plenty of resentment for the navigator and his priggish ways. He had not been subject to the Assessments, since his family was well-placed enough to be able to pay the Assessors to look the other way. He had gone into astrography, and that was one of the prestige fields. The navigator, who was named Thr'menir, wasn't particularly suited for the job. He made up for it by sheer persistence. M'reyne had to admit that he had a work ethic in his chosen field, but that was something she wished he would keep to the navigating.

Thr'menir used his higher birth in other ways. Except for the captain and the first officer, the only two on the vessel that he didn't outrank, he was senior to everyone. He wasn't third in command of the vessel, since navigators had to remain outside the chain of command. He was also the only navigator, since Command messed up and didn't assign them the two others that would normally be a part of the crew. This absolved him of command responsibility, and gave him a chance to pick and choose among the crew to amuse him.

M'reyne's thoughts turned darker. Thr'menir was famous in the ship for using the crew as his own vassals. Of all the crew, he was the highest born, even higher than the captain. This presented some issues with the idea of order and discipline. As long as he claimed to be doing things as someone with noble birth, or close enough to it, and not as a ship's navigator, he could not be disciplined in any way. He had turned the ship into his own harem supply, and most of the pregnancy reports had been attributed to him. The captain could not put a stop to it, of course, since he was himself of a lower birth. There was a lot of muttering heard from his cabin.

In fact, the _Broken Claw_ had been designated as a generation ship. As such, there were different rules regarding fraternization. The forming of mating units was encouraged, and the medical and educational departments of the _Claw_ were both top-notch to deal with the possibility of offspring. Several teams of Assessors had been assigned to the ship, in order to continue the culture of the Felin people. There had been several notices before the _Broken Claw_ started mustering crew about meeting certain requirements, but the general unspoken consensus was that quite a few of the higher castes had bribed their ways past them.

All this ran through M'reyne's mind as the navigator glanced at her thoughtfully. So far he had not pursued her, although she was sure it was a matter of time. She was not looking forward to that.

The console buzzed again, then triggered a strident chime. Thr'menir looked up with a scowl on his face.

"Did you set that like I told you to?"

She nodded. "Yes, sir."

The first officer turned in the command chair.

"Then what's causing it? We don't need helm control, not on a courier run." Nevertheless, there were two helm controllers on constant call. Neither were on the bridge at the moment.

She didn't know the reason, and the sensor tech answered for her.

"Sir, I'm picking up contacts! Two vessels approaching from bleedspace." She squinted at the screen, then yelped, "Sir, they're armed and preparing to fire!"

Thr'menir sat up as the new alarms howled, his hackles up. "What?" His question went unanswered, as the first officer snapped orders out.

"Send out a burst transmission and a beacon buoy to base: general distress, pirates. Put all the information you can in it. Engineer, override auto-helm and go to full speed, away from them." His meaty paw slammed down on the general quarters button and the alarm wailed out. M'reyne was desperately stabbing at the controls as the first officer's deep voice rang out. "General quarters, general quarters, all hands to battle stations. This is not a drill. Captain Sp'hirn, to the bridge!"

He released the button and stared at the screen. "We're a generation ship, not a battlecruiser. How are we going to get out of this? We don't even have real shields."

There wasn't time to answer that question. The sensor tech yelped, "Incoming!" M'reyne threw the ponderous ship into a roll, simultaneously pitching it away. She wanted to align the ship to pass inside the maneuver basket of the other ship. The engines fired, and the acceleration pushed them back – at the same time the other ship fired a huge volley of weapons.

Except for the strident alarms, there was a moment of stunned silence on the bridge. Then the first officer pounded the comm button again.

"All hands, brace for impact!" Never mind the fact that we won't impact something. Instead, something will impact us, the first officer thought mordantly. The bridge crew hunched down to try to absorb the punishing blows that was about to rain down upon them. The screen showed the weapons approaching.

The first officer looked around. "Where is the alert engineer?" His gaze fell upon M'reyne, running the helm station.

"Engineer, run the navigational deflectors as high as you can. It's not intended for this, but maybe it'll slow it down."

"Aye, aye, sir." M'reyne had to reach across to another panel to do it. He noticed that she snapped back to the helm station as quickly as she could. He remembered that she mentioned once wanting to become a pilot, but the Assessments put a stop to that desire. Well, she was getting the chance to do it now, even though it wasn't in the best of circumstances.

"Deflectors reading maximum now, sir. It took longer than usual for the coils to cycle up." He nodded, too busy thinking to answer. No other crew came on the bridge to answer the general quarters call, and that suggested some not-so-nice things to the first officer. The fact that it was too coincidental stuck in his mind.

When the enemy fire hit, alarms and crew screamed as pandemonium reigned. Damage alarms screamed and debris flew. The first officer dragged himself up, and coughed up blood. He spat out a hate-filled, "Report!"

M'reyne called out, "Helm answers!" The sensor tech moaned out, "Half-sensors gone, no gravitics! Massive casualties." His eyes met the first officer's eyes. "Sir, the captain's biosigns are not answering."

The first officer felt command devolve on him. He looked around, blinded in one eye. "Stations, continue report."

The environmental petty officer stumbled back into his broken chair and punched some buttons. His eyes widened. "Sir! I'm seeing most personnel decks depressurized and open to space!"

"Cargo holds?"

The petty officer punched more buttons. "No damage, sir."

The first officer's eye narrowed and he growled through his pain. "Definitely pirates. They knew where to hit us." His voice changed. "Navigator, I want a course set to track them. I'm going to ram the sk'reli and take them with us." There was no reply. "Navigator?"

Thr'menir couldn't answer. He lay with a large shard of smoking duranium impaling his head to the deck. Despite the grim situation, M'reyne felt joy at her core. The first officer grunted. "So much for him." He punched in several command codes into the pad mounted in his chair, and lurid purple-tinged light split the smoky bridge. The first officer snarled at the screen, then spoke firmly. "Helm, ram the bigger one. Full speed. They're not getting us or our cargo."

"Aye, aye, sir. Ramming!"

The pirate ship didn't have a chance. The first officer had triggered command sequences to overload the bleedspace drive by taking safeties off, and the ship responded by making its own death growl. The generation ship had much more mass to absorb the new attack run, and there wasn't time for the pirate to break off. M'reyne drew back her lips in a savage snarl as the two ships exploded. At least she was safe from Thr'menir's attentions.

As the debris blew in all directions, the second ship skittered back into bleedspace and escaped.

###### < = >

Primus Ver'menir stood at the large picture window, his thoughts troubled. The distress reports for the _Broken Claw_ had just arrived, with a further report attached to it in tense prose. The other report was from the Sector Commander. He had sortied everything he had to respond to the distress call as soon as he got it, but by the time he could get to the last known coordinates, there was nothing that could be done. He had attached all the sensor readings, which detailed every bit of disturbance in the space field within a light-minute of those coordinates.

Unless you count collecting samples for the inevitable micro-autopsies, he thought. This thought was accompanied with the grimace that he couldn't show his Council. A further grimace came when he thought about his nephew Thr'menir. The boy was useless, in his opinion, more interested in chasing after vixens in heat than doing his job. It had taken a couple of interventions on his part to keep him from washing out in the training that Thr'menir had chosen to undertake. More than once, the Primus had reflected that maybe the Assessments would have placed him in the sanitation field. Too bad no one would ever know.

Now he had to tell the boy's mother that his ship was missing and presumed lost. She'd done her very best to convince him to choose a different Fleet division. The thought of losing her baby to a generation ship and never seeing him again drove her fears. He'd been abrupt with her, dismissing her worries and was not shy in his admiration for establishing a colony. He'd wanted his name on the plaques that would be erected for future generations of that colony to ooh and ahh over.

When the ship had warped out, she'd started crying, and even the close attention of her other kits didn't help much. She cried for two days, and for two more days, remained in her bed. The Primus wondered if his nephew had even cared that she didn't eat for those four days while she grieved her son. The change in her appearance was striking, when she'd emerged. His sister had been gaunt and her fur was dull. Her mate was beside himself with worry, as he took her to the kitchen and made her eat a thin bowl of soup. It took forever, he'd later said, and his own worry over their son didn't help.

There was no way to make personal reports on all the crew members, so he left that up to his staff. The ship's captain, the first officer, and the rest of the small command crew, he would write a somber letter for all of them. Each letter would be hand-delivered to the families by the notification teams and a chaplain. He would talk to his sister himself. Before that, however, he had another detail that needed to be seen to.

Seemingly in response to his last thought, there was a double knock on the door. He looked up to see his majordomo sweep into the office with a tall, thin Felin behind him. As always, there was a physical separation between the two. They didn't get along, but neither one would act upon it.

"Primus, the Darkness is here."

He nodded, dismissing the majordomo. The tall, thin Felin took a perch after Primus Ver'menir pointed to one and waited for him to speak. For his part, the Primus thought that 'the Darkness' was a particularly appropriate title for his chief intelligence officer. The Felin seated in the comfortable chair was coal black, with gold-orange eyes that never blinked and thick black whiskers that looked stiffer than a branch. The Primus always wanted to ask the Darkness if his fur was as rough as it appeared, since it didn't shine. In fact, it appeared to gather light inward toward him, and project it from his eyes.

It was creepy, even though he'd known the Darkness for twenty-odd years.

"Well, Ver, it seems there's a problem." His voice was quiet, the shadows in the depths of his tone matching his appearance.

A heavy sigh answered the tall, thin Felin. Ver'menir moved to the minibar and poured out a drink, looking to the Darkness to see if he wanted one. A nod was his answer, so he poured out another.

"Yes, old friend, there is. The _Broken Claw_ is missing. She screamed her distress call, but by the time the closest to respond could get there it was too late." There was no need to ask what to make, since they had drank together for many years. The coal-black Felin took the heavy glass and took a careful sip.

"Who responded?"

"Commodore Tre."

The Darkness nodded. "He's a solid officer. For not having a family, he's done very well on his own drive." The Primus agreed with him with a sad smile. "What did he find out?"

"There wasn't much, other than a buoy with a lot of last-minute information stuffed in it. Log entries, sensor readings, things like that. The area of space had gravitic disturbances consistent with three ships, one being the _Broken Claw_ and the others being older vessels. One of those had emission signatures similar to a Lichen-class destroyer."

A raised brow. "Those are obsolete."

"In current technology terms, yes, but given a good crew and a skipper that knows how to use it, they are still powerful units."

"Are they all accounted for?"

The Primus nodded, a troubled look on his face. "Ours are."

"Ours? Are you saying..."

A scowl crossed the leader's face. "Yes. It seems that two days ago, the Daerid embassy went out its way to inform us of a 'lost' triplet of Lichens to pirate raids. They bought six from us, and can't keep track of them. They want to buy more, as if we're a hardware store."

"Or, they're still running them under letters of marque." The Darkness' voice mused for a moment, and he set his drink down.

"What?"

"We keep quiet watch of all the assets that we export and surplus out to others, especially when it comes to destroyers and things like that." He grinned, without humor. "We're a suspicious lot."

"And you found them?"

"No." The grin had disappeared, replaced with a grim set to the strong jaw.

"What does 'letters of marque' have to do with the Daerids?"

"We think that the Daerids are 'losing' them and claiming the losses in Admiralty courts, but turning them over to privateers. They swap out engines, shields, and sensor suites to change the emissions signatures. Those six Lichens have probably had all their parts mixed and matched so much that they won't come up as recognizable to anything in our ship list."

The Darkness put his unblinking gaze on the Primus. "We've run an analysis on the shape of their economy."

"Oh?"

"It turns out that they've got plenty of resources to build their own destroyers. They're in good enough shape to build their own battlecruisers."

"So, why buy old destroyers from us?"

"Good question. One answer might be the technology aboard them."

"Older technology?" The skeptical question was accompanied by a similar glance.

"Yes, it's true that they carry older technology, but after refits, the Lichens have newer technology than when they first commissioned. That newer technology is better than their usual level, and they can reverse engineer and copy just about anything."

"True. That's not a good thing."

"You'll want to talk with your military chiefs about the abilities of those destroyers, but if I'm not mistaken, the Lichens were build with the ability to upgrade more times than a usual warship."

The Primus nodded. "That's right. I served on one, and even though it was one of the smallest ships I'd ever been on, up to that point, it was probably my favorite posting. There was so much that you could put on one of those."

"What kept them from staying in service, if they were so great?" The Darkness seemed puzzled. Ver'menir smiled.

"I sometimes forget that you didn't go into the military like I did. You had a different path to your position. A Lichen-class destroyer is a small unit, so that means that its powerplant only has so much room available for it. What with all the energy-intensive things that go on a modern warship, a Lichen can't support all of it. That's on top of all the usual stuff a powerplant has to handle – life support, weapons, electrical and plumbing, communications... Come to think of it, communications equipment alone take up a huge chunk of power. There's a lot of equipment in use now that we consider standard issue that just won't go into a destroyer. That could be because of power limitations or space limitations or both." He shrugged. "Much as I like them personally, there isn't much room for them now."

The Darkness grimaced. "Their weapons are still plenty enough for a merchant freighter, or other similar ships. It's my understanding that the electronic warfare suites installed on them are at least last generation."

The Primus nodded. "That's right, but you know as well as I do that before a decommissioned ship is sold as surplus, all the sensitive equipment is pulled out of it. That includes weapons, too."

His heart sank as he saw what passed for a thunderous expression on his old friend's face. He stopped and refilled their drinks. Ver'menir threw his drink back and exhaled noisily.

"I'm not going to like what you're about to say, am I?"

The Darkness schooled his face back to its usual mien, except for his eyes. The stormy flashes in the gold-orange eyes made his leader's heart sink more. His drink was untouched.

"No, Ver, you're not. I got a report about two hours ago that the destroyers _Lasallia, Arthonia, Calicium, Siphula, Evernia,_ and _Dimelaena_ never got that 'sensitive equipment' off them before they disappeared into the arms of the Daerids. I checked it out. It's confirmed."

The Primus sank down in his chair. It was an expensive chair, made to be almost sinfully comfortable. He couldn't say that he recognized that trait at all right then.

"You don't mean..."

"Yes. The Daerids have stolen the technology. They have to be almost at the level to match us – and with their population and industrial output?"

He didn't finish. The Primus didn't need him to.

##### Chapter Two

The Daerid overseer grimaced at the report in his claws. This was not the best thing to have to deal with, not with all the other tasks that had to be completed. He screamed at the cowering messenger.

"Why wasn't the food preprocessors installed?"

The messenger bowed as low as he could. The rage on the overseer's face made him wish he could be somewhere else. Anywhere else, to be honest.

"T-truly, my lord, I don't know. I wasn't given to have that knowledge."

The overseer glared at the messenger, who didn't dare raise his body. His eyes remained fixed on the floor.

"Somebody knows. What is your function for that hrethirn Comstila?"

The messenger's voice was low and full of fear.

"If it pleases you, oh mighty overseer, I am the senior aide."

The overseer grunted.

"With access to information that Comstila uses?"

"Yes, my lord." The voice was strangled and quivering, but it was clear enough.

"And there was not anything to be done about the food preprocessors? The crew will have to eat to serve the Empire! And that twice-cursed hrethirn Comstila sends me his senior aide with excuses and incomplete reports?" The last sentence came out in a guttural shout. "I suppose that he needs more! Most likely, more raw materials to line his own nest!" This wasn't much softer.

The aide was completely silent, and the overseer continued after a moment.

"Jameka."

His own aide hustled up, standing upright and looking his superior in the eye. His trim form regarded his upset superior without a bit of trepidation.

"Yes, my lord. I am here."

The overseer nodded at the aide's cool confidence. "Jameka, Under Admiral Comstila sent his senior aide, most likely trusting that he would be able to work quickly and deliver his 'missive' with all the speed and dispatch that such an important communication requires. And I see that this aide has indeed done so. Now that I have received the dispatch, he will require an equally prompt answer."

"I agree, my lord," the overseer's aide responded gravely.

"There needs to be a decisive response, something that sends every intent I have, whether explicitly mentioned or not."

"I also agree, my lord."

"And there can't be any question about anything I have to say, since Comstila is some distance from the main shipyards, no? And the time lag between communications from there to here naturally slow things down?"

"This is true, my lord."

"Then this senior aide of Comstila is to leave within the next hour, returning to him with my reply. Can you do that?"

"I can, my lord."

"Very well. I want Comstila's aide to return to him in ragged pieces – eight pieces will do, ten if you can arrange it – and with a reiteration of his orders and my last dispatch to him. Word for word." The nearly prostrate senior aide on the floor jerked at his words. His eyes grew wide and his jowls quivered.

"It will be done, my lord." The overseer's senior aide spoke coldly, and gestured to three guards. "By your leave?"

"Go, Jameka. Report back to me when you have completed your task."

The doomed aide howled as the three guards descended upon him, and the howl abruptly cut off as a stun-stick was shoved into his gut. It rammed into his neck and the smell of cooking flesh rose. Jameka followed the three guards while they dragged the moaning aide out of the room.

The overseer turned back to his terminal and put it to sleep with a muttered curse. He went out on his balcony, and tried to clear his mind of the various problems. As he looked out over the city, he could see factories belching out rancid smoke and various small ships coming and going at the larger of the two spaceports. It seemed to him that some of those lighter units came perilously close to ramming one another, and he made a note to have Jameka set a good investigator on finding out why.

A faint screech came to his ears from deeper inside the compound, and he grunted. Now maybe there would be some proper action. The overseer's comm chimed from inside the spacious office, and he sighed. Never enough moments of peace. He went back inside and answered his call.

The screen lit up with the face of the Temple Sage looking out at him. The overseer stifled a grimace.

"Yes, sire?"

"How goes the preparations for the release of my weapons?"

The overseer lied through his teeth. "Sire, everything is on schedule and going well." Once he got that out, he proceeded to mention other things, since he knew that the easily distracted Sage would fixate on other things. "In a few days, we will disseminate the information gleaned from the technology found aboard those ships. At that time we will begin to produce our own versions of the same items."

