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The third book of the Warp Marine Corps series available at Amazon.

 The sample chapters haven't undergone final editing and proofreading; they will be replaced with the final version when it is available.

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”

- Cool Hand Luke

Prologue: Let It Burn

Star System Hades, Nasstah Union, 165 AFC

Transition.

Sixth Fleet entered warp space ready and willing to endure twelve hours of hell for the privilege of delivering their own dose of eternal damnation unto the enemies of humankind.

USN Admiral Sondra Givens held on to the command chair and steeled herself for a seeming eternity surrounded by ghosts and evil spirits. The USS William Halsey Jr. ceased to exist in the physical universe, the universe as understood by Newton and Einstein, and entered a new realm, one hinted at by the wilder hypotheses of quantum mechanics but never fully understood by any human scientist, even after a century and a half using it to traverse the vast chasms between the stars. Most warp transits lasted less than ten hours: the maximum length of time most thinking beings could withstand exposure to the bizarre reality outside the physical realm was somewhere in the thirty-hour range. A longer stay all but guaranteed death, insanity or, worst of all, being marooned in the space between spaces, for however long one could survive there.

Twelve hours was bad enough. All nonessential personnel aboard the Halsey – the lucky third of the crew who had just completed their watches – had been heavily sedated to ease their passage. The rest couldn’t afford that luxury; they were headed towards a hostile world, and there was always a chance their arrival would be detected, in which case the enemy would be lying in wait for them, ready to strike when Sixth Fleet was most vulnerable. They would come in hot, ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

Their mission was worth the risk: they were finally on the attack, bringing the war to those who had decided humanity should be exterminated.

Payback is a bitch.

The thought almost made her break out in maniacal gales of laughter. Almost three years of pent-up rage bubbled inside of her, beginning when three Starfarer polities attacked the US without warning, slaughtering seven million people before deigning to send a declaration of war. Her grandson Omar had been among the victims. The ‘deeply regret’ notification, delivered in person by the Secretary of War in deference to her rank, had followed the initial news of the attack by less than twenty-four hours, while she was still trying to accept the fact that hundreds of American outposts around the galaxy had been targeted for destruction by murderous mobs or sneak orbital attacks. No one had been spared. The goal from the beginning had been clear: to make the human race extinct.  

“You were so proud of me, Grammie,” the shade of Omar Givens whispered in her ear. She’d been expecting him, or someone like him. Seeing dead people was a common side effect of warp transit. The accepted wisdom was that all such visions were mere hallucinations created by minds being deprived of all physical input, as meaningless as any dream. Those who experienced those visions firsthand weren’t so glib about them, however.

“First member of my class to win a slot as a ship’s XO,” Omar went on, grinning despite having a large piece of ceramic-metal alloy sticking out of his chest. Blood seeped from his mouth as he spoke. “All that hard work, only to get killed on my first cruise. Do you know that the Wildcat’s captain is in your fleet? The bitch that let me die while she ran away is serving under you. As a Marine pilot. Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?”

The ghost was mixing lies with half-truths. Yes, the former Lieutenant Commander who’d led the USS Wildcat to her doom was currently part of Sixth Fleet. But the woman hadn’t run away from her post; Omar himself – the real man, not this mocking apparition – had dragged her unconscious body to an escape pod, and managed to launch it to safety before his death. Givens would never forgive the former naval officer for allowing both ships under her command to be destroyed, but the unfair accusation of cowardice offended her sense of fair play. Disputing the facts with a hallucination was pointless, however. Nothing she would say would change his ranting, or whatever else followed in his wake.

And yes, Sondra had been very proud of Omar. About a third of her five children and twenty-one grandchildren had made a career of the Navy, but none had gone so far so fast as Omar, and none had shown the promise she’d seen in the young man. She’d made it abundantly clear that none of her descendants could trade on her name for their benefit, and come down hard on any signs of favoritism, to the point that being a Givens in the Navy guaranteed that everyone would be tougher on you than anyone else. Most youngsters had gotten discouraged and moved on to civilian life, or switched services. A few had learned to cope and done well. And her grandchild had been the best of them all – until his ship had been destroyed by a Lamprey stealth mine.

The mocking ghost of her dead grandson vanished. She was glad to see him go.

Her perceptions shifted. Givens found herself surrounded by the ruins of Heinlein-Five, the stench of death all around her. She’d insisted on visiting the fallen colony in person, although she could have easily stayed in orbit, safely removed from the carnage. The Navy had failed in its primary mission to protect the worlds of the United Stars of America, and she owed it to the dead to take a good long look at the results of that failure. She’d made every commissioned officer in Sixth Fleet do the same. The lesson of those tours had been simple: this is what awaits us all if we don’t do our duty.

The fifth planet from the star Heinlein had been a ‘near-Goldie’ world, with an atmosphere well within the ideal ranges of temperature, oxygen-nitrogen mix and pressure for normal humans. It was also well-situated for trade and transportation, with one warp ‘valley’ connecting it to an even larger American colony; two other ley lines led to small outposts that in turn provided links to other galactic nation-states, all allegedly friendly.

One of those friendly polities had allowed the Vipers to cross into their territory and invade the US. A massive battle had been fought at Heinlein System between Fifth Fleet and the Nasstah Armada. Fought, and lost: Fifth Fleet had been forced to retreat, leaving Heinlein-Five at the mercy of the invaders.

The Nasstah species was very similar in morphology and culture to humanity’s original tormentors, the Risshah, better-known as the Snakes. Like the Snakes, the Vipers’ preferred method of dealing with enemies was genocide. There had been eight major cities and about a hundred towns in Heinlein-Five; they all had been turned into shallow craters, coated with the slag of molten concrete, steel and whatever remained of living things after being subjected to temperatures in the thousands of degrees for eight to ten hours. When Sixth Fleet had expelled the last invaders from the system, search and rescue operations had found three hundred thousand survivors, scattered in small groups that had hid in mining tunnels, thick jungles or forests, remote mountain valleys, or the depths of the planet’s two oceans. That so many still lived after several months of Viper occupation was a small miracle, due mostly to the fact that the aliens had been too preoccupied planning the next phase of their invasion to do a proper cleansing of their conquest.

One might say that after you’d seen one of the ‘soup bowls’ left behind by thermal bloom depopulation weapons, you’d seen them all. Just a big round expanse of gray-and-black that would eventually fill with water if conditions were right; for very large cities, you got several overlapping circles of destruction, meant to catch as much of the population as possible. The worst sights were on the periphery of the strikes, the suburbs or nearby villages that hadn’t warranted full destruction. Most of them had burned down by conventional fires sparked by the conflagrations inside the death-domes. Although force fields kept most of the heat inside the sphere of destruction, some leakage occurred, enough to ignite anything flammable nearby.

Givens relived her walk down one such suburb: neat rows of houses surrounded by lawns and picket fences. It had been the kind of community you could find in any of nearly thirty American worlds, anywhere population had grown to the point urban sprawl became inevitable. Fire had destroyed those neat wood and brick homes and taken the lives of the people who’d owned them. Here and there, houses that had been spared from the initial flames had been struck by shuttle flybys, Viper small craft conducting kill sweeps to finish the job the thermal weapons had started. A two-story Colonial had taken a hit from a graviton blast: half of the structure was still standing, and Givens had been able to see individual rooms lain bare by the barrage: the children’s bedrooms had been the worst, the gaily decorated walls and the Little League trophies providing glimpses of their lives before death had come for them.

The warp vision took her memories and twisted them: here she saw corpses everywhere, male, female, old and young, butchered a hundred different ways. A row of heads on spikes welcomed her. She shook her head: none of that had happened at Heinlein-Five. The Vipers didn’t go for such flamboyant displays of brutality; simple death was enough to satisfy them. The sight was just as revolting and disturbing as if she was experiencing it in the real world, however.

Why? Why is space travel the stuff of nightmares?

Every species who had ventured into the stars had spent millions of hours – possibly millions of years – trying to answer that question. The leading theory was that sapient minds, bereft of physical input while inside warp space, began to feed on itself, much like when exposed to other forms of sensory deprivation. Givens was unconvinced. There was something else at work, something that seemed motivated primarily by malice and sadism.

