“Then what are you waiting for, Edgar? Pay it already!” she exclaimed, then hushed herself. She was relieved to see the children hadn’t noticed her outburst. “If all it costs is fifty credits to get your damn certificate, you should’ve done that in the first place!”

  “But honey, I’ve already made the hotel reservations. There will be a penalty if I cancel now,” he pleaded.

  His wife gave him a withering look. “I will not spend a whole day listening to our children crying their eyes out. Cancel the reservations!”

  Seeing the look in her eyes, Edgar knew he wasn’t going to win. He sighed and pulled up the hotel reservation to cancel.

  “There, it’s done. Are you happy now?” he asked. Now he was pouting, but Marisol didn’t seem to mind that as much.

  “Yes, very happy,” she said with a smile, then turned to their children. “Kids, you won’t believe the good news! We’ll only be making a short stop on Pluto so your father can pick something up, then we can go straight to Europa!” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

  “Yay! We get to go skiing!” both children cheered.

  Hmph. Damn brats! Just a minute ago, they were whining to go to the water park, now it’s skiing, Edgar lamented. When do I get to do what I want to do?

  “Attention, please be seated for docking maneuvers,” came the announcement over the PA system.

  “Okay, dear. Hurry up and get your certificate so we can get out of here,” Marisol urged as soon as the cruise liner stopped moving.

  Edgar rolled his eyes as he walked out to the spaceport desk. So much for being the man of the house. I pay the bills and everyone else gets what they want.

  “Welcome to Pluto!” a chirpy receptionist said to him from behind the desk.

  He was surprised she was a real person. “Well, hello. You’re not being punished, I hope?” he joked.

  “Oh, no. Management insists that a living human being greet all the new guests. They want the whole personal touch vibe going on,” she said while making air quotes. “So, are you checking in or are you just here to pick up your certificate?”

  “I’m afraid I had to cancel my reservation, so I’ll just be getting the certificate.” He was embarrassed and hoped she wouldn’t feel slighted.

  “Oh, that’s too bad. But you didn’t have to come all the way down here to get a piece of paper. It could’ve been handled from orbit,” she explained.

  Edgar closed his eyes and groaned. He could have saved himself a whole day’s worth of whining. “Good to know. I’ll remember that the next time,” he said in a snarky tone that seemed to fly over the receptionist’s head.

  She smiled and processed his request. “With your cancellation and certificate processing fees, your total comes to 758 credits, which I’ve charged to your connected account. Please sign at the bottom of your tablet.”

  Edgar groaned again. Marisol would not let him hear the end of it for spending so much to visit such a far-flung outpost that used to be a full-fledged planet. He should have just paid the fifty-credit fee in the first place.

  When he finished signing, the receptionist asked him to wait while his certificate was generated. She disappeared into an office, so he turned to take a look around the rest of the concourse. Suddenly, the whole spaceport shook.

  “What the hell was that?” he exclaimed to an empty room. Many seconds went by before he heard a loud explosion and the spaceport shook again. This time, the lights flickered and dust fell from the concourse ceiling. Edgar looked up and could see cracks forming.

  “Something is seriously wrong here,” he yelled, remembering there were no earthquakes or other geologic activity on Pluto. Whatever was going on couldn’t be natural. A chill crept down his spine. During the AI War, stories were told of how the machines would use kinetic weapons to bombard a planet from orbit, and when they hit, it was akin to an earthquake.

  “Oh, dear God, no,” he said as he ran out to the door and back to the ship.

  “Sir,” the receptionist said, returning and waving a paper at his back. “Your certificate is ready!”

  ✴

  As the duty officer for Fleet Central Command, or Fleetcom as it was commonly known, Lieutenant Seifert was a busy man, even without a war currently going on in the solar system. Positioned at Lagrange 2, the space fortress enjoyed an unobstructed view of nearly the whole neighborhood, save where the sun was. The AI War had ended a generation earlier, but the fortress remained staffed since no one could predict when they might return. Experts and geniuses from the military, politics, and academia alike all conjectured and speculated on when the AI would loop back and finish the war they had started. But as days turned to weeks, then months, and finally years, many wondered if they would ever return at all.

