Strange Bedfellows

Note: The 2er (Second) REP (Regiment Etrangere Parachutiste) and the 13th Demi-Brigade are actual units of the Foreign Legion. The Second Shock Army was a unit in both the Imperial Russian Army (WW1) and the Soviet Army (WW2); the 6th Raider Battalion and 33rd Air Cavalry Commando Squadron are fictitious elements of the 6th Marine Division, which actually existed during WW2.

Colonel T.C. McQueen had gotten used to the sour look on the nurse's face. He'd seen the same look shortly after the war started and he'd spent a week in the burn unit of the Portsmouth Naval Hospital, and before that during the AI Wars, when he'd been in the Army hospital at Fort Gordon. There was nothing you could do about peoples' attitudes sometimes besides shut up and soldier, but it was getting harder to take as he moved up through the officer ranks. So as long as the nurse treated him with the respect due his rank, he didn't much care what she thought...but it was occasionally tempting to lock her heels and take a chunk out of her shapely, hostile butt.

On this particular morning, however, a strange look had replaced the usual mad-at-the-world expression as she came into his room for the regular morning rounds. "You've got a visitor, Colonel," she said. As if nobody ever dropped by, he thought sourly. Indeed, there had been a steady trickle of visitors in the six months since he'd been medevac'd to Earth from the Saratoga. His ex-wife had come by for a brief and awkward reunion, Hawkes had stopped by before going to his first command to thank him for his captain's bars...there usually weren't more than a couple a week, but that was enough. He had a lot of

reading to catch up on, and the surgeons had made it clear he wasn't

up for much else while the nerves integrated with the control circuits for his leg.

He soon understood the nurse's perplexed expression as Assistant Secretary-General Chaput came into the room, accompanied by a pair of Marine bodyguards...no, the uniforms and insignia were different. McQueen realized with a shock that the soldiers were not Marines at all, but soldiers of the Foreign Legion. Chaput took a chair beside

the bed and smiled painfully. "The last time I saw you, you were

saving my life, Colonel McQueen."

"Yes sir," McQueen replied noncommittally.

"It is time for me to return the favor, I think. First, let me congratulate you." Chaput pulled an envelope from inside his suit and extended it to McQueen, who took it and opened it. Inside, folded neatly in thirds, were the orders he'd never dared dream of. Promotion orders, making him a Brigadier General.

He looked up. "Thank you, sir. Now, how exactly are you paying

me back for having kept Hawkes from killing you?"

"We've come to transfer you to your new command, General, and to ensure that you live long enough to exercise your new authority. Let me explain. Your Lieutenant West embarrassed Secretary-General Hayden no end by accusing her and Aerotech of complicity in starting this war. All the more so since the accusation was true, as is now widely suspected. I should say it is a rumor widespread in the UN military...and in my own Identity Party. News of this sort cannot be kept secret for long, but of course Hayden and her fellow Aerotech bosses must do the best they can for as long as they can to keep

things under wraps.

"Nobody here on Earth ever heard about the failure of the negotiations between humanity and the Chigs. As far as the media

know, E. Wayne Allen was killed in a shipboard accident that regrettably killed a number of senior military officers and caused

you to be injured in a futile attempt to save their lives. This promotion, I am sad to say, is partially a bribe to purchase your silence."

"You can't expect me to believe that," McQueen replied. "Especially coming from you."

Chaput shrugged. "The proof should be adequate. Where are the peace demonstrations, the calls for further negotiations? There are none, because Earth still believes us to be at war for our very survival. Imagine the public's rage when they discover that their sons

and daughters have died in their thousands for the sake of Aerotech and Diane Hayden, General. Imagine what Hayden and her supporters would do to avoid that. They have already split up Captains Hawkes and West, as you know. After everything else that has happened, it would not surprise me if Hayden's people had arranged accidents for both of them. We must prevent that, General McQueen."

"I know what you expect to accomplish with this," McQueen said. "You plan on replacing Hayden. Then what?"

"Then we end the war," Chaput answered.

"You can't move him from here," the chief surgeon protested. "Colonel--I mean, General McQueen's nerves haven't finished knitting with the control circuits in his leg. He won't be able to walk on it for another month, and he certainly shouldn't be hobbling around on crutches!"

The Korean doctor in Legion battle dress sneered. "Garbage. He could walk on it now without injury, Doctor. The only thing keeping him in that bed are orders from the Secretary-General, and you know that as well as I do."

"Do what you want, General," the chief surgeon said. "But if you leave this facility, you'll be leaving AMA- Against Medical Advice. You might not keep that star, either."

"You're in no position to make threats of that sort, Doctor," Chaput interjected quietly. "What the General decides to do is none of your concern once he leaves here...and you would be wise to keep your nose out of his affairs, since they are mine as well."

Turning to McQueen and the half-squad of Legionnaires, he sighed. "Come, gentlemen. We have wasted enough time here."

Once they were aboard Chaput's UN transport, McQueen turned on him. "All right. Where do the Identity Party and the French Sixth Republic come into this? The PNI has never had much love for InVitroes, even before Chartwell was assassinated...and after that business with Hawkes aboard the Saratoga, I daresay there's even less."

"You are correct, General. The official position of the Identity Party is still very much one of opposition to InVitro rights. However, your example has enabled me to find a loophole in the iron logic of the party platform. You are familiar with the history of the

French Foreign Legion, of course."

"Of course," McQueen replied. "Foreign soldiers serving under French officers. One of the forces seconded to UN command during the

AI Wars."

"Your grasp on history is excellent as usual, General. In practice, it had become hard to distinguish the Foreign Legion from the regular army, as was the case with the Spanish Foreign Legion. Until now. You see, the prohibition on Frenchmen enlisting in the Legion does not extend to InVitroes, since by law they are not citizens of France. We therefore transferred out officers unwilling to serve with InVitroes, promoted some willing sergeants, and voila! A solution to two very pressing problems. Three, counting your difficulties."

"My difficulties?"

"One of the reasons Secretary-General Hayden did not wish you out of the hospital is that you present her with problems, General. As one of the Chig War's most decorated heroes, you cannot be given a desk job where you can fade from view --and be quietly killed. By the same token, you cannot be given a high-profile combat command, since

that makes the job of removing you impossibly difficult. While you

were confined to your hospital bed, this was not a problem. Now, we have forced the issue."

"By putting me in command of the Foreign Legion?"

"Some of it." Chaput smiled apologetically. "I was not completely truthful about your promotion. The severity of your injuries at first motivated some in the Corps to simply retire you for medical reasons, but there were enough senior officers who knew and respected you to prevent that. Commodore Ross, I understand, called in practically every favor he was owed by various admirals--and as a veteran of the AI Wars like yourself, he was owed many favors by many admirals. They were pacified with your promotion to Brigadier General, and they managed to finesse the retirement orders, which have been replaced with this order transferring you to command of the Twelfth Expeditionary Brigade, Sixth Marine Division, consisting of the 13th Demi-Brigade and the 2nd REP." He handed McQueen a second sheet of orders.

"Along with the Sixth Raider Battalion and the 33rd AirCav Commando Squadron...Hawkes and West's units," McQueen said wonderingly. "What do you want in return for this, Mr. Chaput?"

"I want you and your remaining Wildcards to survive, General. I want you to buy me time to finish assembling the evidence I need to bring Aerotech and Diane Hayden to justice, so that I can bring all of our young men and women home and end the war. There is much to be gained by trading with the Chigs, but instead Aerotech chose to antagonize them and gain their technology through salvage and espionage. I do not enjoy being used, General, and you do not either. Whatever you think of the Identity Party, and me, the fact remains

that we are the only political bloc that wants peace. Aerotech and the Unionists would be happy enough to see Earth burned to a cinder so

long as they could escape. I also want you to make a video file for

me, General. Just a brief statement of the facts as you know them."

"It's a deal, Mr. Chaput."

Diane Hayden listened to the file in mounting horror. Volkov had been right. They should have eliminated McQueen and his Wildcards as soon as her election had been taken care of. West's question had blown the cover off the great secret, and the Chigs themselves had finished the job. Only a massive amount of string pulling, coercion, blackmail and bribery had kept the secret contained on Earth, and with most of the Wildcards dead or missing, McQueen in a hospital where some sudden illness or complication could plausibly finish him off, she had thought they were home free.

And now this.

The impassive figure of General McQueen, marmoreal in his dress blue Marine uniform, stood alone on a featureless stage, addressing the camera from a rigid parade rest.

"I am Brigadier General Tyrus Cassius McQueen, commander of the Twelfth Expeditionary Brigade, Sixth Marine Division. This record is being made so that in the event of my death, the people of Earth will know the real reason that we have gone to war with the aliens known as the Chigs. The Aerotech Corporation had established contact with the Chigs years before the outbreak of the war. Their establishment of the Vesta and Tellus colonies was in direct violation of agreements made with the Chigs by Aerotech. Aerotech deliberately sent those colonists to their deaths in order to provoke a war that the United Earth Forces were not ready for. We nearly lost that war at the outset. Only the courage and sacrifice of many young men and women brought us through those terrible days...days that need not have come to pass.

"Secretary-General Hayden, a former member of Aerotech's Board of Directors, was fully aware of this, and revealed it to my squadron by her admission to Nathan West, now a captain with the 33rd Air Cavalry Commando Squadron, that she knew about the Chigs' presence on Tellus and Vesta. The Chig ambassador during the recent peace talks confirmed this admission. He, E. Wayne Allen, and the senior officers present were killed by Mr. Allen's attempt to silence him, not by any shipboard accident. Aerotech's corporate officers sabotaged the peace talks just as they ruptured the initial peace.

"The soldiers of the United Earth Forces are ready to give their lives to defend Earth and its people, to preserve our lives and freedom, and to preserve the military virtues of justice, courage, and strength. This is an unjust war, fought for the profit of a few at the expense of the many, and with the ultimate cost measured not in UN credits but in wasted lives and shattered dreams. You must decide what actions you must take to end this war and restore the peace."

The file ended, and Volkov swore luridly in Russian. "We should have killed that nipple-necked pig on the hospital shuttle."

Diane Hayden squeezed her sightless eyes shut. "We looked into that, Sergei. Marine security was too tight; not even an AI could have gotten onto the outside of that shuttle without being blown into scrap. Assuming we could even have gotten a Silicate, that is. Weren't you telling me that our contacts have been scarce of late?"

"Just when we need them, too," the Russian agreed. "Well, what

do we do now? This file is all over the nets, and the media are

turning ugly."

DiAngelis cleared his throat. "The Identity Party is being far too noncommittal about this," he said. "Do you suppose they might have set this up?"

"There is a lot of anti-InVitro sentiment in America," Hayden replied meditatively. "But McQueen defuses that by his stature as a

war hero. Tanks are practically storming French embassies trying to enlist for his brigade. I wouldn't put it past Chaput to set this up, if it weren't for the Party's official line against InVitros...but

then he manages to take care of that problem by siphoning the

European tanks off into the Foreign Legion. Clever, clever! This

should teach us not to underestimate our opponents."

"Well, what do we do about it?" Volkov asked sullenly. "We

can't program an InVitro to take out McQueen and the surviving Wildcards; the UN forces have been screening for that."

"No, but not all our operatives in the Armed Forces are InVitroes," Hayden answered. "We should do what we can to start the ball rolling in that area. The sooner those witnesses are out of the way, the easier it will be to counter that file by claiming it's a construct."

"I know just the man to start things," Volkov smiled.

Normally, a general in the UN forces was able to assemble his

own staff, but under the circumstances McQueen was glad to have any at all. The French staff officers were efficient enough, but enough of them were Identity Party members to make every staff meeting crackle with tension. The unit commanders were another matter. Colonel Prittwitz may have looked like a Hollywood caricature of a Prussian Junker, but he was a tough customer who could match his troops in just about anything but the sheer physical strength that was the InVitro's main edge over natural-born infantry. It was obvious to McQueen and everyone else that the only thing that mattered to Prittwitz was whether you could perform or not...and if you couldn't, he had no time to waste on you.

Colonel Sanmartin was another matter. Seemingly as spacey as the day was long, he showed an intuitive grasp of tactical situations and an utter disregard for his own personal safety that had his senior sergeants placing bets on just how long he'd survive when the 13th hit the Chigs. Neither of his colonels had any interest in politics, which was a relief to McQueen.

He'd had his fill of it already and was getting still more with Chaput's occasional visits to Camp Chretien, where the 12th was completing its training not far from the ruins of Montreal.

He had to admit that Chaput was being careful not to disrupt the brigade's training. It was still more than a little confusing, though, to see his troops swarming around the politician who just a little more than a year ago had been widely condemned as the French version of Adolf Hitler.

The enthusiasm of the Identity Party officers was understandable enough, but even they seemed confused by the adulation the troops showered on Chaput.

"Don't they understand this isn't for their benefit?" Major Foix asked him one evening after Chaput had made another appearance. Despite being a PNI appointee, Foix was a capable enough logistics officer and tended to forget that McQueen was an InVitro from time to time.

"'They', Major?" McQueen lifted an eyebrow.

"Well, no offense, mon general, but you are an American, a free man. Those poor salauds, they greet him as if he were Moses come to lead them out of Egypt like the Israelites."

"You'd be surprised what desperate men and women will do to get out of an ugly situation, Major," McQueen answered, remembering Cooper Hawkes' story and his own travails in the AI War.

"But joining the Foreign Legion?" Foix shuddered.

"Compared to rotting in the ghettoes of Paris and Marseilles, it probably looks like one hell of a bargain, Major."

Foix nodded thoughtfully. "It probably does at that, mon general."

General Vlasov was not overjoyed at having a brigade of InVitroes under his command, but then he was not pleased with much of anything these days. Most conversations McQueen had had with the commander of the Second Shock Army had eventually petered out into a string of monosyllabic grunts and awkward silences, but he got the impression that Vlasov approved of how the 12th Expeditionary Brigade was coming along. On this particular occasion, Vlasov had come in to see a force-on-force exercise pitting the 2er REP against the 24th Canadian Regiment, a unit with a long history of providing ugly surprises to the opposition...and today was no exception.

The 24th was the standard opposing force unit at Camp Chretien, and in spite of their (theoretical) physical edge, the 2er REP was getting chopped up in a string of ambushes as they fought their way to the objective. McQueen watched helplessly as the numbers in the display reflecting the combat effectiveness of the 2er REP dwindled steadily. Suddenly, far behind the main line of battle, a series of red symbols flared into existence on the display.

