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Below me, the smart metal of the deck rippled and withdrew, exposing the bare ribs of the structural nanosteel-alloy supports. The material wrapped itself around conduits and pipes, leaving a hole barely big enough for me to fit though in my bulky suit.

  “Geronimo!” I yelled, stepping into the hole. My weapons held above my head to keep them from catching on anything.

  All three tons of me slammed down atop a scorpion, facing backward. The force of my landing crushed its back, but it kept struggling anyway.

  The twin tails snapped reflexively toward me. I threw myself sideways and chopped at the nearest stinger with my axe.

  It bit deeply, but couldn’t sever the armored tail. I rolled onto the deck, jerking the axe free. I fired my laser directly into the thing’s softer underbelly, and ichor boiled out of the hole in its chitin.

  Something knocked me sideways a moment later, and I somersaulted into a handful of Demon infantry, sending them tumbling like bowling pins. Lashing out with my axe and firing wildly with my laser, I created as much chaos as I could…until something grabbed me by the foot.

  I had time to see a beetle clamp its mandibles around my ankle before it picked me up and whipped me like a rag doll bashing me against the housing of a medium laser. I could feel my entire body bruise, and I saw stars, but forced myself to skitter sideways, taking cover. I dialed an injection, a hero’s cocktail of stim and painkiller, and a moment later I felt the discomfort fade as my heart pounded so hard it felt like it was about to explode.

  Orange plasma bolts splashed near me, and I realized I’d lost my axe. Picking up the laser rifle dangling from its cable, I stuck it around the corner and triggered a burst to keep the enemy at bay, hating to think of the damage all this was doing to the interior of the gun deck. Fires raged here and there as a result of all the hot energy we were throwing around.

  Reinforcements began to pour in from the doors and ladders, and I could see small green beams sizzle through the smoky gas. Those would be shots from laser pistols. A group of friendly crewmen were holed up in the machine shop off to my right defending the doorway.

  “Hang in there, people,” I called over my short range com-link and rolled to my feet, lifting my rifle to fire a long burst at a beetle trying to chew its way inside. The laser pistols hardly bothered it, and plasma bolts striking near me kept me from concentrating my beam long enough to burn through its tough exoskeleton.

  “Warning: battery low,” my suit suddenly said into my ear.

  When I ducked back into cover and checked, I could see it was true. My battlesuit capacitors were down to five percent. I needed to wait and let the fusion generator recharge before I had enough excess to use my power-hogging laser, but I had no time. The gun crew was about to get an unwelcome visit from a beetle.

  I slammed the rifle into its stowage clamp and eyed my fallen axe lying a few yards away in the open. Taking a deep breath, I charged out and scooped it up as I ran. Taking it in a two-handed grip, I swung it laterally like a pool bat and cleaved a Demon infantryman in half.

  The monster next to it fired at me point-blank. I could feel the heat of the orange blast singe my knuckles through my gauntlets, one of the thinnest parts of my suit. I kicked out, knocking the weapon out of the Demon’s hands and then slashed it with my axe.

  Cat-quick, the bug leaped back and pulled long knives from its battle harness. A moment later, it attacked me with a whirl of blades. I countered by punching at it with my broad double-bladed axe and blocked the blades with its hard metal handle. I’d never bothered to analyze what the Raptors had made my weapon from, but it was tough stuff, at least as hard as nanosteel.

  I very much wanted to dispatch my opponent and get back to trying to relieve the gun crew holed up in the machine shop, but this Demon must have been one of their champions because he fought me to a standstill—an impressive thing considering I had the battlesuit and he had nothing but two short swords. If the Devil himself had designed these things, he could hardly have made better combat troops.

  I backed up, trying to work my way around the room, when suddenly a huge figure loomed out of the choking smoke supported by two Raptors. He leveled a laser rifle. “Duck, boss!” Kwon roared, and I threw myself behind a laser housing.

  Green beams caused my faceplate to darken as I rolled to my feet, turning my back on the Demon champion that Kwon and his flankers were gunning down.