  Seifert had heard talk of decommissioning Fleetcom, that it was too expensive to maintain and the funds would be better spent elsewhere. He thought they were fools. At the academy, he’d studied military history—the Colony War and AI War in particular. He’d read so many books and magazine articles that he even wrote his senior thesis on the reasons why these wars occurred. He felt the reason was complacency, that no one was standing vigilant. When disaster did strike, everyone was caught unaware. Worst of all, not only did millions of civilians die in each war, but millions more died in the aftermath. Now it had been over twenty years since the AI War, which meant humanity was overdue for its next big war.

  “Good morning, LT. How goes the battle?” asked Chief Watson, the chief of the watch.

  Being called LT wasn’t protocol, but Seifert had to settle for what he could get. Even though he outranked Chief Watson, the old space dog had twenty-two years compared to his five.

  “Yes, it’s a fine Navy morning, Chief.” He gave a gung-ho response to the rhetorical question. Not that it really mattered. Sitting out in space, there was no night or day at Fleetcom. It was morning only because the station clock said it was. “Be sure to check the status board. Another group of supply ships left for the Skarn system yesterday at 2300 hours,” he informed the enlisted man.

  “Again? Sir, I’m telling you, there’s more going on there than some minor incident. Just weeks ago, that new continent-class fleet carrier tore out of here with three entire battlegroups. Minor incident, my hairy ass.”

  Seifert wished the chief wasn’t so vulgar, but he was right. Three battlegroups represented a tremendous amount of firepower. Maybe too much.

  “I’m afraid I have to agree. It’s very suspicious that the Asia was just commissioned weeks earlier. Normally, the crew would have to visit GITMO and go through OPEE. I can only imagine how many waivers had to be filled to get her out of the Solar System so quickly.” Now that he thought about it, he got chills. With so much firepower out of system, it would be a tremendous opportunity for any of the Solar Alliance’s enemies, and some of them still existed.

  “Damn straight, there’s blood in the water, and already I’ve got glory hounds begging to be put in the fight!” Chief said with emphasis.

  “Really?” Seifert raised an eyebrow. “I thought being assigned to Fleetcom was the dream assignment.” He wondered what Chief was talking about. No one had told him there were any requests for transfer.

  “It was already one a day, but after the Asia deployed, I got ten new requests a day, and they keep coming. This place is both a spaceport and a battle station, which means there’s nearly a hundred grand in space crewmen hanging out. Some of them are itching for a fight and now that there’s action in the Skarn system, everyone wants to join the party,” the chief said like he was reminiscing.

  “This is not some movie or videogame. Joining the Navy or any other branch of the military is about service, not going off on some adventure. Those damn recruiters are doing an immense disservice filling our youngsters with fairy tales of glory and adventure.”

  Chief was surprised to hear Seifert ranting. Normally, he kept such things to himself. “Sorry to break it to you, sir, but a whole bunch of these kids are here for reasons other than ‘to serve the Solar Alliance.’ Hell, half of them just want the benefits—education, social, pension, and of course, to meet chicks.”

  Seifert rubbed the bridge of his nose. Why are so many people so . . . shallow?

  “Chief, we just received a priority message from Pluto,” exclaimed the comm technician.

  “Say what? Put it up on the main viewer,” Chief Watson barked.

  “It’s text only,” the technician apologized as the message flashed on the screen.

  ALERT: ALL COMMANDS. ORBITAL RAID, OUTPOST SPACEPORT PLUTO. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

  As the message scrolled across the screen, everyone stared at it dumbfounded.

  “This has got to be some sort of prank. Call them back and find out what sort of tomfoolery is going on over there,” Chief Watson said in disbelief.

  The comm technician checked, then looked back and shook his head. “Sorry, Chief. I can’t get a response, just static.”

  “Locate the nearest ship to Pluto immediately! I want confirmation on this message as of yesterday! Move it people!” Seifert ordered. He turned to Chief Watson. “What in the hell is going on here? Why would someone attack Pluto, much less destroy it?”