For what seemed like an eternity – twelve hours by the ships’ clocks, but far longer from her point of view – they finally emerged into reality. Her body – including, thankfully, her bladder – felt as if no time had passed. It took a few minutes to clear her mental cobwebs, but soon she and everyone else on the bridge was ready for action, except for a young ensign who fell into convulsions and had to be carried to sick bay. The rest of Sixth Fleet reported another dozen or so warp-induced casualties: par for the course, when you put some thirty thousand spacers through twelve hours of transit. None of the injuries seemed to be serious or permanent, which was a little better than average. She decided to take it as a good omen.

Nasstah-125 (designated Hades System by US Fleet Command) appeared on the tactical holotank. The Vipers didn’t bother naming their star systems, simply assigning them a number. Of their four hundred or so colonies, N-125 was the fifth largest, a major trade and manufacturing center, with three inhabited worlds, a massive asteroid mining operation, and a network of ley lines connecting the Nasstah Union to half a dozen other polities. Its population, nearly eight billion strong, outnumbered every nation on Earth and their colonies combined. A sobering fact, especially when you considered that the Vipers were the junior member of the triple alliance that had sworn to eradicate humanity.

Sixty billion to seven, if one counted not just the US’ population but every human drawing breath in the galaxy. Almost four hundred billion to seven when you added the populations of the Lhan Arkh Congress and the Galactic Imperium. Granted, none of those empires could devote their entire resources to the war, not without risking leaving their other frontiers unprotected, but even a fraction of it would likely be enough to do the job. At least, it would if Givens and the US Navy failed to do theirs.

“The Nasstah Quadrant Defense Fleet is deployed around Hades One, Two and Three,” her Chief Tactical Officer reported. “Just about evenly spread between the three planets.”

He who defends everything, defends nothing. The wisdom of Frederick the Great didn’t seem to have made it to this part of the galaxy. The smart play would have been to concentrate all their forces in one spot and jump her ships wherever she decided to attack. On the other hand, their plan was likely to wait until she engaged one of their formations and then have the other two try to box her in by attacking from three sides.

“Enemy order of battle confirmed. Displaying it now.”

Numbers and symbols replaced the star map in the holotank. Givens nodded approvingly at what she saw there. For a change, the intelligence briefings appeared to have been accurate. The force facing Sixth Fleet was substantial – nine dreadnoughts and twenty battleships, with the usual complement of battlecruisers and lighter space combatants – but it was comprised of older ships, largely obsolete compared to the ones she’d faced at Parthenon. Only about a dozen of the newer missile-heavy ships were in evidence. The Vipers had sent out their varsity to Heinlein and Parthenon; those elite divisions and their crews were now scattered gas and debris in those star systems.

This was going to be no picnic, however. The enemy ships were holding positions close to their main planets, where they could be supported by ground and orbital fortresses who could unleash missile volleys just as massive as the armada that had nearly destroyed Sixth Fleet. Fulfilling her mission would require some fancy footwork.

Her orders were to obliterate Nasstah-125 unless the Vipers offered their unconditional surrender.

“Set a course for the main asteroid belt,” she ordered. “We’ll start around the edges and see if they feel like coming out to play.”

Whatever reservations she might have felt about the devastation her ships were about to inflict on sixty million asteroid miners had been effectively stilled by what she had seen at Heinlein.

“You really should have left us alone,” she muttered.

* * *

“Pretty cold-blooded of them,” Admiral Givens commented, three days later. All exoplanetary facilities in N-125 had been destroyed. The Viper fleets had remained in place around the three inhabited worlds, refusing to meet her in a deep space battle. She didn’t think she could have done the same, even with direct orders to that effect.

It had been a massacre. The miners had almost no defenses, and what they had seemed mostly designed to destroy meteors and other system debris rather than to engage starships. They had done their best, though, inflicting no serious damage but dying with their faces to their enemy and weapons in hand, which Givens had to respect. She still hadn’t hesitated to blow up their homes or destroy their power and life support systems, dooming any survivors to a long lingering death. There would be nightmares – or warp visions – later, but they wouldn’t stop her from doing her job.

“Time to start the dance. Engage.”

Sixth Fleet emerged from a brief warp jump a mere two light seconds away from Hades-Two, an ocean-covered planet about ten percent larger than Earth, located right in the Class-F star’s Goldilocks Zone, ideal for human habitation if the Vipers hadn’t filled its atmosphere with assorted noxious gases to fit their biological needs. This was the most heavily-populated world in the system. Its land masses glowed brightly with the light pollution of hundreds of massive cities. Six billion Nasstah called the planet their home, almost as many people as had lived on Earth before First Contact.

“Enemy maneuvering to engage. Planetary and orbital defense bases launching.”

“Very well. Carry on,” Givens said calmly. Having an actual enemy to fight rather than helpless civilians made her feel better. Slightly less unclean, even.

The attack plans Sixth Fleet had refined since the Battle of Parthenon worked as advertised. They’d had some practice already, at N-311 and N-92, two lesser Viper worlds they’d struck on their way here. Learning how to use the newfangled space fighters had taken some doing, especially since she only had a bit over a hundred of the little wonder-weapons to play with and no chance of reinforcements any time soon.

“Carrier Strike Group One has launched its first sortie,” the CTO announced.

A hundred and fifteen warp-capable single-seat vessels appeared inside the planet’s atmosphere and blasted ten of its thirty-two ground fortresses at point-blank range; their twenty-inch graviton guns punched through the targets’ force fields and armor, bursting open power plants and detonating stored ordnance. On one of the visual display screens, bright dots blossomed on the planet’s surface and engulfed the smaller points of light of civilian cities, marking explosions massive enough to be seen from orbit. Like malignant ghosts, the fighters disappeared as suddenly as they had arrived, before any defenders had time to acquire and engage them. Their next sortie would strike at other bases, orbital fortresses and, eventually, the enemy fleet’s capital ships.

Sixth Fleet launched its own missiles as it moved into beam weapon engagement range. The other two Viper formations abandoned their planets and appeared behind her ships, but she’d been expecting that and left blocking forces in place to keep them busy while she dealt with the enemy in front of her. She had more than enough firepower for the job at hand.

Enemy missiles were destroyed by the hundreds as they lumbered forward, faster than any manned vessel but still pitifully slow against energy weapons. Some eventually reached their targets, however. Here and there, a ship-killer managed to avoid the warp shields protecting most of the human vessels’ surface and exploded where it might inflict damage. The Halsey was struck once, but Givens didn’t even feel the impact: a glancing blow, easily absorbed by her conventional force fields. Others were less lucky: a frigate was damaged severely enough to fall out of the line of battle, and the Pan-Asian battlecruiser Jinan lost its main gun battery from a lucky hit. That was the extent of the damage Sixth Fleet suffered before it reached direct fire range. By that time, the fortresses that would have doubled the defending formation’s firepower had been slaughtered by her fighters.

“Fire as you bear.”

Sixth Fleet’s ships opened up on targets of opportunity, using their heaviest weapons first. Graviton cannon unleashed nearly-invisible beams of twisted space-time, followed by bright plasma discharges and the brief flashes of ultra-heavy lasers. The enemy replied in kind, but most of their shots were swallowed into the maws of warp apertures protecting the human vessels. And as if that wasn’t enough, the surviving hundred and twelve warp fighters engaged the heaviest Viper warships from all angles, striking weak points and disappearing an instant later. Givens watched the growing enemy casualty graphs on the tactical screen, fighting to keep her composure; the devastation CSG-1’s fighters were inflicting was awe-inspiring. If she had three or four hundred fighters at her command, she could have overcome every Nasstah fleet in the galaxy. Well, at least until the enemy came up with countermeasures. She was enjoying the benefits of unleashing a brand-new weapon system on an unprepared foe. Sixth Fleet had gone on the offensive too quickly for the news to sink in. Sooner or later, the enemy would adapt, and maybe even overcome the latest surprise humanity had brought to the table. Not today, however. Not today.

