Fortunately, a shuttle had been about to lift back up into orbit to the ship, saving Rob time that could be valuable.

“What have we got?” Rob asked as he entered the command deck. The elderly passenger and bulk-cargo carrier Wingate, called the Wingnut by everyone, had been built to haul people and materials in a single star system, then had a new jump drive added on and instantly became an elderly interstellar transport. Aside from the up-to-the-minute jump control panel, the rest of the command deck was taken up by displays and controls that had been in service for decades—and showed it.

The main display flickered erratically until the Wingnut’s captain, a woman apparently as old as the ship, slammed her fist against a control unit in a spot already dented by many similar blows. As the display steadied, Rob squinted at the information about the ship that was demanding protection money. “It’s a Buccaneer Class cutter?”

“Yep,” the captain said. “Not good for much in the Old Colonies but still handy where there’s not much else to threaten them.”

“You don’t seem to be very worried,” Rob told her, not bothering to hide his irritation at her attitude.

“You already paid me,” the captain said, “and those guys from Scatha won’t give me a hard time because I already paid them a license fee to operate in this region.”

“License fee? You mean extortion?”

The captain spread her hands. “Call it what you want. Do you have a better idea? You going to fight that Bucket with your fists?”

Frustrated, Rob took another look at the display, then stormed off in search of the colony’s governing council.

Half the council were already gathered, crammed into Wingnut’s grandly named recreational room, which was just a compartment with several aging displays built in. The men and women of the rest of the council, still on the surface of the planet, could be seen on one of the displays. As Rob entered the compartment, a storm of argument dwindled as everyone looked at him. Council President Chisholm, looking unhappy, nodded at Rob. “Thank you for getting back up here quickly. What’s your assessment?”

He didn’t waste time asking why the leaders of the colony were calling on a lowly former lieutenant for his opinion. The Old Colonies tended to have really small military forces, which was why ex–junior officer Rob Geary was the most senior veteran among the initial group of roughly four thousand colonists settling this world.

“They have an old Buccaneer Class cutter,” Rob told the council. “It arrived at the jump point from Scatha, about five light hours from this planet we’re orbiting and colonizing. The information we have is still almost five hours light-delayed, but they were headed on an intercept for us at that time, and there’s no reason to think they’d change vector. Their velocity is point zero five light speed, and they can’t afford to push it any faster even if they had newer technology for their propulsion system. That means they’ll get here in a little more than three and a half days.”

“What can you tell us about the Buccaneer? How dangerous is it?”

Rob made an indecisive gesture with one hand. “Back home? Not very dangerous at all. The Buckets are nearly a century old, not very fast or maneuverable, and fairly small. They were built for law-enforcement duties like stopping smuggling and for search and rescue. All of the Old Colonies have retired and sold their Buckets, which is how a new colony like Scatha could get its hands on one for what was probably a cheap price. But in this star system, as the only ship equipped to fight, it’s as dangerous as it needs to be. The sensors on the Wingnut are too badly maintained to tell us any details about the Bucket that showed up here, but it’s probably got the standard weapons. That would be a single grapeshot launcher and a single pulse particle beam projector. Those are both close-in weapons. They’ll have to be right on top of us to hit us, and their particle beam is probably early second-generation equipment, which means its hitting power is limited.”

“But what can it do with those weapons?” Chisholm pressed.

Rob paused to think. “They could destroy our shuttles, preventing us from landing any more people or equipment, and stranding anyone up here in orbit. They could also decide to target this ship directly despite the owner’s having paid them off earlier. Destroying the Wingnut would take a lot of work, but hitting critical areas like access hatches, air locks, and shuttle docking sites could cripple us.”

“I kept saying we should invest in a warship of our own!” Council Member Kim complained.

“We didn’t come out here to fight wars!” Chisholm snapped at Kim. “We went out to find the freedom and the room to follow our dreams! It’s easy to say now what we should have done, but when all of us here decided where to put the money for this colony, we found that we couldn’t afford even one warship like this Buccaneer cutter.”

“We can’t afford to lose any of our shuttles or pay this extortionate demand, either!” Kim tapped his comm pad furiously. “If we pay this, we’ll barely be able to proceed with building the colony.”

“According to the message from the warship, Scatha Star System says we need to be protected,” another council member said. “Shouldn’t we learn more before making a decision to reject their, um, offer?”

“They are not making an offer,” Chisholm said. “Scatha is making a demand. That is not the action of someone seeking to help us.”

“Do we know anything about Scatha?”

“All we know,” Chisholm said, “is that the name they chose for their star system, Scatha, appears to be derived from that of an ancient warrior goddess. That and the fact that their first interaction with us is a demand that we pay them a very large sum.”

“Appeal to Old Earth!” Council Member Odom urged. “When they hear—”

“They won’t hear for months,” Chisholm said. “And then what will they do? Old Earth has made it clear that while they love having their children spreading colonies among the stars, that love does not extend to actually helping them when they run into trouble.”

“Old Earth got badly beaten up during the last Solar War,” Kim grumbled. “They’re still trying to rebuild. We can’t expect them to help us. Which is why I wanted to buy our own protection!”

“Can’t the police force do anything?” Council Member Odom asked plaintively.

“Twenty men and women with nonlethal weaponry?” Kim asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“We have some weapons,” Odom insisted.

“Hand weapons for hunting.” Chisholm looked to Rob again. “What can we do?”

“I don’t know,” Rob said. “There are two other veterans among the current batch of colonists, and they’re both former enlisted specialists from Alfar’s fleet. They might know something about the Bucket that could help.”

“You were an officer,” Kim pointed out. “Surely you know more than any enlisted.”

“Being an officer meant I knew enough about the systems on my ship to know how to best employ them,” Rob said. “Most officers are generalists. The real equipment experts are the enlisted. I’ll ask them. But regardless of what they tell me we can do, I need to know what we’re willing to do.”

Chisholm looked around, most of the other council members avoiding her gaze. “I know how criminals work,” she told them all. “They’ll take as much as they can, returning to hit us up repeatedly, while still leaving us enough to survive and generate more loot for them. We can’t afford to give in to that. I need options beyond refusal and hoping they don’t carry through on their threats,” she finished, gazing at Rob once more.

“I’ll see if we’ve got any,” Rob told her.

Lyn “Ninja” Meltzer was still aboard the Wingnut, naturally enough. Also, naturally enough, she wasn’t where the colony’s individual locator software said she was on the ship even though that software was supposedly hack-proof. Rob punched her ID into his pad, hoping she would accept his call. “Ninja, where are you? We’re dealing with a reality-bites situation.”

Her reply came in moments later, showing her head against the top of her bunk. He had only met Ninja a few times, but she smiled in welcome at seeing him. “Hey, Lieutenant! Reality for real?”

“Yeah. Break time is over. Do you know anything about the old Buccaneer cutters?”

“I might.”

“What about Torres? Do you think he’s familiar with them?”

Meltzer grinned. “Corbin Torres served six years on a Bucket.”

“How do you know that?” Rob asked.

“He’s the only other fleet vet with this mob. Who else am I going to swap stories with?” Meltzer eyed Geary. “I heard there’s another ship in-system. We’re dealing with a Bucket?”

“Yes. Let’s you and me and Torres get together and brainstorm this.”

“Corbin isn’t going to want to play.”

Rob exhaled slowly. “Tell Corbin he either meets with me and you in the break room on the third deck in ten minutes, or the police will show up in fifteen minutes and drag him there.”

“We’re not being recalled, are we?” Meltzer asked. “Because I wouldn’t like that, either.”

“No one is being recalled. But the council, and all the other people with us, need you and me and Torres to figure out if there’s anything we can do about that Bucket. If you and Torres want to go walkabout after we’ve hashed over the problem, I won’t try to stop you.”

Fourteen minutes later, as Rob was getting ready to call the council, Torres shuffled into the break room and sat down heavily in the seat next to Meltzer. In a colony group made up primarily of young people looking for a start in life and middle-aged people seeking a new start, Torres stood out for being older, his face bearing the lines of experience and the resentment of someone who thought life had not dealt out the rewards expected for a long life of work.

Acutely aware that his authority over Torres was limited, Rob tried not to talk like the lieutenant he had been. “You two know the problem, right? And you both appear to know more than I do about Buckets. What can we offer the council as alternatives to surrendering and paying the protection money being demanded?”

Ninja made a face. “If they haven’t upgraded their systems, they’re probably still running on HEJU.”

Corbin shook his head, speaking grudgingly. “Unless they gutted the systems, they’re still using HEJU. Those things were designed around the operating system. That’s why everybody sold their Buckets instead of upgrading them.”

“HEJU,” Rob commented. “Is that the one where you have to input commands backward?”

“Yeah,” Ninja said, smiling.

“No,” Torres insisted. “HEJU is designed to make you think through the entire process and your end goal before starting, so you have to enter command sequences in the reverse order you want them executed.”

“Same thing,” Ninja said. “That means their firewalls must be extremely obsolete. No one has coded in HEJU for at least twenty years, so there couldn’t have been any upgrades in ages.”

“The crew codes HEJU,” Torres corrected again. “They have to. The operating system needs patches and repairs. But they’re probably not any good at it, just stuff they learned on the job, so the patches and repairs are probably just able to get by.”

“Do you think there’s any way we can deal with that Bucket?” Rob asked him.

Torres paused, eyeing Rob as if trying to judge the sincerity of his outward respect for the former sailor’s knowledge. “If we had anything better, and just about anything would be better, that Bucket would be toast. Even an old Sword Class destroyer could take it without breaking a sweat. But this old tub,” he said as he kicked the deck of the Wingnut with his heel, “is useless. They didn’t bring any weapons?” he demanded.

Rob shook his head. “No. Just hand weapons.”

“Then you got a boarding party. That’s something.”

“A boarding party?” Ninja laughed. “Like some old pirate vid? We swing across to the Bucket with knives in our teeth? How do we get them to open a hatch for us?”

“Can’t you do that, Ninja?” Rob asked her.

She paused to think. “You mean hack their systems? I don’t know. If we had some stuff on HEJU aboard—”

Rob held up his pad. “I just checked. We do. In the colony library.”

“Cool. Yeah, I can hack them. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“Can you disable their weapons?”

“Permanently?” Ninja frowned in thought.

Torres shook his head. “HEJU is an obsolete and gnarly system, but it’s easy to patch. That’s its only good feature. No matter how you hacked the weapons, they could do a work-around if they had time.”

Ninja raised one eyebrow at Rob. “I could try to jinx the power core. Cause an overload. They wouldn’t have time to patch that.”

“An overload?” That would certainly solve the problem of the Bucket. But… “How many people do they have aboard? The database says standard crew size is twenty-four.”

“You can run it long term with six, as long as nothing big breaks,” Torres said. “It’d be hard to handle a battle with that few, though. Or pack in as many as forty. What’s the matter, Ninja? Don’t want to have that many lives on your conscience? Don’t worry. They’re all just apes like us. Nobody important.”

“Shut up, Corb,” Ninja told him.

“I don’t think we should blow it up,” Rob said, trying to think beyond an immediate solution. One of the things that had frustrated him back on Alfar was the attitude that short-term solutions were fine because in the long term someone else would have to deal with the problem. “That would work for an immediate solution. But it would leave us without any defense against the next predator who showed up. If we could capture it—”

Torres glowered at Rob. “Don’t even think about drafting me to help operate it!”

“I wasn’t,” Rob said, letting his voice grow cold and sharp. “I’d think you’d be interested in the idea of setting yourself up as a private contractor to help maintain the thing for the colony. Ninja, can you hack the systems on the Bucket to drop their shields and open a hatch? Without the Bucket’s crew knowing right away, so they wouldn’t try to override your hack?”

“Yeah,” she said. “That should be doable. You’re seriously thinking about a boarding operation? Does anybody with us know how to do that? And, just for the record, I don’t.”

Rob didn’t bother asking Torres. “I went through a couple of drills. That’s it. But it sounds like those are our two options. Either try to remotely override the controls on the Bucket’s power core so it blows up or try to capture it.”

“Or pay the money,” Torres said.

“Yeah. Three options. Thank you,” he said to both Ninja and Torres. “I’ll let the council know and see what they say.” He paused, once again having to focus on the fact that he could not give either Ninja or Corbin Torres orders. “Please stay where I can get in contact with you again quickly if the council has more questions.”

The council was still in session when Rob returned to brief them. They didn’t bother hiding their lack of enthusiasm for either of the options. “There has to be something else we can do,” Council Member Odom insisted.

“You asked me to look at military options,” Rob said, trying to keep his voice level. “That’s what I did, along with Lyn Meltzer and Corbin Torres.”

“Why can’t your IT person shut down everything else on the cutter except the power core?” Council President Chisholm asked. “Then they wouldn’t be a threat.”

Rob used his hands to illustrate the movement of ships as he spoke. “We could try that. Two things might happen. One is that the Bucket crew figures out how to get their systems working again, patches the damage done by Ninja, and comes back at us. Torres says they should be able to patch anything Ninja does if given enough time. The other thing that might happen is that the Bucket crew can’t fix it, and their ship doesn’t brake velocity before they reach us, instead being stuck on the same vector as they race past this planet and the star and onward out into the dark between stars, where they would slowly starve to death.”

Council Member Kim smiled derisively. “Not a humane alternative, then?”

“The closest we have to a sure thing,” Rob said, “is to task Ninja with trying to get the Bucket to blow up.”

“But can she do that?” Chisholm asked. “I’ve met my share of programmers who say they can do what I need and end up delivering something far short of that.”

“Ninja got asked to leave Alfar’s fleet because she was too good at breaking and entering,” Rob said. “I reviewed her case when she was getting pushed out. That’s how we met back at Alfar. She got her nickname both because her code is so hard to spot that it can get into anywhere and because she never left footprints firm enough for anyone to nail her afterward. The service could never get enough evidence to charge her with anything, so finally they just pushed her out. If anyone can do it, Ninja can. But she hasn’t promised she can do it. She needs to brush up on the programming language used on a Bucket, then probe their systems from long range to see what can be done.”

“Then how can we know that she can support that other alternative, capturing the ship?” Odom complained.

“Supporting a boarding operation should be simpler,” Rob said. “Power cores have a lot more safety interlocks built in. You’ve asked me for advice, so I think we should try to capture that Bucket and use it to defend this star system until we can get something better. I’m putting my money where my mouth is on this because I know I would have to lead any boarding effort. I’m the only one with our colony who knows anything about how to do it.”

A long moment passed while the members of the council exchanged wordless glances. One finally spoke up. “There’s a fourth option. Leave. If Scatha plans to prey on whoever occupies this star system—”

A furious eruption of voices drowned out the speaker.

“This star system is ours,” Council President Chisholm said after she managed to silence the uproar. “We will not cut and run, leaving it to anyone who threatens us. So, Rob, you and this Ninja and Corbin Torres would be part of this boarding effort—”

“No,” Rob said, shaking his head. “Ninja will be doing her thing aboard the Wingnut. Torres has no interest in participating and no training in that area. He’s also not a young man, and a boarding operation can be extremely stressful physically. I was hoping the police force could assist.”

“We’d have to ask for volunteers,” another council member advised. “The contracts for the police force do not include this kind of thing. We have no authority to demand that they take part.”

“We could ask for volunteers from everyone,” Kim argued. “How many do you need?”

“Twenty,” Rob said. “I’d only have three days to train them.”

“Why are we even discussing this?” Odom said. “We don’t have the means to take over that ship.”

“Then I have to recommend that we try to blow it up,” Rob said.

“We can’t just decide to blow up another ship!” one of the members down on the planet protested.

“Self-defense,” another chimed in.

Chisholm halted the babble of cross talk that followed. “We’ll research this and consult with our legal team. We have almost three and a half days to make this decision and ensure that it is legally justifiable.”

“Excuse me,” Council Member Leigh Camagan said. Short in stature but with intense eyes, her two words commanded everyone’s attention. “What happens if we can’t blow it up? Physically cannot. Citizen Geary said that is a possibility. If all we do is prepare for causing that ship’s power core to overload, and we find out it cannot be done, we will have no alternative but to pay the extortion.”

Silence fell until Council President Chisholm spoke again. “What do you suggest, Leigh?”

“Prepare for all possibilities, not just the one we prefer. Have Mr. Geary recruit some volunteers and train them. If we don’t need them, we haven’t lost anything. But at least we might have another option if the power core overload does not work.”

