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  Helton catches Allonia’s eyes with his. “Fight fire with fire, as it were.”

  Her gaze shifts back to Lag, who nods in agreement. “Exactly. Like shooting a rapist; it keeps him from ever doing it again, makes the next bad guy think twice…”

  “And like flattening someone with a missile launcher,” Helton adds.

  “Those are different!” Allonia protests. “That was just self-defense!”

  Helton smoothes the last corner of the bandage into place. “Is it? Is it so different?”

  Allonia looks upset, troubled, and tired. She takes a deep breath, holds it, and slowly lets it out through pursed lips. “So. What next?”

  Seymore is alone in his office, with a very hostile Councilor Darch on his screen. Both are angry, uncertain, and frustrated.

  “You need to call them back!” Seymore yells at Darch.

  “I can’t contact them!” Darch yells back.

  “She’s crazy! They are all crazy! And they threatened me, here–”

  “I don’t give a damn about their threats! If any word of this–”

  “And I don’t give a damn about your fucking election either, but if they land–”

  “Your ManPADS failed, got themselves killed!”

  “I just made the connection, you hired the morons! They were on foot, goddammit, and they just landed on them! She threatened to land on me! That crew is–”

  “I can’t contact the battalion until they radio me, so I don’t know WHAT they’re doing now!”

  “Well you damn sure better find a way to get a line to them, or we are both–”

  “FUCK YOU! You must have a mole that leaked! I know I’m tight here! You have to find out how to get them for what they did to my family!”

  “No, FUCK YOU AND YOUR DEAD ASSHOLE SON! You can’t keep a secret to save your life! You’re only in office because of my support!”

  “And you only have your job because of me!”

  On the bridge of Tajemnica, Helton, Lag, Allonia, Quiritis, and Cooper listen to the enraged voices of Seymore and Darch arguing, played over the PA speakers.

  Lag’s slim smile expresses his grim satisfaction.

  “I’d say that’s enough to crucify them,” Lag says.

  Helton nods. “Quiri, make for the ambush pickup point.” Allonia takes a quick breath, Lag eyes Helton critically, and Cooper looks skeptical. “We know the battalion is badly shot up,” Helton explains. “They’d call for support or extraction unless they lost all the vehicles and coms, which means we should be safe. We can let those two argue forever and record it for later.”

  “Aye-aye, captain. Buttoned up. ETA 34 minutes, 26 if we push it.”

  Helton glances at Allonia. “Push it.”

  Pickup

  Smoke swirls gently by the eight men hunkered down in their hasty fall-back firing position. They are caked in grime and blood, nearly motionless in their exhaustion, heads low, peeking through small notched gaps in the surrounding berm. There are no sounds of war, only the crackling of fire. They look like they’ve been through hell.

  “Think they finally had enough?” Kaushik asks without taking his eyes from the perimeter.

  Harbin grunts softly. “May be organizing a final push.” Carefully he drops the magazine from his rifle, and looks at the top. Only one round is visible, with the follower below it. “Ammo check. Two here.” He pushes the magazine back into position.

  “Four.”

  “One.”

  “Two.”

  “Out.”

  “Two.”

  “Bayonet still mounted,” Sabot says ruefully, after a brief look at the locked-back bolt exposing an empty chamber and dry magazine.

  There is a long pause, then Kaushik reaches over and checks Buck’s pulse. He shakes his head.

  “Either way,” Kaminski says, “shouldn’t be long.”

  A shadow passes over and they glance up. Tajemnica streaks by, moving parallel to the line of the forest fire. She turns in a long arc and comes back, ramp already partially lowered, a small crowd of people on it: Allonia, Helton, Lag, Trask, recruits, and several medics with stretchers. As Tajemnica settles down and lowers the ramp the rest of the way, right onto the edge of the firing position, everyone jumps off to help the wounded men aboard. Kaminski stands unsteadily, straightens up, and takes a step toward the ramp. He staggers and is caught solidly by Allonia.

  “Don’t be an idiot! Let us help you!”

  “Told you,” Kaminski responds through gritted teeth, “not on my shield.”

  “Good thing we showed up to save your ass!”

  “Call it even. Saved yours this morning.”

  Those who can walk are helped up the ramp. The rest are carried aboard on stretchers. The recruits who had worked aboard with the refugees are shocked at the condition of those that went to fight.

  Lag helps Harbin personally. “Sorry for the mess,” Harbin says. “Intel missed some details. Few more than expected.”

  “We saw from the air. Quite a surprise party you throw. Make for a hell of a bonus.”

  “Next Kiv staff meeting should be interesting.” He points to a trio of bullet furrows in his helmet. “Best not mention details to Mohini, though. She worries too much as it is.”