"Good! How long to begin production?"

It was a good question, better than the overseer would have expected from him. The Temple Sage caroused a lot in the Temple and there was a steady flow of wine and bodies into his lavish quarters. He would have thought the Sage was more focused on his next conquest than actually doing his job. Still, he had to answer.

"At present estimates, it will take half a season to tool the factories to begin production. There are matters of careful conversion between the things that we cannot tolerate in the designs – things like the fresh food replicators or the gravity generators being too low and other such considerations. Things that require a little extra work now in order to prevent an excessive amount of work later."

"Of course, of course! Keep me informed." The screen went blank. The overseer blew a breath out and shook his head. That didn't take as long as usual, and whatever had happened to make it that way, he hoped it happened more often. The Temple Sage set his double-teeth on edge.

A chime sounded, and he looked up.

"Enter!"

His junior aide stepped through the doorway. As usual, the door barely had time to open for him. The overseer could see that he carried a large metal box and a small stack of notes.

"Sire, you wanted me to report the moment we found something."

"I did. Set that down over there." He indicated a low table, and his junior aide put the box down with a dull thump. The notes resting on top were handed to him.

"What is this?"

The junior aide wiped sweat from his brow. Apparently the box was fairly heavy.

"Sire, that is the consumables report that you wanted, and also some preliminary notes on the conversion of the 'borrowed' destroyers to Ghlosan specs. It turns out that these destroyers are almost the exact perfect size, where the engineering spaces are concerned, for a standard fusion plant. We can install fusion plants, run new power taps using the new process, and activate a bare-bones ship in half the time. I told the chief to quietly start setting it up, but wait for your agreement. We have to use the ships' original computers, since ours won't fit, but they will run our plants."

The overseer's face cracked into a wide smile. "Prenkis, with that kind of initiative, you'll make a fine overseer one day. Just don't overdo it."

"Thank you, sire."

The overseer frowned. "I'm not sure about the new process for power taps. The idea of sprayable power transmission runs, instead of wire and cable isn't my idea of stable."

"Sire, if the workers that install it take their time and don't rush the work, spraycable is stronger and more durable than regular cable."

The overseer sighed heavily and waved it off. "I know, and even though I'm not crazy about it, tell the crew chief to go ahead and do it. We need those ships."

Prenkis nodded and tapped a code in his communicator. An answering series of beeps came after a moment, and he looked up. "He's on it now, Sire."

"Good! Now, what's in the box?"

His junior aide hustled to the box and opened it.

"Part of the advantages of stealing ships before anyone has a chance to strip it of things they want to keep, is that some of those things," he paused, pulling out a case, "are weapons."

He placed the case on the overseer's desk, and flipped a latch open. The overseer came over to see what was there, and his breath caught as he saw a matched pair of disruptors and several power cells. He didn't recognize the steady glow on the cells, but supposed that meant that they carried a full charge.

"Prenkis! How many are there on those ships?" The pleased note in his voice prompted a restrained grin on the aide's face.

"Each ship has its own armory, and it appears that there are cases like this stored in strategic locations on every deck. How they kept them charged, I don't know, but I imagine we could think of a way to do it ourselves. If they did it, how hard could it be?"

"Attention to detail, probably. Or scheduled maintenance. They have a very disciplined naval force." The overseer carefully removed a disruptor from the case and peered at it. The molded handle was a little large for his hand, and he had large hands for his species. It was no matter. He could adapt.

"What else is in the box?"

His junior aide bent over the box. "We found something that looks like emergency rations, but for all we know it's a radio. I remembered you like to tinker with things, and it didn't look harmful, so I threw it in the box." He passed it over. "There's several manuals in here, technical manuals and field manuals, plus some other kind of manual I can't discern. I brought those for the intelligence people, but I thought you might want to look them over first."

"No, take it to them first. If you find more copies of this, bring them to me. In fact, every few first copies of things go to them, but reserve one copy for me from now on."

Prenkis nodded. "As you command, sire."

"Good work. Go back and keep digging. Get that crew chief's input on things and if he needs anything, tell me immediately. We need those ships ready soon!"

"Yes, sire. By your leave?"

"Go."

The junior aide went out the door, just barely missing it. Jameka came through the door before it could close.

"Jameka! It is finished?"

The senior aide nodded.

"Aye, my lord, it is."

"Any problems?"

"No, my lord, everything ripped right along."

The overseer glanced at the senior aide, but his face was as inscrutable as ever. He didn't even crack a smile.

"Good. Here's what we need to do."

He took a few minutes to lay out what he wanted to be done. His senior aide nodded and left to start working, and the overseer went back out on the balcony.

Soon, he thought. Soon, the spoils of war will be mine.

###### < = >

The Darkness chewed his third claw and stewed. There wasn't much that he could do from his office, waiting for reports to come in. The meeting with the Primus had been a day and a half ago, and he had sent out his agents to dig up clues immediately afterward. Nothing yet had come of it, and he was getting aggravated. Intellectually, he knew that the ones under him put forth as much effort as possible. They wouldn't last long with the Darkness otherwise. Still, it grated on him to not know.

It was close enough to the normal end of the business day that he could call on someone that normally would not dare to stick his nose in the area. He waited for the executive secretaries to finish their daily duties and turn their machines off in preparation to go home. A report on the state of the Masefield Colony occupied him until his main secretary looked in on him.

"Sir, I'm headed out." He flicked an ear at her.

"Thank you, Mira. I'm afraid it will be a late night for me, catching up on some stuff I've been slacking on." She frowned at him.

"I've been keep you up to date on everything that's crossed my desk."

He smiled, and waved her irritation down.

"Yes, you have, and a fine job you've been doing, too. I meant certain other stuff that doesn't cross your desk and that you don't see."

A raised eyebrow.

"Very well, sir." She didn't tell him not to stay at work too long and neglect himself, since for one she didn't want to sound like she was mothering him, and two, she knew he wouldn't listen anyway. Mira nodded at him and turned to leave.

"See you tomorrow, Mira."

She waved at him as the lift doors closed. The Darkness waited for another ten minutes, listening carefully. It was very quiet in his suite of offices.

When the comm buzzed, he jumped. The intelligence chief thumbed the button to the unit and spoke.

"Yes?"

The voice of the night watch security officer answered.

"Sir, there is a visitor down here that says he needs to speak to you. I told him it was after hours, but he is refusing to leave." The watch officer's voice sounded put out, and for a moment there was a grin shining out on the dark face.

"Is the visitor a Canid investigator? Tall, mustache, wears a trench coat and a hat? Gave you a PI's license?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll be right down. I've been expecting him. Run his name while I'm headed down. He's got clearance."

"Yes, sir." The connection broke, and the Darkness got up and left.

He took the same lift that Mira had taken, and it didn't take long to get to ground floor. The Darkness wondered if the lifts were programmed to speed up at day's end, to get people out of the building faster. He'd have to look into that.

The sound of voices echoed down to the lift doors, as they opened to let him out. He heard several chuckles and a loud laugh followed by something spoken by a voice that sounded like so much gravel over whiskey. Whatever it was, it was apparently funny. He knew who he'd find as he rounded the corner.

"Skip! Thanks for coming, buddy – I hope I didn't pull you away from a poker game."

The tall Canid grinned at him and stuck out a meaty paw. The smaller Darkness took it.

"Naw, I did that this morning, for something different. Had to be on the beat this afternoon to help out a new guy get his nose straight. Good kid, good instincts, just needs some seasoning. Had to show him some of the ropes they don't teach at the Academy."

The Darkness grimaced. It was the same everywhere.

"You still teaching the rookies out of the Academy? I thought you retired from the force."

A snort. "I did, officially. Now I'm a consultant. Pays better. I keep a paw in."

"I bet. Look, come on up. We can catch up on old times later. I got something interesting."

The Canid investigator clipped the visitor badge on the pocket flap of his trench coat after he signed the clip board the watch officer gave him. Without another word, they retraced the steps the Darkness took, ending up in the office he'd just left. The intelligence chief flipped an unobtrusive switch on his desk. He knew it activated the security systems when Skip's ears twitched.

"That bad?" The Canid's voice was amused.

"Yes. This is code-word stuff, OK?" He waited for his old partner's serious nod. "We got some ships out there that got hijacked from the export list before they could be properly decommissioned. There are all kinds of tech that shouldn't be there."

"Aw, crap. How?" Skip didn't waste time with unnecessary words.

The intelligence chief took a moment to pour both of them a shot of the hardest liquor he had hidden before answering.

"It looks like the perpetrators had some inside help from a mole in our procurement division. We've identified him, but we're leaving him in place for a moment."

"Good. Feed some false information, eh? Threatened him with all kinds of harm, including taking away his retirement package?"

The Darkness' eyes glittered. "Yes." They traded looks, none of which were particularly benign. Skip threw his shot back and grimaced at the strength of the fire tracing down to his belly.

"Now suppose you tell me what ships got hijacked. Can you?"

"Six Lichen-class destroyers." The reaction was immediate, and a shocked expression flitted across the Canid's face. After a moment, however, he smiled.

"Lichens, huh? Imagine that. Recent generation sensor suites?"

The amusement in the investigator's tone brought his eyes up, and the Darkness asked, "No, too old and too little. Why are you looking at me like that and why don't you look more surprised?"

"Well, as it happens, I was stationed on a few Lichens when I was in the service. Seems like everyone was, at least once. Nice ships, for the uses they're intended for, but there's a few things about them."

"Yeah, like what?"

"For one, sure, they're small. Speedy and agile, no doubt, but there's not a lot of room for a lot of extra stuff. The crews are smaller, too."

"I know that much. What are you hinting up to?" It had been a long day for the Darkness, and there was a distinct tint of asperity in his voice.

"I remember that you didn't go into the Navy, but started at the ground floor here. So you wouldn't necessarily know some of the tricks the engineers had to pull to get stuff done."

"No." The expression was a _spit it out_ look.

"The fact that the first-line stuff was incompatible with the Lichens meant that those same destroyers had problems, unless the engineers did some of the unofficial tricks. Some of those tricks made Bureau of Ships howl in agony, which is why a lot of those little 'unofficial procedures' never got documented. You can believe a destroyer engineer worth his or her salt knew those very well, whether they'd ever admit to it or not."

The Darkness considered that.

"Maybe we had better find some of those engineers." He refilled their glasses.

"Might be a good idea. I'll tell you what I can remember and you get them to fill in the rest."

It was a long night for both of them, with a lot of notes taken and quite a few calls made.

##### Chapter Three

The overseer stood on the cramped bridge of the flagship. He supposed that he should call himself an admiral, or at the least a commodore, since all the ships belonged to him. He thought about that and decided that he liked the prestige that went with being the overseer, and not some mere admiral. Besides, there was an admiral in charge of this fleet.

It had taken a little longer than planned to get things ready for this moment. The Sage had been understanding of the overrun deadline, in a disinterested sort of way, but the overseer had taken care of that. About an hour before giving him the final report, he had sent the Sage several new delicacies. As expected, his superior had his mind on his carousing instead of calling any accounts due.

There had been an admirable increase in work from others, especially after Jameka 'persuaded' more underlings to work harder. The overseer didn't ask what methods he used, just in case anyone happened to ask him about it. All ships had sufficient raw materials and resources to make the trip and return. Reclaiming materials from certain unreported projects helped a lot.

A throat cleared subtly next to him. The overseer turned to see a junior officer with a clipboard that held a report.

"What's this?"

"Sir, this is a final status report to the Admiralty. It needs your review and signature for transmission before we get underway."

"More reports?"

"Yes, sir." The junior officer didn't say volunteer any opinion about reports, and the overseer approved of that. Of course, he reflected, at his level he shouldn't have an opinion anyway. All he had to do was get others to sign the reports that he ferried around. He held his hand out.

"Let me have it. I'll call for you in a few minutes to take it back."

The junior officer handed him the clipboard and left quickly. The overseer had forgotten about him by the time the doors hissed shut. The report was just the usual notes about inventory and work done, along with statuses of each section of each ship. Several other things had been noted in passing, and he looked to see that each ship's executive officer and captain signed off on the sections related to their ships, and the admiral likewise had signed off. He dashed off his sigil and called for the junior officer to get the report.

"I want this transmitted immediately. Tell Command that we are casting off as soon as it's transmitted, whether they acknowledge it."

"Yes, sir." The young officer hustled off, and he turned to head to his sumptuous stateroom. The overseer didn't bother to talk to the captain, who knew what to do, anyway. In a few minutes, they would be off. It was a short trip to his stateroom, and he found his senior aide working at a few last-minute details. Jameka looked up at him as he entered.

"Nothing for you, Jameka. Go back to what you was doing."

He considered the Felin as the senior aide turned back to his work. It had been a lot of work to get through after stealing six of their destroyers. They had to be converted to habitability, since the dirty fur-balls was ritually unclean to all the Ghlosans like himself. It was a commonly held belief that the day the last Felin died would be a cause for grand celebration. It was a point of contention among practically any two Ghlosan – or more – that for the Felin to have better technology meant they could be superior. Most failed to accept that, and the more thoughtful ones that allowed for the possibility tended to be dismissed as logic-impaired.

He found great merriment in the thoughts of destroying great swaths of them. Now that the refits had been completed, he had a mighty weapon to make his name with. The crews had been assigned to fill the ships and there had been a very short period of shaking down. He had personally authored a few simulations that all erstwhile Felin destroyers had to pass. If they didn't, then the commanding officers lost their heads and other officers put in their places.

It had taken a handful of days, but he reviewed their progress, especially at loading and activating the weapons of each ship. He saw no problems that couldn't be fixed en route to the Felin home world. The overseer didn't concern himself with much else. There was no need to worry about prisoners, after all.

Jameka's voice intruded into his musings.

"Sire, all ships report ready in all respects. We can start at your command."

He nodded to his senior aide, who did not directly acknowledge. Instead, he punched a button on his console that sent out a prerecorded message that directed the operation to start. It was a masterpiece of exhortation, he thought, then ignoring it as he watched the astrographic plot begin to show the group warp out. In a few months' time, power, fortune, and prestige would be his.

As the murderous task force sallied forth upon its mission, a small drone took note of its passage.

###### < = >

It seemed that there was no end to the hustle and bustle. The Darkness stood in a busy situation room, overseeing the flow of information. It had been a busy month, tracking down the work being done on the stolen destroyers. It was amazing how many tongues could be loosened with the right amount of funds, he reflected.

There had been several agents inserted into the refit process, and all but one had been discovered and executed. None traced back to the Felin, since they had been from other places, but held loyalty to them. The Darkness had sweated any counterintelligence for some time, but everything he'd gotten had checked out.

There was tap on his shoulder, and he turned to see Skip standing there with a nervous-looking Canid. The Felin intelligence chief looked the young Canid over. Skip looked as he always did. Tall, lined face, salt and pepper whiskers, and a muscular body that the rumpled trench coat couldn't conceal. In contrast, the Canid with him was roly-poly. The Darkness shook paws with his old friend.

"Who's this, Skip?"

"Meet Rollo. Rollo, this is my old friend, Darkness."

Rollo glanced at the Felin with a bit of apprehension. Skip snorted.

"He can't help looking like a thundercloud. He won't eat you alive."

Gold-orange eyes met laughing brown eyes.

"Anyway, Rollo here is one of my more technical types. Boy's not as physical as I am, but he's easily the smartest one we got. You want to play chess or cards with him, bring money you can afford to lose." The young Canid grinned. "Good thing he's humble. Anyway, Rollo, tell him what you found out."

The Darkness turned to him, listening. Rollo cleared his throat a little nervously.

"Skip had me look into command sequences for the computer systems. The design team for the Lichen-class had some interesting things there, and I think there's a way we can use that to disable them."

"Disable them how? Before they can even exist on those destroyers, they have to change the environmentals and the software to be able to survive on them."

"Yes, sir, I realize that, and that's why I didn't look into software hacks. They would have changed things around anyway, and stuff that would work on a stock system would most likely be ignored. So I looked at the firmware in the comm and security systems."

"Firmware?" Beside him, Skip sat down, obviously ready to be there for a while.

"Yes, sir. You see...."

###### < = >

Primus Ver'menir paced. There had been confirmation that an attack was imminent on his small world. There wasn't many ships of the guard available to defend the home world, since a goodly number had been sent off for compulsory training exercises a little over a week ago. Urgent recall notices had been sent out to them the day before. The notices had given every detail that they had available and he had attached a personal message to each message.

In each message, he thanked the officers and crew of each vessel for the dedicated service they had given him, and gave them explicit orders to be followed in the event that they returned too late to help.

Too late to prevent the loss of their home world.

The Primus shook his head. This was not the time for self-defeating thoughts. The serene vista he looked out upon didn't really help his troubled mind.

The door hissed open, and he watched as the Darkness sauntered in. The intelligence chief had a felt bag in one hand and a box under his arm with a large red button. A senior-grade electronics technician followed him in with a tool belt and a large attache case.

"Old friend, what in the name of all that's holy are you doing here? Should you be at your headquarters?"

The Darkness grinned at him. "Just a moment, and I'll tell you." He set the box down next to the Primus' communications panel, and the technician immediately got to work wiring it in. That didn't help clear up any confusion.

"What...." he started. The intelligence chief interrupted.

"What that is, is a direct link to every Lichen-class destroyer ever built. Or rather, to the command and control computers aboard them. And, their firmware."

"But there's only been fourteen built. Two destroyed in action, four on station, two decommissioned and broken up...."

"And six stolen. Four we don't have to worry about and four we do."

"Worry about? What?"

The Darkness started to explain, but a priority request came over his communications equipment, with a gray bordered Secure icon. Primus Ver'menir motioned for him to hold his thoughts.

"This is the Primus."

He saw the duty officer of the planetary defenses bunker on his screen, and the lithe woman started to speak. Her image was broken up by a new face that replaced it, one that looked familiar. The Primus scowled.

"Overseer Mahr'act." The overseer's face winked at him. His voice gloated.