Kim nodded. “I think Council Member Camagan is right.”

The vote went in favor of pursuing both plans.

“Mr. Geary needs some authority if he’s going to do his part,” Leigh Camagan pointed out.

Another vote was taken, and Rob Geary, formerly a lieutenant in the small space force of the Old Colony Alfar Star System, found himself temporarily a lieutenant once more.

“Really?” Ninja asked once he had found her again. “A temporary lieutenant in what?”

“The otherwise nonexistent defense forces of this star system,” Rob said.

“So you’re, like, the most senior officer, and the most junior officer, and you’ve got no enlisted? Who’s going to do all the work?”

“Are you interested?”

“No way.”

“I do have a budget, so there’s money in it for you,” Rob pointed out. “And a challenge to your skills.”

“The money is enough,” Ninja assured him, “if it’s enough money.”

It was.

He was pleasantly surprised when ten of the twenty-officer police force volunteered for the possible boarding operation. Those ten contacted friends who they thought might be interested, and in short order, Rob had the twenty volunteers he needed.

“I also need battle armor and military-grade weapons,” he commented to his new second-in-command.

Val Tanaka was a police veteran of the tough district around the largest spaceport on the surface of Alfar’s primary world. She was at least ten years older than Rob, one of the middle-aged types looking for a change. Rob had met her once on Alfar while bailing some of his sailors out of jail after their night on the town had gotten seriously out of hand. “What you’ve got are survival suits and nonlethal shockers,” Val commented. “Why exactly don’t we have any lethal weaponry?”

“Because we wouldn’t need lethal weaponry,” Rob explained. “Or so they told me. Because we’d all get along, and everyone else would leave us alone because it’s such a big universe.”

“Did they ask anybody who actually lives in this universe whether that made sense?”

Rob shrugged. “It came down to money. They had other things that were regarded as higher priorities.”

“Sure,” Val said. “I bet they found enough money for insurance, though, didn’t they?”

“You’re right. Investing in some military forces would have been another form of insurance. But what would they buy? A full-on space combatant like that Bucket? Aerospace craft for defending a planet? Ground forces? Get them all, and that’s really expensive for a new colony that has a lot of other things they need to spend money on.” Rob gestured toward the outside of the Wingnut, where infinite space held uncounted stars. “But the main reason is because they’re still thinking in Old Colony, pre–jump drive terms. Space is too big, so aggression between star systems is too hard, and even minimal defenses will prevent anyone’s being tempted. And if anybody does try anything serious, Old Earth will jump in and put things right. The jump drive changed all that, but the jump drive is too recent, less than a couple of decades old, so a lot of decision makers are still caught in the past. Trips that required years between neighboring stars now only take a week or two. The same thing that made it affordable for us to plant this colony makes it profitable for somebody on Scatha to shake us down using an old warship.”

“And because we can go so much farther, Old Earth is a long, long ways off. So what’s our plan?” Val asked.

“We act pretty much helpless.”

“We are pretty much helpless.”

Rob grinned. “Then that ought to make our act believable, right?”

Many light years away from the star now named Glenlyon, Carmen Ochoa stood glaring out a window at an ancient landscape that countless other human eyes had looked upon. “Earth was the center of the universe. Now, we’re irrelevant.”

Her boss favored Carmen with a weary look. “What is it now?”

She kept her gaze on the scene outside. An impact crater from the First Solar War still marked the site of the original spaceport outside of Albuquerque, the new port spreading out to the south. Clusters of trees and closely trimmed grass designed to reclaim battered land provided welcome carpets of color. The remnants of the old city, and the newer structures built to look like early structures and so strangely seeming older than the original buildings, filled the valley beyond the port and the crater. Beyond them, rough mountains and hills rose toward a daytime sky that had looked down uncaring on human activities for thousands of years.

Make the low-lying sun a lot smaller, make the mountains and hills a little redder, and it would look very much like the sort of landscapes that Carmen had grown up seeing on Mars. The buildings, though… not like here at all. Put up in a rush, on foundations of idealism that proved to be as sturdy as shifting sand, sagging under the burdens of age, makeshift repairs, and the voracious dust of Mars. Unbidden, Carmen’s mind summoned up memories from when she was little, huddled into one corner of a small room hiding from gang battles outside, or from the searching eyes of gang recruiters.

Promising herself that someday she would keep other places from ending up like Mars had. Doing whatever she had to in order to make it off Mars and to the one place that had the power to make a difference.

As if to mock that old vow, from here a large piece of public art was visible, globes shining reddish golden in the sunlight fixed to swooping, silvery metal shafts. In the center hung the globe representing Sol, the sun of Earth. Spreading outward in an irregular sphere were the other globes, each marking a star where humanity had planted colonies.

Old Earth, it was called now, and those colony worlds were increasingly known as the Old Colonies as new worlds were settled after the explosion of humanity into space as the new jump drives made interstellar travel much faster and easier. The sculpture was obsolete, a relic of the past. Like her job. “I am thinking,” Carmen said, “that I just wasted more of my time and effort for nothing.”

Her boss shrugged. “You got the cease-and-desist order approved and sent.”

“Yeah. You know what’s funny? When ships tried to push light speed and spent years getting to one of the Old Colonies or back to Earth, they listened to Earth. They respected Earth. But now that ships can use jump space to make the same journey within weeks, the Old Colonies pay less and less attention to Earth.”

Another shrug. “Nothing funny about it,” her boss said. “Familiarity breeds contempt. When we were the incredibly distant home that took years to reach, we were wrapped in myth and memory. But when anybody can get from there to here in a few weeks? Then we’re just another planet, one with dozens and dozens of independent governments ruling independent states that often refuse to cooperate. A planet that has seen a lot more mistakes and stupidity than any of the Old Colonies have gotten around to yet.”

Carmen shook her head. “Everyone is talking about how much smaller the galaxy is with jump drives. But it took four months for that request for a cease-and-desist to reach us, on ships jumping from star to star, then four more months for me to work it through the bureaucracy and get the order approved, and it will take another four months for that order to get back to the star Derribar, where a colony has now existed for eight months. And what will happen when the colony at Derribar presents that cease-and-desist order to the nearly-as-new colony at Cathal? Nothing. Because Cathal knows they can ignore it. Assuming that in the year since the request was first made by Derribar that it hasn’t already been overtaken by events.”

“What do you want, Ochoa?” her boss asked. “For Earth to build a fleet big enough to force colonies in a sphere hundreds of light years across to do what we want?”

“I know that’s impossible, even if enough of the governments in the solar system agreed on something like that.” Carmen gritted her teeth. “You know that I grew up on Mars. I saw firsthand how ugly things can get when there is no such thing as effective government or respect for law.”

“And, for a Red, you’re a really decent person. But most of the Reds seem to like it that ugly, at least until their terraformed ecology begins to collapse again due to neglect and they beg the organized governments on Earth to step in and fix it.” Her boss sighed. “Humanitarian crises shouldn’t be so predictable.”

“You’re a really decent person… for a Red.” Even her boss on Earth couldn’t forget where she had come from. “I didn’t like it that ugly. So I left to try to make things better. And instead, it’s happening all over again! Just like when Mars was colonized, only this time it’s happening on countless worlds. The sheep are scattering in pursuit of places with no shepherds, and the wolves are sharpening their knives.” Carmen shook her head, turning away from the window. “I can’t make any difference here. I’m resigning. Heading out. Maybe out there I can do something that matters.”

“I’m sorry to hear you’re leaving,” her boss said, sounding almost sincere but also too tired and worn-out to care. Like most of Earth, he had seen too many wars and too many half-failed efforts to save people who stubbornly refused to cooperate in their own deliverance. “You’re not going to try heading up the spiral arm, are you? The colonies in that direction are still refusing to let any new people move in.”

“I wouldn’t go up even if they’d take me,” Carmen scoffed. “Them and their Original Blood of Terra nonsense. No, I’m going down the spiral arm, where the colonies are expanding as fast as ships can jump to new stars. There’s a ship leaving for one of those new colonies next week.”

“Which colony?” her boss asked, not even trying to sound as if he were actually interested.

“Kosatka.”

“Never heard of it.”

“You will.” Carmen had been preparing for this moment for a long time, not knowing when she would finally make the leap but knowing it would happen. She powered down her system, logged out for the last time, swept the few personal items allowed on her desk into her backpack, and nodded good-bye to her boss. “Farewell.”

Her boss rubbed his face with one hand, nodding back, his own attention already shifting back to processing the next interstellar court order that would very likely be ignored by every party involved. “Good luck, Carmen. You’ll need it.”

A communal hall wasn’t the most private place, so anyone wanting to engage in personal activities used blankets to offer a pretense of solitude. Mele lay on top of him, a couple of blankets covering both of them. Her murmur in his ear was soft but also full of warning. “This better be a real emergency.”

“It is.” Lochan kept his own voice as low as possible as he whispered what the doctor had warned him of.

When he had finished, Mele stayed quiet for a few minutes as she thought. “That doctor is right,” she finally murmured. “I’ve been checking things out. They can flood this room with gas, and they’ve got a good supply of antiriot gear. We wouldn’t stand a chance if we tried something here.”

“What about on the freighter? Marines do that stuff, right?”

Her breath gusted his ear in a very light laugh. “I’m one Marine. No gear. And they’ll be ready to lock us down on the ship. No. We have to take over the shuttle that the freighter sends for us.”

“Then what?” Lochan asked. “There’s no place else to go in this star system, and a shuttle can’t jump between stars.”

“We wait for another ship. I looked at the schedules before I booked this trip. It shouldn’t be more than a couple of days after we take the shuttle before another ship shows up.”

She made it sound easy, but Lochan thought about everyone cramped onto a shuttle not designed for long-term life support and without much in the way of food and water. He didn’t have any better ideas, though. “All right. What do we do?”

“They’re watching you. You act compliant like they expect. Keep everyone else calm. I know a couple of people who can help us, and as long as the way station crew keep their attention focused on you, I should be able to set things up. I’ve been careful not to act too smart, so they think I’m just a dumb Marine. They won’t watch me too closely as long as nothing tips them off.”

“How are we going to go over the plan?” Lochan objected. “How are we going to decide things?”

“We can’t hold planning meetings and debate options,” Mele said. “You’ve given me a job to do. Can you trust me to do it?”

That was hard. That was really hard. His fate depended on whatever Mele did, and he had never been happy with surrendering control. Not in his business dealings, not in his political campaigns…

Not in his marriage.

And look how well that had all turned out.

Maybe it was time to stop micromanaging the rest of the world and just focus on doing his part of things. Besides, Mele was right. The more they talked about stuff, the greater the chance the way station crew would suspect something and maybe even learn something.

“All right,” Lochan finally said. “You trusted me from the start. I’ll trust you. I’ll do everything I can to make them think we’re all being nice, happy, dumb sheep so they won’t be prepared for any trouble, and they’ll tell whoever is on that shuttle that there’s nothing to worry about.”

“And I’ll set things up to take the shuttle.”

As much as Lochan had to admit that his knowledge of how to do things like hijack a shuttle was limited to what he had seen on action vids (and he had a strong suspicion that what action vids portrayed had very little to do with the reality of such things) it was still hard to accept. “What if you run into problems?”

“I’ll let you know,” Mele said. “If everything goes fine, we’ll just talk openly like we have all along, but you’ll act compliant. Wow. It’s a good thing I don’t have to try acting compliant. I’m not very good at that.”

“I’m not surprised to hear that,” Lochan said.

“When I make my move on the shuttle, you back me, do whatever you need to do to help me, and keep the other passengers from freaking out.”

“Okay.” A thought came to him. “Why are you sure I’ll be able to back you up when you need it? That I’ll be able to improvise whatever needs to be done?”

“Because you’re pretty sharp,” Mele said. “If I do need to tell you anything, I’ll arrange another meeting like this. Otherwise, I’m off to do some thinking.”

“You’re leaving?” Lochan asked, not being very successful at hiding his disappointment.

She breathed a soft laugh in his ear. “Yeah. Sorry. You’ll get over it.”

“What if I don’t?”

“I’ll feel real bad about that,” she said with another laugh.

Mele flipped the blankets off of them and slid away from him, leaving Lochan staring up into the darkness, frustrated and worried.

Three days later, one of the way station workers casually informed the refugees from the Brian Smith that a freighter from Varaha named the Harcourt F. Modder had arrived at Vestri and would be sending a shuttle to pick them up in a few more days.

Carmen Ochoa sat on one side of a small, square table. She had been asked to be in this meeting because the ship’s files had revealed her past experience at conflict resolution. Seated opposite her was the Mononoke’s executive officer. To her right was the Mononoke’s security chief. To her left was a rumpled-looking man named Lochan Nakamura, who had been leading the refugees from the shuttle. He had a pained expression that occasionally transitioned to a wince.

“Are you all right?” the executive officer asked.

“Yes, sir,” Lochan Nakamura replied. He raised one hand toward his head. “Your ship’s doctor said the headache is because of the life support problems on the shuttle before you picked us up. It should go away soon.”

“The freighter Harcourt F. Modder has demanded that we turn you over to them to face charges for hijacking their shuttle,” the security chief told Lochan.

“We told you what happened and why we did it,” Lochan replied.

“The available evidence, thin as it is, supports your account,” the security chief said. “We have complaints and warnings on file about the way station at Vestri. And we downloaded enough from the shuttle’s systems before letting it go to confirm that it and the freighter both came from Apulu as you say, and not from Varaha as they claimed. That’s enough for me to recommend to my captain that we not surrender you. But none of that is enough to build any sort of case against either the way station or the freighter, even if there was somebody who would act on that evidence. My recommendation is that you all write this off as an expensive detour that could have been a lot worse.”

“What about the piracy?” Lochan Nakamura asked.

“Technically,” the executive officer said, “Earth law applies here and everywhere in human-occupied space. But, in practice, there’s no one to enforce that law. Local regulations push for whatever they can get away with, and unincorporated star systems like Vestri can get away with a lot. If they actually attacked a ship from Brahma like ours, then Brahma would do something. But they’re too smart for that.”

“Brahma might do something,” the security chief grumbled under his breath.

Carmen nodded. “You’re right. Brahma would probably send a complaint back to Earth, and maybe a year later you’d be told to take care of it yourselves.” She turned to Lochan. “But Earth law can help you somewhat. When the way station charged you those exorbitant prices for services, did they download all of the charges through the universal wallets you carried?”

“Yes,” Lochan Nakamura said. “How else could they do it? We had all our savings on those wallets.”

Carmen smiled. “Under Earth law, you have the right to cancel and dispute charges you believe are unjustified. Get out your wallet. Enter EULS 281236.17722.”

The man pulled out his wallet, entered the string of characters and numbers, then stared at what it displayed. “It says I can cancel those downloads and get all my money back. How is that possible? I came from Franklin, and bought this wallet in that star system. The laws on Franklin allow me to dispute charges but not to cancel them.”

“Earth Universal Legal System does permit it,” Carmen said. “And, as noted by this ship’s officer, Earth law still technically applies anywhere in space. That cancel and dispute charges capability is in all the universal wallet software. The initial versions written on Earth required it, and all subsequent versions everywhere else have retained it—because in most cases, they didn’t even know it was in there. The corporation running the way station can respond to your dispute, filing a legal claim for you to pay up. But they’ll have to file it in Earth courts to unlock the charges you downloaded at that way station.”

The Mononoke’s executive officer laughed. “How long would a case like that take?”

“By the time everything was done and appealed and resolved and communicated across so many light years? At least ten years.”

“I just enter this?” Lochan Nakamura asked, looking between his wallet and her, as if Carmen were a genie who had just appeared before him to grant a wish.

“Yes. At that point, the funds are back in your wallet. The ship can relay the cancel/dispute to the way station, where receipt of it will immediately lock the payments you made and prevent any use or transfer of them.” Carmen smiled wryly. “Sometimes, knowledge of Earth law comes in handy.”

“We can all do this?” Lochan asked. “Citizen Ochoa, this is going to make my fellow travelers very happy. Some of them were completely cleaned out by that way station’s outrageous charges.”

“I’m glad that I could actually help someone,” Carmen replied, feeling better than she had in months.

