I, Mengsk

CHAPTER 7

THE DROPSHIP SCREAMED THROUGH THE UPPER atmosphere of Sonyan, trailing fire from its wings like a swooping phoenix. The armored plates of its heat-shielding rippled with blazing orange fire and left a streaking contrail of vapor in the craft's wake as it dropped rapidly toward the planet's surface.

As flying machines went, it was proof that with a big enough pair of engines, you could get anything to stay in the air. Its front wings were stubby, swept forward and down, behind which enormous jet engines coughed to life as the craft hit the atmosphere.

Dropships were designed to carry Confederate military forces unto battle in safety and at speed—though they achieved neither objective particularly well—and as Arcturus gripped the metal stanchion next to his head he knew that, regardless of any other considerations, comfort had certainly not been uppermost in the designers' minds.

Dropships could carry anything from troops to siege tanks in their transport compartments, and thus the cavernous bay housing Arcturus's armored marines—designated "Dominion section"—was an oily, dust-filled metallic cavern.

The dropship shuddered as it leveled out, wind roar and engine noise making conversation impossible unless carried out over the helmet comms. As well as the six armored soldiers, the dropship carried a huge siege tank, its colossal, groaning mass held fast with clanking chains and filling much of the dropship's internal space. It was breaking regs putting this many soldiers in with a siege tank, but the orders had come from on high to get them there like this, and Arcturus wasn't about to question orders this early in his career.

His five soldiers sat toward the rear of the red-lit compartment on uncomfortable metal benches that looked as though a blind welder had attached them to the fuselage's interior.

"So what's the situation, LT?" asked Yancy Gray for the hundredth time. "What are we flying into?"

Arcturus sighed. The irrepressible kid from Tarsonis never let up until he got an answer and he had a strange, naive belief that the chain of command would keep him informed al every stage of what was going on. He hadn't been with the military long enough to know that the grunts on the front line were like mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed shit.

"Aw, man, how many times you gonna keep asking that, Yancy?" said de Santo, her face belligerent. "LT's gonna tell us what's up when he knows. Right, LT?"

Diamond de Santo (or Dia, as her section-mates knew her) was a dark-skinned girl who had grown up on Tyrador IX, the daughter of indentured workers who toiled in one of the many spas and resort cities that made the planet such a refuge for the scions of the Old Families. Armies of men and women who owed money to one of the many Confederate financial institutions were forced to work there to repay their debts and ensure that guests didn't need to lift so much as a finger.

Needless to say, Diamond de Santo hadn't enjoyed that life much, and she'd signed up at the first recruiting office she could find on her eighteenth birthday. In the six months Arcturus had known her, he had seen the core of a good soldier, but one who had such a chip on her shoulder that it kept her mouth truculent and her manner rebellious.

Arcturus liked her immensely.

And by some strange, inverted magnetism, de Santo recognized a kindred soul and displayed a loyalty to Arcturus that reminded him of the bond between his father and Achton Feld.

"Hey, I'm just asking," said Yancy. "Nothing wrong with wanting to know what's going on, is there? I was supposed to be on leave until this new assignment came down the pipe."

"We were all supposed to be on leave," said de Santo pointedly, making no secret of her irritation at that particular stroke of genius from the brass.

She wasn't the only one annoyed that their leave had been postponed. Arcturus had planned to return to Korhal to see his mother and Little Dot. He hadn't been back to see them since he'd joined up, though he had written to them plenty of times over the Confed-network.

His mother had eventually answered, though her words didn't have the same openness and warmth as did the letters she had sent him at the academy. Her correspondence was filled with news of his sister and of Korhal (and its troubles) but made little mention of his father beyond his continued good health.

Dorothy hadn't replied to him at all, and he knew she was probably still smarting with annoyance at his sudden departure. Hopefully, once this mission was over, he'd have a chance to patch things up with his family, as the last year and a half had made him realize how much he missed them.

Even his falher, which surprised Arcturus immensely.

Of course, (here had been a greal deal of correspondence between Arcturus and Juliana, and it seemed she remained interested in him though light-years separated them.

They had arranged to meet on Tyrador IX before he headed onward to Korhal when his next period of leave eventually came through, and he was forced to admit he was looking forward to seeing her again.

Arcturus's reverie ended when Yancy nodded his helmeted head toward him and said. "I'll bet you anything LT already knows where we're headed. Yeah, a hundred credits says he already knows."

"Hell, I'd take that bet if I thought you had the damn cash," said Chuck Horner, his broad, fringe world grin robbing the comment of malice. Horner was what Arcturus's father would have disparagingly called "a good ol' boy," a thick-shouldered, broadfeatured hayseed from one of the outlying worlds in the Confederacy where they counted themselves lucky if they had electricity throughout the day.

On the surface, that's exactly what Charles "Chuck" Horner was, and Arcturus had been surprised to find a sharp mind and quick wit behind his "aw shucks" exterior.

"But you ain't got two cents to rub together," continued Chuck. "Leastways not after me and Chun Leung won everything but your panties the other night at poker."

"You got lucky," said Yancy.

"Lucky?" drawled Chuck. "My daddy and his daddy before him was playing army poker before you was a glint in your mama's eye. Taught me everything I know, son."

"Oh yeah?" countered Yancy. "Wanna try your luck again tonight?"

"What you got to bet with?" put in the aforementioned Chun Leung. "I already got your money and your chocolate rations for the next week. You don't got anything else the Big Dog wants to take off you."

"I'll clean Mayumi for a month," offered Yancy.

"Boy wants to gamble," de Santo said with a laugh.

"No way," said Chun Leung, hefting his Impaler rifle across his lap to stroke the gleaming, oiled barrel. Mayumi was the name Chun Leung had given to his rifle, his pride and joy. He kept the rifle obsessively oiled and cleaned, and where everyone else's gun was battered and scratched, Leung's weapon looked as though it had come straight from the factory.

"I'm the only one who handles my weapon," said Leung.

"Yeah, that's what the girls on Pridewater said too," quipped de Santo.

Leung flipped her off. "You want a piece of me?" he said. "I'll show you why they call me the Big Dog, little girl."

Arcturus listened to the banter, sensing the undercurrent of fear behind their easy back-and-forth. Thus far, the commanders of the 33rd hadn't seen fit to post them anywhere too dangerous, but even though his soldiers had only mess tent scuttlebutt to go on, they could sense this assignment would be different.

Only one member of the section didn't join in on the banter, and Arcturus knew that if there was a God somewhere in the heavens, he had a strange sense of humor.

Toby Mercurio, another graduate of Styrling Academy, sat across from Arcturus, his face downcast and his shoulders slumped. Having spent the last six months trying to brine Mercurio up to the standard of the rest of the section, Arcturus knew that the life of a soldier was not for his fellow alumnus.

Though Mercurio's parents had been wealthy enough to send him to an expensive school, the boy wasn't really Styrling Academy material. He'd scraped by academically, but it had been his above-average performance on the padball courts that had allowed him to graduate.

But above average didn't cut it in the professional circuit and without the safety net of any real qualifications, Toby had floundered in the real world. A series of meaningless, paper-shuffling jobs at one of his father's plants had ensued—all of which he'd spectacularly failed at—followed by a drunken afternoon that had seen him wake with a crushing hangover and a sheaf of signed enlistment papers.

In the eighteen months since Arcturus had joined up, he'd found that a soldier's life consisted of long stretches of boredom, followed by frantic periods of deployment and shouting. Which, in Dominion section's case, had been followed by yet more periods of boredom.

This assignment looked as though it might involve some action and, as surprising as it was to him, Arcturus realized he was looking forward to the prospect of combat. He'd trained to fight in combat armor and could fire a gauss rifle with a reasonable degree of accuracy, but it was his understanding of battlefield tactics, combined with his talent for inspiring those around him and making the impossible sound plausible, that had seen him rise to the level of lieutenant. Senior officers had their eye on him to ascend the promotions ladder, but before he could really embark on that climb, he needed some real combat under his belt.

Hence Dominion section's deployment to Sonyan.

"So come on, LT," said Chuck Horner. "Is the kid right? You know why we're out here?"

Arcturus felt the eyes of his section turn on him, their faces blurred slightly through the low-grade plasteel of their helmet visors.

"Yes, Charles," said Arcturus, knowing the others got a kick out of his using Chuck's full name. "I do know why we're out here. I'm an officer—it's my job to know."

"So what's the skinny?" asked Yancy, leaning forward. "Pirates? Rogue merc bands terrorizing helpless colonists and their pretty daughters?"

"Something like that," agreed Arcturus.

Whoops and hollers echoed over the comms at the prospect of actually putting their training into practice. Arcturus held a hand up to quiet his section and said. "We're dropping on a planet called Sonyan, specifically Camp Juno, where we're to rendezvous with other elements of the 33rd and facilitate the evacuation of personnel involved in illegal deep-core mining operations."

"We gonna get to kill anyone?" asked Chun Leung, patting Mayumi's muzzle.

"I hope not," said Arcturus, "but it's likely many of the people on Sonyan aren't going to want to leave their holdings."

"Well, damn, we got to show them the error of their ways," said Chuck Horner, highflying with Chun Leung. Yancy and Dia looked excited at the prospect, but, as usual. Toby Mercurio didn't join in.

"I bet I kill more than you, Dia," said Yancy.

"Sure you will," sneered de Santo. "Boy, you barely know which end of that gun to point at the enemy. We get into a fireflght, you make sure you stay in front of me, you hear?"

Lines of scrolling text flickered onto the HUD of Arcturus's armor and the red light of the compartment began flashing.

"Quiet down," he said, his voice easily cutting through the good-natured sparring. "We're coming in to land, so look sharp."

Before Sonyan, Arcturus had seen precisely three other planets. Growing up on Korhal, a lush, temperate world of balmy summers and mild winters, he had assumed that most other habitable worlds in the Confederacy would be much the same. His training on the colossal orbital shipyards of Dylar IV and his first tour on Pridewater had quickly disabused him of that notion, emphasizing the point that humans could live pretty much anywhere with enough perseverance.

But Sonyan was a world you'd have to have a serious reason just to visit, let alone live on.

As the assault ramp clanged onto the sandy hardpan of the planet, hot, biting winds howled inside the dropship, instantly blinding Arcturus and his soldiers.

As they disembarked, a group of engineers barged past them to get to the siege tank, and Arcturus fought the urge to shout at them. Instead he marched down the ramp and onto the gritty surface of another world.

The visor of Arcturus's helmet darkened in response to the sudden brightness as he took his first look at their new posting.

Camp Juno nestled in the rocky foothills of a broken series of valleys in the middle of a soaring range of reddish brown mountains. Dust devils blew down from the high peaks and the sky was the color of flaking rust. A jaundiced orb of a sun hung low above the tops of the mountains, casting long, thin shadows down the mountains and over the camp.

In the middle of the camp sat a modular command center, its pressed metal plates scoured and distressed by the constant assault of wind borne grit. The rotating dish, of a comsat swept the terrain and a number of depressingly identical buildings surrounded the command center, the standard pieces of kit you'd expect to find around any Confederate military establishment—barracks, mess halls, infirmary, and landing platform, as well as portal-framed hangars, supply depots, and training facilities.

Coils of wire looped between six missile turrets spaced at regular intervals around the camp's perimeter, their own dishes sweeping the skies for aerial threats. Squads of marines jogged through the camp and industrious SCVs effected repairs to damaged buildings.

Despite the number of people he saw, Arcturus sensed a relaxed, unhurried air to the camp. There was no urgency to the training, nor any sense of wariness in the posture of those marines that stood sentry over the camp. A few heads turned as he led his men from the belly of the dropship, but any interest in their arrival quickly passed.

"So what now, LT?" asked Yancy, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. "Where's our reception соmmittее?"

Arcturus was wondering the same thing, but didn't reply. It didn't become an officer to admit that he didn't know what was going on. They were supposed to have been met by the camp's head of security, but they were completely alone on the landing platform.

"Watch out on the ramp!" shouted one of the engineers inside the dropship, sparing Arcturus from thinking of an answer for Yancy.

No sooner was the warning given than the throaty rumble of the siege tank's engine bellowed. Jelling filthy plumes of blue oilsmoke? the tank lurched from the darkness and jerkily drove out onto the sand.

Arcturus watched as the tank rumbled away from the dropship with the engineers in tow.

"Damn, that thing's probably older than you, Chuck," said Dia de Santo.