"Primus Ver'menir. I've got three of your precious destroyers about to start targeting your main cities and spaceports with biogenic weapons, and three more taking care of your pitiful excuse for a home guard. That is, when they get here. Got any last words before I destroy all the Felin?"

The Primus looked at the Darkness, who pointed at the button and mimed pushing it, then pointed upward to the skies where the overseer waited. His claws flashed as they swung out in a ballooning motion. The meaning was clear.

"Yes, actually." He thumbed the button and pushed it quickly. It flashed bright red and from somewhere inside he heard relays snapping shut. An ominous hum rose from the box.

"Well, what is it?"

"I'll see you in hell."

The overseer laughed heartily. "Most likely! In fact...." He was interrupted by alarms shrieking from every panel. "What..."

He didn't get to finish the question. Unlike the rest of the small Felin navy, there were no Felin engineers aboard the stolen destroyers. None to apply all the little tricks and workarounds that had been developed for Lichen-class destroyers.

No one to prevent all six from exploding when the firmwares accepted the signal from the planet's surface and took all the safety interlocks off the controllers.

Primus Ver'menir gaped. He dashed back out to his balcony and looked up. He could see several bright flares in the sky, and what could be secondary explosions. After a moment, he looked at the Darkness, who'd casually wandered out to join him.

"You could have explained that."

The intelligence chief was smug.

"Didn't have time to. And anyway, it wasn't our fault he picked a class of ships with bad computers and picky powerplants, even if they did try to use their own."

"But what about the four on active duty still?"

"Oh, those. It seems a few days ago, they got some maintenance upgrades to their specific communications equipment and computers. Some belated stuff that a junior official forgot to put in the pipeline."

"Upgrades? For old destroyers?"

"That's right. Security updates for the most part. Some identification protocols to prevent this terminal," he pointed to the box the electronics technician had wired up, "from sending any signals to it."

The Primus thought about it. "So I sent a signal to just those six, and did what?"

"It released all the governors on every system on every ship. Locked out all the safeties, and pulsed the n-space drives to max overload."

Primus Ver'menir stared at him.

"You don't mean...."

"Yes. The ships tore themselves apart, and blew up in the process. Good thing those particular ships didn't receive that maintenance update the other four did. It was absurdly easy to hack into them using the bleedspace comm links." The Darkness picked up the felt bag and took out a bottle of very old whiskey.

"The Overseer is gone, along with his threat. I'd say that calls for a celebratory drink, don't you?"

The Primus got his glass out in record time.

The End

### An Onslaught Antagonized

> ##### Chapter One  
>  Krasnoyarsk Outpost Two, Siberian District, Russia  
>  24 August, 2259 Terra Year  
>  1328 Zulu Time

It was clear on that disastrous Day. As hard as I try to rip it from my memory, I can't. It's seared into my brain cells, and it revisits me at night still. It seemed to me that the air was wrong somehow. One minute, it was clear and cool and the best of a fall day's offerings. The next, it was warm and smoky, right out of a bad horror novel.

Screams rent the air as cars exploded and trees were uprooted. I watched in horror as the most shocking things I'd ever seen advanced upon our little outpost. These... beings... I don't know what to call them, other than the more or less formal nomenclature. The description was scary enough.

I'm looking at you right now and ignoring the camera. I know this is something you've probably heard more than once, from more than a few people, but I don't care about them. This is my story, or at least as much as I can tell you. The rest's classified. Sorry.

The shortest was eight feet tall. The tallest, maybe eleven. Three strongly muscled legs sprouted from a thicker trunk, with four arms. Each 'hand' had fingers that individually seemed big enough to tear a man's head straight from his shoulders. The head atop each body was roughly human sized, except bigger by a bit. I saw one with four eyes, one with three, one with none that were noticeable, and most with five arranged mostly around the head. They didn't have mouths, or at least anything like a mouth to begin with. All I could really tell that day before ducking down to hide, was that they had some kind of ripping bone protruding from the nominal front, and a rough hide.

I came to find out that the bone indeed ripped flesh, but it acted like a straw, too. God help me, they had their own straws that they stuck into the smoothies of our internal organs. I feel like I'm back there, right now, while I talk to you. Best not to think about that now. It's too busy right now for trips down memory lane. They have an attack wave moving in on our base, and we have civilians to protect. Mostly women and children.

They seem to enjoy ripping up women the most. Something about our hormones punches the pleasure buttons so hard that they have to have us any way they can get us. They get a high, then they go back to wherever they base from and get laid. Sometimes they take prisoners to prolong the experience, then discard them. Men, they just consider worthless, except for target practice or the odd gambling pieces. They've learned how to breed us, but most of them are too impatient with the whole idea of procreation. Besides, a pregnant woman drives them bananas. Those hormones are like crack or meth or something to them. A woman in a family way doesn't survive long, without help. There's a window between conception and that first division of the blastomeres, where women are relatively safe. After that, they will kill each other to get to the woman. In comparison, men are just tissue. They use men as expendable slaves or toys, with all the concern of a seven year old with a magnifying glass and few ants.

I'm a team leader of a military unit that specializes in rescuing women from the holding tanks that they use. No unit names – that's classified, too. My name is Major Felicia Màrtainn, and I save people. I've got six men and seven women on my team, and there aren't any jokes about the men being outnumbered. The so-called battle of the sexes was suspended long ago. Now, it's the battle of the humans. It's hard to rescue women, since we have to fight in and fight out. There's a larger organizational unit that we're attached to, with the usual staff positions and a chief of staff, and another group on the org chart with a bunch of different scientists. Biologists, chemists, physicists, psychologists, and so on. Just about whatever kind of -ologist you can think of. Several of them are hybrids, experts in more than one field, and we're never quiet sure how to classify them. We go by pay grades and worry about titles and degrees later.

A side note. No one is quite sure what the aliens call themselves. We never noticed at first if they had a spoken language, much less if they speak to each other. We've observed them make motions to each other and direct groups here and there. No matter how hard the intelligence officers try, there hasn't been any kind of speech, language or even dialect detected where each other is concerned. They started carrying these strange devices embedded in the exoskeleton that speaks for them. How it works, we don't know. We can't ever get our hands on a working model to crack, since they fuse into solid blocks of whatever they used to make it from when they die. We aren't sure if they even have a name for themselves, so we've been calling them the Trippies. Three legs, tripod, get it? I didn't think it was all that funny, either, but got to call them something. People who used tripods in their jobs before they came really hate them.

My second-in-command is First Lieutenant Horacio Bisbee. He was an active duty US Marine Corps officer before, now he's part of the United Terran Hegemony Marines, like me. All the services in every country were merged into one global service, with the different services now called 'partitions.' Yeah, I know, it sounds stupid. Politicians. You know how it is.

It was a hell of a thing to consolidate everyone and there were plenty of problems. The strange thing is, all the other nations' seagoing infantry like Horacio get along just fine, no matter the language. I guess it's true, once a Marine, always a Marine. The various navies mostly got along. The various armies argued a bit, and the air forces all tried to outdo each other until the various leaders of different countries put a stop to that crap.

I'm thinking about a thing we had seen back then, something bad. We were looking out from an outcropping in what used to be the Grand Canyon. It won't be a tourist attraction ever again, since the Trippies found it and blasted office space into the rock. I'm not kidding. Go look at the Grand Canyon now and you'll see a bunch of regularly spaced holes in the rock that look for all the world like windows in a skyscraper. Some are lit with those portable lights they use. Some are dark. The more 'offices' lit up, the busier they are and the closer to setting up an operation. It's like it's their main regional field office or something there, with satellite offices reporting in as needed. There isn't another base that size anywhere in the world that we know of.

We've seen it too many times. When it's dark, hardly anything happens. The last time it was lit up like it was, they hit the Kansas wheat fields and burned away most of the years harvest. That caused a famine. Remember that? That was just five years ago, and the world is just now getting over it. If it hadn't been for the stockpiles of those awful MREs that every military has, the world would have starved. We escaped that one by the skin of our teeth. That and the other wheat supplies in Russia and rice stocks in Asia and other places.

Right now – well, as of two hours ago – every light is on. Never mind how we got the information, and I'm pushing it now to say this much. We've used a lot of assets up to understand that there is something else going on that we don't like. It come back to that hormone thing that they're all crazy about.

Horacio and I are sweating this one. Supposedly there are bunches of women gathered for breeding and other experiments on one of these 'floors.' We aren't sure which one, but we've seen quite a few of those floating transport barges they use slide into a wide docking bay in the Canyon. We need more information about how they set up housekeeping in there, but everyone we've sent in has been either killed or captured for the breeding experiments.

The idea of using infrared viewers died a quick death. The first front looking infrared scanner, the FLIR, that we flipped on got unwanted attention real fast. A squad was using a FLIR and some kind of quick reaction force from the Canyon hit them hard. They didn't even bother taking the females in that squad, just hit them with something that burned a permanent shadow into the ground wherever they stood. It wasn't radiation. Dosimeters didn't even react when we got there. Horacio and I waved them around for ten minutes and there weren't any clicks other than what would normally be expected if you were taking a walk in the park.

We've lost more people out of our little unit. I've given up remembering names, and so has Horacio. People come and go so quick. Whether they get killed in action or get transferred out to fill other slots in the TO&E, there really isn't any point in trying. If they get injured, then it's just temporary. I've lost the same arm four times and others have similar stories there. If they get killed, well, that's different.

About the arm. We lucked out, if you can call it that. We rescued twelve women from a tiny detention campsite about eight years ago. It had been hit by a quick response team and all the Trippies there found themselves suddenly dead with no time to call for backup. The response team commander was looking around the facility for any other prisoners. He found a machine in one of the infirmaries that regrew limbs. He had the time to look it over and take statements from prisoners about what it did. No one on the team believed it when they heard it. I guess they thought the women were all traumatized. To be fair, I wouldn't have believed them either. If it had been me, I would have packed them all off to the psychs to muddle around and find out what happened.

Anyway, one of the troopers that was up for rotation soon volunteered to try it out. He had lost an eye a couple years earlier. The commander was very hesitant to let him, but the women convinced him. The trooper lay down, after making a quick will, and got up an hour later. The team's XO started to make a joke about him using any excuse for a nap, when the trooper complained of a headache and dizziness.

No wonder. That missing eye had regrown, and the trooper's brain was very confused. It was trying to relearn how to use two eyes after years of just having one eye. He walked around squinting for a week, and had to relearn how to shoot, how to feed himself, even how to dress. He had to relearn a lot because his vision had suddenly went from two dimensions back to three, and it was something that he wasn't prepared for. At least he could cope with that. He hadn't been prepared to lose the eye in the first place, but he managed.

You can imagine all the hoopla. The shock and the surprise from the troopers in that unit, when he blinked his baby blues at them and one eye was bloodshot and the other was perfectly clear. The usual innovation that comes with wartime economies, plus a slight uptick in stupid behavior. After some of the world's finest physicists, biologists, mathematicians, and engineers figured out how it worked, then the world businesses took over. Soon there were regeneration units in every hospital, clinic, medical ship, and first aid station in the world. It seemed that we couldn't get them to the front line fast enough for all the combat related wounds. The stupid behavior, well, the regen units had that miraculous thing going for them, but they couldn't fix a severed head or a bled-out body. We found out that they had a downside, but more on that later.

Still, now we are stuck holding the short, sharp end of the stick. It's pretty grim today, and it seemed grimmer then, but there's so few degrees between 'grim' and 'grimmer' that we might as well not bother trying to argue the point. Humanity is stuck in a corner, here on old Terra, and we have to make a move.

We colonized the moon a good twenty years before we otherwise would have. You know how politicians are. Professing they're here for the good of the city/county/state/nation/world. They're all the same, whether they wear a suit, a thawb, a cloak of feathers, or run around stark naked. The service has some of them, too. We proud combat units try to keep our distance, but we have to make use of them to get what we need. As far as the civilian politicians, it's simply breathtaking how a vast majority put their political differences aside when they realized they as a collective were staring down the barrel of alien guns. A figure of speech, yes, since the aliens have so far been unsuccessful in taking the planet. Still, the close calls woke them up and probably the frenzied calls from the constituents had something to do with it.

We lost Canada. Or at least a huge amount of it. Alaska is just cinders now. We had a secret military base there, just us and the polar bears that migrated down, and they found out about it. How, I don't know. We by-God-knew when they discovered it, because they slipped into orbit and targeted that base. It was just a research project on human endurance. Military, yes, but with a lot of civilian applications.

They used some kind of neutrino-based carrier wave to target the base. Neutrinos can zip through a planet with no problem, so how they contained the neutrinos for a carrier wave, I don't know. There's a lieutenant commander in the Navy with no hair left that knows about high-energy physics. He didn't know how they did it either, but there's a distracted look in his eye whenever someone mentions it. All he'll say is, "Collimation leakage," and that's it for any kind of conversation for the rest of the day. He slipped up one day while he was examining a piece of captured Trippy particle tech and mumbled, "How the hell does a septaquark even exist?" I knew better than to even ask about septaquarks. I didn't want agents with identical haircuts, sharp suits, and crow's feet around the eyes to pay me a visit. Besides, I didn't think there was anything higher than a pentaquark, anyway.

The targeting was spot on, they tell me. Too bad the delivery systems wasn't up to snuff. We lost everyone in that base, including the basement dwellers. The thing is, there was much more 'shock and awe' going on than just for a simple base. That's an old term, but I don't think this was a strike that got royally screwed up. I think it was a full-up battle, against overmatched opponents. There wasn't anyone higher than a major there, and Major Dmitriy Alesnarovich Koryavin was a good man. Dima was something special, and I cried my eyes out for two days when I heard what happened. That's all I want to say about him, other than he never got the troops he begged for nor the equipment and training time either.

What's that? Yes, he did. A whole lot. That's all I'm saying.

We lost more than the base. We lost enough land mass in that horrific bombardment to alter Terra's axial tilt, and the seasons to go along with it. It gets really damn hot and really damn cold now, and the seasons don't keep to the months they used to be in. It starts getting cold in July one year, then June, then May, and the seasons lately have been lasting four or five months. I don't know how we're going to handle a Christmas with a hundred degree heat, but it's coming all too soon.

I'm dancing around the real point. That alien office building isn't going anywhere, and neither are the female prisoners.

We lost Canada, like I said. That base was in Alaska, yes, but close to the Canadian border. That way, the Canadians could "lend a hand" and the Americans could put the funding in the blackest part of the defense budget. Politicians, remember. It didn't matter one bit. When Alaska was vaporized along with a huge chunk of Canada, they all got the message. It was time to put up or shut up and be herded. The political shock waves were stronger than anything the bombardment could produce, and it was felt in Chile, among places.

They got the lead out. First they voted to keep Alaska's star on the flag, so that there would still be fifty-six stars, but Alaska now has a gold-bordered black star. They got together and planned to get outposts set up on Luna. Private contractors, the Russians, the Japanese, even the Italians contributed, among others. NASA was resurrected, although it was given a new name for a week. Cape Canaveral and Houston didn't even get a chance to order new stationery before everyone in the world became the United Terran Hegemony. The acronym is bad enough, but at least it wasn't something to make it UGH. I hesitate to think about the other languages.

So, a good man died before he could see the broad changes. In a way, that's good. There are a lot of arguing and old resentments between nationalities, and many senior NCOs are driving themselves crazy trying to make it work. There is a lot of martial law happening. Civilians are helping, for the most part, but there are always some people who never get the memo. Conspiracy theorists and Internet trolls are just two types.

Nobody can walk down to the corner grocery store anymore. We have to have ration stamps, just like a few centuries or so ago, in another war and another time. People have to have good reason for going somewhere, and if they go, they have to get there and get off the road. If they don't, the military arrests and detains them, until they can find out what's going on. We don't like having to do it, but people make things hard on us sometimes, and it's hard enough as it is. Just like last time, there's a thriving black market for things like food and fuel.

Beaches, theme parks, and movie theaters don't exist anymore. Hollywood is almost a ghost town. There are still actors, but they make training films for the military, not big budget films. Somebody made a homemade movie criticizing the restrictions the Hegemony had put in place and urging direct action. It started to have a cult underground following on the Internet with all the people stuck in their homes, but that dropped off quickly when another alien incursion came in. The Trippies had found the video, and whatever passed for intelligence organs in their hierarchy decided that the guy was some kind of underground guerrilla leader recruiting for an offensive. In a way, they were right, but they thought they were the target.

They bombed his town. They didn't use weapons with the same petaton rating, but it was enough to blow a crater eight and a quarter miles wide. The coastal town the guy lived in was obliterated, and seawater fills the crater now. Windows shattered twenty miles away, and ten miles in, some older houses collapsed. People died without having a clue what was happening, and in more than a few cases, whole communities were gutted.

There were probably twenty or thirty others that apparently were in total agreement with the guy's ideas and their Internet forum activity stopped at the same time his did. It turned out that every single one got the same treatment, in several countries. Craters, all about the same size, and in the case of the larger metropolises, double and even a triple crater.

Now, no one argues. They take their ration stamps, go home and nurse Trippy hate. The enlistment rates are so high that buses leave nearly every other day. Horacio says that he dimly remembers at least ten different sets of yellow footprints, and all were occupied. He thought some sets were so fresh they were still wet. The other services are probably the same way.

So, old Terra is fighting for her life. Military, business, construction, fabrication, electronic, medical, all those industries and more have geared up. It's a hard, long fight ahead but what can we do? I personally don't want to be an undead womb to these aliens. I want them dead.

For Dima, God keep him.

> ##### Chapter Two  
>  Krasnoyarsk Outpost Two, Siberian District, Russia  
>  24 August, 2259 Terra Year  
>  1416 Zulu Time

Horacio watched the embedded reporter speak to his CO. The little camera floated around on its regressive gravity platform, controlled by little twitches of the reporter's big toe. The lieutenant pretended to be busy with a balky mass coil driver for a squad automatic weapon while the interview was going on. He was trying to keep an eye on Captain Màrtainn, ready to interrupt with a pretext to get her away from the reporter. Some bullshit excuse, maybe pretend he needed her CO's retina print and voice print on a report for something. God knows there was enough paperwork floating around the military that it was plausible enough. Then again, there probably really was stuff that needed her to sign off on anyway.

