Raising Caine

Chapter Forty-Two. APPROACHING ORBIT, CLOSE ORBIT, and SOUTHERN EXTENTS OF THE THIRD SILVER TOWER BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)

Sehtrek confirmed Red Lurker’s passive sensor scan of the Slaasriithi orbital defenses. “The sequence and intervals of the enemy craft are optimal, Nezdeh.”

Nezdeh Srina Perekmeres assessed the scrolling telemetry of the cannonball they had tentatively identified as their target six hours before. The spherical craft all varied their speed, vector, interval on each orbit. The variations were, at most, of marginal tactical significance, but this time, the interval between the currently approaching cannonball and the next in sequence was wider than usual, thanks to whatever randomizing or optimizing algorithm determined the gaps in their orbits. It was only an eleven-minute difference, but it was the largest the crew of Lurker had seen. Additionally, measurement of the derelict Aboriginal corvette suggested that it would begin to enter the atmosphere within the next two or three orbits: clearly, if the craft was either operable or still crewed, it would have saved itself by now.

“Commence the attack,” muttered Nezdeh. “And inform Pehthrum to ready his assault team in the armored shuttle. They will be landing within the half hour.”

Sehtrek nodded and tapped one of the dynamic tabs on his control panel.

* * *

Less than half a light-second away, the lascom signal sent by Sehtrek’s tap hit a sensor no bigger than a dessert plate, embedded in a shed-sized asteroid fragment. That sensor sent a brief electrical pulse along a wire that led to a self-seeking missile loosely moored on the lee side of the rock. The clamps holding the missile in place fell away, and a small spring mechanism uncoiled against its fuselage, imparting enough momentum and slow spin so that the missile moved out of the concealing shadow of the boulder. The missile’s nose swung toward the cannonball rising up over the planetary horizon. Dozens of primarily plastic passive microsensors, scattered by Lurker during the first engagement, detected the oncoming sphere’s reflection and captured its telemetry and image. When polled by another lascom squeak from Lurker, each sensor relayed its data on the object by physically vibrating a reflective plate in code.

The remote targeting computer aboard Lurker correlated the data from this almost invisible phased array and transmitted an intercept footprint. However, it did not instruct the hidden missile to illuminate the active sensors in its seeker head to acquire a lock. Instead, it simply noted the missile’s status: ready to engage.

* * *

Tegrese glanced up at Nezdeh. “The missile acknowledges receipt of primary guidance to the intercept envelope.”

Nezdeh nodded. “Ulpreln: set our thrust to two-gee constant. Jesel?”

Jesel’s voice crackled out of the intership speaker. “Here, Nezdeh.”

“Have your pilot keep your armored shuttle fifty kilometers behind us and match velocity until you receive the deployment order.” She closed the ship-to-ship channel. “Tegrese: commence railgun salvoes of area denial munitions into pretargeted orbital paths. And launch the remote missile.” She rose, pushed herself toward the ready room.

Tegrese was too surprised to sound deferential. “Nezdeh, why are you leaving the con?”

“To locate our agent on the planet.” She slipped the vial holding her last Catalysite out of her pocket. “I shall not be long.”

* * *

Bannor Rulaine was staring at the countdown clock: thirty-seven minutes until they were compelled to boost in order to sustain orbit, which would almost certainly bring the attackers down on them. But better a fighting chance than a crash landing — or immolation, if the deorbit heat undid the hull welds first.

Karam was glowering at the clock. “I just hope our numbers are right,” he muttered.

Bannor kept his own voice low; no reason to alarm the rest of the bridge crew. “I thought you were sure about the timing.”

“Yeah, well, because I couldn’t illuminate the active arrays to double-check the passive spectroscopy, I had to guess at Disparity’s atmospheric composition and the rate at which its density increases. And my best guesses may not have been good enough.”

“And if we start the burn early—?”

Karam gestured to the holotank. A pulsing red plane rested alongside the image of the planet and projected out into the spinward reaches of nearby space. “An early burn is like sending up a signal flare for anyone who might be lurking closer than that detection limit. Because if they are on our side of the planetary horizon, watching for us to go active, they’ll jump us the moment we — Wait: what’s that?”

A red blip appeared well behind them in the plot; it was just barely in that part of space delimited by the red plane. The passive sensors registered an immense thermal bloom in that same spot.

“What, they’ve seen us now?” Melissa Sleeman wailed at her sensor console.

Bannor leaned back, watched the blip for a moment. “Let me know when you’ve got telemetry.”

“Shouldn’t we be fleeing, rather than staring at the sensors?” Morgan Lymbery asked through chattering teeth, clutching the gunnery console.

Bannor shook his head. “Not yet.” He turned toward Tygg. “Go gather the troops, Lieutenant. If I’m right—”

Sleeman interrupted with a surprised shout. “The bogey — it’s not making for us. Wide telemetry divergence.”

“Unless they are trying to flush us toward a ship they have coming around the other side of the planet,” Lymbery added.

Melissa shook her head. “Not unless the other ship is pulling five gees. They couldn’t get around to catch us before we could break orbit. No, I think they’re—”

“Now reading a second thrust signature in the wake of the first.” Karam jabbed a finger at the thermal readouts a moment before a second red mote appeared riding piggyback on its leader.

“And it’s on precisely the same heading,” Melissa added.

Bannor looked at the vector of the bogeys and then scanned the other elements in the plot: the defense spheres, the planet, the geosynchronous marker positioned over the patch of the south continent where the first engagement had taken place. “They’re making planetfall.”

Karam arrived at the same conclusion a moment later, having run the numbers rather than analyzing the tactical picture. “Absolutely. And they’re headed toward the landing footprint we projected for the TOCIO shuttle.” He leaned back, a bitter smile growing as he said: “They’re not after us at all.”

Lymbery nodded, his voice pitched a whole octave lower. “They’ve written us off as dead. Unpowered, we’d go down before our orbit brings us back to their descent vector.”

“And they are moving to intercept the defensive sphere that’s got a larger-than-usual interval between itself and the one following,” Sleeman added.

Tygg nodded, looked at Rulaine. “Yeah, they’ve got business planetside, all right. They’re moving to clear both the orbital- and air-space for a dirtside operation.”

Bannor nodded back. “I’d bet dollars to donuts that the first blip is the hull that did the shooting last time and the second is carrying in the assault team.”

Lymbery frowned. “But how do the attackers know where our people are located or that they are even alive?”

Bannor shook his head. “I don’t know that, but I don’t need to, right now.” He pointed at the arrow-straight path of the blips, a path which was going to carry them through the prior-engagement orbital marker as if it was a bull’s-eye. “They know where our people are, and that’s all we need to know.” He glanced at the countdown clock, then at Tygg. “I’ll meet you in the ship’s locker in five minutes. Break out the packs and get the ground team suited up.” Tygg nodded, remembered to add a salute, turned to carry out his orders.

He hadn’t taken half a gliding step toward the hatchway when Melissa jumped up out of her seat into the growing micro-gee. “Be careful,” she blurted nervously at Tygg’s receding back.

Lieutenant Christopher Robin turned to face the petite genius. Bannor waited for the witty or poignant reply that he presumed Tygg had prepared for just such an occasion. The tall Aussie smiled his big wide smile, and said, “I will. Be careful, I mean.” And then he was heading through the hatchway, as Bannor thought: Really? Really? That was the best you could do?

But Melissa Sleeman was smiling as Tygg left — and then, just as suddenly, was frowning. And clearly scared.

Well, we’ll all be scared before this is over—“Karam, let’s think this through — fast. Looks like those blips are going to disappear behind the planetary horizon in about nine minutes.”

“I’d call it ten, but go on.”

“Once there’s no longer a clear line of sight to them, do you think it’s safe to light up our own drives?”

Karam frowned and shook his head. “Sorry, but no. We still haven’t seen whatever shift-carrier brought them into this system, which could still be watching us. Or they could have dumped a remote sensor when they were lurking out there, allowing them to peer around the horizon.”

“I agree. So we’re still in a scenario where any spaceside maneuver or thrust could reveal us to our enemies almost instantaneously.”

“I think until we’re on the far side, we’ve got to assume that.”

“So that tells us what we have to do: get to the far side.”

Karam looked at Lymbery and Melissa, and then all of them looked at Bannor, almost timidly. “Boss,” Karam said in an almost gentle voice, “you do remember that we’ll be burning up in the atmosphere by that time, right?”

“That assumes we aren’t already committed to a reentry.”

Karam blinked. “Well, yes, but—” Then his eyes opened wide: “Oh.” Then they opened wider. “No way.”

“No choice.”

Melissa Sleeman broke in loudly. “What the hell are you two talking about?”

Karam leaned back, his face settling into a customary frown. “Well, he’s talking about suicide. Or damn close to it.”

Bannor decided it was time to put their exchange on a military footing. “What Senior Flight Officer Tsaami is trying to say is that he lacks the nerve to attempt a maneuver that I thought was well within his skill set.”

Karam sat up straight. “Now, hold on, Ban—”

“Our backs are against it, now. So ‘Major’ or ‘sir,’ will do, Flight Officer.”

“Well — uh, yes Major. So, Ms. Sleeman, here’s the implications of the major’s various and decidedly dangerous inquiries. Rather than boosting for orbit, or hanging on until the very bitter end to do so, he’s suggesting we initiate a descent. Unpowered except for the secondary attitude control thrusters, I’m guessing.”

Bannor nodded. “They use compressed gas, so no thermal signature.”

Sleeman saw the rest. “Sure: I get it. So we’re inside the atmosphere in a landing mode when we get to the far side. Then we burn for high-altitude controlled flight, swing around the planet, land, and intercept them. Hell, we’ve already got their descent trajectory plotted to within a reasonable approach sleeve, so when we come back around the planetary horizon, we just look for their exhausts and follow them in. We won’t even have to light up our own active arrays to find them.”

Karam leaned forward. “Yes, but all that assumes Puller holds together and that the threat force stays on their current heading.”

“I don’t think there’s much worry about them staying on course.” Bannor hitched a thumb at the holoplot: the two blips were holding a perfectly straight line. “They are wasting no time. And if their planetary assault doctrine is anything like ours, as soon as their lead ship takes out the defense sphere that’s crossing their descent sleeve, the second ship will continue to bore in for a high-speed, high-angle descent. Then the other one will boost back out a bit and hold position to cover the assault lander’s return to orbit.”

Karam nodded. “I agree. Sir. That’s probably SOP whenever flesh-and-fluid critters of any type decide to send a raiding team down to a planet. Been on a few of those myself. But we shouldn’t be making any easy assumptions about Puller’s ability to survive the maneuver you’re suggesting. Those belly welds won’t hold, and we’ll be so far into the descent when we reach the farside that I’m going to have to redline the power plants and engines to keep us from falling like a brick. Except that I wouldn’t bet a counterfeit uni on how long any of those systems will last, given our wounded coolant system. Which is all a bit of a problem, since we need to get halfway around this damn planet before landing, and somehow get you and the rest of our ground-pounders into the fight. Regarding which: on what prepared landing strip would you like me to deposit you, sir?”

Bannor shook his head. “That’s not how it’s going to go, Flight Officer — and watch your sass. You are not landing to deploy us. Instead, you will maintain altitude, which should make it easier for you to maintain speed. At least until we’re over the drop zone.”

Karam’s jaw sagged. “‘Drop zone?’ Are you mad — sir?”

Bannor shook his head. “No; desperate. Look, Karam, we have a grand total of one operational option that gets us into the fight when, and where, we need to be. The five of us grunts do a HALO drop—”

“A HALO drop? Bann — sir, in order to keep this hull airborne that long, I’m probably going to have to run in sprint mode.”

Lymbery went pale. “The engines and the coolant lines will never take that. Not now.”

“Will they suffer catastrophic failure?”

Lymbery frowned. “Well, no — probably not.”

“Then I will trust our flight officer, ably assisted by you, Mr. Lymbery, to land this stricken bird after we deploy.”

Karam shook his head. “Land where? And deploy at — well, at way too high a speed. Bannor, this is suicide.”

Rulaine leaned back, folded his arms. “The odds are that three or four of us will land and remain combat effective. The alternative is to boost away from this planet and be destroyed while our friends are hunted down like rabbits by an enemy strike team.” He stared at them all.

Karam looked away, mumbled, “Well, when you put it that way—”

Sleeman stared up at Rulaine, her eyes bright, sharp. “Okay, Major; I’m in. How do I help?”

Her bravery melted the last hints of reluctance on the faces of the other two, and Bannor thought, You just did help me, Miss Sleeman. More than you know.

* * *

Caine tried to eat another bite of the food proffered to him by one of the Slaasriithi who specialized in harvesting and tending the environment: the pastorae. But Riordan’s shortness of breath made him susceptible to nausea when he tried to eat or drink anything substantial.

Besides, while the food wasn’t exactly bad, it was very strange. The Slaasriithi seemed to have modest nest-raiding privileges with a variety of species: eggs were always on the menu as the protein component. That, and a kind of sardine paste mixed with something that tasted like peppery pickled plums, had started out as the party’s favorite, but soon became cloying. It was a strong, wholly unfamiliar taste and one for which the human palate, and stomach, seemed to have limited toleration.

The easiest foodstuff was a standing tuber that, when boiled, fell into strands not unlike spaghetti squash. It was mild and, if uninteresting, was utterly agreeable to the human stomach. But today, even the smell of that bland dish brought on a wave of queasiness, followed by concerned looks from what Riordan had come to think of as the Three Almost-Wise Slaasriithi: W’th’vaathi, Unsymaajh, and Thnessfiirm.

Seeing Caine’s distress, W’th’vaathi pulled her water-strider alongside his as they began making for the shore. “We are concerned for your health, Caine Riordan. We were unaware that this malady would affect you so severely. If you did not have a filter mask, it might be conceivable. But never having had human visitors to Disparity, we could not anticipate, and still cannot explain, the severity of your affliction.”

Caine looked downriver. “Nothing to worry about. I’m sure we’ll get to the tower in time.” Since the Slaasriithi had joined them four days ago, the group had closed the distance to the Silver Tower by more than two hundred kilometers, which had required about three hundred kilometers of actual travel. W’th’vaathi estimated that their journey would take another two days, which meant that this gleaming edifice was much, much larger than the humans had originally conjectured.

“We are making excellent speed,” agreed Thnessfiirm, “but within the hour, we will reach a section of the river where the shore drops off sharply to a very deep bottom. We will need to move by boat from that point on.”

“You have boats?”

“Simple ones with sails. We have them secreted at forty-kilometer intervals from this point onward.”

“So won’t our travel be faster, then?”

“For some of us, yes. But we have only one boat hidden in each riverside cache, and none of them are large. Most of the party must remain with the subtaxae and water-striders as they make a circuitous detour. This concerns us, since you have insisted upon personally ensuring the security of your entire group.” Thnessfiirm’s tendrils writhed fitfully. “That will no longer be possible.”

Nice to tell me about this now. “The water-striders are endangered if they enter this deeper part of the river?”

“No, but because of the depth, they must travel submerged.” Thnessfiirm’s sensor-cluster-head wobbled meaningfully in the direction of two of the other water-striders with riders perched upon their backs. “Clearly, that would not be suitable for you.”

Clearly. “Then I suppose I must—”

Thnessfiirm’s neck snapped rigidly erect; so had W’th’vaathi’s. Unsymaajh, whose water-strider had already deposited his passengers on the shore, was not in sight. The rest of the Slaasriithi ceased whatever they were doing, gazed skyward slowly, uncertainly.

Caine frowned. “What is—?”

But Thnessfiirm was grabbing handfuls of the water-strider’s pelt and pulling it in the direction of the shore. “Caine Riordan, we must hide.”

“Why?”

“Sporefall. The defense spheres have sent a warning packet that caused the spore layers above us to rain — well, sleet — down warning microbes.”

The other humans on the strider with him — Xue, Salunke, and Eid — sat upright. Salunke unslung a rifle; technically, it was her watch.

“Hiding will not help us, or you,” Caine started to explain.

“Perhaps, but being trapped in the middle of the river is not how we should face this threat.”

Well, there was no arguing that. As the water-striders made their way up the bank in close formation, Riordan was near enough to call over to W’th’vaathi. “You must contact the Silver Tower. We will not be able to flee from these attackers.”

“How can you be certain of this, Caine Riordan?” she asked as the various passengers began dismounting from the lowering backs of the striders.

“Because the attackers will quickly discern where to commence their search. Given the scarcity of metal objects on your surface, our wrecked shuttle will show them the start of our trail.”

“But you left no initial tracks that could have endured the rains of the two prior days. And in the river, we leave no tracks at all.”

Thnessfiirm retracted his neck. “Our own sensors would be able to discern the humans’ thermal signatures and outlines as being different from ours. As Keith Macmillan asserted, we must expect no less of the attackers’ sensors. Rather, we must expect them to be markedly superior. Consequently, the humans would leave distinctive signatures unless huddled with us. Nor would such a tactic impede the actions of these attackers.”

W’th’vaathi was silent for several seconds. “You are correct. The attackers showed no interest in distinguishing between Slaasriithi and human targets in space, so we must also presume that they would be equally indifferent to such distinctions planetside. Thnessfiirm, dispatch a sloohav to ask the Third Silver Tower to convey helpful technology to us here.”

“What helpful technology it might have is another concern,” Thnessfiirm answered. “And I hope the sloohav reaches it in time.”

“We may only do what we may do,” W’th’vaathi replied with a grass-in-the-wind wave of her finger-tendrils. “Now, we must gather the persons who will be going downstream on the boat. Ambassador Gaspard must be evacuated, and Ms. Hirano’s injuries require that she departs also. Caine Riordan, your condition makes it clear that you should be the final human passenger aboard the—”

“No. I’m staying here.”

The three Slaasriithi exchanged another set of unseen glances before W’th’vaathi reaimed her sensor cluster at Riordan. “You are the second most senior person in the legation, were requested specifically by Yiithrii’ah’aash, and are barely able to move. You must travel with the boat, Captain.”

“And the last word of your argument — my title — tells you why I won’t and why I can’t go with you.”

“You mean the word ‘Captain?’”

“That is exactly what I mean. My primary responsibility on this mission is as the head of security. That means protecting these people, however I can, whenever and wherever that is needed. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Unsymaajh reached out an appealing appendage. “Caine Riordan, you cannot do so effectively. Your breathing is labored, your vitality low.”

Riordan nodded. “I am aware of that.” You have no idea how aware I am of that. “But there are ways to compensate. For a little while.” He lifted his head, raised his voice. “Mr. Xue?”

Maybe it was something in his tone that announced the change in relationships, but Xue responded, “Yes, Captain Riordan?”

“You gathered together half of the meds we each had in our medkits, correct?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“Then I want half of the amphetamines.” The antihistamines had been exhausted, without effect, almost a week ago.

“Sir?”

“I need to keep going for another few hours, so I’m going to need those pills. Give me the fast-acting formulation with the adrenal stimulant.”

Xue, staring, nodded and hastened to comply.

“You plan on modifying your metabolism to function at a higher level?” W’th’vaathi asked.

I’m taking the pills to keep functioning at all, Riordan thought. But he said: “Yes, as needed. Now, instead of me on the boat, you’re going to take Dr. Hwang.”

Ben was close enough to hear and to shout a negation.

Which Riordan did not let him complete. “Dr. Hwang, this is an order, not a suggestion. In my role as head of legation security, I am instructing you to accompany W’th’vaathi downriver in the boat. You will not turn back, you will not delay the journey. You will do only one thing: make best time for the Third Silver Tower.”

Hwang’s face seemed to be crumbling. “Riordan — Caine — don’t do—”

“Ben, my order is not based on sentiment, but cold-blooded logic. Gaspard is going to need your xenobiological insights during his conversations and negotiations with the Slaasriithi. We suspected as much from the start. Now it’s a clear imperative. And you are still nursing visceral trauma from the crash. The decision is made: you’re going.”