  The beetle had widened the door enough to force its way through to the gun crew. Pounding across the deck, I raised my axe over my head and brought it down with all my might on its shiny brown back. The blade bit deep but then lodged in the thick chitin. Enraged, the beetle spun, but I clamped my hands onto the haft of the weapon and hung on.

  Now I was riding the thing like a bull with no saddle as it hopped and tried to twist to reach me. Using the buried axe as a solid handle, I remained beyond its clutches as it danced and crashed into workbenches sending tools everywhere.

  Warrant Officer Cornelius and her people stood at one end of the long narrow room and fired their weapons, some hitting me as they tried to damage the beetle.

  “Careful, dammit!” I roared as the bug thrashed. “Aim for its legs!” This would have the dual benefits of slowing the thing down and missing me, I hoped.

  A dozen thin beams popped and sizzled low, having no effect that I could see, but at least doing me no damage. I kept trying to plant my feet, but the carapace was too slippery for my boots to grip. It was all I could do to hold onto my weapon’s handle like an arctic climber clutching an ice axe against a mountainside, waiting for reinforcements.

  Kwon appeared in the doorway as I’d hoped he would. Assessing the situation, he clearly realized he couldn’t go blasting away with his heavy laser without endangering our lightly armored people in the room. “No beams!” he yelled to the two Raptors with him. “Attack!”

  The warriors leaped, their spiked and armored tails complementing the axes in their hands. They struck and bounced upward, using their superior jumping skills to ricochet off the walls and then onto the beast. Each time they landed, they gouged out chunks of beetle armor.

  In response, the twenty-ton, combat-vehicle-sized creature tried to scrape me off by slamming me against a bulkhead. This half-stunned me, but my armor was tougher than the wall so I only had the wind knocked out of me. I lost my grip on the axe and slid down onto the floor.

  As I crawled along the edge of the wall toward the gun crew, I looked beneath the beetle’s thrashing legs and saw Kwon jump forward to seize my axe handle. Though he wasn’t actually stronger than I was, with his armor he was considerably heavier. Between his weight hanging off the handle and all the other damage it was taking, the big bug had begun to slow.

  I checked the charge on my suit and saw it had crawled up to twelve percent—enough for a few laser shots, so I stood up in front of the crewmen and unslung my rifle. Sighting carefully, I fired at the thing’s head. My fourth shot boiled one of its compound eyes, and its relatively coordinated struggle turned into a thrashing death frenzy, the pain making it crazy.

  Kwon finally ripped my axe free and slid down to land on his feet. He chopped at the beetle, the Raptors joining in. With all of us together, we managed to bring it crashing down.

  -14-

  “Nice work, Kwon,” I gasped, looking around the wrecked machine shop at the truck-sized carcass on the floor and the dozen gun techs putting away their weapons to begin setting things right. “Now get back out there and mop up.”

  “You stay here then, okay boss?” he said.

  “Yeah, Kwon. I’m done with marine stuff right now. Go.” That assurance freed him from his desire to constantly bodyguard me. Frankly, if I wasn’t needed out there, I was fine taking a quick break from the hand-to-hand fighting. My cracked ribs ached when I breathed, even with the painkillers.

  “HUD, switch to ship-wide tactical,” I said to my suit, and was relieved to see that most of the red blotches had been wiped away
. “Valiant, damage control status?”

  “Serious damage to gun and drone decks.” That made sense as those were located top and bottom, immediately inside our hull armor. “Standard airlocks inoperative. Other internal systems degraded, but repairable.”

  “Casualties?”

  “Two human crew and two marines KIA, seventeen wounded but likely to survive. Twelve Raptors killed, thirty-nine wounded.”

  “Damn. Put me through to Marvin.”

  A pause. “Marvin is unresponsive.”

  “Keep trying every five minutes. Where’s Greyhound?”

  “Docked with the wreckage of a Demon battleship.”