"Dia, honey," drawled Chuck. "You call it old: I call it experienced."

"Well that is one experienced tank," said Yancy.

"Screw you, son," said Chuck with a knowing wink to de Santo. "Gimme the choice between a filly and a mare, I'll take the mare every time. She knows what she's doing and she'll make sure you do it right."

"We still talkin' about tanks?" asked Yancy.

"Ten-hut!" shouted Chun Leung, and the marines of Dominion section snapped to attention. Arcturus turned to see a fully armored marine marching toward them from the command center. He saw the insignia of a captain on the marine's shoulder, and a security detail of two soldiers marched at the officer's back.

Arcturus pulled himself lo attention, squinting through the glare and dust haze as he saw a familiarity to the marine's posture and walk. The captain halted in front of Arcturus and gave him a quick once-over.

"Lieutenant Arcturus Mengsk reporting for duty, sir," he said, saluting smartly. "Dominion section is ready for action, sir."

"Al ease, Mengsk," said the captain, and Arcturus smiled as he realized why his superior had seemed so familiar.

The glare visor on the captain's helmet snapped up and Arcturus found himself staring into the face of Captain Angelina Emillian, the very woman who'd planted the seed of his enlistment, so long ago it seemed, at Styrling Academy.

Arcturus relaxed, but only a fraction. Emillian might have been a familiar face, but she was still a captain and he a lieutenant. Even he had to respect the chain of command.

"Good to see you again, Mengsk," said Emillian. "So they made you lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir," said Arcturus. "All the generals' jobs were taken."

Emillian smiled. "I see you've not lost that smart mouth of yours. Maybe your principal was right about you. They still letting him teach there?"

"No, sir," said Arcturus. "Last I heard he was doing sixty years in Bhar-el penal colony for embezzlement and fraud. I gather he wasn't a suitable candidate for resocialization."

Emillian caught the pride in his tone and said. "And I suppose you would've had nothing to do with that?"

"I couldn't possibly say," he replied, leaving Emillian in no doubt as to his complicity in Steegman's fall from grace.

"I thought so," said Emillian, jerking a thumb in the direction of his marines. "So what's their story?"

"Dominion section," said Arcturus. "Ready for action, sir. Just give us the word."

"Dominion section?" repeated Emillian. "Nice name. You choose it?"

"I did," said Arcturus with a nod. "I thought it sounded appropriately grand."

Emillian shook her head with a grin and walked along the line of marines, her stern gaze boring into each soldier and leaving no doubt that they were less than nothing to her.

"Okay, listen up, marines!" she shouted. "Welcome to Sonyan, the most miserable crap-hole this side of the core worlds. This ain't boot camp and it sure ain't paradise, so wherever you've been stationed before and thought was bad, forget it, this is worse. The chow sucks, the barracks have got more holes that an Impaler target, and you won't be leaving without at least one trip to the infirmary. Any questions?"

Most of the marines of Dominion section met her stare stoically, understanding that the best response to this kind of rhetorical question was silence.

Yancy Gray was, however, apparently oblivious to this piece of soldier's wisdom.

"Why will we be visiting the infirmary, sir?" he asked.

Captain Emillian rounded on him, the visor of her helmet barely an inch from her questioner. Arcturus winced, irritated that one of his marines had embarrassed him. "Did you say something, soldier?" she said.

"Uh... you asked if anyone had questions," replied Yancy. "I do. Have a question. I mean."

"That's enough, Gray," said Arcturus. "The captain will brief me and then I'll tell you what you need to know. For your sake, you'd better hope your trip to the infirmary is because you've been killed so you won't go asking any more stupid questions."

Emillian continued to stare hard at Yancy, who kept his gaze fixed on a point somewhere over her right shoulder. Eventually the captain turned away and stood before the section with her hands laced behind her back.

"In answer to Private Gray's question, you will most likely visit the infirmary because you will be getting shot at by disgruntled miners who have illegally begun deep-core operations on this rock, which just so happens to be a Confederate-owned piece of real estate."

Arcturus hadn't known that Sonyan was a Confederate world, that nugget of information not having been part of his briefing prior to their departure from Pridewater. Not that his briefing had said much more than "Go to Sonyan and await orders."

In any case, this far out on the rim, who claimed a world was largely a factor of who had the most men and the biggest guns. With the arrival of Dominion section and the siege tank, it appeared that honor now belonged to the Confederacy.

"Most of these miners have already been relocated," continued Emillian, beginning to pace as she spoke, "but there are a few stubborn holdouts, and it's going to be your job to flush them out. It's going to be bloody work, because these miners are dug in deeper than a Tyrador blood-shrike, but you'll have help. There are thirty marines and a handful of firebats here that'll be going in with you. And now we have a siege tank. But make no mistake, marines, you will be shot at and we will take casualties.”

"That last part, I can guarantee," finished Emillian. "Since you lucky bastards are going to hit Turanga Canyon at 06:00 tomorrow."

The sun was already bright and hot when Arcturus rose from his bunk at 05:00 and made his way to the mess hall to grab some breakfast and gulp down some A-grade military caffeine. Breakfast consisted of high-calorie gunk that tasted foul, but provided the energy a marine would need for combat operations.

As he sat contemplating the brownish sludge spooned onto his tray. Captain Emillian took the seat opposite him.

"Morning, Lieutenant," she said, nodding toward the food. "Not what you're used to, I bet."

"Not exactly," he agreed. "Though the refectory at Styrling Academy could give this place a run for its money."

"I can see why the Marine Corps would be appealing to you then."

They ate their breakfast In silence, and Arcturus took the opportunity to study Angelina Emillian in more detail. She was still pretty, but he noticed a scar that hadn't been there before, which traced a pale line above her ear before disappearing beneath her hair.

"Got it on Chau Sara," she said without looking up. "There was a prison riot in one of the penal colonies where they keep the worst of the worst—the mass murderers, rapists, and serial killers. We were on rotation there to pick up a batch for resocialization when it happened. I was in solitary evaluating an inmate by the name of Wyan Schaen when he got one of the guard's weapons and shot me in the face."

"Nasty," said Arcturus, appreciating the ridiculous understatement of his remark as he said it. But Emillian appeared not to notice.

"Yeah, it was, but I was lucky. The bullet ricocheted from the interior of my helmet and grazed me before exploding on the back.”

"So what did you do?"

"There was so much blood around me, the dumb-ass thought I was dead," said Emillian. “I guess I was out for a few seconds, but once I came to, I saw he was standing at the bars with his back to me. So I got up and broke his neck, and then got the hell out of there."

"I'm impressed," said Arcturus, genuinely meaning it.

"It's nothing," she said. "Anyway, we got our recruits and I got a new scar I could use to impress greenhorn lieutenants. So tell me about your section, Mengsk. Are they any good?"

Arcturus looked down the length of the table, where the marines of Dominion section sat chatting with the marines who were going to be flying up to Turanga Canyon with them.

"Yes," he said. "Until this mission came up, they were looking forward to going on leave. We all were, but they're good soldiers. Some are better than others, but they'll follow orders and they'll fight hard."

"Good enough," said Emillian.

Arcturus had seen the telltale scars of neural resocialization on the marines his men were talking to and said. "Tell me something, Captain. You have thirty marines here already, all resoced to follow orders without question."

"Yeah? So?"

"So why do you need us?"

Emillian answered between mouthfuls of scrambled egg. "You ever fought alongside a resoced marine?"

"No."

"You wouldn't ask that question if you had," said Emillian. "Don't get me wrong, they're perfectly good soldiers and they'll do anything you order them to, but they don't have initiative and don't react too well to changing battlefield situations. Give 'em an order that's easy to follow and there's no problem, but the minute things start to get a bit screwy, well, they get a bit lost. I keep asking for marines that aren't brain-panned, but they keep sending me more of 'em.”

"And you think six of us can make a difference?"

"Six of you and a siege tank, let's not forget."

"Of course," said Arcturus. "These miners, they must be a tough bunch."

"What makes you say that?"

"You clearly don't think they'll surrender as soon as they see us. Am I wrong?"

"No, you’re not wrong."

"I didn't think so," said Arcturus. "Why won't they surrender?"

"Because they didn't the last time we came for them. They fought back with goliath walkers, antiaircraft missiles, and a whole lot of guns. Then again, we didn't have a siege lank last time. Or Dominion section," she added with a smile.

The siege tank had left the previous evening and was to rendezvous with them at the mouth of Turanga Canyon, where it would provide artillery support as the marines moved up toward the miners' base.

"Do you remember when we spoke back at Styrling Academy?" asked Arcturus.

"Sure," said Emillian. "Why do you ask?"

"You said barely fifty percent of marines ever actually see combat. Seems like that might have been a slight...exaggeration."

"Not at all," replied Emillian. "About fifty percent of recruits to the marines either wash out of boot camp, are killed in training accidents, get their brains fried by the resoc, or otherwise end up invalided to desk jobs."

"So basically if you survive boot camp you're almost guaranteed to see combat?"

"Pretty much," agreed Emillian, with a wry twitch of her eyebrows.

"Doesn't sound quite as appealing when you put it like that."

"Hence the shift of emphasis," said Emillian, standing and carrying her breakfast tray to the racks. Arcturus followed her and slid his tray in below Emillian's.

"I can see that. Now."

Emillian turned, and from the steel in her eyes Arcturus could see that the informality of breakfast was over.

"Right. Time to get busy, Lieutenant. Get your men together and be on the launchpad in ten minutes. We dust off at 05:30, so don't be late or I'll court-martial your ass. Now move it!"

Arcturus moved it.

Arcturus sat with his gauss rifle against his shoulder and his body braced against the craggy rock protecting him from the stream of bullets that sawed down from above. The sun blazed high above them, a sour lemon yellow orb that looked close enough to reach up and touch. His breath came in ragged spurts and he could taste blood in his mouth from where he'd bitten his tongue in the crash.

The members of Dominion section huddled in the rocks with him, each one looking the worse for wear, but still alive. Which Arcturus realized was a bloody miracle, remembering the gut-wrenching terror he'd felt as the explosion had torn a monstrous hole in the side of the dropship.

He could recall almost nothing of what followed, save hurricane-force winds roaring through the troop compartment, billowing flames, and the awful sound of battle-hardened marines screaming in agony.

Next thing he remembered, he was lying in a tangle of twisted metal, surrounded by flames and looking up at a pillar of oily black smoke etched on the sky. Hands had grabbed him under his arms and dragged him from the wreckage, and as he'd been propped up against a rock, he saw it had been Chuck Horner who'd rescued him.

"What happened?" he managed.

"Missile," said Horner. "They got a turret set up at the mouth of the valley. Pilot didn't see it and we got a heat-seeker right up our tailpipe. Now at least half the marines are dead, and the damn siege tank ain't here yet neither."

"Emillian?" asked Arcturus. "Where's the captain?"

"Captain's out of the fight, sir," said Yancy Gray, across the gully from Arcturus. "I think her back's broken."

Private Gray's words had focused Arcturus's thoughts, and he pulled himself to his feet using a nearby rock for support. He had to get everyone together and figure out what to do next. Looking over at Emillian's supine form, Arcturus saw that Yancy was dead right: Emillian wasn't going to be joining this fight.

Her armor would keep her alive for a while, but her legs and spine were bent into shapes they weren't designed to make, and Arcturus knew she wouldn't last long if they didn't get her to a medical station.

Twenty meters back down the valley, the gutted hulk of the dropship lay scattered in a mangled pile of fire-blackened steel. The pilot had tried his best to soften their landing, but there was only so much you could do with your engines taken out by an explosion and the nearest piece of flat ground a hundred kilometers away. Thick, billowing clouds of smoke belched from the wrecked craft and the fire crackled and popped as it devoured ammo packs and stim dispensers.

Arcturus had done a quick head count, and found that eleven of the marines who'd accompanied them on the dropship were dead and another eight were too badly injured to fight. Three of the firebats were also dead, immolated by their own weapons when they'd cooked off In the fire of the crash.

That left eleven of Emillian's resoced marines and two firebats to fight alongside Dominion section. No sooner had Arcturus got everyone together than a burst of gunfire ripped down from the rocks above.

"Cover!" he shouted, though the order was unnecessary. High-pitched pings of metal on rock echoed deafeningly, like an endless box of nails being emptied onto hard stone from a great height.