“We’ll be happy to relay the cancel and dispute notification to the way station,” Mononoke’s executive officer said to Lochan. “Make sure everyone has done that so we can send a single bulk message. That way the station can’t block receipt of subsequent messages from us. We’re obligated under Brahma’s space law, as well as Earth law,” he added with a nod toward Carmen, “to take you on to the first safe destination. We have sufficient room for that, but some of you will be crowded.”

Carmen eyed Lochan Nakamura, waiting to see how he would react, but he simply nodded. “We are more than grateful for that. Since it seems we’re going to have money in our wallets again, can any of us who want to do it buy passage farther onward?”

“Certainly. We’re going as far down as Kosatka.”

“I’ll spread the word and get the wallet cancellations done by everyone,” Lochan Nakamura said. “Citizen Ochoa, we owe you. I owe you. Let me know if there is ever anything I can do for you.”

She smiled at Lochan Nakamura, sizing up the man and deciding that he did have potential as an ally. “There might be something. I’ll look you up later.”

There were so few crew aboard the Squall that Rob had to stand watches on the bridge along with the others he thought capable enough for the task. It made for a short night’s sleep, but everyone else aboard was doing the same thing. He had just come off four hours on the bridge, which included the start of the next ship’s day, when Rob finally heard from Ninja again. The time lag between Squall and the planet had grown to nearly half an hour, making a real conversation impossible.

Ninja looked frustrated and stubborn. “Bad news. Those two ships sent out a single transmission with their registry information when they arrived in this star system, then apparently shut down every transmitter and receiver. I can get in past locked doors. I can’t get in if there aren’t any doors! Before you ask, I’ll tell you what I’m going to tell the council. The freighters aren’t running any links between themselves. No active transmissions of any kind. No receivers active that I can tell. Scatha must have heard how we took the Squall, and since they couldn’t trust their firewalls against me, they pretty much isolated those freighters from any signal traffic. Obviously, with how far away those freighters still are, I’ve only had time to bounce one set of signals off them, looking for ways in and getting the results back. But if they stay locked down like that, I won’t be able to get into their systems no matter how weak their firewalls are. I’ll keep trying, but don’t hold your breath. Sorry.”

Rob rubbed his lower face, worried. He had expected Ninja to work her usual magic, but Scatha had figured out a way around that.

He touched the reply command. “Thanks, Ninja. If you can’t get in, nobody can. Is there any way we could plant some kind of physical tap on them when we get close enough, something stuck on their hulls that you could use to break into their systems from outside? It would have to be something we could improvise from components on this ship, which I imagine means the answer is no, but let me know if I’m wrong. Thanks again.” Should he say anything else? This was an official transmission, after all. “Geary, out.”

The excitement among the crew when they had started out had slowly subsided into the dull routine of traveling millions of kilometers through space lacking much in the way of variety. Rob and Danielle Martel had both experienced this sort of “adventure” drudgery, but the others in the crew were new to it. And people who were tired and bored, and not used to handling that, made for leadership challenges.

“Back off, both of you!” Rob ordered, glaring at the two volunteers who were about to come to blows. “Vlad, if you come within a meter of Teri again I will put you in a survival suit and duct-tape you to the outside of this ship.”

Vlad turned a sullen glower on Rob. “I don’t have to put up with this.”

“Yes, you do. If you want to quit when we get back to Glenlyon, that’s fine with me. But as long as you’re on this ship, you will listen to orders and treat your shipmates with courtesy and respect!”

Rob waited until Vlad, grumbling under his breath, had left. “You okay?” he asked Teri.

“I’m okay,” she said, face still hard with anger. “I could have taken him.”

“That’s not the point. You’re not supposed to take him. That makes it personal. This is about discipline on the ship. If he violates discipline, then I take him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rob turned to see Danielle Martel watching. She walked with Rob as he headed back toward his stateroom. “Nice command voice,” Danielle remarked.

“I have a command voice?” Rob asked, giving her a skeptical look.

“Yeah. Your voice gets lower in pitch and a bit louder in volume.”

“Huh,” Rob said, surprised to realize that he had been doing that. “Is that how Earth Fleet would have handled that?”

“Why do you care how Earth Fleet would have done it?” Danielle Martel asked.

“Because they’re the model,” Rob said. “The oldest and the best.”

She laughed though it carried a sharp edge that didn’t sound like amusement. “If only Earth Fleet lived up to its rep! Yeah, that’s what I would’ve done. You were a lieutenant for Alfar, right? What do you care about a former ensign’s opinion?”

“You’re a pro,” Rob said. “Whether you realize it or not. That’s why I care. I’m still learning this stuff.”

“You’ll never make admiral with that attitude,” Danielle Martel said.

Mele Darcy hadn’t spent long at Taniwha. It hadn’t felt right, for no reason she could have explained in any detail. She had swiftly hopped a ship heading farther down and ridden it to the end of the line.

She had reached what seemed to be the current outer edges of the human expansion, a colony barely established, where opportunities were both boundless in the long term and limited in the short term. Unfortunately, long-term opportunities wouldn’t pay for short-term needs like food and shelter. The local police force was up to strength and not hiring, and Mele’s work skills didn’t seem to suit her for anything else available. She had sniffed around the beginnings of a naval force that the colony was putting together, but she had no experience with being part of a ship’s crew or any real desire for that line of work. There didn’t appear to be any local interest in standing up ground forces or Marines. She had actually been more interested in a job that involved exploring the surface of the new planet to augment the orbital surveys, but at the moment everyone’s attention was focused on the area around where the first city was growing. Which left her highly qualified in doing things that weren’t in demand.

Just to make it worse, she had arrived along with a bunch of other new colonists, many of whom were also looking for work. And there was a lot of talk about two more ships on the way to the planet that might be bringing even more competition for Mele’s job search. There was something odd about those ships, a strange lack of information from the government about exactly what they were and where they had come from, but no one on the street seemed worried about them.

Mele was studying the online want ads, morosely trying to decide whether farmwork or construction would take her, when the blare of a news alert sounded through the brand-new coffee shop where she had been nursing a single espresso for the last hour.

What the news alert lacked in detail it made up for in drama. “Blatant and unprovoked aggression!” the announcer declared, looking outraged. “The two ships that entered our star system two weeks ago have been identified as having come from Scatha. While pretending to be conducting innocent trade, they reached orbit and began sending down people and material to establish another colony on our world.” A map appeared, zooming in on a location thousands of kilometers away from the city where Mele was. She couldn’t help nodding in understanding for why Scatha, whoever that was, had chosen that location. It was far enough from the existing city where she was to make any reaction difficult, and by its placement would block expansion by the original colony onto the continent the invaders had occupied. The site made sense tactically and strategically, regardless of whatever its other virtues were.

“We have it from reliable sources,” the announcer continued, “that our own warship, the Squall, intercepted the ships from Scatha over a week ago but did nothing for reasons known only to the governing council. Our sources indicate the commander of the Squall requested permission to stop the freighters but was denied and told to merely escort them to our world! Even now, with an invasion under way, Squall has been told to do nothing.”

Further outrage was interrupted by an official announcement that was accompanied by a dramatic musical intro. A woman seated in a large but mostly empty office spoke calmly enough but with an edge to her voice that she couldn’t quite hide. “This is Council President Chisholm, speaking on behalf of the council. We are as shocked as anyone by the wanton disregard of law and personal liberty displayed by the rulers of Scatha in attempting to establish their own colony on a world granted solely to us in a star system granted solely to us. We do not intend to let this provocation go unanswered, or our own freedoms be limited by the actions of another star system. But the severity of this threat, coming so soon after we have established our first city on this world, is such that the council wishes to have as much input from our citizens as possible before deciding on a course of action.

“There will be an emergency meeting of the citizens and council of Glenlyon at 1400 local time this afternoon. The meeting will be physically held in the new amphitheater on the south side of the city. All citizens are invited to attend, either in person or by virtual means. We will discuss what is known of Scatha’s actions and our own options to deal with a blatant invasion of our world.”

Mele took a sip of espresso that had grown cold, thinking that perhaps she might find another job opportunity opening up soon. There just might be some call for her skills after all.

She decided to attend the meeting in person.

Even though there wasn’t a spark of romance between them, Carmen Ochoa and Lochan Nakamura had fallen into the habit of eating most meals together. She wondered how long that little ritual would survive once they arrived at Kosatka and how much of the irritability she was feeling was attributable to having been in jump space for days as opposed to being nervous about what she needed to say. “Lochan, we’re going to reach Kosatka tomorrow. There’s something you need to know about me before then.”

He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her as he took a drink. “From that solemn voice and look, it’s something bad, which I find hard to believe. Are you going to tell me you really are a lawyer?”

That made her smile briefly despite her mood. “There are worse things than lawyers. Lochan, I’m a Red.”

“A what?”

“You really don’t know? Back on Earth, in the entire solar system, anyone from Mars is called a Red.”

Lochan frowned at her and put down his fork. “The way you said that made it sound like an insult.”

“It is. You’ve really never heard the term?” She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or upset at the need to explain. “How much do you know about Mars?” Carmen asked.

“Um… not much,” he admitted. “First new world ever colonized by humans, right? And, uh, independent?”

“Independent to a fault,” she told him. “Mars was cursed by being close enough to Earth and close enough to being like Earth. When long-range spaceflight within the solar system became practical and cheap enough for colonization of other worlds to be feasible, the human presence on Mars grew like crazy as lots of governments and private companies and private groups planted their own little colonies in attempts to lay claim to parts of the planet and its resources, or just to claim their own independence from everybody else. Dozens of colonies, from large settlements to small groups. As the little colonies grew into cities, they stayed independent of each other, distrusting and disliking everyone else. The only time they have ever come together to cooperate in a common cause was for MAWFI.”

“Maw-fee?” Lochan Nakamura asked.

“Sorry. That’s how Reds say Martian War For Independence.”

“Oh. And you are… okay.” Lochan looked puzzled. “Who were they getting independence from?”

Carmen sighed. “The truth is that MAWFI was all about getting rid of the off-planet sources of law and order. Earth gov peacekeepers, law-enforcement and customs authorities, and tax collectors where those still functioned. But the average Red, to the extent that there is an average Red, got fooled into thinking that getting rid of those kinds of people would solve all of their problems. In reality, all it did was give the strong-arm rulers total freedom to do whatever they wanted. A lot of the heroes of MAWFI died soon afterward because the bosses didn’t want them causing problems.”

Lochan Nakamura’s gaze on her was troubled. “An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous,” he quoted. “Some rich guy said that centuries ago.”

“I’m an idealist,” Carmen told him. “I think we can make things better.”

“Yeah, but I’ve talked to you enough to know your idealism is grounded in reality,” Lochan objected. “Instead of rejecting reality because it produces problems for your idealism, you believe that there are realistic ways to fix things for the better. So Mars is full of lots of different places that don’t get along. What does that have to do with your not wanting people to know you’re a, uh, Red?”

“I told you,” Carmen said. “There’s no central government, not even any strong regional governments. And all of the places that got set up by idealists who were going to establish little utopias sooner or later got taken over by bosses who were brutal realists. There is no overriding law on Mars. Most of the city-states are effectively controlled by kleptocracies, oligarchies, plutocracies, or red-dust dictators. Everyone else just tries to survive. And everywhere else in the solar system, anyone who sees a Red worries that they are a thief, a murderer, a con artist, or a beggar looking for handouts.”

This time Lochan Nakamura’s frown reflected distress. “It’s still like that? People call you Reds, but they don’t try to help?”

Carmen almost laughed in scorn. “No. And I don’t blame them. No one on Mars is powerful enough to change it, and no one outside Mars wants to get sucked into the tar pit that trying to pacify Mars would become.” Carmen blinked as memories flooded her. “Lochan, most areas are controlled by what amount to gangs. They may officially be called militias or neighborhood watches or something else, but they’re gangs. Mars took all of the idealism that Earth sent it and reforged it into cynicism and a survival-of-the-fittest mentality that forces everyone to do whatever they must.”

“You’re not like that,” Lochan objected.

“I was until I got off the planet,” Carmen said. “I had to survive, and get an education, and one way or another earn enough money to bribe the right people to get approved for immigration to Earth. I’m not proud of it, Lochan, but I left it behind. No, that’s not true. It still stains me in the eyes of anyone from Earth. If they learn I grew up on Mars, they are going to see me as a Red. A criminal. Not to be trusted or believed.”

“How did you get a job with Earth gov then?” Lochan demanded.

“By showing the right people that I might have grown up on Mars, but I was not a Red,” Carmen said. “And once I could, I started telling people I was from Albuquerque. For some reason, most people think anyone from Albuquerque must be respectable.”

Lochan Nakamura eyed her for several long moments before saying anything else, his thoughts hidden. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Carmen ran one hand through her hair, feeling sick inside. “Because I need you to trust me. And the only way I can be sure of that is if I confess to you why many other people wouldn’t trust me. If I had kept it secret, and you had later learned of it, you would have had every right to wonder what else I was hiding.”

He shook his head, one hand playing with his fork. “Carmen, what you were is a whole lot less important than what you are. Isn’t that the whole point of people coming out here to get a new start?”

“They are bringing their pasts with them,” Carmen said. “No one is forgetting who they were or what they learned or experienced.”

“All right,” Lochan Nakamura said, giving her a stubborn stare. “My past is I was a failure at everything I ever tried because I was so afraid of failing that I kept going it alone and trying to control everything, which just guaranteed that I’d fail again. You clawed your way out of a hellhole and have been trying to help people ever since then. Right? So which one of us is supposed to be an unworthy friend?”

“Lochan, I’ve seen enough of you to know that’s not who you are.”

“Not anymore. I was ready to change when I got to Vestri. The events and people there got me moving. And just as you said of me, I’ve seen enough of you to know what you aren’t,” Lochan Nakamura said. “All right, you told me. And I think more of you than I did before. Are you going to eat?”

She looked down at her untouched food, then back at him. “Seriously? You’re okay with it? Lochan, I wish you were my type. You make a great friend, though.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m noticing an unpleasant trend down and out,” Lochan said. “I keep attracting the company of younger women who are only interested in my mind.”

Carmen smiled at him. “I’m sure you’ll find a woman who wants the rest of you as well. Maybe there’s one on Kosatka.”

“If you’re right, we may be too busy on Kosatka for me to worry about romance,” Lochan Nakamura said.

Carmen felt an odd twinge of foreboding at his words.

First Minister of Kosatka Hofer looked like someone who had aged a decade in the last month. But a few years seemed to fall from him as he greeted Carmen and Lochan Nakamura. “I asked my grandfather for guidance last night, and he told me to wait because help was coming!”

“Your grandfather immigrated to Kosatka, too?” Carmen asked politely.

“What? No, no, he died twenty years ago on Io. You should try speaking with your ancestors,” he added earnestly.

“No one’s ancestors have helped us so far,” a tight-faced woman said. She wore a security uniform and had been introduced as Safety Coordinator Sarkozy.

The third member of Kosatka’s government who was present was an amiable-appearing man with recent stress lines around his mouth. “Cleon Ottone, Leader of the House of the People’s Representatives,” he introduced himself. “I’ll admit to being surprised that Earth gov did anything.”

Lochan Nakamura laughed. “You came directly from Old Earth?”

“Yes. A city called Nantes.” He turned to Carmen. “What about you?”

Carmen smiled. “Albuquerque.”

“We heard that you had some experience on Mars?” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy asked warily.

“Yes,” Carmen said. “Unfortunately, Mars offers a lot of experience with conflicts on every scale.”

“I’ve wondered what role Reds might be playing in all of our troubles,” House Leader Ottone confessed. “A lot of them have gone down and out, haven’t they?”

“If you’ve ever been to Mars, you know why they left,” Carmen said. She felt defensive even though she knew the man’s concerns were partly justified. “And Earth itself hasn’t been free of conflict during its history. Not to mention the colonies on the moons of Jupiter.”

“What is Old Earth exporting to us?” First Minister Hofer grumbled. “I’ve heard that some places are emptying out their prisons by dumping the occupants on crowded ships and sending them to places like Kosatka!”

“There have been a few cases of that,” Carmen admitted. “Transport of the unwanted to the down and out is an echo of an old practice on Earth. But the criminals involved are more likely to be political dissidents than violent offenders.”

“Political dissidents are our problem!” Hofer turned to look out a large, real window set into one wall. Below, the new city spread out, wide streets forming a nearly perfect grid joined by traffic circles. “At least, that was our problem before this awful news from Lares. Please, everyone, take a seat.”

