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  comm channels blocked for launch. The messages didn’t get through.”

  “Shit, we’re less than an hour to launch.”

  “Exactly.” He mimed at me to scream then made a face when I obeyed. “And our people still

  don’t know the attack is coming.”

  “So stop the chatter and let’s get going.” Romeo pointed an ear at the door. “What’s the

  plan?”

  “I have to get to the comm shack.” Roy glanced out the door, frowning. “Long shot, now,

  though. All hell’s going to break loose when those monitors spot the two of you.”

  “At least we’ll die trying.” Romeo stood and stretched. “Ready?”

  “Wait a minute.” Somehow I felt better than I had in one very long time. “Romeo, you know

  where the comm shack is?

  “Spotted it on the way in. Why?”

  “Can you get that message out if we don’t make it?”

  “If I can reach the shack, I can get through to my own people. Can’t vouch for yours.”

  “No go,” Roy said. “It’s StelFleet we need to notify!”

  “We need whoever’s closer!” I snapped. “And we know the Lupans are already in the sector.”

  Roy gave me a look sergeants reserve for hopelessly stupid grunts. “If we fail to notify

  StelFleet, then Kriegsman’s sponsors will call any Lupan strike here a sneak attack on a neutral

  world.”

  Shit. He was right. “Okay, so we got to get both of you to the comm shack.” I just hoped

  Romeo’s virtue would survive the close quarters.

  “How?” Romeo wiggled ears at me. “I can’t exactly pass for a flat tooth.”

  Gobbing shit! Biting my lip, I searched the cell for inspiration. I found it in the dead brute.

  “Swap clothes with that Aryan,” I told Romeo. “Grab a hat on your way out and keep your head

  down. If this works, everybody will be too busy to look at you too close.”

  “And the three of us are just going to waltz out of here?” Roy gave me a moue of disgust.

  “Two of us are, yeah. We’re going to pull your prisoner stunt. Only this time you’re going to

  be leading me.” I ran through the plan I’d formed while Roy pulled restraining rings from the

  dead brute’s apron pocket and slid them over my wrists. “Romeo, you stay here till the

  commotion starts. After that –”

  “We will see what your gods want.” Romeo finished for me.

  “Or die of old age while you two chatter,” Roy snapped. He poked the open end of the rings

  into my palm and nodded toward the hall. “Gods, I hope you can act.”

  On an impulse that surprised me, I planted a kiss on Romeo’s lips as we rose. What surprised

  me even more was that he kissed me back. It wasn’t much of a kiss as kisses go but it left a soft

  and sweet memory on my lips.

  “Can we just get on with saving the universe?” Roy yanked me back by the rings. “Remember

  to scream,” he hissed at Romeo, then shoved me outside so hard I bounced off the opposite wall.

  He half pulled, half-dragged me past the stockade’s check-in counter.

  “Taking the prisoner to the Colonel,” he told the grunt on duty. “My assistant will continue

  the Dog’s interrogation.” On cue, Romeo bellowed. The grunt shuddered. After that, he couldn’t

  get us out of there fast enough.

  Outside, the base was in the mass motion uproar of a mission launch. What looked like a

  whole battalion of Streikern commandos in full gear jogged down the main drag. Officers’

  skimmers thrummed by overhead, their repulse fields pinging sand across the grunts’ helmets.

  Non-coms bawled orders at the heavy equipment rumbling past in their own stinging clouds of

  grit. At the far end of the road I could see massive loaders trundling siege equipment into the

  maws of the transport ships out on the landing field.

  Roy flagged down the first skimmer he saw. Shoving me into the passenger’s seat, he booted

  out the grunt at the controls, and slid into the woman’s place instead. He took off fast enough to

  make the ex-driver do a duck’n cover.

  “You’re crazy, you know that.” Any trace of the fluttery Sprite was gone; Roy was pure, cold

  business now. He swung the skimmer up into the madcap traffic stream and pointed us down the

  main drag toward the comm shack.

