“Why would she?” Kirin laughed. It wasn’t funny. “I mean, it’s not like there’s a peace option. No one’s offering to negotiate.”

  “They are not,” the security man agreed with a nod. “Well, who knows? People are strange. Sometimes they get caught up in little things and miss the big ones, you know? They find some detail they don’t agree with and lose sight of the reasons behind it all. No way to know.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t give you better news. If I were you, I’d try to put it out of my mind. Remember how it was when it was good. Let the rest go.”

  “It’s just, when there was a flag on the message—”

  “Don’t worry about it. You reported in to me, I documented everything. No one’s going to hold this against you. You’re livesuit, for God’s sake. No one questions your loyalty.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem, buddy,” the man said, and the connection dropped.

  The suit defaulted back to the open channel. Corval and Noor were talking about breweries they’d liked, back before they’d joined up, and competing with stories of how drunk and stupid they’d been when they were teenagers. Gleaner popped in with the occasional wry comment. Nothing had changed, but it felt different.

  HEY. YOU DOING ALL RIGHT? Piotr sent on the text channel.

  FINE. WHY?

  YOU GOT QUIET. NOT THAT I CAN TALK. SEE WHAT I DID THERE? HUMOR.

  Kirin smiled. If it wasn’t for graveyard humor, they’d never laugh at all. And it helped, it did. Just not enough to take the unease completely away.

  Mina had seen all the things he did. The reports of the murdered worlds, the enslaved people lined up like machine parts in a factory, the aliens and their zoology of murder and violence. How could she be against fighting back? It didn’t make sense. I thought we’d be together again. But no one goes home. Was that what Caram Al-Shin had said, looking up through the rain and blood at Margaret York? It had been something like that. He pulled up the feed again, wanting to rewatch just that scene and get the wording right in his memory, but his suit said the file had been erased.

  The last time Piotr spoke had been during the liberation of Lirebas system.

  In the first days of the war, the government had put spies in populations. Well-trained, technologically altered operatives designed to slide in with the prisoners and report back what they could about the alien civilizations. When the enemy figured that out, they stopped taking prisoners for a while. Corval, who liked to think of himself as an amateur intelligence officer, said it was a good thing in its way. If the enemy just killed them, then they weren’t experimenting on them. It was less information for the enemy and a faster death for the prisoners. But it meant there was only a narrow window to save the savable, and with the weirdness of time dilation and the vastness of space, that meant it couldn’t be planned for. Rescue operations were the rarest because the enemy attack and the human response force had to be almost on top of each other by coincidence.

  “We don’t have enough support,” Simeon said. “We don’t have enough troops. We don’t have enough supplies. What we do have is a little colony world barely on its feet with ten million people in its capital city and less than a week before they’re all corpses.”

  Lying in his bunk, Kirin closed his eyes. He’d been on a dozen missions by then. This was the bleakest assessment he’d ever heard.

  Ross sighed. “How many of us are we talking about?”

  “On the ground, ten strike groups,” Simeon said, “of which we are one. We don’t need to kill every single enemy on the planet, though we’re welcome to if the opportunity arises. Seven groups will be taking out monitoring emplacements to give our naval friends the cover to drive the ships out of orbit and drop a few thousand of our standard troops on the ground to clean up. The other three groups will be visiting the enemy staging-and-elimination camp.”

  “Which one are we?” Hamze asked.

  “We’re freeing the prisoners,” Simeon said. “If we fail, they die. If we procrastinate, they die.”

  “If we go, we die,” Gleaner said, but with a grin in his voice.

  “Control hasn’t given us authorization to die,” Simeon replied. “It’s not in the budget.” The others chuckled. Kirin chuckled too, on his way to the dropship to strap in.

  The battle started after they left the slip boat and before they hit atmosphere. On the ground, targeted bombardments were burning through the high air, a swarm of tiny, intelligent comets falling on enemy centers but sparing the human infrastructure as much damage as they could. In the vacuum, human battleships emerged from the brane-slip into normal space, shedding clouds of fighter drones even as they cut their way back into the universe. Standard infantry stood by in their own dropships, waiting for Kirin and Simeon and Ross and the dozens like them to secure the beachhead for them. To see whether they were able to get in fast enough to keep the innocent from dying more than they already had.