Gaspard passed by, glancing at both men. “No cause for regret, Dr. Hwang. We will not last much longer than Captain Riordan. We shall be in a boat upon a river — the only manufactured object in hundreds of kilometers and leaving a wide wake.” Gaspard snorted his grim resolve. “As soon as the attackers are done here, they will see and come for us.” He shrugged. “That is why I have granted Ms. Veriden’s request to remain behind. Not only is the boat already full, but she is a fighter by nature. She no doubt prefers to meet her end on this battlefield.”

Riordan shook his head. “Not if I can help it.”

“Captain, your courage does you credit, but the stand you mean to make here—”

“Is the lesser half of my overall plan, Ambassador.” Again, Riordan called over his shoulder. “Qwara?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“When we were lightening our load a week ago, how many of the pony-tanks did we keep?”

“Uh, three — no: four, sir.”

Caine smiled. “Good. We’re set, then.”

Gaspard shook his head. “And those tanks will magically ensure that our plans are ‘set’?”

Caine smiled wider. “They most certainly will. Now, here’s what we do—”

Chapter Forty-Three. APPROACHING AND MAKING PLANET-FALL BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)

The Slaasriithi cannonball did exactly what Nezdeh and Idrem had predicted. As it swung around the planetary horizon, it boosted into a shallow slingshot assist that helped it hurtle straight toward Red Lurker and the armored shuttle behind it.

“The Slaasriithi are predictable, if nothing else,” Idrem observed. He and Tegrese had exchanged positions; she was now the ranking Evolved in engineering, whereas Idrem was manning the gunnery station on the bridge.

Nezdeh nodded, watching her first volley of missiles burn hot and hard toward the oncoming cannonball in the holosphere. “Have they spotted the missile we launched from behind the asteroid fragment?”

“Unknown,” Sehtrek answered. “The Slaasriithi craft has not activated its own arrays, and we have no way of ascertaining how many passive or dormant dual-function assets they have in orbit.”

Which meant that the two minutes of low thrust that had sent their hidden missile into an intercept footprint might have been missed (unlikely) or was deemed to be of secondary importance. There were certainly more immediate threats to occupy the Slaasriithi’s attention. Lurker’s relentless salvos of railgun-propelled flechette canisters kept the oncoming enemy craft bracketed in an ever-more constricted approach trajectory. Nezdeh’s current flight of missiles were rushing along that trajectory toward a head-on intercept. “Idrem, illuminate one seeker head among our missiles.”

“In order to acquire a remote lock on the cannonball for our lasers and railgun?”

Nezdeh smiled: what a relief to have Idrem at gunnery. “Exactly. Fire a full flight of penetrators on that lock.”

“So I presumed: to sneak in behind the missiles’ sensor signatures. The lasers?”

“Hold them: I do not want them to point back to our precise position.” Beams, more than any other weapons, had the unfortunate consequence of providing their targets with a reciprocal lock on their attackers.

“Understood. Railgun firing.”

“Has the cannonball fired upon the lead, seeking missile?”

“Not yet. The enemy will probably deny us a reciprocal lock upon its own lasers until the last possible second, in order to close the range.”

“Of course. The cannonball presumes only brief survival, so it will endeavor to remain out of lock until it is close enough to inflict significant damage.”

Idrem nodded, highlighted the position of their formerly concealed missile; it was now coasting into the projected engagement envelope. “There is still no indication that the enemy has targeted our first missile, either. It may be that their sensor assets are so limited that they cannot establish an active lock on that target. Or, if the system is entirely automated, it may have dropped our missile from high priority tracking.”

Sehtrek nodded. “Such a system might also be foolish enough to dismiss its lack of further thrust as indicative of a malfunction.”

Ulpreln turned to look at Sehtrek. “Could they be so imbecilic, to think that a remote weapon fired from stealth has failed simply because it does not bear straight in upon its target?”

Sehtrek shrugged. “It is quite obvious that the Slaasriithi are not adept at, nor familiar with, war. It is possible, I suppose, that they—” He stared at his board, suddenly silent. Then: “Two small orbital arrays have just illuminated our coasting missile.”

“Respond as we have practiced,” Nezdeh ordered. “Idrem, fire portside laser blisters at the cannonball, starboard side blisters at the active sensors. Ulpreln, evasive maneuvers: the Slaasriithi drone-ship will begin firing soon. Activate all remaining seeker heads in our flight of missiles; set them to relay targeting data to us. Zurur, tightbeam relay that targeting data to our coasting missile.”

It happened with the swift, casual precision characteristic of Evolved professionals.

“One of the enemy’s small orbital arrays has been eliminated, the other damaged,” Idrem reported. “The damaged one continues to scan our coasting missile, but seems unable to acquire lock.”

“The cannonball’s lasers are operating in defensive mode, eliminating our missiles,” Sehtrek reported. “Nezdeh, we are losing redundant targeting data from those seeker heads—”

Which is acceptable because I will not need it for much longer—

“Cannonball now activating its own arrays, targeting our coasting missile — Wait; it is now retasking them to quick forward sweeps.”

“It has seen the railgun projectiles behind the missile volley,” Nezdeh muttered with a smile. “Idrem, stand ready. Intercept time for our coasting missile?”

“Twenty seconds.”

The thin green tines that denoted Lurker’s railgun rounds began deviating or, in a few cases, winking out of existence. “Cannonball lasers remain in defensive mode against our penetrator rods. It is also launching a missile — no; two missiles.”

“Does it have lock on us?”

“It is trying to acquire, Nezdeh.” Sehtrek’s voice was admirably calm.

Trying will not be good enough—“Now, Idrem: relay our target lock on the cannonball to our coasting missile and activate both its stages.”

“Complying…”

Out in space, the drifting missile suddenly blazed to life, far brighter than any of the others. A brace of solid-rocket boosters ignited along with its main motor, propelling it forward at half again its unmodified maximum speed.

The cannonball quickly swung some of its sensor assets over to establish a lock on this new threat, which was approaching much, much faster than the Slaasriithi had any reason to expect, based on prior encounters.

“Increase laser fire on the cannonball,” Nezdeh ordered, “and initiate direct fire by the railgun, one penetrator per second. We must maximize hit possibilities, not damage potential.”

Idrem nodded, his fingers playing across the dynamic control panel like a concert pianist at his instrument.

In the plot, several of the railgun’s first wave of green tines were still bearing down upon the orange sphere denoting the cannonball. The alien craft jittered and jumped as it strove to remain within its flechette-constricted safe vectors while also evading the steady fire from its primary target; it narrowly avoided hits, but did not manage to fix a lock on the ambushing Ktor missile until it was within a kilometer. One of the cannonball’s lasers finally found and destroyed it; in the holosphere, the dissipating green-dust remains of the rocket overlapped the orange cannonball for a moment—

“Enemy craft has sustained light damage from the rocket’s fragmentation warhead. It is attempting to compensate—”

But the cannonball’s attempt to compensate made it vulnerable to other attacks: a laser hit by Idrem’s constant peppering damaged it further, and as it struggled to correct, one of the railgun penetrators hit it almost dead center. The orange sphere in the holosphere dissolved. A moment later, Lurker’s lasers, retasked to the PDF role, eliminated the two missiles the cannonball had launched.

“All targets destroyed,” Sehtrek said calmly, almost contemptuously.

Nezdeh did not release her breath quickly, did not lean back in relief. Her demeanor had to affirm that victory was never in doubt, not now, not ever. Because if her crew were to dwell upon the full consequences of failure, those dire imaginings would erode their confidence and performance. Anything less than complete success would turn their House’s faceless sponsors into executioners, eager to conceal their conspiracy against the dominant powers of the Ktoran Sphere.

And yet, without the enthusiastic support of those potentially faithless sponsors, House Perekmeres could not be restored, either in full or in part. She and her crew would remain rootless renegades in a universe where every hand was against them. But now, perhaps, we are nearing the moment when we may put such grim forebodings behind us.

Turning to Zurur, Nezdeh nodded and said, “Tell Jesel to commence his assault.”

* * *

Jesel sul-Perekmeres glanced at the armored shuttle’s pilot, Pehthrum. “Intendant, start the descent.”

“Do you not wish to strap in, Jesel?”

Perhaps if Jesel had been Pehthrum’s superior in anything but birth-determined rank, the young Aspirant to Evolved status would not have been sensitive to the Intendant’s simple, practical question. But Pehthrum was older and more accomplished in every particular that could possibly bear upon the mission, and self-conscious Jesel heard his question as an oblique critique. “I do not wish to strap in, Intendant. Fly this shuttle. For now, that is all I require of you.”

Pehthrum lowered his head in compliance and then lowered the nose of the shuttle, angling it toward the planet’s atmosphere.

Jesel had been expecting the maneuver, swayed with it, used his wrist muscles to keep his feet on the deck. He felt the strain and cursed his geneline — or rather, his lack of one. The son of a jur-huscarl, Jesel had been a child at the time of House Perekmeres’ Extirpation. Under any but those desperate circumstances, his genecode would not have been deemed sufficient to groom for eventual inclusion in the ranks of the Evolved.

But harsh fate had compelled the remaining leadership of House Perekmeres to confer the possibility of Elevation upon him. And what he lacked in genecode, he made up for with boldness and an instinct for dominion. Or so he told himself.

As the armored shuttle leveled into its new course and the fuselage shuddered under increased thrust, Jesel surveyed the personnel of his first combat command. His fellow ’sul, Suzruzh, was strapped in at the rear, ready to lead team three; the assault’s main contact and harrying element, it would locate and engage the Aboriginals. Team two, under Pehthrum, was designated to carry out a flanking maneuver once the target was fixed in place by team three. And Jesel’s team one would be the command and final assault element, ostensibly screened by Suzruzh’s harriers.

The only significant drawback was that all the teams were comprised of CoDevCo’s Optigene troops. The clones were not even Aboriginals, really. They were simply Wildings: the pristine genelines from which their template was drawn had been artificially constrained and culled, but without the refining, expert touch of a Breedmistress. Unfortunately, the clones had deficits beyond the typical low-born decrements in speed, agility, strength, senses, autonomic muscle control, heightened vascular trauma resiliency, and secretion modulation. They were also utterly without the capacity for innovation, at least so far. Having been recently awakened, they had not acquired any significant diversity of experience, much less consequent skills in problem solving.

According to the fear-reeking low-born Kozakowski, these clones were in fact less responsive due to the tight controls that the Ktor had put upon their training and exposure to unplanned stimuli. The clones knew little beyond obedience yet, but all data suggested that this would change rapidly, and it was unlikely that any of this first group would be safe to leave uneuthanized. The perversities of their early training would scar them, leave them asking too many questions and resentful of the narrow limits of their existence.

That concept, the narrow limits of one’s existence, struck home as Jesel’s gaze drifted back across Suzruzh, whose face suggested that he was waiting for his fellow ’sul to commence the predeployment briefing. The two of them had narrow existences, as well. Although no direct mention had been made of it, all of the Ktor knew precisely why such an important mission was being entrusted to a pair of ’suls whose sires had been low-breed jur-huscarls. It eliminated the risk of a postmortem analysis of an Evolved genecode. Although both Brenlor and Nezdeh asserted that failure was impossible and that the Aboriginals would not inflict any significant casualties upon the strike force, the two Srinu had clearly not deemed such outcomes wholly unthinkable. Consequently, if the entire strike team was lost, no Elevated cell samples would fall into Aboriginal hands: hands that might, given time and sufficient resources, begin to understand the genetic changes that ensured the innate superiority of the Ktor.

The same kind of precaution had informed the combat team’s equippage. Rather than being issued the vastly superior Ktor weapons which had decimated the Aboriginal resistance aboard the Arbitrage, Brenlor Srin Perekmeres had decreed that the only weapons, armor, and support systems to be used in the assault were those from the Terrans’ own stocks.

This was not merely disappointing; it was utterly depressing. The best weapons in the Arbitrage’s original armory, nine-point-two-millimeter Jufeng dust-mix battle rifles manufactured by the Developing World Coalition, were among the most rudimentary of their kind. There were only four available, and the three Ktor leaders of the raid were grim in their gratitude to have at least that much offensive firepower. The clones themselves were armed with either their ubiquitous Indonesian Pindad caseless assault rifles, or TOCIO’s copy of a widely licensed automatic shotgun designed by a firm called Heckler and Koch. Jesel wished he could have jettisoned every single one of the primitive firearms out the nearest airlock. They would not have been satisfactory as reserve training arms, back home in the Creche Worlds.

Well, Jesel accepted as he once again became aware of the twenty-six duty-suited troopers sitting in the fuselage of the shuttle, there’s nothing to be gained by putting off the briefing. “Attend my words.”

It was a largely unnecessary call for their attention; none of the clones had been speaking or looking anywhere other than directly at Jesel.

“We shall enter the atmosphere of the target planet within twenty minutes. We should be over the target zone within forty minutes. Our first pass will be to seed quadrotor sensor platforms that will scan the surrounding area for vehicles the enemy might be using to leave the target zone.”

Suzruzh frowned. “I thought we had acquired a fix upon the targets’ position.”

Jesel shrugged. “Nezdeh received a signal from our agent among them. However, this signal carried no data regarding the composition, status, or numbers of the target low-borns. So it does not necessarily follow that all the targets will be in one location. However, during our final approach, there will be a radio signal upon which we shall orient and so, find an optimal landing zone.”

Suzruzh lifted one shoulder in a resigned shrug.

Jesel nodded toward the pilot.. “Pehthrum, you shall seek to flank whatever positions the Aboriginals have adopted. Once Suzruzh’s skirmishers have pinned them down, you shall release the upt’theel.”

The most freshly reanimated clone, a replacement for one among the first batch that had proven dangerously intractable, cleared his throat. “Commander, I am unfamiliar with this term, upt’theel.”

“The upt’theel is a sinuous and unrelenting carnivore that is not strictly a carbon-based life-form: it is incredibly rugged due to various silicate hardenings. It has highly alkaline body chemistry and is perpetually ravenous in our environment in order to maintain a body temperature in excess of forty-five degrees centigrade.”

“And how does it know to distinguish us from our enemies?”

“Your equipment, and you, have been liberally doped with a chemical which the upt’theel find unappetizing. Also, since they have rudimentary intelligence, they associate that scent with handlers.” Jesel smiled. “However, that loyalty association does not endure beyond the first unsatisfied growlings of an upt’theel’s stomach. So, while you have no reason to fear the upt’theel, you should not be careless about them, either.

“Many of you will recall training with light armor. That is not available to us.” True. “But nor is it desirable in this environment.” More lie than not. “Although the plant growth in the target area is not uniformly thick enough to be called a jungle, areas of it are. We must expect the targets to take refuge in those areas. Consequently, matching their speed and elusiveness is better protection than full composite armor. Your ballistic cloth chest and groin protectors are optimal for this operation.

“We must also operate without remote tactical communications. The entirety of the radio bandwidth is being jammed. We must rely upon hand and voice signals. So, in order to maneuver effectively, we shall remain close.”

“Very close, when we enter the areas that resemble jungles,” Suzruzh added.

Jesel nodded, not overly annoyed at his distant cousin’s timely addition. “However, we are more prepared to meet the challenge than most of our targets. From what data we have of them, they overwhelmingly lack any military training or wilderness experience. Their lack of radio communications will be far more detrimental to them than it will be to us. Lastly, our in situ agent’s signal duration indicated that either steps have been taken to ensure that any military gear aboard the shuttle was compromised or that no such gear was present.”

The clone labeled Gamma-Twelve stirred slightly. “Leader, what if the Slaasriithi have provided the targets with better weapons?”

Jesel shook his head. “From what we know of Slaasriithi physiology, it would be surprising, almost inconceivable, that humans could operate their weapons. It is equally improbable that the Slaasriithi would take the risk of providing them: they are an overly cautious species, more so than the Arat Kur when it comes to sharing technology. Are there other questions?” No responses. The deck tilted and shuddered slightly: Pehthrum was easing the armored shuttle into the outer reaches of the atmosphere. He glanced at Suzruzh. “Any additions?”

From the absurdly primitive cockpit just behind him, Pehthrum’s voice inquired, “With your permission, Jesel sul-Perekmeres?”

Well, it was a respectful request, so—“Permission granted, Pehthrum.”

“It is more legend than data, but accounts dating from the Progenitors’ time strongly suggest that the Slaasriithi shaped their worlds in such a way that they were inimical to all varieties of our species. It seems that spores and other air- and water-borne microbes may, after a short exposure, begin to cause shortness of breath and general disability. So it is imperative that you wear your filter masks at all times.”

Jesel nodded. “And our stay must be brief. The longer we are planetside, the more likely that the Slaasriithi defenses will effectively contest our planetfall and that our orbital window might be compromised. So the faster we move, the more likely we will safely achieve the most important objective of our attack.”

Clone Gamma-Fourteen frowned. “And which is that?”

“To kill all the Aboriginals. Naturally.”

Chapter Forty-Four. SOUTHERN EXTENTS OF THE THIRD SILVER TOWER BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)

Caine tossed back another of the amphetamines, listened and glanced up at the light teal sky: a distant sound of thunder that he knew was not thunder. It was their attackers’ final descent. But how quickly would they detect the group and land? Both humans and Slaasriithi were already near their positions, so that was not an issue. However, what was more challenging and uncertain was when he should begin staging his pills. I have to get the timing just right, can’t afford to peak the effects before, or after, I need them.

Thnessfiirm jogged up to Riordan with the fast, rolling gait of her kind. “I have offloaded the autonomous munitions platform from the rotoflyer.”

“Excellent. Send the rotoflyer back to the Silver Tower. It will only help the enemy locate us if we keep it here. Any update from the pilot on how soon we might expect the supersonic defense drones to enter our airspace?”

Thnessfiirm’s upraised tendrils went over sideways like dead toy soldiers. “I am sorry, but no. There are only a few ground wire communication links, and the atmospheric defense drones are clustered in the more advanced facilities on the northern continent. When the rotoflyers left the Third Silver Tower to convey the munitions platform here, Prime Ratiocinator T’suu’shvah had still not sent her approval for the supersonic drones, much less their estimated time of arrival.”

A drooping equilateral triangle, hovering on one central and three corner fans, whined into view behind Thnessfiirm, trailing her like a lazy dog. Its upper surface was scored by a hexagon pattern, two sensor masts rising up from either side of the central rotor. “Where are the weapons?” Riordan asked, suddenly concerned that the Slaasriithi had misinterpreted his request for a combat platform: the local lack of personal firearms made this munitions dispenser their only option.

Thnessfiirm trailed three of her tendrils over one of the hexagons. “The weapons are stored in these bays.”

Caine stared at the platform’s three-meter sides. “They must be pretty small weapons.”

Thnessfiirm’s neck retracted slightly. “Do not presume that their size indicates insufficient power. In this environment”—she gestured to the patches of daylight coming through the loose forest canopy—“we cannot employ the larger platforms that carry longer-range weapons. The platform’s maneuverability and stealth characteristics are more important, if the system is to survive the first few minutes of engagement.”

If the bad guys have any airborne weapons or observation systems, that’s undoubtedly true. “What kind of weapons does this platform carry?”

“Mostly conventional high-explosive rockets with enhanced fragmentation. There are also several clusters of miniature antipersonnel heat-seeking rockets and a few surface-to-air missiles.” Apparently, the Slaasriithi were becoming increasingly adept at reading human facial expressions: in this case, Riordan’s surprise and dubiety. “They are extremely short-range surface-to-air missiles,” Thnessfiirm qualified.

“How short?”

“Only four hundred meters of active thrust, with small warheads but extremely rapid flight times. All the munitions are independently deployable.”