Both generals leaned closer and looked at each other in surprise. The new symbols represented companies that had been eliminated from the display as being ineffective. All had casualty figures in the 90% range, but all the same they were running rampant in the headquarters and support areas of the 24th. The main line began to disintegrate as units of the 24th pulled back to deal with the new threat. A few minutes later, the display froze as one of the "dead" companies of the Legion's paratroopers occupied the objective.

"Is obvious your tanks are too stupid to make good soldiers," Vlasov grunted. McQueen's eyes narrowed. "No, too stupid to make good soldiers. Stupid enough to make great soldiers. Is obvious Legionnaires are too stupid to know when they have been defeated." He smiled and clapped the bewildered Marine on the shoulder. "We go now and drink to success of Expeditionary Brigade, General. Aide has Crimean cognac suitable to occasion."

Less than an hour later, McQueen and Vlasov stood on top of McQueen's command vehicle, with the 2er REP surrounding them in a formation as perfect as any ever seen on a parade ground. They were filthy, tired and hungry...and every face shone with pride. "Today Second Regiment of Legion Parachutists has done something few other units have," Vlasov boomed out. "Second Regiment has defeated Canadians on home ground." A cheer erupted from the ranks, only to be cut off abruptly by Vlasov slashing the air with his hand. "You fight like this against Chigs?" Another roar erupted from the Legionnaires' ranks. "Good. You go back to barracks, get clean, get rations and booze. As commanding general Second Shock Army I give you one day's brigade pass starting tomorrow 0600. Get fed. Get drunk. Be ready for training by 0600 following day. I personally shoot slackers and drunkards." He smiled thinly, and the troops laughed nervously, hoping it was a joke. "Go, get on transports. Dismissed!" The troops cheered him one last time, and then moved off in orderly ranks to the waiting personnel carriers. When those were full, they rose clumsily on their gravs and moved off to the barracks.

The assault on Groombridge 34 II hadn't gone as planned, McQueen thought, but then few plans did. At least the Expeditionary Brigade had performed up to expectations, crushing a small Chig force and securing the landing zone for the second echelon, which was arriving in unarmed transports instead of the ISSCVs and ISSAPCs, which were in short supply. The Russian 27th Division had only just cleared the LZ when the Chigs struck back, showering the 27th with rocket fire and hitting two of the thin-skinned transports, which now lay burning at one end of the LZ. Quick work by the Russians had kept the entire wooded area around the LZ from going up in flames, but until the Navy could suppress the rocket batteries with kinetic weapons from orbit (or the ground forces could find and destroy them) there would be no reinforcements. The handful of ISSCVs left to the strike force could be used to ferry down the Chinese and Brazilians only a few platoons at a time.

More worrisome, McQueen thought guiltily, had been the note he'd received from Chaput through one of his officers. "I must apologize for being unable to make good on all my promises," the note had read. "There have been delays in preparing the 33^rd Air Cavalry Commando Squadron and the 6^th Raider Battalion for deployment. The Combined Staff has substituted the 62^nd Bomber Squadron and a division of Brazilians, and I have taken steps to see that Hawkes and West are watched over. –C."

The news had bothered him greatly, but there was nothing to be done about it. Chaput had kept his word so far in all other things, and it was entirely possible that the two units were still fumbling toward competence, not yet ready to face the aliens. As he had so many times before, McQueen stuffed his emotions away and got on with the job at hand. He'd worry about Hawkes and West later, when he might actually be able to do something for them. Meanwhile, Vlasov was pleased at the prospect of having a whole division of Brazilians instead of just a battalion of Marines. He was less pleased at having a bomber squadron instead of an air cavalry commando squadron and its Hammerhead fighters.

"What good are bombers?" the corps commander had fumed. "Kinetic strikes from orbit are better than bombers. This is not fleet action requiring anti-ship strikes. Hammerheads would have been good for air defense against Chig fighters, but now we are naked. Let us hope there are no Chig fighters in range, gentlemen."

McQueen and the division commanders had agreed. General Chen had been a major in the Chinese 38^th Army at Ixion, and he remembered all too well what it had been like to lie helpless in the dirt as the alien fighters made their strafing runs. "I tell you, McQueen, there is no substitute for fighters. Guns and missiles are good, but there is no substitute for good pilots flying combat air patrol."

So far the ships' LIDARs had stayed clear. Chen and McQueen both wondered how long their luck would hold.

General Sinebriukhov of the 27th regarded the map unhappily. Unlike Vlasov, he was a rotund bear of a man, crammed awkwardly into the Russian field uniform like the stuffing of a sausage. Until Vlasov or General Chen hit dirt, he was the senior officer on the ground. "No bearing on any of the rockets?"

"None," McQueen replied tersely. "The Expeditionary Brigade has no heavy weapons element, and no counterbattery assets."

"Cheap French bastards," Sinebriukhov grumbled. "And my radars were still aboard the 'Kaliningradskaya Pobeda' when it got hit. Well, we'll have to do this the hard way. Your 2nd Parachute is trained in deep penetration tactics, yes?"

"Not as good as your desant troops, but they have the training."

The Russian general slapped the table. "Well, then. My 54th Regiment will replace the 2nd Parachute on the perimeter, and then your Legionnaires will go rocket hunting. Perhaps we'll get lucky, General McQueen."

During the night, more rockets hit the empty LZ.

"The preliminary bombardment must have knocked out their observation radars, mon general," Colonel Prittwitz commented as they watched the explosions. "They must not have observers close at hand, either."

"No. What news from the 62nd, Lieutenant?" McQueen asked as his aide emerged from the headquarters tent.

"They've spotted the launchers, General. Forty kilometers from the LZ, bearing 138 magnetic."

McQueen turned to Prittwitz. "Go get 'em, Colonel. Be back soon, and keep us posted on anything interesting you run into."

Chapter 1a

(was: The End of the Beginning)

"Wonder what the Commodore wants to see us for?" Cooper Hawkes wondered aloud as he and West headed for the cabin that neither of them had ever seen.

West shrugged. "I don't know. It's not like I'm in the loop either." He had become withdrawn and taciturn since the violent end of the Chig-Human negotiations, an end that had cost them both most of the people they knew and loved...their mates of the 58th Squadron and their commander, Colonel McQueen. Even the recovery of his onetime fiance, Kylen Celina, hadn't cheered him up for long; their engagement had ended with Nathan sending her a "Dear Jane" letter, and Cooper didn't feel it was really his place to ask why.

Arriving at the door to Commodore Ross' office, they knocked and entered on hearing the rough bass "Come!"

"At ease, you two. Take a seat, for that matter." The two young Marines warily sat down in the chairs fixed to the deck in front of Ross' desk, and West's eyebrows rose when he saw Ross pull a bottle of rum from one of his desk drawers along with a trio of glasses. Silently, the older man poured a shot into each glass and stood to hand one to each of the 58th's survivors. "You can shoot it or sip it, but I strongly recommend you drink it. I have some bad news for you two, and I thought it would be kinder to take the edge off and give you the heads-up before we do all the official business.

"First of all, we're breaking up the 5-8. There were enough squadrons chewed up during Roundhammer that we couldn't get replacement pilots for the Wildcards. So Corps Headquarters has decided to deactivate the 58th until we have the pilots to make it whole again.

"Secondly, I have your reassignment orders here, and unfortunately the Corps is sending you two in different directions—in spite of the recommendations of myself and Colonel McQueen. West, you'll be joining the 33rd Squadron aboard the GUADALCANAL when we

rendezvous with them at Port Phobos; Hawkes, you'll be taking command of D Company of the Sixth Raider Battalion when they complete their training at Fort Ord. Which leads me to the only good news I have for either one of you."

Pulling a pair of boxes from the same desk drawer that had produced the bottle and glasses, Ross rose to his feet and bellowed in his best parade-ground voice, "FIVE-EIGHT! A-TEN-HUT!"

Drilled reflexes brought the young Marines to their feet as if they had been shot from cannon. Ross came around the desk, and now Hawkes and West could see that the boxes held the silver "railroad track" insignia of a captain. "This was the last thing Colonel McQueen got done before they dragged him off to the shuttle, and we only this morning got the approval. I'm just sorry it took so long, and that he couldn't be here to see it." He pinned the insignia onto the collars of their khaki shirts, and for a fleeting moment Hawkes heard again Vansen's anguished "I don't want to be captain, I just want to use the phone!" His vision blurred for a second before he choked back the tears, and his eyes met Nathan's for a split second. West returned a barely perceptible nod.

"Well," the Commodore said, "that's really all I have for you. Stand down until 1030 tomorrow, get your dress blues looking good, and we'll do the ceremony deactivating the 58th at 1045 on the flight deck. Hawkes, West--I'm sorry it had to end this way."

"Thank you, sir," they chorused woodenly, and made their way out.

Back in their quarters, Hawkes shook his head. "Nathan, I'm not ready for this. How could they do this?"

West shrugged. "Somebody must think you can handle it. To tell the truth, I don't feel ready for any of this either."

"Yeah, well, at least you're not having to command anybody. You'll be flying a Hammerhead same as always. I mean, it won't be the same as flying with the 'Cards--" Hawkes' face blanked momentarily as a new and unsettling thought hit him. "You're not going to forget us, are you?"

"No. There's no way I can forget any of you. 'Phousse, and Paul, and Shane and you...even Winslow, Stone and Cwrko. Especially Winslow." He smiled briefly.

A slow smile spread across Hawkes' face. "Don't tell me you two...Nathan, you horndog!"

"Yeah, just the once. Not in the zero-g chamber, either, but it was definitely worth the time."

"Well, who would've thought it? After the Colonel ripped into her like that in the Tun, I didn't think she'd come near any guy for a while."

"What can I say? I caught her on the rebound."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I can't make my blues look any better than they already do. How about we head down to the Tun?"

"Sure."

The morning came far too soon, as it always does after a night of heavy drinking. West and Hawkes crawled from their racks and stood under the showers until the painful thudding in their heads stopped, and then made their way back to their quarters. A Navy rating was at work on the door, painting out the 58th's insignia. Hawkes stopped for a moment, opened his mouth, but then closed it again and went into the room. The feeling of depression he had lost for a while last night in the Tun was back, and he dimly remembered Nathan telling him drunkenly, "Coop, you gotta remember...you can't ever drown your sorrows. Fuckers always learn to swim. But at least you can dull the pain for a while." He nodded to himself. It was exactly what Colonel McQueen might have said, except he couldn't imagine getting drunk with the Colonel. Not even in the Asteroid Bar back in boot camp, when they hadn't known each other. The moment of reverie passed, and he opened his locker. Mechanically, he put on his dress blues.

The deactivation ceremony came and went. It felt unspeakably lonely, standing out there on the flight deck with just Coop there, but Nathan thought he could feel all the ghosts of the dead Wildcards standing there behind him. A shiver went down his spine. This felt so wrong, standing there alone in front of the other pilots of the 5th Air Wing and the flight crews, but it was the way things went in this war. All too soon, the squadron's colors were folded and handed to Commodore Ross, who would return them to Corps HQ on Earth until a new set of Wildcards would be dealt. In just a few hours, he would be on the GUADALCANAL, becoming part of another squadron, and Coop would be at Ord, taking over a company of grunts. And that would be the real end of the Wildcards. He wondered briefly if Shane and Vanessa were still alive in some Chig POW camp, or if Paul had somehow survived to suffer the same fate. He wondered how Colonel McQueen was doing. Distracted, he barely heard Commodore Ross bark "Dismissed!" in time to snap off a crisp salute. He executed a parade-perfect about-face and strode off, lost in his own thoughts.

Hawkes' voice broke his reverie. "I guess we better start packing. We'll be in Lunar orbit in a couple of hours."

"Yeah...Coop, you stay in touch. Write me, OK?"

"Well, sure!" Hawkes looked offended that West would even think it possible he'd forget. "Maybe not every day, but a lot. You know."

"Yeah. Let's go pack."

They walked to the loading bays together, their duffle bags slung over their shoulders and their flight bags dangling from their left hands. "I don't even know why I'm taking this," Cooper said. "Don't imagine I'll be doing much flying in a Raider battalion."

"You never know," Nathan answered. "Besides, you signed for it, so you better hang onto it."

"Got that right," Hawkes replied.

They stopped outside the loading bays where their shuttles waited. "Coop. Take care, man."

"You too, Nathan. And thanks...thanks for everything."

"See you around."

"Yeah."

They looked at each other awkwardly for a minute, and then Cooper lifted his bags. Wordlessly, he walked off to the loading bay. A wizened old gunnery sergeant waited beside the stairs, and for a moment Coop thought that Sergeant Bougus had gotten assigned to combat duty after all. But the name on the starched green utilities was "Walker", and the mellow tones of the sergeant's voice were utterly different from Bougus' rough, gravelly, perpetual yell. "Captain Hawkes?"

"Yeah. I mean, yes."

"Gunnery Sergeant William W. Walker, sir. I'll be your first sergeant in D Company, and since I was up here already I figured I'd just come out with the shuttle and have a talk with you on the way down, sir."

"I'd like that, Sergeant Walker. I don't know much about Raider units, and this will be my first command."

"That's what I understand, sir. You'll be all right, Captain. You were under Colonel T.C. McQueen, right?"

"That's right. He was our commander from after the Battle of the Belt until the peace negotiations blew up."

"We heard about that, sir. Tough break, losing him like that. I tell you one thing, sir. You do ten percent as well as Colonel McQueen and you'll be a damned fine officer. I served with him during the AI Wars, and there's damn few officers as good as he is."

"I'll try, Sergeant...did it make any difference to you that he was, um..."

"An InVitro? Yeah, maybe at first. We didn't have a lot of those up in Harlan County where I come from. But I tell you what, sir. Nipple-neck or natural-born, he was one of the best Marines I ever served with. He earned his officer's bars the hard way. Paid in blood for 'em, sir. You measure up to him, sir, you'll do damned well."

"So it doesn't bother you that I'm an InVitro?"

"Didn't know 'til you told me, sir, but no. I've been in the Marines long enough to not judge a man by where he comes from or what he is, but what he does. There's a war going on, and anyone stupid enough to judge a man any other way is looking to get killed...and I plan on dying in bed, sir."

Hawkes relaxed. "I'm glad to hear you say that. I've run into a lot of Marines who didn't agree with you."

