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Sky Marshall Kane McCloud watched the streams of data rolling into the command area. All across the room, hundreds of officers struggled to contain the chaos.

  He knew that’s what it was. Chaos. Complete and total chaos. His job was to bring order to it all. Not order troops. Not to point out orbital targets, not to reprimand commanders. He was a gambler, and his cards were men and women. If he dealt the right hand, then the game was won.

  But first before anything else, they needed to get on the ground. So far, that was proving difficult. The Qin had launched interceptors and seemed to know exactly where to put them.

  “Fourth Marines are green,” a stout-chinned marine general said. His eyes were proud.

  On the display were a dozen invasion sites. Each invasion site was surrounded by smaller drop sites. They had to capture the orbital defenses first.

  One by one, they were turning from red to green. Once they finally secured enough, the heavy dropships could deliver the armor, infantry, and supplies they needed for the invasion. They had a toehold. Almost.

  The invasion points ran from pole to pole. One was in the tundra, three in mountains, three in rolling hills, four in forests and plains, and the last right next to the old colonial capital. All were named for ancient Terran weapons. Dagger. Rapier. Broadsword. Scimitar. Stiletto. Mace. Katana. Assegai. Kukri. Harpoon. Bowie. Lance.

  “Third, Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh Armies are holding just out of orbit,” General Aker said. She kept glancing over her shoulder at the status screen. “One orbital at site eight is unsecured.”

  Kane nodded and walked closer to the screen. “We need those orbitals.”

  “They’re on it now, sir,” Aker said.

  “What’s the unit?”

  “Fifth Ranger, sir.”

  Kane stopped. He felt the eyes on him. His son’s unit. Was he alive? He held his breath for a second and pushed the emotion back. “How long?”

  “Twelve minutes to the orbital strike,” an admiral said. “We can delay—“

  “No,” Kane said.

  Kane stared up at the screens and watched. He’d lost so much in this war. First his father twenty years before, right on that planet below. The last defender at the first planet to fall. That stubborn old man wouldn’t leave the half a billion souls who called it home.

  Then, five years later, the Qin came to his home planet of New Shetland. The Terran Union held them, barely. But it didn’t matter for Matty, his wife. She’d died at home. But what pained him most was that they took his two youngest: a son and a daughter. He didn’t dare say their names anymore; the memory was still too raw.

  Gavin was all he had left. And now, in just under eleven minutes, he’d have to let his own son die.

  “Gavin…”

  ####

  “Shin! What’s our count?” Gavin called.

  “Forty-six.”

  Gavin swore. He peeked over a chunk of rubble. Heavy fire raged out from the entrance. The Qin were tucked in tight, not a single one visible. They fired from a staggered defensive position inside.

  “Ninth Ranger missed the drop,” Shin said. “They can—”

  “We don’t have time for them to get here,” Gavin said. “Do we have any heavy weapons left?”

  A call went down the line of rangers, and they sounded off with the heaviest weapons they had. Grenades. Lots and lots of grenades. But at this range, they wouldn’t help. The rangers had a hundred-meter dash to reach the entrance.

  Gavin checked the approach once more. They could rush it. But he’d lose most of his men. Then they’d hardly have enough to get inside with. No, that wouldn’t do. He’d save that for a last resort, when the orbital was five minutes away.

  They were supposed to be supported by a heavy weapons team from the Third Marines, but the dropship never made it down. For that matter, most of the dropships never made it down.

  A high-pitched turbine buzz echoed off the rock walls, barely audible above the gunfire. The utility drones flew in lazy circles above the rock walls. They had no weapons and only served a support role.

  Gavin snapped his eyes up and grinned. He hunched down and scurried past the line of rangers. He stopped at a female sergeant who had a heavier backpack than the others. “Sergeant Bell! You got a link to that drone?”

  Sergeant Bell squatted down and pulled out a tablet. “Yes, sir, they’re holding. They’ll fly till they run out of fuel.”