Breathing heavily, Arcturus risked a glance mil of cover when the fire slackened fractionally, and saw a whole lot of shooters on the rocks above. He guessed about twenty men in body armor, helmets, and tough-wearing outdoor gear.

Certainly not soldiers, but more likely mercenaries or a pirate band hired by the miners.

Arcturus stuck his rifle around the rock and pulled the trigger, not really aiming, but just wanting to return fire. The armor easily absorbed the recoil, and though his shots went well wide, he fell better for shooting back.

Dominion section hugged the rocks, looking up with expressions ranging from the beginnings of panic to relish. More spikes sprayed down at them and Arcturus watched as a concentrated volley tore up one of the injured marines.

The man appeared to jerk as though being electrocuted. His armor was proof against most small-arms fire, but a whole lot of Impaler rifles firing in sync had torn through the weakened portions of his plate.

Whomever these miners had hired to defend them knew their trade.

More shots ricocheted down from above, pinning them in the rocks below their objective, and Arcturus saw they had only two options. They could either retreat, skulking back to the valley mouth, or continue with their mission into the teeth of the gunfire.

Retreat was not an option that appealed to Arcturus, not when so many men were dead, but neither did he want to rush to a glorious death in the face of an unknown number of gunmen.

From his earlier glance, he'd seen that the bulk of the men ahead were lurking behind jagged outcrops of rock in a narrow defile amid a tangle of wiry brush. Above them, the rocks were a vivid white, as though bleached by the sun.

As one group fired, another reloaded. Between them, they kept a near-constant stream of Impaler spikes rattling and chiming from the rocks around Dominion section.

In the quick glance he'd had, Arcturus saw that the valley narrowed as it neared the gunmen. The ground before their attackers was a sharply inclined, open killing ground that would be close to suicide to charge up, but the rocky walls to either side of where the marines were pinned could be climbed with only a little effort. About four meters above, the ground appeared to become flatter, rocky, and strewn with stunted trees and scattered piles of boulders.

Ideal cover from which to flank their attackers.

Arcturus turned and opened a link to the firebats.

The two surviving firebats were hunched in cover, their hulking suits of crimson armor heavily dented and scarred from the crash, but their Perdition flamethrowers appeared to be in full working order.

"This is Lieutenant Mengsk," he said. "Identify yourselves."

"Private Eugene Malik," came the first reply.

"Private Harper Utley," said the second firebat.

"Malik, Utley. I'm going to need you two to go straight up the middle and give me a screen of fire. When I give the word, head toward the rocks the shooters are using as cover and put a wall of fire between them and us. You understand?"

"Sir, yes, sir!" they replied in unison, and hissing blue cones of heal ignited from the weapon systems fixed to their gauntlets.

Satisfied the firebats understood their task, Arcturus then spoke to the resoced marines who had survived the crash and were still fit to fight. He pointed to the nearest marines and said. "You two stay with the wounded. The rest of you, I want you supporting Malik and Utley. I want a stream of Impalers keeping those bastards' heads down. Got that?"

Nodding heads and snapped salutes assured him they understood, and Arcturus returned his attention to his own soldiers as a ricocheting Impaler spike thudded into his shoulder guard.

"What's the plan, LT?" shouted Dia de Santo as Arcturus brushed the spike from his armor as though it were a piece of lint on his best suit.

"We're going to take out those gunmen and push on," said Arcturus.

"Sir, that's crazy!" cried Chuck Horner. "We ain't got a damn clue how many more of them are walling for us up there!"

Arcturus shook his head, jabbing his fist at the marines of Dominion section. "We're going and that's an order. When the firebats and what's left of Emillian's marines make their move, I want Horner, Mercurio and Yancy up and over the rocks on the right. The rest of you with me on the left."

He could see the fear and doubt on their faces, and said. "Listen, soldiers! There's probably more of them moving around our flank already to cut us off."

Given the terrain and the fact that they were pinned down quite neatly here, that probably wasn't true but it didn't hurt to put the fear of it into thorn.

"Either we go forward and take this fight to them or we get cut to pieces like rookie,” shouted Arcturus. "We're Dominion section and we kill anyone who gets in our way."

Chun Leung hefted Mayumi and slammed in a fresh clip.

“Now you re talkin' my language!' he said.

CHAPTER 8

BLAZING PLUMES OF LIQUID FIRE ROARED UP THE valley as Privates Malik and Utley broke from cover. The two red-armored warriors crunched forward, flaming sheets spraying the rocks and brush of the valley ahead. Arcturus could feel the backwash of heat from their flamethrowers through his armor. Impaler spikes hammered the two firebats, but their armor was thicker and heavier than that of an ordinary marine and the two privates pushed on in the face of the gunfire.

The brush around the enemy gunmen went up instantly, crackling and burning with furious glee.

"Go!" shouted Arcturus, scrambling up the rocky slope beside him. Chun Leung and Dia de Santo followed him, their rifles tucked in close to their chests.

More rattling gunfire blazed from below as Emillian's marines followed the firebats, shooting from the hip as they advanced. One marine was cut down the instant he left covert a hall of razor-tipped spikes splintering his visor and blowing out the back of his helmet.

The others didn't falter and advanced into the teeth of the fusillade.

Arcturus clawed at the rocks, pulling himself up with powerful surges. His armor enhanced his strength and he was able to haul himself over the lip of the canyon walls wilhout difficulty.

He rolled onto his side and brought his gauss rifle up, glancing across to see Yancy, Chuck, and Toby pulling themselves over the rocks and into cover. Below him, the firebats continued to pour flaming gouts of superheated liquid at their foes. One of them—Arcturus didn't know which—was limping badly, his leg armor mangled by gunfire above the knee and blood sheeting down his thigh.

Several other marines were down, but the mercenaries' attention was fixated on the advancing warriors and they hadn't noticed the other inbound enemies. Arcturus opened a link to Dominion section and said. "Get moving, everyone. Fast and low."

"You got it, LT," said Chuck Horner, leading Yancy and Mercurio off. Arcturus nodded to himself. Horner had real potential, naturally assuming command of his small section, and Arcturus made a mental note to see about developing his skills if they survived this encounter.

"Chun, Dia," he said, "let's go."

Arcturus led them off, scuttling forward, hunched over as much as his armor would allow, and keeping to the cover of the rocks. His heart was hammering in his chest as he ran, fully expecting a burst of Impaler spikes to rake him and his soldiers at any moment. Arcturus could hear a near-continual roar of gunfire, screams, and explosions from the canyon and knew the men he'd sent forward were still fighting.

An angry orange fireball mushroomed from below, signaling the death of one of the firebats, followed moments later by a second explosion. The reek of flamethrower fuel filled the air and Arcturus heard more screams of dying soldiers.

Just ahead, he could see a splash of white and recognized the rocks above where their ambushers were fighting. He grinned with feral anticipation, terrified yet exhilarated at the same time.

Arcturus dropped to one knee and jabbed a fist at the while rocks.

"Take up position either side of me," he said. "We get to those rocks and unleash everything we've got."

De Santo and Leung nodded, and Arcturus could see the same relish on their faces he figured they could see on his.

"Let's do this,"" hissed Chun Leung, palling Mayumi's gleaming barrel.

"You got it, Big Dog," replied de Santo, punching knuckles with Leung.

"Let's go," said Arcturus.

He ran over to the rocks, bracing his foot against a low boulder, and looked down into the canyon as de Santo and Leung took up position. Below them was a scene straight from hell, the valley floor aflame and littered with blackened bodies. A few fallen mercenaries screamed and clutched bloody wounds, but Arcturus didn't care about their pain. These men had tried to kill him and his marines, and that made them less than nothing in his eyes.

As he'd suspected, both firebats were dead, as were about half of Emillian's resoced marines, but they had done their job: keeping the mercenaries' attention firmly fixed on them while Dominion section moved around the flank.

Across the canyon, Arcturus saw Horner, Yancy, and Mercurio rise from the rocks and aim their weapons at the enemy below. A few of the mercenaries looked up as Dominion section appeared above them, and Arcturus relished their look of panic.

"Fire!" shouted Arcturus.

Withering sprays of Impaler spikes ripped through the mercenaries, their lighter body armor no match for close-range gauss fire. Arcturus worked his rifle over the men below him, bloody eruptions fountaining where his spikes blew open skulls or tore limbs from bodies.

Caught in the crossfire, the mercenaries had no chance.

They danced in the vicious bursts of gunfire, trapped in the open and unable to fight back. The echoes of rifles were deafening as they filled the narrow defile in the canyon with screaming hot spikes. A few of the mercenaries managed to bring their weapons to bear, but it was too little too late and they were cut down without mercy.

Realizing that to fight on was hopeless, one man threw down his rifle and held up his hands in surrender.

Arcturus cut him in two with a sustained burst of fire.

It was over in a few seconds, and the canyon was suddenly quiet as the marines of Dominion section ceased firing. Acrid smoke drifted from the heated barrels of their guns as they looked at each other in disbelief—shocked at the carnage they'd caused, but elated to have survived and won their first firefight.

"Good job, everyone," said Arcturus, his heart rate only now beginning to return to normal after the thrill of killing these men. The canyon floor resembled an abattoir, shredded flesh and blood mingling in thick, viscous puddles that were already congealing into sticky pools in the heat.

"Man, we killed those SOBs good!" shouted Yancy, his rifle held triumphantly above his head. Chuck Horner sketched Arcturus a salute and even Toby Mercurio looked pleased for once. Beside him, Dia de Santo and Chun Leung butted helmets and he felt them slap the shoulder guards of his armor in triumph.

"You did it, LT!" cried de Santo. "We killed the whole damn lot of them!"

"That we did," agreed Arcturus, only now beginning to appreciate the slaughter he had orchestrated.

He knew that some men experienced a great and terrible guilt over killing other human beings. But as he looked at the ripped-open sacks of meal and bone that had, only minutes before, been living, breathing human beings, he felt nothing for them.

Nothing at all.

Arcturus looked up at the miners' encampment through the optical viewfinders, seeking any sign of weapons technology like the missile turret that had downed their dropship. Sure enough, another pair of turrets with sweeping dishes, not dissimilar to those they'd left behind at Camp Juno, were placed at the forefront of the encampment.

The mining complex was a well-organized collection of modular constructions built on an artificially created plateau at the mouth of a great scar in the mountainside that resembled the lair of some prehistoric monster. The edge of the plateau had been built up into a defended ridge, with sandbagged foxholes and concrete bunkers.

A pair of goliath combat walkers plodded back and forth behind the barricades on their reverse-jointed legs, the rotary cannons on their weapon arms spooling up and the missile systems above the pilot's canopy trained on the sky. Arcturus wasn't too concerned with the goliaths—they were primarily used to engage airborne targets, though the power of their guns wasn't to be sniffed at if you were a grunt on the ground.

In any case, he had just the thing to fight goliaths.

He smiled as he saw the panicked miners and their mercenaries running back and forth, terrified at the sight that had just come into view on the rutted road that led to the main gate of the mine complex.

The siege tank had finally rumbled into the bloody canyon thirty minutes after the conclusion of the fighting. Since the battle's end, Dominion section had been securing the weapons and ammo of the fallen marines and gathering up the dead.

Of the marines who had charged in the wake of the firebats, only five were left alive, the rest arranged in neat rows alongside the eight wounded and those who had perished in the crash. The bodies of the mercenaries were dragged to the side of the canyon and their weapons taken, but were otherwise ignored.

An evac bird was called in to take Captain Emillian and the wounded back to Camp Juno. Once Arcturus received confirmation that it had been dispatched, he and Dominion section, together with the five resoced marines, rode the tank farther up the valley.

After all, they had a job to finish.

"Oh yeah!" shouted Yancy Gray, standing on the tank's frontal glacis and balancing himself by holding on to its enormous cannon. "Not so cocky now, are ya? Not so tough when you see we got ourselves a tank. Yeah!"

The siege tank had the range to engage the miners' camp from where they sat now, its main gun more than capable of pounding the camp to smoldering ruin without fear of reprisal.

But Arcturus didn't want to destroy the mining facility if he could avoid it, not if there was a chance it could be taken and put to use.

"Shut up, Yancy," said Arcturus, handing the optical viewers to Toby Mercurio and removing his helmet. He deposited the helmet on the tank's track guard and dropped down to the ground. "Chuck.,Dla. You're with me. Shoulder those weapons, and make sure they're safed."