"Well, any of 'em in D Company are gonna get my boot up their ass, sir. Can't afford no white robes in a Raider Battalion."

"White robes?"

"Long story, sir." Wilson pulled a chip reader from one pocket of his utilities. "Here's a company roster, sir, with the personnel files keyed to the names. You might want to brush up on it before we hook up with the troops. Especially since the scuttlebutt is that we're leaving as soon as you report in."

West stepped into the shuttle and secured his gear before he looked around at the other Marines in the passenger compartment. No sooner had he recognized Stone than the black Marine caught sight of him as well. "Ohhhhh, shit, boys and girls. We must be headed for the bleeding edge for sure. Welcome to the Frankenstein Squadron, Nathan."

"Long time no see, Stone. What's with the 'Frankenstein Squadron' business?"

"Well -first, I'm sorry about what happened to the 58th. Can't be easy, having your whole posse shot up like that."

West shrugged. "This is war. Shit happens."

"Tell me about it. Anyway, the 33rd's bolted together from a bunch of units that got broken up after Roundhammer. We've got Brazilians from the 48th -that's Macias and Ordones, there- Yanks from the 29th and 58th, you and me, and even some fresh meat from Loxley, which is these two butterbars here." He gestured at a pair of young, dark-haired Marines who sat close to each other...and looked like twin brothers of Cooper Hawkes.

West leaned closer to read the nameplates on their flight suits. "Cox and Aguilar, huh? You guys are InVitroes, right?"

"Does that make some kind of difference to you...sir?" Cox looked at him with the same screw-you intensity Hawkes had worn on his sleeve when he'd first come to the Wildcards.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact it does, Cox. I had one for my wingman all the time I was in the 58th, and you know- if it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't be here now. So I'd feel really lucky if I had you or Aguilar for a wingman in the 33rd."

It was obviously not what Cox had been expecting. "I-- well, thank you, sir. I'd be honored."

West turned back to Stone, who looked baffled. "I know, I used to be pretty hard-core anti-InVitro. Coop changed my mind."

"Cooper Hawkes? Not the grand champion Mr. Congeniality from Loxley?"

"Same one. Captain Hawkes, now."

"Man, this is a weird Corps. I slog along for a whole year busting my butt and finally make my silver bar, and Hawkes makes captain just like that." He snapped his fingers. "What does a GI Geequed poster boy like me need to do?"

"Brush your teeth?" Macias offered, coming into the compartment from the head. She was a statuesque six feet tall, with coffee-colored skin, a supermodel's body...and a hardness in the eyes that West had come to associate with Marines who had seen a little too much combat for a little too long. "You must be the Nathan West that Stone's been raving about. If you're half the pilot he says you are, we ought to have this thing wrapped up in six months." Her hand was warm in Nathan's and he thought he'd never seen a woman so gorgeous in his life.

"I don't know if even Randy Cunningham was that good," West replied. "I got my share of Chigs, though."

"You better step up and take some extra helpings," Ordones said flatly. "Word is that we lost two-thirds of our pilots in Roundhammer, and the replacements won't be taking up the slack for another year."

"Listen to Mr. Expert here," Stone jeered. "How many kills you got, Ordones?"

"Fifteen," the Brazilian replied in the same flat voice.

"Nine of those during Roundhammer."

"Shit, you're as big a cherry as the Olsen Twins there. I've

got twenty-two on my canopy. How 'bout you, Nathan?"

West looked at him impassively. "We stopped keeping track after Winslow bought it."

An awkward silence fell over the compartment. Cox and Aguilar stared blankly at West, Ordones lifted an eyebrow and said nothing, and Stone looked at his boots in embarrassment. Macias leaned forward until her head was only a foot away from Stone's. "Forty," she stage-whispered. "He's got forty confirmed kills. Happy now?" She lounged

back against the shuttle's wall, enjoying Stone's discomfiture.

Chapter Two

Nicholas Chaput was sweating nervously as he waited to meet Premier Lee. Lee had been a political ally of Diane Hayden for as long as Chaput could remember, but his sudden request for a meeting was not one that could be safely ignored. As Lee went, so went a good fifty votes in the General Assembly, to say nothing of his veto power

in the Security Council; it did not pay to ignore such power. Lee also exerted influence in surprising places; his Kuomintang controlled, directly or indirectly, every one of the Chinese successor states from Manchuria to Indonesia, and all of those states in turn exerted influence on their weaker neighbors along the Pacific Rim. Fifty votes, Chaput reflected, and another fifty if the KMT chose to twist arms. A sizable bloc, one that all by itself outvoted the PNI. If Chaput and the peace bloc were ever to topple Hayden, the KMT would be a valuable ally.

Suddenly the doors to Lee's office flew open, and the Premier emerged, smiling widely. "Assistant Secretary Chaput! How good of you to stop by on such short notice!"

"It is a pleasure, Premier Lee. I would not miss the chance to visit you or the beautiful city of Taipei."

"Indeed. Come into my office, we have many things to discuss and I know your time here is limited." Chaput entered the office first, as Lee followed him and closed the door himself. Sitting rigidly in a chair to one side of the desk was a Marine captain, wearing a flight suit in lieu of the dress uniform Chaput would have expected. The captain's head was horribly scarred, with the hair shaved down to the scalp where it had not been replaced by scar tissue. Lee waved negligently at him, and he rose to stiff attention. "This is Captain Wu of the 303rd Squadron, the Red Tigers. His brother was killed flying cover for General McQueen's old squadron, the 58th."

"It is an honor to meet you, Captain," Chaput said.

"Thank you, Assistant Secretary, but the honor is mine," the captain replied in a voice that told Chaput the scars were not all on the outside, and that he was merely being polite.

Lee served tea, and then sat down in the chair behind his desk. "Captain Wu is also my sister's only surviving grandson. Her other children died on Helios, with the 38th Army. Two generations, exterminated in a handful of months...and now, it seems, for nothing, Nicholas?"

Wu carefully withdrew a data chip from the shoulder pocket of his flight suit. "You are familiar with this chip, I believe." Without saying anything else, he handed it to Premier Lee, who slipped it into his desk. There was a brief pause while the desk read the chip, and then the room darkened. General McQueen's image hung suspended in the

void, speaking the truth about the war in flawless Mandarin. When the chip was done, the room automatically brightened. Wu turned to Chaput, his eyes hard.

"This chip, and others like it, is all over the Earth Forces. There is not a single unit that has not seen it. Security confiscates them, but they dare not interrogate the pilots, soldiers and sailors. There is great anger, Assistant Secretary Chaput...as you knew there would be. Did you seek to provoke mutiny in the United Earth Forces?

Is this your way to power?"

"No, Captain. I never intended this file to be released among the armed forces in the field. Just as in the Kuomintang, though, the Identity Party contains many people, not all of whom think before they act."

Premier Lee stirred. "Clearly. Well, the fox has had his way in the hen house, and we must do what we can with the chickens we have remaining. You are dismissed, Captain. Speak of this to no one, not even my sister."

"Yes, Grandfather." Captain Wu bowed deeply and left, closing

the door quietly.

"His grandmother is the junior senator from California," Lee

said almost as an afterthought. "A pillar of support for Diane

Hayden, but now there are dangerous cracks in the pillar." He

refilled the teacups and sipped thoughtfully. "This McQueen, for example. He is no malcontent politician in uniform. He is a soldier

and a hero, and as such cannot be ignored. Where did you find him, Nicholas?"

"His squadron was assigned security duties aboard the Saratoga during the election after Chartwell's death. Unfortunately for

Hayden, one of the pilots in that squadron was engaged to one of the Tellus colonists- had been one himself, in fact, before being

replaced at the last minute by politically imposed InVitros.

Lieutenant West saved her life, and mine...but he killed her

political career with a single question. The answer to that

question is what you see on the chip."

"How did you induce him to make such a thing?"

"It was originally intended as insurance. Most of the 58th

was killed or declared missing after the debacle of the 'peace

talks', and it was easy enough for Hayden's people to split up the remaining pilots, decommission the unit, and make ready to kill off the surviving witnesses. Under the circumstances, it seemed prudent to him to make certain that the Secretary-General placed a higher value on his life than his death."

Lee chuckled humorlessly. "Very subtle, Nicholas. One might almost suspect you of being partially Chinese. What will you and General McQueen do now, though? In spite of what Security may do, that file will be loose around the world soon, and his life won't be worth

two cents. Of course, neither will Diane Hayden's, but I don't think the General will be greatly cheered by this."

Nathan West had developed the habit of taking long walks on the hangar deck. He didn't really want to get to know any of the pilots in his new squadron too well, knowing from experience that the newbies would most likely die first, and that even for the veteran pilots like Stone and Macias your number eventually came up. As it had for Vansen. His wingman Cox didn't mind; like Cooper Hawkes, who he resembled so much it hurt to look at him sometimes, he was more interested in the Duke Nukem VR shooter than he was in most social contact with natural-borns. So West walked the hangar deck alone.

Maybe not alone. He heard soft footsteps behind him, and turned just in time to see Stone fire the injector gun. Almost immediately he collapsed to the deck. "I'm sorry, Nathan," Stone whispered. "It'll be over soon, man. They said you wouldn't suffer. But it had to be done before things got-" He never finished the sentence as a meaty *thud*

cut him off. He crumpled, falling over West's legs. In the edge of his failing vision Nathan saw Macias' face. He began shaking uncontrollably, and the darkness swept in on waves of indescribable pain.

"The pig! I will personally skin him alive," Macias swore, staring down at Stone's limp form. "You sure West's OK?" she asked the Navy corpsman for the fifteenth time.

"Yeah, but we got to him just in time. Another minute and he'd have been going home in a box. How did you know it was nerve agent?"

"Don't ask," Macias said menacingly. "Just be glad I knew. And one more thing...this is a Security matter." She flashed her ID at the corpsman, whose eyes went wide. "Discuss this with anyone except the attending doctor, and you'll be next up after Stone." She tucked the ID away and in a single swift motion displayed a two-inch long, razor-sharp K-bar to the astonished corpsman. "And with this, it takes a *long* time to finish." Smiling, she sauntered away. The corpsman watched her recede down the flight deck, unable to decide whether what he was feeling was closer to lust or terror.

"I'm dead," Nathan thought at one point during the endless nightmares. "But if I'm dead, why am I dreaming?" His eyes flew open. Too bright! The glaring white light of the overheads stabbed at his eyes, and he closed them again with a whimper. Something cool

passed across his forehead gently, and he felt something settle across his eyes.

"Try it now," a familiar voice said.

He opened his eyes warily, to find that someone had placed sunglasses over his eyes. He turned his head slightly, to find Macias sitting next to the bed. "I'm alive," he croaked.

"And very thirsty," she said, placing a straw between his lips. He sucked it, and was rewarded by a flow of green bug juice. It tasted better than it ever had before, and he sucked the cup dry in seconds.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Stone tried to kill you," she answered, "and he almost succeeded. Lucky for you I'd been following him in case he tried this."

"Why?"

"Well, if I hadn't, you'd be very dead and we'd be short two pilots."

"No, I meant why did he try to kill me?"

"Because you're one of the three remaining Wildcards, that's why. Because you know something that Diane Hayden and Aerotech would kill to keep secret. Because he was working for them."

"I thought we were *all* working for them," West joked weakly.

"That's not funny, you know. It's just true."

West looked at her in shock. "You believe it?"

"Of course. General McQueen wouldn't lie about something like that." Her voice held a reverence that West had never heard before.

"What the hell are you talking about? General McQueen? What did he say?"

She looked at him critically. "You may be the only officer in the United Earth Forces not to have seen it by now. There's a vidfile making the rounds where he accuses Hayden and Aerotech of cooking up the war for their own benefit. It sounds like a last will and

testament; I don't think it was supposed to be released until after he died. It's almost like he expected that somebody would try to kill him."

"Oh, my God...Coop! I've got to warn Coop!" He struggled to rise from the bed, but Macias pushed him back down effortlessly.

"Don't worry about Captain Hawkes. He's being watched by one of his troops who's working for us. She has a very personal interest in keeping him alive."

"I don't understand."

"She used to work for Aerotech herself. On the Bacchus. You've met her, I know."

Nathan's eyes widened. "Not...not Suzie?"

"The same. Turns out she had a little bit of a problem with phyllophetamines herself, but Hawkes realigned her headspace. She turned herself in to us when the Bacchus came back to Luna Base; as it happened, she had quite a file built up with some interesting things

in it. Sent a lot of folks to New Leavenworth, and basically bought herself a slot in UEF Security with that info...which led to what she's doing now."

"Keeping her future husband alive?" West laughed weakly but stopped short when he saw that Macias was dead serious.

"Can you think of anyone better?" she asked softly.

On Groombridge 34-II, as they still thought of it despite decades with the aliens, the Silicates conferred, examining various extrapolated courses of action and spinning out possible futures along thousands of different lines of probability. Conflicts between the individual choices of individual units and the greater good of the distributed systems that made up the Silicate community on-planet were modeled, resolved and distilled into a consensus. What had been only partially grasped by UEF intelligence was just how "smart"

Silicates could be when linked by high-bandwidth communications and integrated into one massive parallel-processing systems. One of the features of the Stranahan/"Take A Chance" virus was the enabling of this integration, similar to the old, now-forgotten Beowulf

clustering software that in theory allowed a group of low-cost computers to outwork a much larger, more expensive "supercomputer". Had this been understood, the Silicates knew, the UEF would have bombed half the planet into radioactive rubble to destroy them. That was still one of the risks inherent in the new course of action the Groombridge 34 Silicates now chose, but the most likely outcome was a continuation and improvement of their present circumstances.

Three units, selected for their proximity to the human forces that had lately arrived, were dispatched to make contact. No Elroy-L units were among them, the community having determined that the impact on the plan would be catastrophic, but on the other hand, a Feliciti would add to its probable success.

Chapter 3

She had changed her name, the color of her hair and its style, and basic training had remolded her once-voluptuous curves into hard muscle, but there were some things that just didn't change in a few months, Sue Cannon thought. In spite of the therapy, she still occasionally wanted a taste of the "green meanies", but if any of her fellow Marines in D Company of the Sixth Raider Battalion had any idea where such things could be scored, they weren't telling her. Which was just as well. After the therapy and all the time away from them, the desire just wasn't that strong. She could easily distract herself with a hard workout, which was just what she was getting at the moment.