The technology of the camera intrigued him. It was something proprietary, and more than likely some JAG lawyer was trying to get it licensed to the military. He could think of a few ways to weaponize something like that. He wasn't too keen on the idea of getting the picocontrollers for the thing implanted in selected muscles. It was different for everyone. Not everyone had the best control of a certain muscle group, so they went with whatever body part they had the best control over, other than face, ears, and hands. Reporters still had to write, or at the very least manipulate electronic tools with devices. The military didn't use thumbprints anymore, but the civilian applications did. Biometrics had come a long way in several centuries.

The captain was still outwardly calm. The reporter was a good man, and even though no one in the unit liked reporters, they'd all respected him. He was professional, competent, and best of all, a former Marine. The reporter knew how to elicit information and lay down covering fire. So, the reporter got more tolerance from the Marines. Horacio saw her twitch a little when she spoke about the Russian, and his heart hurt for her. Horacio was jaded after years of war and having served in two branches as officer, but for some reason he was more protective of his current CO than all the others. He wasn't the only one to feel that way, and over blood beers later he and Second Lieutenant DeBourchier concluded it was because she was his first female commanding officer.

"Not saying you're attracted to her, sir. But we all kinda watch out for her in battle. God knows if she thought we were, she'd rip us new ones, and that's no joke. That sharp tongue and temper of hers, well, you know how it is."

"Don't I know it, D.B. Sometimes, she ain't a people person."

"No, but damn, what a fighter."

"Too bad we can't replicate a hundred of her and send them all to Ik'tretka."

"Their home planet would explode."

They looked around to make sure she wasn't hovering around. Lieutenant DeBourchier sat back and belched politely. His black mustache stood out against the flash of pearly white teeth.

"What I don't like is the Trippies running experiments on our women and using them like so many brood mares. I heard too much about the feeding stations."

It was no secret about the particular atrocities visited on women. The staff xeno-psychologists were all ripping out body hair trying to figure out why the Trippies liked women so much. Yes, there was the hormone thing, estrogen and such, but no one had captured a live Trippy to find out why. He knew about the warrior suicide culture they had. The xeno-anthropologists said that according to every intelligence document they could find, the Trippies considered what humans called death to be the same thing as "growing up." The thought that the human race was locked in a to-the-death battle with children was disquieting.

"Sir?"

"Yeah, D.B."

"Where are their 'parents?' Wouldn't you think they have to be around somewhere?"

"You'd think so, but no, I guess not. Leastaways, nobody's made the trip to go find them."

"Yeah, too busy dealing with the hooligans knocking down the mailbox and leaving prank calls. What about trying to keep them alive when we take prisoners?"

"You know how hard that is."

The Trippy prisoners tapped into their warrior culture whenever they were captured, and performed a version of seppuku. The ritual was never-ending, and every Marine, spacer, soldier – or cop, for that matter – had seen it at least once.

Once a Trippy was issued into a cell, they made use of the facilities to 'purify' themselves. Water was water, apparently, and they consumed it with gusto. The Trippy prisoner would cleanse themselves, arrange their bark-like exoskeleton with care, and usually compose a poem in their native tongue. Some of the more educated among them would write it in Standard, which was strange enough. Those composers were the more militant of any of the prisoners taken.

The strange thing was that in the absence of a spoken language, the Trippies had very complex written language. It was a very precise orthography, heavy on mathematics. The heavy scientists like the physicists, astronomers, mathematicians, various engineers, and so forth all wanted to study this language for possible use in scientific expression. Strangely, though, there was several subsets of the Trippy language that dealt with the abstract of art and interpretive expression. The scientists with the artistic leanings was pleased to find this hidden side as well.

This dichotomy of the aliens – the absence of a spoken language versus a complex written language – made for a lot of head scratching and debates. Whenever a prisoner was taken, several of the scientists from whatever range of discipline that was available rotated watches along with the military personnel. They waited for the prisoners to write out anything, and watched for minute clues in posture or mood. Each composition was recorded and pored over, with the more popular posted in the daily intelligence briefings to the Theater CINCs.

Currently the November Tau Tanka was the selection given. So called because the layout happened to match the style of a Japanese tanka, it ran as follows:

the air of battle

makes gre'swetor's sweet hail

sound seductively.

Come, gre'swetor! I have stood

awaiting my time proudly!

This particular tanka had accompaniment. A long list of battle accomplishments and honors, posts, duties, and commands held by the Trippy in question. It turned out that he (or she or it, no one was sure) was a fighter of some great influence. Even to a layman, it seemed impressive. The xeno-anthropologists seemed to be particularly impressed by the genealogy that the fighter had thoughtfully attached.

They couldn't ask him/her/it about it, though. Like every other Trippy that they'd captured, the fighter had written all he/she/it had to say down after the ritualistic purification, bowed to the four winds, collapsed where he/she/it had stood upright, and died. This was the supposed meaning of the word 'gre'swetor,' but no one was quite sure.

There was no way to stop them. Suicide watches had been set on every one, and most just recited a string of numbers, using their language hardware, then collapsed. Invariably, there would be a message arriving at the headquarters, with the numbers in the headers of the message, that contained the last words of the Trippy in question. If there was more than one, say in holding cells, one would act as a second for the others' action. It was half-seriously dubbed trippuku by the Marines, and the slang word had caught on. After all the other Trippies had been 'assisted,' the second in the trippuku ritual would follow suit. This one would always list the assistance just given last as a great honor, and expire happily.

Lieutenant DeBourchier shoved his empty blood beer mug to the sergeant bartending and stood up.

"It's been nice, sir, but I got to rack out. I have an early patrol tomorrow."

"I hear you. Hey, don't forget those evaluations."

"Yeah, tell me about it. I think sometimes the military runs on paperwork, not fake-coffee."

"It does. Thanks a lot for reminding me about coffee, fake or not. Real coffee's five hundred credits a pound and you want to mention it? This crap we got now just sucks."

"Sorry. I'm not the one that lived on the stuff before the Trippies came." The junior lieutenant smirked as he slipped the proverbial dagger in.

"Oh, get out of here before I wipe that smirk off your face."

DeBourchier left, not particularly worried about the jesting threat. The sergeant grinned at the officer.

"Sir, one day he'll get it back. Don't you worry."

"Not worried, sarge. I'll get mine. Besides, I still have a freeze-dried pound of coffee he doesn't know about in my bank's safe deposit box back home. When the war's over, I'm going to get it out, open it, brew a pot, and I'm not sharing."

The last part came as the sergeant was visibly drooling. He seemed to be disappointed. Horacio didn't have any sympathy for him, or anyone else.

"And another thing...."

"Yes, sir?"

"Anyone comes up to me and starts sniffing around for coffee, I'll know right where to go." A level glance spoke volumes. The sergeant nodded quickly, and placed a shot glass in front of the officer.

"Sir, I got something for you to try. I was saving it for a special occasion, but now's just as good a time as any."

"Okay, what is it?"

"Patience, sir. You'll see."

Horacio watched as the sergeant took two unmarked green glass bottles out of the cupboard, one smaller than the other. He set those down by the shot glass, then got a teaspoon and a dirty white bottle from the small refrigerator under the bar.

"Milk?"

The sergeant smiled, and shook his head. He set the white bottle down on the other side of the glass, and theatrically balanced the spoon on it. Horacio rolled his eyes, but was intrigued enough not to say anything. The officer watched as the enlisted man uncorked the bigger bottle and carefully pour out half a shot of clear liquid into the glass. He recorked it and put it on the counter running the length of the wall behind the bar. After he uncorked the second bottle, the sergeant grabbed the spoon and twirled it absently.

Horacio raised an eyebrow.

The sergeant placed the spoon bowl side up over the shot glass, and very slowly poured a deep green liquid over the spoon, leaving a space to the rim measuring maybe the thickness of three coins. Horacio noticed that the green liquid didn't settle in and mix with the other fluid, but sat placidly in a layer over it. He still didn't say anything. The sergeant uncorked the dirty white bottle with one hand without moving his spoon, and tipped in a milky white cream over the spoon in the same manner as the green layer.

Horacio noticed that the cream left no residue or droplets on the spoon. Looking at the shot glass, he saw that the concoction was steaming or smoking – he couldn't tell which.

"Throw it back, sir, whole thing. Quick, before that top layer melts. Swallow quick."

The officer looked up at him, then shrugged. He grabbed the shot glass, feeling the warm and cold layers through the thin glass, and threw it back.

His breath left him as molten fire coursed down to his stomach. As the slug inched its sedate way, following gravity, he was surprised to note that the peristalsis of his digestive tract had stopped in shock. His muscles tightened in response, but as the shot worked its way down, the muscles loosened up after it passed. Horacio was sure that his stomach was going to clench up, but that didn't happen. Instead, it seemed to calm itself and go to sleep. A feeling of warmth and content ease washed over him, and he looked at the bartending sergeant in astonishment.

"Sergeant Hanks, just what in the hell was that?"

The sergeant grinned.

"Felt like poison going down, didn't it, but at the end, feels great?"

"Yes, but you didn't answer the question. What was it?"

"The guys call it 'Cosmic Explosion.'"

Horacio grimaced.

"I can see why. Where did it come from?"

The sergeant wiped the bar as he spoke.

"Well, one of the intel guys was looking at the trippuku stuff they get, and one of them left his favorite drink. They didn't really think anything of it, until other Trippies after that one mentioned in their own missives that they wished they'd had it one last time. It's sort of like Gunny Jacob's meat jerky, as far as we can tell."

The officer nodded. Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Jacob was famous in the unit, and beyond, for the jerky chews he made to take out on patrol with him. He charged a high price for a small bag of his jerky, but not one Marine complained. They got discounts compared to the Navy and Army. The joke was that when he retired, Gunny Jacob was going to get rich from the jerky. The other joke was that since he guarded his secret method so well, the recipe he used was classified high enough that even God wasn't cleared for the information.

"So what about it? Are you saying that this Trippy made this drink, like Gunny's jerky?" He coughed and watched, fascinated, as the room spun a little. The sergeant had a hand out to steady him already.

"That's it."

"How do you know this stuff won't kill me?"

"Me and the boys did a scientifical test. We found out what the analogues was to the Trippy ingredients. It turns out that you have to make up the green part and the white part, but any moonshine at least a hunnert 'n' fifty proof will do."

"So what was the proof?"

"We took leave and drank shots. Nobody can get through more than two. Best part is, you don't get a hangover."

Horacio grinned.

"Well, that's good, but I don't think I'll be trying a second one so soon. I'll try another one next week. Damn, that's potent."

"You say so, sir. You know what's funny?"

"What?" He was slurring his words a little now.

"Skipper can slam two of these beauties, and still ream someone out. You can't tell it affects her a-tall."

"Daaaamn. She's a better man than me. You put me out with one shot. I'm going to bed."

The sergeant laughed.

"Have a good night, sir." He watched as the officer carefully got off the rough wooden stool and navigate slowly to the door. Sergeant Hanks traded smirks with the other enlisted man cleaning up for closing time. The lance corporal flipped the sign over, and turned out the lights, then walked to the bar.

Sergeant Hanks was just finishing two more Cosmic Explosions, and he locked up the bottles, as the lance corporal sat down on the seat the officer had just left. He picked up his shot.

"Well, Bill, another day."

"Got that right, Roger, another day, down the tubes." The sergeant picked up his shot, and they threw their drinks back. Both shuddered simultaneously.

"Think this place is going to survive?"

The sergeant stared off in the distance, thinking about the lance corporal's question.

"I hope so, but the way it's been going, I don't have any kind of clue."

"Lieutenant Bisbee's all right, but the Skipper... she's scary."

The sergeant thinned his lips.

"I know she isn't going to win any popularity contests, now or probably ever, but if anybody that managed to deal with half of what she's had to and still be a saint is cracked. He's got something eating at him, too, but he keeps it close."

"Why? You heard something?"

"Bartenders and priests hear a lot, and both drink because of it. I'll keep the Skipper's secrets, mainly because I don't want her after me."

"OK, well, yes, I can understand that. You know scuttlebutt has that there's another operation laid on in a few weeks."

"I know, and it don't look too good."

"You know any details?"

"All I know is rescuing women. They've been pretty tight with anything else. The Skipper and Mr. Bisbee's going in with the whole team. I don't know anything else, and don't really want to know anything else." The sergeant gave the lance corporal a speaking glance.

"Did you know about the special munitions for the mass driver weapons?"

"What?"

"Yes, there's several huge crates, about big enough you or I could stand up in, being guarded at the corner of the ammo dump. All hours, and the guard are all people that I don't remember having seen here before." The lance corporal had a photographic memory for faces. "I don't know where they come from or what they do when they aren't around those crates. A forklift had to move them, and they drive the forklift, too. Nobody on the base is assigned there. I nosed around. People don't even know about it, and I wouldn't have, if I hadn't happened to drive by on an errand the other day. It's locked up tighter than a battlecruiser's hull. There's a godawful big barracks behind that razor tipped fence, too."

"Maybe you shouldn't be talking about it. Loose lips and all that, you know?"

"I know, but ..."

"But what?"

"They're armed with some serious shoulder weapons, they're in uniform, and they have military discipline out the ying-yang, but this group isn't Army, Navy, or Marines. They aren't wearing Hegemony threads."

"So they're government contractors."

"Yeah, you'd think so...."

The junior enlisted man had a frown on his face still. Sergeant Hanks looked at him.

"What?"

"I said that I didn't see anyone that belonged here, and I meant that. I did recognize quite a few people I've served with that. All of them were lifers. Career service, and no pushovers. Two of the others was my senior drill instructor and another drill instructor. None of them would get out of the service for anything and I would have bet my life savings that all of them would die in uniform before they took it off. Plus, we've had a higher rate of turnover in our staffing on this assignment than the norm, not counting casualties and injuries. I called some friends in the network around the world and they're telling me the same thing."

"Are you saying...."

"I don't know what I'm saying, except something is going on that don't look aboveboard. There's a paramilitary unit out there, behind that fence that's got people in it that mean business. They're self-contained in there. They don't mix and mingle with our people out here."

"That's not good."

"No, and that worries me. Yeah, military secrets and all that, but I did a little digging."

"Hold on! The hell!"

"Relax. I checked building orders. I didn't get into personnel files or anything like that. Building orders are non-class."

Sergeant Hanks shook his head.

"I don't want anyone busting up in here and throwing me on the ground just because you happen to be here."

"I doubt it. Now, do you want to hear what I found, or not?"

"I think I'm going to regret it, but you have my attention now."

The lance corporal grinned humorlessly.

"It turns out that the base planning commission – you know the guys that go to work all day in that basement and almost never sees the sun – they think that corner of the base is all forest. There's no work permits, construction permits, administrative orders, utility hookups, electronics contract work – nothing. Just a permanent hold order for that exact plot of land. Those feather merchant clerks in that detachment didn't seem interested in telling me much more than that."

"What does the hold order do?"

"It's a reservation thing. Whoever puts the order in can hold it until they're ready to develop it, and things like that can literally stagnate."

"Well, if there's this 'hold order,' then why isn't there other paperwork on file for the buildings and improvements out there?"

The lance corporal blew his breath out.

"Don't you get it? There's some higher than top secret stuff going on over there, and people are noticing. It isn't just me. There's people being quietly shuffled around, too. That makes holes that need to be filled, and it's attracting attention. It's going to start pulling in more than that soon, and it'll start with trying to find the unit all these people went to. Somebody is going to pull that hold order up on a computer somewhere and they're going to see that it's a 'work in progress.' They'll stop looking there, unless they go looking with the Eyeball Mark One, Mod Zero. If they decide they want more answers and try to get onto that mini base out there...."

"They disappear."

The sergeant looked at the lance corporal, then unlocked the whiskey cabinet again.

> ##### Chapter Three  
>  Krasnoyarsk Outpost Two, Siberian District, Russia  
>  25 August, 2259 Terra Year  
>  2130 Zulu Time

Second Lieutenant Mark DeBourchier accepted the salute of his gunnery sergeant and waited for him to move quickly to his post at the back of the formation. When the man stopped and assumed the position of attention, the lieutenant spoke up.

"At ease."

The platoon shifted into a looser formation and looked at their boss.

"It's a fine time to be up and about this bright day, isn't it?"

The assembled Marines rolled their eyes at their irrepressible lieutenant. It was still dark, but approaching twilight. He went on.

"We will be doing light patrol in Iwohime's Rift. Going to be all day, and part of the night. There was reports of activity of some unspecified nature going on in that area, and we have orders to investigate and report back using quantum comms."

This generated a stir. Quantum comms was the latest thing that the engineering geniuses had come up with. It was supposed to be able to reach the other side of a planet, using something called a 'nucleonic baryon relay.' The lieutenant was interested in science, but this was stuff way over his head. As far as he was concerned, so long as it worked when he hit the 'transmit' button, and he could hear what the command base was sending back, he was happy. He didn't have to worry about this electron doing that to this neutron, or that quark insinuating itself onto another. As long as it worked, he was good to go.

A hand went up. He turned his head.

"Yes, Lance Corporal?"

"Sir, are we expected to use these new comms as a field test of untried equipment?" The corporal's face was blankly outraged. DeBourchier sighed, not caring if they saw what he thought.

"Yes, Lance Corporal. While I like technical stuff," several men coughed while remembering some of the machines he'd tried without success, "ours is not to reason why, but to do."

The lance corporal stiffened.

"Aye, aye, sir."

Lieutenant DeBourchier went on.

"Get your field gear on. Report to the armory and draw weapons. Everything is waiting for you. There will be a load-out of rifle, sidearms, and bladed weapons. Reloads as well. Delta squad, you will function as heavy weapons, and will draw weapons accordingly."