Riordan knew an insufficient translation when he heard one. “I am uncertain what you mean by ‘independently deployable.’ I presume they can be launched individually?”

“That too, but what I refer to is this.” Thnessfiirm clicked several new ringlike adornments on her toe-tendrils in rapid sequence. The lines delineating one of the hexagons suddenly became deep grooves, and that part of the platform’s — chassis? — dropped down to the ground: a six-sided tube akin to a single cell from a honeycomb. It swayed as it landed; prehensile actuators whipped out of its base, righted it, retracted until they became a short-legged stand for the object. “An excellent feature.” The way Thnessfiirm said it, Riordan had the distinct impression that she was immensely proud of this novel stabilizer but was unsure about its usefulness.

“An excellent feature,” Caine agreed. “If we use it properly, we should be able to minimize—”

The thunder, having diminished somewhat, began a swift crescendo.

“Cover!” Caine shouted. “Now!”

As arranged, the humans darted under cone trees and huddled into the midst of waiting groups of convectorae, thereby blending the two species’ thermal signatures. Smaller clusters of the Slaasriithi, those without any humans in them, moved toward the edges of other, scattered cone-tree canopies; slightly more exposed, they’d present more pronounced thermal silhouettes. Caine glanced at the sky again: Now sort us out, you bastards. If you can.

The thunder became an oncoming, rocket-propelled freight train, up-dopplering sharply. The Slaasriithi shied closer into their cover. The four humans who were carrying the pathetic survival rifles — Keith, Dora, Xue, and Salunke — glanced at Riordan. He shook his head, waved his hand from upriver to downriver—

Just as a TOCIO-manufactured armored shuttle roared overhead at an altitude of five hundred meters, following the trajectory Caine had indicated with his wave.

“How did you know it would be flying toward—?” Thnessfiirm began.

“No big trick.” Veriden checked that the action of her weapon cycled smoothly. “They clearly found our wreck, started river-following. And by the time we heard them, they were moving too fast to slow down and drop in on us here.”

“So what do they mean to do, then?”

“Sweep downriver,” Caine answered. “They’ll double back when they find that this area had the only large collection of biothermal signatures gathered in one place.”

“Should we not have spread out more?”

Riordan shook his head. “Wouldn’t have mattered. For us to be able to defend ourselves, we have to be relatively close together. And once you cluster up that way, there are too many bodies in one grid for them to mistake us for anything other than their target. They can’t be sure until they sweep the whole of the river, but once they have, they’ll be back.” He turned to Unsymaajh. “What did your subtaxae see? Did the craft drop anything off?”

“My convectorae saw nothing separate from the vehicle.”

“It couldn’t have, moving at that speed,” Keith murmured.

Riordan nodded. “Only milspec ROVs hardened for high-speed deployment could have survived getting dumped out at that velocity, and those systems are too big to miss. Okay; we’ve got thirty minutes, forty at most. Let’s get into positions.”

Thnessfiirm was staring northward, downriver. “I am confused,” she admitted finally. “The craft resembled images of your own crashed shuttle.”

Riordan nodded. “It’s a variant of that design.”

“But — are your own people trying to kill you?”

Caine shrugged. “The people in that armored shuttle might or might not be from Earth. But they are certainly using our tools. Which might be good news: if all their tools and weapons are ours, we understand what they have and are not at a technological disadvantage.”

“But how could it be your people? You humans cannot shift this far, cannot reach our space on your own — can you?”

“We cannot,” Riordan admitted.

“Then what other species would have access to, and be able to use, your equipment?”

Caine selected a carefully worded, technical truth. “I can’t be sure. But we are certainly going to find out.”

Thnessfiirm’s sensor cluster swung back northward. “They will see the boat. And destroy it.”

Riordan did not answer. There was no point in confirming what was now an inescapable conclusion. “Let’s get into position.”

* * *

Pehthrum called to Jesel. “A lateen-rigged sailboat on the river up ahead. In a river gorge. Trying to stay in the lee of overhanging rocks.”

Jesel pulled himself forward into the cockpit, looked out the starboard window. “Is there any way we can get close enough to take it under effective small arms fire?”

Pehthrum slowed the shuttle, spun up the ducted tilt-fans to slow their approach into a gradual forward hover. He glanced at the walls of the gorge. “Not without coming down between these rock faces. And if they have any rockets—”

Jesel nodded. “An unacceptable risk. Maintain altitude and maneuver to a position directly adjacent to the boat, but keep the overhang between us.”

Pehthrum swung the shuttle, now in VTOL mode, toward the right side of the river. “Complying. Our visibility of the boat is very limited from this angle, though.”

“We only need to know where it is,” Jesel tossed over his shoulder as he returned to the passenger compartment. “Suzruzh, ready the package.”

His distant cousin was out of his seat, four of the clones following him back to the access hatch just aft of the shuttle’s waist and just forward of its engineering section. Following the drill they had practiced a dozen times before, one pair of the identical soldiers opened the hatch and extended a small aluminum ramp, adapted from a freight-moving kit. The other two manhandled a container out of the largest of the ship’s lockers.

Suzruzh bent over the container, opened it, adjusted a single control on a detonator slaved to the two ship-to-ship missile warheads bolted to the plastic bottom. “Primed,” he shouted as he closed the lid and locked it. At his nod, the two clones who had removed the container from the locker now positioned it at the top of the aluminum ramp.

Suzruzh stood sideways in the wind-buffeted open hatchway, his hand gestures telling Jesel how to shift the position of the shuttle. Jesel relayed the appropriate piloting commands to Pehthrum. “Three meters more to the right. Wait — correct for the prop-wash coming back off the rocks. Now, another meter to the right…”

Suzruzh held his fist upright: Jesel motioned for Pehthrum to hold the shuttle in precisely that spot. As soon as the craft stabilized, Suzruzh nodded to the two clones holding the container on the slide. They released it.

Where he was, Jesel knew he would not be able to see or hear the splash as the container hit the water almost thirty meters beneath them, and a few meters to the left of the boat as it hung tight against the side of the gorge. Suzruzh, on the other hand, watched the container’s descent, and after what seemed like several long seconds, pressed the remote activation stud on his belt-com.

At such a short range, the signal got through the radio interdiction easily, and the detonator went off, triggering the two warheads not more than two meters beneath the surface of the swift current. A blast came up from the river. Jesel gestured for Pehthrum to spin the shuttle, which had passed the drop point. Pehthrum did so, just in time for them to see the lateen mast reach the peak of its upward course atop the explosion’s white-frothed plume. It began tumbling back down toward the wreckage-strewn waters.

“Any sign of bodies?” Jesel shouted at Suzruzh over the whine of the VTOL fans.

“No sign of anything,” he answered. “Except that mast and a few shreds of hull.”

Jesel nodded, turned back to Pehthrum. “You have performed adequately, Intendant. Now return us to the coordinates where we detected the biosignatures upriver.” He moved back into the passenger compartment, affixing the straps of the ridiculously primitive Aboriginal helmet. “We have a job to finish.”

* * *

Karam Tsaami peeked overhead — the direction in which he would be falling, if he wasn’t being held upside down by the straps of the pilot’s chair. Through the sliver he’d opened in the cockpit’s sliding covers, he saw greens and teals and violets streak past in a psychedelic rush of formless color. He looked away: if he’d withdrawn all the blast-shields at this point, he wouldn’t even have trusted his own well-honed instincts of spatial orientation. Flying upside down, for this long, at this speed, and this altitude, was for stunt fliers and test pilots, not boat jockeys.

The intercom crackled. “Karam?” Bannor’s voice.

“Yeah, Major, what is it? Kind of busy up here.”

“I figured as much. Now that all the bumping is over, give me a report on the ship’s systems.”

“Not much to report. Coming in belly-up should have protected the weld points in the hull, but with our hard aerobraking attitude on the way in, I suspect all of our surfaces still got baked somewhat. So I’m going to fly Puller inverted until after you jump.”

There was a long pause. “Say again, bridge. Sounded like you said you were maintaining inverted attitude until after you clear the drop zone.”

“You heard right, Major. If I were to roll over now, we could find ourselves with a hole in the hull catching the air in excess of fifteen hundred kph. That could tear us to pieces in seconds. So we’re going to get you where you’re going first, which also means we’ll be down to about four hundred kph, give or take. Once you’re out, I’ll roll her and we’ll see what happens.”

Behind Karam, Morgan Lymbery may have choked back a curse or a whimper or both.

“You’ve still got a location on the enemy craft?”

“Sure do. They are clearly not worried about being spotted. Going in straight lines, leaving a thermal trail as wide as the Strait of Gibraltar and running active sensors. And moving from objective to objective like they don’t have to do a lot of searching.”

Melissa Sleeman, although pale-faced and white-knuckled, had evidently been following the conversation closely. “So the attackers have a fix on the ground team already? How could they?”

Karam sighed. “Either there is a still a traitor among them or the bad buys have miracle sensors. And I don’t believe in miracles. I particularly don’t believe in miracles coming from a lander that is throwing off the thrust signatures of a TOCIO-made shuttle.”

Bannor’s voice was quiet. “You’ve confirmed that?”

“Can’t confirm anything at this range, and I’m running passive sensors only. But if I was a betting man — well, I’d say we’ve got some interesting questions to ask whoever’s flying that lander. Like, where’d they get it?”

“I agree.” Rulaine sounded excessively composed. “Give me a two-minute warning. I’ll be back at the aft hatchway preparing for the jump.”

“You’ve got it, Major.” And better you than me, you poor bastard.

* * *

Caine heard the roar of the returning shuttle diminish into a thready whine: it was crawling forward in hover mode. Damn it, they know right where we are. “Unsymaajh, Thnessfiirm. Keep your subtaxae watching the skies carefully. We need to see where the attackers come down.” He turned to the armed persons in his party. “They are finding us too quickly. No way the cavalry is going to get here in time, even if it’s coming. So this is up to us.”

Nasr Eid’s voice quavered. “And Ms. Betul and I are just to watch?”

“No: you are to maintain a watch. Very different.” As I’ve already explained, but you’re too jittery to process and remember. So: one more time—“We need you to watch our flanks. If you detect any movement there, you sneak back and report it so we can try to adjust our positions to deal with that new threat. Qwara, you’re going to be down near our revetment by the river. Nasr, you’re going to be positioned near a large clearing that is on our other flank, and you’ll have some special local help. And of course, if any additional weapons become available”—or if any of the survival rifles suddenly and sadly find themselves without their original wielders—“we’ll want you ready to join us on the line.”

Qwara nodded calmly. “I — we understand, Captain.”

Unsymaajh ducked back under the canopy of the cone tree without noticeably breaking his stride; his flanged hips seemed to allow him to dip, swerve, and rise up again in one fluid motion, even at speed. “My subtaxae have seen flying machines leaving the belly of the attacker’s shuttle, which approaches slowly.”

Caine nodded. “Are these flying machines flat and mostly square, with rotors at all four corners?”

“They are as you say.”

“Those are recon ROVs. Again, probably of our own manufacture. The enemy is trying to find exactly where we are before they land and attack.” He turned toward the edge of the cone tree’s canopy, called “Thnessfiirm!”

Salunke frowned. “So: they will find and reach us quickly by using their aerial sensors. What should we do?”

Caine rose into a crouch. “We need to slow them down, make them land further away. Which means we need to put out their airborne eyes.”

“But how?”

The answer to Salunke’s question materialized in the form of Thnessfiirm, who swooped under the canopy with almost the same swift facility as Unsymaajh had. “You summoned me?”

“I did. I need the autonomous munitions platform. Let’s call it the AMP.”

“Very well. It is close by.”

“Excellent. How many of those SAMs — er, surface-to-air missiles — does it have?”

“Four.”

Well, we’d better make this first volley count. “Okay. That’s how many targets we’ve got. But I want you to move the AMP into the zone I designated as Salvo Point Three. Once it’s there, drop the launcher cells for all four missiles, then scoot it over to Salvo Point Two and activate its reactive camouflage systems.”

“It shall be as you say, Caine Riordan.” She left in a smooth rush of gangly limbs.

Salunke’s mouth had curved into a small, almost hopeful smile. “So: ‘putting out their eyes.’ Now I see.”

“And hopefully, now they won’t. At least not very long.”

Nasr was the one frowning now. “If we have these missiles, should we not use them against the shuttle itself?”

Riordan shrugged. “That’s good thinking, but I doubt they’d do much. The missiles have small warheads, and with only four hundred meters reliable range, I doubt the shuttle will become a target for them. The attackers will stand off, wait for their ROVs to bracket us, and then force us to either take potshots at those quadrotors or hunker down where we can’t be seen and can’t defend ourselves. However, if we take down their sensor platforms, they can’t see how we’re positioned, or any munitions we might have. And when they see rockets take out their ROVs, they’re going to realize that we’re not as poorly armed as they suspected.”

Keith looked up. “The problem is that they suspected anything about us at all.”

Riordan did not nod, did not want to dive back into their most gnawing problem: that they certainly did have a traitor in their midst. Who had waited until now to strike. Textbook sabotage: never act until there’s no time left to uncover your identity. “Unsymaajh, any more word from your treetop convectorae?”

“Yes, Caine Riordan. The small hovering objects are approaching in a diamond formation which shrinks as it approaches us.”

“They’re putting a detection net around our clustered thermal signatures,” Dora summarized. “Tightening it as they see the limits of our dispersal.”

Riordan nodded. “Range, Unsymaajh?”

“The lead sensor is now within five hundred meters of our closest cluster. The tail of the diamond is approximately two hundred and fifty meters further away.”

Caine did the math. “Send a runner to get Thnessfiirm; I’m going to need her by my side from now on. Tell the convectorae I need to know when the rearmost ROV is within three hundred meters of our closest position. And as soon as our missiles launch, all positions within one hundred meters of the lead ROV are to be evacuated. Everyone goes to their first designated fallback. Except the flank-watch near the river; they have to hold in place.”

“It is fortunate they are not close to the ROVs, then.”

“Very fortunate,” Caine agreed. But also a bit predictable; the team by the river is outside the primary footprint of our dispersal.

Caine glanced at his watch, popped two more pills, checked his breathing, found it tolerable. Although that’s going to change as soon as I have to start moving. Which will be any second now.

Thnessfiirm reappeared. “How may I assist you, Caine Riordan?”

“You must be my, well, we humans would call it a ‘technical expert.’ You did an excellent job familiarizing me with the controls for the AMP right after it arrived, but I might forget some of your instructions. I need you with me so that I won’t make any mistakes.”

Thnessfiirm’s response was interwoven with a rich, gratified purr. “I am happy to serve as your technical expert, Caine Riordan. How may I assist at this moment?”

“For now, you hold on to the controls. And I’ll take the laser-designator.”

“Very well.” Thnessfiirm handed Caine what looked more like a titanium wand than a laser-designator. “Do you require anything else?”

“Yes. I want you to choose two of your fastest, smartest assistants. We need them to be ready to move more swiftly and silently, carrying messages when and where we instruct.”

“I understand. I also predicted this. Three such assistants await us just beyond the fringe of the canopy.”

Well, son of a—“That is very well predicted, Thnessfiirm. You are an excellent assistant.”

Unsymaajh turned from a hasty consultation with the convectorae on the other side of the cone tree’s canopy. “The furthest ROV is at three hundred seventy-five meters. The leading ROV is only one hundred ninety meters away.”

“Thnessfiirm, how are the missiles targeted?”

“We have multiple options: thermal, object designation, object characteristics—”

“That: characteristics. Now, can you combine targeting options? Such as, both speed and altitude characteristics?”

“I am not sure what you are requesting.”

“Can you instruct the targeting system to select all objects that are traveling above the treetops, at a rate exceeding ten kilometers per hour, and within the missiles’ primary intercept envelope?”

“Yes, but — ah: these characteristics eliminate all other possible targets except the ROVs. I see now, and—”

“Thnessfiirm.”

“Yes?”

“Just do it. Quickly.”

As Thnessfiirm turned to comply, Unsymaajh announced, “The trailing ROV is now at a range of three hundred and thirty meters, lead ROV at—”

“Thnessfiirm?”

“Ready.”

“Fire. Unsymaajh, evacuate the closest positions. Dora, Keith, heads up: they’re going to show us their playbook in the next minute or so.”

From a clearing slightly beyond the area the ROVs were searching, the four Slaasriithi SAMs leaped skyward and then snapped over into head-on intercept modes. It took a moment for the ROVs to detect the incredibly swift missiles, to begin to react—

Four explosions rippled across the treetops; four sharp flashes became dirty gray blossoms of airborne smoke and shimmering showers of debris.

“Four targets confirmed destroyed,” Thnessfiirm reported proudly — and needlessly.

Riordan nodded, pointed at Unsymaajh. “In the next few minutes, our enemies will decide where they are going to land troops to move against us. Their choice of landing site will reveal much about the tactics they plan to employ. Your watchers must keep us informed — constantly — of where their shuttle flies, where it lands, how many persons come out, where they go. Our survival depends upon this.”

Unsymaajh’s sensor cluster bobbed sharply. “We shall not fail.” He was beyond the cone tree’s canopy issuing instructions before Riordan had turned on his collarcom.

“What are you doing?” Nasr Eid gasped in alarm.

“Not sending. Just listening.”

“Still—”

But in the time it took for Nasr to renew his protests against activating even a tiny a power source in such close proximity to the enemy, Riordan heard what he had expected: one of the group’s other collarcoms was on and dial-sweeping. Every five seconds, it was sending out a signal that essentially tumbled through the bandwidth, like a beacon to any other receiver that might be looking to connect to it. Except, in this situation, it was working as a homing device for whoever was listening for it aboard the enemy shuttle. Given the interference, the collarcoms’ ranges were reduced to less than four hundred meters, but that would be all their adversaries needed.

“What have you found?” Xue asked quietly. There was a pensive undertone in his voice.

Is he the traitor, or does he simply suspect what I’ve discovered? Caine shook his head, tasked his collarcom to identify which of its networked siblings was sending the signal. Mizuki’s. Which meant that, when their half-blind and wounded fellow-survivor had left for the boat, someone had nicked her collarcom, set it to dial-sweep and had ditched it somewhere nearby.

Caine carefully considered the ramifications of his next action, then reactivated his collarcom’s transmission capability.

Eid’s eyes grew wide. “No! Don’t—!”

Riordan, along with Gaspard, had one of the two collarcoms that were network administrators for all the others. He chose one of the executive overrides, entered his code, gave the command, turned off his collarcom.

As he pocketed it, Veriden frowned deeply. “What did you just do?”

“I shut down our comm net. Completely.”

Xue nodded. “So, someone has been helping them locate us by sending a signal.”

Riordan nodded. “And there was no way to be safe eliminating just one collarcom. If one gets shut down, our turncoat might have access to another, or might use his or her own.” Caine stood. “Now, the bastards have to hunt us down fair and square.”

Unsymaajh swept back under the canopy. “The shuttle has kept its distance, is landing in a small clearing three hundred and fifty meters south of our fallback position.”

“Inland, or close to the riverbank?”

“Within sixty meters of the river.”

Keith nodded. “So they are in a hurry.”

Qwara frowned. “Why do you say so?”

Veriden answered. “The shore is flat and hard-packed right up to where the captain put our flank against it. It’s marshy there, but up to that point, they can approach us at a good trot.”

Xue rose into a crouch, cradled his rifle. “So do we follow Plan Gamma and flank them for an ambush?”

Caine shook his head. “Tempting, but no. I don’t think we’re up against amateurs. They may move a force down the shore, but they’ll keep another force paralleling them in the bush. Our own ambushers would get hit in the flank that way.”

Keith looked at Riordan. “So what’s our plan?”