  “How much fuel do they have left?”

  ####

  “You stick right on my ass,” Cross said to Jack Cook. “I mean right on it. If I drop, you drop. If I sprint, you sprint. Got it?”

  Jack Cook nodded quickly.

  “Ten seconds!” someone yelled down the line.

  Behind the heap of rubble, Cross adjusted his armor and checked the action on an assault rifle. Not his sniper rifle. He pulled out a pistol and handed it to Jack.

  Jack took it gently and stuffed it into his empty holster.

  “Get down,” Cross said.

  All down the line, the rangers hunched behind cover. Jack dropped to the cold ground and felt his console press against his chest, each of the datakeys like little pebbles.

  In a roar of sound and wind, one of the drones swooped down from the mountain and flew a meter off the ground. It wavered and straightened itself in the currents.

  The Qin defenders opened fire on it. Tracer rounds flew out and danced through the air. A heavy machine gun opened up with a thud-thud, and the drone exploded in a cloud of burnt fuel and smoke.

  The second drone was right behind it. That one flew through the cover of the still-expanding fireball and shot into the opening. There was a crash and a rush of liquid, and then it ignited.

  A jet of flame exploded out from entranceway. One of the Qin defenders stumbled out, his armor coated in flame, and then fell.

  The rangers were already sprinting. The first few pumped their arms. Their rifles were slung behind them. When they were a dozen meters away, they stopped and hurled grenades into the opening.

  Another ripple of explosions rang out. The rangers rushed ahead.

  “Go!” Cross said. He grabbed Jack and pulled him up.

  Jack ran as fast as he could and barely kept up with Cross. He passed the wreckage of the first drone and felt the heat on his cheeks. The entranceway was still burning when they came to it.

  Gunfire and more explosions came from inside. Jack tripped and fell to the floor. He tumbled and came to rest against a smoldering suit of body armor. It seemed bigger than he thought the Qin should be.

  Cross yanked him to his feet.

  They pushed past the wreckage, past a pair of dead rangers, and emerged into the main hall. Far down the line, it opened into a massive space and there was the pulse cannon.

  The rangers fought at each doorway. They punched open the doors, threw in grenades, and then surged in a moment after they went off.

  “Locksmith! Data center, third door on the left!” Lieutenant Shin called.

  Jack ran down the hall and into the room. The air smelled of burnt metal and cooked meat. There was an armored cabinet set against one wall and computer screens arrayed against the others. Electrical service hatches lined the opposite wall.

  “Get to work,” Cross said. He ran out into the hall and disappeared toward the sound of gunfire.

  Jack unzipped his armor and gently pulled out the console. He tapped the self-diagnostic button on the side and was rewarded with a green light.

  Then he took a moment to calm himself. His hands shook, and he clenched them into fists. He closed his eyes and realized he was beyond scared.

  “Here we go. Do whatcha know…then do the rest…” Jack mumbled to himself and unfolded a set of cable from one pocket. He connected it to his console and sat down in front of the armored cabinet.

  Jack tucked the connector into a hexagonal opening and waited while the polymer filled the space. The self-expanding connection was a fail-safe in case they had a slightly different physical si
ze. The console hummed, and diagnostics rolled down the big displays.

  He ignored all of that and focused on his little console. It struggled to interface. The system was slightly different from what he was used to. Slowly, the systems came to an agreement.

  ####

  They had secured the Qin starship after a nasty raid on Phobos. The Terran Union Home Defense fleet managed to chase off the more nimble Qin ships, but one was damaged.

  The marines boarded it immediately, but not before the Qin starship torched holes through half a dozen destroyers and frigates. Even without engines, they were deadly.

  Inside, the Qin were no match for the marines. They put up as much fight as they could, but were simply outdone by the aggressive boarding action. Everyone had expected them to be just as tenacious in close combat as they were in deep space.

  Jack had watched the boarding action when they first “recruited” him. Six months later, they landed the starship into the copper mine. No one knew if it was safe to work on, so they isolated it as well as they could from an enemy transmission.