Carmen and Lochan sat together on a short couch while the representatives of Kosatka sat down in individual chairs that emphasized their differing roles. “What’s the latest information on the dissidents?” Carmen asked as if she were requesting an update rather than her first data on the situation.

“It’s not much different than the older information,” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy grumbled. “You know the very latest. That bomb on the shuttle. It was set among the cargo, but whoever loaded it put it next to the skin of the shuttle so the other cargo around it blocked much internal damage and most of the force vented through the outer hull. That’s what saved you.”

Lochan Nakamura nodded. “Have the, uh, dissidents clarified their demands?” he asked.

“Autonomy for Drava,” First Minister Hofer said. “We only have two cities and a smattering of towns outside them, and they say they want autonomy for the second city! How absurd is that? We’re not a totalitarian state. We’re a constitutional representative democracy. The people living in Drava have the same vote as the people here in Kosatka.”

“I don’t have information on recent developments,” Carmen said, probing carefully for more information. “Or on what led to the escalation from protests to violence.”

“Your guess is as good as ours,” House Leader Ottone replied. “We had no signs of trouble except the usual political disputes, then, out of nowhere, bombs start going off and manifestos are being issued calling for independence for Drava!”

“We thought we were getting a handle on it,” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy said. “But then we got a new rash of bombings, and with this event at Lares we have to worry about diverting resources to protect ourselves against a new threat.”

“I still think the Reds coming in are behind this whole thing,” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy insisted. She gave Carmen a quick, estimating look from the corner of her eye.

Realizing that, of course, Sarkozy had been told of the tattoo found at the security checkpoint almost threw Carmen’s thoughts off track. But she had known the issue would have to be confronted sooner or later. Carmen looked steadily at the others as if unfazed by the Safety Coordinator’s words. “Your dissident problem exploded, if you’ll pardon the term, out of nowhere. There was minor grumbling before that, right? Then suddenly bombs going off. And, you say, there are quieter periods, then a sudden outbreak of more violence. Just as if there are external factors influencing the bombings.”

“Reds,” Sarkozy repeated.

“Some Reds may be involved,” Carmen said, trying to speak calmly. She had been through this kind of conversation many times. Too many times. “Most Reds who get off Mars are grateful for a chance at a new life and not a threat. But I am aware of information that someone was recruiting gang soldiers on Mars for some sort of work in this star system.”

“Someone?” First Minister Hofer asked.

“I don’t know who. It would mean that some third party is cultivating the separatists at Drava, using money and supplies and sending in people to create problems for Kosatka.”

A long moment of silence followed. “Why?” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy finally asked. She sounded less skeptical than genuinely desiring to know more. “Why not just bombard us as they did Lares?”

“I don’t know,” Carmen said. “It’s not necessarily the same people behind it. And they probably have limited resources, like everyone else out here. Kosatka already has enough means of its own that you could have reacted to an unknown warship approaching your world, right? You could have thrown something together and stopped a bombardment attempt.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the position of trying to do that,” House Leader Ottone admitted. “But we could have tried.”

“So,” Carmen continued, “we can be certain your foe has limited assets, and Kosatka is growing strong enough that it could be a problem for a star system set on taking over other star systems. But not if Kosatka is tied up dealing with its own problems, internally divided and apparently at war with itself.”

That set them back. “We’re bystanders in this?” First Minister Hofer finally said. “We happen to be in the way, so we get bombs going off?”

“Worse things have happened,” Carmen said, trying to sound both sympathetic and commanding. “Do you want my recommendations?”

“Yes!” the leaders of Kosatka chorused, though the Safety Coordinator seemed less enthusiastic than the others.

“You need to take the legs out from under the separatists,” Carmen suggested. “Get rid of any grounds that might lend support to external attempts to stir up trouble. Legitimate grievances must be addressed. Are there any?”

“They want more local autonomy,” House Leader Ottone said. “It doesn’t make sense. They elect representatives just like everyone else.”

“Local?” Lochan Nakamura asked. “What does Drava have? A mayor? A city council?”

They all shook their heads. “The government is in charge,” First Minister Hofer explained.

“What?” Lochan said, looking surprised. “There isn’t any mayor? What about this city? No?”

“We’re not that big,” House Leader Ottone explained. “The planetary government is perfectly capable of running both cities, and running both cities and the towns around them and the orbital facility is pretty much the same as running the entire star system at this point. It’s well within our ability.”

Lochan Nakamura looked to Carmen, and she gestured to encourage him to continue. “It’s not about capability,” he told the leaders of Kosatka. “It’s about your being the people who run the star system. That puts you on a high level in the perception of your people. Look, I dealt with this kind of thing on Franklin. People want to talk to someone who cares about and deals with them. Not someone who deals with a whole star system. Both of these cities should have mayors and councils who deal with local issues and report to you.”

“That’s unnecessary redundancy,” the First Minister objected.

“Yeah! I know! But the cities are going to keep getting bigger, and there are going to be more of them, and how long are the same people going to be running the entire star system and this planet and every city and town?” Lochan gestured dramatically outward. “While you guys worry about interstellar trade agreements and planetary economic trends, who do the people in each city and town go to when they need a new road or the neighbors start smelting lead in their backyard hobby barn?”

“Handling those issues is still well within our capability,” House Leader Ottone said. “The people just need to enter them in the needs category of the gov net, and it gets routed to the appropriate people to take appropriate action.”

“How long will that be the case?” Lochan Nakamura asked. “And if the system is working fine, why did you tell us some people are unhappy, especially in Drava? What happens when you found a third city, on another continent? Start distributing political power now, give your citizens a chance to vote for and interact directly, face-to-face, with the people who control their city, and when you reach the point where the central government would be getting overwhelmed or just too huge because it’s trying to do everything, you’ll already be in good shape.”

“That’s how things worked on Old Earth,” House Leader Ottone admitted. “But we didn’t want all those different governments like on Earth, which Drava seems to want, and we’re so much smaller, we didn’t think… yes. We’ve been reacting, not thinking. I think we should consider this,” he told the First Minister. “Cut off the justification the separatists are using.”

“Even if we do,” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy said, her voice harsh, “we still need to deal with the bombers. And if what you tell us is true,” she said to Carmen, “then those bombers are agents of another star system. We need to hit them hard, clamp down as tightly as necessary, get the bad elements neutralized.”

“No,” Carmen said. “You cannot go down that path! That’s where Mars went, and that’s what your enemies want: convince the security forces to start acting like occupation troops rather than defenders of the people they protect, and convince the people that the forces of law and order are brutal occupiers. If those narratives are not broken, you reach a point where the security forces are occupiers holding down a hostile populace, and it is only a matter of time before the occupiers either become what they once fought against, or the people kick them out and place themselves at the mercy of those for whom there is no law.”

“The Martian War For Independence?” Lochan said.

“Exactly. The well-intentioned were used. The only winners were the ones who wanted war and the freedom to do anything they wanted to do.”

“You seem very familiar with the history of Mars,” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy commented to Carmen.

“Yes,” she said, ignoring the implication. “Which is why I want to help you avoid the mistakes made there.”

“Are you saying there are no Reds involved in the violence we’re experiencing?”

“No,” Carmen said. “Anyone wanting to cause trouble might well recruit from among gangs on Mars. That does not mean everyone from Mars is a danger.”

“If they are pushing for changes to the government, we have to assume that they are doing so to cause trouble for us,” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy insisted.

“You can’t criminalize dissent,” Lochan Nakamura objected. “Not everyone who has a complaint about the way things are done is your enemy. But if you treat them all like enemies, they’ll all start to become enemies. Franklin has strong laws protecting dissent. I hope that Kosatka does as well.”

“It does,” First Minister Hofer said. His expression as he looked at the Safety Coordinator told Carmen that this was a matter that had already been argued more than once. “Let’s consider the other part of the problem. Lares. We don’t have much to spare, but we will help. What else do you recommend we do?”

Carmen paused to think, fighting off a feeling of nausea as she thought of the victims of the bombardment. It was odd that she had come through the near disaster on the shuttle without gut-clenching fear but felt sick now when contemplating the destruction at Lares. “Earth has seen this sort of thing many times, in many forms,” she began. “Most recently during the Solar Wars. There are two courses of action that you need to avoid. One is to freeze in hopes the aggressors either don’t notice you or decide you’re not worth similar treatment. That too easily becomes an argument for not preparing defenses that might ‘provoke’ the aggressor. You need defenses.”

“We are in agreement on that,” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy said.

“The other action to avoid is panic,” Carmen said. “Taking hasty steps that don’t really address your problem and may make the problem worse. You want your people united behind you, and that will only happen if the steps you take have popular support.”

House Leader Ottone shook his head. “We’re already under a lot of pressure to ‘take steps’ and ‘protect Kosatka.’ We have to do something, or the people might recall us and put in some demagogue who promises them anything they want at no cost.”

“We need alternatives,” First Minister Hofer said, his chin resting on his fist as he gazed at Carmen and Lochan. “Just as with the dissidents. Show them that we are addressing their concerns. What would Earth gov do?”

Carmen spread her hands. “Ask the member governments for authority to do something, then wait while the member governments debated allowing any action. You, fortunately, do not face that problem. If you want to know what Earth gov would suggest doing, it would involve taking steps to prevent a repetition of the events.”

“You already said it,” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy said. She seemed unable to decide whether Carmen was giving good suggestions or Red-tainted advice. “Get some weapons up on some ships, so that anyone arriving in this star system with aggressive intent can be countered. I’ve already checked. We can shift some of the assembly processes to get some heavy particle beam cannon put together, mount one on the Pulaski when it gets back, and use the Pulaski as a warship until we can get something better.”

“We only have two freighters,” House Leader Ottone objected. “Taking one out of trade service would leave us with only the Copernicus. If we’re dependent on foreign shipping for trade, that would cost us a lot more than simply the expense of adding a few weapons to the Pulaski.”

The First Minister held up a hand to stop the debate, his brow furrowed in thought. “Costs. We need to debate this but decide quickly. The expenses caused by converting the Pulaski and in forgone trade can be calculated. The potential cost of Kosatka’s enduring what happened to Lares would be incalculable.”

“What about sending the Copernicus to Earth?” Carmen said. “The conversion of the Pulaski can be a temporary step. Earth has surplus decommissioned warships just drifting in space and former crews from Earth Fleet who are looking for work.”

“Earth is a long ways,” First Minister Hofer said. “How much would Earth charge for one of those ships?”

“I don’t know the exact prices,” Carmen admitted. “I do know it will be far less than the cost of constructing a new warship. I talked to Earth Fleet sailors who said the only reason Earth gov hadn’t sold the warships for scrap was that it was cheaper to leave them in a fixed orbital point.”

“Do you have names of ships?” House Leader Ottone asked.

“Yes,” Carmen said, blessing the fate that had led her to speak with the sailors. “Three destroyers I know of. The… George Washington… the Simon Bolivar, and… the Joan of Arc.”

“Destroyers.” Safety Coordinator Sarkozy was tapping her comm pad rapidly. “Founders Class. Those are newer and better than the old destroyer that attacked Lares! This data is old, but it says they were expected to remain in service for another three decades!”

A smile slowly formed on the face of First Minister Hofer. “How about that? We get the work started to outfit the Pulaski and tell everyone we’re going to acquire at least one modern warship directly from Earth Fleet. Get something done fast to fill the gap, defend this planet, and pursue a long-term solution.”

“Our citizens will be vastly reassured,” House Leader Ottone said. “And this course of action will probably be a lot less expensive than any of the alternatives we’ve been discussing. You’re certain, Citizen Ochoa, that we can get one, or maybe two, of those ships cheaply? Along with trained sailors ready to handle them?”

“Absolutely,” Carmen said. “I can help you get your request for the sale phrased properly and addressed properly so that it will clear the bureaucracy quickly.”

It looked like her apparently futile years working for Earth gov might have given her the experience to do some real good out here.

The field that Glenlyon’s governing council had given Mele lay just outside the current boundaries of the rapidly rising city. It wasn’t much in the way of a training facility, but the field was split by a small creek with steep sides that offered a natural site for obstacle work and a couple of small buildings had been hastily thrown up to offer offices and inside instruction spaces.

She had hoped for fifty volunteers, but only forty men and women had responded to the discreet request for volunteers floated through the colony’s social media. A few of them Mele had been able to dismiss right away because they were too old, too young, or in too bad shape to handle the rigors of training and action. A few others tripped off warning signs during the routine psych screening and were also let go with plausible excuses for why they weren’t needed.

To Mele’s surprise, there had been two ground forces veterans among the volunteers, both former enlisted, both having come from Taniwha like her. One, a man named Grant, had been with the ground forces at Amaterasu, and the other, a man named Spurlick, with the ground forces at Brahma.

Others of the volunteers were techs who might not make great ground soldiers or Marines but whose skills might be critical to carrying out the sort of attack that Mele was envisioning. More importantly, they were willing to volunteer and to work.

She divided her remaining thirty-some volunteers into two groups and started running them through basic conditioning exercises and drills, rotating different men and women through responsibility for leading their group and watching to see who appeared to be a natural leader and anyone who did particularly poorly.

“Why are we bothering with this?” Spurlick demanded of her midway through the second day. “You’ve got me and Grant, so you know who should be your squad leaders.”

“I like to see how people perform,” Mele said, not happy with Spurlick’s tone but keeping her own voice level. She hadn’t been impressed by what she had seen of him so far but didn’t want to rush to judgment.

“I’d be happy to show how I can perform,” Spurlick said with a knowing grin.

“Not interested, even if you weren’t working for me.” Mele thought it didn’t say much for Spurlick’s professionalism, or his brains, that he’d hit on his boss.

“Oh?” Spurlick didn’t hide his unhappiness at the rebuff. “Look, you need me. You just don’t know it. What are you planning, some typical Marine charge at the fortifications head-on and take heavy casualties in a glorious battle? That won’t work.”

“My plans are still being developed,” Mele said, her temper rising. “Where did you get your impression of Marines?”

“Everybody knows about them! Marines all think alike and act alike. I’ll tell you what you should be doing—”

“If I need advice,” Mele broke in, putting force into her voice, “I’ll ask for it.” Without even realizing she had done it, she had straightened as she spoke, taking on an aggressive stance.

Spurlick frowned, changed that to a glower, then stomped off to rejoin his group.

The day was almost over, the two teams running through their last set of drills, when Mele noticed the second team had come to a halt amid arguing loud enough to carry across the field.

It didn’t take a genius to spot the problem. Spurlick was standing by himself, his expression a mix of defiance and smirk. The others in his group were huddled together, either looking angry or trying not to look angry. “What’s going on?” Mele asked a volunteer named Riley as she walked up.

Riley jerked his head toward Spurlick. “He won’t do what anyone else suggests and refuses to suggest anything himself.”

Mele shifted her gaze to Spurlick, keeping her expression unrevealing. “What’s your story?”

Spurlick shrugged. “I’m just trying to do things right.” He didn’t outright say, What are you going to do about it? But his tone and attitude made that extra part clear enough anyway.

“Have you ever heard the old saying ‘Lead, follow, or get out of the way’?” Mele asked, wanting to give him one last chance.

This time he did put it into words. “So?”

“So I’m leading, and you’re in the way.” This latest incident was enough to crystallize her earlier misgivings about Spurlick. “Thank you for volunteering,” Mele recited without putting any feeling into the words. “Your service won’t be required.”

“What?”

“You’re dismissed. Go.”

“Dismissed?” Spurlick glared at her. “I’m the only one here who knows what he’s doing!”

“No,” Mele said. “I think, of the three veterans here, you’re the only one who was kicked out of the service for the right reasons. Now get out of here.”

“The hell I will! You don’t have any power over me!”

Mele had already sized up Spurlick and had no doubt she could take him down, but this was supposed to be a military organization she was building, and in her experience officers didn’t enforce their authority with physical blows. On the other hand, her new recruits weren’t ready for the challenge of dealing with Spurlick if she ordered it.

She pulled out her comm. “Police.”

The response came almost immediately. “Assistant Chief Tanaka here. What’s the problem?”

“I need someone arrested,” Mele said, while Spurlick stared at her. “Inciting riot, failure to comply with lawful authority, and trespassing on official property.”

“Someone will be there within a few minutes.”