  “Sir, the outpost on Pluto is nothing in the grand scheme of things. There’s nothing there to take or hold. It’s just a tourist trap.”

  As they both pondered the situation, an icy realization crept into the backs of their minds.

  “The only reason to bother with it would be to make sure the outpost couldn’t squeal to anyone when they rolled on by,” Chief Watson surmised.

  Seifert didn’t want to believe it, but decided to throw caution to the wind. “Sound general quarters! We’re under attack from an unknown force!” he shouted.

  The technician manning the tactical console was about to activate the general quarters alarm when numerous contacts appeared on his scope. “Uh, sir?”

  Beachhead

  “All Thunderhawks, switch to hybrid mode and establish an LZ! All aerospace fighters, provide overwatch!” ordered General Yun, the on-scene commander.

  “I don’t get it. The orbital strike missed all their targets. Why are we moving ahead with the attack?” Jordan asked, looking at Rook’s image on her cockpit console. Especially after what Harbinger had shared with them, how the fates of the humans and the Umumo were intertwined, she wished their superiors would call off the attack. She was battling within herself as to whether to believe Harbinger or not—after all, how would he possibly know what the future held? Either way, she did not think the Umumo wanted this war.

  “Forgot your Sun Tzu already?” Rook said. “When you get a log rolling downhill, you don’t stop it. Now that the op is in motion, they won’t stop for a little hiccup like missing a target. Besides, your buddy Harbinger and his ilk aren’t interested in fighting anyway. We might as well move in.”

  “So stupid,” she said while shaking her head. Her Thunderhawk had finished transforming to hybrid mode. Arms and legs unfolded from the mecha’s body, revealing the bizarre amalgamation of jet fighter and robot. Bringing her gun pod to the ready, she hovered over the southern side of the landing zone, moving in a figure-eight pattern so as not to provide an easy target.

  “All units, keep moving! Don’t give the enemy a clear shot or they’ll flame your ass!” her squadron’s second-in-command instructed. Again, she shook her head.

  “If Harbinger and his ilk wanted to shoot at us, they would’ve done it already.” She looked at Rook’s image in her console. “Maybe Harbinger was telling the truth.”

  ✴

  The C-20 pachyderm heavy-lift VTOL shuttle went into hovermode, but it didn’t come to a full stop.

  “Jeez, aren’t these guys gonna land?” Sergeant David Fesler asked as he looked out the craft’s open cargo ramp.

  “Negative, Sergeant. We’re in a hot LZ, so no dicking the dog! Hurry, drop now!” the C-20’s cargomaster shouted.

  “Fuck!” Fesler cursed under his breath. “Okay, private, get ready to— Holy shit!” he cursed again when his M-12 spider tank suddenly ejected from the C-20’s cargo bay. “Stabilizers! Activate the stabilizers!” Fesler ordered frantically.

  “On it!” Private Grifith responded as he switched their spider tank’s jump jets to stabilize mode. Once activated, the tank’s descent smoothed out as it gently landed on four legs. “See, Sarge? The old girl landed on its feet like a spry alley cat.”

  “Yeah, thanks for the colorful commentary, private. Now do you know where we are?” Fesler said while studying his navigation display.

  “Uh, yes, Sarge,” Grifith responded as he set the navigation computer from air to terrain mode. Their location and their unit’s objective appeared on screen.

  “Oh, there it is now. Let’s—” Fesler started to say when their company commander began screaming at him over the comm channel.

  “Fesler, get off your fat ass and get back into the war! Move it!”

  “Yes, sir! Damn it, hurry up, private, before he court-martials us both!” he urged.

  Grifith wondered how in the hell Fesler had gotten promoted to sergeant in the first place. “Deploying legs,” Grifith reported as their spider tank’s legs unfolded and lifted it off the ground. The tank began walking, jostling the human crew with its lurching movement.

  “Oh, damn it, Grif! Why the hell are you using the legs? Use the tracks instead,” Fesler urged.

  “No can do, Sarge. There are boulders for a thousand yards in all directions. Using the legs is actually twice as fast versus the tracks. Don’t worry, as soon as we clear this boulder field, we can switch to the tracks,” Grifith reassured.