Caine suddenly discovered he was not so much thinking about the tactics as he was about how much of them he could share. Someone listening to him now was a traitor who might try to subvert their plans. Ironically, the only persons he could trust were the Slaasriithi. “We go with Plan Beta. We pivot our positions so that our backs are no longer to the river, but face upriver, toward their landing site.”

“They’ll try to get around us.”

“I know. With the river on our left, they’re going to try to find the limit of our lines to the right. They probably know they have more personnel. So they’ll believe they can win a flanking game.”

“And you think they’re wrong?” Veriden sounded doubtful.

Riordan shrugged. “We have some tricks they don’t know about. But here’s what I’m expecting: they’ll use their superior numbers and firepower to press us all along the line. They’ll find our center and fix it. And then they’re going to threaten us from either flank. Whatever they plan for the right, inland flank — well, we’ll have to evolve a response as we see what they do. But we can be certain that they’ll send a probe down along the river, expecting us to swing to prevent it.”

Keith shrugged. “Aye, and they’ll rush us there if we don’t react. The riverbank gives them better visibility, and solid footing except for the silted stream upon which you’ve anchored our, well, ‘line.’ But once they’re past that obstacle, they can turn that flank. And they’ll move to do so.”

Riordan nodded. “I’m counting on it.”

Veriden frowned. “Oh? And how do plan on stopping them?”

Caine smiled. “Well, since you ask—”

Chapter Forty-Five. SOUTHERN EXTENTS OF THE THIRD SILVER TOWER BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)

Bannor Rulaine surveyed his combat team: Tygg Robin, Trent Howarth, Peter Wu, and Miles O’Garran. The Wolfe-class corvette’s standard load of six full EVA-rated combat kits had just barely been enough. Although they had no use for the extra suit of light combat armor, or the CoBro eight-millimeter liquimix battle rifle, they had been glad for the extra ammo, the extra cans of “hot sauce”—liquid propellant — and spare rounds for each rifle’s underslung launch tube. Sitting on what was normally the ceiling of the aft airlock, the century that had elapsed during the past ten minutes had been bumpy, twisty, and frankly, terrifying. A high altitude jump into a hot landing zone with no support and no means of extraction would be a positive relief.

Or maybe not, as Tygg’s question pointed out all too clearly: “Major, given that the aft hatch will barely admit two persons going sideways, just how do you mean for us to deploy?”

“Tygg, you and O’Garran jump first — a big guy jumping with a little guy will give you some extra space.” He glanced at the SEAL almost everyone called Little Guy. “No offense, O’Garran.”

“Major, if I got offended every time somebody implied that I could use a pair of platform shoes, there would be a lot of black eyes in the crowd running after me, I’d be in jail, or both.”

Rulaine almost grinned. “Same strategy applies for the next pair: me and Wu. Trent, you bring up the rear; you’re big enough to need that whole damned hatchway for yourself.”

“Mom always said I was larger than life.”

“And she was right. So: the exit. It’s going to be too fast, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We don’t have sufficiently reliable flight control to slow, make the drop zone, and then get the ship clear for some hope of a safe landing. We can do any two of those things, but not all three.”

Peter Wu rubbed his hands together very slowly. “So just how fast are we going to exit?”

“Probably about three hundred seventy kilometers per hour.”

Trent looked at his own and then everyone else’s armor and double load of ammo. “We’re pretty heavy for that fast an exit. Hope the lines and straps all hold when the chutes deploy.”

Rulaine nodded. “That’s the worry. You’ve got to work to reduce your airspeed as much as possible before you pull the cord. How many times have you jumped from this altitude before?”

Tygg and O’Garran held up three fingers, Trent one. Wu just sat, stared, and commented, “And as I understand it, we’re jumping into a jungle?”

“More like scattered woods. There’ll be places to put down, and these HALO rigs have maneuver packs. And don’t forget the attitude control rockets we scavenged from the emergency reentry kits. You’ve got a lot of resources for correcting your landing point.”

“We may need those same resource just to hit the LZ,” Tygg pointed out. “Since Karam can’t take a chance banking and spending thrust, we won’t be following up along the river, but flying across it at a right angle. That, plus our speed, is going to make it difficult to come down close enough to each other and close enough to the bad guys to get in the fight effectively. Or at all.”

Rulaine nodded. “Which we’ve gone over plenty of times. So remember: keep an eye on everyone else and the key terrain features of the drop zone.” Which we could use about now, Karam. “If you don’t land within a few klicks of that site, you won’t be able to—”

The intercom crackled before Karam’s voice blared out of it. “Major, guys, listen up: you are at the two-minute mark.”

“My chrono is running.” Rulaine motioned for the others to rise. For sake of irony, he added. “Flight Officer, I’m waiting for a visual in my HUD, marked with a drop-zone guidon.”

“Sure, and I’ll make sure tac-air is standing by, thirty seconds out, along with a squadron of winged unicorns. Now that we’ve got those delusions behind us, here’s what I can give you: when you straighten out from your exit, you want to look for the river. Once you’ve sighted that, look for a silted-up tributary that winds into the river from the west. The opposition just put down a little upstream, or south, of that position. If you can’t see the old streambed right away, look north for a downriver section where rocky ridges start to hem in the river. Track back upriver five clicks from there and you’ll see the dried-up tributary. It’s the only contiguous clear path in the foliage other than the river itself.”

“Thanks, Karam. Just count down—”

“I’m not done. I didn’t want to have to do this, but I’m going to dip the thrusters to near zero right before you jump. That means I have to engage sprint mode about fifteen seconds after you clear the hull.”

“Gotta make up for the lost altitude and speed?”

“Afraid so, Major. You’ll be clear of the thruster wash, but everyone on the ground is going to know something just passed overhead. Sorry, but if I don’t hit that juice—”

“Then you go nose first into the turf and vaporize: I get it.” Sprint mode, the equivalent of afterburners on amphetamines, was the desperate move that they’d been trying to avoid. Not only would it attract unwanted attention, but it dramatically increased the chances of the power plant or cooling system burning out. And because it was unsafe to maneuver the corvette at all with the hull damage, Karam had been unable to use a tight serpentine deorbit to shed velocity, which also could have increased Puller’s nonexistent loiter time over the drop zone. In short, it would require extreme precision to both avoid scattering the five jumping grunts across the landscape and to prevent the ship from coming apart.

Rulaine motioned for Tygg and O’Garran to stand in front of the hatch. “Lanyards,” he ordered. They all secured themselves to mooring points on the interior of the airlock. “You detach when you go. Karam, how are we doing on time?”

“We’re fresh out, Major. Counting down from eleven, ten, nine—”

“Hatch open, Flight Officer.”

The aft airlock’s outer hatch, an iris valve, cycled open. The howling roar of the air and the scalloping in-draft staggered them. Between the twin plumes of air-shimmer trailed by Puller’s super-heated thruster bells, they spied dense vegetation, clouds, and flat, drifting sheets of airborne spores.

“—four, three—”

“First pair: detach.”

“—one, and mark!”

“Go!”

And so they did.

* * *

Jesel waved his arm in a circle. Suzruzh and Pehthrum detached from their squads, joined him behind a low rise formed by several fallen trunks, most of which were markedly different from those of the more common trees shaped like cones and umbrellas. “Any contacts reported?”

His two lieutenants shook their heads. “Visibility worsens fifty meters ahead. The scouts did not probe too far into the forested thickets, there,” Suzruzh explained. “As per your orders.”

“How much further to that old streambed, beyond?”

Pehthrum checked the extremely basic Aboriginal data monocle that was furnished with each Jufeng battle rifle. “Another two hundred meters, Jesel.”

Suzruzh shrugged. “We must expect that they will make their primary defense from the other side of that open terrain.”

“Yes,” Jesel agreed, “but they may site snipers in the thickets we must traverse before arriving there.”

“If they have persons trained in combat,” Suzruzh amended, “that could slow us further, inflict a few casualties. But they cannot stand long before our numbers. I predict they would inflict a casualty or two and flee. Back across the former riverbed.”

Jesel nodded. “I concur. Now, what of the scout you sent to examine the launch site of the enemy missiles?”

“He returned, reported that the area seemed to be under enemy observation, or possibly, that it was a habitation for arboreal creatures. He could not determine which.”

Pehthrum shrugged. “That is because the Slaasriithi hardly seem different from half of the animals we have glimpsed swinging between the trees: same basic size and shape, same biothermals.”

Suzruzh nodded. “The scout did report finding four stationary launcher stands in the small clearing. He describes their manufacture as being unfamiliar, very possibly Slaasriithi.”

“Which makes sense,” Jesel concluded. “It is extremely unlikely that such missiles were sent along with this group of mewling Aboriginal diplomats.” He rose. “We have no need to change our strategy, simply to accelerate it. I will, however, not bring my triads along right behind yours, Suzruzh. I shall be offset inland, to your rear left flank.”

“You are thinking of sweeping around their probable center by going through that remote launch zone?”

“I wish to be in the position to exploit such an opportunity, but also to follow in behind you. Pehthrum, you shall move swiftly along the river until you make contact. If you believe you have the possibility of breaking through quickly, use everything at your disposal to do so. Suzruzh, when you hear gunfire or Aboriginal screaming from the riverbank, probe your front briskly.”

Suzruzh nodded. “That is probably where they will have the bulk of their defense: right in front of me.”

“Yes, and I will need to know as soon as you have confirmed or disproved that conjecture. The clone Gamma Fourteen seems to be a particularly swift runner, for some reason. Use him to alert me when you contact the enemy defenses and have fixed them in place. That will be my cue to either turn their inland flank, or support you. Return to your—”

In the high distance they heard a roar of thrusters and then a rolling boom. They stared at the sky, then at each other.

“I thought it was determined that the cannonballs are unable to conduct operations inside the atmosphere.” Suzruzh’s tone was wry, rueful.

“You are correct,” Pehthrum countered, frowning. “That is something else.”

One of Suzruzh’s eyebrows elevated. “Such as?”

Jesel shook his head. “There is no way of knowing. But we may be sure of this: it is not a craft of ours. Therefore, it is an enemy.”

“An airborne counterforce?” Suzruzh grumbled. “How does this change our plans?”

“We press forward even faster than before.” Jesel pointed in the direction of the Aboriginals. “Move to contact and engage. Now.”

* * *

As the sound of the aircraft dwindled into the western horizon, Macmillan cut a worried glance at Riordan. Caine shook his head. “I don’t think that was an enemy craft. Those were dual-phase thrusters — not jets — which means whatever it was shot past this area too quickly to pull a fast turn and come back at us.”

Veriden’s voice was uncharacteristically tense. “So was that one of the Slaasriithis’ supersonic defense drones?”

Thnessfiirm retracted his neck sharply. “Those were not the engines of any of our craft.”

Veriden scowled. “Then what the hell—?”

“We’ll find out when we find out. Now get under cover.” Riordan waved the primary fire-team — Macmillan, Veriden, and Salunke — down into their forward positions, which were slightly inland from the narrowest point of the old streambed. Turning on his heel, he sprinted after Qwara, and Xue, who he’d sent ahead to the river, where Unsymaajh was waiting for them. After only ten strides, his lungs burned and his throat threatened to close. I can’t pop another pill, not yet. Just don’t pay attention to the pain. Which was easier said than done, particularly as he tried to keep pace with Thnessfiirm.

By the time he arrived at the concealed river-facing revetment the subtaxae had fashioned from downed trees, he was covered in sweat. Again. Xue frowned as Riordan jogged up, unable to disguise his ragged panting. “Captain—” the team’s medic began.

“Not now. No time. They’ll be. Coming soon.” Caine bent over forward, then quickly back to fend off the imminent stomach cramp. He threw himself down against the back of the revetment, which the subtaxae had packed with dirt, as he had hastily shown them.

Unsymaajh called from overhead, where he hung easily from one of the indigenous trees. “The captain is correct; the attackers are moving swiftly along the shore.”

“How many?”

“Nine. No, ten.”

“Are any equipped differently than the others?”

“There is only one whose equipment, or even appearance, is distinct.”

Caine waited, remembered that Unsymaajh might not intuit what information a human, or a warfighter, might be looking for. “How is he different?”

“He is taller, has slightly thicker clothing. He carries a longer weapon.”

“You say the others are all similar?”

“With the exception that some carry heavier weapons that almost look like boxes, they are not merely similar: they are identical.”

“Identical?” As in “clones?” Could they be from—? Riordan smothered curiosity in favor of immediate tactical response: “Thnessfiirm, instruct the AMP to drop the next set of weapon pods.”

“Caine Riordan, I do not wish to question your judgment, but nor do I wish you to place excessive confidence in the miniature heat-seekers—”

“Thnessfiirm, we can’t use any of the AMP’s main rockets here. We have to save them.”

Unsymaajh swung easily down from the tree, gestured at the tall ferns to the downstream side of the revetment. “You have other means to defeat your foes.”

Riordan frowned. “I don’t understand.”

Unsymaajh clicked two of his own control-rings together in an intricate pattern. A flight of what looked like newt-bats — Affined sloohavs—glided down from the trees, made what looked like a crop-dusting run just beyond the tree-high ferns. As they swept away, the brush shook.

A water-strider rose up. It was one of the younger ones, and it seemed eager to join Unsymaajh. Others moved restlessly in the brush behind it.

Riordan realized he was staring and they had maybe a minute left before the enemy charged up the shore and either turned to follow the old streambed — which would bring them face to face with the revetment — or they would not see it and continue on, which would put Caine’s forces on their left flank. “They will follow you into combat?”

“No; they will follow, or protect, you.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because of your marking. You are of them.”

Caine looked up the long legs to the flanks of the creature, which turned to regard him with its four front eyes. Patiently. Even contentedly.

“How would they be able to help us?”

“Many ways. We shall see which option is best soon enough.”

Riordan swallowed, horrified at the thought that now, in addition to scores of Slaasriithi, he might give orders that would lead to the deaths of these usually gentle creatures. “Xue,” he croaked.

“Yes, Captain?”

“Go back. Help hold the center.”

“But then you will have no rifle here.”

“That’s okay. Qwara, stay with me. I may need someone to run back to Fallback Point One with a message.”

Qwara nodded. “We have strange allies,” she murmured.

Caine nodded. “Yes,” but thought: I think our identical enemies may prove to be even stranger…

* * *

Karam Tsaami had drilled and then reminded his so-called bridge crew to exhale as he threw the thrusters into sprint mode, but Morgan Lymbery had apparently forgotten: he gasped and gargled as Puller leaped forward, its shallow, declining arc suddenly straightening, then rising. At least they were flying right-side-up again. Which probably helped Lymbery keep his lunch in his stomach. “Tina,” Karam grunted into his collarcom, “I can see the engine and power plant readouts, but tell me what you see and feel back there in the drive room.”

Tina Melah, slightly senior to her fellow-engineer Phil Friel, sounded improbably chipper. “Nothing that worries me yet. But if these fixes don’t hold, we probably won’t have a lot of warning.”

“Roger that,” Karam agreed grimly. “Leave your circuit open. Melissa, what are you seeing on the aft scope?”

“Nothing, yet, but I — no, I see a chute! No, chutes. They’re—”

“Melissa: count the chutes.”

The pause was longer than it should have been: “Four. Only four chutes.” Her voice sounded like her throat was closing, choking off the words. “Is there any way to—?”

“No way to know who drew the short straw, Melissa.” And shit, they beat the odds: four out of five was the best success ratio Rulaine could validate. But now we’ve got to focus on beating our odds—

Sleeman had not stopped staring into the scope. “But can’t we check—?”

Jeez, she must really like Tygg. Well, no accounting for taste—“Dr. Sleeman, you need to take a deep breath and think. We can’t send radio messages through the Slaasriithi jamming. If we tried, the only thing we might accomplish is giving our enemies a lock on our position. And right now, we have to—”

The comm channel from the drive room was suddenly alive with sounds of chaos and shredding metal. “Shit! Karam?”

“Yeah; talk, Tina.”

“Coolant line just blew out. And I mean blew; sprayed shards into the control panel and cut some cables. It’s a friggin’ mess down—”

Karam stole a glance at the engine readouts. One showed steady with the power plant temperature rapidly climbing into the red. The other readout on the dynamic display had gone dark; its relay had probably been in one of the cut cables.

“Karam, what do we do?”

“Tina, you hold tight. I’m going to need you and Phil back there when I try to land this thing.”

“Yeah, well hurry up about it.”

Karam couldn’t help smiling at Melah’s salt-encrusted truculence as he triggered the canopy covers. They retracted quickly, revealing—

Green, black and violet expanses rolling further and further away until they ended at a thin blue line that rimmed the horizon: the straits separating the north and south continents.

“Will we make it?” Lymbery asked.

“Don’t know,” Karam grumbled as he studied the gauges. The power plants and engines were both spiking their temperatures toward the red line. But even without doing the math, he knew what would happen if he nursed those systems along at lower power levels: they’d remain only moderately compromised — until they disintegrated under the impact of their crash, at least one hundred kilometers short of the sea. Karam sighed, resolved to take the only action that might save them. And to do so before he could consider it in detail, because then he would probably soil himself. “Everyone: hold on.”

“Why?” chorused Lymbery and Sleeman.

There wasn’t enough time to explain. But apparently Phil Friel knew what was coming: over the engineering circuit, the Irishman shouted for Tina to strap in, for the love of God—

Just as Karam pushed the engine and power plant gains to maximum.

Bucking, shuddering, Puller’s nose rose back up into a faintly skyward arc, the red limit indicators of the ship’s thrusters and power plants rising even more quickly.

Melissa Sleeman’s voice was uncharacteristically small. “Will this save us, or blow us to pieces?”

Karam shrugged. “Damned if I know.”

Chapter Forty-Six. SOUTHERN EXTENTS OF THE THIRD SILVER TOWER BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)

The Aboriginal binoculars were quaint, but Pehthrum discovered them to be reasonably effective. Although they lacked the sophisticated analytical electronics of the models he was used to, these purely optical systems had one immense advantage: simplicity. There was no possibility of malfunction or misreading. The lenses magnified what your eyes could already see. And these did so quite well; they had revealed the tell-tale signs of a revetment on the far side of the silted streambed.

The clone Pehthrum had chosen as the assistant squad leader — Beta-Three — raised his Pindad caseless assault rifle to his shoulder. Pehthrum pushed it back down. “No. If we rush this position directly, we could take significant casualties. We have to clear almost sixty meters of soft open ground. If they have any modern weapons, they could cripple us.”

“Leader, I understand. But if we lay down suppressive fire with our rifles while the shotgunners charge across—”

“Be still. There is a better way.” Pehthrum motioned to Xi-Two, who passed forward two long cases.

Beta-Three shrank back. “Will that work — here?”

“Most assuredly, given that we know the biochemistry of our Aboriginal targets.” Pehthrum opened the two containers. After a moment, upt’theel started streaming out, noses questing desperately: they had been in food-deprived hibernation for more than a month now. Pehthrum palmed a piece of bait and waved it in their direction — briefly — before throwing it as far as he could toward the revetment.

The milling brood of weasel-pangolin monsters had just caught the scent — ominously — as the rotting meat described an arc that ended with a sloppy thump only twenty-five meters in front of the revetment. As if controlled by one ravenous mind, the upt’theel spun in that direction and swarmed over the ground toward the bait.

Beta-Three started to rise. Pehthrum cuffed him with the back of his gauntleted hand. Not enough to inflict a concussion: just a love tap that partially severed the top of his ear. “You wait for my order. And for our pets to do their work.”

The upt’theel certainly seemed eager to do just that. They flowed over the lumpy, partially marshy ground like a clattering, squealing carpet. When the first few reached the bait, they struggled, rolled in furious arabesques of mortal competition — until one put up a sharp nose and detected the scent of more sustenance. Its head swiveled, others following, toward the revetment. With a renewed cacophony of clacks and shrieks, the majority of the horde swept toward it.