Another screen displayed a close-up view of the Viper flagship coming apart: bright blue and gold flames erupted at several spots along the bulbous two-kilometer shape after fighter and main gun shots inflicted critical damage. The forward section erupted in a cataclysmic explosion that filled the screen with white light for several seconds. When the flash was over, nothing recognizable remained of the dreadnought. Six thousand aliens and a tenth of the enemy fleet’s firepower went with it.

After that, it was as much of a massacre as the attack on the asteroid facilities. The two other Viper formations broke off their attack and warped back to their original bases, but not before a final fighter attack decimated them. Going into warp under fire all but guaranteed severe losses. The Vipers would have been better off staying put, not that anything was going to save them in the end.

Admiral Givens clenched her jaw and watched silently while her people did their work. Once all space and orbital defenses were down, her Marines, with overhead fighter support, would finish off the ground bases. And then she’d start burning every Nasstah city on the planet, using the same murder devices the enemy preferred for the job. Thermal-bloom devices were both the oldest and most advanced weapon system in the galaxy: they were a multimillion-year-old gift from the Elder Races, and one that nobody had been able to reverse-engineer for any purpose other than genocide. Anyone willing to kill billions of civilians used them. Which was another way of saying all Starfarer civilizations used them.

And to think we once assumed any species that managed to cross the spans between stars would have evolved beyond violence, Givens mused bitterly as she contemplated the brutal slog ahead of her. It would be funny if it wasn’t so terribly sad.

And worse, we have shown ourselves incredibly adept at thriving in this nastiness.

More Viper ships burned on the screen, harbingers of the greater fires that would soon follow.

Earth, Sol System, 165 AFC

“The Nasstah didn’t have enough transport in-system to evacuate more than five million people or so. They clearly never expected Sixth Fleet would venture so deeply into their territory. They also refused our demand for unconditional surrender. They refused to parley at all, at least at first. Their counteroffer was sent only after Hades-Two and Hades-One had been neutralized, and Third Fleet was about to advance towards the single remaining inhabited planet in the system.”

The rear admiral giving the briefing was a typical remfie, Tyson Keller thought sourly. The kind of staff desk jockey that could keep a straight face while using terms like ‘neutralize’ to refer to mass carnage unparalleled in Earth’s history prior to First Contact. Then again, Tyson supposed it just wasn’t politically wise to baldly tell the President that the US Navy had consigned seven billion sophonts to the flames. Even if the current POTUS was the kind that liked things stated plainly.

“And we have the text of their offer,” President Albert P. Hewer said, his homely features betraying none of the emotions he must be surely feeling at this moment. “That will be all, Admiral Felton.”

After the high-ranking flunky was gone, Hewer turned to the other two people in the room. “Thoughts, gentlemen?”

“Offhand? Their offer’s not good enough,” Tyson said, glancing at the third man in the office.

Geoff Chappelle, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, was the oldest man in the room, which was saying a lot; he’d been pushing ninety by the time First Contact happened, and had been one of the few people that age who’d survived the early anti-agathic treatments Earth’s alien benefactors had provided the survivors. Like Keller, Chappelle had been a science fiction writer, although one who’d spent a great deal more time and energy thinking about what aliens would be like, should humans ever encounter them. While not a military veteran himself, the current National Security Advisor had decades of experience studying military technology as well as imagining ways of advancing it. His expertise in politics and history were just icing on the cake. Chappelle had hit the floor running as soon as Starfarer tech restored him to full health, and played a crucial role in helping the US survive and eventually thrive in the brave new world that had begun with the deaths of well over half of every human on the planet. Tyson valued the man’s insights, even though he often disagreed with them.

“The definition of a good diplomatic deal is one where all parties involved are equally unhappy with the result,” Chappelle said. “On paper – I wonder how long we’ll be using that archaic term – the deal looks pretty good. The Vipers withdraw from the Tripartite Galactic Alliance, refuse to allow the other two members to use their space lanes for transit or supply, and pay us some pretty hefty reparations, both in Galactic Credit Units and war materiel. It’s not unconditional surrender, but not bad at all. On paper. Question is, do we trust them to keep to the terms?”

“That’s one of my problems with it,” Tyson said. “As a feeb friend of mine used to say, ‘Once a cocksucker, always a cocksucker.’ Attacking us without a declaration of war pretty much guarantees they’ll break their word as soon as it’s convenient to do so.”

“On the other hand, at the moment it is very convenient for them to offer us those terms and to stick to them,” the NSA noted. “We just killed over one tenth of their total population. Their losses in industrial capacity are much worse, possibly in the thirty percent range. Admiral Givens made sure all the shipyards in the system were utterly destroyed before agreeing to the cease-fire. And their invasion and defense fleets in that sector have been annihilated. We’ve crippled them.”

“Not enough. Never do an enemy a small injury. As far as I’m concerned, they can all go compare notes with the Snakes down in Hell.”

“And if we look like enough of a threat, other Starfarers may decide to join the Alliance. It is pretty clear that our victory at Parthenon worried the Vehelians enough to go from being a friendly neutral to an unfriendly one.”

Tyson clenched his jaw at the reminder. The O-Vehel Commonwealth (a.k.a. the Ovals) had been a friend of sorts, a trade partner (and occasional rival) who’d had no problems doing business with America even after the war started. The Ovals’ sizable navy had made the Galactic Alliance wary of trying to force its way through the Commonwealth’s territory, in effect protecting an entire sector from invasion. Things had changed, however. The Ovals had suddenly become hostile, seizing hundreds of thousands of humans in Vehelian space and granting the enemy free passage through their territory. Only the fact that the Imperium was taking its own sweet time moving forward had prevented that betrayal from turning into a catastrophe.

 “We’re scaring everybody,” Chappelle went on. “Too many civilizations already view us as some sort of bogeyman, and if we appear to be too barbaric to deal with, they might decide that the Alliance is the lesser of two evils.”

“Or they might also decide to leave us the hell alone if they don’t want us burning down their cities,” Tyson countered.

“There’s a fine line between impressing them enough to be cautious, and driving them into the enemy’s arms. The warp fighters haven’t helped us there, either. More and more people are referring to us as ‘demons.’”

Tyson glanced at Al. The President had been sitting quietly, letting his two chief advisors argue freely. This would be a fun bull session, except for the fact it might determine whether or not humanity would live to the end of the second century After First Contact.

 “Everyone’s a critic,” Tyson went on when POTUS turned down the unspoken invitation to pipe in. “I suppose the galactic community would have been happier if we’d just rolled over and died quietly. Then they would mourn us poor humans. I’d rather we were hated than pitied, especially when that pity’s likely to be posthumous. Without those warp fighters, the Vipers would be burning down our cities, and they wouldn’t have stopped to listen to any counteroffers, or pleas for mercy for that matter. Fuck ‘em.”

“I’m going to take the deal, Ty,” Al finally said.

“You’re joking.”

POTUS shook his head.

“I’m going to demand more in the way of reparations because that will weak them as much as destroying Hades has and also because, well, we really need the money, especially now that the Ovals have shut off about twenty percent of our galactic trade. But I’m taking the deal.”

Tyson bit off his initial response – you didn’t curse out POTUS, especially not with an audience – and waited silently for an explanation.

“Geoff is right: if we wipe out sixty billion aliens without even attempting to negotiate, we might turn the triple alliance into a Galactic League. Always leave an enemy an avenue of retreat. It might even help us with the Imperium. If we give them a way out of this mess, maybe they’ll take it. Leaving us to deal with the Lampreys.” His expression hardened. “They are the worst of the bunch, have had it in for us since we wiped out their Snake flunkies. They’ll probably have to go.”

“I think you’re making a mistake,” Tyson said, sounding a lot calmer than he felt. “The Alliance’s openly-stated objective is genocide. To offer them anything less in return is not proportionate. It sends the message that it’s all right to try to eradicate us, because the consequences of defeat aren’t severe enough to deter them. Maybe making an example of the Lampreys might be enough, but I doubt it. If anyone raises their hand against us, we have to cut it off.”