An anticipatory shiver ran through the platoon. Lieutenant DeBourchier caught the speculative eye of the gunny, and nodded. Adding sidearms was not the usual procedure while going out on patrol in the area he'd mentioned. In fact, it seemed to be a little heavier than usual. The gunny raised an eyebrow, and the lieutenant shook his head. There would be time to fill him in to the new stuff he had in a little bit.

"We don't have a lot of time for questions or the normal routine, for that matter. There was a possibility of a Trippy scouting party out there in that area and we've been detailed to clean it out. There may be others in other areas, and there are other units assigned to check that out. We have our own area of responsibility to worry about. Gear up, people and shag ass over there. No formation run there – we'll form up in the armory bay and inspect arms, then move out."

Another glance at the gunny.

"And yes, people, I realize this is highly unusual. Get moving. Fall out!"

The group scattered.

DeBourchier motioned his gunny over before he could leave.

"Jim, there's more."

The gunny was a sixteen year veteran that was up for an early first sergeant post. He knew when things was about to go bad, and this time was one of them. He turned back to his lieutenant, and they started walking to the armory as they talked.

"Yes, sir, I figured that there was. That load-out isn't common."

"No, and neither is the order to remain in place at all costs, if we make contact. We are not to retreat or make tactical withdrawals."

The gunny stared.

"Sir?"

"Gunny, all I know is that there's some tech in the comm units they're issuing us that have to remain in proximity of any Trippies we encounter."

"Sir, that sounds like these quantum comms are also sensor platforms."

"Gunny, I couldn't say. I wasn't given a lot of choice three hours ago, when some new general's aide got me up out of my bunk. She got me to an unscheduled meeting with the Skipper, the XO, and the other platoon leaders."

"Wow. Skipper must have loved that."

"Gunny – she didn't say a single word. Whoever that general was, he had her quiet as a church mouse."

The gunny whistled soundlessly. DeBourchier went on.

"That told me a bunch, right there. When they told me about the quantum comms, and gave us a change in operating area, that told me more. Then when they told me that we'd be getting extra rations, that told be even more. Here's another thing. We're supposed to have access to special tactical weapons for this mission."

"Sir, wait. Mission? Special tactical? Nukes?"

The lieutenant nodded grimly.

"That's right. If we get overrun by a large force, we can call in nukes. In fact, we will be expected to. And you can't mention that little fact to the others, except if I'm down, you take over, and the situation is grim."

The sergeant looked bewildered.

"Sir, just what in the hell is going on upstairs?" DeBourchier shook his head in irritation. He wasn't too happy about any of it.

"I don't know, and I suspect that if I knew I wouldn't like it any more than I like it now. In fact, I'd like it less."

They reached the armory, a huge structure with a foreboding look to its construction. They went in, and went through the motions of drawing their weapons. Before they could start, the first squad leader came up to them with their personal gear. DeBourchier grinned.

"Davy, that was good. You anticipated us. You trying to become gunny?" The man laughed.

"One day, sir."

"I don't doubt it. Spread the word to get to the armory's bay and prepare for a very quick inspection."

The man braced to attention.

"Aye-aye, sir!" DeBourchier nodded to him, and he broke off. The squad leader moved quickly and was soon gone.

"Sir, everything's ready for you." The gunny had already gotten all of his equipment together, and was casting a critical eye over it.

"Good, Gunny."

DeBourchier signed several forms, quickly reviewing them as he did. He slipped on the web belt, and cinched it firmly. He checked the sidearm, a model C1-NC disruptive effect blaster, and assured himself that the charge was completely ready and that there were three extra power cells in complete shape. This went snug into the form fitted holster, and he heard a double retention click.

Next, two standard-issue blades with monomolecular edges. A machete-lengthen blade, and a combat knife with a stout grip. Why he needed two blades, he didn't know, but his orders had been specific.

After that, the anionic rifle was produced, inspected, and accepted. The Hegemony called this by the dry "BFR-6," but he and the other Marines called it the Big Daddy. Four reloads for it was accepted also, and not for the first time the lieutenant wondered why the reloads for the blaster and the rifle wasn't interchangeable. It would make things so much easier.

He looked over the papers one more time, and satisfied himself that things had been properly executed.

"We're good. We'll form up and get out of your hair."

The senior sergeant nodded. He wasn't smiling.

"Yes, sir. You guys be careful out there, you hear? Give 'em hell for us."

"Always." Lieutenant DeBourchier grinned at the man. He turned away to join his men, since he had heard the gunny call for the men to fall in. As he went through the double doors leading to the bay, the armory sergeants glanced at each other.

"Mike, they drew more than they usually do."

"Yeah, I noticed that, and it doesn't make for good thoughts."

"No, it doesn't, and I hope nothing happens."

"Me, too."

They turned back to their work, getting ready for another platoon to come in for a similar draw.

In the bay, Lieutenant DeBourchier accepted the salute of the gunny, and they went through an abbreviated inspection. 'Abbreviated' was most likely stretching it, as they got through it in record time. The lieutenant had never seen orders with such a sense of urgency dripping from every word, and while he normally would have taken his time, the early morning visit had convinced him. In due course, they completed the cursory inspection.

"Right, face! Forward, march!"

The platoon moved toward the wide rolling door that Gunnery Sergeant Katz had opened, and Lieutenant DeBourchier marched his platoon out. He waited for his gunny to get the door back down and rejoin them, glancing over to see him fall into his place.

"Double time, march!"

The platoon shifted into a faster movement. They moved down the road, and Lieutenant DeBourchier kept them going. After the base faded from view, the lieutenant slowed them down.

"Quick time, march!"

After a few minutes, they came to a spot that was almost a clearing. The lieutenant called for a halt.

"Left, face!" As the men turned to face him in their ruler straight ranks, he looked around. "OK, people, we need to set up a post here. Get the quantum comms set up by those trees, about a hundred yards apart, and linked in. Otherwise, you know what needs to be done. Fall out."

The Marines set up quickly, while a couple of the four squads paired off and started to patrol. The quantum comms fired up and tracked into several linkages quickly. The communications sergeant send several test messages in each band and was pleased to note that the reply messages came back much quicker that his old sets. He looked up at Lieutenant DeBourchier.

"Sir, this set is like a dream. Do I get to keep it?"

"Fraid not, sergeant. We'll have to turn it back in when we get back. Hey, did the locator function kick in?"

"Locator? Let me check." A moment passed, and a chime sounded from the machine. "There it goes, sir. Our location is being triangulated and transmitted, with encryption. And the two sets are reporting each others location in separate channels, so if one goes down the other picks it up instantly. And they are doing it together twice or three times as fast as the old sets. This is nice, sir."

"Glad you approve. Get all the kinks worked out and pay attention. You're going to be giving a report on how it performed to Captain Màrtainn when you get back."

The look on the man's face made it hard to keep his own straight, but somehow he managed.

"And just to make things worse, I'm supposed to tell you that if you do a good enough job in convincing her that we really could use these things, she's going to take to see Colonel Hamilton."

The look was almost pleading. The lieutenant went on, breezily.

"So! Work hard on it. I know you'll do a great job, since you'd never done anything less for me. I have an astounding amount of faith in your ability to close this deal, since it's plain you really, really like these units."

"Uh, thanks, sir. A lot...."

"You're very welcome, sergeant! Well, got to go check other stuff, and get ready for standing my watch."

DeBourchier nodded to the man, and chuckled to himself once he was out of earshot. That was mean of him, almost, but at least the sergeant had been forewarned. His thoughts turned to the job at hand and his grip on his rifle tightened more. He took a moment to look in all directions. DeBourchier was uneasy out here, and trying not to show it.

> ##### Chapter Four  
>  Iwohime's Rift  
>  Krasnoyarsk Outpost Two, Siberian District, Russia  
>  26 August, 2259 Terra Year  
>  0351 Zulu Time

The near-trees rustled in the wind.

"Report."

The junior scout in charge of the reconnaissance team stiffened as the mental flow of his mindlink parted to allow his Chargemaster to ask for information.

"Sire, the thralls have entered this place, and appear to be setting up some kind of equipment."

"Are you able to tell what type?"

"Not specifically, Sire, but one remains by both units constantly and takes orders from others. They seem to be well ensconced from random view."

"Then they have some position of importance. Make sure that the attendant is marked. I want this equipment undamaged for further study."

"As you wish, Sire. I have noted it."

"Do you see any evidence of weaponry?"

"Yes, Sire, the items they call 'rifles' are in plain view. It seems that every thrall has one, and furthermore, each seems to be competent and comfortable with them."

"That is to be expected with those from the warrior caste. We have our own, and observe the same behavior from them as well."

"Yes, Sire."

For a moment the junior scout felt his vision dim as the Chargemaster appropriated his vision and used it to look around. After his superior had his look, the junior scout was granted the use of his body again.

"Very well. Target all and nullify. There are only a few suitable for capture and use. I have noted them, and I desire them here soon. Make sure that you retrieve them. Proceed with this directive at an appropriate time, but do not delay."

"At your command, Sire."

The junior scout gauged the height of the planet's star, and waited for the right time.

It took all day, but finally he deemed the time was right. The sun was dipping down and was almost gone from view. He concentrated, and the mindlink flowed to the Chargemaster.

"Sire, it is time."

The answer came back immediately.

"Execute."

"At your command, Sire."

He looked at the visible thralls. These particular ones called themselves "Marines." That made no sense to him nor did he think it was anything special. He supposed the thrall warriors had to have some kind of designation. He opened up his mindlink again, this time to the others around the area, laying in camouflaged wait. Five were there, by the resting areas. Two by each of the attended machines, and twelve more scattered around tracking the ones that were moving. All reported that they awaited permission to act, and were ready.

"Very well. Note these specific thrall and machinery. Begin."

There were no acknowledgments. The scout remained where he was, using his subordinates' senses in much the same way as the Chargemaster had done with him. It was his duty to command this operation, not be leading from the front. For a moment, all he could see was dimness, but he switched views and saw a man holding a rifle pointed at his field of vision.

The thrall's mouth moved, but it was meaningless babble. Then the view went black, and the junior scout knew that his subordinate had passed on. He hurriedly switched to another, who stood nearby and was acting. When he started watching, he saw that the same thrall was now dead, the body twitching in that strange way they had. He observed as three – no, four more – was dispatched.

He changed views again. This time he saw a couple of the thralls that the Chargemaster wanted to be separated from the stock herd. He sent a congratulatory message burst to the under-scout that used a creative salvo of psionic energy to temporarily disable his targets. The scout watched long enough to confirm that the thralls were being packaged properly, then flipped through his views to find the other three. He found them, but noted that their captured condition wasn't as good as the first two. He resolved to speak firmly with those under-scouts later.

A familiar face caught his attention. This one was the face of the one in charge, and next to him was his chief subordinate, as near as he could tell. He could see that the first one was shouting something to the machine attendant, and the other was readying one of those rifle weapons. The scout sent a hurried message to the raider whose senses he was appropriating that one should be held alive. The reply was instantaneous and as he watched, both tumbled to the ground.

"Good. That will limit their response, to see their leader cut down."

It wasn't a surprise to hear the mindlink come alive with the Chargemaster's comments, but it was strangely comforting to know that he was taking a personal interest. The junior scout sent a suitably humble reply, and turned back to his work.

It didn't take much longer. He lost several of his raiders to those thrall with the heavier weapons than the 'rifles,' but that didn't matter much. All but the ones that was required by the Chargemaster were terminated as useless surplus. He took stock of his losses and was surprised to see that he'd lost roughly half of his personnel.

That realization shocked him, and dimmed some of the pride in his work. He realized that he was not going to enjoy reporting this to the Chargemaster. There was no help for it, and he decided to look for the machines from earlier. Since the threat was removed, he decided that it was safe to move around and see things for himself.

It took a few minutes. He knew where to go, thanks to the mindlink, but physically getting there took time. As he approached, he saw the deceased thrall and it's charge. The strange machine lay there on the hard ground. The insensate hand of its attendant was snagged in a strap, but it didn't seem to be damaged. The indicator lights blinked in the same manner as before, without any change in pattern or frequency. The junior scout motioned for one of the underlings to carry it.

As the underling picked up it, one of the triple legs brushed against the face, and a deedledeedledeedle erupted from the device. It was followed by a similar sound a distance off, in synchronization. Both units sounded three times, then stopped. The junior scout opened his mindlink quickly.

"What did you do?"

The underling looked at the face of the machine.

"I do not know, but it doesn't appear to have any damage."

"Very well. Complete your task."

"Yes, Master."

The junior scout opened his mind up for a general burst, reporting the successful completion of his mission.

###### < = >

"Distress call!"

The urgent report from the specialist manning the communications console of the command post got the attention of Major McNary. He was a heavy man, at the high end of the Marine body mass scales, but for all that he could move astonishingly quickly. He appeared at the specialist's side.

"Talk to me, Owens."

The communications specialist didn't look up, focused on his screen.

"Sir, the two quantum comms registered to Lieutenant DeBourchier just squawked distress. I've got coordinates, but no voice transmissions. There aren't any operator biometrics showing signed in, either, on either device."

"If one wasn't signed in that could mean they stepped away for a head call or something, but both at the same time... something's up. Get the reaction force up and moving there. Then sound the alert, base wide. We don't know what's out there to come after us here."

"Aye, aye, sir." He was already flipping switches and punching big red buttons even as he spoke.

Major McNary picked up the command post phone. He looked up as a disheveled intelligence officer tumbled through the door and tripped over the threshold.

"Lieutenant Fisher! You all right? What's the hurry?"

The younger officer picked himself up, ignoring the bloody knee. He leaned against one of the consoles and rapped out his report.

"Sir, there's been a development! One of the Trippy prisoners sneaked some kind of destructive jammer into the detention blocks and blew out the comms. He said that a patrol has just been wiped out to make the first point of several, and that in a few minutes the rest will be made! Sir, he's saying that an invasion force is coming!"

Major McNary turned to the communications specialist.

"Update the alert. Invasion imminent. Clear for action and load for bear. I want scanners up and operating, both ground and air based. I also want the lookouts posted in doubles. If they're coming, I want eyeballs seeing them."

"Yes, sir, passing that along right now."

The Major nodded.

"Good. Get the Colonel up here, if he isn't already on the way."

"Sir, he just called. He's coming."

"Good." The room started filling with people responding to the alert status, and McNary turned to the younger officer.

"Son, you need to get that knee looked at."

"Fuck the knee....sir. More important things to do."

The Major smiled to himself.

"I understand. Return to your post."

Lieutenant Fisher braced to attention, and started out the door. He didn't make it through before a sergeant from his section dashed through. Unlike his officer, he didn't trip. The sergeant picked the lieutenant's face out and got his attention.

"Lieutenant Fisher! New intel! The prisoners at the Canyon have been liquidated as used up, and the invasion force is coming to replenish!"

On the heels of that feverish report, Colonel Jacobson came through the door smoothly.

"What was that, sergeant?"

Everyone in the command post not actively busy came to attention.

"As you were, people. Sergeant?"

The sergeant glanced at the lieutenant, and he nodded, giving the sergeant permission to relate all the updates.

"Sir, we got a couple of pieces of intel just now. One was that there was a reconnaissance platoon wiped out recently, signaling the start of a base invasion, and the other was that the hostages at the Grand Canyon had been "used up." The invasion force is coming to replenish their supply."

The senior officer turned to the Major without hesitation.

"Major, get this information to Captain Màrtainn and her crew right now! They're supposed to be hitting that site, and they're already shorthanded!"

"Aye-aye, sir." The Major's hand slapped the communicator's shoulder. He had been listening in as unobtrusively as possible, and was already calling it in. The sergeant cleared his throat.

"Sirs? There's more."

Major McNary looked at Colonel Jacobson.

"What is it, Sergeant?"

The sergeant looked straight at the major.

"Sir, part of the trippuku missives we've got is that Trippy post in the Grand Canyon. Sir, it's more than a post, it's a full up base, with all kinds of military hardware. When the Trippy mentioned that patrol in the Rift, he also let slip that the base was immediately going on full alert."

"Major, go check for launches of any sort – missile, atmospheric craft, orbit interceptors, whatever. There might be more than just us about to get hit."

The major was about to acknowledge this, when the communications specialist interrupted.

"Sirs, you wanted me to raise the strike team. I've got a problem."

He looked up to see two sets of senior-officer eyes staring at him. Major McNary broke off to pass along the tasking orders for the surveillance satellites.

"Sir, I can't."

The Colonel raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"Colonel, their barracks has an auto-responder stating that they've already left."

"That's great. Try to hail them."

"Sir, I've tried that too, but the electronic assets they took with them report EMCON."

"They went radio silent. Great. I don't know why they would have, but I guess they have a reason to. Set up a beacon to be triggered by their transponder codes. When they come back online, send this information in an encrypted squirt."

"Aye, sir."

The Major interrupted. His query was still working on the screen, so he looked up at his superior.

"Sir, I'm wondering something."

The Colonel took his eyes off the specialist's screen and looked up.

"What?"

"Colonel, before we got the raid warning, we copied a distress call from a patrol out in Iwohime's Rift. They were being overrun and I guess wiped out, but the reaction force hasn't reported back."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Sir, right after that, we got a runner in from the intel section that said something worrying. He said that one of the prisoners that had been captured recently gave them information about the patrol, and after that, well, you heard the second runner."

"So how did they know about the patrol being overrun? There wasn't time enough for any information to flow. I didn't know about the patrol until a few minutes ago."

"Well, sir, some of the theories are that they're using telepathy."

"What?"

"Well, sir, they don't have a spoken language, other than those boxes. They don't manipulate them in any way, or at least I've never seen any controls for them. The intelligence guys say that some of the Trippies appear to be concentrating harder than others to use the devices, almost as if they aren't as trained up on the operation of the things. So mental effort, anyway, seems to suggest telepathy to me."

"If it's telepathy, what range do they have?"

"Sir, I don't know, but based on what I see here, as least as far as Iwohime's Rift to here. That's what, about ten or twelve miles from here?"

"Good point. Have we got any of those speech boxes?"

"Yes, sir and plenty, although only a few works."

