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  © 2014 Tony Healey & Matthew Cox

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  ISBN 978-1-62007-674-3 (ebook)

  ISBN 978-1-62007-675-0 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-62007-676-7 (hardcover)

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  About the Author: Tony Healey

  About the Author: Matthew Cox

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  ope, dreams, and regret hung thick in the air, mixed with the antiseptic scent of new membranes in the atmosphere scrubbers. Lieutenant Michael Summers, duffel slung over his left shoulder, trudged along the steel-blue corridors of Horizon Station. All around him, the air vibrated with the din of activity and near-tangible presence of people. Small children, too young to comprehend where their older siblings were going, darted among a crowd visible through the doors at the end of the hallway.

  A few others walked in the same direction, clad in the same white uniform of a newly minted officer. In two years of Academy, they never had managed to give him one that fit. At least this time―when he was taking a trip he might not return from―they finally got his size right.

  Two Milsec soldiers snapped to attention and saluted as he reached the door they flanked. Arc plasma rifles clicked against pale grey armor-covered legs. Michael returned their salute as he passed out of a narrow, inclined hallway and into wide-open concourse. Ordinarily, shuttle departure platforms were off-limits to civilians; given the nature of the day, however, command had given a pass to immediate family. Captain Driscoll, the officer in command of his new assignment, had personally approved it. That order alone had earned him much respect among a crew he had not yet seen face-to-face. Even his name evoked a sense of mythical awe; some of the stories that filtered through the Academy about him seemed like the sort of thing that got wilder with each retelling.

  On Michael’s left, a row of stairways led up to where sixteen shuttles perched just inside atmospheric retention fields. Four inches of energy separated the air in here from the vacuum-darkness of space, and made the front ends of the loaf-shaped craft glow azure. Large view panels and a sloped, flat front end made the shuttles look like oversized minivans, only on struts and pads rather than wheels. Plain white, their only adornments were the large TDF logo on the side near the rear and the various red and yellow arrows painted here and there to indicate important panels and “no step” locations. Michael spent a moment observing flight crews scurrying about to prep the shuttles: silver hoses loaded electrogel, tech carts connected to the avionics systems ran diagnostics, and shuttle pilots worked through their preflight checklists. The chemical reek from the e-gel whipped by on a frigid breeze; the air chilled by the vacuum outside the atmo-fields created a strong gust that clung low to the deck. Michael gave the hoses a wary glance and sped up. E-gel went from semi-liquid to pure energy in the power cores of ships too small for dedicated reactors, but it also had violent tendencies when exposed to air. If something went wrong, he did not want to be anywhere nearby.

  Toward the station-side wall, several columns ringed with comm terminals bore the brunt of the crowd. Individuals whose families could not make the trip in person crowded around them, while closer to the departure shuttles a mass of sobbing mothers tried without success to change the minds of their sons and daughters.

  As if it was that easy. Michael chuckled to himself.

  He turned on his heel and joined the shortest line. His mom would not be able to get here all the way from the colony on Bophor; her arrival at the graduation ceremony last week had been an unexpected surprise.

  The minutes ticked by. Two small boys ran circles around his line, oblivious to the emotion in the air and content to publicize their boredom by running around and screaming. One despondent person at a time, the line moved; with each departing individual, he inched closer. The last man in front of him had it out with his pregnant wife―she did not approve of his volunteering for service on the Manhattan. When all the guilt she flung at him failed to erase his signed contract, she hung up in a huff. The man sighed, let his head bonk into the terminal, and took a deep breath. He turned; from his blue coveralls, he appeared to be one of the flight support crew.

  At the sight of Michael, he snapped a quick salute. “Morning, sir.”

  “Airman,” said Michael with a nod.

  They pivoted to slide past each other. Michael wondered why a man with a baby on the way would have volunteered for such a risky deployment. Those questions were not his business, but he gave the crewman a confident nod and a pat on the arm.

  “For what it’s worth, we’ll all do everything possible to make sure you get home to her.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The airman smiled through his nerves and saluted.

  Except for the shimmering green logo of the Trans-Gal system, the otherwise dark screen caught a weak reflection of Michael’s head. Shaved on the sides, his flat top lived up to its name. The idea he was now out of Academy and could let it grow a little brought a half-smile, though his dreadlock days were long gone. He swiped at the terminal, brushing the star-map to the side with several passes of his hand until the pale cream-colored dot where his mother lived came into view.

  Planet Bophor zoomed in to fill the entire screen after he tapped it. The surface moved in a slow spin to the left, threads of cottony clouds drifted in the opposite direction to the planet’s rotation. At the bottom, a black rectangle appeared with a faint green line through the center.

  Michael cleared his throat and addressed the screen. “Initiate outbound. Colony TZ-B11. Khana Marie Summers.”

  “Please provide Terran Colonist Identification Number,” replied a pleasant female voice, the green line stretched and jumped about as it spoke.

  “Her TCIN is DF944CE0.”

  “One moment.” The words ‘attempting outbound connection’ scrolled in a band around the planet. “Lieutenant Michael Summers, please be aware that due to the nature of your assignment, this communication will be monitored by Fleet Intelligence. Be mindful of sensitive information. Please confirm.”