“There is also a practical aspect involved,” Chappelle interjected. “Can we physically exterminate the Vipers, let alone the entire Alliance? Yes, we wiped out the Snakes; they were a minor polity, only about twice the size humanity is now, and it took everything we had to put paid to them. Sixth Fleet is already over-extended; keeping it supplied that far out is taxing our logistics to the max, and every warp transit they make deeper into enemy territory increases the chances they’ll outrun their supplies and be cut off and overwhelmed. We put everything we had into that offensive. Push too far and we could still lose everything. We also need those fighter pilots back, to provide cadre for the new squadrons we’re building.”

“Yes. The Joint Chiefs have made those points as well,” Tyson had to admit.

Funny how the Navy had changed its collective mind about the ‘fighter boondoggle’ after the Battle of Parthenon. Now they all wanted a fleet of carrier vessels to command. Not to mention taking the actual fighters off the Marines’ hands. Al had stomped all over the latter idea, given that making a full switch would take time the US didn’t have, not in the middle of a war. For now, the gyrenes would be doing most of the flying, with Navy squadrons being added as production and training allowed.

“We’re buying time, Ty,” the President said. “Time to get more fighters into action. Time to build up. The Imperium is the largest Starfarer civilization in the galaxy, and they haven’t begun to fight, not really. Removing the Vipers from play will let us prepare for the main event.”

“Looking at the short term, you’re both right. Long-term, though, I think this is going to bite us in the ass. I think being brutal now will keep us from having to be even more brutal down the line. I don’t want to hand our children a situation where the only way they’ll ever be safe is if they are the only technological species left in the galaxy.”

President Hewer actually shuddered at the thought. Chappelle looked vaguely ill as well.

“I hope you’re wrong, Ty, but I have to think about the present. Beating the Vipers was tough enough. Destroying them is likely beyond our means. We’ll squeeze a few extra concessions out of them, and keep a close eye on them so they aren’t tempted to stray. Let seven billion dead be enough.”

Will anything be ever enough? Tyson wondered, but kept the thought to himself.

“Moving on, I want to discuss the communique from Xanadu System. On the face of it, the deal they are offering might improve our strategic position enormously.”

“It sounds too good to be true, Al. So it obviously isn’t true.”

POTUS grinned. “Always a regular Pollyanna, aren’t you? Sec-State is basically twiddling her thumbs. I think this might be worth her time. It can’t hurt to at least engage in negotiations, can it?”

Guess we’ll find out.

Tyson had learned never to trust aliens bearing gifts. Even the Puppies had always managed to hide a few strings in them. And the Xanadu aliens were a secretive bunch. Which was another word for shady.

They would all find out, but it would be the poor bastards going there who’d pay the price if Al was wrong.

One

New Parris, Star System Musik, 166 AFC

“No good deed goes unpunished,” USWMC Captain Peter Fromm said after he had First Sergeant Markus Goldberg sit down.

“We’re being sent on detached duty,” he continued. He grimaced at the words. His last such deployment hadn’t been any fun at all.

“We, sir?”

“Charlie Company. We get to accompany a State Department mission as a combination honor guard and walking dog and pony show. Grunts and guns only. No vehicles or heavy equipment. I asked to let us bring all the weapons platoon’s TOE along, on the grounds that it’s better to have it and not need it than the other way around. Colonel Brighton is working on it. He’s not happy to see us go, but if we go, he doesn’t want to send us out naked and depending on the kindness of strangers.”

“Isn’t all this kinda irregular, sir?”

“Irregular as hell,” Fromm agreed. Protecting diplomatic missions was in the hands of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and when the DS needed a few leathernecks to supplement its own agents, it normally went to the Corps’ Embassy Security Group, which made the necessary personnel decisions. Embassy duty was a plum assignment, hardly the kind of thing handed down to a line company that was still in the process of refitting for duty after a brutal year-long deployment. “And it’s all my fault.”

Goldberg was a short, dark-complexioned, intense man with thick eyebrows that formed an almost-continous furry line across his forehead. They went up quizzically for a second before he figured it out by himself.

“Jasper-Five?”

Fromm nodded. “Jasper-Five. Turns out both State and War have turned that fiasco into a propaganda coup. Some Nullywood studio released a flick about it, as a matter of fact. I haven’t seen it myself.”

“I have, sir. Thirty-One Days at Kirosha. Knox Pitt is playing your part. A few of the guys have been gaming in the interactive version, and that’s caused a few problems. The Marines who were there mostly don’t think very highly of it.”

Fromm had been aware of the multimedia production but had done his best to ignore it. Unfortunately, there was no ignoring it when the Departments of State and War both decided that sending the hero of Kirosha to assist in a diplomatic mission was a great idea, especially since they rarely agreed on anything. He didn’t feel particularly heroic. All he had done was keep a few thousand humans and aliens alive during one of the many surprise attacks of the Days of Infamy. And victory hadn’t come cheap, either; he’d gotten quite a few good people killed along the way.

That last time he’d seen Gunnery Sergeant Obregon flashed through his mind; the tough-as-nails Marine had looked calm and collected as he led out a flying column of improvised fighting vehicles leavened with a few alien allies and mercenaries. Even the toughest warrior had no chance when his number came up, however. Obregon had died in combat, helping accomplish the mission despite the fact that Fromm’s plan had been deficient, failing to foresee the enemy’s dispositions and tactics.

And now Fromm was being rewarded for the sacrifice of Obregon and twenty-one other Marines by being paraded like a circus clown, along with his company.

Clown or not, he still wanted some heavy ordnance around. Kirosha had taught him how easily things could go to hell when you were out in the cold, away from support in Echo Tango Land. There was even a chance the State pukes wanted him around because they knew that when the shit hit the fan he’d do what he had to in order to accomplish his mission.

Fromm realized he’d spaced out for several seconds. Goldberg didn’t say anything; the non-com knew how that was. After you’d been on the sharp end enough times, sometimes you went back there, whether you wanted to or not.

“In any case, they want us. We aren’t parade ground soldiers, but they don’t care. So we’re going to pack our dress blues and look pretty for the alien dignitaries. Hopefully the whole thing will be boring and uneventful,” he finished, knowing he’d probably just jinxed them all.

“The Big Green Weenie strikes again,” the company’s senior NCO said. We’ll have to find ways to keep the troops busy. You know how it is; if they get bored enough they’ll light their own asses on fire just to have something to laugh about.”

Fromm smiled. “I think our platoon sergeants will find ways to entertain them.”

“They are good people, even if Graham is kind of an asshole. I wish we had some more time to get the boots ready, though. Maybe we’ll get the chance to knock some sense into them during this deployment.”

They’d spent the better part of six months integrating their replacements into the company. Heavy fighting at Parthenon had inflicted over fifty percent casualties on Fromm’s unit, including some fifteen percent fatalities. The wounded were back in fighting shape, except for a few whose injuries were beyond even Starfarer technology to bring back to full health. The dead had been replaced by a combination of newbies fresh out of their third year of Obligatory Service Term and more experienced personnel reassigned there. All too often, the reassignments were people their previous units had been glad to get rid of, which meant some of them would be problem children. The platoon commanders and non-coms would whip them into shape, eventually. But getting to that point took work, and they weren’t fully ready yet. On the other tentacle, they weren’t going into combat. Supposedly. The last time he’d been sent ‘somewhere quiet’ he’d ended up in Kirosha.

The new commander of his weapons platoon was another newcomer, a First Lieutenant who’d transferred from another division to replace the useless coward who’d ran the unit before. His stats looked good, but then again, the gone and unlamented Lieutenant O’Malley’s fitness reports had also looked good. There were always some officers that would let people slide if they kissed enough ass. Fromm had served under one such captain, and had lost a lot of good people as a result. He had no intention of allowing another shirker, coward or idiot to stay in his company. So far, First Lieutenant Chambal had performed adequately, but it was something else to worry about.

“I’ll make the formal announcement tomorrow, after I hear back from higher about the details. But you can start getting the ball rolling with the non-coms. I’ll be briefing the platoon commanders next. We’re scheduled to depart in three weeks. Paperwork’s just about done. I guess when the War Department sticks its oar in, everyone gets cracking.”

“We’ll be ready,” Goldberg said.