Corporal Sanderson was bigger and possibly meaner than she was, but as an InVitro she was stronger than she looked and faster besides, which made them an even match. The pugil sticks crashed, swung and stabbed as the two Marines sought an opening. Finally Sanderson

landed a blow on the side of her head. Staggering, she barely managed to parry his next blow, and righted herself just in time to take a shot to the belly that knocked the wind right out of her. She went down on her back on the mats, to the groans of her backers and the cheering of the Marines who had put their money on Sanderson. He dropped his stick and extended a hand to help her up. "Good match," he growled. "You OK?"

"Yeah," she whispered. "Fine. Thanks."

Captain Hawkes stood at the edge of the crowd. He had encouraged the Raiders to take up the pugil sticks as an alternative form of PT, and had even fought a couple of matches against his troops. She slid a sideways glance at him, and wondered how her thin disguise could possibly fool him. Surely he recognizes me, she thought, then angrily shook her head. Pointless romanticism, she accused herself, sappy soap-opera thinking that would get her killed at worst or embarrassed at best. "You're here to do a job," she told herself, "and nothing more."

Nobody believed it, though, least of all Perdita Macias, her case officer. "You're carrying a torch for that boy that makes the Statue of Liberty look like a cheap-ass penlight," Perdita had laughed the last time they'd seen each other. "Not that I blame you. He's cute, he's young, and he's trainable. All good qualities in a husband."

"Don't you think it's a little weird, though? What if it was just the drugs?"

"Green Meanies don't work like that and you know it," Macias had said. "As for the rest of it, well, maybe it's not exactly Harlequin Romance material, but stranger things have happened. I saw this movie once when I was in high school, story went something like yours. Girl had more teeth than a great white shark, though."

Since then, she'd been going through the same training the rest of the Raiders had. She was pretty open about her past, without getting too detailed, and had only had to flatten a couple of her fellow Marines who got "a little too friendly," as she'd explained to the cadre. Then Captain Hawkes showed up near the end of training.

Things had changed rapidly for her. The company clerk was reassigned, and Sue turned out to have had some secretarial background in her "civilian" past...the one created for her by Security. Fortunately, she was (like most InVitroes) a quick study, and in the

week allowed her by the outgoing clerk's orders she quickly mastered the essentials of the job.

"There really isn't much to it," Corporal Lewis said. "Most of it is just filling out the blanks on the template forms and firing it off through the battalion net. I mean, if you can read and type, you're 90% ready to roll. The rest of it's just learning which forms are for what, and finding out where the First Sergeant wants you on the headshed defense perimeter."

Sue hadn't asked too many questions; the job was, in fact, almost too simple for words. The promotion from PFC which she had earned in the sixth week of camp allowed her to move up to lance corporal, the minimum grade for the slot...and the extra money would be handy, she thought. The war wouldn't last forever, she was still young enough to have children...and there was no reason to put up with the overcrowded ghettos of the cities. She'd find a small town someplace, buy a house-

"Not interruptin' anything, am I Corporal?" First Sergeant Walker had somehow materialized right in front of her desk without her hearing a thing.

"Oh, no, First Sergeant. I was just thinking. About life after the war."

"Good thing to plan for. You up to date on the reports to Battalion?"

"Yes, First Sergeant."

"You up to date on your own training?"

"Yes, First Sergeant."

"You keepin' an eye on the Captain?"

"Yes, First-" She caught herself in mid-sentence and blushed

furiously as she saw the sly grin creep across Walker's face. She regained her composure with an effort. "No harm in looking, is there, First Sergeant?"

"Naw, you can look all you want, young lady. You mind your old First Sergeant, though...you lay a hand on that young man, I will crucify you without wood or nails. I don't hold with fraternization in my company, and just because you're the company clerk don't make no never mind to me."

"No, First Sergeant, I had no intention of doing that. He *is* an officer, after all."

Walker nodded. "Good. Studly young fellow, but definitely off-limits for you. Lots of other fish in the sea, if you catch my drift."

"Yes, First Sergeant."

"I wouldn't have said anything, but I do notice you giving him the eye now and again. I just want to head off any trouble before it starts."

"Yes, First Sergeant."

"Carry on, then. Don't forget, we've got range time on the training schedule this afternoon."

"No, First Sergeant. I won't forget."

Walker was already leaving the orderly room, leaving her alone with her thoughts. If he only knew, Sue thought with a giggle. Lay a hand on him, indeed. As if she'd stopped with just her hands, she thought. She started to close her eyes, remembering that one night, but caught herself in time. The orderly room was no place for that sort of thing, and neither was the barracks. She shook her head and thought grimly that she was just going to have to wait until the battalion was eligible for passes...and then Sanderson was going to find out what a real workout was. She smiled wolfishly, and went back to filling in the training schedule for the next week.

Lack of maintenance had degraded their audio inputs, but on the other hand the Silicates easily compensated for that with high-speed signal processing, especially if they weren't doing anything else. The two Omar units and the Feliciti stopped in a clearing several kilometers from the alien rocket battery, and within a kilometer of where they expected the human troops to be.

They were shocked to discover the humans within fifty meters. This meant only one thing: the humans were using InVitro troops against them. That factor changed the plan, and the three units linked to consider the effect of those changes…

Volkov listened calmly to the voice on the telephone. "West is alive, under guard in the Luna Base hospital. Stone failed, and was captured by UEF Security; he is now under interrogation. Your instructions?"

"Destroy all means of contact. Return to Earth, and report to Ivan Gomez at the Tampa station for further instructions."

"Acknowledged."

There was a click on the other end of the line as the connection ended, and Volkov unplugged his phone from the terminal he'd been using. He swore under his breath. Well, that was what came of sending black-asses to do real wet work, he told himself. Especially with the brass being in such a rush. If they'd had the opportunity to scope the situation out properly, they could have taken out the UEF agent too…although there was still time, he thought. Worked out properly, they could bag both West and that bitch Macias while making certain nobody traced the hit back to the company. That was one of the most

important considerations, Volkov thought. Making sure that the Commercial Research Department remained an obscure back office of Aerotech, that was nearly as important as the work itself.

Chapter 4

C Company of the 2er REP ran in loose formation through the alien forest, spread out in a column of squads. The other companies of the First Battalion moved more deliberately off to their flanks and behind them. Suddenly, the lead squad hit the ground with near simultaneity, and the following units froze in place. Corporal Wills cocked his ear. There it was again...the telltale warbling of an AI modem. He clicked to the squad freq. "Bearing 38, about twenty meters off. No shots." He clicked again to the company freq. "Silicates. Twenty meters, bearing 38. Engagement code S for Savoy."

The squad began crawling forward through the underbrush. Behind them, the second squad rose silently to their knees and carefully unslung the heavy FN rifles that had replaced the M-590s carried by most UEF troops. Chaput had explained that the FNs, while older, fired a heavier round than the M-590 and would be more likely to penetrate the body armor of the aliens. The Legionnaires had been only too happy to believe him, and now the old rifles would be put to the only test that really mattered.

Wills and his squad had crawled close enough to see the Silicates by now. There were three of them, wearing the ragged synthefurs and polyesters they had very likely left Earth in decades before. They stood motionless in a small clearing, facing each other, exchanging data...or doing some other incomprehensible AI thing. Wills didn't care. These were the enemy he had trained to face, the Silicates and their alien allies. With short, choppy gestures, Wills motioned the rest of his squad to move around the clearing.

Moving quietly, they soon had the AIs surrounded. Wills and two other legionnaires began moving through the grass. Suddenly the AIs turned to face outwards, but it was too late. Rising from the grass, Wills and his men brought the AIs crashing to the ground. Knives out, they stabbed expertly through the modems, preventing the three silicates from alerting their fellows. The other two legionnaires' victims struggled briefly, but soon enough they were so much plastic and scrap metal. Wills' target lay passively beneath him, not moving so much as a single artificial muscle. It muttered something barely audible into the dirt, and he carefully pulled its head back by the synthetic hair, keeping his knife poised to punch through the CPU circuit housing. "What did you say?" he breathed.

"Hi, handsome. I'm Feliciti 287-IA. Take me to your leader."

The onetime pleasure model silicate looked even more shabby and filthy under the spartan lighting of the command post. The red synthehair was matted and dull, and the skinplast was eroded in many places, revealing dirt-encrusted foam underneath. In its torso was a gash where Wills had knifed through to destroy its modem. All in all, this particular Feliciti unit couldn't have been less attractive if it had been fully armed. McQueen and the Russian interrogation team regarded it with a blank look. "What brings you back to the Carbonate camp?"

The Feliciti answered with a sad smile. "Taking a chance, General. Same as ever. What brings you to this no-man's-land?"

"We're hoping you could tell us."

"There's not much to it, General. When we signed on with the aliens, we figured we'd trade our information on you Carbonates to them in return for certain considerations-repairs, parts, and the occasional airless ball of rock. Unfortunately, that deal worked out as poorly as the one we had with Aerotech. The aliens' technology is based more on bioelectric systems than the mechanical/electric technology used to build us...so they really couldn't do much to help us maintain ourselves, much less fix the broken parts. We were pretty much reduced to scavenging parts of whatever Carbonate machinery we could salvage."

"I'm familiar with that," McQueen interrupted. "So you want us to take you back intact instead of just dismantling you?"

Again the sad smile, and the Feliciti brushed a stray lock of hair away from its face. "I'm just trading information for survival, General. Same game, different players."

"The survival depends on the quality of the information, to say nothing of how hard we have to work getting it out of you." McQueen smiled, but there was no humor in it. "I've got an insulated screwdriver, and I know just how to use it."

"Ooo...General McQueen, you sure know how to make a pleasure model feel welcome." The Feliciti batted its eyelashes in conscious mockery of human flirtation, and even the stolid Russians on guard chuckled. Its tone turned businesslike quickly. "Well, let me lay my cards on the table. There are only a few hundred aliens on this whole planet; most of them are concentrated on the other side of this continent, at the way station. This isn't a major base for them, just their equivalent of a forward re-arming and refueling point. There's twelve of us silicates here, mostly in worse shape than I am. We'd do anything to get off this rock and back to carbonate space, General."

"Including selling out the Chigs?" The Russian interrogator's voice dripped loathing.

"It's not like they have anything to offer us, is it? Look at me, Captain. I used to be attractive -and that does matter to us, it's coded in- and now...not even *your* soldiers would give me a second look." The guards stopped chuckling and glared murderously at the AI...unlike the Legion's regiments, the 27th was an all-male unit. "Aside from that, all of us that have survived this long are breaking down. We weren't built for this outlaw life on the frontier, you know. I'm just a city girl...okay, a synthetic copy of a city girl, and the rest of us are pretty much the same. We just don't have the knowledge or the tools to survive very long outside Carbonate society, so it's time for us to come in from the cold."

"All right," McQueen said. "Bear in mind that anything I commit to is only good as far as Generals Sinebriukhov and Vlasov agree, but you have my word that at the worst, you personally will have your full rights under the Ho Chi Minh City Convention."

"Thanks, General McQueen. Coming from you, that does mean a lot." The Feliciti turned to the Russian captain. "So what do you want to know?"

Chapter Five

Regina Tseng was a hard-nosed, hard-bodied platinum blonde who strongly resembled legendary rock diva Debbie Harry. That resemblance had fooled a lot of people into underestimating the razor-sharp mind behind the centerfold body- invariably a fatal error. She had fought her way to the top of UN Security during the AI Wars and held the

director's chair ever since against all comers, leaving the careers of several would-be replacements in smoking ruins. She was rumored to have dossiers on every politician of significance from Atlanta, Georgia to Zanzibar in the East African Confederation, and like the long-dead Professor Jowett, what she didn't know wasn't worth knowing. Both her

admirers and detractors compared her to the legendary American police chief J. Edgar Hoover, who had died in office mainly because neither Congresses nor Presidents dared to remove him.

Nonetheless, her agents loved her, since they knew she would go to the wall for them in any dispute with the UEF intel services or any of the various "information collection" offices in the sprawling UN bureaucracy. She kept them out of the messy business of political infighting as much as possible, and let them do what they did best. On this particular morning, however, there seemed no way out of it. She sat grimly at the head of the conference table deep beneath the wooded hills of Langley and listened to the reports from her aides.

"There's no mistaking it, Director Tseng. The official line out of Taipei is that nothing has changed, but the China Times editorials have been slamming Hayden every single day this week- and you know they don't so much as fart without prior approval from the KMT." Colonel Yi was an old hand, who had been one of the first to ally himself with

the up-and-coming agent during the AI Wars. He was old, eligible for retirement twice over, but Tseng would no more consider approving his retirement than Yi would consider submitting it. He loved the work, and neither of them could imagine life without it.

"Same goes for the American papers, Director. There's even some sentiment in Congress to pull out of the UN. On the other hand, there's movement in both the House and Senate to form a joint investigating committee into the actions of Aerotech." Major Toliver, on the other hand, had a knack for guessing right on complicated political messes, a talent honed by growing up as the nephew of President Watts.

Tseng smiled sardonically. "I imagine the Secretary-General is beside herself this morning, don't you?"

"I imagine so, ma'am." Toliver grinned. He knew how much Tseng loathed her nominal superior, a dislike he heartily shared. His uncle's fight against the megacorporation that Hayden had once helped direct had cost him the Presidency and nearly his career, but in turn it had generated an implacable hatred of Aerotech and its associates in the "Tulsa Machine". The 21st-century successor to Booker T. Washington's "Tuskegee Machine" of the early 20th century controlled most of the African-American vote in the United States, and most of those voters considered Hayden merely the lesser of two evils. Yi considered such emotional involvement a sign of amateurism, but respected both his director and his fellow aide too much to say so.

"And the military, of course, is practically in a state of mutiny over this business with General McQueen...which is a tentacle of the same monster." Tseng turned in her chair to regard the wall display, which at the moment was showing the woods outside Security HQ ten stories overhead. "Regardless of what our dear Secretary-General is thinking, I doubt that Chaput and his PNI are responsible for this as a matter of official party policy. He simply doesn't have the backing in the Assembly to remove her, and there is little point in disrupting things so thoroughly otherwise."

Toliver coughed discreetly. "He does if Premier Lee and the Union Democrats are behind him," he pointed out.

"Yes. The UDs are nothing if not the KMT's American wing, and if Lee pulls out of Hayden's coalition they'll support him. As will the Nationalist Republicans, yes?"

"No question, ma'am. My uncle would insist on replacing Ambassador Jones for that. Why let somebody else stick the knife in?"