  “Yeah, I kinda had that figured already.” I worked the rings off my wrists. “How long we

  got?”

  “Fifteen, twenty minims at the outside. Most of the troops are already boarded.”

  “How long you need to get through?”

  He shrugged. “Depends on the type of comm block Kriegsman’s using. Won’t know till I

  try.”

  I swore under my breath. Any lock Kriegsman came up with wasn’t going to be an easy hack.

  We wove around a transport. I caught a glimpse of the driver as we zoomed past. It was one

  of the sisters I’d seen at the table this morning. Seeing her sparked an idea. “Hey, can you get me

  to transport staging?”

  “What – you planning to join in?”

  “No. But I think I can create a diversion.”

  He lifted us out of the traffic stream and banked off toward the landing field. We didn’t speak

  again till he set us down near the staging command post. I started to climb out, then paused.

  “Probably won’t get the chance to say this later, so thanks. I wish I could say I hope things’ll

  work out between you and Romeo.”

  “Don’t worry. They won’t.” He gave me a sad little smile. “The man hates me.” He tried to

  make it flippant, but I heard the misery in his voice. “Now, get going! ”

  I scooted out before he saw the hope I felt lighting my eyes. He lifted the skimmer in a

  spitting blast of repulse fields and swung back toward the center of the base.

  I sprinted across the landing field, feeling lighter than I could ever remember feeling. For the

  first time since Kriegsman and his buds had worked me over I felt alive. Dodging the gray

  behemoths of the loaders I dashed for the depot chief’s shack. One massive loader bellowed at

  me as I crossed its path. I glanced up to see Awen at the controls. Couldn’t tell whether she saw

  me. All I could do was hope she didn’t call my location into base Sec.

  I plunged into the shack and nearly bounced off Paris. The dark-skinned dragon was checking

  stats on a high-powered air hose by the door. “Where’s Del?” I panted.

  “Here.” Del stepped out of the back room, databoard in one hand. The silver thread of a

  comm unit spiraled around her head from ear to mouth. She lowered the mouth piece to scowl at

  me. “What you want now, Aryan?”

  “I need your help. We’ve got to stop Kriegsman.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “We had that talk already.”

  “Listen, Kriegsman’s going to execute every last sister soon as you finish loading!”

  “Sure, and he let you out of stockade just so you could warn us. Good try, Aryan, but I have

  seen that trick before.”

  I caught her hand before she could pull the mouthpiece back up. “We’ve got a chance to stop

  Kriegsman from killing your kin folk. And to pay for Marg Sang.” I held her hand, forcing her to

  meet my eyes. “You going to let him get away with murder again, Del? You going to let him kill

  you and your grandkids and Awen’s babies? You going to let Tanner have died for nothing? We

  can stop him. All you got to do is foul the loading.”

  “Yah, and give the Colonel a real reaso
n for shooting me.”

  “Dammit, he can’t if we stop him! Kriegsman’s gone rogue. This attack is his idea, not

  Command’s.”

  That made her frown. “Say what?”

  “StelFleet’s onto him. We’ve got an intercept squad en route. All we have to do is hold the

  launch until they get here.”

  “Yah, sure. And how you know that?”

  “Because I called them in! ” That was an outright lie, but it fit with the kind of scuttlebutt she

  should’ve been hearing. “If they catch us launching, every grunt on this base will be branded a

  traitor! And no one will ever know what really happened at Marg Sang. Is that what you want?

  “What I want don’t count, Aryan!” Del cocked her head, listening to something coming over

  her comm set while she talked. “I’m following orders. If you want to test our loyalty, you do it

  some other time. Right now I got me a strike force to load.”

  At her nod Paris lunged. I dove and rolled for the doorway. I hit something tall and bumpy. I

  grabbed at it by instinct. Whatever it was kicked me in the gut before I got a grip.

  “What a pleasure to find you here.” I heard Kriegsman’s voice through the sound of my

  wheezing.