Fromm knew the non-com’s confidence was warranted; the company was managed by its sergeants, who took care of training and making sure their people were doing well, and his NCOs’ quality ranged from decent to superb. Sometimes he thought the unit would do just as well without officers, although that wasn’t quite true. The commanders were there to think of the big picture, manage the broad aspects of the mission, and leave the details to their subordinates. That was how the Corps had been organized, at least since the time they added ‘Warp’ to the name. One reason was that most Marines operated in small shipboard units, company-sized or smaller. A light cruiser usually had a reinforced squad, for example. Even a dreadnought had little more than a couple of reinforced companies. Everybody in those teams had to know their jobs; they couldn’t count on a larger formation to take up the slack.

Which meant that Charlie Company would do its duty as well as could be expected, whether it was a simple babysitting mission or something more complicated and dangerous. After the last few years, Fromm was pretty sure the latter possibility was far more likely.

* * *

“Ruddies all around. Kinda brings you back, doesn’t it?” Corporal Russell ‘Russet’ Edison said before he dropped a 20mm high-explosive munition behind a peaked-roof house where some suspected tangos where hiding. The ensuing explosion was much louder and fierier than the real thing, but that was Nullywood for you. Those fucking remfies thought a hand grenade could blow up a house.

Things weren’t going well. His fireteam was already down one guy, and unlike infantry units, weapon platoons’ fireteams only had three people in them. Two grunts just didn’t do well on their own.

“I hate this fucking flick,” Lance Corporal Raymond ‘Gonzo’ Gonzaga grumbled.

“Sergeant Fuller said this would be a good team-building exercise.”

“FOS is full of shit,” Gonzo said. “But I repeat myself.”

Russell had to agree that their new squad sergeant, Bob ‘FOS’ Fuller did indeed live up to his unofficial nickname. Not a bad guy, but not too bright, and a little too ready to do all the motivational crap that some remfies always wanted to foist on the Corps.

“Never mind that. We’ve got movement ahead.”

“I got them,” Gonzo said before he opened up with his ALS-43, putting a burst of plasma micro-missiles on the virtual Ruddies that had emerged from the smoke-filled house. The Ruddies didn’t die easy; they were protected by personal force fields.

“Can you believe this bullshit? They never had fucking shields!”

“They had the one at the end.”

“Area field. Not the same. Fucking bullshit, man.”

They were playing 33 Days in Kirosha, which was – very loosely – based on a real bad month Russell and the rest of Charlie Company’s weapons platoon had endured in a remote planet in the galactic boondocks. Of the original seventy-odd Marines who’d been there, only thirty-four were still in the unit. Some had transferred, a couple had retired, and the rest had gotten killed, at the Battle of Kirosha or the actions at Parthenon a year later. None of the survivors had anything good to say about the Nullywood production.

Russell thought the multimedia flick – available in 2-D, full virtual, and full virtual interactive, the latter being currently running through the squad’s cybernetic implants as they played at being Marines surrounded by hordes of primitive aliens – sucked ass, but he’d done what he usually did with everything and figured out some angle he could play to his advantage. Showing off his Battle of Kirosha Combat Action Ribbon had earned him quite a few free drinks and even a discount at his favorite whorehouse in the two months since the movie opened in New Parris. That would last as long as the flick was popular; he figured it’d be another month or so before the novelty wore off.

Playing this game was a pain in the ass, though. For one, the Nullywood dickweeds had gotten just about everything wrong, which was pretty amazing considering the Corps had helpfully provided them with about five thousand hours of sensor footage from drones, OPs and every grunt’s suit sensors. The explosions were too big, except the final one, which hadn’t been big enough. They’d given the Ruddies combat lasers and personal shields instead of the low-tech slug-throwers and cloth uniforms they’d had in reality. If that switch had happened for real, everyone in Embassy Row would have gotten killed. And they’d tossed in a team of Lamprey special ops types to serve as the main villains, which as Gonzo kept saying was total bullshit.

“Watch out!” Gonzo shouted, a moment too late.

A blinding flash of light filled Russell’s field of vision before being replaced by darkness and a blinking sign. YOU’RE DEAD flashed in red letters for several seconds. Russell shrugged and ran the instant replay. Speak of the devil: a Lamprey sniper had nailed him from the top of the Kirosha Royal Pyramid with a 5mm laser rifle. Well, at least he was out of the game.

He switched back to regular vision and lay back on the VR armchair in the rec room. The third member of his fireteam, who’d gotten killed early on, was sitting between Russell and Gonzo, who was cursing out a storm while he continued playing. He was trying to reach the rest of the squad, but with Lamprey snipers running around he probably wasn’t going to make it.

“Was it really that bad?” Keith ‘Grampa’ Gorski asked him. The newbie wasn’t the usual kind of boot; he was in fact a damn Ancient, one of the seventy million or so people still drawing breath who’d been around during First Contact. He didn’t look like he was a hundred and eighty years old, or even ninety; he was one of the lucky sumbitches who were able to completely turn back the clock and look twenty-seven or so for however many centuries it took for the Grim Reaper to catch up to them. Although he obviously dyed his hair black, the fancy fuck.

“It was nothing like that,” Russell said, nodding his head at the other grunts still playing in the rec room. They could have just as easily played from their bunks, but the VR chairs were designed to make their real bodies comfortable while their minds were having whatever fantasy adventure they’d chosen to waste time on. All in all, Russell would rather play a hand of real-life poker. By the same token, VR porn didn’t do much for him, either. Even the ugliest flesh-and-blood hooker was better than a virtual supermodel, as far as he was concerned. He was weird that way.

“But it was bad,” Grampa said. He knew about bad. The old guy had lived in the aftermath of First Contact, had fought in one of the militias trying to keep order after the surviving cities fell apart in chaos and panic, then joined the Old Army and done some pretty harsh things when a good chunk of Mexico was annexed into the US, which the few surviving Mexicans hadn’t liked one bit.

“The real Kirosha fight wasn’t fun, yeah. Not fun at all, being out there with no support but a bunch of civvies trying to remember their Obie training, a gaggle of mercs, and a few friendly Eets.”

“I can see that.”

“You haven’t fought any ETs, have you?” Russell asked him.

Grampa shook his head. “I was done with fighting by Year Twenty, when they did the big demobilization so they could start in on the Space Navy and all that happy crappy. Haven’t worn a uniform or fired a round since then until I volunteered after the Days of Infamy. All the fighting I did was against my fellow man. A few women, too, not counting the wives.” He grinned. “I fought with my better halves plenty, but we never exchanged gunfire. You ever fought humans?”

“Once, sort of. Some Pan-Asians and Columbians went off the reservation and tried to play pirate on Peterson System. We hit their base and they folded like a pup tent. Not much of a fight. All my serious shit involved Echo Tangos. Lizards once, Horde pirates, two times, a couple primmie species you’ve never heard of, then the Ruddies at Kirosha and the Furries and Vipers at Parthenon.”

Grampa had ended up replacing the third member of Russell’s old fireteam, who’d gotten killed at Parthenon. He still woke up expecting to see Nacle around, looking sad and disappointed at something Russell had done or said. The little Mormon had been a good guy. Even Francesca had broken down in tears when hearing about her favorite customer’s demise, and that hooker had a heart of solid granite.

The old guy – had to be the oldest boot in the Corps’ history – nodded. “Yep, this is going to be a learning experience.”

Russell had looked at Gorski’s records; the Ancient had breezed through Recruit Training and the School of Infantry before spending a year with the 23^rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which had been set for an attack into Lamprey space that never materialized, and transferred to the 101^st MEU after Parthenon. He was surprised the old bastard hadn’t gone through OCS and become a boss instead of a grunt. He was surprised the guy had enlisted at all.

“Last time I was running around with a gun, we didn’t have no fancy powered armor,” Grampa said. “It was just us. We didn’t even have APCs most of the time. Shank’s mare or whatever civilian transport we could requisition, when we had enough fuel to keep it running, that was. Half the country was dead. The other half was running out of everything – food, fuel, medicine. Most of the time we helped get stuff from places that had too much of it to places that had nothing. And to keep thieves from stealing it along the way.

“That was hard. Most of the poor bastards we ended up shooting and blowing up were just hungry and scared, trying to provide for their own. But I guess it’s the same with aliens, too. The fuckers at the sharp end are mostly just like us, following orders and worried only about making it out alive.”