  “Son of a bitch, is the damn brass trying to kill me? At least drop us in a place that isn’t an obstacle course,” Fesler lamented as he started a sensor sweep. The only activity he could see were other spider tanks, until he looked behind them at the infantry battlesuits forming up. “Well, there’s the infantry and they’re already moving forward,” he observed as the armored troopers started to leapfrog with their jump jets.

  “So, the brass thinks it’s a good idea to lead with the infantry a second time. Shouldn’t we change things up? Send the heavy armor forward first?” Grifith suggested.

  “Screw that, better them than me. Heavy armor, my hairy ass. I don’t care how awesome they say this thing’s armor is. The moment it takes one of those new mayhem rounds, we’re toast,” Fesler predicted.

  “But we have the latest armor, just as good as those Thunderhawks,” Grifith pointed out. “Between the titanium silicon carbide thermal protection and the memory metal reflex armor, we have the equivalent of four feet of steel alloy protecting us.”

  “As long as the power holds, if not the reflex armor is useless. Somebody in personnel just absolutely hates me. They put me in one of these tinplated cans hoping I’ll get smoked,” Fesler whined.

  When they cleared the boulder field, Grifith switched back to track mode. “There we go.”

  “Finally, we’re getting somewhere. The sooner we wrap up this op, the sooner I can get the hell out of here and back to the ship,” Fesler said as he leaned back in his seat.

  “Say, did you notice those boulders looked like they were made of glass? I heard this whole planet is made out of carbon—could those boulders be diamonds?” Grifith asked.

  “Yep, you heard right—those boulders are diamonds, but don’t go and do any collecting.”

  “What? Why not? Aren’t we allowed spoils of war and all that?” Grifith pointed out.

  Fesler eyed him incredulously. “You miss the last briefing getting a pedicure? Every square inch of this rock is owned by someone, so that means hands off. The last time we went to bail out a colony like this, all of our storage spaces were searched by an independent team. I wouldn’t be surprised if they give everyone who goes dirtside a body cavity search when we get back aboard.”

  “I sure hope you’re kidding,” Grifith said, cringing. “But that doesn’t make any sense—those diamonds are the size of boulders! Are the owners that paranoid?”

  “What do you think? Never come between a rich person and their money.” A text-only communication appeared on Fesler’s display screen. “Uh, it looks like the brass is adjusting our course. The new objective is here,” he said, pointing out the updated waypoint on their navigation screen.

  “Can’t the brass make up their minds? It’s like they’re just guessing where the enemy is. Besides, if the flyboys can’t beat them and the Navy can’t hit them, what the hell are we supposed to do? For all we know, they could be right in front of us!” Grifith lamented.

  ✴

  “The humans have arrived, Seraphim,” Ledger reported. “Our brethren and I will be engaging them shortly.”

  “Very good. These humans are savages, wantonly destroying such a precious world. Harbinger tried to dissuade them with words, but they do not listen. Action must be taken before they can find the archive. You cannot fail, Ledger. Your brethren are relying on you to save our future.”

  I am all too aware of that, Ledger thought. Their leader too often thought he knew more than his brethren did. An undesirable conceit, but it was Seraphim’s conceit nonetheless.

  “With regret, I must go now ‘to preserve knowledge and reason,’” Ledger said. Evoking one of their ancient mantras finally silenced Seraphim’s pontificating. At last, I am able to get to work.

  ✴

  “What is it now?” an audible alarm Grifith hadn’t heard before sounded on Fesler’s control panel.

  “Son of a filthy whore! That damn geosensor keeps going off,” Fesler said as he turned the alarm off. “Ignore it. It’s sensitive to vibration, so every time it gets shaken, it starts bitching.”

  “Didn’t they shock-mount it to prevent that?”

  “Yeah, but it goes off anyway,” Fesler retorted.

  “But what if it’s actually detecting something this time? Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” Grifith pointed out.

  “What the hell does that mean? If a clock is broken, you can’t tell the time, you dumbass,” Fesler snapped, only thinking of a digitized version.

 

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