"Put some of this civilian scientists to work on finding a frequency to mind-blast them with. If they're telepathic and those boxes don't have control surfaces, it stands to reason that they could be interfacing telepathically with it. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes, sir, and I'll get right on that."

"You do that, Major. I got to call up reinforcements."

This made the Major stop in surprise.

"Reinforcements? But, sir, there isn't another base for at least fifty miles around."

"Oh, but there is. Remember that area with all the razor tipped barbwire and a distinct air of eternal doom and gloom?"

"Yes, now that you mention it."

"That's our reinforcement. Where's the comm?"

> ##### Chapter Five  
>  Krasnoyarsk Outpost Two, Siberian District, Russia  
>  26 August, 2259 Terra Year  
>  0432 Zulu Time

When the call came through to the oversized command post, the Lieutenant Colonel commanding the base picked it up.

"Tau Base CP, Lieutenant Colonel Davis speaking."

He listened for a few moments, then waved his arm at a captain. The captain came over quickly. The lieutenant colonel scribbled an emphatic note while he pressed the headset's speaker to his ear. The captain saw that note read "INVASION INBOUND!!!" He looked up at his boss, who jerked his head in the affirmative. The captain flipped the note over and dashed off a reply, then went over to a controller. He spoke to the man, who started punching buttons, and immediately left the room at a run.

"OK, and when was this supposed to get here? Soon but not sure when? OK, sir, we are locked and cocked and ready to roll." He looked at the reply note. It said, "Sounding alert" without benefit of punctuation. The base alarms started to sound.

"Yes, sir, we are now on alert, and will deploy a force immediately. Operational control will remain with you, then pass to me. Yes, sir – same to you. Out."

He stood up.

"OK, people, this ain't no drill. I want deployment plan Alpha Zed Zero up and running five minutes ago. I want everything in stocks deployed, down to the last firecracker under those rules of engagement. We are now under operational control of Colonel Jacobson, and he wants his perimeter reinforced. Get those IFF units up and dialed into his unit's codes. We don't want to be shot by our side."

The controllers were all too busy to look at each other, but they were all thinking the same thing. Alpha Zed Zero was intended to repel invaders. The button pushing and switch flipping reached a crescendo, underneath the mutters of hurried voices into headsets. The doors opened and a double clutch of security officers took their alert posts. They had personal sidearms for all and all but four had quantum displacement rifles. The four that didn't have rifles carried disruption rift rifles with small backpacks. Those four posted on all four walls, away from corners.

"Update the plot." Those words came from Colonel Davis, and at his command the wall above the security officer blanked. It lit up with status updates for all units assigned to the base, showing that most of those units showed ready and awaiting movement orders and the others very close to finishing.

"Establish a dedicated link with Colonel Jacobson's command post, and identify us as a subordinate unit."

A chime sounded, and in a corner a communications window opened up with the other command post in the background. Colonel Jacobson looked out at them.

"Colonel Davis? Are you online?"

Lieutenant Colonel Davis stood up.

"Yes, sir, we are, one hundred percent. We are moving out to reinforce your perimeter with everything we've got."

"Just what all do you have? You guys have been mighty secretive."

"Troops, tanks, guns, and mini-fighters."

"Wow. Let's see, I'll want - "he was interrupted by an orderly, who gave him a tablet with updates. He scanned it quickly. "Jim, the invasion force is headed this way. It's been sighted with space based assets deploying from a single ship that just popped out from hyperspace. It's strange, though."

"How, sir?"

"If they're sending an invasion force from space, why a single ship and then just enough to hit one spot? This one?"

"Dunno, sir, might want to ask them that."

"No, I don't want to give them any ideas. Can you give me overhead surveillance?"

"Sure. They have a loiter time of a little over twelve hours."

Colonel Davis punched in a quick note on his tablet, and the orders went out. In the launch bays, the armored control stations closed as the pilots hustled in quickly. As they belted in, the automated systems ran diagnostics on the systems that they were preparing to make use of. The pilots settled in and punched buttons to accept the diagnostic results as each telltale lit up green. The only thing left to do was to push the "LAUNCH COMMIT" buttons, and each pilot hammered them down.

The mini-fighters screamed down the rails as the electromagnetic launchers slung them into the air. Before they reached the termination point and became airborne, the encrypted communication links between the small planes and the pilots' armored shells in the hangers steadied. Redundant links came online. Weapons statuses read out in each pilot's display, and repeated on an auxiliary status board in Colonel Davis' control room. The mini-fighters streaked out, their heavy metal based engines pushing them in excess of 30 gees. They spread out in all directions, as a larger, slower airborne unit launched off the rails to take up a position much higher in the sky. This unarmed unit was tasked with overall surveillance, and four mini-fighters loitered with it to protect it. In moments, the others that had advanced ahead saw the front wave of the invasion force setting down in a valley.

"Sir, it looks like they're about here," Davis said, tapping a spot on a topographical map, "and they are going to be considerate and use the main road to get here. Uh-oh."

"What?" Colonel Jacobson said quickly.

"Would you believe that there are two groups of Trippies trying to circle around to the back?"

"You don't say. Did they read a book of tactics?"

"I don't know, sir, but in the moments that I had a surveillance look, I saw what could be mortars. Well, it looked like what we have for mortars, but no telling for sure what their version is."

Colonel Jacobson tapped the more distant group, highlighting it for his staff to see. It projected up on the second auxiliary screen running down the side of the room.

"Jim, I think I'll send a tiger team out for this group. The other group appears to be closer to your compound, so no sense in crossing response teams. Can you handle that group for me?"

In the other CP, the lieutenant colonel smiled grimly, working his console to send units out to do just that.

"Sir, just forget about them. We're on it. Also, I'm rolling tanks here, here, here, here, and over here," the designated areas flashed as he tapped his map. Each tap also allocated those areas for his tank crews to report to with all haste.

"Speaking of tanks, how did you get those?"

"Can't say, sir, or I'll lose my Good Conduct merit badge from the Scouts."

Colonel Jacobson rolled his eyes. He really should have known better than to ask. But, he'd been curious for nearly six months now, ever since the other base had been set up.

"Fair enough. What about the troops?"

"Sir, they left about ten minutes ago, and most of them should be establishing positions around your perimeter. It's getting about time to get some reports from them."

"Do they have the right challenge responses for my people out there?"

"Yes, sir, they do, plus the electronic identification tags in their uniforms for the scout vision gear. They're covered."

"EID tags, too? We've been waiting for ours for four months! How did you get yours?"

"Sorry, sir, you know how it is." The lieutenant colonel was apologetic in tone as well as words.

Seeing that Davis was doing his best to support him, but unable to talk about things he couldn't, Colonel Jacobson took a breath and sat down at his console. The screen lit up automatically with the status updates copied from the big screen, and an inset of the other man popped up.

"Okay, Jim, keep this line opened up."

A different security officer bustled up to the Colonel, and whispered in his ear.

"Sir, we've got something disturbing."

"What is it?"

The man motioned him off to the side.

"Sir, we've just discovered a couple of racks of special weapons have been checked out for use."

"What the hell? Who authorized that?"

"Sir, we didn't know until a few minutes ago. Somebody futzed with the logs – a skilled somebody, that is – and did it just after the last visual check six hours ago. Computer logs show a discrepancy in count that was corrected by whoever hacked it."

Colonel Jacobson didn't need this now.

"Well, who, then?"

"Sir, the ID stamp was Captain Felicia Màrtainn."

Colonel Phil Jacobson sat down heavily. He looked over at the communications specialist.

"Keep trying to raise them. Master Chief, thank you for your report. Do everything you can to gather more information. If there's a way to disarm those weapons from here, do it, and don't wait to ask me about it."

"Sir, that's going to be a problem."

"What? Why?"

The Master Chief at Arms sighed heavily.

"Sir, they knew which ones to get. Our stocks have three inactivated units that are technically "special weapons," but aren't fitted with disarmament packages. The nature of their warheads and physics blow every single effort to do that out of the water."

Colonel Jacobson sat up.

"Are you saying...."

"Yes, sir." The master chief's eyes were hard as agate. "They stole two of them."

Shock coursed over the Colonel's face. His mind seized on another piece of information.

"Inactivated? Why do we have inactive weapons, and more to the point, why wasn't I told me had them?"

"We was supposed to get replacements for them, and then get them out of here, but the Defense Appropriations Under-committee and the Hegemony Security Council has had a spat. Every time one of them signs the order, the other one countermands it for some reason or another. So, we still have them, but they're classified inactive by Hegemony mandate. As for why, well sir, we have specific orders not to discuss them with anyone not on a list of people cleared for it, and your name wasn't on the list. The only reason I can say anything now is the disappearance of those weapons. You know the next part of what I have to say as well as I do. I have to say this anyway. No one, not your wife, not your mistress, not anyone here or anyone off this base learns about the existence of those weapons. Sorry sir, but I had to say that."

"Master Chief, no apologies. You are doing your job, and I hear and accept what you're saying. I guess we know why Captain Màrtainn and her crew went radio silent. How did they know about these weapons?"

"Sir, we think someone on her crew, or Captain Màrtainn herself, had prior knowledge and blabbed."

"Wonderful. Keep working at it."

"Aye, sir, we will."

"And Master Chief?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I know that you're in charge of the unit until we get a qualified officer in. However, if you want to write a nasty letter to the DAU and the Security Council about their overweening interest in politics over weapons security, I'll countersign every copy you write."

The enlisted man smiled, but the bags under his eye belied every bit of humor he might show.

"Aye-aye, sir. I think I might."

He braced to attention and left.

###### < = >

Captain Felicia Màrtainn sat alone in the small conference room. The high-speed team interceptor craft wasn't as fast as a mini-fighter, but it was capable of low-earth orbit. This allowed it to use parabolas to reach places in quicker times than the shorter ranged craft could do.

She reached into his pocket and pulled out a photo of a couple. In it, on a beach, was a younger Felicia, being held up in both arms of a man with dark hair and laughing blue eyes. The photo showed both of them in a less carefree time of their life, with the threat of war in the distance of future's reach. She sighed, and her fingertips traced over the man.

"Dima. God, how I wish I could be back on that beach with you, without any worries."

She gazed at the photo for a few more moments, and tucked it back in her pocket when a discreet knock came on the door.

"Come!"

First Lieutenant Horacio Bisbee came in. He looked at his CO, and without a word opened up a drawer. Two shot glasses came out, and he pulled a flask out of his pocket. He poured a generous shot out in both glasses, then put away the flask. He put her shot down in front of her and waited for her to grab it before lifting his.

"What are we toasting, Horacio?"

"Those left behind, those missed, and an end to this damned war."

She nodded sadly.

"I'll drink to that."

They threw the shots back solemnly. After a moment, she looked at him.

"Horacio, have you ever thought about starting another family?"

He sighed.

"Yes, I have, but every time I did, the ghosts came back. I've lost one entire family and barely survived the dreams and the guilt. I couldn't do it again."

She nodded, sadly.

"I know it well, Horacio. I know about the tears, the sleepless nights, the changes in your body. I know about the deep abyss in your soul and that Nietzsche quote about it looking back at you."

Another knock came at the door. Horacio quickly hid the shot glasses, putting them back in the drawer.

"Come!"

A communications rating came in with a tablet. He handed it to Captain Màrtainn.

"Ma'am, that is the text copy of an encrypted automated message burst that we just copied on passive scanners. Invasion warning at Krasnoyarsk Two, and a patrol was wiped out. The Trippy prisoners at the outpost knew about the patrol getting wiped before their comm units could squawk distress."

"How?"

"Ma'am, the best theory is that the Trippies have some form of telepathy. There must have been enough observation that they believe strongly about it, because they've repeated it. Also, there is a specific reason for the invasion, and that reason is that all the prisoners, female and otherwise, are "discarded – used up." That is the exact phrase they used, ma'am."

Captain Màrtainn's face paled, and her lips thinned. To his credit, the communications rating stared back, not breaking eye contact.

"Ma'am, do you want to send a reply or acknowledgment?"

"No. Maintain communications blackout. Nothing goes out."

"Aye-aye, ma'am." The communications rating left.

"Did you have something else in mind, Horacio?"

"Ma'am, I just wanted to say it's been an honor to serve with you, cliché it might be to say that."

"It's not a cliché if you mean it. Horacio, it's been my honor."

They shook hands over the tabletop.

"Ma'am, we're almost to the endpoint. About ten minutes out. All systems are checked out and ready, the special weapons have been quadrupled checked, and everyone is ready to do their part. We just need you to give the final word."

"Well, let's go, then. We have a place in history to be in."

Màrtainn rose and lead the way out. The doors closed silently behind them.

###### < = >

Smoke filled the command post as Lieutenant Colonel Davis coughed.

"Get those tanks back online!"

"Sir, we've lost most of them, but the rest are spinning back up! They report another minute!"

"We may not have another minute! Get one of the micro-fighters on that advance group for air-to-mud!"

"Aye sir!"

Davis looked at the cracked screen.

"Colonel?"

Colonel Jacobson clawed his way back from the floor he'd landed on when the Trippy bombs hit his command post.

"Jim, what's your status?"

"Sir, I've lost most of my tanks and air support, although I still have the airborne early warning system. I can still do precision targeting, and they can still handle the targeting requests from your assets like they've been doing. Half of my ground troops are gone, but we've stopped the push for now. It looks like the Trippies are massing and trying to reset for another run at us, but I think they're in just as bad shape as we are."

"Tell me about it. I've got eighty percent casualties all across the board. One punch is all I have left. Everything is contained everywhere but that one corner in the southwest. If we can knock that down, then we can go into the containment areas and secure them from all the Trippy pockets of resistance."

Colonel Davis slapped at his hand-held device until it came up and showed him the information he was looking for.

"Colonel, I've got one tank and maybe three fighters to send. There's a platoon of heavy weapons nearby, too."

"Task them all."

"Tasking."

A few keystrokes and the unit started smoking. Davis cursed the unit, the place that built it, and the lowest-bidder government contractor that designed it. He crawled across the floor, one leg dragging behind him, and managed to get to his command console. A bleeding Marine helped drag him.

It was a miracle that the screen popped up as quickly as it did, considering all the other damage in the command post. The lieutenant colonel input the tasking commands and held his breath. The communications satellite had been shot out hours ago, and they only had the backup unit. It was buried in a shell similar to the fighter pilots' shells, and didn't have as strong connections to the communications network.

The console accepted the commands, and Davis breathed a sigh of relief. It was made longer when the acknowledgments rolled in.

Suddenly, everything stopped.

"The hell?"

He looked at his screen, and Colonel Jacobson looked as mystified as he was.

"Jim? Did everything just stop for you, too?"

"Yes, sir, it did."

"Get a take from the recon platform, or the fighters. Something. I want to know what's going on."

Davis was already doing that, since most of the electronics ratings had been killed in the battle, but he wasn't going to say that just yet. They had to wait a few minutes, the tension building up as the long seconds ticked by without any noise or anything to break it up.

Finally, the images came back. Trippies lay everywhere. It looked like some lay dead, and others in agony, holding what passed for their heads.

"Sir?"

Colonel Jacobson turned back to the screen, after taking a report from a bruised and bleeding Marine.

"Jim, it seemed to the electronics group that there was a huge EM surge right before everything stopped. Right before that, there was a couple of double-flash signature events at the Grand Canyon."

"Nukes?"

"Can't say, Jim. I'll lose my Good Conduct merit badge."

The lieutenant colonel shook his head.

"But are we done fighting?"

The colonel looked at the lieutenant colonel on his screen.

"It sure looks that way. However it happened, it's done. I guess start cleaning up and start doing your reports. Your help saved us, and I'm going to put that in my report. Along with some other things you don't know about."

"Aye-aye, sir. Glad to help." He signed off, confused by the last part of the colonel's statement, but deciding not to push it. He started the long process of cleaning up.

###### < = >

He still didn't know what stopped the fight, or what killed the Trippies. He had scratched up several squads of Marines with blood in their eyes, and send them out to check. All of them reported back that every Trippy they could find was dead. Most didn't have any signs of battle injuries, but all of them had apparently suffered extreme agony.

Colonel Davis looked up at the communications rating standing at the door. He waved him in, and watched as the younger man gingerly stepped through what was left of the doorway. He had a sling on his arm that exactly matched the one that the colonel sported.

"Sir, we got a superencrypted message from Captain Màrtainn. We just finished decoding it. There was a lot of data with it, too."

"From Màrtainn? What is it?"

"Right here, sir." He handed the colonel a secure high-capacity chip, and retired. Colonel Jacobson slid the chip into his tablet and read the message.

"To Colonel Jacobson, or whoever gets this.

I, Captain Felicia Alexandra Màrtainn, UTHMC, make this my last recording. I have no family to leave anything to or anything to leave, thanks to the Trippies. I'm not going to leave a long note. Yes, I stole the weapons, Colonel, and yes, I'm about to use them to take out this Trippy base. It will sacrifice me and my team, but no one here has anything left or anyone to mourn us.

The Trippies have to be dealt with. There has been war for a long, long time now. They have to be exterminated. They have to be completely removed, and I'm going to start the removing, right now.

We've dodged a lot of the little pieces of junk they call fighters. All it takes is a close miss from a supraorbital capable craft like this, heavily armored, and the turbulence does the rest. The antiaircraft is closer, but it's nothing. There isn't much resistance, almost like most of the Trippies that are supposed to be here are somewhere else. Like, maybe in an invasion force somewhere, raping, pillaging, and looting.

The weapons are armed, and the fail safes are removed. We've dodged the antiaircraft fire and are moments away from the Trippy base. There's no more resistance, and we have a clear shot at the base. The strange thing is, we're monitoring a lot of EM band transmissions and something else. We don't know what it is, but it's easily as powerful as any transmitter. It could be the telepathy that was mentioned in the report of the destroyed patrol. I don't know. I'm attaching recording logs of everything, for scientific curiosity, if nothing else. I won't see the results, but someone will.