“Guess so,” Russell said. “Don’t spend a lot of time thinking about their feelings.”

This was the longest conversation he’d had with the old guy since he’d joined Russell’s crew. At first, he’d been too busy making sure the newbie could cut the mustard. He still had no idea why someone that age would see fit to join the Corps.

“Yeah, I didn’t think about it too much, not when I was doing the fighting. Saw too many buddies freeze up and get shot. Can’t second-guess yourself when you’re out there.”

“So what were you up to after you left the Army?”

“Bunch of stuff. I started five different business ventures,” Grampa said. “Three did pretty well, the other two were complete disasters. Been married seven times; longest one lasted all of eight years. Ten kids, each more worthless than the last. Managed to spend every cent I’ve earned, mostly to stay alive.”

As it turned out, staying young forever was pretty expensive. Aging was caused by a bunch of different things, and suppressing them had a bunch of side effects, which required even more stuff to suppress them. Kinda like fighting a war, come to think of it. The drugs you had to take to stay young after you hit a hundred or so cost about three, four times as much as what the average American made. The biggest bennie of being in the military was that the government picked up the tab for your anti-aging meds. The main drawback was, you’d better make it worth the government’s while to stay in uniform. Well, that and the chance you’d get killed, which in times of war happened quite a bit.

“When the ETs bushwhacked us, I figured it was time to do something worthwhile for a change. I never went past E-4 in the Army, and I don’t want to be a goddam officer. So here I am.”

“Well, brah, you picked a fine time to join our beloved Corps. All the alien asses you can kick, as long as you don’t mind them trying to kick yours.”

“Sounds good to me.”

We’ll see how good it sounds when you’ve running around in a sealed suit for three days straight and you can’t even smell your own stink anymore, haven’t slept a wink the entire time and the Doze-Nots are beginning to make you crazy. Hope you ain’t forgotten how shitty it gets. But at least the dude wasn’t some civvie trying to play soldier. Maybe he’d handle it fine. On the other hand, maybe he’d think he was too good to take orders from a brand-new Corporal. So far Grampa hadn’t bitched about being the low man on the totem pole. Hopefully it’d stay that way.

And there had to be more to Gorski’s story than what he’d said; Russell was sure of it. You don’t make that close to your two hundredth birthday only to join an outfit where you got shot at on a fairly regular basis. Old bastards usually ended up in the Navy. Not that he expected the Foxtrot-November to share his real reasons, not at first anyway. After they went through a couple fights together, things might change, or they might not. Some people never opened up to the rest of their team. Russell didn’t even care all that much, as long as it wasn’t something that interfered with his fireteam’s work.

“Shit, I’m dead,” Gonzo said from the couch.

“Well, that’s all of us.” It would be nice if they could just leave, but they were going to have to wait until the whole thing was over, and then sit through an after-action discussion. Trust Sergeant Fuller to turn a game into a pain in the ass.

Grampa seemed to be about done with the small talk, so Russell let him be and went back to writing the email he’d been working on for the past few months. First time in his life he was trying to write to somebody he’d had sex with. First time he’d contacted anyone he’d been with, other than as a return customer.

Damn warp-witch done put a spell on me.

The thought was half a joke, but only half. His brief dalliance with one Lieutenant Commander Deborah Genovisi had been one of the weirdest experiences of his life. He still couldn’t get her out of his mind. Chances were they’d never see each other again. She was in the Navy, training to be a warp fighter pilot; as usual, the Navy couldn’t let the Corps have any cool toys without trying to muscle into the action. Anyway, they’d ended up assigned to different fleets in different parts of the galaxy. Following her on Facettergream was already above and beyond. Even crazier was writing an email to her.

And yet he was still doing it. Well, trying to. He hadn’t been able to come up with something he was willing to actually send out, to bounce around assorted shipping vessels until it made its way to whatever base she was posted at; she hadn’t made her location public. For all he knew she’d forgotten all about the corporal she’d screwed during the victory celebrations at Parthenon.

Russell smiled at the memories. That had been a good time. Nobody at Parthenon-Three would let him pay for drinks. Even most of the hookers were giving it up for free, except he hadn’t had time for their attentions. He and the commander had barely left her room all week long. 

“You got it bad, bro,” Gonzo said.

“What?”

“You heard me. First time is the hardest.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Whoever’s got you hooked on her.”

Gonzo didn’t know who it was. Good thing, too, because the witch had creeped him out when they both met her. He’d think Russell was insane. Which he probably was.

Russell shrugged and mentally put the unfinished email in its virtual ‘Saved’ cabinet. One of these days he’d send the damn thing. And she wouldn’t reply.

Part of him was worried about what would happen if she did. The rest of him figured one or both of them would get killed before any of that mattered.

Two

Haven-One, Interstellar Trade League, 166 AFC

See, the normal thing to do when faced with an impossible situation is to report back and wait for further instructions, NOT to try to solve it by yourself.

Heather McClintock chided herself a couple more times, probably not a good idea while scaling a mostly-sheer wall in the middle of the night, trying not to attract the attention of the ITL Security Force guards patrolling the grounds of their headquarters, some ninety feet below her. On the other hand, her mental grumblings gave her something to do while she painfully inched her way up towards her objective.

If you weren’t expecting to play secret agent, why did you pack a Ninja Suit, uh? You were actually looking for an excuse to use it. Well, here you are, playing hero and risking life and limb.

She reached out with her right arm, used the artificial nano-hairs of her suit to create a temporary molecular bond with the wall, and used that and the similar foothold on her feet to move a few more inches up. Ninety-one feet up: forty-seven to go. Even with her enhanced musculature, holding on to her body weight plus her equipment was not fun. If she was planning on making a habit of this sort of thing, she’d better increase her workout regimen. Or accept that being an intelligence officer was meant to be largely an office job and this sort of thing was best left to Marines, Special Ops troopers and other people too dumb to know better. Like her boyfriend.

He’d probably think I was insane if he knew what I was doing. And when a Marine captain whose Purple Heart had a full set of silver oak leaf clusters thought you were crazy, well, you were pretty damn crazy.

She had good reasons for taking the insane risk, though. This little nighttime excursion was the only quick and sure way to figure out if the Interstellar Trade League was about to throw its not-inconsiderable weight behind Earth’s enemies. The Int-Trads controlled the flow of money, goods and information over a good sixth of the known galaxy. Although the ITL claimed not to be interested in politics, it had financed – and bankrupted – entire civilizations, not to mention used its fleets for assorted and very political ends in their ten-thousand-year history. The League had declared itself scrupulously neutral in the current conflict, which meant doing business with both sides. There were rumors that the situation was about to change, however. The Agency had decided to confirm or deny the rumors the old fashioned way: by stealing some first-hand data.

Her mission was to pose as a junior member of a UPS delegation holding face-to-face meetings with the ITL and make contact with a disaffected League-Master who had shown some willingness to divulge the League’s secrets in exchange for a small fortune in highly illegal drugs. His choice recreational substance was some sort of exotic natural compound that even Level Five bio-fabbers couldn’t reproduce. Unfortunately, like junkies all throughout the galaxy, the League-Master in question had been full of it. He was in fact no longer a Master, having been recently expelled due to rank incompetence, and knew no more about the ITL’s current plans than any local denizen of Haven-One, the planet that served as the League’s corporate headquarters.

After discovering her contact had been lying through his proboscis – his species didn’t have teeth – Heather should have given up, reported the failure, and resigned herself to spending a boring week playing corpo-rat games. Maybe use her spare time to catch up on her reading or watch some flick in her media queue. Instead…

A hundred and thirty feet. Ten more to go. She got a grip on the wall and was about to move when she heard something. The approaching whirring sound made her freeze in mid-motion, with most of her weight supported by her left arm. A security drone was making a pass around the building. The flying device was unarmed and only a little larger than a sparrow, but its sensor suite scanned its surroundings in a multitude of spectra. Fortunately, Heather’s ninja suit was designed to block and absorb all emissions coming from her, everything from her infrared signature to the chemicals she exhaled with every breath, while projecting a holographic chameleon field that blended her near-perfectly with her surroundings. It was hellishly hot inside the skin-tight outfit, but it was worth it. The only thing that could detect her while motionless would be a full gravity-wave scan, and those interfered with communications, so they were rarely used.