Horner and de Santo dropped to the hard-packed ground as Arcturus marched uphill along the road toward the mining complex, his rifle hanging by its sling from his shoulder. After the frenetic carnage of the battle, this was almost peaceful. The road to the mine was relatively shielded from the fierce winds that swept the lowest reaches of the mountains.

Arcturus watched as a group of five men emerged from the complex above. Three were armed—more mercenaries presumably—while the two others had the weathered, permanently dirty texture of dyed-in-the-wool prospectors.

"LT, what you got in mind?" asked Chuck Horner.

"Yeah, I was kinda wandering that too," said de Santo.

"We're going to talk to them," said Arcturus. "And ask them to surrender."

"Surrender?" said Horner. "I gotta say, LT, they don't look like the surrendering kind."

"You leave that to me, Charles."

The two groups met at a bend in the road, some two hundred meters from the camp's gate, and Arcturus felt the hostility of the miners like a blow. One man was short and thickset, his flesh leathery and pitted from a life n hostile environments. The other was similarly squat, but his eyes had a wary quality to them that told Arcturus he wasn't going to be the one doing the talking.

The mercenaries kept back, though they made a point of showing that they were more than ready to use their weapons.

Before Arcturus could even open his mouth, the first man thrust out a sheaf of grubby, oil-stained papers and said. "This ain't your property, Confed. We own this claim fair and square. Go tell your bosses that we got the paperwork and everything. Y'unnerstand me?"

Arcturus nodded politely and said. "My name is Lieutenant Arcturus Mengsk of the Confederate Marine Corps. Am I speaking with the head of this facility?"

The man with the papers looked at him suspiciously and said. "Yeah, I guess you are."

"And you are?"

"Lemuel Baden—not that it makes a damn bit of difference. We ain't got nothin' to say to each other."

"I beg to differ," said Arcturus. "That's not entirely correct. I have a siege tank that says we have one very important matter to discuss."

"Yeah? What's that then?"

"Your immediate surrender and relocation to another planet."

Baden snorted with what Arcturus assumed was laughter. "Surrender? Hell, you got some nerve, boy. What are you anyway, twenty? Twenty-one?"

"Nineteen, actually."

This time both prospectors laughed.

"Go home, boy," snapped Baden. "I ain't gonna surrender. Leastways not to a kid that don't even need to shave."

"Oh, I think you'll surrender," said Arcturus. "In fact I'm sure of it."

"And why's that?”

"Because I have a siege tank and if you don’t surrender. I'll blow this place to hell."

"Don't make me laugh," sneered Baden. "You wouldn't dare."

"Try me," said Arcturus, meeting Baden's hostile stare with one of his own.

Arcturus saw beads of sweat gathering at the miner's temples. He could see courage in Baden's eyes, but also the wariness of not being able to read the young soldier standing before him.

"Right now you're trying to work out if I'm bluffing," said Arcturus. "I can assure you that I am not. I never bluff. If I walk away from this parley without your surrender, you everyone within your compound will be dead inside of ten minutes. I guaranlee it".

"Then maybe we oughta just kill you now," snapped Baden.

"You could, but then my men would kill you and everyone would die regardless," replied Arcturus. "So you see, you really have only one option."

Baden's eyes flicked to his companion, who said. "You goddamn Confeds can't keep doing this to us! This here mine's ours and we ain't gonna let you take it from us."

Arcturus ignored the man's outburst, knowing that Baden was the only man worth talking to in this exchange.

"Easy, Bill, leave this to me," said Baden. The miner looked back lo Arcturus. "Gimme twenty minutes to talk to my people?"

"Of course," said Arcturus. "But if I do not have your surrender after that, you're going to see exactly how powerful that tank is. And trust me, you don't want that."

Baden nodded, then stomped back to the mine complex with his companions without another word. Arcturus watched them go and turned on his heel, marching back down the road to where his marines and the siege tank awaited.

Arcturus banged on the tank's side when he finally reached it. "Stand down the gun."

"You were bluffing?" asked Dia de Santo.

"No," said Arcturus. "As I told Baden, I never bluff. I already know he's going to surrender."

"You sure?" asked Chuck Horner. "He looked like a stubborn mule, that one."

Arcturus nodded. "Indeed. But he isn't stupid."

"Sir?" said de Santo.

"He knows I'll destroy the mine and kill everyone there if he doesn't surrender." explained Arcturus.

Chuck Horner looked askance at Arcturus. "You ain't kidding, are you?"

"No," said Arcturus. "I'm not. And Lemuel Baden knows that."

The infirmary building of Camp Juno was a sterile, antiseptic place in every sense of the word. Its prefabricated walls were gleaming while and faced with ceramic tiles that reflected the unflattering lights strung from the green-painted girders that farmed the roof vault. Its structure resembled a fat tube split down its length and dropped onto the ground.

Pods of beds were spread throughout the open space, with ceiling-mounted extractors trying—and falling—to circulate the stagnant air and diminish the tang of disinfectant. Medics made their rounds of the injured, checking machine readings and administering pain meds, while marines stripped out of their armor and wearing fatigues visited those comrades who weren't too sedated.

Arcturus had expected the infirmary to be noisy, but it was instead subdued, filled with the quiet noise of professionals working hard and a background machine hum. The atmosphere was calm by virtue of the fact that the majority of the wounded marines hen were kept heavily sedated, since many of them were resoced. Numerous studies had shown that extreme trauma could have a negative impact on the strength of the neural reprogramming implanted over a subject's original memories, and no one was taking any chances that these marines might relapse to their previous, murderous personalities.

Having heard the lurid details of some of the more outrageous crimes committed by these marines prior to having acceptable behavioral patterns stamped on their brains, Arcturus was pleased to see such precautions in place.

He spoiled Captain Emillian lying in a bed pod she shared with three other wounded soldiers—two men and another woman—and made his way over to her.

Emillian smiled as she saw Arcturus approaching, then grimaced as she tried to sit up, the framework of silver steel encasing her pelvis and legs making even that simple act awkwardly painful. The swelling around her eyes and jaw had begun to come down and her bruises had turned an attractive shade of puce. Opposite the scar Emillian had received on Chau Sara was another angry red line of sutures.

Each of the patterns in the pod was hooked up to drips and monitored by complicated banks of boxy machinery, and Arcturus carefully negotiated his way through a tangle of wires to get to Emillian's bed.

"Good morning, Captain," said Arcturus.

"Morning, Lieutenant," replied Emillian as Arcturus took a seat next to her bed. placing a portable console at her feet. "You're looking well."

"Sure," said Emillian. "I look like crap. Nobody will give me a mirror. What does that tell you?"

"That even when you are nearly killed, you're still incredibly vain?"

"Watch it, buster," said Emillian. "I may be off my feet, but I'm still your superior officer."

Arcturus raised his hands in mock surrender. "Point taken." he said.

"I hear the rest of the op went well."

"Yes," agreed Arcturus. "We got to the Turanga facility and took it without a shot being fired. Apart from the ones in the canyon after we were blown out of the sky."

Emillian's face darkened at the mention of the crash.

"I don't remember anything of that," she said. "They tell me I smashed my head on a stanchion and broke my helmet open. Damn near crushed my skull."

"You were lucky," said Arcturus.

"Yeah, so everyone keeps telling me."

"At least now you have a matching scar," pointed out Arcturus.

"Gee, that's a comfort."

"Sorry."

"So tell me about the rest of the mission," said Emillian. "I got the gist of it from one of the few of my marines you deigned to bring back alive, but they aren't great with the storytelling, you know?"

"To be honest, there isn't much else to tell."

"When someone says 'to be honest' that usually means they're lying."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Arcturus. "But you probably already know the rest. Lemuel Baden came out after his twenty minutes were up and said his people would be leaving. They deactivated their reactor and powered down the turrets, and I arranged for a pair of dropships to escort them back here for a debriefing before they're shipped off world. We secured the complex, and there's a Kusinis mining team swarming over it already. Which I'd like permission to supervise, Captain."

"Still dreaming of being a prospector, eh?"

"Absolutely," said Arcturus.

"So how'd you convince Baden to bring his people out?"

"Simple. I told him I'd level the place with the siege tank."

"That's it?"

"Yes," said Arcturus. "I was very convincing."

"Would you have opened fire if they hadn't come out?"

"Of course," said Arcturus without hesitation. "What's the point of making a threat if you're not willing to back it up?"

"That would have been a very expensive decision, Lieutenant," said Emillian. "A lot of people with higher pay grades than us were very clear that they wanted that place intact."

"And they have it. Baden knew I was serious, and he didn't want to die. It's that simple."

Emillian shook her head. "No, Mengsk, it's not that simple."

"It's not?"

"No. Remember, I've read your file and I know all about you," said Emillian. "I know that you mean what you say, but you don't always say what you think. You keep almost everything of what goes on inside you close to your chest, and you don't let anyone see what you're thinking unless you want them to. And right then, you wanted Baden to know what you were thinking."

"I suppose so," agreed Arcturus. "It worked, didn't it?"

"That it did," said Emillian. "And just for that I might forgive you for getting most of my soldiers killed or maimed in that canyon."

"It was a textbook maneuver," said Arcturus. "One element kept the enemy's attention fixed while others flanked them."

"Almost textbook. Because the guys providing the distraction for the flankers aren't supposed to get killed. Suppression fire? You ever hear of it?"

"I have, but there wasn't any other way to be sure the mercenaries' attention would be firmly fixed to their front."

"Well, you sure as hell managed that," said Emillian, flicking her hair back from her face and reaching for a cup of water beside her bed. She grunted painfully, and Arcturus swiftly moved to lift the cup into her hand.

"Thanks," said Emillian. "Now tell me why you're really here."

"Excuse me?"

"Come on, you didn't come here just to inspect my latest scar, did you?"

Arcturus shrugged, then realized there was no point in beating about the bush. Emillian had read the truth off him, either in his body language or simply via the instincts of a senior officer.

"There was one thing I wanted to discuss with you, yes...” began Arcturus.

"Come on, spit it out," said Emillian. "You think I've got nothing better to do than sit here listening to you? There's hot Confederate doctors working these wards, and a girl's got to think of when she musters out..."

Arcturus smiled. "And now you're using humor to try and put me at my ease."

"Jeez, way to overanalyze," muttered Emillian. "Pain meds must be kicking in; I'm normally more subtle than that. Okay, so what is it?"

Arcturus lifted the portable console from the foot of her bed and activated it with a touch. A green glow spread over the screen, followed by the insignia of the Marine Corps.

"I observed Lemuel Baden's debriefing," said Arcturus.

"Who was doing the debrief?"

"Captain Graves flew in from Camp Larson to conduct it."

"He's a good man," said Emillian. "Gets the job done quickly and he gets results."

"Well, Baden's debrief was certainly over very quickly. However, whether it could be said that the job was done satisfactorily is another matter."

"What do you mean?"

"Lemuel said the mine legally belonged to him and the other miners, that their claim predated any Confederate interest in Sonyan. He had papers, but it seems they've been confiscated and, wouldn't you know it, no one can find them now."

Emillian shrugged. "Marine Corps admin snafu. Happens all the time."

"I'm sure," said Arcturus dryly, turning the console around for Emillian to see. "The point is, I checked with the Kel-Morian registration database and I found claim dockets for Turanga Canyon registered to one Lemuel Baden of Tarsonis from six years ago."

"What's your point?"

"The first Confederacy ship to make planetfall on Sonyan was the Jonestown in '77."

Emillian crossed her arms. "I see. And you think it matters that they were here first?"

"Doesn't it? If his claim to the mine is legal then haven't we just stolen it from him?"

"You secure that crap, soldier," snapped Emillian. "And don't let me hear you repeat it. Lemuel Baden is part of the Kel-Morian Combine, a bunch of good-for-nothing crooks and pirates. Hell, most of their prospectors are wanted criminals anyway."

"That's a bit of a generalization, surely?"

"Is it? Listen, Mengsk, the core worlds depend on the minerals and fuels extracted from mines like this, so do you really want us to be beholden to Kel-Morian criminals? Sonyan is part of the Confederacy now, and anything on it belongs to the Confederacy. And the Marine Corps will fight to protect our way of life. You got that"

"Yes, but how—"

"But nothing, Lieutenant," said Emillian, leaning forward and keeping her voice level. "If you want to survive in the military, you're going to have to stop acting like some damn Boy Scout. In the Marines you follow the orders you're given. And that's it. Period. You go slicking your nose in places it don't belong and you're liable to get it bitten off. That's what being in the Marines is all about, Mengsk. Orders. We start deciding the orders we want to obey and the ones we don't and you know what you get? Anarchy. And I'm not going to allow that in the 33rd."