  It was at that point that the state of the war changed.

  When Jack had first entered the starship, it was like being in a cathedral. A very small, very tight, overly packed, odd-smelling cathedral. He followed after the engineers and scientists.

  Doctor Shan stood on the bridge in his grimy coveralls. “Now! First we do what we know, and then we do the rest!”

  Jack had resented being torn away from his life. He resented spending two miserable winters inside that dank mine. He didn’t particularly like his coworkers. If it weren’t for Doctor Shan pushing the project, he’d have given up.

  Doctor Shan was nearly blind by that second year. He would wander through the halls and monitor the teams studying the control systems. They’d reached a stalemate; the computers were nothing like what they were used to.

  “Jack, my boy. It’s like a cake. Do you eat it all at once? No! You eat it one bite at a time.”

  “I know. But, Doctor, we can’t even find the fork!” Jack rubbed his eyes and just wanted to sleep.

  “Then maybe you should use a different tool, eh?”

  Jack threw out everything after that day and started fresh. The others still plied and prayed with old algorithms and tested methods. He instead applied different keys, unique data structures, overlays of information. It was maddening, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without seeing the pieces.

  A month later, he accessed a maintenance panel. They’d flown in a dozen Human-Qin linguists so fast that one was still in pajamas.

  Then Jack was issued the uniform. A rank without any authority. He and the rest of the team set off to assist in the invasion.

  The plan was simple. Hit them on the ground where humans had the advantage, and then hit them in the sky with their own weapons. It had to work.

  ####

  The console chimed twice. Alien characters raced across the screen like a raging river. A second later, the translator kicked in. There, on the screen, were the maintenance controls for the Qin pulse cannon.

  Jack squeezed his comms key. “Hey, hey! I got it! I’m shutting it down now!”

  Then he felt a cold barrel against his neck.

  Ever-so-slowly, Jack turned his head.

  A man in a strange uniform stood behind him. His eyes were dark. There was a circular tattoo on his cheek. “No, I don’t think so.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The command cells buzzed with activity, tension, and energy. Officers shouted information from one cell to next. A group of info techs struggled to update the tactical display. The planetary view orbited in a holographic sphere above. Dozens of heavy dropships orbited. All waited out of range of the planetary defenses.

  “General Aker?” McCloud turned to the army cell.

  The army cell, like the marine and naval cells, was the pinnacle of information. A hundred generals all relayed critical information through those peak cells. It was the main conduit for high-level orders. Otherwise it was simply too much to direct the battle.

  General Aker leaned over and yelled at the team of officers working around her. “Are we clear? All rangers and pathfinders check in?”

  The officers rattled off a list of unit designations.

  McCloud knew that if it came to it, he’d launch the orbital bombardment. They needed a hole to put those dropships into.

  “The Ravens are in position with support drones from Hellcats,” Admiral Blake, the air superiority officer, said. His cell was calm, cool, relaxed. “Hostiles broke, and we drove them back down to the surface.”

  McCloud raised an eyebrow. It made enough sense. Why waste your air resources fighting a lost battle?

  General Aker stomped from the back of the army command cell. “All checked in!”

  “And the Fifth?” McCloud said.

  “Yes, sir. Captain McCloud is still securing the facility. His locksmith has assumed control of the system.”

  McCloud watched the screen for a moment. A hundred thousand soldiers. A thousand light tanks. Artillery. Hundreds of gunships. Supplies to last for days. It would be like what they’d trained for.

  First, punch a hole in the defenses. Second, drive in the troops. Third, reinforce the special forces and then plow through the Qin and retake the planet.

  He didn’t even think of the next phase—defending against the Qin fleet. For now, if they didn’t get on the ground, they might as well go home. That wasn’t an option; the survival of the human race was at stake.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” McCloud said. He cleared his throat and stood. His heart beat faster in his chest. This was it. Until this moment, they weren’t committed. Now, though…now it was on. Once he gave the word, a steady stream of soldiers and marines would land on the planet. “It’s time to show the Qin what mankind can do. Begin the invasion.”