Rarely wasn’t never, though. If the drone decided to be extra-cautious, it would spot her. The League wasn’t a government per se, but Haven-Two’s nominal authorities would be happy to execute a spy after squeezing every last bit of actionable information out of her. Heather held her breath and remained still, acutely aware of the sweat building up between her skin and the ninja suit, itches she couldn’t scratch, and the growing strain on her arm and shoulder.

The drone moved on, blissfully unaware. She could breathe again.

By the time she reached the balcony, her arms were beginning to shake. She made it over the railing and took a few seconds to recover. The ninja suit helpfully extended a drinking tube next to her mouth under the mask and she took a few sips; the water would have been tepid under different circumstances, but with her current core temperature, it felt positively cold going down.

Smuggling the suit in had been easy enough; it broke up into several parts, each of which looked like a normal garment or undergarment; it would take a molecular-level scan to identify the nano-systems woven into the fabric. Good thing she’d managed to fast-talk a friend from Operations to let her requisition it. This was supposed to be a simple intelligence-gathering op, but after her close calls at Kirosha and Trade Nexus Eleven, she’d become downright paranoid. She now felt naked without a full set of tools of the trade.

The balcony looked down on the walled courtyard where the ITL conducted its meetings. A set of sliding glass doors led to the inside of the Factor’s office. The ‘glass’ was made of reinforced transparent sapphire, tough enough to resist beam weapons for several seconds. It also had an advanced lock and scanner that would only grant passage to someone with the proper biometric signature.

Bypassing the lock and gaining entry took her about fifteen seconds. The CIA got some of the best toys in the galaxy, courtesy of their oversized and well-hidden budget. You didn’t want to scrimp when facing civilizations that were largely more advanced than your own.

The Factor’s office was surprisingly similar to what one would find in an American city. Form followed function; most of the League’s species had body shapes that could use chairs, although a few other pieces of furniture in the spacious room were designed to accommodate centauroids, creepy crawlers and other variations. The biggest chair belonged to the Factor, of course. More importantly, said chair also contained a node server filled with xenottabytes of data.

Breaking into the server was almost beyond the capabilities of her bag of tricks, but she managed. Finding the data she was looking for was only slightly more difficult. The whole thing took about fifteen minutes of hard work and an hour spent in intense boredom while she downloaded files while erasing any traces of her presence.

 She was ready to go to bed when she was done, although that would require her to get there first, after a climb down and another slow dance through the League’s security perimeter. And once she made it to her room, she’d have to prepare a preliminary report, since she couldn’t well do it during the day, when she was supposed to be working. In other words, her bed would remain untouched.

They didn’t pay her enough for this.

* * *

By the time the red dwarf that served as Haven-Two’s sun rose over the horizon, Heather was done collating her report and hiding it inside a virtual reality program, the vital data sequestered between multimedia code lines and impossible to find without the proper decryption codes. She wasn’t looking forward to putting in a day’s work under her cover identity after a sleepless night, but those were the breaks. At least the news was mostly good for a change. The ITL had decided that remaining neutral was the best course of action, given the US victories at Parthenon and Hades systems, and the Vipers dropping out of the Alliance. Even better, the O-Vehel Federation was apparently regretting its own shift in alliances and had reached out to the ITL to serve as possible intermediaries to work out some sort of deal with the US. The League had refused to get involved, but the fact the Ovals were trying to be friends again was reassuring.

Suppressing a yawn and having her medical implants send another shot of stimulants into her bloodstream, Heather got dressed for work. She was on her way to breakfast when she ran into her titular boss at UPS, a ‘rat she’d grown to dislike almost from the start.

The man looked even unhappier than usual. “Don’t even bother with breakfast,” he said as soon as he laid eyes on her. “You’ve been recalled to Earth.”

“What?”

“Your lords and masters beckon, whoever they are. You’re on a charter ship headed Sol System. It leaves in fifteen minutes. I figure you can pack up your stuff quickly.”

Shit. Nobody at UPS knew who she really was. Until now.

“You’re fired, by the way.”

New Washington, Earth, 166 AFC

She was about ready to start dropping bodies by the time she arrived to the capital. It took a lot of self-restraint to merely walk into the office of the Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service. The DD, a ninety-year old woman with decades of field experience, looked positively worried when Heather entered. Something about her body language betrayed her mood, or perhaps just the glint in her eyes.

“You blew my cover,” Heather said.

“Agent McClintock, I can assure you all precautions…”

“UPS doesn’t reassign a junior executive in the middle of a trade mission, let alone send her straight to Earth, damn the expenses, within an hour of getting the word. My pretend boss is a dim bulb, but he knew something was up, and by now so do the Int-Trads. Which means they sold the information in the open market in the time it took me to get back here. Six months of altering my biometrics and creating a full persona just got flushed down the toilet. I would like an explanation.”

“Your briefing is scheduled for tomorrow morning,” Deputy NCS Director Graciela Pinto said, her expression changing from worry to anger. “But since you are here, Senior Field Agent McClintock, sit the hell down and I’ll brief you here and now. I might even forget this breach in protocol, in consideration of your track record.”

Heather sat down.

“First of all, I’m sorry we pulled you out so suddenly, and in a way that burned your cover. That decision was not made at the Agency. In fact, it was the result of a cluster-fuck emanating from the State Department, with the strong endorsement of the War Department. The boss decided that playing ball was more important than your ongoing mission. I think you’ll agree, once you know the reasons behind the move.”

This better be good, Heather thought, but retained enough common sense to keep the thought to herself. Barging into the DNCS’ office had taken her to the edge of career suicide; any further steps would carry her over it.

She was still pissed off to no end. It wasn’t just the cover identity, which had taken a great deal of work to establish, but the fact that all the regular people she’d associated with would end up in some alien database, listed as possible intelligence officers. At best, it meant they would be subject to surveillance whenever they left the US, and possible even within its borders. At worst, it made them likely targets of counterintelligence operations: blackmail, extortion, and bribery attempts were all possible, simply because they’d worked with a known CIA asset. She didn’t mind putting her own life on the line, but the thought of innocent civilians becoming targets, just because some ‘rat had decided they needed her here and now, infuriated her.

“What do you know about the Tah-Leen species?” Pinto asked her. “From Xanadu?”

Heather had to think of the answer. Xanadu… “The warp nexus?”

The Deputy Director nodded. “One of the largest ones in the known galaxy. Forty-three ley lines connecting several Starfarer polities. Including both remaining members of the Galactic Alliance, as well as the US and the Puppies.”

“Right. That would make it a major war front. Except the locals don’t allow military traffic through the system.”

“Yes. For now. You’ll get the details in the briefing package. I’m sending it to you now, since you decided to so kindly drop by…”

“My apologies,” Heather said, mostly meaning it.

“We’ll let that go for now. Just don’t make a habit of it.”

“I assure you I won’t.”

“You’ve got a reputation, McClintock. Very effective agent, what the Navy likes to call ‘a good man in a storm,’ but you’re also known as a maverick, going your own way, often against protocol or even standing orders. You’ve managed to piss off a lot of people at the Agency. Success can expiate a lot of sins, but politics will eventually do you in, no matter how good you are. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Very well. In any case, Xanadu System’s main feature is a quark star, very rare out in the spiral arm of the galaxy, and very hard to live with, even though its massive gravity field is a breeding ground for warp valleys. The Tah-Leen, the little remnant of their civilization that still survives, are very old and extremely advanced. Their species was on the verge of Transcendence when something went wrong and caused their downfall. Xanadu is the only place they still inhabit, and for some reason they never leave its confines. The system is impregnable. Every fleet that has tried to invade it has been obliterated. No vessel can enter Xanadu without the permission of the Tah-Leen, and visitors can only leave after they pay the rather hefty tolls they charge for the use of their ley line network.”