Anger touched Arcturus and he said. "Sounds like you want everyone to be like one of your resoced marines. Wasn't that exactly why you brought Dominion section in, because we weren't mindless automatons? Because we could think for ourselves?"

"I brought you in because I need good officers I can trust to follow orders," said Emillian. "I thought you would understand that, Mengsk, but maybe I was wrong. So, you think you're some kind of rebel like your father? Is that it?"

"What does my father have to do with anything?"

"I've watched the UNN," said Emillian. "I've seen your father speaking out against the Confederacy and stirring up trouble on Korhal. Are you like him, looking for trouble when there's no need to?"

"I'm nothing like my father," said Arcturus.

"Yeah? Sure could have fooled me," said Emillian, pointing toward Arcturus's console.

"I'm nothing like my father," repeated Arcturus, more forcefully this time. “He's an embarrassment, stirring up trouble when there's no need for it."

"Just like you're doing here," said Emillian.

Her tone softened, and she sat back. "Look. I'm not trying to rain on your parade, Mengsk, but, trust me, this isn't an avenue you want to go down. The Marine Corps is a machine and we're all just cogs in that machine. You start messing with that and either the machine chews you up and spits you out or it breaks down. You can get yourself spat out if you want, but I'm not going to allow our pan of the machine to break down. It'll be my ass in a sling with Commander Fole if you start pissing off the brass with damn fool questions. You get me?"

"I get you," said Arcturus. "And you're right. I'll stop asking questions."

"Good," said Emillian, searching his face for any sign he was soft-soaping her.

Arcturus knew his captain was good at reading people, but she was dead right when she said that he didn't let anyone see what was going on below the surface. He kept his face utterly blank now, and she relaxed, satisfied she'd quashed his nascent doubts.

"Okay," she said. "Now go enjoy your leave, Mengsk. Go home, relax with the family, eat good food, get drunk, or get laid. I don't care. Just come back with your head in the game. Are we clear?"

"Yes," Arcturus nodded. "We're clear."

"Good, now get out of here, soldier. I need to get some sleep."

Arcturus nodded and pushed back the chair as he stood. He saluted Emillian and picked his way through the tangle of cables and wires from the bedside monitors.

As he turned away from Emillian, she asked. "You got any kids, Mengsk?"

Arcturus shook his head. "You know I don't."

"Just as well, eh?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"With your family, just imagine what they'd turn out like."

CHAPTER 9

ARCTURUS STEPPED FROM THE GROUNDCAR, A gleaming '79 cobalt blue Terra Zephyr, adjusting the collar of his dress uniform as he did so. He wasn't particularly interested in motor vehicles beyond their ability to get him from point A to point B, but even he had to admit that the Zephyr was a fine piece of machinery, with smooth, graceful lines, a plush leather interior, and an engine that purred like a contented feline.

He turned and offered his hand to Juliana Pasteur, who accepted his gracious gesture and emerged from the groundcar with effortless elegance.

The two years since Arcturus had seen Juliana had been good to her and she had blossomed from a pretty young girl into a beautiful woman. Now eighteen, she had filled out in all the right places and carried herself with a confidence and poise that most other women could only dream of.

Dressed In a simple, backless black dress and tasteful jewelry that matched her eyes, Juliana turned heads as she took Arcturus's arm. The night was balmy and warm, with a salt-tinged breeze blowing in off the ocean, and Juliana wrapped a sheer pashmina around her shoulders as they set off along the tree-lined Cepheid Boulevard toward the restaurant.

Behind them, following al a discreet distance, were two slab-shouldered men in gray suits: Umojan security personnel who accompanied Juliana whenever she traveled off world. Arcturus could sense their dislike of him, or at least what his uniform represented, but wasn't surprised by it. The Confederacy had forever been trying to coerce Umoja into its embrace, but the Umojans were a fiercely independent people and had steadfastly refused to join with the government of Tarsonis.

Cepheid Boulevard was a pedestrianized walkway in the heart of the recreational district of Elsecaro, one of Tyrador IX's most exclusive resort cities, and thus they had to make the rest of the journey on foot. Arcturus didn't mind, for it gave him a chance to bask in the cinnamon-scented air and enjoy the fact that he wasn't being shot at.

Tyrador IX was one of the later colony worlds, a planet that co-orbited its sister world of Tyrador VIII. Ever since its colonization it had been a popular tourist destination, thanks to its distance from the bustle of Tarsonis and its unique ecology.

The orbital dance performed by the two outermost planets in the Tyrador system had blessed Tyrador IX with an incredible variety of ecosystems and climates. A journey of only a few kilometers could result in a huge change in temperature, humidity, or terrain, which allowed the enterprising colonists to create a wonderland where almost any form of paradise could be replicated.

Ski resorts sat cheek by jowl with jungles and rugged coastal towns, where intrepid holidaymakers could dive in the emerald waters to see the playful Tyradorian narwhal. Achingly beautiful deserts sprawled in the lee of soaring, snowcapped peaks where the rich and famous lived in mountaintop villas accessible only by orbital flyers.

Many of the Old Families kept private enclaves on Tyrador IX, estates where they could enjoy whatever holiday they desired. Rumor had it that it was often a hideaway for family shames, and salacious gossip had many an errant scion sent here, far from Tarsonis and investigative reporters.

Arcturus cared nothing for such things, content just to relax and enjoy his leave far from thoughts of killing. He'd arrived on Tyrador IX that morning and would be heading onward to Korhal in the next day or so. A week later and he'd have to return to his unit, so he wasn't going to waste time thinking about combat suits, C-14 gauss rifles, or blood and death until he had to.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" said Juliana, threading her arm through his and looking up at the fabulous buildings on either side of them.

Arcturus smiled. "Yes. Certainly an improvement on what I'm used to. SCVs might be an efficient way to build things, but they do tend toward a uniformity of architecture."

"I love it," said Juliana. "There's no two alike."

That was certainly true. The boulevard was paved with irregularly patterned bricks and the structures around them had a rustic charm and individuality that was sadly lacking on the core worlds. They passed wooden-fronted shops selling tourist junk alongside ad hoc art galleries of local painters and delicatessens serving food from all across the sector.

Eateries and bars of all descriptions vied for their attention and the wafting aroma of a dozen different cuisines blended together in a mouthwatering smorgasbord of sensation. Having lived on mess hall slop for so long, Arcturus suddenly realized how much he missed proper food.

Silken lamps hung from ironwork posts and fiber-optic lines of multicolored lights were looped through the branches of trees, giving the boulevard a pleasingly festive air. People thronged the streets, men and women of obvious breeding and wealth. Arcturus saw that many of these faces had a strange, and slightly unsettling, uniformity to them, and guessed that most had been sculpted with augmetic surgery or gene therapy.

Street entertainers amused passersby with musk, puppet shows, and conjuring tricks, and the sound of laughter drifted on the breeze.

Farther along the street, Arcturus saw a group of soldiers drinking outside a rough-and ready bar, their cries for drinks and wolf whistles at passing women out of character with the rest of the boulevard. They spotted Arcturus and. almost immediately, the volume of their shouts diminished.

Arcturus nodded respectfully to the soldiers, their uniform insignias marking them as privates and low-ranked NCOs. One of the soldiers, a young boy who looked barely old enough to be in uniform, stood and saluted Arcturus as he passed.

"Evening, Lieutenant. Evening, miss," said the boy, and Arcturus could smell the alcohol on his breath from several feet away.

"Evening, soldier," replied Arcturus, returning the salute and stopping beside the bar. None of these men would be resoced, and thus iy would be bad form not to pass a few words with them, though it wouldn't do to be overly familiar with them.

"What's your name, son?" he asked.

"Private Shaw, sir, 57th Marine Combat Engineers, sir."

"Are you men behaving yourselves?" asked Arcturus with a broad smile. "Upholding the fine tradition of the Corps?"

"Sir, yes, sir!" cried the soldiers, raising their drinks.

"Good work, men," said Arcturus. "Carry on. And behave yourselves."

"Absolutely, sir," said Private Shaw. "Don't you worry about us, sir."

"It isn't you I'm worried about," said Arcturus. "It's the local women I'm thinking of."

The soldiers laughed and Arcturus saluted once more before turning away and continuing onward with Juliana. The noise of the soldiers swelled as Juliana squeezed his arm.

"You look very smart in your uniform," said Juliana. "It suits you."

Arcturus smiled. He did look good in uniform. Two years of military service had put meat on his bones and muscle on his limbs. His features had hardened, and he carried himself with a confidence he'd certainly possessed as a young man, but which he now wore like a second skin.

"Thank you, Juliana. I've already told you that you look beautiful tonight, but you can never compliment a lady too much, can you?"

"Certainly not," agreed Juliana. "It's been two years since I've seen you, Arcturus, and I wanted to make an impression."

"You certainly succeeded," said Arcturus, looking around him. "Certainly every man with a pulse seems to think so."

She smiled and said. "Well, if I'm turning heads, I'm not the only one. You're getting your fair share of attention too, you know."

Arcturus had noticed that he was attracting smiles from some of the women—and even a few men—promenading the boulevard, but had modestly chosen not to mention it. Some were plainly lustful, but most were simply nods of respect for his service in the military.

"Well, they do say that women love a man in uniform."

"It's true," said Juliana in a playfully meek-sounding voice. "We are a weak species and are easily undone by the subtle wiles of men."

If only you knew, thought Arcturus.

The restaurant itself was a curious mix of fringe world kitsch and core world chic, and Arcturus couldn't make up his mind whether he loathed it or thought it charming. Juliana made the decision for him when she laughed at the sight of it and clapped her hands, declaring it wonderfully "authentic."

The floor was wooden, scuffed and discolored from the tread of thousands of diners, and the air was smoky with rich, homely smells. Perhaps a hundred people filled the restaurant and the animated buzz of conversation provided a pleasing backdrop.

They were seated without fuss in a cozy booth screened from the tables on either side by wooden dividers pierced by stained glass panels. The seats were comfortable, and they ordered their food from a pretty waitress who seemed genuinely pleased to serve them.

They made small talk for a while, Juliana regaling him with tales of her final year at the Umoja Institute and her new life as a budding lawyer. She had begun working as a paralegal with a firm that specialized in stellar shipping laws, and she hoped to gain her full qualifications within a couple of years at most.

Both Juliana and her father were still making regular trips to Korhal to see Arcturus's father, but, sensing that such a topic would not be conducive to an enjoyable evening, she wisely kept her talk of Korhal light.

In turn, Arcturus spoke to her of his life in the Marines, telling her of his tour on Pridewater and the battle of Turanga Canyon, though he spared her the goriest details and omitted his lack of empathy at the deaths he'd caused.

Some things weren't meant for the dinner table.

The food arrived promptly and Arcturus was mildly surprised to find that it was excellent. He had ordered a dish of andouille sausage and shrimp with spicy mustard sauce, while Juliana had decided upon a creamy polenta with a mushroom and sausage ragout. They shared mouthfuls of each other's dinner and drank wine poured from a carafe of translucent blue glass.

As they ate, they flirted outrageously, Arcturus blending just the right amount of compliments and self-deprecating humor to keep Juliana smiling, and she frequently reaching over the table to take his hand or brush his arm.

The conversation flowed naturally and effortlessly, and without even realizing it Arcturus found that he was genuinely enjoying himself.

Juliana took a drink of wine and said. "So do you like being a soldier?"

The question surprised Arcturus, for it was apropos of nothing and he had been careful to keep his depiction of day-to-day life in the military as neutral as possible.

"I suppose so," he said. "I think I enjoy more aspects of it than I don't. As long as you do what you're told, it's not so bad."

"I can't picture you liking that," remarked Juliana.

"I don't have a problem with authority, per se," explained Arcturus. "I have a problem when I think the person giving me an order is an idiot. I suppose the Marine Corps is like any other organization, with good people and bad people in its hierarchy. The trouble is that in the Marine Corps the bad ones might get me killed."

"Don't say that," warned Juliana. "It's not good to tempt fate."