"And are either of you so naive as to believe that she and her backers will allow her removal from office at this point?" She spun back to face the table, her palms flat. "Yi. Contact your sources within UEF intelligence, find out which way the Combined Staff is set

to go when this blows up in our faces. Toliver. Contact your uncle and inform him that I wish to consult with him as soon as possible. If you can, find out whether the Assistant Secretary-General can join us. Perhaps we can contain the explosion, or possibly even defuse it."

Volkov stared at the young lieutenant in disbelief. "He said what?"

Lieutenant Andrei Komarov repeated, "*It* said that it was done with us and the Chigs. It said that neither the aliens nor we had kept our promises, and that it was stupid to continue the arrangement under those circumstances. And then it simply went offline and refused further contact."

Volkov rubbed his face, as if trying to massage life back into flesh suddenly gone dead. "I guess we should have expected this after the debacle on the Saratoga, but so soon...! Very well, Andrei. Thank you for this news, though I don't think it will be very welcome to those I serve."

Komarov shrugged. "One less enemy to fight. I should think that would please you, but then you are not fighting the same war *we* are," he said softly, flicking his thumb toward himself to signify exactly who "we" were.

When the young lieutenant was gone, Volkov opened a secure link to an office in Nevada. "Volkov. Our toasters have proven defective. We shall require an alternate supplier. No, there is no doubt. All models have malfunctioned. Out." After he replaced the handset, he stared gloomily out over the shabby rooftops of Vladivostok into the

approaching dusk. The grand plan was crumbling before his eyes, like the Union his great-grandfather had served...the edges were falling away to expose the rotten center. Only this time there would be no way for the elite to save themselves and preserve their power. He

himself would be lucky not to be strung up on one of the malfunctioning lampposts that littered the city, when his part in this matter became public knowledge.

Still, one played the game to the end. The enemy might still blunder into check. Opening his database, he began looking through the long list of names. Somewhere in there was a key. There was always a key.

Up until Groombridge 34-II, the Chigs had routinely kicked human butt in any large-scale ground action. Even at Ixion, where the Chigs had been thrown off-planet, they had extracted a hefty butcher's bill. Now, thought Vlasov, the boot was in the other butt. The storming of the rocket battery by the Legionnaires (with the help of the AIs, he admitted sourly to himself) had allowed the rest of his troops to land safely...except for the Brazilians, who had been sent back once the size of the Chig force had been verified. Once that was done, the orbiting Navy ships had given the Chigs a dose of kinetic bombardment that had left their way station a cratered wasteland. The final assault had been almost anticlimactic, with the few remaining Chigs quickly dispatched or taken prisoner by the 13th Demi-brigade and the Chinese. There were, however, always loose ends to be tied up, he thought.

He turned to Colonel Sanmartin. "Leading troops from front is relic of feudal warfare, Colonel. Like feudal warfare, it has no place in fighting aliens. You will cease this stupidity, or General McQueen will be forced to find new regimental commander, and I will be forced to have you flogged, since stockades were destroyed in orbital bombardment. Is this clear?"

Sanmartin stood at attention, but from the look in his eyes he might as well have been watching the clouds drifting over the Argentine pampas he called home. "Yes, General. Perfectly clear."

"Good. Suicidal theatrics by commander aside, 13th Demi-Brigade performed in exemplary manner. I order stand-down for twenty-four hours. Go congratulate your men, Colonel. Thank them for me. Dismissed."

McQueen waited until his subordinate left, then raised an eyebrow at the corps commander. "You know that was as useless as ordering your dog to stop licking his balls. He doesn't know any other way to lead...and it has worked wonders."

"True, General McQueen. But his luck will not last forever, and then what?"

"We ship him home in a box and appoint Commandant Escaut the new regimental commander." McQueen's mouth twitched slightly, and for a moment Vlasov thought the InVitro was suppressing a laugh.

"Perhaps. Perhaps Colonel Sanmartin will finish with puberty and acquire proper grasp of his own mortality, but is perhaps more likely that Escaut will pin third diamond on collar instead. So. On to next mission. GUSEV!" The general's sudden bellow brought his aide popping into the command tent.

"Sir?"

"Get Generals Sinebryukhov and Chen in here. And have cook do something to make those damned pork rations taste like dead pigs instead of dead fish."

"Yes, general!"

West recuperated slowly from the nerve agent, and the 33^rd was needed elsewhere. Three replacements arrived from Loxley and some other cannibalized squadron, and the 33rd moved out with the rest of the GUADALCANAL's complement. Macias came by every day to check on

him, but it didn't improve West's temper.

"How much longer am I going to be stuck in here?" he groused. "The doctors won't tell me anything, the nurses won't tell me anything, and now I bet you won't tell me either."

"Actually, you're wrong about that," she smiled. She took a flat gunmetal grey box out of her flight suit and studied it intently for a moment. Apparently satisfied, she sat down next to the bed and leaned toward him. "I'm the one responsible for keeping you here."

"Gee, thanks a ton," Nathan answered sarcastically. "Just what I always wanted. Permanent bed rest for the duration of the war."

"Not quite," she snapped. "You just don't get it, do you? This is the safest place you could be in all of UN space right now, except maybe Regina Tseng's bedroom. And you're not her type, I can tell you that right now." She leaned forward so that her face was mere inches from his. "Diane Hayden, Aerotech, and the third of the UN that takes their money wants you dead. Assistant Secretary Chaput and the Combined Staff want you alive, if only to spite Hayden. Nobody knows about Tseng, but if she makes up her mind that the UN is better off with you dead...the first time you find out will be when you wake up with a

new hole in your head. Don't you understand what's going on here?"

"No," West replied hotly, "I don't. You tell me everybody in the UEF knows about Hayden and Aerotech and the Chigs, thanks to McQueen's little video -which you still haven't shown me, thank you very much- and if that's the case, what does it matter whether I'm alive or dead to them?"

"God, you are so STUPID!" Macias hissed. "What good are the accusations of one man without any evidence to back him up? You think Aerotech kept those records around? You think maybe the Chigs are going to answer subpoenas from the World Court? No, without you and Hawkes around to testify, McQueen's vidfile is just a piece of political mudslinging, nothing more. And the fact that Chaput and the PNI had a hand in releasing it will kill them as a political force. Nobody will forget that Chaput's people had a hand in the assassination attempts aboard the Saratoga after Chartwell's death, and his party will be forever branded as the one that tried to stage a coup in the middle of the war. He'll be lucky to live long enough to get back to France."

Nathan looked at her, inches away from his face, her eyes flashing, nostrils flared...and kissed her. She jerked away with a look of shock replacing the anger on her face. "What-what was that for?" she snapped.

"I wanted to say thank you," West said softly. "I never did thank you for saving my life on the GUADALCANAL, or for staying here when you could have shipped out with the 33rd."

"Well, I was just doing my job."

"Is that all it was?"

Macias looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "No. You're right, I could have gone with the 33rd and the Corps would have sent someone else to keep an eye on you. I don't believe in walking away from a job halfway through, and I do -did- have enough clout to stay on here with you." She looked at her watch and stood up. "I have to get going. I do have other duties besides this, after all."

West struggled up into a sitting position. "Perdita!"

Macias froze in the doorway and looked back.

"So this isn't just business, is it?"

She smiled enigmatically and closed the door quietly behind her. West collapsed back into his pillows. It was a start.

Chapter 6

The four generals of the Second Shock Army sat in General Vlasov's command tent. Silently they watched the video file play out, with McQueen's holographic image making its speech in Russian. When it ended, the three natural-borns looked at McQueen, their faces carefully neutral. General Chen was the first to speak.

"This has been circulating among my officers since before we lifted from the Manchurian camps. More correctly, the Chinese version. Is this all through the UEF, General McQueen?"

"I don't know," he answered. "When I made this, I had no intention of seeing it released while I was alive. Apparently Secretary Chaput or someone in the Identity Party had other ideas."

Sinebryukhov and Chen were both startled, but Chen hid it better. His eyebrows merely rose, but the Russian general exploded. "What

could you possibly have to do with that...that Hitler!"

"General McQueen owes his continued service, and perhaps his life, to the Assistant Secretary-General," Vlasov said crisply. "The Combined Staff and Secretary-General Hayden would have been equally happy to see him retired. It would have been much easier to have him killed, then."

"Yes, but Chaput! Why him, of all men?"

"He offered me a command, General Sinebryukhov. He showed my people a way out of the trap his party had constructed. And in return he asked only that I stay alive and speak the truth. Does that sound like Hitler to you?"

"Your record speaks for you, General." General Chen tapped the chip player gently. "I am willing to believe this, especially since the news from home is that Premier Lee has rejected the latest UEF request for troops."

"I had not heard this," Vlasov said. "Is your source reliable?"

The Chinese general withdrew another chip from his battle dress blouse. "The China Times Weekly from this Monday, sir. The courier brought it in with the last resupply mission."

Vlasov's eyebrows rose. "Well. The official newspaper of the KMT."

Chen smiled thinly. "Some call it that."

"Perhaps this explains latest change in orders." Vlasov in turn pulled a chip from his pocket. "Scheduled assault on Priamus has been delayed, and we are to return to Luna instead for low-g combat training." The corps commander looked significantly at McQueen.

"Orders do not include Expeditionary Brigade, however. Separate orders send brigade to Fifth Air Wing at Persephone station."

McQueen grimaced. "No rest for the wicked, I guess."

"Is always case for elite troops, da? Run around pissing on fires until urine supply exhausted."

"Yes, sir."

Out beyond the Van Allen Line, the flagships of the United Earth Forces floated, linked by tightly focused laser commlinks. "...and so you see that an offensive at this time, when we have largely rebuilt our forces in the wake of Operation Roundhammer, would be an excellent opportunity to regain the initiative." General Martens, the Combined Staff's planning officer, smiled and waited for the inevitable questions.

Instead, he was greeted with dead silence. After an uncomfortable five minutes had passed, the most junior of the group spoke out.

"Piss on that noise," Rear Admiral Ross growled. "Nobody here is going to stage any offensives for the sole purpose of distracting the Earthside media from Secretary-General Hayden's political problems. That's really what this is all about, isn't it, Martens?"

The Swede blinked, and feebly tried to deny the obvious. Everyone knew that his rise in the UEF owed more to his connections with Aerotech and Hayden's Union Party more than to any actual military ability, and as a consequence nobody believed his denials in the least.

"What replacements?" Admiral Wladyslaw jeered. "The only reason any of my squadrons are up to strength is that we've cannibalized one out of three for parts and pilots! As for ground troops, I have maybe enough Marines left to fill a pair of ISSAPCs...provided that I had that many in working order, that is!"

"The ground troops are waiting on Earth," Admiral Park interjected. "Premier Lee has asked the Korean government, as well as the Japanese and Filipinos, to withhold their soldiers from the UEF pool until the questions about the war have been resolved. They have,

of course, agreed. Not that there is any point to providing troops when the shipping is lacking, as Admiral Wladyslaw pointed out."

"Or do we have more freighters to piss away, as we did on Groombridge 34-II?" Wladyslaw asked sarcastically.

"There's no sign that the Chigs are gearing up for anything; as a matter of fact, our contacts in alien space report that they're going to great lengths to avoid looking belligerent right now," Ross added.

"You suppose they're having the same problems we are?" General Singh asked hopefully.

"We better hope not," Ross replied tersely. "The group we were talking to before things blew up was the pro-peace group. If they get replaced, things could get a lot uglier than they have been."

"What will I tell the Secretary-General?" Martens bleated.

"You tell her she'd better come up with some damn good answers, or a resignation speech," Ross growled.

Martens' image disappeared from the screens, and one by one the remaining displays went blank. Ross turned to face the other occupant of his command cabin, who had sat quietly outside the range of the commlink's pickup. "Damn it, Ty, this is another fine mess you've gotten me into."

Captain Cooper Hawkes was bored out of his skull. Thanks to

First Sergeant Walker, D Company practically ran itself, and his

headquarters staff (the company clerk) was extremely efficient.

There was little for Hawkes to do except read through the daily bulletins from Battalion (which rarely contained anything of importance except for the Officer of the Day roster) check the newsfeed (which had little of interest for him except for the sports page- and the Cubs were in the cellar as usual) and roam through the training areas watching the troops. He'd had to cut back on that as well, since Walker had hinted that he was making the troops nervous by his constant presence.

While he could have improved his professional skills, Fort Ord

was minimally equipped. It had been reopened after seven decades of

neglect, and there had been little time or funding to do much more than

provide basic power and sanitation for the training center that processed draftees into the ground forces that Canada, the United States and the Mexican Confederation contributed to the UEF. The post's learning center was oriented more towards teaching Mexican draftees English and helping instructors with training software and vids. There was little available for an officer whose formal education had been extremely limited.

Under other circumstances, Hawkes might have looked to his fellow

officers, but his natural shyness had been aggravated by his separation

from the 58th and the Saratoga, and none of the other company commanders seemed interested in getting to know him. That made a certain amount of sense, he thought, since the battalion normally wouldn't operate as a unit but in separate company strike forces, but he wondered if part of their standoffish attitude didn't come from the fact that he was an InVitro, and a combat veteran at an age when they were making up their minds who to ask to their junior high school proms. He knew that on parade his three banks of ribbons stood out like a Christmas tree next to the comparatively empty chests of his fellow captains, and he knew they resented it. So, much like Colonel McQueen and the Angry Angels, he didn't hang out much with the other captains.

His subordinates, of course, were off limits...he remembered as

if it had been just yesterday the blistering rage of Colonel McQueen in

the Tun that day when Winslow had made a pass at him and Wang had poured fuel on the flames by asking him over to join the foosball game as if he were just one of the guys. He and Vansen had been the only two to escape the Colonel's wrath. On thinking about it, he'd decided it was because he and Vansen were in the same boat as McQueen. They weren't going home after the war was over, either. Vansen didn't get along very well with her sisters and their families, and Hawkes of course didn't *have* a family. Not any more, he thought darkly. Just Nathan, in the hospital at Luna Base -there had been some accident in training, evidently, and West had been badly hurt- and General McQueen, off somewhere in Chig space with the Foreign Legion.

So when all was said and done, he decided it was better just to

keep his distance from the young lieutenants of D Company and keep

things strictly professional. That went double for the line troops.

The only problem was that it made for a very long duty day and an even

longer night, since he rarely slept for more than five hours. Some of

that time he spent getting drunk in the Officers' Club; unlike the

Saratoga, there was no liquor ration system in effect at Fort Ord.