  He leaned his head back, sighed, and then faced the screen. “Understood.”

  After a moment of blank screen, his mother’s face appeared, surrounded by two dozen fifth-graders trying to get a look at him. He grinned at their eagerness, waving. Even over a hypercomm link spanning dozens of light years, his diminutive mother loomed large, even through a tiny eight by eleven inch screen. From a distance, she looked not quite five feet tall, but as soon as she opened her mouth, she had a presence as if six and a half.

  “Hey, Mom. I just got to the shuttle bay, there’s still about twenty minutes until launch.”

  Watching a tear well up and slip down over her cheek made him break eye contact. Overhead lights spread a sheen across her dark skin as she turned to wipe it away. She spared a moment to calm her students down.

  “Always on time, just like your dad. Michael, I don’t want you to do anything crazy out there, you understand me?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “I mean it, boy. I know you got your head fluffed up from that sim, but that doesn’t mean you get to take any stupid risks.”

  “It wasn’t a sim,
Mom. The Falkirk Gauntlet uses real ships in a real asteroid belt. I got the third lowest time ever recorded.”

  Khana Summers covered her mouth; the thought of her son zipping through a field of rocks the size of battlecruisers terrified her mute for a few seconds. “Didn’t you say you placed seventh when you told me about that a few months ago?”

  “Mom, you’re makin’ me brag.” He looked around to ensure no one was eavesdropping, and lowered his voice. “A couple of others posted faster times, but they only scored twenty-three percent, or worse, on the weapons part. I got eighty-two.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “My son shouldn’t be getting eighty-twos.”

  Michael shook his head, laughing. “It’s not a school test, eighty-two targets out of a hundred hit while flying upside down between asteroids at 7,000 meters per second. Not as easy as it sounds… Guess I got lucky.”

  “Can we stop talking about you trying to get yourself killed?” She leaned on the desk, and then began a conversation about casual everyday things as though her son was not about to go off on a dangerous mission. A bevy of questions from her students followed, about what it was like to be a fighter pilot.

  Lieutenant Junior Grade Emma Loring stumbled through the chaos. Both hands clutched the strap of a duffel that weighed as much as she did, threatening to drag her to the ground if she let down her guard for even a moment. Squinting into the icy wind, she wandered along the edge of the throng of officers, enlisted, and civilians.

  She never saw the attack coming.

  Sarah, her little sister, hit her with force more akin to a ten-ton asteroid than a ten-year-old girl. Emma went over backwards, the duffel pulling her down like a turtle on its back. Small fingers clutched the fabric of her uniform, wadding it into fists that shook her as the girl fell on top of her.

  “Please, Emma, don’t go,” she wailed. “Mum’s gone off last month; I don’t want you to leave me alone.”

  Emma let go of the strap and sat up, wrapping her arms around her trembling sibling. “Hey now, Sprite, buck up. This is a very important thing I’m doing. If it goes right, we could end the war.”

  Sarah sniffled, wiping her tears. “I don’t want you to end the war. I want someone else to do it, someone who’s not my sis.” She paused, frowning at Emma’s not-quite shoulder length bob. “Why did you cut it?”

  “Regs. Had to.” Emma pulled at the ends, feeling somber. “That was two years ago when I went in.”

  “I didn’t notice on the TG.” Sarah pouted, twisting ink-black strands through her fingers.

  “Those screens are so titchy, no wonder.” Emma ran her fingers through her sister’s long, straight hair.

  The girl pouted. “Guess I don’t look like a smaller you anymore. Mum’s been gone three months now; I’ve no one to play with.”

  Her father stepped into her peripheral vision wearing a proud grin. Behind him, two security men panned dark visors over the crowd. Sarah narrowed her eyes at them.

  “Your guard dogs don’t even trust the military?” Emma held her sister tight, patting her on the back as she looked up at her father. “It’s as if they’re expecting someone to have a pop at you.”

  “Well, you know how they are. Government security and all that. It’s miserable at home. Whenever I go out, one of them is with me.” Her father pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t have a decent conversation with anyone, they’re afraid of them.”

  “Take me with you?” pleaded Sarah. “I don’t want to go back to London.”

  “I can’t. They don’t let sprogs on board.” Emma winked.

  As the girl ran back to her father, begging him to use his influence to keep her sister home, Emma disengaged herself from her duffel’s strap and stood up.

  “Give ‘er a ‘and with that bag, would you, Jeff? She can barely lift it.”

  The hulking dark suit took a step closer.

  “I’ve got it, Dad.” Emma hefted it back into place. The impact knocked her forward. “I don’t need to be coddled; it’ll only get me teased.”

  Sarah, still clinging to her father, spun her head to stare. A curtain of black settled around her hips. Emma missed having hair that long. The look on the little porcelain face sent a few cracks racing through her resolve. She let the duffel slide to the ground and hugged her father and sister at the same time. After several minutes of silence, he shifted in an awkward twist toward the door. They exchanged glances; Emma knew he needed to go, some business with his office as Senator for District Fourteen, but he resigned himself to stay longer for Sarah’s benefit.