  Rough hands yanked me to my feet. Kriegsman’s backhand straightened me up. “I should

  have finished the job on you back on Earth,” he snarled. “Pity I don’t have time to work on you

  now.”

  “What you want me to do with her, sir?” Del’s voice said above my ear. Oh, gobbing hell –

  those were her arms trapping my elbows.

  “Just hold her still.” Outside, the loudspeakers blared to life. I bit back a groan: routine

  loading orders. I’d failed. I’d failed myself. I’d failed Romeo. Hell, I’d failed the whole gods-be-

  damned species.

  Kriegsman pulled a neural wand from one of the pet brutes filling the doorway behind him.

  He pressed the patch in the wand’s handle and lifted it to hover above my cheek. “Did you really

  think you could stop me, you stupid little monkey?”

  I locked eyes on him, grateful the noise of the loudspeakers drowned out the wand’s hum.

  “I’m not the one who’ll stop you, Kriegsman. The Corps itself will –” I lost the rest as the tip

  seared fire down my face and throat. Some dim part of my imagination thought it heard my

  scream echo fill the air.

  Kriegsman lifted the wand, letting me sag in Del’s grip. “Nobody knows we’re here,” he

  hissed. “And by the time High Command figures it out, I will be the only power left –” Outside,

  the loudspeakers echoed his voice. “What the hell was that?”

  “What was what, sir?” I heard Del ask, innocent as only a guilty non-com can be.

  “Don’t play games with me, you stupid bitch!” Kriegsman snarled. His voice exploded across

  the field.

  The sound startled his attention away from me. Using every ounce of hatred I possessed, I

  threw myself against Del’s bulk and slammed my boots into Kriegsman’s ribs.

  The blow knocked him back into his Streikern guards. Those two were big enough that

  Kriegsman only bounced off. But the impact made him drop that damned wand.

  Del dragged me aside as the Streikern swung their rifles up. Something went whump past my

  ear. The blast from Paris’s air hose sent all three men rolling.

  Del was already snapping orders through her headset. Without breaking breath she reached

  into the back of the shack to pull out a rifle. She shoved it into my hands then shoved me under

  the brutal air stream her partner still had trained on Kriegsman. I nodded thanks and ran.

  The field was chaos. All across the landing field bulbous troop transports sat with their ramps

  down, cargo holds open. Some of the great troop loaders had simply stopped where they were,

  their doors still shut, sealing the troops inside. Others rumbled in circles, wreaking havoc with

  the field crews. From the corner of my eye I saw one massive loader shift into speed and trundle

  up the ramp of a transport. It hit the cargo bay doors with a clang that must have shattered the

  lock seals. It was backing off for another go when I lost sight of it.

  A laser bolt spat molten rock at my feet. I leaped and a second shot bubbled the ground

  beneath me. I caught of glimpse of the shooter as I returned fire: Kriegsman.

  One of the loaders thundered toward me. I raced Kriegsman’s laser fire till I put its bulk

  between us.

  “Get in!” A woman’s voice shouted above my head. I glanced up to see Awen peering down

  through the master’s window.

  Slinging the rifle across my back, I scrambled up the ladder she’d dropped down the loader’s

  side. Awen activated the machine’s shields as soon as my feet cleared the doorway. “Where to?”

  “Comm shack.”

  “Got it.” Both hands locked in her sync links, Awen swiveled the loader toward the base’s

  main drag. Awen took her eyes off the road long enough to flash me a grin. “Keep your head

  down, huh? You’re drawing fire.”

  Needlepoints of light skittered across the cab’s screen, smearing incandescent streamers

  across my field of vision. In itself, that wasn’t a worry. The loader was designed to operate in

  combat; our shields could absorb a helluva lot of fire. Trouble was, they were designed to deliver

  their troops and get out. They had no return fire capacity. The bad side of that was, the grunts

  still on the loose were Kriegsman’s Streikern shock troops. It was only a matter of time before

  Kriegsman’s people brought up enough firepower to take us out.