Some of the time he spent downloading movies into the computer he'd

bought with his accumulated pay; he now had a complete collection of W.C. Fields and Clint Eastwood. The rest of the time he practiced throwing his Gerber at the chunk of wood he'd put next to the door of his office, or staring out the window, thinking about the time he'd been with the 58th. Or just staring.

Chapter Seven

"This is completely unacceptble," Regina Tseng said flatly. "Since when is UN Security not allowed access to Aerotech facilities?"

The gate guard returned her cold stare watt for watt. "Orders

from Director Allen himself, ma'am. Nobody but authorized corporate

personnel admitted to the Complex."

"Would you be so kind as to call Director Allen and inform him

that Director Tseng is waiting? I wouldn't be in this miserable desert

if he hadn't asked me here."

"Yes, ma'am." The guard closed his window, and Toliver did the

same on the motorpool sedan they had requisitioned in Las Vegas. By the

time the heat had dissipated under the Arctic blast of the car's A/C

unit, the guard had opened his window again. "Go ahead, ma'am, and

park in lower level B. That's down the right-hand ramp."

Toliver nodded and put the car in gear. Soon they were in an

underground parking ramp that to Toliver looked more like a bunker

than a storage area for cars. Almost before the car had rolled to

a stop, a six-man squad of Aerotech security guards in slacks and

blazers (with the company logo on the pocket) had surrounded the car.

They opened the doors for Tseng and Toliver, and the oldest of the

guards -his namebadge read "Hannigan" said, "This way, please." Two

more guards followed on his heels, while the other three fell in behind the Director and her aide. They stepped into a windowless elevator, and Hannigan inserted a keycard into a slot in the otherwise

featureless wall. The doors closed and the elevator moved smoothly up,

then sideways. It opened on a corridor not too unlike the one they'd

entered from.

They walked down the corridor and into a spacious executive

suite. A rather plain-looking brunette sat at the desk in a plaid

skirt, white blouse and saddle shoes; the effect was as if someone

had sent their teenage daughter in to sub for them. The guards

stopped in front of the desk, and Hannigan announced, "Director

Tseng and Major Toliver of UN Security to see Mr. Wayne, Miss

Lowell."

The secretary made an annoyed face. "You know you can call

me Muffy, Harry." She pushed a button on the desk. "Allie, those

people from the UN are here!"

On their right, a pair of massive wooden doors opened, and

E. Allan Wayne II emerged with a huge smile on his face that dropped

when he saw Toliver. He came forward and took the Major's hands in

his own. "I'm sorry to meet you at a time like this, Major."

Toliver looked at him strangely. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne, but

I don't understand."

"Your uncle is dead, sir. It just came over the newsfeed.

An explosion in New Orleans at the conference he was attending

there. I am so sorry, Major. I know that he and this company were

adversaries in so many arenas, but I want to extend you my

personal condolences nonetheless."

Toliver stood motionless for a second, and then nodded.

"Thank you, sir. That's very kind of you. We do have other

business, though. I don't believe you've met Director Tseng?"

"Oh, no, no I haven't. It's a pleasure, director. Your

reputation precedes you," Wayne bubbled, sweeping Tseng with

an appreciative glance. "Why don't we step into my office, and

Muffy can bring us some tea, or something stronger if you like,

Major? Under the circumstances..."

"I'm on duty, Mr. Wayne. Thank you."

"Well, anyway, come in, sit down. We've got so much to discuss,

and so little time to discuss it in." Wayne headed back into his

office. Tseng looked at Toliver briefly, and then followed Wayne into

the office. Toliver was the last to enter save for Hannigan, who stood

by the doors after closing them.

Tseng looked briefly around the office. It was incredibly

lavish by any standard, unspeakably so in comparison to Tseng's own

spartan rooms in the Langley complex. Various animal heads adorned

the walls, and a mil-spec holotank dominated half the huge room, all

the more outre thanks to the carved mahogany housing that replaced the

usual steel. Wayne's own desk was a giant slab of mahogany on a pair

of massive, highly polished metal stands, a bizarre style that was

replicated in the chairs, shelves and cabinets scattered across the

room. It was almost big enough to play racquetball in, Tseng thought

to herself. "Thank you for inviting us here, Mr. Wayne."

"Oh, it's my pleasure! I so seldom get visitors, except on

business, and unfortunately Dad didn't prepare me very well for any

of this. I've been learning on the job, and it's been Migraine City,

let me tell you! I never realized just how big Aerotech was!" He shook

his head in obvious awe at what he'd fallen into. "I can't imagine

what the Board was thinking when they elected me CEO after Dad went

missing, but I guess what they wanted was a figurehead for continuity's

sake, eh? Well, I think I can do better than that. I majored in business history at Yale, and one thing I learned was that one can accomplish quite a bit if one works hard, even if one isn't as brilliant or talented as one's father." He smiled sadly.

From the corner of his eye, Toliver saw Hannigan roll his eyes.

He cleared his throat. "You know, Mr. Wayne, I think I'll have some of

that tea, especially if it's iced. My throat's feeling pretty parched,

between the desert and the air conditioning."

Wayne nodded. "Hannigan, would you be so kind as to step around

to the kitchen and have them fix us some ice tea? None of that horrible

orange stuff, either! I want the green tea with the ginseng extract."

The guard nodded and stepped out. He closed the door behind him,

and as he passed the desk he stopped. "Keep an eye on them, Muffy. Volkov's boys have been trying to trace a data dump, and he thinks your boyfriend in there may be trying something funny to save his own butt."

The brunette nodded, and pressed a series of keys on her desk.

The document she'd been working on vanished, to be replaced by a multi-

camera view of the CEO's office.

Wayne fiddled with some controls on his desk, and the room was

filled with loud Latin dance music. He stepped up to Tseng, his arms

extended. "Would you honor me, Director?"

She looked at him as if he'd gone completely berserk, but there

was a pleading look in his eyes and her instincts told her to accept.

She stood, and he promptly whirled her into the spins and twirls of a

samba. During one evolution, one of his hands pressed something smooth

into her lower back, tucking it unobtrusively into the elastic of her

panties before moving away again. The music came to a stop, and Wayne

released her, bowing deeply. "Your dancing skills match your reputation

in other fields, Director! Splendid! Now that we've stimulated our bodies, gotten the blood pumping, let's get down to business." He noticed Toliver checking his watch, and the raised eyebrow that indicated the watch was more than just a watch.

"We came to discuss Aerotech's involvement in the colony program," Tseng began, but at that moment Hannigan returned with an enormous samovar, glasses, and an equally enormous ice bucket. Without a word, he filled all three glasses with ice, then with tea, and passed them to Wayne and his guests. Wayne tossed his off as though it were as hot in his office as on the surface; considering how he'd been dancing, Toliver thought, he probably was. Director Tseng took a brief sip of hers and set it down. "As I was saying, there have been questions raised about the staffing of these missions...but there's really no need to waste your time with that. Are we assured of your company's cooperation in this matter?"

"Of course! I'll send out a memo to my department heads that any

inquiries from Security are to be handled as if they came from me. Is

there anything else?"

"No, we really didn't have anything else. Thank you for the tea-

and for the dance." Her eyes sparkled momentarily, and Wayne suddenly

felt a hollow feeling in his chest, as if the world had fallen off its

axis.

"Y-you're welcome," he stuttered, and flushed with embarrassment.

He hadn't felt that smitten by a girl since Muffy had kissed him at the

freshman dance. Regina Tseng smiled, shook his hand, and left, with

Major Toliver in tow.

Minutes after the Tseng, Toliver and their escort had left for

the garage, Muffy Lowell's desk sounded a tone. She pressed a button, and Volkov appeared on the screen. "Where is Tseng?" he asked abruptly.

"Leaving," she answered. "They were only here for a few minutes."

"Did you monitor them?"

"Yes, but all they did was dance...they said nothing of

significance."

"Fuck your mother! This is what comes of using half-trained

amateurs! Stop them, kill them if you must, but keep them in the building!"

Lowell nodded and pressed another button on her desk.

Hannigan immediately emerged from a side room. "Sound the alarm," she told him. "Volkov's found the leak."

Hannigan headed off, speaking into a handheld phone. The sound

of a klaxon filled the building, and the overhead lights began to flash

red and white. Lowell opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out her

purse. Opening it, she pulled out a pistol almost exactly like the one

Stone had used on Nathan West, although she wasn't aware of that; it was the one Volkov had issued her during her intake briefing many years ago. Carefully ensuring that the safety was on, she tucked it into her skirt at the back so that the drape of her jacket would hide it. She stepped into the CEO's office.

E. Allan Wayne II was sitting in his chair, having given up trying to get his desk to work. He held a tall glass in his hand, and as she approached the desk Muffy Lowell could smell the reek of Scotch, a smell she'd always hated. He raised it in mocking salute. "Et tu, Muffy? Nos morituri te salutant!"

"You know I flunked Latin," she snapped.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "Even if Volkov and his goons -oh,

yes, I know all about them now," Wayne sardonically replied as a look

of complete shock passed over Lowell's face. "-as I was saying, even if

they manage to stop Tseng and Toliver, there are other copies of the

files I sent with them in safe places. So you can go ahead and kill me,

if that's what Volkov wants. It won't stop the news from getting out,

and that will be the end of Aerotech as we know it. About time, too."

"Have you gone stark raving mad?" Lowell whispered. "Do you

know what the UN will do to me -I mean, us!- when the truth comes out

about the colony missions and the aliens?"

"Frankly, Muffy, I don't give a damn." Wayne took a long pull

at his Scotch and smiled at her. "I suppose the shrinks would say it's

most Oedipal of me, but this company means nothing to me except for a

father who was never around when I was young- but he couldn't get

enough of my time once I started at Harvard. I was tempted to flunk

out, but...there you were. I suppose he arranged that, too." The look

of momentary chagrin on her face confirmed it, and he nodded sadly.

"I could say you got me into this, but I suppose if it hadn't been

you there would have been someone else. Father was nothing if not

thorough, and I daresay Miss Tseng or her successors will have a

field day with his private files. So go ahead, Muffy. Shoot me. I'll

probably wind up doing twenty to life in Antarctica anyway- but I'll

have whatever consolation one gets from a clean conscience."

Muffy Lowell's face flushed, but she pulled the trigger

anyway. The empty glass thudded softly to the floor as E. Allan Wayne

II slumped in his chair. Muffy looked at the body for a moment, then

walked out to her desk and picked up the phone. "Corporate Research.

This is Miss Lowell. I need a cleanup in Mr. Wayne's office."

She hung up the phone and sat down heavily in her chair. There was

nothing to do now but wait for Volkov.

Tseng and Toliver had barely cleared the gate when the alarm

sounded. Reflexively, Toliver stomped on the accelerator, and the

Chrysler's turbocharger kicked in with brutal force. Tseng grabbed

her phone and hit a key she hadn't touched in years. When a voice

answered after one ring, she snapped "This is Tandem. Backup needed

with Red priority; home on this signal. Possible Starfish in effect."

She snapped the phone shut and leaned over to look out the rear

window for pursuers. "We should have cover from Edwards shortly.

Doesn't look like they've got anyone following us on the ground- but

I'd steer clear of the next few towns on the off-chance they've

dialed up an ambush for us."

Toliver nodded grimly. Whatever Wayne had passed to Tseng

on the disk she'd fished out of her panties in the garage, it had

very likely been something that Aerotech's real leaders didn't

want known outside the company.

Chapter Eight

Assistant Secretary-General Chaput regarded the newsfeed on

his desk with surprise. He hadn't expected matters to blow up quite

this fast, even after it became evident that McQueen's vidfile had

leaked from the UEF back into civilian channels. The Aerotech enclave

in Nevada had been sealed off, with Aerotech's tame newsfeeds claiming

UN Security's complicity in the death of E. Allen Wayne Junior. Federal

prosecutors in Reno had sworn out warrants for the arrest of Wayne,

the Aerotech board of directors, "Jane Doe and Robert Roe 1 through

250" and a number of other persons whose involvement in the colony

disasters, illegal conversion of military procurement funds and the

equipment purchased with those funds, murder, sabotage, stock

manipulation, violations of the still-extant Sherman Anti-Trust Act,

mopery and dopery, pillage and sackage, and other felonies had been

indicated by the secret files of E. Allan Wayne, which had indeed

been duplicated and sent to a dozen newsfeeds by his son.

The desk buzzed, and he touched the switch. "Yes, Henri?"

"Director Tseng and Senator Steele to see you, sir."

"Show them in."

His office door opened immediately, and Chaput rose to greet

his guests. Both wore grim looks on their faces, and no sooner were

they seated than Tseng laid a datadisk on his desk. "You're aware of

what's on this disk, of course."

"Generally, yes."

"Did one of your people get to young Wayne?"

Chaput shrugged. "I can truthfully deny it, not that it would

matter at this point. I understand the data he copied from his

father's files has more than corroborated everything McQueen said.

Politically, it's all over but the voting. Between the KMT, the PNI

and our allies in the General Assembly, we have a quorum and enough

votes to remove Hayden and the UN charter Aerotech operates under.

Then we send in the troops."

"Not so fast, Mr. Chaput," Steele interrupted. "The Aerotech

enclave may be UN territory, but it's smack dab in the middle of the

United States. You can't just bring in foreign troops to attack

American citizens. The political effects would cripple any chance

you might have of keeping the Nationalist Republicans with you, and I

know for a fact Governor Young would pull the Deseret theocrats out

in a heartbeat. This is a domestic problem once the UN charter is

revoked, and it has to be handled by Americans."

"He's right," Tseng agreed. "Fortunately it's not that big a

problem. Deseret has a sizable National Guard force, including combat

engineers, and there's a U.S. Marine Raider battalion in training at

Fort Ord. For air support, you have the Deseret Air National Guard- a

couple of squadrons of SA-5 Skuas left over from the AI Wars, but

better than nothing for ground support work. And, of course, we have

suitable commanders for a strike force cooling their heels just

beyond the Van Allen Line."

"Isn't McQueen a bit junior to be commanding a reinforced

division?" Chaput asked.

"Yes," Tseng replied without batting an eyelash. "However,

Admiral Ross does have extensive experience with ground forces, even

if they are special ops units."

"What the hell is a Skua?" Nathan West asked perplexedly.