Arcturus chuckled dismissively. "Fate? I don't believe in fate. A person makes his own decisions and has to live with the consequences. Logic and order are what determine the shape of our lives, not fate. Anyway, now that I've seen some real combat, it won't be long before I get a promotion and move farther away from the front line."

"I told you so, didn't I?" Juliana said, laughing. "I told you that you'd be a general soon."

"Well, you said six months, but I think it might take a little longer than that."

"Pedant," pouted Juliana.

"Sorry."

"And are you learning about mine-workings? Prospecting and stuff like that?"

Arcturus shrugged. "So far only by taking them by force from other mining outfits, which seems to be the way of things on the rim territories. The Intelligence Division—an oxymoron if ever there was one—sends in a scout recon force on a given planet to find out what's being mined, who's mining it, and who they're affiliated with. Then the data-hounds scour the networks to try and find a legal loophole or a criminal record that they can use to justify sending in a force of gun-toting marines to bully the miners away."

"That's terrible," said Juliana, shaking her head. "And the Tarsonis Council wonders why Umoja won't make an alliance with them."

"It's not so bad, though. I've supervised a number of Confederate-affiliated mining outfits when they go in to take over, and I've learned a lot from that. Or at least, I've learned a lot of how not to run a working mine."

"But the Confederacy is stealing those claims," pointed out Juliana. "My father says that the Council is gelling greedier every year, that pretty soon they won't even bother coming up with spurious justifications for their thefts. He says eventually they'll just take what they want by force, and soon there won't be anyone to stop them."

"That sounds like my father talking."

"Yes, well, he might be right, you know...." said Juliana hesitantly, knowing that she was risking an angry exchange by bringing up Angus Mengsk.

But thoughts of Angus didn't anger Arcturus so much now. Irritatingly, the more years that passed, the more he found himself thinking back to his father with the uncomfortable realization that a great deal of what he'd said now made sense...

Growing up, Arcturus had always thought of his father as the stern, authoritarian patriarch of the Mengsk family, a man utterly unsympathetic to the concerns and ambitions of his young son. In Arcturus's adolescent world, Angus Mengsk had never been young, never run wild or known what it was like to be a teenager, a creature possessed of a deluded belief in its own infinite wisdom and a conceited sense of entitlement and immortality.

"Maybe," conceded Arcturus, and he smiled at the look of astonishment on Juliana's face. "I'm not saying he was right about everything, but the more I see, the more I think that perhaps he knew what he was talking about after all."

"So what does that mean for you now?"

"I don't know," said Arcturus, and that admission was more painful than he had imagined it would be. His self-belief had seen him through his tempestuous relationship with his father, but to know that he hadn't steered his destiny as cleverly as he'd thought was a galling realization.

"I have to finish out my term in the Marines," said Arcturus, "but once that's done, I'm heading out into space and away from all this. Somewhere the Confederacy doesn't care about and where I can live my life away from politicking and corruption."

"That might be a hard place to find."

"It might be," admitted Arcturus. "But when I get back to Korhal I'm going to think long and hard as to where it might be."

"Are you going to see your father when you go back home?"

"Yes," said Arcturus. "It's the first time I've gone back to Korhal on leave, so Mother has arranged a grand family dinner. My attendance is apparently mandatory. I'm dreading it."

"Nonsense," said Juliana, reaching over the table to take his hands. "It will be wonderful."

"I hope so," Arcturus said with a smile, the idea of rapprochement between himself and his family giving him an alien, but not unwelcome, sensation in the pit of his stomach.

"Though, to tell you the truth," he said, "I'm more worried about seeing Dorothy. I think she's still mad at me for leaving, and that little girl can hold a mean grudge."

"She's not so little anymore," said Juliana. "She's a precocious six-year-old now, the grand matriarch of her junior school."

Arcturus smiled with real pleasure at the thought of Dorothy ruling the roost at school.

"She's a Mengsk," he said. "It's what we do."

With the meal finished, Arcturus paid the bill and they left the restaurant and emerged into the fragrant, ocean-scented evening of Tyrador IX. The lights garlanding the trees shone like miniature stars, their brightness waxing and waning, and the silk lanterns bobbed in the freshening wind from the coast. The air had cooled and Juliana pulled her pashmina lightly around her shoulders.

Cepheid Boulevard was busier than it had been earlier, the crowds drawn by the glittering lights, festive feel, and many attractions designed to part them from their cash. Arcturus watched the smiling faces walking past him, attractive men and women, and fell a wave of annoyance that he would have to leave so soon.

Tyrador IX was a place of comfort and respite, and it would be nice to return here sometime soon. Juliana slipped her hand into his and they walked, hand in hand, back along the street, with the two Umojan security personnel following al a discreet distance.

"Thank you," said Juliana.

"For what?"

"For tonight. I had a wonderful lime, Arcturus. I like being around you."

Arcturus smiled, pleased at the compliment, and said. "Yes. I enjoyed myself as well."

"You sound surprised," said Juliana.

"I don't mean to," said Arcturus, suddenly finding that he was genuinely sad to be leaving her tomorrow. "It's just that it's been a while since I've been in genteel company. You spend enough time with soldiers, it's easy to forget the simple pleasure of spending an evening with a beautiful woman."

"Well, as long as you think I'm beautiful that's all that matters."

"You are beautiful," said Arcturus. "I don't think you know it, and that's what makes it so incredible."

Juliana squeezed his hand tightly and stopped, leaning up lo kiss him.

"You realize," she said, "that flattery will get you everywhere?"

"Then you had better get used to it," he said, kissing her back.

A raucous cheer sounded from nearby, and Arcturus looked up to see the soldiers they had passed earlier waving at them from the bar, their glasses raised in salute.

"Just like graduation," said Juliana with a smile.

Arcturus smiled and sketched a roguish salute to his fellow marines.

"Almost," he said. "I think these men are a little tougher than the students of Styrling."

Even as Arcturus formed the thought, the hairs on the back of his neck bristled and he turned to see a group of five men lounging by one of the handcrafted iron benches at the side of the boulevard. They looked out of place, their features rugged and pinched—the faces of men who had grown to adulthood without a properly balanced, nutritious diet.

It was a peculiar facet of human development Arcturus had noticed—that you could tell the quality of a person's upbringing from the briefest glance at their facial bone structure. Even down to their skin, there was a definite difference in the development of the face that distinguished rich from poor.

These men fell into the latter category, without a doubt, and he wondered why they had not moved on. Perhaps they were indentured workers on a break, remembering how Diamond de Santo's family had labored behind the scenes to make the resorts of Tyrador IX such paradises.

Then why were they here, mingling with resort guests and their betters?

One of the men looked straight at him, a man with a bulky trench coat that reached to his shins and whose head was shaven clean with a tattoo of a snake coiled around his ear.

"Is something wrong?" asked Juliana, sensing the sudden tension in his posture.

"Hmmm? No, it's nothing...” he said, not wishing to alarm her.

As she followed his gaze, Arcturus looked behind Juliana to where her security loitered, both men watching a pair of silver-skinned fliers pass overhead. He looked at the shaven-headed man with the snake tattoo, and their eyes met through the laughing crowds.

"Juliana, get inside," he said, recognizing the hard stare of a professional killer.

"What?" she said, but Arcturus was already moving, dragging her back toward her guards while keeping his eyes fixed on the occupants of the bench. The man with the tattoo saw Arcturus move and knew that his cover was blown. He said something to the men next to him, and reached inside his long trench coat.

Arcturus instinctively reached for his slugthrower, but his hand grasped empty air, the pistol resting in its locked, foam-lined case in his hotel room safe. Snake Tattoo raised a long-barreled weapon, an old-model AGR-14 assault rifle, and Arcturus's heart hammered against his ribs as he saw it.

He had gone through boot camp with such a rifle, a no-nonsense gun capable of firing supersonic jacket less slugs that could tear through a human body and leave nothing behind but shredded meat and bone. The four men with the tattooed assassin unveiled a varied mix of pistols and rifles.

"Gun!" shouted Arcturus.

Heads turned, too slowly, and Arcturus bore Juliana down with him as he heard the screams of the crowd upon their seeing the guns. Juliana cried out as she hit the ground, but the deafening roar of gunfire swallowed the sound. The AGR-14 was a powerful weapon, one designed as much to intimidate as to wound, and Arcturus scrambled on all fours, Juliana beside him. He looked over at the gunmen, watching as they played their fire over the front of the bar beside them. The wooden frontage of the bar exploded into splinters, the glass shattering like a million diamonds.

Marines danced in the gunfire, blood sprayed, and the sound of bullets striking flesh was like a hammer repeatedly smacking raw steak. Arcturus saw Private Shaw hurled backward by the terrible impacts, his chest blown out by a sawing blast of rounds. Other men were hit as well, and Arcturus saw a soldier torn almost in two by a torrent of fire.

Shots sounded from behind Arcturus and he saw one of Juliana's security guards crouched on his knee, his pistol held out in front of him in two hands. One of the gunmen dropped, the back of his head missing, and the guard calmly drew a bead on another.

Before he could shoot again, a burst of rifle fire took him in the chest and he lurched backward, a bloody line of bullet holes tearing him up as though a grenade had gone off inside his rib cage.

Juliana's other guard scooted over to them. "Give me her!" he shouled.

Arcturus nodded and hauled Juliana over to the man.

"Arcturus!' she cried, but he forced himself to ignore her plea as he spotted the fallen guard's pistol on the ground. He scrambled over to the gun and swept it up, twisting onto his back and aiming it toward the bench.

Hordes of people ran in panicked confusion along the boulevard, screaming over the terror that had landed in their midst. The bar was a ruin of shattered timber and glass. Tables had been overturned, chairs scattered, and bloody bodies littered the area in front like multiple victims of a firing squad.

Snake Tattoo and his three comrades continued to rake bullets over the bar's frontage, making the corpses jerk with the impacts. Fury touched Arcturus at the slaughter of his fellow marines. The pistol bucked in his hand and another of the gunmen dropped.

Arcturus rolled to his knees and shifted his aim, putting another enemy on his back, a bloody hole blasted In his chest. His accomplices turned toward the source of this new threat.

Another pistol shot boomed, and Arcturus knew that Juliana's other guard was returning fire. The man's bullet missed, and Snake Tattoo's companion swung his rifle to bear, a look of hatred in his eyes.

Arcturus fired first, but his shot went wide. A bar light that had miraculously survived the initial hall of bullets blew out in a rain of glass. Supersonic slugs ripped toward Juliana's protector and he was punched off his feet in a thudding series of bloody eruptions.

Snake Tattoo opened fire at Arcturus, but a fleeing tourist in a floral-print shirt took the valley. The unfortunate holidaymaker fell as stray slugs tore up the ground next to Arcturus—who didn't give his attacker a second chance. He sighted along the barrel of his pistol and squeezed the trigger.

Snake Tattoo was spun around, his shoulder a pulped mass of shattered bone and geysering blood. He dropped his rifle and toppled backward, screaming in agony.

Arcturus rose to his feel, moving sideways as the last surviving gunman swung his rifle around. Before he could fire, Arcturus put two bullets into his chest. The man toppled, dead before he hit the ground.

Arcturus let out a long, shuddering breath, suddenly realizing how exposed he'd been.

Wearing the heavy plates of combat armor granted a marine almost complete immunity to small-arms fire, but when bullets started flying it was easy to take that immunity for granted and forget that without armor—as Arcturus certainly had been just now—even the lightest handgun was deadly.

He tracked the pistol left and right, keeping on the move. Though he doubted there were other shooters on the boulevard, it didn't pay to be reckless. He ghosted over to the shattered remnants of the bar, crunching on broken glass and through pulverized limber.

Dozens or maybe even scores of bodies filled the bar, torn and mangled by the indiscriminate barrage of gunfire. Soldiers and well-heeled civilians lay together, equal in death if not in life. Arcturus moved through the wreckage until he stood over the architect and sole survivor of this massacre.

Snake Tattoo wept in pain, a gaping, raw crater where his shoulder should have been. He pawed the wound with a glistening red hand, his breath coming in sharp hikes and tortured exhalations. He looked up as Arcturus approached, his flesh waxy and streaked with sweat.

"Confed bastard...." he wheezed between groans of pain.

"What the hell was this?" demanded Arcturus. "What did you think you were going to achieve?"

"I ain't...afraid...to die," spat Snake Tattoo. "And... I ain't gonna talk...You might as well...kill me now..."

"Fine by me," said Arcturus, and then shot him in the face.