  The laser fire slowed down as we neared the comm shack. One glance at the pile of bodies

  surrounding the shack door and windows showed why. The fight here wasn’t a wild spray ‘em at

  will firefight. Weren’t many laser flashes. But when a rifle spat, a soldier dropped. The Streikern

  troops had already tried posting snipers on the buildings opposite. I spotted white-haired corpses

  draped over the roof tops.

  I told Awen to block the door. I clambered behind Awen, then offed the cab’s driver side door

  shield long enough to hurl myself out of it. I nearly wrenched my arms out of their sockets

  sliding down the ladder. The pulsating thrum of the repulse fields popped the stench of the dead

  at me like a series of backhands. Hunkering in the shelter of the loader, I crept to the door and

  pounded. “Romeo!” I shouted. “Roy!” C’mon! We gotta get out of here!”

  The door opened so fast I fell through it face first. I landed at Romeo’s feet and rolled He

  slammed the door shut with a rifle butt then ducked under a couple of windows to cover the

  street. Somehow he and Roy had managed to rig a battle shield around the comm board itself.

  Within it, Roy danced from panel to panel, hands and fingers skittering in and out of sync links

  with blurring speed.

  “What the hells are you still here for,” I shouted at him. “You got the panels up. Now let’s get

  out of here!”

  “It’s no good.” Through the haze of the shield, the boy’s face was ashen. “Kriegsman’s got all

  the outbound channels sync’d to his biopat. I’ve tried everything, but even the memory of his

  prior link-ins is sealed.”

  “You telling me you didn’t get the message out? Still? ” If I hadn’t already been on my knees,

  I would’ve dropped.

  “Yes, that’s what I’m sayi
ng!” Roy snapped. “Everything’s set. I just can’t get it out without

  Kriegsman.”

  “Gobbing hells.” I listened to the zim of Romeo’s rifle fire from the far end of the shack.

  “Okay, listen,” I told Ray. “Do you need Kriegsman here? Or just in sync someplace on base?”

  “Anyplace in sync will do. I’ve got every scanner on base slaved to this panel. He syncs in

  even for a nanosecond, those messages go out.”

  “Okay, so we got to find Kriegsman.” I blocked out the rush of fear in the thought. Against

  professional scum like Kriegsman fear would only get me dead. “Can you track him from here?

  “Uh-uh. His biopat’s blocked, too. Sonuvabitch is invisible until he decides to sync in.”

  Yeah, that fit Kriegsman’s pattern. But I’d seen him in action before. He’d run once real

  trouble started. “Quick – have any of the fighters taken off yet?”

  Roy skittered fingers across the boards. “Not yet. Got a squad powering up, second quadrant,

  but they’re still on the ground.”

  “That’ll be Kriegsman, then. This goes south, he’ll be running for home before anybody can

  tag him.” I turned to Roy. “Can you ID the biopats of those fighter pilots from here?”

  “Already got ‘em.” He grimaced. “All except one.”

  Bullseye. “That’ll be Kriegsman. Show me.”

  Roy touched a control. The center of the room morphed into a holograph of the port field. The

  hills lining the field had opened up, revealing the cavernous hangars built into them. A dozen

  manta-shaped fighters were rolling out. Even in holo I could see the gravel dance to the rhythm

  of their combined repulse fields. A name hovered above each fighter, spelled out in glowing red

  letters – above each fighter except one. Roy zoomed focus in on the unmarked fighter. Figured:

  Kriegsman hid in the middle of the squad, letting his ShipMind handle the warm up. He probably

  wouldn’t sync in until they launched. Until it was too late to stop him.

  The shielding around the comm panel flickered as Roy switched his attentions to another

  section of the panel.

  “What the hell you think you’re doing?”

  “Setting this for automatic.” Roy spoke while his fingers danced over controls. “I’ve queued

  the alerts to both our troops and the Lupans. I’ve rigged a porta-link to lock in on Kriegsman’s