I'm sending this message out now, with superencryption that will take longer to decode. When that's done, the Trippies will be gone.

And so will we.

I'm not doing this for madness' sake. I'm doing it for a very good reason. For every husband, wife, son, daughter, or other family member lost. For every lover, friend or acquaintance. For everyone lost to someone.

For my family.

For Dima.

Captain Felicia Alexandra Màrtainn, United Terra Hegemony Marine Corps, recording."

The End

### Waves

The air carried the clean scent of the saltwater in the early morning hours. The watcher stood silently on the white sands of the resort's beach. His gaze swept across the horizon, noting the light chop on the water, the reddening skies, and the almost total absence of tourists. Being a native, he was surprised at this absence. Some of the tourists to the beautiful Gulf Coast had been known to do some strange and sometimes stupid things, even dangerous things around this time of the morning. Red and purple flags had already been posted by the shorthanded lifeguards. They had enough to do, even this early.

One of the most adventurous of the aforementioned variety waded out into the Gulf waters. Her skill at moving through the water was in question, along with the fashion sense of choosing a paisley bikini top and striped bottoms. Her sobriety wasn't. The watcher could smell the alcohol from several feet away. He watched as a small wave knocked her over, standing in water just under her knees. She struggled to get up, getting washed further up the shoreline. The drunken tourist managed to rise, covered in sand that saltwater didn't wash off. An inebriated giggle escaped her, from the sight of the sand.

As she stretched precariously, the watcher evaluated her figure. She filled out the mismatched bikini quite well, he thought, but drunkenness wasn't his speed. The woman turned back to the open Gulf waters and mumbled something incoherent. Her stumbling steps waded back out in the water. Her body rose and fell with the waves approaching the beach, sometimes getting pushed back to shore and sometimes holding her ground. She laughed again at some private, alcohol fueled joke and jumped over a wave to swim out.

She snickered at the waves shifting her back and forth without mercy, the undertow gripping her ankles and the sand sluicing between her toes. Doubtless, she was thinking of her several boyfriends, and the misadventures they got into. A shapely leg kicked out of the water, not steadily or easily. It didn't come down in time to steady her enough before the next wave rolled ashore with a white crest and knocked her off the other.

The watcher observed her head dip under water without a bit of concern and not come back up. He shrugged, mentally subtracting one from the number in his head. He left the beach, clear in his conscience, heart as black as the diving gear he wore. The waters closed over him without a stray ripple to mark his passage.

###### < = >

Alex Rountree took a hesitant sip from a truly awful cup of coffee. It wasn't that it was ever good, and after eight years on the force, he didn't expect anything good from station house coffee. He had long come to the conclusion that left to their own devices, some cops just didn't know how to make a good cup of coffee. Even with the plethora of flavored coffees out there now, the coffee urn almost consistently ejected a stream more like mud than coffee. He usually brought in a thermos of coffee from his brother's firehouse. The firefighters knew how to make good coffee.

The coffee mug came down, sent off with a grimace, and rested on the desk. The detective perused the report of a body found washed up on the beach. Female, mid-twenties, blonde hair, drowned. No signs of violence, but a blood alcohol level almost three times the legal limit. Toxicology reports were still out, but the technician that did the blood alcohol level used a new test that gave a preliminary heads-up to the presence of cocaine. No forms of ID, but then again, with the skimpiness of swimwear out there, he didn't know where it would be kept anyway.

Forensics was still identifying the woman, although there was only one missing tourist from the three condos nearby. Until the prints came back, nobody wanted to go on record without someone that could identify the corpse. It seemed that whoever she'd come with had made themselves scarce during the initial investigation. Only a single tattoo, of a butterfly under her bikini line, and that was one of the understated ones. She looked as though she'd been healthy enough, although he'd seen where she started losing weight. Cocaine could do that to a person.

He shook his head. Tourists. What was it that made these people go out and lose their minds, and make it worse for the others? He'd met some perfectly fine people visiting the Gulf Coast over the years, had a little fun with some of the women, but the bad ones kept him plenty busy enough.

He reached the end of the report and fumbled for the coffee cup. It wasn't there, and in its place was a plastic bottle of something purple-green. He looked up, into the laughing eyes of his partner. Detective Stephanie Loenen nodded at the bottle.

"Try it."

"What is it?" He looked at the label doubtfully, inspecting the word 'seaweed.'

"Something better for you than that dreadful coffee."

He grimaced again. It wasn't that he was in bad shape. He wasn't, and in fact was in pretty fit condition. Stephanie, however, could almost run a police dog down. Or at the very least, outrun anyone else in the department on two legs. She was constantly trying to get him to eat and drink the strangest concoctions, like this 'seaweed extract' drink. Some of it he was surprised to find he liked, but some of it, like this whatever-it-was he didn't. He knew he wasn't going to get out of it. She'd already extracted a promise from him when they met to try one good sip or bite of something.

She watched in anticipation, eyes gleaming in droll amusement. Alex sighed, broke the seal and twisted the cap off. He raised the chilled bottle to his lips, and took a cautious sip, then another.

"Hey, this is actually pretty...."

The door burst open, slamming against the wall, and starting the detective. He spilled the pureed seaweed extract on his shirt, but his partner caught the bottle before too much ejected out.

"Everyone, listen up. The Flying Sands Condo was just bombed. Massive loss of live and trauma, property damage, roads messed up, the works. Everyone get out on it!"

Detective Rountree stuffed the report he was reading in his pocket, picked up the rest of his seaweed drink, and ran out the door. Stephanie was ahead of him, as usual. She was in their assigned cruiser, cranked up, and gesturing for him to hurry up. In the back of his mind, he reflected that he was going to beat her in a foot race somehow, someday.

"Got the address, Steph?"

"Right here." She gestured at the GPS unit in the console.

"Let's move."

She peeled out, her partner holding on for dear life. The other cruisers ran right behind her, barely managing to keep up.

###### < = >

The scene was horrific. Bloodied people were sobbing and moaning for help, charred paper lay everywhere, trembling in the breeze of the fires. Exposed girders jutted out and broken glass littered the street. The traffic division had arrived and was doing what they could to sort out the mess. Other emergency vehicles arrived, and the call went out for much more than what had shown up.

Helicopters with news crews fluttered overhead, to the consternation of the incident commander, who angrily ordered that they leave the area immediately. Life Flight helicopters took their places, as the newsies backed off a short distance. The hot smoke-filled air roiled from the turbulence caused by the choppers' rotor blades.

Firefighters ran into the condo, again and again, ignoring the ominous creaks and groan emanating from somewhere in the core of the building. Empty stretchers and gurneys would move in quickly and come out laden, with moaning people or often too-still bodies. Ambulances crouched in staging areas, waiting to get loaded, and then streaking out to waiting hospitals. Those same hospitals came to full alert, medicos waiting with a sense of heightened anxiety. Supervisors started calling in the next shift to get in early any way they could.

Chaos reigned, and the emergency response people struggled to exert order upon it. One of the emergency medical technicians looked up at the darkening skies. He'd noticed the red skies that morning, and now looked out over the water to see an angry black mass rolling in. A fat raindrop impacted the radio microphone he was wearing clipped to his polo shirt. He turned to his partner, gesticulating wildly at the sky.

"Tony! Hey, Tony, look!" Tony looked up. The bearded chin dropped.

"Oh, no, not this, too." He slapped the shoulder of the man next to him. The cop looked up, and got on his radio to report it. Soon everyone's sense of urgency folded over and got more frenetic. The weather wouldn't wait for them to finish what they had to do, and when it hit it would be bad.

The detectives screamed up to the curb, lights flashing in time with a few headaches, and Rountree jumped out before the car came to rest. His partner was not far behind. They searched the crowd to find the senior police on the scene.

"Lieutenant Vick, what the hell happened?"

The police lieutenant squinted at the familiar voice. His frown eased a little as he recognized Detective Rountree, but returned on the sight of Stephanie Loenen.

"Who's this?"

"Ell-tee, this is my new partner, Detective Loenen. Watch her, she'll run you down." The female detective snorted as she displayed her shield. The lieutenant nodded absently.

"Alex, there was an explosion in the building."

"Gas leak? Bomb? What kind?"

"Not sure. Firefighters too busy getting people out to see, and the cops in there doing the same thing."

"Damn. This is not good."

"Tell me about it. Gas lines all turned off – that was the first thing."

"What do you need from us?"

The lieutenant led them over to a map, held down at the corners with two boots, an ash covered brick and a half-empty donut box. The look in the senior man's eye dared them to mention the box. They decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

"I need you guys to take this part of the perimeter and watch out for people going in or out. That's supposed to be a high traffic area for emergency exits, and there's also supposed to be surveillance cameras there, but not anymore. There's a fire crew headed there now. Watch your asses."

"Yessir. On it."

As the detectives turned to leave, the lieutenant turned back to his work. He'd already dismissed them from his mind, in order to focus on what he needed to.

###### < = >

The watcher stood without making any sound. He was positioned on the rooftop of the insurance building several blocks over, since it was the next highest building to the stricken condo. He was dressed in a maintenance worker's jumpsuit, with the proper tools and other items dangling from his belt to complete the look. He noted the presence of emergency crews, and nodded in satisfaction. A cell phone came out of his pocket, and a text message was thumbed into it. After it transmitted, he waited for a moment and looked up at the darkening sky. The cell phone buzzed twice. After he read the reply, he nodded again. A second text message was sent winging its way out, and the watcher dropped the device onto the graveled roof. A descending boot heel crushed the phone, and ground it into useless bits of plastic, cheap glass, and microchips.

The watcher took a second look out at the beehive of activity and left the shattered phone behind as he took the stairwell down to the first floor. Behind him, the text message found its home in a server. That server, triggered by a command sequence, sent a packet of data to another cell phone hidden deep inside the wounded building. After the server sent the packet, it triggered a cascade failure of the storage hardware, writing and overwriting all the data with ones and zeros. It also turned off the temperature warnings on its memory and central processor. Having done that, and barely completing the final tasks assigned, it cooked itself to death.

The phone's data connection received the packet, and passed it to the speaker to signal an incoming message. It also triggered a detonator connected to the speaker, wired to plastic explosives.

The next explosion was not as noticeable as the first momentous one. In fact, having only been aligned to certain parts of the building's structure, it was passed off as just more of the building's ongoing issues. Just enough explosives had been used to weaken the supports of the condo, severing the braces almost all the way through in shaped-charge explosions. However, it left the building very weak, with the weight of the structure crushing the fragile lower floors. The building's dying moans resounded, as the emergency crews rushed to get the overbooked condo's occupants out.

The storm's gust front supplied all that was needed to collapse the rest of the building.

The death cry of the building warned those outside to step back, very quickly. The floors crumbled, faster and faster with screams and shouts from within chilling the very marrow of the people that was trying very hard to rescue the wounded and collect the dead. Detective Rountree scampered back as the emergency exit blew open, billowing ashes and plaster. Detective Loenen screamed at him.

"Get in, Alex!"

He got in, getting the door shut and clearing a tree trunk by a fraction of an inch. The cruiser whirled around, dirt and gravel spraying everywhere and raising a dust cloud. The female detective stomped on the gas, sending the cruiser skittering away. Detective Rountree stared out the back window to see the building fall.

The storm, up to now only threatening to rain, chose that moment to unleash the fullness of its furor. The rain beat down the dust cloud, to a degree, and showed the building's condition. It was a pile of smoking rubble.

###### < = >

The clamor was amazing. Reporters shouted questions at the police chief standing at the podium. Some shouted questions at each other. Chief Melyssa Smith tried to regain control of the reporters, the group of which was exhibiting action close to a mob mentality. Finally, she shrugged and gestured for a bullhorn. She tapped the buttons on the horn's keypad and triggered off a siren. She held it for ten seconds.

In the now-quiet room, she spoke with crisp deliberation and a not small amount of anger.

"You people can either shut the hell up and speak when called, or leave. I'm thisclose to running all of you out and slamming the door. Don't say a word until I finish my statement."

"Chief, what about the.... "She pointed at the reporter and snapped her fingers curtly, gesturing to the door. The man was escorted to the door by three officers. One had an irritated look about her, and her hand was close by her less-lethal weaponry. The man protested, but one twitch of her hand, and he settled down a little.

After the door closed again, the chief took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Now, here's what we know. At 11:34 a.m. yesterday, a pair of explosions hit the Flying Sands condo. That's the one that multimillionaires stayed in, and you had to have a verified net worth that none of us will probably see in our lifetimes.

The first explosion we think had to do with the gas lines to the building, but we aren't sure. When the building came down – more on that in a moment – it destroyed anything that we could have used to figure out what was happening."

A murmur ran through the crowd, and the chief held up a warning finger. She waited a moment for the message in that simple gesture to take hold, then continued.

"There was a second explosion that show all the signs of a detonation. We think somebody used some kind of shaped charge in the building's support structure. Several of our officers radioed out reports of that explosion. All of them are dead, killed in the collapse of the building."

The reporters sat still, hearing the raw anger in the police chief's voice.

"Other loss of life include the firefighters that went in, from the 11th Ladder Battalion and the 3rd Pumper Station. About a quarter of the condo's residents got out, but there are still many, many casualties left in the building. We are working on identifying the dead and notifying the families as identification becomes possible."

She nodded at the man standing beside her.

"This is Special Agent Drew Manley, from the Jacksonville field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We contacted the FBI about this investigation when it became clear that this was not an accidental happenstance. As such, the preliminary determination as been made that this will be handled as a case other than accidental explosion."

Another murmur, stronger this time, as the words "other than accidental" penetrated the consciousness of the watchful group. The chief held up her finger again, giving a reminder and warning the journalists of the consequences of bursting out with questions. She turned to the man in the suit.

"Special Agent?"

He nodded grimly, unsmiling face and flint eyes giving away nothing to the group as he stepped up to the microphone.

"Thank you, Chief Smith. I have been in contact with my superiors in Washington, D.C., and it is our opinion that this is not an accidental happening. I will not speculate as to what caused this, nor will I speculate as to where responsibility lies. My office will be the primary point of contact for all inquiries, and local law enforcement agencies will assist as needed in all respects. There will be no questions at this time, either directed to myself or to Chief Smith and her people, since the investigation is still ongoing concurrent with recovery efforts. Thank you and have a good day."

Detective Rountree's mental antennae perked up at the use of the word "recovery." Usually in public press conferences, the word "rescue" was used, and to hear it ignored was similar to a flood light in a dark room – hard to ignore. Several of the reporters nearby had the same thoughts, judging from the reactions he heard.

Detective Loenen grimaced beside him. Neither had managed much sleep, much less something to eat that didn't require unwrapping and microwaving. She handed him another seaweed drink, and he took it. It was starting to grow on him, and he saw the faint glimmer of victory in her eyes. It was soon extinguished by a far stronger look of concern.

"Alex, I don't like the sound of any of that."

He sighed heavily.

"I don't either, Steph."

She glanced back up at the now-empty podium. The local law enforcement and the feds had cleared the space with almost indecent haste, claiming a lot of work to do. While that was true, without question, something wasn't right.

"Something going on that he wants to keep under wraps."

He glanced at her.

"Yeah, you're right. And shaped charges don't just happen. I think we'll need to find out if there are any missing munitions from the military bases around here."

The detectives nodded to each other, and went out to the cruiser to start investigating.

###### < = >

Alex leaned back in his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. A cup of coffee sat on his desk, and his eyes warned the other detective not to touch it.

"Anything, Alex?"

"No, Steph, nothing. Not unless you count, 'No comment on basis of national security' as an answer."

"So, they're missing something."

"Probably, or maybe they don't want their armories hit."

The two detectives shook their heads. More federal bureaucracy to wade through. Stephanie picked up her cell phone when it rang.

"Detective Loenen." Her face took on a concentrated air, then alarm. "When? OK, where? OK, and why didn't you call 911?"

Alex looked up, as her heels slammed to the floor from their perch on her desk.

"Get Dispatch! Confidential informant called in tip. Dockside Memorial Hospital is going to be blown up with Army ordnance!"

Alex got on the line with the dispatcher, while his partner continued with the chilling conversation. Soon, cruisers and other emergency vehicles rolled out at high rates of speed. The detectives joined the cavalcade, minds racing.

"Steph, what else did your CI say?"

"All he said was that a group had hit an Army base, made off with a bunch of RPG's, antitank stuff, and rocket launchers."

"Stand-off weapons. Shoot from a distance, drop it and pick up the next one."

"Right, and there was a hole in the security of that armory."

"How? They do regular checks and patrols. How could they?"

Detective Loenen paused, as Alex skidded through a turn and stomped on the gas. The police SUV behind them did the same thing, rocking on its tires.

"Either something happened to somebody, or somebody colluded with this group. I can't see any soldier just letting this stuff walk off without good reason, unless they was up to something."

"Yeah, me neither."

"What scared me was that the CI mentioned attacks from the water, too."

The detectives fell silent, the wail of the siren and roar of the cruiser's engine providing a tense narrative to their racing thoughts and icy stomachs.

###### < = >

Dockside Memorial Hospital stood proudly. It was one of the oldest hospitals in the area, built in an earlier time when a job trawling for various seafood or hustling cargo from steamships was considered a steady job. It also had traditionally cared for mariners and the dockworkers that worked with them. The dock spaces that it was named for still existed and was still a busy place.

A stevedore traded glances with a coworker. They nodded to each other, and the first man walked to a crew shack. The door screeched as he opened it, and his measured pace carried him to the shelves on the facing wall to get his lunchbox. He took out the sandwich, a thermos of thick soup, another of a cold drink, and a little note his wife left for him.

He was still reading the note, with a tender smile on his tanned face, as shouts erupted outside and the shack exploded around him.

###### < = >

"Go! Go! Go!"

The frantic voice hectored its troops on. The Assistant Chief stood in disbelief, staring at the formerly-solid dock. A quintet of Zodiac boats had detached from an offshore ship, armed to the teeth with what the results seemed to show was rocket launchers. The first two had blasted the area, saturating it with some serious combined firepower. Several buildings were knocked flat, opening up a line of sight to the hospital. The remaining three Zodiacs formed a line of battle, as it were, and opened up with rocket launcher broadsides. It appeared for all the world to be a line of sailing ships attacking a fort on the Spanish Main.