* * *

Unsymaajh looked at Riordan, who was keenly aware of the many, massive eyes watching him from behind the fronds, straining to either run or protect—

Caine waved his hand, spoke one of the commands the humans had used in directing the water-striders: “Go.”

The gigantic creatures trampled out of the brush with a chorus of ululating hoots, like enraged foghorns testing their vocal range. In three strides they were into the wave front of the startled upt’theel, which, true to their nature, launched themselves at the striders’ lower legs.

However, for every one that managed that feat in time, half a dozen were smashed into screaming, writhing pulp.

Caine saw one of the loathsome octopedal monsters begin burrowing into a water-strider’s lower leg — just as another strider grazed its own wide leg across that of its afflicted herdmate. The upt’theel’s rear half was kicked away like a writhing rag, the front half screeching starved outrage at the immense animals towering over it.

Caine swallowed, discovered his throat was as dry as sun-baked leather. “Thnessfiirm.”

“Yes, Caine Riordan?”

“Has the AMP relocated?”

“Yes, and it has self-stealthed again.”

“Arm the launch pods.”

“It would be best to prepare to designate the targets. And you will need to keep the targets in the designator’s line of sight until—”

“I understand. We have a similar guidance system: we call it fire-and-forget.” Riordan raised the wandlike designator. “I’m just waiting for our real enemies to show themselves.”

Qwara had been silent beside him the whole time. “They are rising up, now. Look — wait, is that — are they—?”

“Those are Optigene clones, Ms. Betul.”

The same kind that were sent to kill me just last year.

* * *

Pehthrum did not understand what he was seeing, at first. The tall stands of ferns and frond-trees on the downstream side of the Aboriginal revetment had vomited out large, impossible quadrupeds. Some as high as ten meters, sounding like a collection of war-trumpets and bone krexyes horns, they charged the flank of the upt’theel swarm, stomping as they came. The small creatures, ferocity undiminished, were no match for the close-furred colossi: bright spatters and sudden smears marked the carnivores’ demise beneath the massive feet of the counterattackers.

Beta-Three stared at him. “Respected Intendant, what do we—?”

“Rifles of triad one and two; suppress the revetment. Rifles of triad three; engage the — the creatures. Shotgunners: charge to thirty meters range and engage the creatures with single slug rounds. Full automatic. Now!”

Pehthrum’s clones rose up from the tall, spiky thickets in which they had been hiding, started firing at the revetment. But that withering fusillade did not generate the multidirectional spray of wood that the Intendant had been expecting. So: an earthen redoubt behind it. Clever.

The two riflemen firing at the tall creatures were passable marksmen, but only passable: most of their hits did more to enrage the long-legged behemoths than incapacitate them. Concentrating most of their fire on the largest specimen, they did inflict some wounds that looked mortal, but in the sense that they would kill in minutes or hours, not before the infuriated animal completed its charge.

And still the riflemen of triads one and two were dutifully and futilely peppering away at the revetment. By the Progenitors’ scrofulous testicles, have these accursed clones no greater sense than this? “All rifles on the creatures; shotguns hold your ground and fire, point blank!”

As his men started to follow these orders and the first of the charging quadrupeds stumbled under the more intense fire, Pehthrum, hanging back, took the Jufeng dustmix rifle off safety, snapped over the trigger selector so that it would fire the underslung launch tube, and selected a conventional high-explosive grenade from the rotary cassette just in front of the trigger guard. He shouldered the weapon, braced it by wrapping its sling around his arm, raised the barrel slightly in the direction of the revetment — and noticed a small, color-changing dot on his sleeve, which vanished in the same instant he saw it. A laser designator? Dung and submission! “Get down!” he tried to scream over the clones’ chattering rifles and shotguns. “Concentrate your fire on—!”

* * *

Caine nodded to Thnessfiirm. “Fire the first five MAPHs.”

Thnessfiirm bobbed her compliance and tapped a thick control rod with several of her rings.

From a clearing thirty meters behind the revetment, angry sibilant hisses up-dopplered and materialized in the form of miniature antipersonnel heat-seekers, each only fifteen millimeters in diameter. They sped through the dwindling melee between the water-striders and weasel-monsters, bypassed the shotgun and rifle wielding clones that had closed with the one charging strider, and disappeared, fire-tailed, into the bodies of the rearmost enemy troops. The one who had held the long weapon was hit first. His torso exploded from inside, clumps of flesh and bone bursting outward as the lower half of his body swayed, and then toppled. Before it hit the river’s silty shore, three of the riflemen who had remained behind to provide a base of fire were also hit, two with similar results. The third shrieked as his left arm was blown off at the shoulder.

Riordan saw this and, peripherally, the slow fall of the much-mauled water-strider. He moved the laser designator from one clone to the next, starting with the rearmost and moving forward. “Launch the next three,” he ordered Thnessfiirm.

But the fairly neat arrangement of targets was rapidly becoming chaotic. Some of the water-striders were hooting and stomping at the attackers in what seemed to be threat displays. Several of the clones swerved away from the huge creatures, two of whom, finding themselves only twenty meters from the revetment, charged it. Caine quickly cancelled the primary designations for the next flight of MAPHs, painted these two new, rapidly approaching threats, ducked, saw Qwara crouching, watching, aghast at the speed with which the carnage had taken place. He stabbed an arm out to grab her: “Get dow—!”

A jackhammer stutter. The top of Qwara Betul’s head smeared away under a shower of shotgun slugs — just as three of the MAPHs raced over her falling corpse. An eyeblink later, three small, sharp explosions beat a nearby, percussive tattoo. Caine leaned down to look out the observation slit they’d built into the revetment: there wasn’t much left of the two charging clones, and it was difficult to determine where their remains ended and those of the pulped upt’theel began. But the rifleman’s weapon was apparently intact…

Rifle rounds peppered the top of the revetment, the treetops: one of the convector subtaxae tumbled from a frond tree, emitting a sound that was part chirp, part bleat.

Unsymaajh appeared, swinging downward from behind the canopy of the cone-tree that stood at the juncture of the revetment and the fronds that had hidden the water-striders. The big convector’s long arm stretched down to scoop up his fallen taxonmate—

A flurry of fire from back near the river: Unsymaajh seemed to writhe upward in midglide and then collapsed, blood trails marking his descent like dotted lines.

Caine rolled to the other side of the vision slit, ducked back and then out to get a quick look. The four surviving clones had doubled back and discovered their dead commander. One had found the Jufeng, was lowering it; that weapon was probably what had killed Unsymaajh. Of the other two, the one who was armed with a shotgun had put it aside, was inspecting which of the fallen riflemen’s weapons was still serviceable. Caine called to Thnessfiirm, who had retreated into the far corner of the revetment and was shivering as if she had been dropped in ice water. When the traumatized cerdor failed to respond, Riordan scrambled over, gently helped her raise the control rod into their shared field of vision. “Thnessfiirm, I need you to launch two MAPHs. I need you to do it now.”

Thnessfiirm’s head bobbed and weaved erratically, and she was emitting a wheezing buzz, but her rings clacked against the rod with shuddering purpose.

Caine rolled back to the vision slit, aimed the designator, painted the clone with the Jufeng — and ducked back as an improbably loud roar of weapons-fire accompanied a hailstorm of high-velocity rounds that clawed and ripped at the edges of the slit. Now that they’ve spotted me, they are likely to—

Only then did Riordan realize that the gunfire hadn’t merely come from the enemy rifles; that thundering crescendo had been caused by the simultaneously launching Slaasriithi MAPHs.

But not just the two Caine had called for: Thnessfiirm had fired all of them.

A flock of the bright-tailed missiles sped over the bodies of clones and upt’theel and water-striders and streaked to a ruinous convergence upon the wielder of the Jufeng. He disappeared in a set of overlapping explosions that left no trace of him, and very little of his weapon.

But with the miniature antipersonnel heat-seekers gone, the rest of Riordan’s strategy was in ruins. Fatal ruins. Caine turned to Thnessfiirm, about to ask why the cerdor had launched all of them: had she misheard? Had it been a command error? Had she been panicked? But the answer was obvious at first glance: Thnessfiirm was still quaking, still sitting folded into the back corner of the revetment, her own wastes pooling out from beneath her.

Unsymaajh dead, Qwara dead, Thnessfiirm in shock: Riordan crawled to the other end of the revetment, risked a peek around that leaf-shrouded corner.

The three surviving clones were advancing at a trot, weapons at the ready. The water-striders, not under immediate attack, hooted their challenges, stood their ground, but wavered, uncertain what they should do as the soldiers gave them a wide berth.

One chance. And it almost certainly means my death to try: to roll out, grab the Pindad just a few yards away and get back behind the revetment. It’s not much of a plan, but short of running and leaving Thnessfiirm to die and our rear undefended, it’s the only plan I’ve got. Caine gathered his legs under him, felt his overtaxed heart hammering in his chest, heard his own wheezing breath—

And heard a startled cry from the corpse-strewn field. Hoping that anything which surprised the clones would give him a moment of safe observation, he popped his head back around the corner of the revetment.

One of the clones was down, the other two staring wildly about — just as, faint as the echo of a distant dog’s bark, they all heard a rifle report. And having carried that model of rifle, Caine knew exactly what it was, and exactly what it meant.

The distant CoBro eight-millimeter liquimix battle rifle — the new standard of Earth’s Commonwealth forces — fired again: another of the clones went down, two puffs of dark mist jetting from his chest. The dying echo of the blended reports confirmed the direction and the range of the fire: it had come from well beyond the far side of the river. And it meant friendlies were on their way. The last clone dropped to a knee, scanned quickly for cover—

Caine sprinted out around the corner of the revetment, grabbed the blood-slick Pindad on the move, rolled into a prone position, his heart hammering so hard he knew he would never be accurate enough to hit his enemy—

Who, hearing the noise, had spun around, his own Pindad coming up — the same moment that three rapid maroon vapor jets erupted from his torso. He fell over and did not move.

Caine resolved to take three seconds to rest and think and listen.

And the first sound he heard made him cancel the last two seconds: more Pindads firing, back near Fallback Point One. Damn it. The attack here, which he’d guessed might be a feint or merely an opportunity attack, had obviously been the signal for another, possibly larger force to hit his main line.

So, how best to help? What will hit our enemies the hardest? Caine’s eyes strayed out over the bloody silted riverbed — probably a handful of firearms, but it would take time to find them, time to get the ammo, and all the while, he’d be getting shorter and shorter of breath.

Which reminded him: time to pop another pill. He did.

The alternative? See if Thnessfiirm could move now. If she could, and was able to operate the AMP, that would bring a far more powerful weapon to bear far more rapidly.

Caine snagged the Pindad’s bandoliers from the dead clone’s torso, jogged around the corner of the revetment—

— and almost ran headlong into Thnessfiirm. The Slaasriithi’s very pale neck and tendrils looked like they were now covered with sagging, old skin. “Thnessfiirm, are you—?”

“I am able to function. I believe.” Her sensor cluster wobbled uncertainly in the direction of the distant gunfire. “They are attacking where you expected.”

“I think so. Can you travel?”

“I must. I shall lead the way.” And Thnessfiirm was moving into the bush, gaining speed as she went.

Riordan started after her, stopped. He turned to face across the river, put up the arm holding the Pindad and waved it wide, three times. Thanks.

He turned and plunged into the foliage after Thnessfiirm.

* * *

Eight hundred and seventy meters beyond the river to the east, and cinched between the bole of a bumbershoot and the canopy of a cone-tree, First Lieutenant Christopher “Tygg” Robin lowered the eight-millimeter Colt Browning’s scope from his right eye. He smiled sadly. “You’re welcome, Caine. Just sorry I didn’t hit the drop zone.”

Tygg nestled into the upper branches of the cone-tree. Having no way to get across the river, his best option was to remain in his present perch, which provided a commanding view of the opposite bank of the river for over a kilometer in either direction. Now that he knew what the bad guys looked like, he could pick off any that might come back near the river. He nodded reassuringly to himself; even from here, I can help, I can turn the—

But then Tygg heard distant stutters of assault rifles, the crump of a grenade, and once again he damned his distance, damned his reluctance to use the boosters Rulaine had scavenged from the emergency reentry kits. Uncertain of how hard the rockets would kick, Tygg worried he might overshoot the drop zone. And ironically, because of that caution, he had come in a kilometer short of it.

Tygg stared at the far bank and felt quite keenly that, despite his best efforts and best guesses, he’d let his friends down. “Good luck, mates,” he whispered at the distant trees where God-only-knew-what was transpiring.

Chapter Forty-Seven. SOUTHERN EXTENTS OF THE THIRD SILVER TOWER BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)

Dripping sweat again, and tossing away his last, drained water bottle, Riordan staggered into Fallback Two, expecting to find it empty — but Veriden, Macmillan, and Xue were already there. Not good. “Report,” Caine gasped.

Macmillan, whose beefy strength apparently came at the expense of endurance, gasped back at him. “We were in our positions, caught them in the flank. Bunch of hits. But nine-millimeter wasn’t enough to drop them, usually.”

Veriden took over as Macmillan sucked in a deep breath; the filters in his mask whined as that volume of air rushed through them. “We killed or incapacitated one. Wounded two, maybe three.” Veriden hardly seemed winded. Riordan had known that she was lithe and tough, but hadn’t realized just how lithe and how tough she was until now.

“Where’s Esiankiki?”

Xue shook his head. “I do not know what became of Ms. Salunke. She was firing until the attackers used their grenade launcher. I think it is the model built into the Jufeng.”

“I heard it. And yes, it is.”

“So our own people are attacking us?”

Riordan shook his head at Macmillan. “I doubt it’s anything that straightforward. But we’ve gotta move.”

Veriden frowned, looked around. “Yeah, but where?”

“Fallback Three.”

Xue looked at him carefully. “Captain, that is our last fallback point.”

Caine motioned for them to follow him. “Yes, but since you’re already here at Fallback Two, and they can’t be far behind, that’s our last option. Just get to your fighting positions.” He saw glances go back and forth between the three of them. “What is it?”

“Ammo.” Veriden shook her rifle; the bolt was back and the breech was open. “I’m dry.”

Caine considered, then held out his Pindad and its magazines. “Here.” As Dora took it, Macmillan looked up as if he’d been given a mild rebuke. “Keith, she’s a good shot and she’s not winded. Only one of us can say that, right now. So mobility gets the firepower. Now keep moving.” Macmillan shrugged then nodded at the logic. Veriden checked the weapon with professional surety and ease.

“Where’s Thnessfiirm? And Qwara?” Xue asked as they exited the thick brush and began crossing the silted streambed at the narrowest point.

Hunching to keep his head below the level of the spike-grass and tuber-saplings that dotted the soft irregular ground, Riordan gestured to the stands of trees and ten-meter fronds lining what had once been the stream’s far bank. “Thnessfiirm is just behind Fallback Three with the AMP. Qwara…Qwara didn’t make it.” He thought to order Xue and Keith to equalize their remaining ammo, but saw that they were already in the process of doing so.

Back among the tangle of copses and thickets they had just exited, sharp whistles and trilling calls arose from the treetops. A brace of Pindads sent up a furious counterchorus, then silence.

Macmillan hunched a little lower, jogged a little faster as they neared the tall growth on the far side of the silted streambed. “Seems like the convectorae positioned around Fallback Two spotted some enemy scouts.”

Probably a few paid for that with their lives, too. Riordan nodded. “That puts the bad guys about three minutes behind us, maybe four. Get to your positions.” He pulled out one of the pop-flares that had been in their emergency signaling kits. “If they don’t attack where or as we expect, commence firing on my signal.”

“Yeah, but—”

“What is it, Dora?”

“Captain”—it was the first time she had used his title—“what then? We don’t have any dance steps beyond this part of the song.”

Riordan nodded, pulled himself up the bank toward his own position, which was built more for concealment than protection. “That’s because this is the end of the choreography. After this, you split up and try to survive. I’m guessing we’ve already hit them harder than they expected. If we take out some more of them, they may be too thin on the ground to find us all. I suspect they never had a long operational window. And since that wasn’t one of their boats roaring overhead, and we’ve got some help on the ground now, I’ll bet the window is closing even faster than they expected. So, once we abandon these positions, our only objective is to stay alive by staying lost.”

Riordan slumped down into his position; the three were still standing nearby, watching — waiting? “You’ve done a great job,” he told them. “Do it just a little longer. Now, get moving. They’ll be here soon.” They silently went to their shallow holes, Xue near Caine in the center, Macmillan and Veriden to either flank.

Thnessfiirm’s voice was tremulous behind him. “I do not understand the ways of making war well, but—”

“Yes?”

“I have observed the power of the weapon you gave to Ms. Veriden. Would that not be better placed in the center, where it can bear upon more of the streambed?”

Riordan smiled. “That’s an excellent question.” He rose, stood behind the crook of a tuber tree, laid the targeting wand in it, peered down its surprisingly good scope. “And normally, you would be right. But that tactic would be best if we actually wanted to cover the most ground and inflict the most casualties with her assault rifle.”

“Is that not what you wish to accomplish?”

“No: this time, I want the attackers to avoid it.” Riordan, satisfied with the scope’s placement, held out a hand. “May I have the activation rings for the remaining rockets on the AMP?”

Thnessfiirm handed them over. “You want your enemies to avoid your best weapon? I do not understand.”

“Sometimes,” Riordan explained, “the best use of a weapon is to influence your enemy’s behavior. In this case, where they decide to charge us. I am fairly sure they would prefer to go through Dora’s position: it’s the furthest from the river, and the driest. But when they probe our line, they will discover that the center and the flank closest to the river will have the weakest defensive fire.”

Thnessfiirm’s neck oscillated slightly. “And so you anticipate they will change their point of attack to those less daunting areas.”

Riordan shrugged. “I sure hope so.” Xue, whose position was slightly forward of Caine’s, waved twice. “And I think we’re about to find out.”

On the opposite side of the streambed, there was faint movement in the lowest levels of the fronds. Thnessfiirm pointed to a flight of smaller sloohavs which rose up in pairs: released by the convectorae, it confirmed that the enemy had reached the old streambed at that point. More pairs rose skyward farther up the dead watercourse; none appeared from the stretch where it neared the river.

“As you projected,” Thnessfiirm purred.

Riordan shook his head. “No real surprise. They’re on foot, so they are going to want the most solid and most narrow stretch of open ground to cross. Once they are in the trees on our side of the streambed, they know we’ve lost the battle. Their shotguns will then be at optimum range, and they’d overrun us. It would be suicide for us to even put up our heads, and certain death to remain in our positions while their riflemen flank us.” He adjusted the sighting of the targeting wand. “The convectorae did an excellent job of concealing our positions. If the attackers don’t have thermal goggles, I doubt they will pick us out before we start firing.”

“Hiding,” Thnessfiirm explained with a tremor in her neck, “is our accustomed means of dealing with threats.”

Riordan nodded, reflected that this would have been an excellent place to begin an important cross-species discussion, but there were far more important matters at hand—

From the brush line where the flights of sloohavs had risen up, a few fleeting figures — clones — darted into the old streambed. They vanished into the patchy, shoulder-high mix of tuber-saplings and fronds, riddled with the spiky marsh grass. Their initial rush slowed rapidly; the ground underfoot was no longer a fen, but it was not fully solid, either.

Caine made his observations in a quiet voice aimed at Xue’s back. “Looks like two scouts probing further up the streambed, two more coming straight across.”

Xue turned his head a few degrees, nodded. “Yes, sir.”

The intermittent growth in the otherwise open ground forced the enemy’s scouts to advance in leaps and starts, rushing from one covered position to another. When the upstream group got within fifty meters of Dora’s position, her Pindad spat forcefully. Bits of vegetation flew up as one of the figures fell; he hit the ground, groaning. The other disappeared but the tops of the stiff grass trembled on a reverse course that led back toward a thick clump of ferns: the closest available heavy cover.