  I growled. Marvin was off exploring alien tech, which was all well and good, except that repairing Valiant was my highest priority. The robot was hell on wheels when it came to rebuilding machines. I got the feeling he regarded that function as akin to doing unpleasant chores, though, and so avoided it when he could.

  Switching my com-link to the bridge, I said, “Hansen? What’s it look like in space?”

  “Clear around us. The Nano frigates are hunting down the last few live Demons floating in the wreckage. What’s your feeling on prisoners?”

  I thought about that. “If one of their humanoids can be taken, I wouldn’t mind capturing it for interrogation, but don’t go to extraordinary lengths.”

  “Okay, well…”

  “What?”

  “I think I can get you one, but I have to move fast. Hansen out.”

  I shrugged. I’d wanted to find out about the battle between the Demons and the Elladans, but the holotank would tell me everything I needed to know soon enough.

  Someone tapped my armor, and I turned to see Cornelius in a crew suit. Her faceplate was open to show her red cheeks. I opened my helmet and sniffed the air. I smelled chemicals, smoke and an indescribable metallic stink from the dead bug that occupied half the deck.

  “Thanks, Captain,” she said. “I believe we will have to change our underpants, but not until we get the weapons in order, yes?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Bust your asses, Chief, because the day’s not over with.”

  I turned and left Cornelius to her work and headed for the armory.

  I took a quick detour into the factory room and waved at Adrienne. It appeared she’d sealed up tight, and no enemies had gotten in.

  “You good?” I asked as I clomped over.

  “Brilliant,” she replied, grabbing my shoulders and lifting herself off the floor to kiss me through my faceplate. “You look like hell.”

  “I made a mistake,” I replied. “I assumed the Demons had been beaten, and I forgot they don’t need spacesuits. They abandoned ship and boarded.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did they reach Valiant? I mean, with no suits, how did they maneuver to attack us in open space?”

  “Good question. Find out and we’ll both know,” I said, putting her down carefully. “I have to go.”

  “Stop by the infirmary first,” she said, pointing down the passage with a long-nailed finger.

  “I’m fine, and I’m sure they’re busy with the seriously wounded.”

  “That’s why you need to stop by. Show you care. Press the flesh. Good for morale.”

  I chuckled. “I’d like to press some flesh with you.”

  Adrienne smiled. “That’s just the adrenaline talking. Now go on, off with you.” She sat back down at her consoles. “I have a lot of parts to make.”

  I resisted another sexual joke and left her to her work.

  Withdrawing my gauntlets into my suit, I clapped a busy Doctor Achmed on the back as he set a marine’s broken leg. Speaking encouragement to everyone around, the wounded cheered me. I felt guilty because it was my mistake that had put them there.

  I left the infirmary as soon as I could.

  The armory was already beginning to fill with marines servicing their weapons and dropping off their suits to recharge. Relieved chatter mixed with rough jokes, and a grim mutter of greeting sounded when I arrived.

  I saw Moranian sitting on a bench in a corner, staring at a gauntlet held in her gloved hand. When I’d backed my suit into its niche, I walked over to her.

  “You did good work today, Sergeant,” I said.

  She looked up at me, short red hair plastered on her skull and her eyes haunted. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Your first combat leading troops who didn’t make it?” I guessed.

  She nodded. I pressed my lips together considering her distress. “I don’t have any easy answers, Rosalie. We take it one day at a time and we make it through.”

  Hefting the gauntlet, she turned it over, and it dripped blood onto her knee. The color was a surreal near-match to her vivid locks. I realized that the gauntlet wasn’t hers, and it wasn’t empty.

  Someone’s severed hand remained inside.

  “This was Rayburn’s,” she said.

  I dredged the man’s name out of my memory. He was a lance corporal, a good man…and one of the KIAs.

  “He had a family back home,” she said. “Now they don’t have him. He came so far—but didn’t make it. Doesn’t seem right.” She slammed the metal gauntlet on the bench beside her. She looked like she was fighting an urge to vomit.

  Post-combat reaction could do this to the strongest of us, I knew. Biology didn’t care about decorum or embarrassment. Stuff like this was one reason marines drank so much.