  Closer to the flight deck, Lieutenant Junior Grade Aaron Vorys swaggered past those either already finished with their calls or who had no family come to see them off. He smiled at any who looked at him as if he and he alone would be the reason this mission succeeded. Confident in his stride, his white uniform did not even make the usual swooshing noise as he moved.

  A blonde woman in a plain white uniform with a red cross on each shoulder gave him a head to toe glance. He changed course, sidling up alongside her.

  “Is this your first cruise?” he asked, hoping the glint off his teeth was not too blinding.

  She folded her arms, glanced at the rank on his collar, and flicked at her own pins: a field of black with three diagonal lines. Corpsman, enlisted. “Sorry, cowboy. I’m just here to make sure none of you flyboys leave their breakfast on the flight deck. I’m not here to fraternize.”

  He cringed, feigning pain. “We’re not out there yet; you still have a few minutes to get to know me.”

  The woman let her arms drape limp, shaking her head and turning away. “I don’t think so, sir.” She seemed less than enthusiastic about calling him ‘sir.’ “I sincerely doubt you’ll find a girl that loves you as much as you do.”

  “Looks like your reputation precedes you, Vorys,” said a man just behind him.

  Aaron glared at the pillar of averageness smirking at him, recognizing the source of the voice. He checked the Velcro on his own suit, pinching across the collarbones from left to right and then along a diagonal back to his hip.

  “Your uniform fits just fine. It must be the narcissism wafting off of you,” quipped Liam, his one blue and one green eye caught the light with a gleam.

  Neither could speak for a few seconds over the din of a cargo-mover roaring overhead, hauling several one-ton containers. The train-like arrangement of tug and boxes replaced the cold wind with a warm downrush. The deafening sound of its thrusters cut out the instant it breached the energy wall.

  Aaron frowned at Liam. “I don’t know why you’re so pleased with yourself, Tell. You’d think if they made you in a vat they’d have at least made you perfect.” His voice reverberated quite a bit louder than he intended, occupying the silent aftermath of everyone shutting up in the wake of the tug.

  Lieutenant JG Liam “Tell” Dalton was a replicant. There was no point being either ashamed of or proud of something beyond his control. “They wanted to keep us grounded in reality, keep us normal. They couldn’t go making us all look like Ken Dolls now could they? That would throw off the balance of nature or something.” He tapped his chin, and waved a hand at Aaron. “Besides, there’s plenty of puffed up asses to go around without manufacturing more.” He brushed at his hair, more yellow than Aaron’s sandy-brown, perfectly sculptured coif.

  “She doesn’t know what she’s walking away from.”

  Liam gave up on his false preening. “Oh, I’m pretty sure she does. So, umm, no family to see you off then?”

  “They, uhh, couldn’t get away.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Your mother got that post on Persephone 3. Administrator?”

  “Colony Coordinator,” said Aaron, his nose rising a degree higher.

  Eyebrows climbed. “Impressive, running the whole place. That’s a lot of pressure.”

  “It’s a”―Aaron’s gaze slid off of Liam as he leaned to his right―” Liam, you ever see that before?” He pointed with a head motion.

&n
bsp; Standing in one of the entrance doors, a non-human gazed around as if the shuttle bay were the single largest artificial structure he had ever seen. A touch shy of seven feet tall, his skin was coal black, his body had the general shape of a humanoid save for legs with double-jointed knees. Like a cat, he stood on the tips of elongated feet. The bone that would best approximate a human’s ankle was almost eighteen inches off the ground, leaving his weight balanced on three toes. The quartermaster had accommodated him as best as possible in regards to uniform, though boots in that shape were a bit too far removed from ordinary to be readily available.

  The stranger moved into the room; ebon shimmers over his head had the appearance of either hairs or quills, it would be difficult to tell without touching. He turned his attention toward Aaron and Liam, attracted to the familiarity of their unit patches. With grace surprising for his size, he moved as if floating. Aaron leaned back as the newcomer’s oversized eyes, deep, royal blue ovals bespeckled with thousands of spheres formed of darkening shades, blinked in from the sides. Two ridges ran down the center of his face on either side of his nose, giving the impression of thick black leather grafted on to an otherwise human head. Teeth like onyx chips glinted from pale white gums as he smiled.

  “Lieutenant,” he said, nodding at Aaron before nodding to Liam. “Lieutenant.”

  The voice, silken and deep, did not come in time with the motion of his lips; another sound, faint and comprised of hisses, pops, and throat noises hovered just at the edge of hearing. Small blue lights at the ends of a metallic torc around his neck flickered in time with the speech. Both men shot a glance at the rank pin on the stranger’s sleeve as he extended a hand with three fingers and a thumb. Lieutenant JG, just like them.

  “My apologies, Terrans. Is vertical oscillation of the grasping digits not an acceptable greeting salutation among your kind? Also, if this device”―he tapped the small sphere at one end of the torc―“commits an offensive or embarrassing error of translation, please pay it no mind.”

  Aaron returned the gesture. “Handshake works for us, but if you run into anyone higher rank you should salute them.”