Mele pocketed her comm, keeping the corner of her eye on Spurlick, so that when he suddenly rushed her she was prepared. Spurlick’s reaching hand closed on air, and his fist swung at nothing. As Mele dodged and pivoted, she tripped Spurlick with one leg while her stiffened hand landed a blow that left him unconscious before he hit the ground.

Mele shook her hand lightly to relax it after the hit, noticing that the volunteers were all staring at her in gape-mouthed admiration that made her uncomfortable. “Never give your opponent an even break,” she told them. “We’re not practicing for a game here.”

One of the virtues to living in what was still a small city in what was still a small colony was that when called the police were able to arrive quickly. Val Tanaka herself climbed out of the ground vehicle, eyeing Spurlick’s prone body.

“He attacked her!” Riley called. “It was self-defense!”

Tanaka looked at Mele and shook her head. “He attacked you? He’s that stupid?”

“Yeah, he’s that stupid,” Mele said. “I’m not interested in pressing any charges. I don’t have time for that. I just want him off the training area with a clear understanding that he better not show his face here again.”

“Are you sure that’s all you want?” Tanaka asked. “He knows you’re working on something to do to with that Scatha camp. If we let him go, he might decide to go to them and sell whatever he knows.”

Mele paused, wondering if she should insist on Spurlick’s being arrested. What if he did go to Scatha with what he knew?

What if he did? She stepped closer to the officer and lowered her voice. “No. I want him free to go. Did you ever hear that the things you don’t know can be dangerous, but the things you think you do know that are actually wrong are a lot more dangerous? If he goes to that Scatha camp, he might do something worthwhile for us.”

Tanaka raised both eyebrows at her. “How is that?”

“He has no idea what my plans are, but he’s made it clear he thinks I’m incompetent and incapable. He’ll tell Scatha that, and that I’m planning on hitting them head-on like some dumb grunt. And he believes it, and thinks he couldn’t possibly be wrong, so if they scan him, he’ll look truthful. I’d love for Scatha to think all that is true and base their own plans on it.”

“Good thinking.” Tanaka nodded toward Spurlick, who was beginning to stir. “We’ll read him the riot act, let him go, and if he disappears from the colony, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks.” Mele watched as Val Tanaka cheerfully cuffed Spurlick and hauled him to his feet before shoving him toward her vehicle.

Mele turned back to the others, hoping she had handled Spurlick in the right way to reinforce her authority. “Now let’s do this right.”

Grant Duncan came by as she left that team to their drills. “Permission to speak?”

She snorted at the formal request. “What do you got?”

“I think you handled that guy right. Just in case you were wondering.”

“I was,” Mele said, grateful for the reassurance.

“Are they going to hold him?”

“No. Just make it clear he’d better behave.”

“That kind of guy could make trouble,” Grant warned, his expression serious.

“I know. The cops are going to keep an eye on him. If I make you first squad leader, who would you recommend for second squad?”

“Ummm…” Grant hesitated as he thought. “I’m not sure. Riley shows promise, but he’s totally new at this sort of thing and shows it. Obi is looking really sharp even though she only knows this stuff from gaming. I’d say one of them.”

“Train both so we’d have one as a backup if something happens to you?” Mele suggested.

“Or use both as we expand to three squads. We’re going to have to expand, you know. Thirty ground apes, some of them tech types, aren’t nearly enough to defend a colony this size. Scatha’s base has a lot fewer people in it and covers a lot less acreage, but they’ve got a full company of ground forces.”

“About a company, yeah.” Mele nodded, as much to herself as in acknowledgment that what Grant said was true. She stood looking out across the field to where mountains loomed. The wind coming down from the heights carried scents of something like pine but with a sharper edge, and a chill snap from snow-laden peaks. She had thought about becoming an explorer or scout, being the first to walk places like that and augment orbital surveys. The colony hadn’t been able to focus on that kind of surveying yet, but hopefully that option would exist once she’d finished helping out with this problem. “Yeah, this place will have to get a lot more serious about defending themselves. But I’m only in charge right now because I’m all they’ve got. I’m figuring they’ll bring in some officers sooner rather than later to run this outfit, and I’ll probably be out on my ear again. Until then, we can build a decent basis for a bigger outfit.”

“And then those officers will take credit for it,” Grant said.

“Yeah,” Mele agreed with a laugh.

The next morning, Mele took a break from leading training when a police vehicle pulled up at the edge of the field. Worrying that Spurlick had done something superstupid, she jogged over to it.

“Hey, Marine. No problems this morning. I’ve just got a load for you,” Val Tanaka said, stepping out of her vehicle. “This is what the colony has been able to collect for you.”

Mele reached the vehicle as Val began pulling out a variety of weapons. Mele hefted one of the hunting rifles, putting it to her shoulder and turning to sight along it across the open land beyond the city. “Not bad.”

“One of the best we got,” Val said. “Four hunting rifles, two target pistols, and a half dozen shockers. That’s the rest of it.”

Twelve weapons for thirty volunteers including Mele. And only four of those able to deliver lethal blows. The in-theory-easy-to-reprogram construction bays were having problems with the available designs of military-grade weapons, so this was all they’d have for the near future. Mele shook her head. “It’ll have to do.”

“Can it?” Val Tanaka asked. “Seriously. I’ve got no idea, but I heard you say those Scatha soldiers have battle armor. I’ve seen that stuff. It’s bad news.”

“It is,” Mele agreed. She gestured toward the rifle she still held in one hand, the barrel pointed at the ground. “But if I can get close enough, this can handle that armor. I know that gear. It’s the same stuff Brahma imported from Old Earth, so at Franklin we drilled on how to combat it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Brahma resold it to Scatha.”

“It’s got weak points?”

“Everything has got weak points.” Mele set the rifle down carefully, then grinned at Val. “Armor. Weapons. People.”

“You’re the expert.” Tanaka looked down at the small arsenal, then back at Mele. “I was thinking.”

“That can get you into trouble,” Mele said.

“I know,” Val agreed. She pointed at one of the shockers. “I’ve spent a good chunk of my life working with these. Weapons designed to disable, not to harm. Oh, they can be misused. Anything can. But basically, the idea is not to kill with them.”

Mele nodded, letting her own expression grow serious. “Whereas I’m in the business of killing and need weapons that do that.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Sure it does. But I don’t do it because someone ordered it or because I want something,” Mele said. “I do it because if I don’t, people like you would get killed by apes like those guys from Scatha.”

“Yeah,” Val agreed. “I just found myself wondering where it all might lead. I know a little bit of history from Old Earth, the sort of junk that happened there.” She looked up at the sky as if the already-legendary globe of Earth would be visible above them. “And I thought, what if we ever get to the point where it happens here? Wars like they had back on Old Earth, where nobody uses shockers, and it’s just about killing. What if our descendants forget that once upon a time we thought not killing was important?”

“I don’t see how it could ever get that bad,” Mele said. “Glenlyon is not happy to be doing this. I can feel it. They’re only getting into military options because that’s all there are with Scatha playing hardball.”

“I hope you’re right,” Val Tanaka said. “But look at what’s happening now. How many times back at Franklin did you use your training in earnest?”

“You mean actual combat?” Mele shrugged. “Once. A hostage-rescue operation. The hostage takers were some paramilitary bunch, though, not a real professional outfit.”

“But here you are facing a bunch of soldiers, and we’ve already dealt with a warship threatening us.” Val shook her head. “This isn’t like the Old Colonies. Everything has gone off the rails. Who knows where we might end up?”

“All I can promise,” Mele said, “is that as long as I’m calling the shots, we’re not going to end up anywhere you’d be unhappy with.”

“How long will you be calling the shots?”

“Probably only until they can replace me.” Mele slapped Val on the shoulder. “But until then, I am going to lead this outfit in the right ways. Hey, I need to get over to the mining offices. Can you give me a lift?”

Getting to Scatha’s base without getting shot to pieces meant coming in on the ground was out. Coming in by air, using one of the available shuttles, would just have been a more complicated form of suicide than a ground approach.

Which, Mele knew, left one available option. And that led her to the tech offices of the newly named Glenlyon Mining Corporation.

Not so long a time ago on a planet far, far away, Gunnery Sergeant Chopra had explained to a younger Mele how to get things done even if whatever it was apparently couldn’t be done.

“You don’t go to the boss,” Chopra had advised. “And you don’t go to the admin people who approve stuff. You go direct to the techs. The engineers. But you don’t go in and say, ‘The equipment can’t do what I need. Can you make it do that?’ Because if you do, the engineers will say, ‘No, it can’t do that,’ because people tell them to do crazy stuff all the time, and they’ll be tired of that. What you do is go in to them and say, ‘I just want to confirm this gear can do this,’ and the engineers say, ‘Yeah, it can do that.’ Then you say, ‘What I really need is this other thing, but the scientists I talked to said it can’t be done.’ And they’ll look real annoyed and say, ‘Scientists? You mean theory guys? What is it you need done?’ And then the engineers look at the specs and start talking to each other, and figuring out how to do it, because there’s nothing an engineer loves more than doing something that a scientist says can’t be done. Nine times out of ten, they’ll figure out a way to do it, or a way that ought to do it. And they’ll build it.”

Gunnery Sergeant Chopra had paused to give Mele a warning look. “What you got to look out for then is that whatever the engineers built might not meet everyday rules for safety and common sense. It if looks like that to you, make sure you’re outside any potential blast radius before they try it out the first time.”

That was why Mele was walking into the tech offices, where two men and a woman looked up at her with open suspicion.

“Hi,” Mele said. “I’m Sergeant Darcy, working on dealing with that base that Scatha set up. I figure I need to approach it belowground, so I came to you guys to make sure one of your mine snakes can handle it.”

“A tunnel dig? Where at?” one of the engineers asked, still eyeing Mele with mistrust.

“Do you have data on the area around where Scatha landed?” She knew they did but waited for them to look it up. A layered display revealed the surface geography as plotted by orbital mapping. “I need to keep Scatha’s people from seeing it, so I figured we could come in on the far side of these hills and start digging down about here, going to about here,” Mele said, indicating a point short of Scatha’s sensor field.

“Yeah, that’s easy,” the female engineer commented. “A two-meter snake can handle that without any problem. Why are you stopping the dig so far out?”

“It’s this sensor field,” Mele explained, sweeping her hand across the image. “It’ll pick up vibrations from the digging if I get too close.”

The third engineer shook his head. “There’s a big river running right through there. All that water is going to be putting a lot of vibrations into the environment. And the coast is, what, twenty kilometers to the west? What are the waves like?”

“Fairly strong,” Mele said. “It’s potentially a good harbor, but until a breakwater is built up along this row of submerged rocks, the waves can roll right in off the ocean.”

“So you’ve got good wave action hitting the area, too. What’s the subsurface like?”

The woman engineer answered as she called up the data. “We’ve got satellite scans showing an average of four meters of topsoil. That’s a floodplain, isn’t it? Under that is several layers of sedimentary rock.”

“Sandstone?” the third engineer asked.

“Overhead scans saw a mix of siltstone farther inland and limestone closer to the coast.”

“That’ll conduct vibrations from the wave action and the river pretty well,” the first engineer remarked.

Mele feigned surprise. “Do you think there’s a way to get the dig closer without its being detected? The approval office told me that was impossible.”

“Approval office?” the third engineer said with disgust. “How close do you really want to get?”

“In my dreams? Here,” Mele said, pointing to a spot inside the sensor field.

“How good are the sensors?”

“Here are the specs on them as best we know.”

The three engineers huddled, calling up diagrams and schematics and soil-characteristic data. “That’s doable,” the first engineer finally said. “We bring the snake in along that line. Not the one you thought of. This will make better use of the geology. The snake sends out worms ahead to monitor the vibrations in the environment and send that data back to the snake so it can adjust digging speed to keep the noise low enough. You’re going through topsoil, so it won’t require eating rock.”

“Rock eating can get noisy,” the female engineer told Mele. “The snake seals the tunnel sides as it goes using instacrete, so you won’t have to worry about tunnel integrity.”

“We ought to modify these parts to reduce the operating noise,” the third engineer suggested.

“Yeah, good idea since it’s only going through soil. Add that in and… How soon do you need this dig started?” the woman engineer asked.

“Yesterday,” Mele said. “I’ve got to hit Scatha before they get more stuff landed. You guys can really do this?”

“Sure we can,” the first engineer assured her. “It’s an interesting challenge. But it’ll take a day or two to get this ready, and you’ll need someone to tell the front office the council will pay for it.”

“You guys are lifesavers!” Mele said, not having to fake her relief. “Oh, I’ve got to tell you, this needs to be kept really quiet. If Scatha finds out I’m planning to go in this way, they’d be waiting for me and…”

“Yeah,” the third engineer said, nodding. “So this is real top secret stuff, huh?”

“It really is,” Mele said. “Once we’ve hit Scatha, they’ll search for and find the dig, so you can talk about it then. You said the tunnel will be two meters in diameter? That’ll be a little tight, but we can run.”

“No,” the woman engineer said. “Use a tunnelpede.”

“Tunnelpede?”

“Long, low, lots of little soft wheels. Designed to go into tight places where you might not want a lot of vibrations, you know? Like checking on cave-ins or unstable areas. Just get a tunnelpede long enough for everyone in your group to ride. How are you planning on getting the snake there? One of the WinGs?”

“Yeah,” Mele said. “Can one of the smaller ones handle the snake?”

“Sure can,” the first engineer advised. “Don’t talk to Don. He’s supposed to be in charge of scheduling the WinGs, but Bettine is the one who really handles that. She’ll set you up.”

As Mele walked out of the building, she looked up at the sky in what she hoped was the general direction of Franklin. “Thanks, Gunny!”

The WinG park had been set up down near the coast. All three Wing-in-Ground vehicles were there when Mele arrived. The WinGs only flew a few meters above the surface of the water, but the ground-effect cushion that lofted them allowed WinGs to transport waterborne ship-sized cargos at aerospace craft speeds, and the WinGs could land on water or on beaches or other unimproved sites, making them perfect for new colonies on new worlds.

The big WinG loomed over the others, roughly cylindrical, thirty meters wide and over a hundred fifty meters long, with broad, stubby wings mounted low and propulsion mounted high, and large aerospace craft maneuvering surfaces aft. The two smaller WinGs were each about forty meters long and ten meters wide, shaped similarly to their larger sister.

None of them carried any armament, but because they flew so low, one of the smaller WinGs could easily come in from the right direction to remain hidden from the Scatha base behind the low hills as it delivered the mining snake. As far as improvised combat-delivery vehicles went, the WinGs were as good as it got.

Mele went into the small office attached to a maintenance hangar, looking for Bettine.

She had been called on the carpet enough during her time in Franklin’s Marines that Mele wasn’t too intimidated to be standing before the three council members who made up Glenlyon’s Defense Subcouncil. Not that she liked the experience.

It helped that Leigh Camagan was the chair of the subcouncil. Mele had quickly sized up Camagan as someone you played straight with because if you did, she would return the favor. Council Member Kim was a usually reliable ally except that he had exaggerated ideas of his own ability to understand real-world military operations. Council Member Odom, on the other hand, had been put on the subcouncil to represent the dovish sentiments in the colony, which meant he spent most of his time trying to second-guess, undermine, and block Mele. Not that that was entirely a bad thing. She had learned the importance of having oversight that made her question her own assumptions.

“When do you intend doing something about Scatha’s intrusion on this planet?” Kim demanded. “They’ve almost finished work on setting up their antiorbital defense system! What are you waiting for?”

Mele spoke with calm certainty. “Aside from the need to get in as much training as possible and make the necessary preparations, I’m planning on hitting them the night after they make that system operational. That’s what I’m waiting for.”

Kim stared in wordless amazement. Odom gave Mele a suspicious look. Leigh Camagan rested her chin on the palm of one hand. “Why?” she asked.

Trust Camagan to ask for an explanation before making up her mind. Mele gestured in the general direction of Scatha’s encampment. “Three reasons. First, I don’t want to alert them that we’re a danger. They’ve been sitting on this planet for a few weeks, and we haven’t done anything except mouth at them.”

“We have attempted to negotiate their departure and expressed our intentions to not accept their illegal actions,” Odom corrected in a severe tone.

“Yes, sir,” Mele said. “The point is, right now, those ground apes from Scatha are thinking we’re all talk and no trouble. They’ve relaxed their guard. I was able to check them out from ground level when planting our surveillance pickups, and those apes are not staying sharp.