  Injured soldiers lie on beds in the sick bay being cleaned up, stabilized, and covered with many bandages. At least one medic is working on each of them, and there are blood transfusion bags hanging at every bed. Bipasha stands between Kaushik and Harbin, Allonia between Kaminski and Sabot. Only Sabot isn’t completely sedated. Everyone is tired and strained.

  Kaminski speaks encouragingly to Sabot. “Your first battle is a really good no shit, there we were story, complete with cool scars and combat effectiveness bonus. Quite a day’s work.”

  “I sort of understand Lag, but how can you be so casual about it?” Allonia asks in a strained voice. “Buck’s dead, and how many on the other side died because their leaders were stupid?”

  Harbin shrugs and gives Kaminski an I-told-you-so wry grin before facing Allonia. He speaks very matter-of-factly. “Soldiers must focus on the positive. Keeps you from giving up or going insane. Battlefield calculus is insanity, attitude is what keeps you alive.”

  “I’m sure my parents would have liked me to finish training before my first combat, but after this…” Sabot’s voice is slightly fuzzy from injury and pain meds.

  “You did well,” Harbin praises. “Kept your head, did what you had to do. Got a respectable future here if you want it. A first class reference if you don’t.”

  “I’m just glad the two of you, well all of you, are back!” Bipasha exclaims. “I don’t know how Mohini puts up with knowing you go out and do that all the time!”

  Harbin grins faintly at his niece. “I leave her at home. She knows the Colonel doesn’t usually do stupid things, or take stupid contracts.”

  “Do you always get into shit like that?” Sabot wonders aloud.

  “Oh, God, I hope not!” Allonia says, dismayed.

  “No,” Kaushik reassures her, “that was the worst I’ve been in.” Kaminski nods agreement.

  Harbin’s expression becomes more relaxed, almost peaceful. “Trickier than most. But battles like this mean we have to fight less later. People see us coming and they run, surrender, or negotiate. Our standing here as we did means fewer deaths elsewhere. It’s too bad about Buck; he didn’t do anything stupid, just unlucky.”

  “And, of course, it means Taj and her wonderful crew didn’t get shot down,” Kaminski says, giving Allonia’s hand a gentle squeeze, making her blush slightly. Harbin and Kaushik nod.

  Allonia leans in close, and speaks softly, just to Kaminski. “I think we need to talk in private somewhere, soon.”

  He raises his eyebrows in curiosity, then settles back deeper into his pillow. “Yes, I think I’d like that.”

  The whisper of air circulation and the hum of the drives make a gentle background noise. Sabot drifts off as the meds take full effect.
The others are quiet, sunk in thought. After a long silence, Bipasha tries to change the topic.

  “Eight trips, over eight thousand refugees,” she says cheerfully. “No one lost in transit. The RC built out pretty well to accommodate them all.”

  “We still have to figure out how to split it up,” Allonia says, trying to make a joke of it. They look at her suspiciously. “Ambush delivery, recruits, crew, Lag’s company, ship’s company, a visit to Seymore, refugee contract, special target contract, Penger’s generous payment… Not exactly all spelled out in one contract anywhere.” There is a collective groan at the prospect.

  “What!” Kaminski blurts. “You went to Seymore’s?”

  “Why do you think the Kiv soldiers pulled back?” Bipasha asks. “Allonia had a word with him, and by the time we got to you they were in full retreat. She can be quite convincing, I hear. He didn’t like her when she’s angry.”

  Kaminski looks at her, head tipped inquisitively. Allonia returns a tired smile. “You watch my back. I’ll watch yours. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  Quinn crawls though a maze of densely packed machinery, wearing a headband with lights on each side and a small camera in the center. He carries a screwdriver and a small mallet. The compartment is filled with gears, chains, and tube-handling equipment. There are several tubes about three meters long, missile-sized, in some of the holders. He’s inside a magazine with automated munitions-handling equipment.

  A damaged and broken piece of metal is jammed into one of the gears. He climbs like a monkey through the magazine to the jammed gearing. “As I thought,” the Ship AI says in a quiet and reassuring voice. “After that last impact it may be shaken loose enough for you to free now.” Quinn looks it over, playing the lights and camera on it. “Hit it gently from the side, low down, so it moves away from the gears.”

  Quinn hefts the mallet and gives a gentle tap. “There?”

  “Yes, but more firmly.” Quinn gives it a whack, reassesses. The piece of metal has moved a little. “Pry a bit with the screwdriver.” Quinn sticks the screwdriver between the piece of broken equipment and the gear and starts to pry, pulling gently. “No, the other way.” Quinn reverses and pushes. The broken piece moves, shifts, then falls free. “Ah, just so. Just one more fix and it may be usable again. But I’m afraid you can’t help with that right now. Thank you once again for scratching another hard-to-reach itch, Quinn.”