While the Deputy Director spoke, Heather mentally skimmed through the briefing package. Images of Xanadu itself flashed before her eyes: the quark star was hardly visible, being only slightly below the density threshold that would turn it into a black hole. There were no planets, only a network of docking stations for transshipment purpses, and a central habitat. The latter looked like gigantic jewel, gorgeous and colorful, its crystalline shape like nothing she’d ever seen built for the purposes of space trade. The actual name of the system, roughly translated, meant ‘seasonal paradisiac retreat for the most special.’ Xanadu managed to encapsulate the meaning adequately, she thought.  The Woogle article enclosed in the package translated the species name, ‘Tah-Leen’ as ‘special community of individuals, totally unlike from one another, rejoicing in their uniqueness,’ which was quite a mouthful for two whole syllables, especially when one could boil the name down to ‘Special Snowflakes.’ Or simply the Snowflakes.

Multimedia depictions of the aliens themselves were not available.

Guess they are so special and unique that they don’t like having their picture taken. Or so hideous nobody can stand the sight of them. She’d have to look into that, later.

“Currently, only peaceful trading ships are allowed to use their warp network. When the war began, the Tah-Leen placed a traffic embargo on all combatants. Since that was a major shipping lane between between us and the Hrauwah, it hurt the US worst of all.”

That made Xanadu rather important. The Hrauwah Kingdom – better known as the Puppies – were still reluctant to join in the current galactic conflict, but they’d been steadily increasing their shipments of supplies, weapons and even warships crewed by ‘volunteers.’ The Ovals’ betrayal had further eliminated the number of trade routes available. To avoid coming close to enemy-controlled areas, deliveries now had to go on a rather roundabout trip, which meant it took anywhere between a month and six weeks to take goods from the major Puppy industrial centers and bring them to the US.

“We’ve been trying to get the Tah-Leen to rescind their embargo, to no avail. Until now.”

“What changed?”

“Apparently, their Hierophant – his full title is Keeper and Transmitter of All Sacred and Holy Revelations – has become interested in humanity. Specifically, he recently got ahold of a little Nullywood production about the Kirosha siege, and now he and his fellow Tah-Leen are just dying to meet you and the other ‘heroes’ involved.”

“Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

Heather found that hard to believe. Sure, the siege of the legations had been a pretty dramatic affair, but even recent galactic history – say, the last five thousand years or so – was full of similar tales of heroism and drama. She was as much a believer in American exceptionalism as the next flag-waving ‘muricaner, but she couldn’t imagine any reason why a hundred-thousand-year old culture – she double-checked the figure on the Woogle article; she hadn’t known that any living species had been around for that long – would be all that impressed by what she, a platoon of Marines and about a thousand odds and sods had accomplished. There had to be a catch.

“They are also impressed by our status as ‘warp demons.’ It appears they have records of the last time a warp-adept species roamed the galaxy, although it happened before even their time. The Imperium has been all but begging to get a look at those records and gotten nowhere.”

“So what’s the deal? We drop by, they get to shake our hands and ask for our autographs, and then they lift the embargo?”

“Then they decide if we’re worthy of their assistance. Which at the least would mean continuing to deny access to our enemies while lifting the embargo on the US. If they let military traffic through – a big if, admittedly – we could actually mount an offensive into the heart of Lamprey territory. The Imperium worlds linked to Xanadu are minor possessions at the end of long warp chains, so it wouldn’t be as big a deal for them. But the Lampreys would be screwed if we can deploy a fleet that way. Most of their forces are concentrated on the opposite side of their empire, preparing for the next big offensive against us and the Wyrms.”

“That’s a lot. Sounds way too good to be true,” Heather said.

“Well, they still have to decide if we’re worthy, whatever that means. God only knows if the Marines will impress or terrify them. We know next to nothing about their culture; the Tah-Leen are one of the most secretive civilizations in the galaxy. So nobody is sure what to expect. The Secretary of State her own damn self is going. That tells you how seriously they’re taking all of this.”

“What happens if they decide we’re not worthy?”

“Best case, the status quo remains in place. Worst case, the Alliance gets their embargo lifted and we have to shift forces to defend that border. Third Fleet is arrayed on that sector; mostly older ships, and currently last in line to get any extra goodies like carrier vessels. It would take the enemy some time to exploit that front, but military and civilian losses are likely to be heavy if – when – they do.”

Heather knew what those innocuous words really meant: ships torn apart and consumed by fire or left open to the cold vacuum of space, cities burned into slag, entire lifetimes of work lost in a few instants, and hundreds of millions dead. Preventing that was well worth risking the lives of the ‘heroes of Kirosha’ or all twenty-five hundred survivors for that matter.

“So who’s going on this diplomatic mission?”

Peter, I would imagine, she thought. That’d be nice.

“You, of course, and as many of the original Embassy staff as we can round up to go. The Marine captain – your Marine captain, yes,” Pinto added with a smirk. You couldn’t keep a relationship secret at Spy Central. “His entire company, including the platoon he had at Jasper-Five. The military contractors are all on a long-term assignment, and they asked for too much money to cover their contract-breaking penalties, so they aren’t going. I don’t think the Tah-Leen will care, though. The mercenaries were cut out of the movie, so the aliens may not even know they were there.”

“That piece of crap,” Heather said. The multimedia flick had largely dismissed her contribution to the fight. The handsome Marine captain’s love interest, played by no other than Heather Spade, had been portrayed as an ineffectual bimbo that the manly man had rescued from the mean aliens in three different scenes. Rat bastards. She’d played the interactive version just for the pleasure of murdering the happy couple in as many ways as she could devise.

Pinto chuckled. “Yes, it wasn’t really flattering to you, was it? In all fairness, the Agency scrubbed your actions from most records. Got to safeguard ways and means, you know.”

“I know.”

Spies didn’t play the Great Game for the glory. If people knew who you were, you had already lost. That was why getting burned at UPS had driven her into a frenzy.

Even her family thought she’d spent her time on Jasper-Five cowering in some sub-basement in the embassy building while Marines did all the fighting and dying. If they’d known she’d been in a trench, a gun in her hands while she fended off homicidal maniacs as they came over the wire, they’d probably drop dead on the spot. Both from shock and outrage: that sort of carnage was beneath the McClintocks. If they had to do any fighting at all, her family was supposed to do so from a proper naval vessel. Hand to hand fighting was for lower life forms.

“All in all, the guest list is about three hundred names long.”

“I see.”

Heather’s eyes widened when some of Pinto’s words sunk in.

“The original Embassy staff? Surely that doesn’t include the Ambassador. Or does it?”

Pinto’s grimace was all the answer she needed before the Deputy Director spoke. “I’m afraid he is going. Didn’t take much convincing, since he’d spent a very tough year in a penal colony on Venus. I don’t think you’ll recognize him.”

“That worthless bastard had it coming. What is he getting for his cooperation?”

“A reduced sentence. Time served, basically.”

Former ambassador Javier Llewellyn had gotten his position through his family connections, much like everything else in his life. The situation at Jasper-Five had been well above his competency level: the man had managed to insult the Kirosha Queen and issue an ultimatum that precipitated the attack on the embassy. That would have been bad enough, but he’d compounded his mistake by trying to surrender to the aliens, despite the fact that he’d witnessed their penchant for judicial torture with his own eyes. Only the last-second intervention of the Regional Security Officer had prevented him from issuing a suicidal order to stand down. That combination of ineptness and cowardice – ordering the surrender of American territory without the express approval of the highest-ranking military officer on the scene was considered an act of treason – had earned him a lengthy sentence in a labor camp on Venus, currently in its hundredth year of a five-century-long terraforming project. Most of the work was being done by convicts because the planet was still a pretty good facsimile of Hell. It was the next best thing to a death sentence.

To hear that the weasel was getting early release just added insult to injury.

“I don’t like this,” she said. “Those aliens are making us jump through hoops in return for some vague promises of support when and if they decide we deserve it.”

“If they mistreat any of you, we’ll declare war on them, for what is worth. I doubt we can take the system, even with a carrier group leading the way. But even a small chance they will do as they say is worth the risk.”

“I agree,” Heather said. Although I and all the guests are the ones at risk, not you and the other ‘rats sitting comfortably in New Washington.

 Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d risked life and limb for the job.

Hell, she thought, realizing it’d only been a few days since her ninja suit caper. It wouldn’t be the first time this week.



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