“Second, when they get that antiorbital cannon online, they’re going to relax even more because they’re going to feel really safe with that big gun working. They’ll celebrate, they’ll feel protected by the big gun, and they’ll take it a little easier. That’ll be the best time to strike.”

Mele smiled, but this time it was a hard smile, with little humor to it. “And, third, because after feeling so safe and relaxed, having that system destroyed right under their noses is going to hit them all the harder. They’re going to go from overconfident to extra-spooked, and once we have them scared, we can keep pushing with smaller moves that will wear away their morale and set them up to fold without a tough fight. If we have enough time for that. It’s just like in a one-on-one fight. If you get the other guy scared, off-balance, then you can keep them that way, and they’ll be that much easier to beat.”

“I see.” Leigh Camagan nodded toward each of her fellow members. “That sounds like excellent reasoning.”

“Where did an enlisted Marine pick up that kind of thinking?” Odom demanded.

Mele smiled at him even though she wanted to make a very rude gesture in reply. Alas, part of being in command meant that she couldn’t give in to that kind of temptation anymore. “Listening to my officers talk tactics and strategy. And reading. There’s this guy named Sun Tzu. Real old Old Earth. Part of what he talks about is beating the enemy before you start fighting by laying the right groundwork.”

“That’s good,” Kim said. Having seen Odom’s hostility, he was throwing himself fully into support of Mele. “That’s very good.”

“She’s working from theory,” Odom said.

“She is trying to achieve victory by causing as few deaths among the enemy as possible,” Leigh Camagan said. “That is your intention, is it not?” she asked Mele.

“Yes, it is,” Mele confirmed. “In particular, to avoid any casualties at all among the civilians Scatha brought.”

“That is surely what we want, isn’t it?” Leigh Camagan asked Odom.

Odom hesitated, then nodded with a sour expression. “Yes.”

“Then, having heard Major Darcy’s explanation of her strategy, I move that we endorse it.”

Mele ran the last sentence through her head again, wondering if she had heard right. No. She must have misheard part of it.

“I’m still concerned,” Odom said. “We’ve seen the data our pickups are gathering. You say that Scatha’s soldiers are complacent,” he told Mele, “yet our pickups are detecting usually two or three weapon discharges a night by sentries.”

Mele nodded. “That’s one of the reasons I know they’re slacking off,” she explained. “Sentries and patrols get bored if nothing happens, and when they get bored, there’s a real strong temptation to let off a shot just for fun. Usually, you claim that you saw something move and thought it might be danger. Back on Franklin, we called popping off a shot like that for fun huntin’ wabbits.”

“I’ve heard the expression,” Kim said. “But that was from a former soldier from Brahma, who also emphasized it was not rabbit but wabbit. What is a wabbit?”

“I don’t know,” Mele said. “Maybe the saying originated on Earth, and they have wabbits there, so that’s why everybody uses it. The thing is, a tight outfit, one that’s well disciplined, doesn’t tolerate that. Any sentry who shoots at wabbits gets hammered.” She didn’t bother adding that she knew that from personal experience. “So it doesn’t happen very often. The fact that Scatha’s grunts are popping off shots two or three times a night every night means they’re not being hauled up short for it, which means their leadership is sloppy, which is good for us.”

“Are you worried about being mistaken for a wabbit by those sentries?” Leigh Camagan asked.

“Ninja is working on our being able to break into their net and substitute our own data for whatever the sensors really see,” Mele said. “She’s confident she can do that, and when that happens, we can look like whatever we want to look like to the sensors, or we’ll be invisible to anyone who doesn’t actually see us with unaided eyes.”

“Won’t they do that?” Odom asked, frowning. “Look around with their own eyes?”

“No, sir. The sloppier an outfit is, the more they depend exclusively on their sensors. And these guys are sloppy. I’m betting my life on it. Not figuratively. Literally.”

Odom grimaced. “I don’t want to minimize that. You are running serious risks. I’d prefer that we also don’t suffer any losses.”

He meant it, Mele realized. She nodded respectfully to him. “Thank you, sir. I assure you that I am highly motivated to come back from this mission alive and in one piece.”

“She’s clearly thought this out,” Kim said. “I move that we endorse Major Darcy’s actions and plans.”

There it was again. No doubt this time.

After a few seconds, Odom reluctantly nodded in agreement.

After the other two had left, Mele stopped Leigh Camagan. “Major Darcy? Two of you called me major.”

“Yes. You’ve been promoted,” Leigh Camagan said matter-of-factly.

“When did that happen?”

“This morning.”

“Thank you for informing me of that,” Mele said. “I’ve heard of sergeant-majors, but I never heard of anyone being promoted direct from sergeant to major,” Mele said.

“These are exceptional circumstances. Don’t you think you can handle it?”

“One of these days, you’re going to ask me that, and I’m going to say no, I can’t,” Mele threatened.

“I don’t think so,” Leigh Camagan said, smiling slightly. “I make a habit of finding out what people are really like, so I know how to deal with them, and I try to be certain of my own motives and thoughts as well. ‘Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.’”

It was Mele’s turn to stare in surprise. “You’ve read Sun Tzu?”

“Of course. War is an extension of politics, as Clausewitz said.”

“I haven’t read that Clausewitz. Should I?”

“When you have the time,” Leigh Camagan said. “To be honest, you seem to already know a lot of what he says. You were bored a lot as an enlisted Marine for Franklin, weren’t you? That’s why you got in trouble from time to time.”

“There’s truth to that,” Mele admitted.

“I have good news for you. You won’t have to worry about getting into trouble anymore because you are not going to have any opportunities in the future to be bored, Major Darcy.” Leigh Camagan smiled at her, then left.

Mele stared after her, wondering what her last outfit would think if they heard that she was now a major. There had been one sergeant that she would absolutely love to see right now. And that snooty lieutenant.

And another sergeant who would shake her head, and tell Mele, “Darcy, you stupid boot, I always told you to stop screwing around and you’d make rank in a flash. It’s about time you listened.”

As she stepped outside on her way back to the grandly named Glenlyon Ground Forces Training Camp, Mele paused to look up. People did that a lot these days, she realized. Looking up to where they had come from or where they were going or where people they knew were. Had Lochan Nakamura gone on to Kosatka? Was he still with that Carmen, who had seemed to have had her share of hidden secrets? Mele wished he could know she had made major. But since that was unlikely to happen, she hoped Lochan was all right. Kosatka was supposed to be a quiet place, after all.

The reply from Kosatka that showed up eight hours later had six people visible. One was spliced in, with an identifier saying “Orbital Facility Chief Operating Officer.” The five others were all standing in the same room and included the Safety Coordinator who had sent the last message.

“Lieutenant Geary,” the man in the center began. “I am First Minister Hofer of Kosatka. You already know our planetary safety coordinator, and this is Leader Ottone of our House of Peoples’ Representatives. And of course Citizens Carmen Ochoa and Lochan Nakamura, who you asked after. We have seen your unhesitating and heroic defense of our star system against what appeared to be the same criminals who struck Lares. Kosatka owes an immense debt to Glenlyon. You had no obligation to defend us, but you risked yourself for us anyway. There are no words of thanks adequate for how we regard you and Glenlyon.”

The First Minister paused, looking uncomfortable. “If we had means to assist you, we would provide it. But as you may have already seen, we lack defenses of our own. Citizen Ochoa has offered advice on a solution to that problem that we will be pursuing, but at the moment we cannot even defend ourselves. I understand that the soonest that awful warship can return will be more than a week, and by then we will have improvised some combat capability on one of our freighters. As soon as we have acquired an additional defensive capability, we will endeavor to return a hundredfold the favor you have done us. Please assure the Council of Glenlyon that Kosatka honors her debts.”

He gestured toward Lochan Nakamura, who looked slightly bemused. “Lieutenant, I don’t know who referred Carmen Ochoa and me to you,” Lochan said, “but we were happy to advise Kosatka to assist Glenlyon when possible. Our advice was not necessary to convince them, as it turned out. Your actions did that.”

First Minister Hofer spread his hands in a welcoming gesture. “Thank you, Glenlyon. Kosatka, out.”

Rob slumped in his stateroom seat, sighing with relief. As the initial glow of victory had faded, he and the rest of those on Squall had been getting nervous about having left Glenlyon defenseless in their absence.

He straightened again and tapped reply. “Kosatka, we are honored by your offer of assistance and understand your concerns. Since it appears that Kosatka will have some defense in place before that destroyer could return, we would like to return ourselves to Glenlyon to defend that star system against any similar threat. You may not have detected that we inflicted some damage on the destroyer’s propulsion during the fight. He was down to sixty percent of maximum propulsion when he jumped out of this star system and won’t be able to work at repairing external damage while the ship is in jump space. I think it unlikely that ship will risk another battle until they have time to repair that damage, which will likely require them to return to the star system that sent them out, whichever one that is.

“Therefore, I intend taking Squall back to Glenlyon. I will wait eight more hours after sending this reply to give you the opportunity to tell us if you see a desperate need for us to remain. Otherwise, I will return to Glenlyon to defend it and pass on your reply to my government.

“For Citizens Lochan Nakamura and Carmen Ochoa, I was referred to you by Mele Darcy, the commander of Glenlyon’s ground forces. I’m sure she sends you her best wishes. If you have any messages for her, please transmit them as quickly as possible, as Squall will leave in eight hours unless Kosatka urgently requires otherwise. Geary, out.”

The replies that showed up eight hours later consisted of another wave of thanks from the government of Kosatka, and a joint message from Nakamura and Ochoa for Mele Darcy.

Should he have told them that Mele Darcy had already committed to a hazardous mission? That there was a good chance that she might be killed before Squall managed to return to Glenlyon?

No, Rob decided. What good would such knowledge have done them? Better they enjoyed as long as possible the thought of their friend alive and well.

He called the bridge, where Danielle Martel had the watch. “Danielle, head for the jump point. We’re starting back for Glenlyon.”

That was, he knew, probably the most popular command he had given since leaving home.

Squall trembled as thrusters fired, pushing her onto a direct course for the nearby jump point.

Glenlyon had gone from tense foreboding to wild celebration. “They think the fight is almost over,” Grant remarked to Mele.

They were sitting in the temporary building that Mele had labeled the Supreme Headquarters Complex, in the small office that Mele called the Planetary Defense Command Center. “How many volunteers came in today?” she asked.

“Another ten,” Grant said. “That takes us close to two hundred. How large do you think the council will let us go?”

“I’ll keep them informed and see when they say stop,” Mele said. “We’re going to need those warm bodies. And next time, we’re going to lose some of them. Scatha still has more than eighty soldiers at that base, and they’re not going to be asleep at their watch stations next time we show up.” She gestured toward her portable display. “They finally found the surveillance pickups I planted, so no more close-in signal collection for us.”

“Too bad we couldn’t have hit them again already,” Grant remarked. “Their morale must be low enough to walk under closed doors.”

“The satellite shows they’re running patrols out a lot farther from the base,” Mele said.

“Can we take one?”

“Maybe. Their second warbird hasn’t lifted since the raid. It might be down, or they might be playing dead.” Mele’s alert chimed. “Let’s see what fan mail the council sent me. Hey, Squall is back. Showed up at the jump point four hours ago.”

“That’s good. We’ve got top cover again,” Grant said. “How’d their mission go?”

“No details. Space squids send status reports as soon as they arrive in a system, right? So the council should know something. They must be worried about people tapping into our network.”

“We did do that to Scatha.”

“Yeah,” Mele said, “but the same people who tapped into Scatha upgraded the defenses on our networks. I’ll go over to the council for a face-to-face with Leigh Camagan to find out how Squall did and let her know our current strength.”

“Sure thing, Major Darcy,” Grant said. “Maybe they’ll make you a colonel while you’re there.”

“I’m not sure I’m dumb enough to be a colonel. Maybe they’ll just bust me back to sergeant.”

Mele Darcy had long ago given up on the idea of sleeping through the night. But it was still irritating to be rousted from sleep after midnight for a very important errand. Much worse was how little she wanted to carry out this particular errand.

Lieutenant Rob Geary wasn’t at the apartment listed as his address, which didn’t surprise Mele. She suspected that Rob Geary hadn’t spent very much time in that apartment since being roped into command of Squall. Mele called up her official net interface, entered his locator code, then plugged it into the ground vehicle she was using.

The vehicle stopped at an apartment complex. Mele got out, walked through the predawn stillness to the entry of the building, then followed the locator to Ninja’s address. She leaned on the doorbell.

It took a few minutes before a bleary-eyed Ninja stuck her head out. “This had better be important.”

“It is. Lieutenant Geary needs to get moving, fast.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“Don’t be cute, girlfriend. You forgot to hack his locator. It says he’s here.”

Ninja sighed, nodded, and retreated. Mele waited impatiently until Rob Geary appeared at the door, showing every sign of having dressed rapidly. “What’s up?” he asked.

“Big trouble has arrived in-system,” she said. “The council didn’t want to send word to you over the comm net because of worries about snoops. You’re needed on your ship. I’ll brief you on the way to the shuttle pad.”

“Big trouble?” Rob Geary said.

“Yeah.” Mele glanced toward Ninja. “Make it a proper good-bye.”

He had some idea of what that implied, gazing at Mele for a long moment before turning to Ninja and holding her while he whispered in her ear.

“Take care of yourself,” Ninja said. She and Rob Geary kissed, while Mele looked away and tried not to count the seconds ticking by.

Farewells over, Rob followed Mele into the ground vehicle. She punched in the destination, then sat back, her eyes scanning the outside as the vehicle rolled through streets almost deserted at this hour.

“Why did they send you?” Rob asked her.

Mele didn’t take her eyes off the outside as she answered. “Based on the news you brought back from Kosatka, the council is worried that Scatha has slipped an assassin or two into Glenlyon. I’m your escort to the shuttle in the military sense as well as the guide sense.”

“How bad is this?”

She appreciated that he didn’t waste time worrying about a possible assassin threat that she was already handling. “Two more ships showed up four and a half hours ago at one of the jump points. One is a freighter. The other is a warship. They’re not broadcasting ID, but the warship matches one in the Scatha databases we’ve captured. It’s a Sword Class destroyer.”

“A destroyer?” Rob didn’t sound happy. “What are my orders? Did they tell you?”

“Intercept and stop by any means necessary.” This time Mele did look away from the outside for a moment, catching his eye to reinforce her words. “The council is worried about what happened at Lares. They don’t want it happening here.”

“Intercept and stop?” Rob Geary laughed softly, but he didn’t sound amused. “I can intercept, probably, but how the hell do I stop him? A Sword Class destroyer outguns and can outmaneuver the Squall. How do I beat a ship that is quicker and tougher than my own?”

Mele shrugged. “If you can’t outgun them or outmaneuver them, then you have to outthink them.”

“Sure. How do I do that?”

“Sorry,” Mele said, not happy to be passing on such difficult orders to someone as decent as Rob Geary. “I mean that. I have no idea. Space combat is way outside my skill range. I’m sending some of my people up with you in case you get any boarding action. Grant Duncan’s in charge. He’s the best I can give you.”

“Thanks.” Rob Geary stayed quiet for a little while as the vehicle rolled closer to the shuttle pad and silent, mostly dark buildings went by on either side. Mele kept her eyes on the passing structures and the streets. She had no idea who had thought of programming the heavy-construction designs to reflect a variety of architectural styles, but the result was that even though every brand-new building still looked brand-new, the overall impression of the city was of some age, as if it had been built over time as styles changed. Her gaze lingered on one building, imagining what would happen to it if a rock dropped from orbit by the Scatha warship impacted on that site.

“Mele?” Rob said abruptly. “Would you do me a favor?”

“Probably,” she said. “Depends what it is, though.”

“Keep an eye on Ninja for me. All right?”

“Sure,” Mele agreed. “But whether she stays safe will be mostly up to your stopping that destroyer. I can’t stop an orbital bombardment.”

“I’ll stop it,” Rob said, looking out the window of the car, the three words sounding like a vow. “But… stopping it might cost a lot. If it does… please keep an eye on Ninja for me.”

“Sure,” Mele repeated, trying to put the same sense of a solemn oath into the word. “I keep promises to my battle mates. I’ll make sure she’s looked after. I’m glad you figured it out in time.”

“Figured what out?”

“Figured who out. Ninja. You two make a good pair.”