  Hollers and cheers sounded out. Every cell sent out orders and relayed commands. A massive cloud of dropships broke free from orbit and headed toward a dozen target sectors.

  ####

  Thirty minutes after the order was sent, the first of the dropships plowed through the atmosphere. They couldn’t arc around the planet and use atmospheric braking but instead depended upon massive engines to slow them down. If they swung in nice and gentle, they’d get hammered by hundreds of orbital defense platforms. The TU only took the bare minimum of orbital platforms.

  “Get ready!” Sergeant Major Wallace Holly shouted.

  The roar of the deceleration engines rattled everything.

  “Sound off!” Holly shouted again.

  “Alpha all day!”

  “Bravo bitchin’!”

  “Charlie is cool!”

  “Delta is dandy!”

  “Echo is excellent!”

  “Fox is fucking awesome!”

  Holly grinned as the first sergeants from each of the companies responded. He craned his neck to look down the line: heavily armed and armored soldiers as far as he could see.

  Some grinned. Some prayed. Others did nothing but stare ahead. He was sure one soldier with a mortar tube strapped to his chest was sleeping.

  The dropship lurched to one side. The motion was like a boat roaring through the breaking surf.

  About goddamned time.

  The infantry had been training for this drop for four years. Four years of drops across a dozen different planets. They dropped on ice fields, on ridges, and into swamps, beaches, forests, and cities. They fought dozens of simulated Qin commanders. Sometimes they came out on top. Other times they didn’t.

  An explosion rocked through the hull of the dropship. Light exploded inside. A crackling wall of electricity flared out. Alarms sounded and were lost beneath the groan of metal.

  “Brace!” Holly shouted. He turned his head just in time to see another hole blast through the side of the dropship.

  They had armor plate, but nowhere near enough to halt a pulse cannon. Those things were designed to kill starships. A dropsh
ip, even an armored one, couldn’t take more than a few blasts.

  The fuck? The rangers were supposed to knock all those things out.

  Through the roaring, he looked over and stared down at a line of mountains. They were moving by impossibly fast.

  The voice of the pilot came into his headset. “Hold your asses, boys! We’re going in hot!”

  ####

  Gavin sprinted down the long hallway. “Shin, what the fuck is going on?”

  The pulse cannon fired again. The roar echoed through the mountains. Dust fell from the ceiling, and the whole facility throbbed with energy.

  “We’re still clearing the lower level. It keeps going deeper.”

  “Collins? Wallace?” Gavin called. Both were his squad leaders.

  Collins replied first. “There’s no one here! It’s firing on auto!”

  “We’ve got movement coming up the road,” Wallace called.

  “Locksmith?” Gavin said. “Locksmith?”

  Another shock wave rolled through the facility. The pulse cannon punched another round up into the air. Then it slowly moved to acquire a new target.

  How much time? The navy would already be getting ready to fire. He knew the contingencies; he’d helped draft them. If any orbital facility fell back in Qin hands, the navy would blast it into slag.

  He leaped over three dead Qin suits of armor. He’d wanted to pop one open and see what the Qin here looked like, but hadn’t had a chance.

  Gavin pumped his arms faster. He finally came to the massive hall where the pulse cannon was. The sky was visible above through an armored iris. The pulse cannon hummed and groaned. A bank of equipment on one wall rumbled. He thought for a second about firing into it but doubted it’d do much good.

  He needed the locksmith.

  “Locksmith!” Gavin yelled. He was nearly to the entrance now. The air still smelled of drone fuel and burnt plastic.

  He had forces below clearing the tunnels, he had troops outside holding the road. They’d found no other access.

  Gavin ran into the control room and found himself staring at a man in a gray uniform. He was standing next to a console with his weapon pointed right at Jack.