  Kirin felt the shift in each layer of air by the frequency and amplitude of the turbulence. He heard it in the creaks and groans of the dropship’s expansion plates. When he checked his instincts against the suit’s display, he was always close to right. He’d become a citizen of moments like these. He knew them the way he used to know when the coffee at the corner café was fresh by the smell on the street or that rain was coming by the color of the western sky. Part of him wondered if, when he went home, he would think about dropships shaking under him with the same sense of nostalgia. He thought he might.

  The ship lurched to his left, then right, vibrating with a fast new drum roll. Evasive maneuvering and defensive weapons firing. His weight doubled and then vanished entirely. A wave of nausea began and was instantly quashed by the suit’s standard regulatory connection to his vagal nerve. Livesuit soldiers were like horses. They couldn’t vomit.

  “Almost there, folks. Make your last checks now,” Simeon said, “and sound off.”

  Kirin ran his hands over the rifle’s indicators, checked them visually against the thing itself, then did the same for his sidearm. He ran the pre-action diagnostic on his suit. It took him seconds.

  “Ready,” Kirin said along with everyone else. The display showed them all shift to green except Ross. Half a second later, she said Ready too and her name clicked to green.

  “Hamze, Jones, Piotr, and I will be first group,” Simeon said, with the calm of someone ordering groceries. “Corval, Gleaner, Noor, and Kirin will be group two. Our target is what we think is an elevated weapon emplacement. Kill it fast or it kills the prisoners.”

  The dropship screamed and whined, pressing Kirin down as it made its final deceleration. Then the bang and shock of touchdown, and he was out of his seat and moving.

  They were only about a kilometer from the prison camp. Much closer than usual, but speed was more critical. The time it took to cover a thousand meters could measure a lot of lives when the enemy was executing prisoners.

  Kirin raised his rifle, ready to lay down covering fire, as the first group sprinted forward and into cover. His display set the target guard tower in a gentle AR glow, but no enemies.

  “Maybe they forgot to post a guard,” Noor said.

  “Lucky for them if they did,” Piotr said between breaths.

  “We have cover,” Simeon said. “Group two, move.”

  “Moving,” they said as if they were all one organism with four mouths. The livesuit pressed and contracted, making every stride stronger, letting Kirin relax even as he sprinted at what would have been an exhausting pace. He could have kept it up for hours. Forever. Compared to his first drop, it was almost automatic. He and the suit and the unit were all parts of the same dance, and everyone knew their steps.

  “I’m good,” Noor said.

  Kirin found a stone—granite, with purple-and-green moss on its north side—and hunched beside it, sweeping his rifle before him. There was still no resistance. A tendril of what might have been smoke rose from the camp ahead. He hadn’t seen anything like it before. No one had, or things would have gone differently.

  Corval and Gleaner reported in. He did too. There was a moment’s hesitation before Simeon spoke. “I’m putting out the mosquitoes. Let’s see if we can get a clear path.”

  On Kirin’s display, a map began to form.

  Something behind him detonated.

  Simeon, Jones, and Hamze dropped off his list, CONTACT LOST blinking in the space they had been. Over the open channel, Piotr began to scream.

  Kirin turned his back on the prison and ran to the cloud of dust and smoke where his team had been. His suit shifted, outlining two hulking forms hidden by the haze that merely human eyes couldn’t have made out.

  The huge aliens were built something like massive insects. Two meters of long, broad abdomen carried by four legs, then a thorax bent at ninety degrees like a centaur and rising up taller than the largest human. Two massive arms grew from their shoulders, each thicker than Kirin’s torso, and he knew from briefings that two smaller manipulating arms were tucked into their chests. Kirin felt himself screaming, but he didn’t hear it. He felt the rifle bucking in his hands and the rounds detonating on the green-and-gold armor shells that the things wore.

  The nearer of the two spun toward him, rearing up on its back four limbs, the massive arms stretching out at its sides like it was going to take the whole world in a bear hug and squeeze the life out of it. Kirin fell to one knee, throwing a constant stream of fire at the enemy.