Rob paused before answering. “I’ve known that for longer than I admitted to it. Isn’t it funny how someone can be right there, and you don’t realize it, and suddenly it hits you like a ten-kilometer-wide asteroid?”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Mele said as the vehicle rolled up to the new security gate around the shuttle pad.

“It’s never happened to you?” Rob Geary asked.

She thought he sounded a little sad at the idea, which was a little annoying, but Mele smiled back anyway. “Nope. Maybe someday. I’m not looking for it.”

“Neither was I,” Rob said as Mele checked them through security. “At least Ninja and I had the last few weeks.”

She walked him the last steps to the shuttle. Council Member Leigh Camagan was waiting beside the entry ramp. “Lieutenant Geary. Have you been told the situation by Major Darcy?”

“Yes,” Rob Geary said.

“You have to stop them,” Leigh Camagan said. “I hate to send you off with orders like that, but that destroyer cannot be allowed to reach orbit around this planet.”

“Is the council aware of what stopping that destroyer might require?” Rob asked, his voice taking on a brittle edge.

“Some of us are all too aware, Lieutenant Geary,” Leigh Camagan said, her voice breaking slightly at the last.

“Take care of yourself,” Mele told Rob, wondering if she would ever see him again. “You’re the first sailor I actually liked working with.”

“And you’re the first Marine I ever worked with who wasn’t a pain in the neck,” Rob replied.

“I’ll have to try harder,” Mele said. She could see his fatalistic mood and shook her head at him. “This isn’t a farewell. Do your job and get your tail back here in one piece, so Ninja can have her happily ever after. Or whatever it is that ninjas have. Hey, I’ve heard that the council wants its own hackers supporting you instead of hiring Ninja again because she’s supposed to be focused on supporting me.” Mele glanced at Leigh Camagan as she kept speaking to Rob. “I know that you’re a by-the-book guy, and would never do anything you’ve been told not to do, but if you need that support from Ninja, this is one of those times when the book has to accidentally get deleted.”

Rob Geary shook his head. “If the council knows that I went around their instructions—”

Leigh Camagan had turned away, but spoke in a clear voice. “I’m not hearing anything.”

“The council is sending you out to face a destroyer with your cutter,” Mele said. “I think you have the right to forget those particular instructions and improvise a little if you think you need Ninja at your back.” She stepped back and saluted. “Do your ancestors proud.”

“Same.” Rob returned the salute and walked onto the shuttle.

Mele stood by Leigh Camagan as the shuttle lifted. The council member sighed. “Major Darcy, I have orders for you as well.”

“I was worried about that,” Mele said, watching the shape of the shuttle dwindle as it rose toward the stars.

“You know the odds that Lieutenant Geary will be facing. No matter how well he does, it may not be good enough to stop that freighter and destroy that warship. Scatha’s base must be captured before new soldiers and equipment can be landed.”

Mele bit her lip and looked at Leigh Camagan. “Does the council know how lucky we were on the first two operations? It won’t be that way if we have to hit that base head-on. We’ll lose people. Maybe a lot of people.”

“The council understands,” Leigh Camagan said in a low voice.

“I’ve got, what, a week to launch the attack? To make sure we control that base before the ships get here? And while the morale of Scatha’s forces at that base has been pretty low, they’ll have seen those ships arrive. They’ll know that help is on the way. All they have to do is hold out a little while longer.”

“Major, if I could give you another week, if I could give you a thousand more soldiers, I would. I can’t.”

Mele nodded. “At least you feel bad about it.”

“Can you do it?”

“I can try,” Mele said. “And hopefully not lose too many. Can you do me a favor?”

“If I can,” Leigh Camagan said.

“I promised to look after Ninja if Rob Geary didn’t come back. If I don’t make it back from attacking that base, I need someone to honor my promise.”

“I swear to you that I will,” Leigh Camagan said. “I hope with all my heart I won’t have to. It would be a cruel universe indeed if we sacrificed both you and Rob Geary to save Glenlyon.”

Mele gave a short, sharp bark of laughter. “The universe isn’t cruel. People are.”

She headed off toward her headquarters. There was a lot to do.

“What are we going to do?” Drake Porter asked Rob Geary.

“We’re going to win!” Rob replied, almost yelling. “We’re still able to fight, and we’ll keep fighting even if all we can do is throw rocks at them!”

“We might as well throw the lifeboat at them,” Danielle Martel muttered.

He almost told her to shut up, then paused as her words hung in his mind. “Throw rocks at them.” “Might as well throw the lifeboat.”

“Sergeant Duncan!” Rob called back. “How does the fuel look?”

“The fuel?”

“In the lifeboat. Is its propulsion still charged?”

“Uh, it looks okay, sir,” Grant Duncan replied. “Propulsion reads functional, but maneuvering systems show completely out.”

“Can the lifeboat still be launched?” Rob demanded, one eye on the curving tracks of Squall, the destroyer, and the freighter as they carved separate paths through space.

“I don’t know, sir. You need a sailor down here to check on that.”

Rob turned. “Drake, get down to the escape pod. It’s damaged, but I need to know if it can still be launched, and if we can vector the launch. There should be a limited ability to vector the launch to optimize escape chances. Do you know how to read that?”

Drake shook his head.

“I can read that,” Danielle said. “Are you planning what I think you are?”

“Maybe,” Rob said. “If we can launch that lifeboat.”

“I’ll find out and get back here as soon as I can. Request permission—”

“Get going!”

“What’s going on?” Drake demanded, as Danielle ran aft. “The lifeboat’s gone? Useless?”

“No,” Rob said. “It may not be useless.”

“But if it’s been destroyed… we can’t… we have to…”

Rob turned to look at everyone on the bridge, seeing the fear springing to life in them. “We have to what?”

“If it’s hopeless, you know we can’t—” Drake began.

“I’ll tell you what I know!” Rob said, hitting the button on his seat to broadcast his words through the entire ship, because he knew reports of the damage would be spreading and fear spreading along with it. “This warship, Squall, is the first and only defense our home has against Scatha’s ships! If we fail, our homes are left exposed and defenseless against the sort of thing done to Lares. You saw those images from Lares! You saw what ruthless people will do! Do you want that to happen to our home? To the families some of you have there?

“Yes, this is a tough situation. Yes, we may die in this fight. You all knew that when we started out. That leaves one question for everyone to answer. How do you want to be remembered? As the ones who gave up and consigned their world and their homes and their families to the domination of Scatha? As the ones who gave up and had to watch as Scatha bombarded their homes to make way for more settlers from their star? Or as the ones who kept fighting, who gave their all if necessary, to save something much more important than themselves? Do you want to be remembered as the ones who never gave up and saved their world?”

He paused, waiting, dreading the answer, but they looked back at him, and he saw the answer in them, and it was what he hoped for and perhaps even a little more.

“We won’t give up,” Drake Porter said. “Not as long as there’s any chance at all.”

“There is a chance,” Rob said as Danielle Martel dashed back onto the bridge.

“We can do it,” she said, out of breath. “If we come in at the destroyer from the proper angle, we can kick out the lifeboat on an intercept with them. I should be able to link the launch to the fire control system so that we launch the lifeboat at almost the same moment as our weapons fire.”

“Won’t it be an easy target?” Drake Porter asked.

“Very easy,” Rob said. “That’s the whole point. We can’t use the lifeboat to escape Squall, but we can use it to hit that destroyer, and it’ll be accelerating on its launch cycle when it hits.”

Danielle Martel strapped back in at the operations station. “When we throw the lifeboat at them, their combat systems are going to have to target it,” she added. “They’ll probably blow it to pieces, but they won’t be able to take out all the pieces. Some of them will be big pieces. When the pieces of the lifeboat hit the destroyer’s shields, they will knock them down, which will give us a chance to hit their weapons while they’re busy engaging the lifeboat.”

“And if we take out the destroyer’s weapons,” Rob said, “then we can beat it to hell at our leisure.” He adjusted Squall’s course, bringing her around to aim for intercept with the destroyer, which was already coming for Squall, intent on a kill. “Target the destroyer’s particle cannons and grapeshot launchers. This will be our only chance, everyone. Give it all you’ve got.”

“Fifteen minutes until we meet the destroyer again,” Danielle Martel reported.

A tone told Rob that someone was calling on a private circuit. He donned the ear set.

“Did you run the calculations on this?” Danielle Martel’s voice asked in his ear.

“No,” Rob said.

“I tried running them. The systems can’t give an estimate. Too many uncertainties.”

“I’m doing this on my gut,” Rob told her.

“It’s the best chance we’ve got. And it ought to work. If it doesn’t, we were screwed anyway.”

“That’s what I thought,” Rob said. “Might as well take the chance.”

He looked over at where she sat at the operations station. She met his eyes and nodded as her voice murmured in his ear set. “Might as well. I told you that you never would have made it in Earth Fleet. I’m glad I had the chance to sail with you.”

“Tell me when we get back to Glenlyon,” Rob said.

“Yeah. Sure.”

He removed the ear set and watched his display.

“Recommend coming right zero one point two degrees to optimize angle of intercept,” Danielle Martel said.

“Come right zero one point two degrees,” Rob ordered.

“The lifeboat launch is programmed and linked to the fire control system.”

“Thank you, Ensign Martel.”

The repeated changes of vector and alterations of speed to intercept each other again quickly had slowed both warships. They rushed together now at a combined velocity of only point zero two light speed. For the fire control systems on the Squall and Scatha’s destroyer, the targets might as well have been standing still.

As the ships raced past each other, Squall jolted from the launch of the lifeboat and the firing of her weapons, the shock of enemy hits striking coming at almost the same instant.

As Squall swept up and away, Rob stared at his display as red markers appeared all along it to mark damage to his own ship. He tabbed the command to replay in very slow motion the encounter that had just occurred.

The lifeboat had roared out of the escape bay just prior to meeting the destroyer. Rob watched the destroyer’s weapons ignoring the lifeboat, slamming shots into Squall, until the last moment, when a hail of grapeshot aimed at Squall tore the lifeboat apart just before it impacted the destroyer’s shields.

The pieces of the lifeboat crashed into the enemy shields, their mass given tremendous additional energy by the velocity of the impacts. The destroyer’s screens completely collapsed under the blows, letting through a destructive rain of fragments from the wreck of the lifeboat as well as the fire from Squall’s weapons. The hits pelted the lightly armored destroyer down two-thirds of its length, tearing through the equipment, systems, and crew members unfortunate enough to be under that barrage.

“We beat the hell out of it!” Drake Porter whooped in triumph.

“His weapons avoided targeting the lifeboat,” Danielle Martel said in disbelief, followed by growing understanding. “Lieutenant, his fire control systems were set to defaults! And the defaults don’t allow shots at lifeboats!”

“We cheated, I guess,” Rob said. But his sense of elation died as he stared at the red damage markers covering his display. “How badly off is Squall?”

“We can still maneuver,” Danielle Martel reported. “But the grapeshot launcher is out. Looks like everyone on that weapons crew was killed.”

“Lieutenant!” The call from engineering held overtones of panic. “We got trouble!”

“Give me a report!” Rob demanded.

“Those last hits, we took damage in here, and they destabilized the core. We can’t hold it!”

Rob kept his eyes locked on his display, where new information was coming in. Scatha’s destroyer was out of action. They had accomplished that much. And the freighter was heading back toward the jump point for all he was worth. But it didn’t look like Squall would be chasing him. “Engineering, execute emergency shutdown of the power core.”

“Emergency shutdown is not an option! The stabilizing routines have flatlined. The core will not shut down.”

“What can you do?” Rob asked.

“What can I do? I can keep it from blowing up for a little while. That’s what I can do.”

“How long do we have?” Rob wasn’t sure why he was asking. Why did it matter? With the lifeboat gone, there was no place to flee. No possible refuge out here far from the planet. Scatha’s freighter was fleeing, and the enemy destroyer was drifting with no maneuvering control—

The enemy destroyer.

“I don’t know!” the engineer repeated. “I don’t know how long I can hold it!”

Rob checked the projected course of the Squall. “Danielle, can we manage another intercept of the destroyer? Coming to a dead stop relative to it?”

“What? Um… wait.” She ran the data hastily. “Yes, sir. We should be able to do it. Twenty-five minutes to dead stop relative to the destroyer.”

“Engineering? Can you hold the power core for another twenty-five minutes?”

“Twenty-five? I don’t know. Why twenty-five?”

“Because if you can hold it for twenty-five minutes, we’ve still got a chance to get out of this alive! Keep that core from blowing for another twenty-five minutes, do you hear me?” Rob hit the circuit to talk to the entire ship again. “All hands, we are coming back around toward the enemy destroyer. It has been crippled, but our own power core is going unstable. Engineering says they cannot stabilize it and it will blow soon. Our only chance is to board and capture Scatha’s destroyer. The boarding team will include the entire crew of the Squall. Everyone goes. Draw available weapons, anyone whose survival suit is not yet sealed get it done, and everyone but engineering proceed to the air locks on the, uh, port side.”

Rob paused to rub his face. “Ensign Martel, make sure the intercept with the destroyer is locked in and proceed to an air lock. All the rest of you, go now.”

“Lieutenant Geary,” Danielle Martel said. “Excuse me, Captain Geary. We don’t want Squall exploding next to the destroyer. I recommend we set the ship’s maneuvering controls to accelerate at full ten seconds after we enter the command from… Air Lock One.”

He looked at her, unexpectedly moved by her use of the title of captain for him. Such a small thing in the big scheme of things, with death looming, but the gesture of respect meant a tremendous amount to him at that moment. “I agree. Set the controls to accelerate after the command is entered at Air Lock One. Will that give Squall enough time to accelerate so we’re out of the destructive blast radius before she blows?”

“I don’t know,” Danielle Martel said. “Squall might blow up before we even reach the destroyer.”

“Good point. Get the commands entered, then get to the air lock. I’ll join you.”

Thrusters fired to swing Squall around, the main propulsion lighting off to slow her as well, her path through space altering into a steeply descending curve that swerved into a flat arc next to the stricken enemy destroyer. He remembered a Marine who referred to a combat drop as a roller coaster to hell. This felt like that.

“Done,” Danielle Martel reported. “Are you coming?”

“In a second. Get to the air lock,” Rob ordered. “All hands! Everyone except those in engineering necessary to manage the power core should be at port air locks by now! If you’re not there, get there!”

For a moment, he was alone on the bridge. Rob sat in the command seat, his display a flickering sea of damage warnings, feeling Squall trembling as her main propulsion fought to reduce her velocity. It was as if the stricken ship were shaking with fear as she felt the end approaching but still fighting to give her crew a chance, and he felt a strange reluctance to leave her. Squall had not been the biggest or greatest ship ever built, but she had been his, and she had fought as bravely as any man or woman could have.

But his crew was waiting for him to lead them. For him to help them gain their last chance at life. And if he fought hard enough, if a miracle happened, he might still make it back to Ninja and a child he would otherwise never see.

Rob checked to ensure his sidearm, the same one taken from the former captain of the Squall, was holstered on his hip. He sealed his survival suit as he walked off the bridge, then ran, heading for Air Lock One, hoping the power core would hold together until Squall reached the enemy destroyer. At any moment the engineers’ desperate efforts could fail, and Squall would blow up before her surviving crew could even launch themselves at the destroyer. To some, Rob and his crew would already be considered dead. But they also still lived. He had never before really grasped the old paradox of Schrödinger’s cat, neither alive nor dead, something that wasn’t supposed to apply at the level of people and their interactions with the universe, but now he finally did. Unfortunately, that was because he was now in the position of that famous cat, waiting to learn whether death or life had been decided.

Rob Geary reached Air Lock One, where Danielle Martel and a cluster of other crew members waited. Like many other parts of the ship, this portion of Squall had been holed by damage and had lost air, so the inner air lock door was already open.

“Five more minutes,” Danielle Martel reported.

“Engineering!” Rob called. “How does it look?”

“Like it could blow any second! If it happens, you won’t know, because we’ll all be gone just like that.”

Rob switched circuits. “Air locks, report in. Is everybody ready?”

“Air Lock Three ready.”

“Air Lock Five ready. Lieutenant, we’ve got a couple of wounded in emergency evacuation bags. We’ll haul them along with us.”

“Good,” Rob said, not wanting to know how many of the crew of Squall were already dead. “Sergeant, where are you and your people?”

“Air Lock Five, sir.”