  “Welcome. What next?”

  “Nothing for now, thank you, except to see if anyone needs a hug or a hand. They usually do after battle.” Quinn nods and he crawls back the way he came, carefully carrying the broken piece of equipment out of the partially repaired magazine.

  Everyone in the sick bay is sleeping, except for Kaminski and Allonia. No medics are around. Allonia sits next to the bandaged corporal, holding his hand, an apologetic look on her face. Kaminski has an unsettled expression that changes several times as he makes several aborted attempts at starting to say something. Finally a thought solidifies enough to come out.

  “That’s not what I was expecting. And I thought the battlefield got complicated. Mom always said falling in love was easy, but doing the right thing after that was hard.” Allonia nods slightly. “Got some thinking to do.”

  “You understand why I couldn’t tell you before, and why I had to tell you now?”

  Kaminski nods. “Got some serious thinking to do.”

  The cargo’s bay inner doors are closed, and the wedge-shaped space between them and the raised ramp is dim, empty, quiet. From one side, a folding arm slowly extends, reaching out to the top corner where the brass plaque is mounted. On the end of the arm is a small engraving bit. It whirs gently as it touches the brass, etching at the bottom of a column, adding one more name to the long list already there: JON BUCK.

  There is still room for more.

  Appendix I: Diagrams of Tajemnica

  Front View

  Cross section

  Side view

  Top view

  C-deck (LG is Landing Gear)

  B-deck (also called middeck)

  A-deck (also called top deck)

  Appendix II: History and Technology

  The story proper takes place starting in 2655. Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel was discovered in the late 21st Century, but there is no FTL communication, so star systems are still connected similarly to the 18th-century days of sail, with message-drones and ships carrying data and people between stars, often taking days, weeks, or even months for flights. Explorers might be out of touch for many months. Thousands of star systems and planets have been explored, and some have been partially terraformed. The dominant cultures out among the stars are the descendants from former British Colonies, but there are scattered colonies from various other places as well.

  A supernova at Eta Carinae disrupted subspace enough that FTL was shut down for several centuries, and each terraformed planet (and planets that were still very much “in progress”) and colony had to survive (or not) on its own. This was known as “the deep dark” or “the big blackout”, as well as by several other names. Places still inaccessible are often referred to as being “in the dark” or “in The Deep.” This story takes place after things have quieted down a bit and stars are “coming back,” meaning FTL travel is once again possible in some places. However, subspace is like a stormy ocean, and “swirls” in it can make FTL flights faster, or slower, than normal, or even shut them down altogether for a while.

  About the terraforming technology: Earth found a number of star systems that had apparently had planets moved around to place roughly Earth-sized rocky planets into the water zone orbiting the star, sometimes even two or three of them, in stable orbits. Some were planet-sized moons, some ordinary planets. The unknown aliens that moved them were dubbed “Planet Movers.” The only traces Planet Movers left were the evidence of moved and somewhat engineered planets, and a message they engraved into the rock on each planet. The text of the message was always the same, but the surrounding “decorations” have some variations on a theme — chains, interlocking gears, and what appeared to be swords and spears. There is no consensus of any sort as to what the message means.

  Humans recreated how their technology worked to terraform a planet as follows:

  First, a set of twelve giant gravity field benders that looked like huge three-prong tuning forks are placed in two sets of three orthogonal pairs. These could bend or manipulate the planet’s gravity enough to alter orbit, rotation, and core spin, in order to move it to the desired distance from a star, give it an approximately 24 hour day, a proper axial tilt (20–25 degrees), and a spinning core to generate a strong magnetic field (to protect the atmosphere from the solar wind).

  While this happens, numerous giant automated ships (each about one kilometer in diameter), called Gas Transport Spheres would ship hydrogen from a local gas giant to the planet, where they would land on top of a terraforming platform (TFP) that was grinding up vast quantities of rock (mostly silicates and carbonates) and extracting the oxygen to mix with the hydrogen to make water. A largely automated manufacturing process is set up on each planet to make a bunch of the terraforming machines (the goal was a hundred or more per planet). The terraforming machines were designed to also be similar to colony ships: to establish life on the planets while they engineer the surface and atmosphere, kind of like a high-speed genesis — air, water, bacteria and algae, simple multi-cellular forms like grasses and seaweeds, then working up through more complex species as conditions allowed, starting with grazers and filter-feeders, etc. Each TFP had a population of dozens to hundreds of self-supporting colonists. Some colonies that were going strong survived the big dark just fine, some promptly expired, a few squeaked through. So there are several hundred potentially colonizable planets, some with thriving colonies, some abandoned, some still being terraformed on total automatic.

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