Arcturus held Juliana close as she was wracked with sobs, her shoulders heaving with the force of her distress. Her hand gripped his back, and her tears seemed never-ending. Arcturus had been through the aftermath of combat and knew how to deal with the stress and fear of close brushes with death, but this was new to Juliana and he knew he had to let her vent her fear, anger, and grief.

In the wake of the shooting, Arcturus had dropped his weapon and rushed to her side, holding her close until the Tyrador armed forces arrived in screeching, armored vehicles. Howling orbital flyers—brilliant white and emblazoned with the winged caduceus, the universal symbol of healers—landed in billowing clouds of propwash.

Green-clad paramedics spread efficiently through the crowd, treating the wounded and calming the living as enforcement officers secured the dead attackers and gathered up fallen weaponry. Sirens and screams and shouts blended together, rising into the night sky, forever shattering the aura of invincibility the inhabitants of and visitors to Tyrador IX thought they had.

Until now, this had been a planet everyone believed was far from the concerns of politics and warfare, but the fallacy and naivete of that illusion had been cruelly stripped away by this atrocity. Nowhere was safe now: the long reach of violence could extend even here, the playground of the rich and powerful.

Arcturus and Juliana answered a barrage of questions from a variety of officials, but after what seemed like a lifetime they were allowed to leave the scene, though Arcturus agreed to report to the local Confederate militia station in the morning to give a fuller account of his role in the night's bloodshed.

Words like "hero," "commendation," and "medal" were already being bandied around.

A police flyer had taken them to Arcturus's hotel, and no sooner had they crossed the threshold of his room than Juliana broke down in tears. Arcturus guided her to the bed and sat next to her, allowing her to cry and knowing that anything he might say right now would be trite and meaningless.

They sat like that for almost an hour before Juliana's sobs became less frequent and she prised herself from his shoulder. Her eyes were puffy and her makeup ran in black streaks down her face. Her golden hair hung limp: her skin was ashen.

She looked achingly beautiful in her vulnerability.

"I'm sorry...." she said. "I look a mess. I—"

Arcturus ran a hand through her hair and kissed her forehead. "You look far better than anyone would expect after what you've been through tonight."

"Oh God...all those people," she said. "They killed so many people."

Arcturus nodded. "Yes, they did, but they won't hurt anyone else. They're dead now. I killed them."

"Yes," she said, "you did. You were so brave. You saved my life."

"No," said Arcturus, trying to sound modest, but pleased at the thought of being seen as a hero, "I just did what I had to do. Remember, I'm trained for this kind of thing. I just acted without thinking. If I'd thought about it, I'd have stayed on the ground. Going up against five men armed with assault rifles with only a pistol...? Captain Emillian will have my guts for garters when she hears that."

"She won't," said Juliana, pulling him close. "She'll think you're the bravest man she's ever met. Just as I do."

Arcturus saw that Juliana had control of her emotions now, having come through the horror of the shooting with more aplomb and determination than most soldiers ever did. He saw the core of iron in her, and was reminded of the strength he saw in his mother.

As her sapphire eyes met his, he saw a fierce passion there that reflected his own.

The full force of what had happened tonight rushed to the fore in both of them, and reason was cast aside as they seized one another in a desperate embrace.

Arcturus pressed his lips against Juliana's, and she returned his kiss with hot urgency.

They tore at each other, disrobing one another with no regard for propriety. The nearness of death and the arousal of killing swept through their mingled flesh in an uncontrollable surge and they fell together with only one thing in mind.

Drowning in desire, Arcturus had wanted this since he had first laid eyes on Juliana, and he gave in to the moment without thought for the consequences—consequences that could bind two lives together forever.

Soon they would be forced to part once more, but for tonight Arcturus and Juliana sought to purge thoughts of their own mortality by affirming their life and humanity in the most primal way possible.

CHAPTER 10

KORHAL. THE PLANET OF HIS BIRTH. UNTIL HE SET fool on it once again, Arcturus hadn't realized how much he'd missed the place. Stepping from the orbital flyer that had brought him from the John Lomas, Arcturus followed the crowds making their way to the starport's exit. Given the anti-Confederate unrest the UNN was reporting on Korhal, Arcturus had packed his uniform into his suit-bag, but his CMC identi-tags were hung around his neck to ease his passage through the security checkpoints.

Under normal circumstances, his tags should have allowed him to pass through with the bare minimum of effort, but it took a frustrating two hours to travel from the flyer to the arrivals lounge, the culmination of a several-day journey from Tyrador IX and Juliana.

Their parting had been emotional and heartbreaking.

For her, at least.

When dawn's light had shone through the polarized glass of his hotel window, Arcturus woke with the bitter taste of regret in his mouth. Looking at the sleeping form of Juliana, perfectly outlined by the tousled sheets, he had felt nothing but a profound sense of irritation at his giving in to passion and letting emotion cloud his judgment.

Yes, he had wanted to take Juliana to his bed, and had gone to some effort to do so, but now that the deed was done, he felt a curious regret. Perhaps the previous night's atrocity had touched him more deeply than he had thought, but lying in the half-light of morning, he felt a sense of closure, and yet an awareness of new beginnings. It was a curious sensation.

He had slipped silently from the bed and dressed, then gathered his belongings. Before he could leave, Juliana had woken and smiled. He had stayed long enough to share some breakfast before making his escape, promising that they would see each other soon. She had cried at the thought of his leaving, and he had held her for an appropriate length of time before prising himself from her clinging embrace.

And with that, he had left her.

Arcturus wasn't sure exactly what he now thought of Juliana Pasteur. On the one hand, she was a beautiful woman: but on the other—if he was honest—she had been nothing more than an exercise in satisfying his own vanity. Though it had taken him longer than he would have expected, he had gotten everything he wanted from her and she was therefore of little further interest to him.

Of course, her interest in him was undimmed, but that was a problem for another day.

Putting Juliana Pasteur from his mind, Arcturus had boarded the John Lomas and made his way to Korhal.

As he strode toward the arrivals lounge, he saw armed patrols of Confederate militia at every step, groups of hard-eyed men and women scanning the crowds for any potential threat.

Have things really gotten that bad?

There had been a few reports on the UNN of the troubles on Korhal—riots, ambushes, and the occasional bombing, but the media had played these down as isolated incidents perpetrated by lone madmen. Now, here on the ground of Korhal, Arcturus wasn't so sure.

"My father's been busy," he whispered to himself.

The doors to the arrivals lounge opened and he emerged into a crowded concourse of eager faces, men and women and children awaiting reunions with loved ones. Arcturus hefted his suit-bag onto his shoulder and scanned the gathered people, looking for a familiar face.

When he finally saw one, it certainly wasn't one he'd expected. "Welcome back," said Achton Feld, taking Arcturus's bag.

"Feld?” said Arcturus by way of a greeting. "Where are my mother and father? And Dorothy?"

"They're down the coast," said Feld, "at the summer villa."

"And they couldn't come themselves?"

"Not safely."

Arcturus sighed. He shouldn't have been surprised, but he had held to a faint hope that his parents might have bothered to come and greet the prodigal son back to the family heartland.

He saw Feld sizing him up with a critical eye.

"What?"

"You've changed,” noted Feld. "Something about you is different."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know exactly, but you look better for it, that's for sure."

"I'm so glad you think so."

Feld nodded wearily at Arcturus's sarcasm. "Okay then...let's get to the groundcar."

From the bedroom he shared with his wife, Angus watched the silver groundcar as it made its way along the road toward the summer villa, a heavy feeling lurking in the pit of his stomach. It had been two years since he had seen his son, and the emotions of the day when Katherine had tearfully told him that Arcturus had joined the Marines were as strong as ever.

Angus struggled to hold his temper as he thought back to Dorothy's tears that same evening, knowing that Katherine had pinned her hopes on a family reconciliation tonight. Katherine's happiness was the most important thing in the world to Angus Mengsk, and he just hoped he could get through this evening without barking at his errant son.

"Are you ready?" said Katherine from the bedroom door. "He's almost here."

Angus turned and gave his wife a smile. "I don't know if I'm ready, but let's go anyway."

"Please. Angus," said Katherine. "You promised."

"I know," he said, reaching out to her. She came into the room and took his hands. "But I can't forget how he hurt you. How he hurt all of us."

"You have to. Arcturus is our son."

"But joining the military," said Angus, shaking his head. "Of all the ways he could have chosen to disappoint me—"

"Stop it," said Katherine, in a lone that warned Angus he was on thin ice. "He is our son and he will be welcome here, no matter what. Do you understand me?"

"Of course, dear, but the boy infuriates me."

Katherine smiled. "No one gets under our skin quite like the people we love."

"Especially family," said Angus.

"Especially family," agreed Katherine. "They wouldn't get to us so much if we didn't love them."

"I suppose," said Angus. "Where's Dorothy?"

"She's in her room."

"Is she coming down?"

"Not yet," said Katherine sadly. "She's just curled up with Pontius and says she doesn't want to see Arcturus."

"I don't see why she gets out of this and I can't," grumbled Angus.

"Are you seriously pouting because you're having to do something a six-year-old won't?"

"No..."

"Shame on you, Angus Mengsk," said Katherine. "Now, come on. Let's go downstairs."

"Fine," said Angus, taking a deep breath and straightening his jacket. "How do I look?"

"Like a father," said Katherine.

The groundcar drew to a halt within the villa's courtyard and Arcturus got out in time to see his mother and father emerge onto the steps before the front door. His father was dressed in an immaculate, severely cut suit of ash gray with the wolf-head emblem on the breast packet, while his mother wore an elegant dress of cornflower blue.

The air was fresh with the tang of saltwater and a pleasing chill blew in off the ocean. As five armed guards stood in the shadows of the courtyard, Arcturus stood straight and with his shoulders back, trying to read the expressions on his parents faces. His mother smiled warmly, and Arcturus thought he detected a faint hint of welcome even in his father's stern features.

Achton Feld moved past him with his suit-bag and Arcturus followed him.

As he reached the bottom of the steps, his mother came down and embraced him, all her thoughts of reserve forgotten as tears spilled down her cheeks.

"Oh, Arcturus...." she wept. "It's so good to have you home. We've missed you so much."

He returned his mother's embrace, feeling a powerful, forgiving sense of return. He surrendered to it and felt years of bitterness begin to wash away at the simple sincerity of his mother's welcoming love.

Eventually his mother released him and he found himself face-to-face with his father.

The moment stretched and the warmth of the previous welcome faded like a distant memory. At last his father extended his hand.

"Good to see you, son," said Angus.

Arcturus smiled, though it was an effort. "And you, Father."

They shook hands stiffly, but Arcturus could discern that, despite himself, his father was actually pleased to see him.

"You've changed," said Angus.

"So Feld tells me," replied Arcturus. "Though he seems unable to say how."

"It's your eyes. You've gotten older. You've done things that have aged you."

"Is that a good thing?"

"I don't know yet," said his father, releasing his hand.

Arcturus saw his mother narrow her eyes and turned to her. "Where's Dorothy?"

"She's upstairs." said his mother. "Asleep. It seemed a shame to wake her."

Arcturus caught the hesitation in her reply and said. "Come on, Mother. Where is she really?"

"She's upstairs," repeated Katherine. "She's just... Well, she's still angry with you."

"After two years?"

"People can hold grudges for longer than that," said his father.

Arcturus nodded. "So I gather. She's in her room?"

"Yes," said Katherine, "but maybe you should let her come down in her own time, dear?"

"I don't think so," said Arcturus. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that it's almost always best to tackle a problem head-on."

"The Marines teach you that?" said Angus.

"No, I learned that from you," said Arcturus, sweeping past his parents and into the villa.

The entrance hall was exactly as he remembered it, with its checkerboard-patterned floor, dark paneling, and gold-framed portraits. His mother's objets d'art still stood on their while marble columns, and no sooner was he across the threshold than a hundred memories from his childhood returned.

He stood in the warm hallway, letting the smells of the house wash over him in a sustained assault on his senses: the wax rubbed into the wooden floors, the aroma of slowly cooking dinner, the polish used on the silverware. Arcturus could hear the bustle of staff in the kitchens, the creak and groan of an aged house warmed by the sun, and the hum of the generator room deep in the basement

The house spoke to him in a language of the senses, a combination of a thousand different sights, sounds, and smells, but they all blended into one simple feeling.

He was home.