The two scouts in front of Caine’s position paused, then continued forward. “Prepare to fire,” he ordered Xue.

Whose back straightened in surprise. “At this range, sir? With the nine-millimeter, I won’t be—”

“Just do as I say, Mr. Xue. We want them to think we’re weak here.”

And the anemic performance of the nine-millimeter slugs, fired at about fifty yards, accomplished just that. Of four rounds fired at a brisk pace, only one hit; the target fell but remained capable of cursing and counterfiring. Xue ducked back down.

Thnessfiirm’s necked goggled at the strange silence that settled over the streambed. “And now what?”

“And now, we wait.”

“How long?”

“Thirty seconds, maybe a minute. They are not going to want to give us a chance to change positions.”

“Why?”

“Because right now, they know where most of our shooters are and they will want to hit those positions with suppressive fire while the bulk of their forces charge across the streambed. That’s why they probed us first; to determine where—”

The distinctive stutters of Pindads snapped at them from the far side of the streambed. Nearby tree trunks spat out splinters; fronds bowed and fell; leaves fluttered in colorful swirls of agitation. Caine, hunkering a bit lower, peered towards Dora’s position: she was getting her fair share of suppressive fire as well, but far less that Xue was taking. “They’ve made their choice,” Riordan reported to Thnessfiirm. “Get back to the AMP. If there is any malfunction with this control, you will need to fire the rockets manually.”

“How many?” Thnessfiirm asked.

The throaty clatter of an automatic shotgun preceded a shredding of the vegetation around both Xue and Riordan. The clones were spraying and praying, but at ranges under one hundred meters, it was effective enough to prompt Caine to think about saying a few prayers of his own. He lifted his head up after the wave of devastation had passed, asked, “What do you mean, ‘how many’?”

“I mean, how many rockets should I launch if I must do so manually?”

Caine answered—“All of them”—but did not have the time to look at Thnessfiirm; six, no seven more of the attackers had leaped out of the far brush line. They were sprinting unevenly across the streambed, the two scouts rising to join them. There; that’s the attack. They’re committed.

Xue fired at the onrushing squad, the magazine of his survival rifle emptying when they were halfway across, just as Macmillan joined in. But, being even further from the enemy’s route of attack, the big Scotsman’s rounds were either not finding their mark, or simply not stopping the targets they hit.

Thnessfiirm’s voice was hushed. “You wish me to launch all of the rockets?”

Christ: are you still here? “Yes. All the rockets. Go.”

At which point, Riordan suspected that Thnessfiirm would not get to the AMP in time if the control rings failed to work. Caine glanced in Veriden’s direction; her position was being constantly peppered with counterfire, pinning her down.

Xue finished reloading, rolled to the other end of his fighting position, popped up — and was drummed back down by a storm of suppressive fire.

Caine moved slightly, so that he could peer down the targeting wand’s scope again. Its frequency sampling protocol allowed him to see what no one else could: the three-laser aimpoint arranged in a wide triangle just twenty meters in front of Xue’s position. He glanced at the closest of the clones — closing on thirty meters distance as they ducked and weaved through the brush — and was satisfied by their approach formation: a wedge, about fifteen meters wide and twenty-five deep.

It’s not going to get any better than this, Riordan decided. He made sure that the targeting wand was snugged firmly in place so that it would continue to paint the target zone and clicked the control rings together. Caine rolled out of his position, yelled “Fall back” at Xue’s spine, spun into a rising sprint that carried him through the curtain of fronds behind them. Bullets — not aimed at Riordan, just in his general direction — buzzed and snipped at the frond tops half a meter over his ducked head.

From one hundred meters to the rear, a rippling roar washed out toward him: a sudden, strident burst of massed rocketry.

Caine glanced behind, saw Xue clear his position, then clutch at a mortal spatter of torso hits. He went down, bloody and limp.

The roar grew, up-dopplered sharply and became a chorus of screams rushing overhead—

Caine sprinted hard, felt his chest burn, then constrict, then harden. But he needed to get more distance. Not being familiar with these rockets, there was no way of knowing how large their blast pattern was—

The overhead screams down-dopplered crisply into roars plunging toward the dried streambed. Or more precisely, the phased-laser triangle painted on an open expanse of water-smoothed rocks and scrub brush—

The stuttering cacophony of blasts didn’t just assault Riordan’s ears, it sent an overpressure wave bumping against his back. He staggered but did not fall. Pushing between closely spaced cone-trees, Caine realized that he was no longer hot, but cold, his palms clammy, his lungs no longer able to rise or expand without conscious effort. As debris from the explosions began fluttering down around him, and Dora’s Pindad resumed its duel far more decisively with whomever still had her pinned down, Caine stumbled forward, acutely aware that his field of vision was narrowing.

He broke out of the brush into the smoking clearing from which the AMP had launched its last rockets. Thnessfiirm edged out from behind a bush as Riordan, world swimming unsteadily, staggered forward to catch his balance against the bole of a bumbershoot. The Slaasriithi’s neck stretched toward him.

“Caine Riordan, you are not well.”

Caine almost laughed—you think? — but even the mild expulsion of air from the first chuckle was so painful that it smothered any momentary amusement. “Thnessfiirm, you and I need to stay together, to operate the AMP.”

“But it has no weapons left.”

“No, but. It can…distract the enemy. Make them…chase after…it. We have to—”

Dora’s distant Pindad was answered by a much closer automatic shotgun. Thnessfiirm started, jumped back toward the bushes.

Caine shook his head. “No, they won’t find us…right away. We can…”

But Thnessfiirm was continuing to back into the bush. Away from the sound of the guns. Away from Caine. “No, Caine Riordan. I am sorry you are so afflicted, but we cannot remain together. Humans are already slow in our forests, being unable to travel in the trees. You are now almost immobile. I would die if I stayed here with you.”

“You — you’re abandoning me?” Despite all the contingencies Caine had considered, despite all the unlikely events he had foreseen, this had not been among them.

“Caine Riordan, my species is not like yours. Individually, we avoid needless death.”

“So you’re just leaving me here?”

“I am saddened to say it, but you are sure to die. What good is it that both of us should perish?”

Riordan stumbled away from the tree. “We humans — it is our way to stand by each other. Even when it puts more of us at risk.”

Thnessfiirm’s sensor cluster oscillated slowly, “And it is our way to survive individually, and so be most numerous when we regather.” Thnessfiirm bobbed briefly and was gone.

Riordan looked after the disappeared Slaasriithi. And there, in two sentences, is why our races will never fully understand each other. Evolution has taught us lessons so radically different that a species-positive trait for us humans — sticking together as a team — is a species-negative trait for you.

Caine heard the shotgun’s stuttering cough close at hand, turned, and stumbled into the brush that stretched inland, away from the river.

* * *

Jesel bounded through the bush toward Suzruzh when he saw his distant cousin approaching, nursing his left arm and favoring his left leg. “Report! Immediately!”

Suzruzh waved an arm — prickled with red puncture wounds — back toward the streambed. “You heard the rockets. They waited until our assault, knew where we were coming.”

“And did you not pin down one flank, find their weak spot, and then—?”

“That is exactly what we did, cousin.” Suzruzh’s eyes narrowed. “I am not an imbecile. I know how to conduct a simple attack, arguably better than you do. But they must have eliminated Pehthrum’s flank attack — there were sounds of a pitched firefight there — and brought whatever resources they had left to cover against any move we might make across the streambed. One of them had an assault rifle. Two of my men pinned that one down, the rest charged across the flat ground. They were within ten meters of the other tree-line—” He shut his mouth abruptly.

“And?”

“And they were annihilated. It was comparable to a barrage from one of our own tactical support launchers. If I had not hung back, according the Nezdeh’s orders—”

“Yes, but now you are here and we must achieve our objective.”

Suzruzh looked at the one scout that had survived out of all of his men, then at Jesel’s reduced squad of six: one of his triads had been sent to join Suzruzh’s forces, to bolster the charge across the riverbed. “We have few tools left with which we may achieve anything, Jesel.”

“That is true, but our duty and our survival require our success. We must first know how many Aboriginals we are still hunting. How many did you kill?”

Suzruzh shook his head. “I am unsure. We could not search their abandoned positions thoroughly since one of the Aboriginals had us under fire. We did find their launcher, some kind of autonomous platform, hovering in a glade. It was no more than a frame. I suspect all its munitions cells were expended. We destroyed it, but we had no time to search for Aboriginal bodies. We had to see to our own wounded and hasten here.”

“And have you indeed seen to all your wounded? I heard no shots.”

Suzruzh shrugged. “That would have revealed our position after the enemy broke contact. A knife sufficed — and there wasn’t much work to be done, it turned out.”

Jesel nodded, looked west, away from the river. “They will flee in that direction. They will not run back to the river; they can be trapped against its banks. I will take five of my men. I will leave one to remain with you and your survivor.”

Suzruzh flinched in surprise. “I am to stay here? To what purpose?”

“To return to our landing zone and secure our shuttle.”

“But we locked it against all—”

“Suzruzh, shake off the ear-ringing of the rockets; it is addling your wits. When we left our security-locked shuttle, we had clear superiority over our targets. We numbered twenty-nine, with superior weapons, and faced a proximal foe. Now we are down to two Evolved and seven clones, and have no idea where our enemies might have gone. It is entirely possible that they could slip behind us and compromise our craft. Also, whatever went overhead just before we commenced this battle is not ours. It is not impossible that some Slaasriithi craft could be searching for us, which they will do by scanning for the dense metals of our shuttle.”

Suzruzh glanced away, annoyed, but said. “It is wisdom. I shall secure the shuttle.”

Jesel nodded curtly. “And I shall hunt down these Aboriginal mongrels.” He hefted his rifle, gestured for one of his men to join Suzruzh, and nodded to the others. “We shall cut over the streambed farther inland from the river and seek their tracks or trails leading away from the point of assault.” He tossed two orders over his shoulder: “Staggered delta formation. Advance at the double quick.” He nodded to his cousin, then turned and pushed into the shoulder high growth, his men at his back.

Suzruzh stared after them, rubbing his left arm. “We shall travel in a staggered triad. I shall take the second position. We move slowly, carefully, and ten meters off the trail we used when advancing from our landing site. There have been enough surprises this day.”

The clones nodded and complied, falling into the ordered formation. Traveling swiftly, they became increasingly wary of every dense clump and impenetrable thicket. It took them ten minutes to make good their return to the shuttle, which, observed from the edge of the clearing in which it had landed, seemed unmolested. But Suzruzh, never a trusting sort, was even less so this day.

“Alpha-Six,” he ordered the clone that Jesel had assigned to him, “advance to the waist hatchway and examine it for any signs of tampering or attempts at forced entry.”

The clone barely nodded before rising and advancing, weapon to eye, in a fast crouch to the side of the shuttle. He inspected the hatch for several seconds, then waved an all-clear.

Suzruzh rose, led the sole surviving scout from the streambed attack toward the craft. “We will make ready for immediate takeoff,” he ordered as they crossed the fern-spotted clearing. “We must be ready to return to orbit the moment that Jesel and his—”

Suzruzh heard three sharp reports: a high velocity weapon, very nearby—

At that same instant, three projectiles cut through him like hot pokers: one vented his left lung, another pulped his liver, and the last sliced through his descending colon — before they all emerged from his back. He staggered, tried to initiate the venous and arterial constricture reflexes that might keep him conscious, but realized within the same second that the damage was too widespread, too serious for those disciplines to save him.

As he fell, the reports continued as a steady tattoo that dropped his two clones with multiple mortal wounds; unlike an Evolved, they had no way to mitigate or delay either shock or blood loss. As Suzruzh’s vision began to constrict, to become a view through a closing pipe, he had an impression of two armored figures advancing cautiously toward him—

— before the pipe was sealed by unremitting darkness.

* * *

Bannor Rulaine took cover next to the shuttle, sweeping the tree-line as Peter Wu crouch-ran forward to check the target who’d had the better equipment and had clearly been in charge.

Wu reached the bloody figure, turned and shook his head. “Gone. What now, Major?”

Rulaine looked at the figure slumped by the hatch. “Well, given that the leader didn’t let his lead trooper open the hatch, I’m guessing this shuttle is either code-locked or booby-trapped. Either way, we move on and find our people.”

“How? Backtrack where these three came from?”

“That’s a start, but we’ve got to stay off whatever trail they followed here. I doubt they took time to set traps, but this isn’t the time to guess wrong.”

Wu had already risen, entered the span of brush from which their opponents had emerged, found the faint trail they had left. “You think the others in this raiding team have finished their mission? And sent this group on ahead to prepare the craft for launch?”

Rulaine shrugged as he joined Wu. “Don’t know. There’s too much craziness here, as it is: a TOCIO armored shuttle and Optigene clones being used by the same attackers who pounded the crap out of us two weeks ago and knocked a cannonball aside a few hours ago? It doesn’t add up, so I’m not about to make any tactical assumptions. We just move forward and try to get in the game to save our people. That’s all the plan I’ve got right now.”

Wu nodded, looked at the wounds on the dead leader’s arm. “Looks like our people are putting up a fight, too.”

“That’s to be expected.” Rulaine checked his weapon, started toward the trail. “I just wish I knew if they’re still alive.”

Chapter Forty-Eight. SOUTHERN EXTENTS OF THE THIRD SILVER TOWER BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)

The water frothed and fumed above Ben Hwang before he broke the surface of the river. The streamlined compressor he held clenched in his teeth pulled free as the chop of the water buffeted him.

But a moment later, that turbulence was behind — or rather, beneath — Hwang and his three companions. The water-strider on whose back they had ridden rose up quickly, ascending toward the cone-trees clustered tightly along the eastern shore of the river.

W’th’vaathi, whose torso was adorned with four flat, multieyed fish that had affixed themselves to her respiratory ducts, gestured toward the stand of trees with a dripping tendril. “There we shall find the next boat that we have positioned for use along the river. With it, we shall reach the Silver Tower swiftly.”

Gaspard spat out the air line from his own pony tank. “How quickly?”

“Half a day, several hours: it depends upon the wind as well as the current.”

Ben shook his head. “Escaping interstellar pursuers by sailboat; this is madness. Do you truly think machines are so dangerous that it is better to live, and die, like this?”

W’th’vaathi’s tendrils rolled in a waving fan that indicated the world around them. “We do not fear complex machines, but we only use them where necessary. As I explained, they are disruptive to our society.”

“Technology is not evil,” Mizuki murmured, shaking. Although they had only traveled underwater for ten kilometers, it had felt much longer and the currents and cold had obviously bothered her wounds, particularly her reddened eye.

W’th’vaathi signaled agreement. “Indeed, objects cannot be evil. But they have an inducing power of their own, and for us, anything that circumvents natural processes and their tempos threatens to unravel biological balance. But let us turn to practical matters: we will resume travel most swiftly if you help me ready the boat.”

Hwang strapped on his filter mask and followed W’th’vaathi beneath the canopy of a particularly large cone tree. A boat, its stepped mast affixed to the deck with some form of elbow joint, was hidden under what looked like a cross between cobwebs and Spanish moss. Several of the fibrous “boxes” that they had first encountered on Adumbratus were stacked next to it. “Equipment and provisions,” W’th’vaathi explained as she set about removing the covering from the boat.

Gaspard looked at the slim hull, hands on hips. “You are sure we shall be safe, now?”

W’th’vaathi’s neck oscillated. “Captain Riordan’s plan did not merely allow us to escape, but should have convinced the attackers that we are dead. They did destroy the first boat which we were towing, and did not seek further along the river.”

Hwang worked his pinky into a waterlogged and sound-deadened ear. Although they had towed the first boat almost two hundred meters behind them, the concussive and audial aftershocks had been painful, had staggered the water-strider beneath them. “We were underwater. How do we know they did not search further?”

“There are no alert or distress spores in this area, Benjamin Hwang. Had there been an intrusion by an unmarked foreign object, biological or otherwise, the sign would be thick around us.” She waved two dismissive tendrils up beyond the canopy. “The local biota is unperturbed.”

Gaspard still stood motionless. W’th’vaathi stopped unfastening the lashings which held the mast down. “You are disturbed, Ambassador.”

Gaspard’s fine jaw worked. “Can your spores, or any of your biota, tell you what happened further upriver?”

W’th’vaathi’s tendrils wilted. “I have no way to ascertain the fate of your friends. Or of my people. I may only hope for the best.”

“And what of the ship we heard overhead? You say your spores perceived it as marked, so it must have been our corvette. Is there any way to project its fate, based on its speed, or angle of descent?”

“Sadly, our spores do not register such information. Now: we must ready our boat.”

* * *

Karam Tsaami glanced at the engineering board: a solid bank of red glared back at him. Not unexpected, but still depressing.

He looked out the canopy: the blue line on the horizon had become a white-flecked azure band, widening with every passing second.

Melissa Sleeman must have been watching his eyes. “Will we make it?”

“To the water? I think so, but that’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to slow this bucket enough to make a safe—”

“Karam, this is Tina. The reaction preheating chamber is going to go any second.”

But, without any gauges left—? “How do you know?”

“It’s starting to glow dull red.”

Oh. “All right. Then here’s what you and Phil are going to do with the severed coolant line. You’ve got to snug it into the engine trusses so that it’s aiming straight at the chamber, and it’s got to be secure enough to hold that position under pressure.”

Tina’s question arrived as a screech. “Under pressure from what?”

Phil Friel evidently saw where Karam was headed. “From coolant flow. Karam is going to open the registers again.”

Tina did not become less shrill. “And flood the whole chamber with the remaining coolant?”

Karam didn’t bother to keep his tone civil. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Seal your suits; it’s going to be pretty unpleasant”—well, lethal—“in there. Let me know when you’ve got it rigged.”

“Harebrained scheme if I ever heard one,” Tina grumbled as she worked.

“Might be,” Karam admitted. “But we’ve got to cool that chamber down for just another minute, enough so that we can maintain thrust and not explode. You done yet?”

“Working.”

“Damn, you two are slow.”

“Shut up. There: we’re finished.”

“Good. Get in the equipment locker.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you in the compartment when I uncork the remaining coolant on that line. The steam could melt straight through your gear.”

“Okay, we’re in the closet. Sort of.”

“Tight fit,” Phil agreed.

“Well, you two lovebirds make the most of it.” Karam was gratified by what he presumed was their embarrassed silence. “Releasing the coolant in three, two, one; now—”

There was a slight tremor on the bridge. Evidently, the effect was much more noticeable back in the drive room. “Holy shit!” screamed Tina. “Sounds like a tornado out there.”

“Banshees on steroids,” Phil agreed. “But it’s dying down already. Figure it will be safe to reenter in about four or five seconds?”

“Make it ten. But we’ll reach the coast, now. Just strap in and stay handy.”

“To do what?” Tina asked.

“Can’t say just yet,” Karam lied. Because hopefully I won’t have to ask one of you to take an even more insane risk before this is over.

Sleeman breathed a sigh of relief as Puller cleared the coast-hugging foliage at one hundred meters altitude — then gasped as she was thrown forward against her straps. “What the hell—?”

“Just shifted one third of our thrust to our VTOL fans,” Karam grunted. “They’re in forward attitude to brake us. With any luck—”

But the onrushing blue horizon revealed that their luck had run out. Undetectable from their prior angle, the initial drop-off of the tidal shallows reversed itself, climbed up again to give birth to spray-wreathed rocks and a few small islands. Dragons teeth waiting to tear Puller apart. “Shit,” announced Karam calmly.

Lymbery had seen it. “P-pivot on your fans,” he stammered.