“Good. We’re coming alongside the destroyer oriented to match him. Bow to bow, stern to stern. When you jump, you’ll be boarding closer to the destroyer’s stern. We need to take the engineering section and ensure the power core is either shut down or operating safely.”

“Yes, sir. Is there any chance the destroyer’s crew will try to blow the power core themselves?”

“What?” It took Rob a few moments to understand the question. “You mean deliberately overload the power core and destroy their own ship along with us? No, Sergeant. That’s crazy. No one would do that.”

“Understood, sir. See you on the destroyer after we’ve wrapped things up.”

Sergeant Grant Duncan’s calm demeanor partially reassured Rob, who turned to Danielle Martel and clicked over to a private circuit. “What do you think our odds are?”

She shook her head. “It depends. Does the destroyer still have an outside sensor picture that will allow them to see us coming and prepare to defend against boarding? How many of their crew died during that firing run? And just how insanely lucky can we be?”

“So we’ve got a chance,” Rob said.

“Yes, Captain. We’ve got a chance.”

“You don’t have to call me captain.”

“Yes, sir, I do. You earned it.” She checked something on her wrist readout. “Two minutes. We should open the outer hatch so we’ll know the moment we can jump.”

With the Squall decelerating fast, there was no sense in anyone’s sticking their head out of the outer hatch to look for the enemy destroyer ahead. It would just be another dot in the endless array of stars and other objects in space.

“Here we go,” Danielle Martel warned. “One minute.”

“Everyone stand by to jump,” Rob ordered. “Engineering? How does the power core look?”

“Bad. Really bad.” The engineer’s voice held so much fear that it seemed to carry the scent of sweat with it.

“How many of you are still back there?” Rob asked.

“Just me.” The engineer paused. “I don’t know how long it’ll hold when I head for the air lock.”

Rob stared in front of him, weighing what to do. Did he sacrifice the engineer to try to give the rest of the crew a better chance? Or did he keep faith with someone who had stayed behind to help his shipmates? “I need a plain and straight answer. Once you leave the core, how long until it blows? Give me a number.”

“Within five minutes. That’s just a wild guess, but it’s the best I got!”

Rob made up his mind. “Leave now and get to the nearest air lock! You’ve got forty seconds!”

“On my way!”

“We’re here!” Danielle Martel called.

Rob looked out of the air lock and saw the barracuda shape of the destroyer suddenly only twenty meters away. Squall had exactly matched vectors with Scatha’s stricken warship, so that for these few seconds the two ships seemed to be drifting next to each other as if they had been parked in adjacent stalls.

“Boarding party away!” Rob ordered, restraining Danielle from jumping with an extended arm. “All hands jump! Ensign Martel, watch for the last engineer to jump from Air Lock Five, hit the command for Squall to get out of here, then follow.”

“He’d better jump real soon!” Danielle warned.

Drake Porter stopped by the next day, anxious over Rob’s injuries but also unmistakably carrying a heavy load of personal sorrow. “I wanted to make sure you were okay, Rob.”

“I’ll live,” Rob said, not knowing how to ask the question he probably already knew the answer to.

Drake looked down, his voice roughening. “Uh… Danielle… died. I don’t know if anyone’s told you.”

He felt a wave of darkness press down on his mind. “No. Damn. I am so sorry, Drake.”

“Yeah,” Drake Porter said, still keeping his face averted. Drake didn’t say anything for a couple of moments, trying to compose himself, then nodded toward Rob. “I wanted you to know I’m not going to stay on with the volunteer crew. I mean, there’s no ship anymore unless they get that destroyer fixed up, but even if they do I… I don’t want to go up again. I’m going to go back to working the kind of job I signed up for with the colony.”

“I understand,” Rob said, feeling helpless in the face of Drake’s distress. “You’ve already done a tremendous job, and you’ve… taken a serious loss. No one could ask more of you. If you ever need anything, Drake, you just let me know. Anything. We’ll always be shipmates.”

“Sure,” Drake Porter said, finally looking back at Rob. “You, too. You saved us, you know. We’d have all died out there, and Glenlyon would’ve been helpless. All of us who were out there know that. Hell, I was ready to give up. I know if you could’ve, you would have saved… everyone. If you ever need me, you just tell me. Deal?”

“Deal.” Rob watched Drake Porter walk out alone, wishing that somehow he could’ve done things just enough differently that Danielle Martel was walking out beside Drake. But, perhaps, in a way, she always would be beside Drake Porter, a memory of a future that never was that would always haunt Drake no matter what else happened in his life.

Much later, he woke up to see Council Member Leigh Camagan standing in the room. “Please sit down.”

Leigh Camagan sat down next to Rob’s bed. For the first time he could recall, she looked openly angry.

“Did I do something?” Rob asked.

“Everything you should have and more,” she replied. “I have some news from the council. The council has voted to formally thank you for your heroism in repelling the attack on this star system by Scatha. The resolution expressing their thanks will be made part of the public record for the star system of Glenlyon.”

“Thank you,” Rob said, not knowing what to say but thinking that he needed to say something.

“For what?” Leigh Camagan asked. “It was the least they could do. I mean that literally. They did the least possible. There will be no tangible sign of their thanks. Nothing that would have incurred any expense on their part.”

Rob blinked several times, tried to shrug, found it difficult with the med unit still on his abdomen, and settled for nodding to her. “I didn’t do anything hoping for some reward,” he said, and that much was true. He did feel some disappointment but refused to openly admit to it because he had never liked those who actively sought awards. “Why do I think there’s another shoe about to drop?”

“Another ship has arrived at Glenlyon,” Leigh Camagan said. “It included among its passengers a representative of individuals on Old Earth. He carried with him offers for star systems here in the down and out. If Glenlyon was willing to employ former officers and sailors of Earth Fleet, they would themselves arrange the purchase of their former warships, decommissioned destroyers, and enter the service of Glenlyon.”

That was good, wasn’t it? Rob tried to shrug again and gave it up. “Why are you saying that like you’re giving me bad news?”

“As part of the agreement, a Commodore Hopkins will become head of Glenlyon’s new fleet. He has glowing fitness reports from Earth Fleet.”

“That’s… nice. I guess I’ve been expecting something like that,” Rob said. And he had been because, after all, he had only been a lieutenant in the fleet of Alfar and couldn’t expect to vault to higher rank and responsibilities. But it still didn’t feel great. “What are they offering me?”

Leigh Camagan didn’t answer, looking away.

“Council Member Camagan,” Rob said, “aren’t they offering me something? I mean, I think I did a good job on Squall.”

Leigh Camagan met his gaze. “You did an amazing job on Squall. That creates problems for those worried about the impact of professional militaries on a free society and whether or not military heroes might reach for political power.”

“What?” Rob felt as confused as he had after being shot.

“The representative of the former Earth Fleet crews made it clear that all officer positions on the ships were to be considered taken since the former Earth Fleet commanders wanted people they knew. The council accepted that condition over my objection.”

“Oh. Only your objection? I thought Council Member Kim would—”

“Council Member Kim saw an opportunity to quickly acquire two warships for Glenlyon. Council Member Kim is perfectly willing to sacrifice other individuals in pursuit of what he considers worthy goals,” Leigh Camagan said. “Bellicose people tend to be like that. Sticking up for you would have meant creating problems with the deal to get the warships. He was already eager to send you into life-and-death situations. Why would he hesitate to sacrifice your career?”

Rob, his thoughts swirling, could only nod again. “What’s happening to me, then?”

“The council is willing, in light of your past service to Glenlyon, to offer you a position in fleet support.”

“Fleet support?”

“Liaison for military matters.” Leigh Camagan paused. “Liaison from fleet staff to council staff. Duties to be defined.”

“They want to make me a gofer?” Rob asked, too stunned to think clearly. “That’s it? The guy who gets the coffee at meetings?”

“I’m sure you would assist the commodore in matters such as making sure he had his coffee,” Leigh Camagan confirmed. “Rob, I’m sorry. I fought this as hard as I could but, unlike you and Mele Darcy, I lost. The only redeeming aspect of the deal is that the position you’re being offered would finally formalize your rank as a lieutenant but make you junior to every new officer being brought in from Earth.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“I wish I were.”

“So, as of now,” Rob said, “even now, I’m still not yet officially, formally, a lieutenant in Glenlyon’s fleet? I’d only get that rank if I agree to that assignment?”

“Yes. It’s not as if there is a ship for you to command before the former Earth Fleet warships get here. That destroyer you captured is hopelessly damaged.”

Rob heard himself laugh. “And my reward for defeating that attack on this star system is for me to be given a position as sort of a junior intern to the Earth Fleet officers coming in?”

“Yes.”

He remembered Danielle Martel, Earth Fleet veteran, choosing… choosing… to call him captain. Rob’s thoughts steadied, showing two clear vectors he could take away from this moment. He had no trouble deciding on the one he wanted to take. “Council Member Camagan, can you please inform the council for me that they can go to hell? I hereby, formally and officially, resign any informal assignment I had with the council. They can take their official offer and stick it somewhere uncomfortable.”

Leigh Camagan nodded to him. “I expected you would say that. And, to be honest, I was hoping you would. You got outmaneuvered politically, Rob. There’s no shame in that. And considerable pride in knowing what you accomplished with the most minimal of resources. I assure you that you will always have at least one true friend on the council as long as I am a member.”

“Thank you. What about people like Danielle and the others who died?”

“That’s still being debated,” Leigh Camagan said. “They’ll probably get a monument, a memorial, in a prominent place. I’m going to insist on pensions for surviving family members.”

“Good,” Rob said, and meant it. “They deserve that. But Danielle Martel didn’t have any family members here.”

Leigh Camagan sighed. “I don’t know what else we can do for her. She died fighting for us, which should count far more than anything else about her. If someone can break the codes protecting Danielle Martel’s personal files, they might at least learn who we should tell on Old Earth.”

“I’ll ask Ninja to do that. Danielle Martel was… important. I don’t just mean in the things she did. Also in what she talked to me about. I didn’t understand how important my example might be, but she made me think about that. Glenlyon will be the better for it.”

Leigh Camagan nodded to him, her eyes thoughtful. “The official histories may not note her contribution. They may not note yours since they’ll be written by a military bureaucracy yet to come into existence. I encourage you to do what you can to keep the memory of her role alive. And as for you, Rob Geary, you still have your life and a future to chart your own course, and that means more than any monument, as I’m sure you realize. Glenlyon owes a lot to you even if it prefers at the moment to brush under the rug just how badly you were supported and equipped while saving everyone else. If you need anything, let me know. I’ll pull whatever strings I can.”

He was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, when the door opened again to reveal Ninja and Mele Darcy. “Hi, Ninja,” he said, feeling better just seeing her once more.

“I’ve only been gone an hour,” Ninja said, smiling as she leaned over to kiss him.

Rob returned the kiss. “Leigh Camagan stopped by.”

“I already heard,” Ninja said.

Rob looked at Mele Darcy, who was favoring one leg and had a light cast on her upper right body and arm. “I haven’t seen you since my shuttle lifted for Squall. How are you, Major?”

“Are you talking to me?” Mele Darcy looked behind her as if in search of whoever Rob had spoken to. “I don’t see any majors around here.”

“What?” Rob stared at her as Ninja sat down next to him and reached out to grasp his hand with hers. “You, too? Are they hiring Marines from Earth Fleet?”

“Nope,” Mele Darcy said. “Mind if I sit down? It just seems a simple former enlisted Marine like me ain’t up to the job of running anything big, especially since what Glenlyon is standing up will be ground forces, and not Marines, who are a real pain in the neck sometimes, or so I’ve been told. There were some complaints that I ran a little roughshod over people while trying to get that big assault on Scatha’s base done in a few days like I’d been ordered to do.”

“What the hell were you thinking?” Rob asked, surprised that he could joke about it.

“Beats me,” Mele said, feigning bafflement. “Apparently, some of the time and effort I spent trying to defeat Scatha should have been lavished on sucking up to council members and being polite to production managers.”

“I guess I should have been doing that, too. Did they offer you anything?”

“Oh, yeah,” she replied disdainfully. “They’re planning on hiring veteran officers from Brahma and Amaterasu, but those officers are going to need support. So they offered to make me a sergeant again. A junior sergeant, of course,” Mele added. “In a support role.”

“Getting coffee for the boss?”

“You got it. What about you?”

Rob flipped a dismissive hand. “Coffee gofer. With a rank of lieutenant, but otherwise pretty much the same deal offered to you.”

Mele Darcy snorted as if uncaring, but Rob could hear from the sharpness of the sound that there was anger underneath the nonchalance. “We should have expected it. The gratitude of kings and all that. Still sucks, though.”

“I’m really sorry,” Rob told her. “You deserved better.”

“You both did,” Ninja said. “If someone had broken into private discussions among members of the council, she would have learned that a lot of them thought that they should have defended Glenlyon and weren’t happy that someone else had done the heavy lifting. Making too big a deal of what you two did would just emphasize how little the council had prepared and how little you had to work with. That’d be awkward, you know? And other members were arguing that Scatha just shows what happens when people with certain mind-sets become too powerful, or too popular, which should be a lesson to Glenlyon. The fact that you accepted Danielle, who had been working for Scatha, was being waved about as proof that all of you are just the same under your uniforms. Or so I’ve heard,” Ninja added.

“I’m glad that you didn’t break into those discussions,” Rob said.

“Yeah,” Ninja agreed, not even cracking a trace of a smile. “That would’ve been illegal.”

“Why do they trust the people they’re hiring from Old Earth and the Old Colonies?” Mele Darcy asked. “Did you, uh, hear anything about that from whoever might have broken into those conversations?”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Ninja said. “It seems Earth Fleet has these long-standing traditions about being obedient to government decisions and blah, blah, blah. And so do the Old Colonies.”

“Just where do they think Rob Geary and I came from?” Mele Darcy asked.

“Somewhere dark and dangerous, I guess.”

“Danielle Martel lectured me about how important it was to support the government,” Rob said, feeling bitterness rising again. “But they slam her memory, in private anyway. Oh, Ninja, I turned down the offer from the council. I’m currently unemployed.”

“Really?” Ninja raised her hands in mock despair. “Whatever will we do if I’m the only one hauling in paychecks?”

Rob glanced at Mele Darcy. “All right, I can tell you two are not saying something. What is it?”

Mele Darcy grinned. “While you and I were positioning ourselves for those great job offers, your Lady Ninja here was working on something that might help take the sting away.”

Ninja gave Rob a wide smile. “The contracts are being let for operating the main orbital facility. The biggest pieces of it are being towed in after being built at a shipyard at Franklin and should show up within the month. I’m on the inside. That facility is going to need an officer to run the dockyard and repair section. And guess what? You played by far the biggest role in saving the people on the ground here who represent the corporation that will be finishing construction on the complex and running it. And those people know that.”

“It seems they’ll also need someone to run a security force,” Mele Darcy said. “Council Member Camagan has told the corporate recruiters that if they hire me, they won’t be sorry. And they like that you and I have proven we can work together. Apparently that’s not a given with sailors and Marines.”

“Really?” Rob asked.

“That’s what I hear,” Mele said. “So, we not only get to do honest work, but the officers from Old Earth and Brahma and other places who took our military jobs are going to have to ask us for our help and cooperation on a frequent basis.”

Rob hadn’t thought he would be smiling again anytime soon, but he did as he thought about that. “It’s a good thing I’m not too vindictive.”

“I can be vindictive enough for both of us,” Mele Darcy said.

“Don’t burn too many bridges, you two,” Ninja cautioned. “Glenlyon thinks it’s done with you. But I think Glenlyon is wrong. This part of space is still a mess. You guys gave Scatha a bloody nose, but Scatha is still out there. And that Apulu Star System that gave you a hard time, Mele. Not to mention whoever bombarded Lares and threatened Kosatka, and whoever was stirring up other trouble on Kosatka, and other star systems that could be trouble that we haven’t even heard of yet. Glenlyon is going to need you again.”

“So what if they do?” Rob asked. “Why should we care if they need us again? Don’t you think I’ve learned my lesson?”

“You’ll care,” Ninja said. “You’ll care because that’s who you are. No matter how many times you get screwed over doing the right thing, you’ll still care. You and this grunt, both. They’ll need you badly, and you’ll step up.”

Mele shook her head. “Do you think I’m some kind of idealist? I’ll bet you a twenty, right here and now, that never happens.”