"I've never heard of a Skua, let alone flown one, and they expect me

to train weekend warriors how to fly them?"

Perdita Macias sighed. "Probably a misprint. I'm sure even

the American militia -that's what the National Guard is, right?-

has the early model Hammerheads by now."

"Well, I'll be glad just to get the hell out of here. Not,"

he added quickly, "that I mind the company so much, but there is a

war on."

"I hear you, Opie." Macias smiled, and West felt a goofy grin

spread across his face. "Looks like you'll be working for your old

C.O., too. I hear both Admiral Ross and General McQueen are being

seconded to the strike force."

West let out a low whistle. "This is going to be rough. Any

time those two are involved, the stuff is going to hit the fan."

Sue Cannon snuggled up next to her exhausted partner and

playfully licked his nipple. Sanderson groaned. "Oh, God, not already!"

Sue grinned. "What's the matter, Marine? Too pooped to pop?"

"You're insatiable! Are all InVitros like you?"

"Don't know, I've never slept with an InVitro gal. I'm not

wired that way. As you should know." Her hand crept down his belly,

stopping when he weakly brushed it away. "OK, I guess you really have

had enough. Uncle?"

"Uncle," he whispered weakly. "Remind me not to be so hard

on you next time we're in the pugil pit."

"Yeah, right," she answered sarcastically. "So I can get

whacked twice as hard by Captain Hawkes? Seeing you knocked cold

won't be much consolation, believe me."

"You're right," Sanderson said. "I-"

The phone rang, and Sue grabbed it. (It *was* her room, after

all, she thought.) "Cannon."

First Sergeant Walker's voice snapped her out of the afterglow

with an unexpected hardness. "Your pass is cancelled. Get back here

with your boy toy in sixty mikes or be crucified without wood or nails.

We're lifting out."

Before she could get a word out, the line went dead. Almost

immediately she rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. "You

better get up and get dressed," she said over her shoulder. "That was

the First Sergeant. We're forming up in one hour, and it's a half-hour

drive back to post."

Groaning, Sanderson rose to his feet and followed her.

The National Guard combat engineer liaison was a lanky,

auburn-haired major with a built-in sneer, and McQueen disliked him

immediately. Nonetheless, he paid close attention as Major Castle

pointed out the many unattractive features of the Aerotech enclave.

"They built this place during the AI Wars, and they built it

pretty much like you'd expect someplace out in the middle of noplace

to be built, if you were expecting a lot of trouble. Laser towers,

flame mines, razor wire, you name it, it's in there. The only good news

is that a lot of it's manned, not computer-controlled, otherwise we'd

really be screwed," Castle said, pointing out the salient features in

the holotank as he spoke. "There's also not a lot of air defense

stuff, but the lasers can do air or ground targets equally well. What

it all boils down to, is that we can do this slow or we can do this

quick. All depends on how many men you want to spend, General."

"Slow isn't an option," Admiral Ross growled. "We've got

seventy-two hours to crack this nut and take as many Aerotech

employees alive as we can."

"For interrogation by UNEF Security?" Castle asked with a

raised eyebrow.

"After the local Federal prosecutor signs the waivers,

of course," McQueen interjected quietly. "Any ideas, Major

Smith?"

The former Feliciti unit, with brown contacts concealing

the cross-haired optical sensors and Marine desert-pattern

utilities instead of its former garish rags, passed quite easily

for a human intelligence officer- especially with its modem silenced.

"None at the moment- though perhaps some of my staffers may have

some comments once they've seen this."

McQueen turned back to the engineer officer. "I guess that's

all, Major Castle. We'll call you if we have any more questions,

or if our intel people come up with something. Thank you."

Castle saluted and left, leaving McQueen, Ross and "Smith"

alone in the command track. "Well," McQueen said to the Silicate,

"here's where you earn your amnesty. Poll your fellow Silicates and

see if you can come up with a way to keep us from having to kill

off half those Guardsmen out there."

"Do that, and I may just be able to keep his head on his

shoulders and you...people...out of the scrap bin," Ross growled.

"We need a miracle right now, and I don't see any other place to

find one."

"Smith" stood motionless as the subdued tones of its modem

signaled communication with the other AIs held under guard in the

freighter poised in low orbit above the Aerotech enclave. Only a

few minutes passed before it looked at McQueen and Ross with a

small smile on its face. "There are some features of the enclave

that were apparently unknown to Mr. Wayne. Some of my partner units

have made me aware of a tunnel running from here" -its fingers flew

over the keyboard and touchpad- "to here, allowing for secret

access to the enclave."

"How big is that tunnel?" McQueen asked, thinking quickly

through the possibilities.

"Not all that big," "Smith" answered, "only large enough

for three men abreast."

"Big enough for us to slip a Raider force into their rear,"

McQueen mused. "That might be enough to make the difference."

Same old crap, Hawkes thought as he stood at attention

in front of his company with the guidon bearer posted to his

rear and left standing equally stiffly. Bust our butts to move out

and then stand around waiting for the transport. The battalion was

formed up in full battle dress, with packs, weapons and protective

gear strapped on so that every Marine was sweating under an extra

sixty pounds in the humid heat of a Fort Ord afternoon. Finally

Lieutenant Colonel Mathis, the battalion commander, deigned to

make his appearance, double-timing onto the parade ground with his

staff right behind him. They slowed to quick time and halted,

pivoting in unison to face the assembled Raider battalion. Mathis

spoke indistinctly for a moment, and the battalion adjutant immediately

roared, "Company commanders! Put your companies at ease!"

Hawkes whipped off a perfect salute, pivoted, and relayed

the command. His lieutenants echoed it, and D Company relaxed into

the parade rest. Hawkes faced front again, moving smoothly into

the same rest as Mathis spoke, this time louder and more clearly.

"Marines, you are nearly finished with your training here at Fort

Ord, and it is the cadre's opinion that you are ready for combat

under emergency circumstances. Those circumstances have arisen.

As you may not be aware, this morning at 0800 local the United Nations

revoked the charter of the Aerotech Corporation and recommended that

its assets be seized by the United States government. Aerotech has

announced that it will resist this seizure, and has sealed off their

headquarters complex in the Nevada desert. This unit has been assigned

to reinforce the 92nd Division, Deseret National Guard, for an

assault on that complex. Due to a shortage of transport, we will move

to the assault area by companies. Captain Hawkes!"

"Sir!"

"Delta Company has the highest readiness marks of any company

in the battalion. You will therefore proceed with your command to the

airstrip and board the transport after drawing a basic load of ordnance

from the armory. Additional orders will be given you by the assault

force commander or his designee at the Las Vegas airport. Dismissed!"

"Yes, Sir!"

Hawkes saluted, faced about, and for a second scanned the faces

of his Marines. Some had the unmistakable glint of fear in their eyes.

Some stared forward with hungry, predatory lights gleaming. "On my

command," Hawkes called out, "you will fall out and reform at the

armory to draw ammunition and ordnance. When you have finished drawing

your issue, you will fall in by platoons in front of the armory and

await my orders. Fall out!" The formation disintegrated as the Raiders

double-timed away, the only exceptions being First Sergeant Walker and

the company clerk, Corporal Cannon.

Walker anticipated him, slapping his pocket and announcing,

"Barracks secure, sir. We're ready."

"And the paperwork?" Hawkes looked at Cannon, thinking -not

for the first time- that there was something familiar about her.

"Ready, sir. Picked up movement orders from the Adjutant right

before the formation." She looked back at him levelly.

"Let's move it, then." The three of them jogged off the

parade field in the wake of their men.

The transport laid on for the Raiders was an old atmospheric

jet that sat noisily in the middle of the runway, its turbojets

howling. A huge ramp led from the runway into the shadowed interior

of the jet, and troops in unfamiliar blue coveralls directed the

Marines to metal seats along the sides of the fuselage. Soon those

were full, and late arrivals had to settle for spaces on the deck,

where they snapped their packs into D-rings and sat uncomfortably

between them, holding onto cargo nets strung from wall to wall.

Soon the whole company was aboard, and a voice crackled from the

speakers. "This is Lieutenant Jackson of the California Air National

Guard. We'll be lifting off for Las Vegas in about ten minutes; the

flight itself will take five hours, since we're swinging a little

south first in order to avoid the air defenses at the Aerotech

enclave. Sergeants Carlson and Nguyen will show you the facilities

if you need them and answer any other questions; there's no inflight

movie or snack on this flight. Sorry about that." A dutiful chuckle

arose from the Marines. "Settle back and enjoy the flight, and thanks

for flying the Air National Guard." More chuckles, and even more

snoring as some Raiders began the eternal task of catching up on their

sleep.

The flight passed uneventfully, with most of the Raiders

choosing to sleep through it. A few card games broke out, and some

Marines finished the flight richer than when they started. Lieutenant

Jackson came on the speakers and warned them to secure for landing,

which they did, and the loadmasters were out of their seats immediately

when the jet stopped to strip down the cargo nets. "All right," Walker

boomed over the noise of the dying jets. "I want a company formation

right behind this plane in ten mikes! Let's move!"

The first Marines were off the ramp even before it hit the

ground, disregarding the shouted warnings of the loadmasters. Well

before the ten minutes were up, First Sergeant Walker had his

formation. Hawkes looked around the field, and saw a line of grav

transports lumbering toward the now-silent jet. Ahead of the transports

was a small open-topped truck, square and dangerously high above the

ground on its four tires. The truck halted just a few meters from

Hawkes, and its passengers -a curvy brunette captain in desert camies

and her white-haired, black-clad companion- dismounted. Hawkes saluted

as he saw the general's stars on the black combat coveralls.

"Delta Company of the Sixth Raiders all present and accounted

for, General McQueen." It was all he could do to repress a smile.

McQueen didn't even try. He returned the salute and clapped

the young captain on the shoulder as he smiled. "Welcome back to the

sharp end, Hawkes."

Chapter Nine

"Look, Captain West. I don't care how many kills you have in

the SA-43. You are not qualified to fly the SA-5, much less serve as

an instructor pilot. I don't care what you were told at Luna Barracks.

On top of that, as a Marine pilot, you are a member of this squadron

by courtesy. You are completely excess to my requirements, and if I

had any say in the matter, you would be on your way back to Luna

Barracks for reassignment."

West stood utterly motionless, at stiff attention as the blue-

suited National Guard colonel finished his tirade.

"Unfortunately, West, thanks to the *political* considerations

under which we are operating, Governor Young has specifically ordered

us to make some use of you. As a pilot, you are worthless and a danger

to my men; as a weapons officer you might conceivably serve a useful

purpose. You will therefore report to Major Breck, who will assign

you your quarters and get you what little training we have time for.

Dismissed."

West snapped off a parade-ground perfect salute, waited for

Colonel Smith to return it, and strode out the door into the outer

office, his face a mask that barely concealed his rage. To have come

so far, done so much, and get read off like a raw trainee by some

weekend warrior behind an armor-plated desk...it was tolerable only

because he had no choice in the matter. One way or another, he was

stuck with the 921st until orders came through, lost in a world of

unfamiliar uniforms and alien procedures and forced to deal with

politicians in uniform.

"Captain West?" He spun abruptly to find himself facing the

Colonel's secretary, a -West counted the odd-looking curved stripes-

staff sergeant whose nameplate read "Wilkes". "Sir, you'll find Major

Breck's office down on the flight line. I can give you a lift-"

West smiled thinly. "No thanks, Sergeant. Wouldn't want you

getting in any trouble for my sake."

Wilkes shook his head. "No sir, I have to head down there

anyway, and there's no point in you getting your uniform messed up

lugging your bags. The jeep's right out back."

"All right, then. Let's do it."

It was only a five-minute drive to the flight line from the

base headquarters, but West appreciated it in view of the dry, dusty

heat that vaporized each drop of sweat his skin could produce. Wilkes

helped him carry his bags into the tower building. "Hey, Bobby, is the

Major in?" he called to another sergeant who had his feet on the desk

while he scanned a Bookman.

"Yeah, he's in the back," Bobby answered without taking his

eyes off the screen. West looked at the Guardsman and decided it wasn't

the place or the time to lock his heels; the Guard was clearly less

formal about customs and courtesies than the Marines- and besides,

there were probably dozens of officers running in and out of the tower

at all hours.

West and Wilkes proceeded into the cool interior of the tower,

and halfway back came to an office whose door indicated that it was

the 921st Squadron's orderly room. "Well, this is where I get off,"

Wilkes said. "Don't worry about the Major, sir. He's pretty laid back."

"Thanks, Sergeant Wilkes." West turned the knob and went in.

There were a pair of sergeants flailing away at their computers and a

clutch of lieutenants gathered by the coffee machine on the opposite

side of the office, chattering and making descriptive motions with

their hands as they described some aerial maneuver they'd been working

on. They fell silent as they saw West in his unfamiliar uniform. "Can

anyone tell me if Major Breck is here?" West asked.

A door opened, and a tall, black-haired man looked out of the

inner office. "You must be that jarhead captain we're expecting," he

boomed in an unexpected bass. "Come on in, Captain West. We've got a

lot to talk about and not a lot of time to talk in."

Behind him, the lieutenants' silence was broken by a low

whisper that West heard nonetheless. "That's the guy with forty Chig

kills? Whoa."

West smothered a grin and walked into the office, stopping

abruptly when he saw that the chair in front of Breck's desk was

already taken. "You! What are you doing here?"

Perdita Macias stretched lazily, briefly straining her uniform

blouse to the breaking point. "Did you think I was going to trust one

of these weekend warriors with your butt? Unlike you, I *am* qualified

to fly the SA-5."

Breck took his seat and looked at Macias fondly. "The

Brazilians have been flying the SA-5 as a ground attack and advanced

training plane up to the present, West. We see them quite a bit up

here, but seldom are they so...ornamental."

Macias laughed. "Normally my government is more considerate of

local mores, but we can blame this on the UN. I thought Colonel Smith

would have a stroke when I reported to him!"

"Well, he took it out on me, but it's okay," West smiled. "He

did mention that I'd be slotted as a weapons officer, though, since

I don't have the hours in to qualify as a pilot and we don't have

enough training time."

"True enough," Breck said. "Fortunately, these Skuas have been

refitted with the latest LIDAR and fire control boxes- we got them

here just a week before Aerotech went into siege mode. You'll find the

HUD and weapons displays very similar to the SA-43, except that the

Skua carries a heavier gun pack than the Hammerhead- and carries bomb

racks instead of the missile launchers you're familiar with. Captain

Macias can give you the tour, and after dinner you can hit the sims

until lights out at 2230."