Damn it, the guy has good ideas when he’s too busy to be scared. “Pivoting,” Karam confirmed, reaching down and cutting the starboard fans back to ten percent. Puller groaned, lost altitude crookedly, but heeled starboard as she continued forward at a widening angle, her nose swinging away from the rocks. “Great idea, Morgan. We just might—”

“Critical overheat,” Phil Friel’s voice shouted at him. First time the calm Irishman had ever shouted, so Karam accepted his report as gospel: he shut the engines down.

“We’re going in,” he announced in as calm a voice as he could manage. “Strap in. Stay calm.” The mandatory platitudes common to all imminent crashes.

Karam snapped on the bow’s emergency attitude control thrusters — compressed gas canisters usually used spaceside when the main engines were off-line — and blew what little was left in them in one long, concentrated burst. That brought Puller’s nose up a bit, which gave her a little more glide, a little more time to dump airspeed.

The blue beneath them began lightening: shallows. That was good for getting out of Puller safely, but not good for putting her down in one piece: if they hit the bottom with any appreciable force—“Call out our final descent, Ms. Sleeman. Tongues away from your teeth, folks.”

“Four meters, three, two—”

Melissa never got to “one,” but Karam had expected that. With Puller’s nose still slightly raised, her stern hit first, creating a momentary sense of drag, as if someone had half depressed the emergency brake. Then a stomach jarring slam as the tortured ship’s belly swung down flat against the water. Come on, thought Karam, rise up—

And for just a fraction of a second, they were seemingly weightless again. The view in the canopy showed the water drop away for a moment—

— and then they dug in hard, metal screeching and squealing and half of the secured objects coming loose and flying about the bridge. Karam heard the air come out of his lungs like a bellows as he slammed forward against the straps — but he was smiling, even as he felt his sternum wiggle uncomfortably: made it. Hit the right contact angle and skipped the hull like a stone on a lake. Only one hop, but that’s all we needed to surviv—

“Karam.” It was Phil Friel. Hushed but strident.

“Talk,” Karam answered; Puller was now drifting through the water, listing to starboard, with waves lapping up its long narrow nose toward the bridge windows.

Friel’s voice was low. “I’ve seen one wet ditch like this, with a hot power plant. I know what happens if this chamber floods all at once.”

Shit. Just what I was afraid of. “Tina?”

“I shifted to a private circuit. This is you and me.”

Jeez. Calm, unassuming Phil Friel can get all business when he has to. “I get it. But you can gradually flood the compartment if the inflow vents are still functioning—”

“They’re not. I checked them as soon as I got out of my couch. I’m guessing that during the fight, the hit on our fuel tankage warped the valve housing. So I don’t have any way to gradually cool the plant. Which will eventually blow on its own.”

“Or shred itself and us if it’s suddenly immersed in a rush of cold ocean water.” Damn it, I didn’t want to have to ask this. “Phil, I don’t know how to say—”

“You don’t have to say anything. Get Tina out of here. I can crank open the emergency depressurization vents. That will let the water in a bit at a time.”

“Yeah, but don’t stay a second longer than you have to.”

“I have no intention of being parboiled, Karam. Now, get Tina out of here so I can get to work.”

Karam watched the water edge up over the cockpit canopy, switched to the open circuit. “Tina?”

“Yeah?”

“We have to evacuate through the dorsal hatchway. You’re closest; check it, make sure it’s full-function, and pull the water-landing kits.”

“I’m on it.”

Lymbery and Sleeman were already at the bridge hatchway. Karam unstrapped, rose. His rueful and sardonic “Abandon ship” did not diminish the alacrity with which they entered the aft-leading corridor.

As they made their way back to the dorsal hatchway, Puller showed herself much worse for the wear. Lockers had sprung open, freshers were running and overflowing, access panels hung and swayed from both ceilings and bulkheads. But they reached the hatchway swiftly, helped Tina open it into a stiff breeze that mixed the smell of salt with that of musk.

“Where’s Phil?” Tina asked as she handed up one of the inflatable rafts.

Karam handed the raft down to Sleeman. “He’s coming.” Puller had settled on the bottom just after the water had risen up over the top of the bridge windows. Lymbery was standing on the hull, just beyond the reach of the lapping wavelets.

Tina Melah frowned. “He should be here by now. What’s he doing?”

“I asked him to secure the electronics,” Karam lied. “If we’re going to have any chance of raising this craft and flying her again, I can’t have a systemwide shortout. We’ll inflate a second raft, leave it behind for him.”

Tina nodded as Sleeman and Lymbery avoided her eyes and inflated the second raft. As they clambered into their own slightly larger one, she glanced behind at the dorsal hatch.

Karam and Sleeman began paddling toward a small chip of rock that was almost an island. It actually had a single, wind-bent cone-tree on it. “I make that land about four hundred meters off,” Karam commented conversationally, hoping to distract Tina.

But her eyes never left the stricken Puller. “Something’s wrong,” she murmured. “We should go ba—”

She was interrupted by a sudden plume of steam hissing up from Puller’s stern, like the spout of a gigantic, superheated whale. Except that this spout did not relent; it grew in volume and intensity as the water around the back of the ship growled and hissed.

Tina’s eyes widened. She rounded on Karam. “You bastard. You left him behind to cool the plant — and die. You lying bastard.”

Karam looked away. “Phil is a top hand at his job. If anyone can get himself out in time, it’s him.”

“Fuck you, you lying bastard. You made him—”

“Tina. He called me. He asked. He didn’t want you to be in there. He—” Karam stopped: if she didn’t already know that Friel was as quietly smitten with her as she was almost comically smitten with him, there was no point bringing it up now.

But Tina had turned from Karam to glare at the steam-spewing wreck of the Puller. “Well, Phil’s a lying bastard, too.” A single tear ran the length of her gracefully curved cheek. “A damned lying bastard.”

* * *

Caine Riordan stumbled into the small glade he’d designated as Point Bug Out: the place where the survivors had stored their gear before dispersing to their various defensive positions. There was water here, and he’d need it if he was going to…to…

Suddenly, the sun was glinting directly down through the trees. Riordan discovered he was on his back, gasping. Couldn’t breathe, despite the filter mask. He’d obviously lost consciousness and fallen, but couldn’t remember it. And still couldn’t breathe: his lungs worked, but his mask wasn’t allowing in any air—

He pulled off the mask, drew in a breath: ragged, tight, insufficient, but he could feel his ability to reason returning. The smell of the environment rushed in at him as he sat up, turned the mask over to inspect the filter warning indicator: had the filters failed, clogged?

The indicator’s small panel was still green. But whatever else was happening, it wasn’t allowing air into his lungs. Protocol was to never crack the hermetic seal on the filter compartment, but the resulting contamination wasn’t going to kill him any faster than outright suffocation and he had to get moving. No time for a better plan: he popped open the filter compartment.

The first thing he noticed was that the wires leading from the filter sensor to the indicator had been cut and reattached so that the sensor had no power and the indicator would always read green. In the next moment, he saw that the filters were resting low in the compartment, almost as if—

He pulled out the filters: they had been shaved to half thickness, and the back side of them, the part that was in contact with the native air, was caked with green mold. Riordan shuddered, tossed the mask away, felt nauseous: there are a lot of ways to die, but betrayal by a friend, a teammate, may be the worst.

So: the traitor had gotten hold of his filter mask at some point, sabotaged it. But when, and who? Caine tried to think back along the events of the past two weeks—

But couldn’t. Possibly because he was still bleary from the pain and near-asphyxiation, but also because he was unable to still the contest between his most primitive impulse—screw this; you’ve got to run now! — and his rational impulse—take a few seconds, because if you run into the traitor, you’d better know it.

He closed his eyes, tried to push his mind past the fog that kept him from disciplining it.

But nothing. And even when he abandoned trying to figure out who had done this to him, he was too tired to think of any course of action, any plan, other than running as far and as fast as he could. The mind that had always been ready with options and alternatives was now just a froth of disorganized facts and memories. He kept trying to pull up a stratagem, a new approach to the current crisis, but it was like trying to draw water from a well that you could see was dry: no matter how many times you lowered the bucket, that repetitive act just didn’t bring up any water. He tried to rise, discovered that his limbs were all at once heavy but somewhat insensate, wondered how long he’d been sitting, dazed.

The southern edge of the glade rustled. He turned in that direction, tried rising again, fell on his side, wheezing — as Keith Macmillan came bounding out of the bush, florid, shiny with sweat. He saw Caine, froze, then rushed over. “What the hell—? Where’s your mask, Riordan? Are yuh daft? You’ll—”

“It was killing me.” Caine gestured toward where it lay in the low fronds. Macmillan stared, frowned; his teeth gritted. “Right. We’ve got to get you out of here, Caine.”

“No. You can still run. Better if. We split. Up.”

“Nonsense.” Macmillan rushed over to the packs. “I’m traveling pretty light, now. Fired the rifle dry. Tossed it. Only weapons we have left are these bloody combitools.” He grabbed one, snagged some rations as well. “Now let’s get you moving.”

Riordan knew he should reject the offer, order Keith to go on his own, but whatever part of his mind elevated rationality and duty by suppressing primal self-interest, failed. He tried to rise, did, then staggered and fell flat on his ass. How dignified.

Keith strode over quickly. “Here, I can help.” He reached out a hand — but before Riordan could clasp it, Macmillan’s thick paw grabbed his duty suit. His other arm slammed the combitool down into Caine’s left tibia.

Pain shot up and outward from the shattered bone. Riordan vomited as he fell backward, the treetops spinning around his narrowed field of vision.

“Wh-why?” he asked the sky, since he could not see Macmillan and was sure that if he moved his head, he would vomit again.

Macmillan sounded like he might cry. “Because they might want you alive, damn it.”

Caine seemed to dip down into and then rise up out of a heavy, hot fog; he wondered if he had blacked out momentarily. “No — why, why betray us? Betray Earth? You’re — you’re IRIS.”

“I’m a father before I’m anything else, Caine. And I wish it was me lying there. I surely, bitterly do.” His voice was choked, may have stifled a sob.

Riordan rolled his head around, fought through the pain to frame a question. “What do you mean, a father?”

Macmillan rose, listened for something in the bush, then crouched back down. “This time last year, I was just a highly trained grunt from Dundee with a wife and a daughter in Aberdeen. I’d been sent to Australia during the war. I was security for where the Dornaani were being stashed; we called it Spookshow Prime. That was where I met Downing and Rinehart, heard about you, was recruited into IRIS to be backup security to Sigma Draconis. But I was granted leave, first.”

Macmillan’s voice became thick. “There were no external communications at Spookshow Prime, so the first I knew of my daughter’s leukemia was when I walked through the door to surprise my family.” He choked, went on. “Quite a surprise. She’d been a solid little tomboy when I left; less than half a year later, she was a wee ghost of a thing. ‘A highly aggressive and unusual subvariety,’ they said of the leukemia.”

He spat. “It was their way of saying they’d never seen its like before. And I found out soon enough why they hadn’t. First time I took Katie for one of her follow-ups and treatments, some unctuous bastard of a suit sidled up to me in the waiting room. ‘It’s a shame so many of the children here don’t have a chance,’ he says. ‘How fortunate that your daughter does.’ I stared at him, because it was the only alternative to beating him senseless. And that’s when he put the hook in: he had a treatment. Highly effective, he said. Almost miraculously so.”

Macmillan ground his fingers together until they were white on the handle of the combitool. “I knew what I was agreeing to. But I would have done anything for my little Katie. Anything. And by the time I left, she was running around the house like a wild thing, once again.” He smiled and tears ran down his face. “Complete remission, they said. A miracle, they called it.” He looked at Riordan. “These people — whoever or whatever has infiltrated and infected CoDevCo and other megacorporations — are bloody monsters. There’s nothing they won’t do.” He stood, wielded the combitool, stared at Caine for several seconds. “Since the regret of a damned man isn’t worth a pin, I can only offer you one thing you might value.”

“What’s that?”

“I can kill you, make it look like I had no choice. Better that than—”

The ferns on the southern side of the glade whispered apart: Pandora Veriden emerged from between the leaves, frowning. “You bastard. You fucking bastard,” she whispered. Riordan wasn’t sure whether she was cursing at Macmillan’s perfidy, or annoyance at her own inability to sneak up on him silently.

Macmillan stood. “Guilty as charged, Ms. Veriden.” He studied her, saw what Caine had noticed immediately as well: she no longer had her rifle. The flaps of her bandolier were all open; she too, had shot her weapon dry. Without turning back toward Caine, he strode steadily, even grimly in her direction.

And stopped when a water strider crashed into the clearing from the east, evidently having followed Caine’s path. The huge creature surveyed the tableau, snuffled in Caine’s direction, emitted a vaguely distressed grunt.

Riordan knew that Veriden was fast but had never realized just how fast: before Macmillan had recovered from his surprise, she had sprinted to the strider, bumped into its leg. It was startled but did not flinch away as Dora remained in contact with, and seemed to rub herself against, that faintly shaggy leg. Then she darted toward the survival packs.

But Macmillan jumped to interpose himself between that source of combitools and Dora. She shied back, tried circling around to get at them; he shifted with her, slipped the hammer covering off his tool. Now he had an axe.

Dora glanced at it. “You’re crazy if you think they’re going to let you live.”

“Who?”

“Whoever bought you, asshole. You think you can get rid of us and return home as the sole survivor of the legation? That you alone, Ishmael, have lived to tell the tale? Bullshit: you’re a loose end. They’re going to snip you off.”

“Maybe so, maybe not. They may have other uses for me. Hardly matters, though. My Katie is cured. Nothing else—”

Veriden feinted left, lunged right toward the handle of the closest combitool. But Macmillan was quicker than he looked, too; the axe head swept around so fast that it whistled. Veriden had to bend back sharply at the waist to avoid it. She danced away; he sidestepped warily forward.

Veriden studied Macmillan carefully, then glanced at Riordan, who saw that, in a split second of partial distraction, she was computing odds, making a decision. She dodged in toward Macmillan, who swung at her again, but missed more widely. Eyes narrowed, calculating, she studied the big Scotsman closely. Then she glanced over at Caine, nodded briefly, and darted for the tree line on the west side of the glade.

Whatever Macmillan had been expecting, it obviously had not been that. Looking quickly from the leaves shuddering where Veriden had plunged through them, and where Caine lay wheezing and bloody, he grimaced. “Bollocks,” he muttered and turned to sprint after Dora.

Riordan felt as though he might vomit again, pushed that feeling away, looked around. What could he do? He had no weapons and he couldn’t flee anymore. Maybe he could hide—?

He turned toward the northeast edge of the glade. The group had scouted this site quickly — they’d had little chance to do otherwise — but there were two bumbershoots which had fallen, side by side, just inside that tree line, with a sizable depression between them. Riordan frowned: the chance that an enemy would fail to detect him there was next to zero—

He angrily dismissed that thought: there was no other plan. And odds that are slightly better than zero are, well, better than zero.

Gritting his teeth against the pain of dragging his broken left tibia behind him, Riordan began to crawl the ten meters toward the fallen bumbershoots.

Chapter Forty-Nine. SOUTHERN EXTENTS OF THE THIRD SILVER TOWER BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)

Dora Veriden sprinted hard for the far inland clearing where Riordan had sent Nasr Eid to stand watch on that flank. Most likely to keep him out of the way of people who can stand up in a fight. But now, Eid — and what he was overseeing — might just be her salvation.

Well, that and Macmillan’s physical condition. He was a big man, but beefy; a bear, not a tiger. And she could outrun a bear. All day long, if she needed to. But she didn’t have all day.

She stopped, caught her breath, listened. Yes, there was Macmillan, bashing his way through the brush, following the trail she was carefully leaving for him to follow. Keep running, big guy; keep pushing and sweating and gasping. She angled away from Eid’s position: can’t get there too soon. Have to make sure Macmillan is exhausted first. So let’s you and I take the scenic route, you traitorous asshole.

Dora stretched her almost disproportionately long legs into an easy, deerlike stride. As she ran, she chose her path by the terrain: first a patch of rough ground, then a large clearing—yeah, you’ll see that and try to make up the distance between us by sprinting. She stopped again, listened for Macmillan’s approach, heard it faintly. He’s less tired than I thought; probably got a little stamina back when he was talking with Riordan. Well, you’ll be running out of that second wind any time now. And you can’t afford to let me go, can you? Not only would that displease your masters, but knowing your story, I might pop up on Earth someday, surrounded by Slaasriithi diplomats, and ruin you. Or your sacred memory, if the bastards who hired you clean up their loose ends.

Dora swung back toward the clearing where Nasr Eid was waiting. Or rather, where he was supposed to be waiting. Either way, though, that little glade is the ace up my sleeve. From the start, she had been worried that the unknown traitor might become active once the attackers arrived. So she had not gone immediately when Riordan had sent them to their first defensive positions, but had lagged behind, had heard Caine instruct Nasr “to watch a large clearing that is on our other flank — and you’ll have some local help.” Intrigued, she had stayed around long enough to learn about the nature of that local help. And now she was very glad that she had.

Macmillan’s thumping progress was a bit louder. Good; spend yourself. She picked up the pace: she’d need a few extra minutes to locate Nasr and set her plan in motion.

She scanned for anything that would serve as a reasonable weapon as she ran, but was disappointed: no serviceable rocks amongst the few she passed, and the plants on this planet did not tend toward hardwoods with heavy branches or shoots. No crude clubs or spears lying ready to hand, therefore.

As she neared the clearing, she called out to Nasr, concerned that if she approached too quietly, he’d be startled, let out a shout, and ruin everything.

Eid responded, rising up from the blind that the convectorae has fashioned for him. “Ms. Veriden, what has happened? I have heard much shooting and then—”

“The battle is not over yet, but it will be soon. You only have to do one thing.”

Eid visibly shivered. “And what is that?”

“Run through the bait zone.”

Nasr turned, eyed the winding path she had indicated. “I am not sure if—”

“Nasr, have the Slaasriithi biomarkings ever failed to work? And you got a special dose from Unsymaajh, so you are perfectly safe. So what I want you to do is run down that path”—she took his arm, both leading him in that direction and blending the tracks she was leaving with his—“and keep running. As far and as fast as you can.” That’s probably what you’re best at, from what I’ve seen.

“But what good does—?”

“Just do it.” He looked uncertain. Time to change the incentive. “Nasr, if you do this, it’s a near-certainty that you’ll survive this battle.”

Eid’s eyes widened. He turned and raced down the path, flinching as he traversed the bait ground. Which of course, elicited no response, thanks to Unsymaajh’s marking.

Dora retraced her progress, backed up by stepping into each of the tracks she had made just before. When she drew alongside a thick patch of foliage, she took a wide sideways step off the path, ensuring that the first footprint she made in leaving her prior tracks was obscured behind a sizable frond. She moved carefully into the taller growth, checking to make sure she left no obvious trace of her exit from the main trail. Paralleling it, she crept to a position seven meters back from the bait ground. Once there, she lowered herself into a sprinter’s crouch, calmed her breathing, and listened.

She didn’t have long to wait. Macmillan, thrashing his way through the closely spaced bushes and fronds, was audible fifty meters away. At thirty he slowed, then stopped. Probably sees the clearing up ahead. Figuring out how he wants to approach it. Which prompted Dora to review what she knew of her adversary: a career soldier, tough, smart, a little past his prime, probably chosen for the legation because despite a few extra pounds, he had absolute determination. And, they had probably thought, absolute integrity. But whatever his fitness or ethical flaws might be, he was a dangerous opponent: quick reflexes, even if he wasn’t a particularly fast runner, and daunting upper body strength coupled with some kind of martial arts training. But, looking at his build, she eliminated a variety of styles of self-defense: anything that required extreme flexibility of the torso, or that relied heavily on kicking, was unlikely. He was too heavily built for the first, and didn’t have the leg snap for the latter. Which, together with his exhaustion, determined her tactics.