The results of the broadsides was terrible. Dockside Hospital's older construction, although sufficient to shrug off wind and rain, wasn't intended to handle rocket propelled explosives. Many windows shattered from the shock waves, and the expert gunners in the Zodiacs placed RPG's in the larger windows. The doctors and nurses, some with injuries, scrambled to move their patients out of the rooms facing the water and away from the hostile fire. The only place they could go was to the other side of the hospital, dropping people in the hallways and empty rooms.

Which was where the watcher was waiting for them.

He stood on a small hill with a set of binoculars. He'd been up close to the hospital yesterday, posing as a groundskeeper. In this guise, he planted shrubberies alongside the emergency room walls and the walls of the other side of the hospital. The fertilizer had an extra little component called C4, buried just below the sod, and aligned just so. The watcher waited for a few minutes, waiting for the smoke to clear from the ravaged dock. When he saw that the Zodiacs had started heading back to their waiting mother ship, he took out a radio detonator and firmly pressed the button.

Each shrubbery had a green wire woven in its branches as an antenna, and another set of green wires daisy chaining two others. The radio receivers were buried just behind the C4, and as the signal hit the receivers, they triggered the sequence. Detonations marked the travel of the electrical signal, and people could be forgiven for thinking it all happened at once, considering that an electrical signal traveled at lightspeed.

The ER walls collapsed. Interior walls, suddenly subjected to the stress of holding up the weight of the roof section over the ER, buckled. Screams of pain and surprise, shock and fear traveled through the dust thrown up by the deadly shrubberies. The roof sections apart from the ER were pulled over from the momentum of the ER collapsing. The older brick sections of Dockside Memorial's construction was stricken from the explosions, and soon that part teetered over into ruination.

The shrieks and wails from that part of the devastated building was music to the watcher's ears. Whistling, he stepped off to a small trail. He stumbled, grabbing a smooth tree trunk and wrenching himself upright. A solid stomp to the ground arrested his motion and redirected him to his original path.

He dropped a small pin, broken off of his clothing in the stumble, and left behind something else.

A hiker with wide terrified eyes and a silenced camera phone.

###### < = >

The stationhouse was chaos. The phones rang off the hook, detained citizens mumbled things to harried officers, aggravated sergeants and lieutenants snapped off replies to equally aggrieved queries. Detective Rountree stood before a board that was fairly bare, with only a few papers denoting what was already attacked and what was known. There was a lot of blank spaces waiting for something to be received.

"We don't know a lot. Word on the street is that somebody's got a hard-on for emergency people and they're going to wreak as much havoc as they can. The condo was an announcement that this group is here and they're open for business."

Detective Loenen sighed unhappily.

"Yeah, and that's all we got."

The other men in the room grunted. An older man stood up and walked to the board. The bags under his eyes had their own bags, but no one wanted to mention that fact. He looked at the female detective.

"You should get in touch with Vice Squad. Tell them to keep an ear out for information, too."

She snorted in disgust.

"You want me to sweet-talk Sergeant Floyd. He's worked in Vice so long, that he's picked up some loathsome habits himself, Lieutenant Mulcahy."

"I can't help it if you look better than the rest of us. It must be those seaweed-algae-flaxseed-whatever the hell it is stuff you keep pushing on Alex here. It seems to work really well, although he needs a bunch more."

She reflected that his Irish charm worked with just about any woman she saw him with, herself included. His appearance was held in the highest of the best Columbo traditions, but that didn't matter. She couldn't get mad at him or stay mad, and she wasn't the first woman to hear say that. Detective Stephanie Loenen wondered how many women had come under the Irish spell he wove.

"OK, OK. I'll do it, but you owe me."

"Aye – any dinner you want."

She chuckled and shook her head. He was happily married, and if anything, his wife was a bigger flirt than he was.

"Come on, Alex. I'll go beard the lion and we'll beat the street."

The other detective grabbed his coat and headed out the door, pausing only to shake his finger at the tired-looking lieutenant.

The phone rang on the desk. The captain seated there answered, listened a moment as he snapped his fingers. The detectives waited to hear what he had. He grunted a couple of times and hung up the phone.

"Go down to the front desk first. Desk sergeant's got someone that walked in off the street that witnessed someone with a radio detonator at the hospital."

Detectives Rountree and Loenen hustled out the door.

###### < = >

The young woman sat at a table, trembling hands holding a half-empty Coke. Her soft drawl was unsteady, and the detectives could tell she was rattled. The partners sat down, Alex across from and Stephanie next to her. Her clothes had rips and tears in them and several pine needles stuck out from pockets. A stray leaf or two was tangled in her long black hair. She looked up as the detectives seated themselves and managed a weak smile.

"Miss Magier? I'm Detective Loenen, and this is my partner, Detective Rountree. We're investigating this case, along with others, and we were sent to talk with you."

The young woman nodded and gulped down the rest of her drink. The female detective continued.

"I heard that you saw someone at the hospital earlier. You look pretty shaken up. You're in a safe place, so relax a little and tell us what happened."

Detective Rountree left the room momentarily, and when he returned, he placed a fresh Coke in front of the young woman. He sat back down as she nodded gratefully. He casually glanced at his partner and scratched his ear. She nodded back, as the young woman started her story.

"I was up hiking around the Blackwoods reservation on the hospital side. There's a little hiking trail that people like to visit."

Detective Rountree nodded. "I've been there. Nice place to be, especially in the cooler months of the year when the humidity isn't so bad."

The hiker smiled.

"It is. I love it."

She paused and shivered. Detective Loenen gripped her hand and squeezed.

"You're safe. Nothing's going to happen to you here."

The young hiker nodded, tears falling. She scrubbed them away as the female detective gave her a handkerchief. They waited for her to continue.

"I was up on the highest point that trail had, when I heard a pair of boots crunching through the twigs and grass. He didn't see me first, but I saw enough of him to hide. Dressed all in black, shaven head, heavy boots. All of this in this weather was scary enough, but the aura the guy had – it scared me. And so, I hid. I tried to snap a picture with my phone, but it didn't come out well. I guess I was too scared."

She stopped for a moment and shivered again.

"I looked at him, and watched him take out binoculars. He was watching out past the hospital and the docks, and I couldn't see what he was looking at. But, I did see the little black boats run by the docks and watch the explosions right after that."

Detective Loenen was scribbling notes like mad, even though she knew the conversation was being recorded – thanks to her partner. He sat back while she wrote, and entered the narrative.

"Did he say anything?"

"He did, but I couldn't hear anything. It was too.... low and emotionless, I guess. He freaked me out."

"Did he seem to have any accent or speech problems?"

"No, sir, he didn't. He sounded like those voices you hear when you check your voice mail. You know, 'please enter your password' and 'you have two messages?'"

Detective Loenen made another note, as her partner gently pressed on.

"Okay, what happened after that?"

She started to relax a bit, calmed by the detectives' businesslike demeanor and the consideration they'd shown her with the Cokes and the handkerchief.

"I watch him take something out of his pocket, wave it toward the hospital, and push a button. Right after that, the hospital blew up."

The detectives traded a look. Here was confirmation that someone was behind the destruction going on. Detective Rountree spoke, firmly but softly, to the still jumpy young woman.

"Miss Magier, can you give us a full physical description of this guy?" She nodded.

"Um.... he was tall, taller than you are, sir, and not as broad and handsome. He was kinda ugly and skinny." She smiled up at him, and his partner stifled a grin at his expression. Her eyes told him she wouldn't let him get by with it later.

The hiker continued, oblivious to the byplay.

"Shaved bald, thin beard and mustache with red hair. Some white. He had ugly scars on his hands, and he was missing a little finger. He stumbled and almost fell over a tree root after the hospital blew up and he was leaving."

"Almost fell? Did he grab anything?"

"A tree trunk."

The detectives sat up.

"Can you show us where?"

###### < = >

The crime scene technicians got busy, once she showed them the spot. One found a deep boot print and lifted a good mold cast from it. There was a strange mark on the heel. He didn't know what it was, but it looked for all the world like a nick from a pocketknife. He shrugged. They'd figure it out later. It wasn't his place to piece it together, just to gather it all up.

The photographer aimed his picture at the tree trunk the young hiker had pointed out, and shot a few frames. His fellow camera man stopped him.

"Hey, Charlie. Hold up a moment."

"Dutch. I'm trying to get this done. Those clouds are getting dark and I don't want to get wet. Again."

"I know that, but turn your flashlight on and shine it down here." He pointed to the ground, alongside of a patch of grass. "I saw something flicker."

"We're in the woods. You might have seen an animal's eyes."

Dutch was getting irritated. He knew he saw something and wanted to find out what it was.

"No, it wasn't an animal or a snake."

"Snake?" Charlie was terrified of snakes.

"Look, just do it, all right?"

Charlie grumbled, but did as he was asked. Dutch leaned down and took a good look, then straightened up.

"Hey, Sarge, I found something!"

Charlie mumbled, "Not without my flash, but does he mention it? Nooooo."

The sergeant came over, and looked.

"Here, guys, take a picture of this, too. Right where you found it."

He waited for several shots to be taken, noting the time of day.

"Don't know if it's part of this investigation, but it looks too new and not weathered enough to have been out here for too long."

The others nodded. That made sense. He took out a pair of tweezers and an evidence bag, and shuffled a broken rank pin into it. Colonel's eagles, subdued, but with some of the blacking worn off just enough to catch the flash of the camera.

"OK, people, keep going. We got more stuff to go through."

###### < = >

Detective Loenen looked at the report that the crime scene crew had generated. They'd found more tracks that matched the bootprints. From the distance the feet traveled, they surmised that the wearer of the boots was six-two to six-four feet tall. The depth of the bootprints was a little trickier, but they guessed anywhere between 160 to 190 pounds.

"So, tall and thin, but might have some muscle on him to be that heavy. And, not as handsome, sir." The last bit was simpered out. He shook his head.

"I knew it. You had to go there."

She grinned, letting him know she wasn't done. However, they was on the clock and had to work.

"And a rank pin found for a colonel."

"I've been checking on that. The Air Force has two colonels that match the description on their rolls – one's deployed in Iraq, and the other's been in the VA hospital for the last month from back surgery."

"OK. Who else has skinny redheaded colonels?"

"The Marines don't, and the Navy has a commander that matches the description, but she's getting promoted under the zone next week. Wrong gender."

"OK, what about the Army, or the Coast Guard."

"Coast Guard didn't have anybody, but the Army had – emphasis, 'had,' – a full-bull colonel that got kicked out for black marketing. Last month, as a matter of fact."

"That's our guy, I'll bet. What'd he steal?"

"JAG is still trying to gather evidence for charges, but from what little they wanted to tell me, it was a bunch of targeting systems and explosives."

"What kind of Army colonel was he trained to be?"

"Special Forces/Ranger/Airborne. And get this, nobody in that outfit liked him, but put up with him because he was so skilled."

"He's sounding more and more like our guy. Did he do or say anything when he was discharged? That's loss of pension and benefits. That's got to hurt."

"He told the general in charge of the board that he'd see to it that the Army regretted its mistake, but wouldn't say how. Then he saluted the general and stormed out."

"Wow. Motive and intent right there."

"Yep. And with what your fangirl saw him do, that's action."

He rolled his eyes as she got the dig in at him.

"Well, what are we waiting for? We got all this that's stronger than a reasonable suspicion, right? Definitely probable cause. Let's go get him."

"I agree, but I'm waiting for the Army to send me his personnel jacket – with photo. I've asked Miss Magier to come in and look at it, and she's waiting. She asked about you, actually."

A knock on the door interrupted his retort at her obvious merriment. A uniformed lieutenant asked for Detective Loenen, and once he was satisfied with her identity he handed over a thick folder. He nodded once, turned, and left quickly. She started flipping through the folder, reading between the reacted items. She focused on the picture.

"This guy won't win any modeling contests."

He read over her shoulder.

"And look at those disciplinary reports. How did he get to be a colonel?"

"I guess it's true. It who you know."

"Or what you hold over them. Let's go see Miss Magier." He held up a finger to forestall any sly remarks.

###### < = >

"Hello, Detective Rountree! It's nice to see you!"

He smiled at her, and placed a Coke in front of her. She took it, and let her fingers linger on his, before he pulled them away to sit down next to her.

"Miss Magier, thank you for coming so quickly."

"Anytime! Call me Sam, please!"

He shook his head, but smiled broadly. He knew that he'd hear about this one later, so he'd might as well make it good.

"We've got a photo for you to look at, Sam. Look at it carefully, and tell us if it matches the description of the man that you saw in the woods."

"Okay!" The photo came down and she turned to look at it, still smiling at the male detective. The instant her eyes lit upon the photo, the color drained from her face and the smile vanished.

"Miss Magier.... Sam? Are you okay?"

"That's him!"

###### < = >

The police cruiser sped up the highway. They'd gotten last-known address from his Army records and warrant from the probable cause they'd put together. They were accompanied by three other cruisers and a SWAT vehicle lumbering behind.

"Steph, I think that the SWAT guys should take point on apprehending him."

She nodded seriously.

"I agree. Already told them. Lieutenant agrees, and he told them to do it."

"Did the chopper get in the air?"

"I think so. They were winding up when I called."

"OK."

He stopped asking questions, reflecting on what they'd dug up. The miles zipped by as they closed in on the address given by the disgraced colonel's file. Detective Rountree was preoccupied with the problem of apprehending an obviously dangerous and highly competent man, and he was glad that he'd recently had his sidearm serviced recently.

"84, 84, do you copy?" That was their call sign. Alex tripped the microphone and responded.

"84 copies."

"Alex, this is Jim. Do you see that smoke ahead?" Alex looked up the road. He did, and it looked ominous.

"Jim, I see it. It looks close to where we're going."

"I'm thinking that it could be right there. It's supposed to be secluded."

"Don't know. We'll see."

The closer they got, the thicker it became. Alex tripped the microphone again.

"Jim, I'm wondering if something on fire or blew up. Better put the fire squad on alert."

"Got it."

The rest of the trip passed quickly. As they turned into the driveway, they saw a house on fire and an armed man dressed in burned clothing running for the woods. Shots rang out hitting the cruiser and the SWAT van.

"Stephanie! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, just some of this glass cut me. You?"

"I'm fine. He ran into the woods with a gun!"

"No, Alex! Don't go after him!"

He stopped, and picked up the microphone.

"Lieutenant, is the chopper up?"

He waited for a moment. The reply came back faintly.

"Damn fool shot off an antenna! Yes, Alex, it's up. Where is he?"

"Sir, he's in the woods."

"Don't go in there. I'll tell them to light up the FLIR."

The detective nodded, since that was the reason he'd asked. The infrared camera caught people from the heat signatures their bodies gave off. The cops took up a defensive position, as the SWAT team geared up. They scanned the woods, watching for anyone charging out from a different position. A call was made for the fire crews to roll out, but carefully. They didn't want the firefighters to get shot.

"What a day." The tired voice of Detective Alex Rountree cracked on the last word.

"Yep."

"Anything?"

"Nope."

The radio crackled suddenly, making them jump.

"SWAT, Air, got him! About five hundred feet right of your position! Headed your way! Defensive positions, now!"

"You'll never take me, coppers!"

A volley of shots filled the air. Some hit the SWAT van again, and some was aimed in the general direction of the chopper. It veered off.

"SWAT, Air, we're hit! He's about four hundred feet closer, moving fast through the trees!"

More shots, now of a higher power weapon. Three officers dropped, two scrambling behind cover to return fire and one not moving.

A grenade flew through the air, rolling under one of the cruisers. The grenade's explosion took destroyed the car and the one next to it, killing four officers.

The SWAT officers, loaded with stun grenades and tear gas, took guidance from the chopper and fired them off. The chopper repositioned itself to use its rotor's downwash to blow the tear gas toward the fugitive.

A moment of quiet passed. The senior SWAT officer picked up a bullhorn to speak.

"Colonel Gleason! Come out with your hands up and surrender!"

An unintelligible response was shouted back, but defiant in tone.

"Colonel, you need to just give up."

"No!" A shot rang out, and everyone ducked.

Everyone waited. After about ten minutes, during which tear gas dissipated in the breezes and the chopper reported no movement, the SWAT officer got permission for and ordered canines in. A few minutes later, the baying cries of the dogs spurred the officers in. They cautiously moved in, every sense on alert and all the noises of the woods a potential precursor to a shot.

Colonel Gleason was found dead, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, three feet from another primed and ready bomb. His bruised fist clutched a detonator with broken wires.

###### < = >

The next day, the detectives sat, rereading their reports on the incident. Detective Rountree shook his head as he found a chilled bottle of something orange appear on his blotter. He looked up to see his partner, a little haggard from the previous few days events but otherwise chipper, regarding him with anticipation of the reaction. He looked at the label.

"Carrot, orange, and... ground hazelnut?"

"Sure, something different."

He looked at her askance, as if to say everything with her choices was "something different," but he twisted the cap off. Alex raised the bottle to his lips, then paused for a moment to listen.

The door to the bullpen remained still. His partner followed his questing eyes, then sighed in exasperation.

"Oh, for Chrissake, Alex! Quit stalling and try it!"

He did, his tired eyes laughing.

"Hey, Stephanie, this is not bad at..."

The door slammed open, and the drink went flying.

The End

### About the Author

JB Steele lives in the northwest part of the humid state of Florida, where the mosquitoes carry U.S. Air Force markings and drink  jet fuel. He enjoys a great deal of fiction, and will read just about anything. He has a telephone book from 1987 or thereabouts that works if he can't find anything else he hasn't already read. He likes to write, paint, do woodworking, and pretend he knows how to fish. When he plays golf, he usually scores in the low 80's, then he plays the back nine.

He can be found at Steele Writing Enterprises on the web for those interested in dropping him a line.