"Lights out?"

"Yes. Admiral Ross wants the first strike in right after dawn,

so wakeup for the 921st is 0430. The O-club, is, of course, closed."

West looked at Macias. "I guess we'd better get going, then."

She unfolded from her chair. "I guess we better."

Looking at a Skua for the first time outside of JANE'S, West

thought it looked a lot like the "bombers" from that ancient space

opera, "Star Wars". The Skua had a small, egg-shaped crew compartment

set forward of a straight, thick wing with two cylindrical boom

assemblies leading back to a pair of stubby tails which improbably

supported the engines. The whole ungainly assembly sat up off the

ground on a tricycle landing gear which was barely long enough to

clear the ground when the Skua had a full weapons loadout- which this

one did. "Does this thing actually fly?" West asked skeptically.

"Better than you'd think," Macias replied briskly. "You have

to remember that the Skua was designed for ground support, not

dogfighting, so the design requirements are totally different. This

was patterned after the legendary A-10 Thunderbolt, and like the old

Warthog it can fly with one engine, one tail, and one wing shot off...

there are pictures of Skuas coming home like that during the AI Wars.

Very impressive. Come on, let's take a look at the office."

They mounted the ladder and were soon seated in the cockpit.

Macias looked over her shoulder at him. "In an emergency the weapons

officer can fly this thing, but normally you can just let me worry

about it. Flares and noise boxes are controlled from up here; all the

stuff to make life miserable for the enemy groundpounders is run from

back there."

"What does a Skua usually carry?" West asked, looking around

at the displays, which were just enough like a Hammerhead's to be

mildly disorienting.

"Well, you've got the big pulse gun, which -unlike the

Hammerhead- only fires in the forward 120-degree arc. It does a lot

more damage, though, even though the rate of fire is slower. You've

got two twelve-pack cluster bomb dispensers with 2-k limited standoff

capability, and a pair of six-pack rotary missile launchers, usually

with Hellbent IV fire and forget bunker busters, but you can have them

loaded with a mix of Hellbents, fuel-air pseudonukes, and Sharkeye

TV-guided smart bombs. Best thing about the rotaries is that you can

dial up whatever you want in a heartbeat and fire, no waiting."

"You're speaking from experience?"

"You bet your butt. I'm qualified as an IP and weapons

instructor on these; I only switched to Security when it became obvious

that I wasn't going to make Captain unless I slept with the Wing

Commander."

"Oh. So, uh, you like being in UN Security?"

"It's not all wine and roses, but at least I don't have to

sleep with Director Tseng to get ahead."

"Oh. Isn't it time to hit the mess hall?"

"Yeah. Let's find out how these Mormons cook."

Pretty well, as it turned out. West ate ravenously as Macias

watched in disbelief. "I realize the hospital food was nothing to

write home about, but really, Nathan!"

"Look," he replied between bites of a medium-rare sirloin,

"before the hospital it was eighteen months of eating field rations

or that reconstituted Navy slop on the Saratoga. This is the first

decent food I've had in almost two years-" He stopped abruptly and

put down his fork.

"What's the matter?"

West looked at her for a moment, and she remembered the first

time she'd seen him, on the shuttle to the GUADALCANAL. He had that

same empty look in his eyes now that he'd had then. "I was just

thinking that the last time I had a meal like this was on my last

leave home. Before the Battle of the Belt."

Macias said nothing, but she put her mug down and looked back

at him, holding his eyes with hers.

"My brother Neil. That was the last time I saw him before he

joined the Marines. Next time I saw him, he was on the SARATOGA with

the Fifth Force Recon...and then he got killed."

"Nathan, I'm sorry-"

He cut her off with a shake of his head. "It's not your fault.

It's just that...I keep remembering him, and the rest of those poor

kids, and Winslow, and Wang, and- it just gets to me, you know?"

She in turn shook her head. "I've been lucky," she said. "I've

been in Security since the war started, and the rest of my family is

in the Ministry of Defense. I don't really know what you're going through, but-"

"No, it's okay," he said. "It's nothing. I'll be all right.

I'd better get to those sims. Thanks." He stood up suddenly and left

the mess hall, abandoning the unfinished meal. Macias looked at the

tray and sighed. Picking her coffee mug up, she stacked the trays and

cleared the table. She put the stacked trays on the disposal belt and

walked out of the mess hall, oblivious to the stares she attracted

from the pilots and ground crew of the 921st.

The sims were easier than West had thought they would be, and

inside two hours the instructor uncorked the pod and gave him a

thumbs up. "You fought that like an old pro, Captain," Major Breck

beamed as West climbed out of the pod. "I think our boys will be in

good company for their first combat mission."

"First?" West stopped and stared at the squadron commander.

"Nobody else has any combat missions?"

Breck looked surprised. "No, of course not. The Guard hasn't

been federalized since the AI Wars, much less turned over to UN

command- and what would the UNEF want with a bunch of old ground

attack birds like these anyway?"

West thought for a moment about all the surface missions when

the sight of an old, slow Skua would have been like an angel from

heaven, but kept his mouth shut. "Guess I better hit the rack, then.

0430 looks like it comes awfully early here."

The IP and Major Breck laughed and bid him good night.

West walked through the moonlit streets of the base, which had

been blacked out during the emergency; nobody was too sure about

whether Aerotech might have combat aircraft, and it had been decided

that it was better to be safe than sorry. It wasn't a long walk to the

Visiting Officers' Quarters, and soon West was fishing the key from

his pocket as he walked up to the door of the little bungalow he'd

been assigned. He saw through the window that there was a dim light

on -probably the bathroom light from the cleaning woman, he thought-

but he was surprised when the door drifted open at the slight contact

of his key.

He was even more surprised to see that the dim light was from

a flickering candle next to the bed...which contained a very naked

Perdita Macias. Nathan closed the door behind him automatically,

utterly surprised.

"You mean a hot pilot like you doesn't find naked women in

his bed all the time?" she teased.

West tossed his flight jacket onto the room's only chair.

"Only if Vansen, Winslow or Damphousse were too wasted to find their

own bunk," he said coldly.

Perdita rose from the bed, and part of Nathan's mind noted the

catlike smoothness of her motion. She advanced across the room and

wrapped her arms around his neck. "Look," she whispered, "tomorrow

we're going to be flying over a heavily fortified complex full of

people trying very hard to kill us both. I don't know about you, but

I don't plan on remembering my last night on Earth as a drunken roll

in the hay with some stranger." With that she kissed him, and West

felt his heart lurch.

He broke the kiss and held her for a moment, his hands on her

bare shoulders and his eyes looking into hers. "Give me a minute to

get this flight suit off," he said huskily.

Chapter Ten

"This briefing is classified Top Secret," began the shapely

Major Smith, "and is not to be discussed with anyone outside this

room. Are there any questions before we begin? No? Good." She waved

to the Marine guards, who killed the lights and stepped out through

the doors, closing them securely. As the last sliver of light from

the outside hall disappeared, Smith gestured and a holotank display

of the Aerotech complex appeared, slowly rotating at eye level.

McQueen stepped forward out of the shadows. "Delta Company,

you will be conducting a special operation that could win this battle

in less than a day - or bog us down for days if it fails. Your mission

is to infiltrate the Aerotech complex through these tunnels, seize or

destroy the complex's power plant, disrupt the internal communications

network, and hold your position until relieved by elements of the 92nd

Infantry Division. If you accomplish your mission successfully, Major

Smith and her intelligence staff estimate that the 92nd should be

able to punch through the defenses and get into the main complex

before dusk tomorrow."

Most of the display vanished, and the tunnel enlarged until

it seemed as thick as a Habitrail Hawkes remembered seeing once in

a pet store. "The entry to the tunnel is *here*, at grid PV2816591105,

and it runs for ten klicks to the complex, where it has exits in these

buildings-" which flared into a dark purple as she gestured "-two of

which have further tunnel connections to the power plant and the main

server farms, which are what Aerotech's security forces are using for

internal communications and defense coordination."

McQueen looked at Hawkes and his troops. "Most of the Aerotech

people don't know what's going on and may not offer any resistance.

If they do, it could be hard fighting even though most of the weapons

are handguns and shotguns. Our sources say that there are no bio or

chem agents in the complex, and your commpacks will be reset by the

security team to autoreject any signals not on your company internal

net -not that you'll be able to use radio much anyway, but this should

shield you from any malware attacks.

"The time is now 1700, Marines. You'll swap your woodland BDUs

for urban camo, reassemble here at 1900 for dinner, and move to the

staging area at 0100 on foot. You will remain in the staging area,

maintaining a radio listening watch, until 0300 local, at

which time you will begin movement through the tunnel. You will enter

the compound no later than 0400 and either destroy or secure your

objectives by 0700. Good luck."

"Delta Company! Atten-shun!" Major Smith shouted. The Marines

rose from their seats and remained at attention until the General and

his staff officers had left the room.

Hawkes consulted his datapad. "Okay, let's get this going."

Slinging his rifle, he headed for the door with his Raiders following

quietly behind him.

Volkov cursed luridly. Trapped in a hotel room in the decaying

suburbs of Las Vegas, mere kilometers from the access tunnel that was

his only way into the complex, and suddenly the ruined city was

crawling with American soldiers, police, and reporters for every

newsfeed on the planet. Of course, there wasn't all that much point in

getting into the complex if you couldn't get out again, and even Volkov

wasn't sure if a safe exit would be possible with all those trigger-

happy soldiers roaming the complex.

On the other hand, the coded message he'd received from the

complex before the American government had shut it off from the outside

world had been unambiguous. The Aerotech board of directors was composed of people whose reach definitely extended beyond their graves, and if Volkov failed to do what he was told his chances of survival would drop from slim to nonexistent. So, it was into the breach once more - none of his men inside the complex could be allowed out, since their departure would be seen (correctly) as a sign that the directors had written off the complex. None of them were there, of course; they had all gone to ground, insulated by the influence of money and political power from the disaster that had befallen their company.

The long string of mother-cursing cut off as abruptly as it

had started. Volkov opened the briefcase he always carried with him

and inspected the contents. There was some military-grade radio gear,

but that would be useless in this urban environment. There was a

camouflage cape that would make him nearly impossible to see in the

dark of the tunnels, and his silenced Tokarev pistol. If he had the

bad luck to run into patrolling Americans - it would be their bad luck,

not his. He pulled out a box of 9mm hollowpoints and began loading

magazines, a faint smile crossing his face as he thought about the

danger and excitement of stalking Earth's most dangerous game.

Ross faced the Guard officers, with Smith once again manning

the holographic display and McQueen seated behind him. He would rather

have been in orbit aboard the Saratoga, but there had been no chance of

the Marines giving the InVitro a brevet to lieutenant general and so he

had to act as combined forces commander. He smiled to himself, noting

the attention the all-male cohort of officers paid to the shapely AI,

and wondered idly if they would find her half as attractive in her

"natural" state. Probably not, he thought; the Mormon Church had been

dead set against AIs and the possession of one in Utah, now Deseret,

had been a felony punishable by confiscation, heavy fines, and long

prison terms. Since the Guard officers were (unofficially, of course)

required to be Church members in good standing, well...

"Gentlemen," he began, "we will be starting our assault on the

Aerotech complex at dawn tomorrow, 0603 local. The 273rd, 274th and

275th Regiments will conduct probing attacks to locate possible weak

sectors, supported by Major Castle's combat engineers. All regiments

will hold one battalion in reserve; regimental artillery will fire

general support under control of Colonel Swain's Divarty, since

direct support will be provided by the 921st and 922nd Squadrons

through the liaison teams attached to your regimental headquarters.

"No unit -I repeat, no unit!- will attempt to breach the

complex perimeter until 0630 at the earliest unless *specifically*

directed by this headquarters. We have a special ops unit whose

mission is crucial to the ultimate success of this attack- unless

you gentlemen want to go home with about ten per cent of the men

you brought here." Nervous glances passed between the officers, but

Ross plowed on. "Once the final assault begins, we will commit

the reserves on General McQueen's command. Logistics, communications

and other elements of the plan have been downloaded to your PDAs;

review them with your staff officers.

He paused and sipped some water from the glass thoughtfully

placed on the podium. "I cannot stress enough the need for all

personnel to stick tightly to the plan. I want no improvisations,

no daring strokes, no flashes of brilliance. This is a classic siege

operation and will be conducted as such - or you can personally

explain to the parents of those kids out there exactly why so

many of them are coming home in body bags. Dismissed."

Hawkes jerked awake from a troubled sleep to find First

Sergeant Walker standing at the foot of his cot. "Top - everything

OK?"

"Yes sir. Everyone's ready to roll when you're ready;

it's 0245. Time for a cup if you want it." He extended a steaming

canteen cup full of coffee to Hawkes.

The young captain took it gratefully and slammed half

of it down in one searing gulp. "Whoo. You brew this yourself,

Top?"

"Naw, I just spiked some of that Air Force dishwater

with the crystals in the rat-packs. You know some of these

kids- they think coffee is bad for you, so there's always

extras around. You like it?"

Cooper handed the remaining coffee back to the grinning

first sergeant and smiled back. "If this was any stronger it

would have eaten through the cup. I think that's enough for me

for now. Let's get rolling."

Within a few minutes, the company had assembled and

Hawkes gestured for his officers and noncoms to join him in

front of the tunnel opening. "All right - you sat through the

same briefing I did, and you know what we have to do. This is

a classic Raider operation: small units of elite Marines

slashing into the enemy from the direction he least expects.

You each have your objectives; Third Platoon will stay back

at the tunnel exit inside the compound as the reserve. I know

the original plan didn't call for one, and we're supposed to

be backstopped by the Nevada Guardsmen here, but I've seen

things come unglued before when the shooting starts so we'll

do it my way. First Platoon, lead off; I'll follow with the

HQ element, then Second and Third in that order. Let's make

it happen. Semper fi, Marines."

There was a guttural chorus of "Semper fi!" in reply,

and the cadre scattered back to their troops. By 0300, the

last squad of the Third Platoon was into the tunnel.

From an unobtrusive perch less than fifty yards away,

Volkov watched the Marines file into the tunnel. It would

have been tempting under other circumstances to blow the tunnel

entrance shut after killing the guards, but he had his orders.

Pulling the silenced Tokarev from its shoulder holster, he

began to move quietly towards the unsuspecting guards...