Pandora Veriden was not accustomed to being surprised; indeed, she prided herself on not being subject to that reaction. Consequently, she was not only alarmed but annoyed when she heard a dried frond snap very nearby. Rather than turn her head, she moved her eyes in that direction.

Keith Macmillan had clearly seen her path, but had been cautious in following it; he was paralleling it four meters to the right. Which would bring him within three meters of where she was crouching. Damn it; can I take him here? In this thicket? Can’t tell. Just gotta wait and see what he does.

Macmillan, surprisingly stealthy, was unable to fully conceal his labored breathing as he approached and passed within two meters of where Dora was crouched behind a fan-shaped fern. He stopped a meter further on. Dora could see his feet under the lowest leaf covering her: he was still facing further along the trail she had made — well, the one Nasr Eid had made at her behest. Which meant he was looking at the tight foliage hemming in the bait ground.

She waited, ignored the sweat running down from her brow, her armpits. Okay, Macmillan, so you’re trying to calculate if that brush is so thick that it would obstruct a surprise attack, prevent an ambush. And you’re balancing that against your tactical training and instincts: to never take an apparently unavoidable path. But the clock is ticking, you’re exhausted, and if you don’t have my head on a stake when you meet your masters—

Macmillan slipped out of the undergrowth and back on to the trail, glancing at the scattered leaves and bent fronds that marked Nasr’s passage. Decided, he hefted his combitool and moved forward quickly, entering the bait ground.

Macmillan got three meters farther along the path before a thin, shrill keening rose around him. Surprised, puzzled, he stopped, lifted the axe—

And was suddenly at the center of a cloud of what looked like flying, fanged salamanders with far too many eyes. Landing in his hair, on his florid face and arms, they began biting, darting off, flying back in for another mouthful. Macmillan swung the axe fruitlessly—

Despite the uneven ground and obtruding foliage, Dora sprinted the twelve yards separating them in just over four seconds. He clearly heard something behind him; he’d half turned when her flying kick hit him like a jackhammer, dropping him. She rolled up, backed away — and was surprised at how fast Macmillan recovered. But he was being swarmed by flying, biting salamanders, and Dora was not. A few ventured near her but, upon coming closer — particularly where she’d rubbed up against the water-strider — they shied away with an annoyed snap of their translucent wings. Macmillan feinted with the axe; she backed up a step, but did not watch his eyes, or even his elbows. Peripherally, her attention was riveted on his feet: where and when he committed to an attack with an axe would be decisively signaled by his stance.

Macmillan was sly; he shuffle-stepped. But Dora had been in far too many melees to be fooled; the arch of his first foot remained high when his toes hit the ground, a physical sign that this was not to be his last step.

He swung, missed, planted his feet as he pulled back the axe to swing again.

Gotcha.

With Macmillan’s body twisted away, the axe still cocking back for a lethal blow, Dora jumped in with a side-kick that punched directly into her opponent’s kneecap. He yowled, faltered; she let split-second instinct inform her that there was no ruse in either, and followed with the hardest spinning roundhouse she could deliver. An idiot attack, really, unless you know—know—you have the time to deliver it. At which point, it was like hitting your adversary with a sledgehammer.

Which was the result. With his knee already buckling at an unnatural angle, the kick caught Macmillan in the ribs. Two snaps — one small and reedy, the other heavier — accompanied the impact. Dora both grimaced and grinned: lost my little toe; he lost his ribs. I’ll take the trade.

Macmillan had also lost the grip on his weapon; Veriden kicked it away. When he brought his head up — eyes desperate, pleading — she gauged his probable reach, danced to the outside of his left arm and front-kicked him square in the face. He went back with a grunt, his eyes unsteady. Good, she thought, pushing away some of her sweaty hair. Now, to get permanent control of the situation—

* * *

The howl of pain with which Macmillan came back to his senses was sure to call down his employers, so Dora made her speech quickly. “So how’s it feel having a freshly broken leg, bitch?”

Macmillan’s face was a rictus of pain; his left tibia was not merely broken, but splintered. A tooth of bone peeked through the savage wound.

“So here’s what I want to know, loving father: when your leash-holders come and find their dog laid out, immovable, what do you think they’re going to do? Take you back so you can lick your wounds in their kennel?”

“Don’t care,” Macmillan groaned. “Did this. For. Katie.”

“Yeah, well, I hope it was worth it. You’ve killed a lot of good people. Well, I’ve got to get going; don’t want to be here when your owners show up and find I’ve lamed their bitch.” She turned and darted out the other side of the bait ground, his curses following her. She ran until he was completely out of sight, then doubled back and padded toward her first ambush point, but further into the woods, virtually invisible behind the canopy of a small cone-tree.

Dora only had to wait two minutes before she saw the first signs of the attackers: movement in the brush on the eastern side of the glade. Meaning they had probably not found Riordan; if they had stumbled across that first clearing, they would have seen and followed the trail that she and Macmillan had left. In which case they would have entered this glade from the north.

It was another minute before two clones emerged, sweeping the tree line with their weapons, then staring at the occasional winged newt-gators that landed on Macmillan, took a savage tear at his flesh, and flew off again. The Scotsman, between swatting them away and occasional groans, produced and choked down a mix of pills that looked like painkillers and the amphetamines that Riordan had been popping.

After walking the perimeter of the clearing and detecting where Dora’s and Macmillan’s tracks had entered it, the clones waved an all-clear. Four more figures entered the open space.

Dora did not even have to think about identifying their leader. His weapon, a liquimix Jufeng, marked his status as clearly as his height and distinctive facial features: angular, with prominent cheekbones and a high forehead. Not only taller than the clones, he had the tigerlike build of a decathlete on steroids. The clones hung at his heels, alert to his commands, like a pack of hounds following a hunter.

The leader approached Macmillan, gestured for him to be pulled beyond the ready reach of his winged tormentors, looked down at the broken man.

“You are Macmillan.” It was a statement that bordered on a question as he assessed the man’s shattered leg. “You have been bested in a fight. And you have failed in your mission.”

Macmillan gasped out responses through his pain. “I carried out the instructions I decrypted from the file that your people added to my palmtop, the one that was in my coldcell. I got rid of the first saboteur after he crippled the Slaasriithi ship. I sabotaged the group as best I could down here, made their leader sick—”

“Not so sick that he couldn’t mount a disappointingly effective defense. Well, let us call it a delaying action. The automated weapons platform we found. It was of Slaasriithi manufacture?”

“Yes. They brought it up about an hour before you arrived. There was no way for me to—”

“Failure is failure,” the leader decreed. “I understand what you attempted to do: cripple them, yet keep them together so we could easily locate and exterminate them.”

“Yes, after you failed to take care of them in orbit and the legation split up. After that, I had no way of getting the job done myself. There were too many survivors planetside, and Riordan and Veriden were both dangerous enough on their own. No opportunity arose where I could be sure of killing one without the other being aware that I had done it. And then I would have had to kill the second one and finish off all the other survivors. So I did the one thing that ensured they would all be destroyed: I remained with them. So I could be your beacon.”

“You mean, so we could do your job. Typical low breed.”

“No, damn it. Think it through: you had the necessary force to do the entire job with no chance of failure. I was one against many and not well-armed. Besides, the longer we were here, the more the wildlife seemed to — well, adopt Riordan. I think he may be—”

“Silence. I am even less interested in your hypotheses than I am in your excuses. I agree that your concept was reasonable, but it did not succeed. There is nothing more to be said. The agreement you made was a favor for a favor. You have failed to deliver your favor to us. We shall now fail to deliver ours to you.”

Despite the pain, Macmillan heard the floating, generalized tone in the leader’s voice. “You already have delivered my favor.”

“Have we? Our factotum was overly generous, or careless, then. We shall correct this.”

Macmillan stared at the tall man. “You have no idea what deal I made, do you?” When the man’s decisiveness faltered for one crucial second, Macmillan jumped in. “You’re not even connected to the people who hired me.”

The leader shrugged. “You are relatively insightful, for an Aboriginal. No, I ‘stole’ you from the factors who originally suborned you. But I assure you that the favor was not complete. That is not how we operate.”

“You’re lying. I saw it myself. My daughter was cured of cancer.” The certainty of Macmillan’s words were undercut by the tense, desperate uncertainty in his voice.

“Oh, I’m sure she was cured — for a while. But upon returning to Earth, you would have discovered that without further service to us, she would have sickened again. And so we would own you permanently. This is our way. It has been so for many thous — for a very long time.”

Macmillan tried to lunge at the leader from his hopeless position on the ground; he didn’t even reach the toe of the other man’s boot. “You bastards. You right fucking bastards.”

The leader shouldered his weapon, waved a clone over to him. “For us family is strength. For you, it is a weakness. We recognize family — indeed, all affiliation — for what it is: an enabler of dominion, a path to power. But you confuse family bonds with love, sacrifice, and desperate tears of hope and joy.” He held out his hand for the waiting clone’s Pindad assault rifle, leveled it at Macmillan. “And so you are, inevitably, the architects of your own misguided miseries.”

Macmillan could not physically reach the leader, but now, his spittle did. “I should have killed the sniveling bastard who offered me the deal a year ago.”

The leader stared at the saliva on the leg of his duty suit. “Yes, I suppose you should have.” With strange — inhuman — speed, he raised the Pindad and fired once. A small hole appeared in Macmillan’s forehead; the big man slumped over.

Despite herself, despite the many horrors she had seen in many parts of the world, Dora sucked in her breath sharply at the calm barbarity of the scene just concluded.

The leader paused, chin raising — then turned in her general direction.

She was too well-trained to flinch back; if any part of her was exposed, he was more likely to detect movement than discriminate her shape from the surrounding foliage. She remained frozen, felt sweat run down her back.

The leader turned back to the clones, gave hasty orders: they arranged themselves into an open formation and headed toward the trail that would lead them back to the first clearing.

Back to Caine.

Chapter Fifty. SOUTHERN EXTENTS OF THE THIRD SILVER TOWER and FAR ORBIT BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)

Caine Riordan awakened with a gasp, struggling for air, couldn’t get his lungs to expand enough. Frantic, he grasped about, hitting the two fallen logs on either side with his elbows. And then the sun went away. Alarmed, he looked up.

The water-strider that had entered the glade a minute — an hour? — ago was standing over him, crouching down. Having become accustomed to the creatures during the days of travel down the river, Riordan felt a strange sensation of relief, almost as if a friendly dog had trotted over to check on his well-being. Strange, the bonds we forge—

Then the sun was back; the water-strider had risen abruptly, rotated towards the west side of the clearing. Something was coming from that direction; Caine could hear it too, albeit faintly.

The water-strider spread its legs in a stance Riordan had observed during their occasional dominance tests; a kind of four-legged sumo come-and-get-me posture. Oh Christ, no, you poor beast; you can’t hope to—

The water-strider turned slightly. The two full eyes on its right side, both the one above and below the jaw, gazed steadily at him. The creature emitted a low, mewling grunt — a sound of affection between water-striders — and backed up a step, its rear legs just clearing the far side of the two thick logs between which Riordan was coffined. Then it turned to face the west again.

A babble of voices speaking in a mishmash of English and Javanese-accented behasa grew, then quickly stilled as they entered the clearing. Caine rose up high on one elbow, a broad leaf concealing everything but his eye.

Five clones and one other person had entered the treeless expanse — and the hair on the nape of Riordan’s neck rose: that other person was not a human. Not a terrestrial human; that was a Ktor. The angular features, the build, the strange, almost archaic habits of speech, and above all, the aura of imperious disdain for his soldiers, made his identity as clear as if he had been wearing a sign on his back. But what the hell are you doing out here, with Optigene clones—?

The six spread out into a broad arc, the leader at the center, keeping slightly greater distance from the water-strider. Overhead, Caine could not only smell, but almost feel, a strong release of musk from the creature. Was it fear? Aggression? Dismay?

It peaked when the humans approached to twenty meters. The water-strider swiftly raised its long, graceful back-sails. Suddenly limned in orange bioluminescence, they shuddered as the creature released a long ululating hoot, both from its spine-paralleling respiratory ducts and its steam-shovel mouth. The humans stopped and raised their weapons.

God, no—

The water-strider stamped one wide foot, made to move forward—

The clones unleashed a stream of automatic fire into the body of the creature, which ducked, writhed, bucked — but neither charged nor fled. Nor did it fall; the Pindads, while effective weapons, were not elephant guns. The wounds they were inflicting would no doubt eventually prove mortal, but “eventually” might mean hours or even days.

The Ktor stepped forward, adjusted the Jufeng dustmix battle rifle, raised it, fired a single shot. Riordan knew from the sound what settings he’d chosen: semiautomatic fire, maximum propellant per shot, and expanding warheads.

The water-strider shuddered under the extraordinary impact of that round, which did approximate that of an elephant gun. As the stricken creature tried to right itself, the Ktor fired the Jufeng as steadily as the relentless pulse of a metronome.

After the fifth shot, the swaying water-strider exhaled heavily; its knees unlocked, bent, and the huge body started falling — directly toward Caine.

Who thought, better this way than at the hands of that bastard Ktor. The falling trunk of the water-strider rushed down, growing along with blackness of its widening shadow.

Which swallowed him.

* * *

Jesel checked his weapon after waving two of the clones over to inspect the body of the ungainly beast he had just slain. Perhaps a tooth would make a good trophy? No; there wasn’t the time—

“Leader, the targets must have used this as a staging area. Note their packs.”

“Yes,” Jesel replied but wasn’t really listening. This entire attack had gone miserably awry. There were still at least three or four Aboriginals unaccounted for. At the clearing there were signs that one had run further west. That could have been the one that had crippled Macmillan or a different one. Two of the humans that had skirmished with them during their approach and Pyrrhic assault had been silenced, but their bodies had not been located. There was no way of knowing if other humans had been on hand for what he had to assume was the complete annihilation of Pehthrum’s riverside flanking attack. The only reasonable option was to return to the shuttle and risk nap-of-earth flight to scan for fleeing Aboriginal biosigns. Since they were no longer packed in among Slaasriithi signatures, they could now be hunted down one by one. It might be dangerous to stay that long, but if he returned with so profound a failure to report—

The first impact was so sharp and forceful that Jesel was on the ground even before he was aware he’d been hit. He rolled over, grasping for his weapon, saw a red crater of mashed gray snakes where the left side of his abdomen had been. He tried to control the blood flow, tried to make sense of what was happening.

He watched three of his clones go down: one round into each center of mass. So: a counterattack by professionals. Incapacitating each and then—

The last two clones, the ones that had been inspecting the dead water-strider, bounded deeper into the bush. Cowards, he wished he could shout after them, but he had to conserve his strength, focus his senses.

The fire was coming from the south edge of the clearing. He brought up his rifle, switched the propellant feed to fifty percent, the rate of fire to two hundred rounds per minute, swung it toward the bushes—

And fell back heavily, his neck and head riddled by eight-millimeter Colt Browning jacketed expanders.

* * *

Bannor Rulaine rose up, hand-motioned Peter Wu to circle around the clearing while staying within the tree line. Now to get the two clones who had—

A short stutter of gunfire from yet another eight-millimeter CoBro sent Bannor diving into the loam. It was usually a friendly sound, but today, that didn’t prove anything.

However, the small, limping silhouette that emerged from the northwest edge of the glade near the survival kits confirmed everything that Bannor could have hoped for: Miles O’Garran.

“Are we clear?” Rulaine asked, keeping his prone position, but crabbing around until he was covering the southeast end of the glade. “Always watch your back” was an axiom by which he lived, and had survived.

“Far as I know,” answered Dora Veriden, who emerged behind O’Garran.

Wu leaned out of the brush. “Bad landing?” he asked the pint-sized SEAL.

“I’ve had worse,” O’Garran replied. “Can’t remember when, though.”

Bannor rose up on one knee. “We’re going to have a hell of a time finding everyone.”

“If anyone else is left,” Wu amended faintly.

“Yeah, there’s that.”

“Look, guys, let’s save our own lives first.” Dora threw a hand up toward the sky. “This can’t be all of them. I’m pretty sure some beat feet back toward their shuttle.”

“They did.” Bannor felt a smile bending his mouth, a smile that his first DI had told him would terrify any human under the age of fourteen. “They aren’t going anywhere.”

Dora’s smile wasn’t any more heart-warming. “Oh. Good. And by the way,” she added, glancing at the dead Ktor, “lucky timing.”

“Not luck,” Wu corrected. “First we heard a shot, much farther inland.” He pointed west. “We were heading there when this area started sounding like New Year’s in Taipei. We just followed the sound of trouble.”

But Veriden was no longer listening; she was pacing around the glade, searching, frowning. “Where’s Riordan?”

Wu crossed the clearing to the northeast corner. “He was here?” He looked, saw the discarded filter mask.

Veriden looked up. “Yeah, I think—”

Wu saw a faint impression in the ground cover, a spatter of vomit, and, looking more closely, a faint trail of broken or bent ferns that led out of the clearing and straight toward—

Wu stood up sharply. “Everyone. We are going to need some help.”

“Help doing what?” Rulaine asked.

“Lifting this dead water-strider.”

* * *

Nezdeh Srina Perekmeres already knew what Zurur Deosketer would report: “Still no reply on the lascom from the strike team.”

Nezdeh leaned back in her command chair, watched the two new cannonballs race to fill the orbital gap above the assault zone. Jesel’s shuttle had signaled a safe landing three and a half hours ago. Fifteen minutes later, her sensors had picked out the thermal flare of the supposedly destroyed human corvette, performing what might well have been a suicidal maneuver that brought it briefly over the same zone. And then they had waited. And waited.

Nezdeh suppressed a sigh, turned toward Idrem, who was no longer at gunnery. He was here for counsel and, though she dared not even admit it to herself, for comfort. “Jesel has failed.”

“It seems so.”

“It was wise that we did not equip them with any of our technology. It would have fallen into the Aboriginals’ hands.”

Idrem nodded carefully. “The Terrans have been denied access to any conclusively incriminating evidence or advanced knowledge.”

“You are guarded in your words, Idrem.”

“I am hesitant to consider our exposure fully controlled. There are two corpses planetside whose genelines were on the threshold of Elevation. Their genetics will yield much to sustained examination.”

Nezdeh frowned. “Agreed. But what options do we have? We could fire a missile spread in an attempt to obliterate that evidence, but that presumes that the Slaasriithi do not have unrevealed planetary defense batteries, in addition to their drone ships. We might achieve nothing other than blatantly bombarding their world.”

“This is true.” Idrem nodded. “And I concur that the Slaasriithi, while reluctant to deploy offensive systems, seem quite ready to commit their defensive technologies. I suspect we do not have enough missiles to saturate the assault zone and eliminate the spoor of Jesel’s assault team.”

“So you agree that we must live with the marginal exposure that has occurred?”

Tegrese Hreteyarkus interrupted from her station at gunnery. “We do have one nuclear weapon,” she pointed out.

Nezdeh and Idrem exchanged surprised, then carefully neutral glances. Nezdeh turned toward Tegrese. “We are in a system adjacent to the Slaasriithi homeworld. We have trodden a terribly fine line between plausible deniability and overt responsibility for the attacks here. And you would have us ‘correct’ the faint evidence of our possible presence with a nuclear weapon?”

Tegrese looked away, her jaw bunching. “I merely mentioned the option.”

Nezdeh turned away, did not want Tegrese to see what might be in her eyes at this moment: the ruthless calculation behind her unbidden thought, She might have to be liquidated; she is worse than the males of this House. And she is only of a subsidiary gene line. Nezdeh shifted her attention to the holosphere. “Ulpreln.”

“Yes, Nezdeh.”

“Plot a rendezvous with the Arbitrage. We are done here.”