  I wanted to put a comradely arm around her and comfort her, but I couldn’t risk it. Considering the history between us, it might reignite Adrienne’s jealousy.

  Spotting Gunny Taksin, I grabbed his elbow and whispered in his ear, steering him toward Moranian. He nodded and sat down, talking her through it.

  I wished I could have done it, but I kept myself at arms’ length from everyone except Adrienne, so I wouldn’t be wrecked every time someone died.

  That necessary distance denied me many of the common mechanisms my people had for coping with tragedy. They had to see me as larger than life in order to believe in me…in order to believe in getting home against overwhelming odds, in order to keep from cracking.

  After every battle, my little band diminished, grew more fragile. With no replacements to our community, no reinforcements, everyone was worried. Especially the marines who stood on the front line.

  Something had to be done, something drastic and maybe dangerous. An idea occurred to me once more, an unorthodox idea, but it would need time to implement. I put it on hold for the moment.

  I made a quick round, slapping backs and speaking words of praise to my dwindling cadre of Pigs. After that I washed my face as a poor substitute for a shower, grabbed a beer to take the edge off and headed for the bridge. Everything still hurt, but I could feel the fizz-in-the-blood sensation that told me my nanites were working to heal me.

  I dropped the squeeze-bottle into a corner for ejection through the deck before touching a wall and turning it into a door.

  Hansen nodded to me as I joined him at the holotank. Lazar was sitting in the pilot’s seat, looking nervous. There was no need for him to be edgy. We were floating in space—or technically, still traveling toward Ellada, but as everything held position together in a free-fall, it was a minor distinction.

  The rest of the bridge was deserted, with only the minimum number of watch crew. The rest were helping with repairs and damage control.

  “What about that Demon prisoner I wanted?” I asked before Hansen could speak.

  “It’s in the brig,” he replied.

  “I’m going to see it.”

  “Now?”

  “I might learn something vital.”

  Hansen growled and turned away.

  “Valiant,” I said, “have Kwon meet me at the brig.”

  When I got there, I found Kwon waiting.

  “We have a prisoner, Kwon. Want to see it firsthand?”
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  Kwon chuckled. “Why do you always want to talk to the enemy? Just kill them.”

  “Because there’s always a chance we can find something out that helps us win.”

  “Whatever you say,” he said with a shrug.

  “I say back me up, but don’t say anything, okay?”

  “Okay, boss.”

  I closed up my faceplate and entered the outer brig, a small room with a couple of desks, lockers and screens for guards to occupy. A Demon-shaped helmet and battle harness lay in a heap on a small table, along with one of their pulsed-plasma rifles.

  The two marines there saluted me. I returned the courtesy and said, “Give me a view inside the cell.” A screen lit up, and I saw a humanoid Demon squatting awkwardly atop the metal chair bolted to the floor. It appeared to be injured, with one upper limb broken and dangling, dripping ichor.

  “Open it up,” I said.

  The ship created a dilating doorway, and I stepped into the opening.

  “Kwon, leave the rifle outside. The two of us in suits can handle him. Corporal, close the door behind us.”

  When we’d gone inside, the door vanished. We barely fit in the room with the Demon backed up into a corner, holding up its unbroken limb.

  “Valiant, do we have any translation software for Demons yet?”

  “Yes. Marvin provided a partial data set before his priorities were diverted. I have since refined it as I was able. It should suffice for basic understanding.”

  “Good work. Translate then, and project my words to its ears…or whatever. Does it have ears?”

  “It has sound receptors.”

  “Good. Creature, do you understand me?” I asked.

  “I hear,” came the flat-toned, translated response.

  “Why do you attack the humans and Ketans?”

  “We do what we must.”

  Hmm. This thing specialized in vague answers. “Why are your ships lined with slime?”

  “I’m not permitted to provide information regarding the technical capabilities of our war vessels.”

  “Fair enough. What was your role in the battle?”

  “I do not understand.”