  Something hit him from the side, bowling him over just as the massive arms crashed together in the space where he’d been. The concussion wave was loud enough to reset his helmet mic and leave his ears ringing. On his helmet display, he saw Piotr’s indicator brighten for a moment and Gleaner, Ross, and Corval flicker in response. He knew they were speaking, but he couldn’t hear them. The ground at his side was churned, dark soil and white roots. Something writhed just beyond his arm’s reach. A human leg, the livesuit still trying to make it run. With a cold detachment, Kirin understood. Simeon, Hamze, and Jones were dead.

  Piotr rose up, looked back over his shoulder. The two aliens were turned away, distracted by Corval and the rest of the strike team. Piotr’s rifle was gone, but he plucked his sidearm from its holster and charged at the alien beasts. Kirin was only three steps behind him.

  “Keep them distracted!” Piotr shouted.

  They were the last words he spoke.

  For a long, glorious moment, they ran together, side by side. Their suits lent them power and endurance. Their guns reached out before them, ripping at the enemy like claws. There was a slowness to it, a euphoria unconnected with the horror of the moment the way things sometimes were in dreams. Kirin felt a tug at his leg where a round from Corval or Noor or Gleaner blasted off a chunk of the enemy’s armor that passed through his thigh. It didn’t hurt. He leapt onto the green-and-gold back, shoved the barrel of his rifle into the joint where the armor was articulated between abdomen and thorax, and leaned hard, like he was pushing a stake into fresh earth, as he pulled the trigger.

  The beast bucked against him, its huge forearms swinging back, slamming against him like trees falling. He held on, pumping round after round after round into the flesh beneath the shell. When it rolled over, he felt the shift and jumped off, just avoiding being crushed by the massive body. He pulled up his rifle, bracing it against his shoulder. His suit reported that half its ammunition was spent. The beast shifted onto its forelegs, rose, then sank back to the ground and never moved again.

  The second monster was ten meters to Kirin’s left, with Piotr, Noor, Gleaner, and Corval moving around it like dogs attacking a lion. Its shell was pocked where their rounds had bitten into the armor. A thin, watery blood sheeted down its side and coated its vast, dark arms. Kirin turned, aimed, added his fire to theirs. The massive alien let out a loud, fluting call, like a vast, low-pitched birdsong, and stretched out its arms. Kirin tried to call out a warning, but before he could, the huge limbs snapped together, and Piotr went flying, arms limp at his sides. The thing settled, folding its rear legs under itself and resting on its forearms like a samurai leaning on his sword. Kirin’s suit told him that its wide, distributed heart had stopped beating, but it still looked alive. He fired a few rounds into the alien’s face. It didn’t react.

  “We lost them,” Corval said, his voice shaking. With Simeon dead, he was supposed to be in command now, but he didn’t give any orders. “As soon as we put the mosquitoes out, that weird smoke just blew up. It was like they were waiting for it.”

  Piotr shifted, pushing himself up on one elbow. When he stood, he was visibly unsteady. In Kirin’s helmet display, Piotr’s name flashed a dull orange, shifted to INITIALIZING for a half second, and then returned to green.

  “Piotr,” Kirin said. “Report in.”

  Piotr’s fingers shifted, manipulating controls in the glove, and a message came through on the text channel. MY JAW AND THROAT ARE BADLY INJURED, BUT I CAN CONTINUE THE MISSION. WE SHOULD KEEP GOING. Noor was kneeling over something that had been a friend of theirs half an hour ago. On the edge of Kirin’s vision, the guard tower glowed AR red. The mission goal, still untaken. Kirin waited for Corval to give orders, to take command. The other man only stood there, shocked. In grief.

  “Form up,” Kirin said. “Noor and Corval, you’re group one. Gleaner and Piotr with me. We’ll cover your advance.”

  “They’re dead,” Noor shouted.

  “We’re not,” Kirin snapped. “So move, and we’ll cover your advance.”

  For a moment, they were silent and still. Corval and Gleaner acknowledged, and then Noor half a heartbeat later.

  Moving carefully, they advanced toward the target.

  The news was bad, but it wasn’t unexpected. After the first week of downtime on the station, Kirin expected it. They were waiting for something, and the only things that came out here were soldiers. So they were waiting for soldiers. The only reason they’d be doing that was Control making a change to the teams.

  The order came through in simple, clean, bureaucratic text. The livesuit strike teams were being reassigned for purposes of cross-training. Kirin, Piotr, and Gleaner would remain with the dropship they were currently using. Ross, Corval, and Noor would report to a ship that was scheduled to drop out of the brane-slip in four hours. With Corval gone, Kirin was being promoted to lead. He’d become what Simeon had been on that first drop. He didn’t feel ready.

  Four hours to say their goodbyes, gather their things, and break up the team. It was too fast and too long at once.

  “Really,” Corval said, “it’s kind of a miracle this group stayed together as long as we did.”

  They were in what had been Corval’s quarters, and now wasn’t anybody’s. Kirin had put them on a private channel, approximating the experience of being alone in the room together. Soon enough, the comms would be reassigned, and Corval wouldn’t be in Kirin’s constant company anymore. It felt like a private moment before that happened was respectful. Like lowering your head at a funeral.

  “Still, I don’t have to love it.”

  “If it hadn’t been for Lirebas, we’d have been split up a long time ago, I figure.”

  Kirin shrugged. “I guess I’d rather Simeon, Jones, and Hamze were out on different strike teams instead of mustering out the hard way. But I’m still going to miss you fuckers.”

  “I’m going to miss you too, asshole,” Corval said, and Kirin could hear the grin in his voice. “I was hoping I’d be around when you took your helmet off so I could see if you’re as fuck ugly as Ross says you are.”

  “I asked for permission to take it off in the battle, but Control said it’d be a war crime,” Kirin said. “Kinder that we just shoot the bastards to death.”

  “Well, I can live with that plan.”

  Corval hefted the little bag of personal effects. Other soldiers carried more, but the livesuit was a universe of its own. There were no shoes, no shirts, no letters from home. The suit, the weapons, and a little leather bag of whatever mementos Gleaner had gathered to remind him of whatever in this shit he wanted to be reminded of.

  “What do you know about the new meat?” Kirin said, trying to keep the moment from being over quite yet. “You serve with any of them before?”

  “I didn’t see the list had come through. Let me take a look.” Corval went still and silent, and a moment later coughed out a laugh. “Yeah, okay. Eric Santos is coming in. I trained up with him. He’s funny as hell, but he will talk nonstop. I had a selective mute rule set up for him just to get him out of ear.”

  “See, that’s the kind of thing you need to pass on before you go. The secret teachings.”

  “You’d figure it out. You’re dumb, but he ain’t subtle.” Corval paused. The moment was coming to an end. “It’s been a pleasure. I hope we get this fucking war over before we have the chance to serve together again.”

  “Amen,” Kirin said.

  Corval nodded and walked out of the room, heading for the lock and the station and his new strike team. Kirin didn’t expect he’d ever see him again. The helmet shifted, whisking away the tear before it could cloud his vision. No one saw him weeping. He had already taken a moment with Noor. There was only one left. But when he got to Ross’s bunk, she was already gone. The bunk, the shelf, everything about the place was as generic and pristine as if she’d never been there. When he pulled up the team list, she wasn’t on it. Ross was already gone. She’d left him a note on a private text channel. LOOK ME UP WHEN WE’RE CIVVIES AGAIN. FIRST BEER’S ON ME. It was as good a farewell as any.

  Gleaner and Piotr were in the gym, a place that had become as unnecessary for their new lives as toilets were. The suit took care of toning the muscles for them. Which was definitely something Kirin was going to miss when it was gone. He hadn’t done a sit-up in years, and he didn’t look forward to starting again. Or maybe once they peeled the suit off he would give himself permission to just go all to hell. It was a pleasant idea.

  There were others—maintenance and navigation and regular troops—all through the slip boat. A full crew. The place still felt empty. He went to the common area and sat, checking his team listing to see when it changed. The old names vanishing, and the new ones not yet joining in.

 

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