How many soldiers fantasized about home? All of them, even the ones with nothing much to look forward to at the end of their term of service. Home was an idealized notion to most military men, but here, standing in the house in which he'd spent every summer growing up, Arcturus knew that this was no fantasy.

Arcturus climbed the stairs, avoiding the creaking ones—as he had always done as a child—and made his way toward Dorothy's room. He smiled as he saw that her door was still covered with colorful letters.

He knocked lightly on the door, three slow knocks followed by three quick ones, the secret code they'd used when she was little more than a toddler.

"Go away!" came a voice from beyond the door.

"Llltle Dot, it's me," he said. "Arcturus."

"I know."

Realizing he would get nowhere like this, Arcturus pushed open the door and went in. Inside, he saw that Dorothy's room had changed since the last time he'd seen it. It was still strewn with toys, but there was an order to them now, a hierarchy that had Dorothy clearly at the top.

His sister lay on her back in the center of her bed. Pontius the pony held tightly across her chest. The old pony was looking a little threadbare, but Dorothy plainly wasn't about to let that stop her from hanging on to him.

"Hello, Little Dot," he said. "I'm back home."

"No one calls me that anymore," said Dorothy. "I'm not a baby anymore."

Arcturus crossed the room to stand at the side of her bed, observing that Dorothy had indeed grown since he had seen her last. She had blossomed into a pretty little girl with the distinctive high cheekbones of her mother and the thunderous brow of her father.

She wore a smart dress and her hair was pleated in two pigtails. Even lying down, she looked every inch the Mengsk she was.

He smiled. "Okay. So what do they call you now then?"

"Dorothy, silly," she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, which, he had to admit, it probably was. "What else would they call me?"

"Sorry, yes, should have thought about that," he said, sitting on the edge of her bed.

"I don't want to talk to you," said Dorothy, rolling away from him and onto her side.

"Well, that's too bad," said Arcturus. "I suppose I'll have to keep the present I was going to give you. Maybe I'll give it some poor children."

"I don't care," she said. "I don't want it anyway."

"That's a shame. It was a really nice present."

"I told you, I don't care," said Dorothy, and Arcturus saw he wasn't going to win her over with simple appeals to a child's greed. As always, he'd have to go for the emotlonal blackmail.

"I wrote to you every day, but you didn't write back," he said. "I missed you. I really missed you, little sister."

"Then why did you leave me?" she cried, rolling over to face him and hurling Pontius at him. The stuffed pony bounced to the floor and Arcturus leaned back as Dorothy rose to her knees and hit him over and over on the chest with tiny fists.

"You went away and left me without saying good-bye," she sobbed.

He let her vent her frustrations on him without protest, and when she was done, he put his arms around her and held her tightly.

"I know I did, and I'm sorry. I never meant to leave you like that."

"Then why did you go? I never saw you to say good-bye."

"I...I had to go," he said. "I couldn't stay here."

"Why? Because of Daddy?"

"No, it was because of me. I had to go and do something for me, something that wasn't some idea or plan of his. Joining up was my way of doing that."

"You could have died," cried Dorothy. "Soldiers get shot at and blown up all the time. I see it on the news every day, even though Mummy and Daddy don't like me watching it. I kept looking for you, I kept watching the news and wondering if you'd been killed."

Arcturus held his sister close as she cried, not having thought about what she must have gone through, wondering if he was alive or dead. His mother and father would no doubt have assured her that he was alive and well, but what force could compete with the imagination of a six-year-old?

"I'm sorry. Dorothy. I really am. I never meant for you to worry about me. I'm your big brother—I can look after myself."

"And who's going to look after me? You're my big brother and you promised you wouldn't let anything happen to me. But then you went away and anything could have happened to me. Those bad men could have come back and shot Mummy and Daddy and me. Or a bomb could have blown us all up or those rebels with guns could have shot us because Daddy has so much money."

The words poured from Dorothy in a rush and Arcturus felt his heart go out to her. Dorothy was a confident, articulate little girl—and a Mengsk to boot—but she was still only six. He realized he had forgotten that.

"Nothing like that could happen," he said as forcefully as he could. "Daddy pays Achton Feld too much money for anything to happen to you. And now that I'm a soldier, I have a big gun and a whole platoon of marines who will protect you. I promise."

She squeezed him lightly and he smiled, knowing he had won her around.

"I missed you," she said. "I cried for a week when you left."

"I'm sorry," he said once more. "But I'm back for a while and I promise I won't go away this lime without telling you first."

"Mummy really missed you. I heard her crying too. Daddy missed you as well. He never said it, but I could tell that he did."

Arcturus lifted her face from his shoulder. "I love you, Dorothy. And I always will."

"I love you too," she sniffed. "And it's okay—you can call me Little Dot if you want.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome," said Dorothy. "Now where's my present?"

Dining room and comprising several courses, a wide selection of wines, and a grand fire burning in the iron grate. Angus Mengsk sat at one end of the long rosewood dining room table, with Katherine at the other end and Arcturus in the middle to his father's right.

Dorothy sat opposite Arcturus and sipped from a cup of fresh apple juice. As was customary, Pontius sat at the table next to her, with his own place selling. Arcturus and his father had shared a glass of port before dinner, a breach of etiquette under normal circumstances, but Angus had never liked doing things by the book—a trait he seemed not to know that he had passed on to his son.

Angus had drunk a while port, but Arcturus found he preferred a darker, ruby port, and they had sat on either side of the chessboard as his mother cleaned Dorothy up for dinner. The carved pieces were arrayed for battle, but neither man was in the mood for a game.

Arcturus had defeated his father when he was eleven, and they had never played since.

They spoke guardedly, with Arcturus unsurprised lo discover that his father was just as vocal as ever in his condemnation of the Confederacy. The special target of Angus's ire these days was the fact that the construction of the new Korhal Assembly Forum had been abandoned and the site bulldozed for some overpriced housing development. Of course, the demolition contract had been awarded to a company owned by one of the Old Families, the Tygores, and the new building contract awarded to a firm owned by a distant nephew of Andrea Tygore.

Times changed, but corruption, it seemed, stayed the same.

Arcturus drained the last of his port as his mother and Dorothy entered the dining room. His father smiled at the sight of his daughter, and Arcturus was reminded that, above all the politicking, the railing against the Confederacy, and his complicity in terrorist activities, Angus Mengsk was still a loving father.

The family seated themselves at the table and dinner began, with the slightly strained atmosphere broken by the excited chatter of Dorothy as she spun tales of her preschool class and the many children she played with.

As he watched the faces of his mother and father come to life, Arcturus realized that it must have been some time since Dorothy had opened up like this. Conversation flawed around the table, though Arcturus saw how his mother skillfully steered them all away from any contentious topics.

The first course arrived, a truffle custard garnished with small slivers of pate, and Arcturus made appreciative noises as he lasted the food. Like many wives of wealthy men, Katherine Mengsk look a keen interest in the running of the household, and the majority of the dishes served were ones of her own creation, using local ingredients and incorporating her family's favorite flavors. Small glasses of a light, sparkling wine were served with the first course, which was swiftly followed by a mushroom risotto with baby arugula, Manchego cheese, and a lemon-parsley sauce.

Used to living on a diet of ration packs and mess hall dishes, Arcturus found himself struggling with the sheer volume of food, but a lavender sorbet cleared his palate in lime for a roasted rosemary pork loin brochette with tomato-port sauce and Gruyere cheese grits.

Finally, a shallow bowl of sweet potato pound cake with a blood-orange-and-bourbon glaze and nutmeg whipped cream was served, and after one portion Arcturus knew he could not eat another mouthful.

Coffees were served and a small bowl of mints placed in the center of the table.

"Mother, that was a triumph," said Arcturus as the last of the plates were cleared.

"Absolutely." agreed Angus, and Katherine smiled to see her son and husband in agreement for once.

"I'm glad you approve," said Katherine. "I planned the menu especially for tonight. I wanted us to have a proper family dinner together. It's been too long since we all sat around a table and just enjoyed each other's company. Don't you agree?"

Arcturus hid a smile at his mother's seemingly innocent question, recognizing an iron fist in a velvet glove when he saw one.

"Of course," said Angus, hearing the same thing, and Arcturus looked over at his father to share a knowing look. The ease of the glance and the natural way he had looked over surprised him as much as it appeared to surprise his father.

"I've missed this," said Arcturus. "It's good to be back home."

"I'm glad you're back," said Dorothy, and the matter was settled.

With the dinner cleared away, Katherine hustled Dorothy off to bed, though not before she had secured hugs and kisses for both herself and Pontius from her father and brother. With the women of the household away, the friction that had fled upon their arrival snuck back into the room like a malignant shadow.

"A glass of port?" asked Angus, and Arcturus nodded.

"Ruby for me," he said.

Angus poured two glasses of port and handed one to Arcturus. They stood in silence for a moment, and Arcturus saw his father struggling to find the right words. With Katherine present, conversation had been light and inconsequential, but without her calming influence, the tension between these two alpha males was resurgent.

"I'm glad you came, son," said Angus at last. "Your mother went to a lot of trouble tonight. And Dorothy, well, you can see how pleased she is to see you."

"And you?" asked Arcturus. "Are you pleased to see me?"

"Of course. You know I am. You are my son."

"I know, but the last time we spoke wasn't exactly friendly."

"You had just gone and joined the Marines," said Angus. "My son the Confederate marine... what did you expect?"

"I expected you to respect my damn decision," snapped Arcturus.

Angus sighed and took a sip of his port. "Are you trying to pick a fight, Arcturus?"

"No," said Arcturus. "I'm really not. It's just... well, we've never seen eye to eye on lots of things, have we?"

"Not that I can recall, no."

"Exactly, and back when I was living on Korhal, every time you looked at me, it was like you were trying to find faults with whatever I did. Nothing I did was ever good enough for you."

"That's ridiculous," said Angus. "I just wanted the best for you. You see that, surely?"

"The best for me? Are you sure? Or did you want the best for you? What I wanted didn't seem important. All you cared about was whether I was a fit successor to you."

Angus poured himself another glass of port, using the time to curb an angry outburst.

Arcturus knew that goading his father could only end one way, but couldn't stop the words from flowing. Two years of pent-up feelings were now coming out and he couldn't stop them.

"Arcturus, you are my son and I have only ever wanted the best for you. You are intelligent and can be the best at whatever you want to be, but to waste your life fighting for a tyrannical, corrupt regime that seeks to take control of everything in the galaxy is just stupid."

"So now I'm stupid?"

"That's not what I said. You're not even listening to me, you're hearing what you want to hear so you can prolong this argument."

Arcturus knew his father was speaking the truth, but the memory of Private Shaw leapt to the forefront of his mind, the image of the boy's torn-up body lying in a pool of blood on the floor of a bar on Tyrador IX fogging his usual clearheadedness.

"No, that's not it at all," said Arcturus.

"Then what is it?" demanded Angus. "Because I'd really like to know."

"It's what you're doing on Korhal,” said Arcturus. "The bombings and the riots. You and Feld and your band of revolutionaries are still fanning the flames of hatred here, aren't you?"

"Keep your damn voice down," hissed Angus.

"Why? Afraid this Confederate marine might report you to the authorities?"

"You wouldn't?" said Angus, genuinely horrified at the notion of his son turning on him.

"No, of course not, but I've seen the reality of what people like you are doing," said Arcturus. "I saw the bodies and the blood on Tyrador IX, and I heard the screaming. You can justify what you're doing with talk of corruption and with clever wordplay, but I've seen what's left behind. I saw men shot down without mercy, and God knows how many innocent bystanders were caught in the crossfire. If that's what you're doing, then I want no part of it."

"The attack on Tyrador IX was nothing to do with me, Arcturus," said Angus, taking a step toward him. "I swear it. We only attack military targets. Combatants. Because we're in a war, make no mistake about that."

"Military targets?" said Angus, pulling his marine ident-tags from beneath his shirt. "What do you think these make me? Tell me, would you bomb me or authorize some other attack that might get me killed if it was part of your grand plan?"

"Of course not! Arcturus, why are you doing this? Your mother wanted for us to became a family again tonight. Don't ruin it for her."

"It was a mistake coming here," said Arcturus, putting down his glass and turning toward the door. "I should go."

"No, Arcturus, please stay," said Angus, following him and taking his arm. "For your mother and Dorothy if not for me."

Arcturus turned to face his father. "I'll be gone in the morning."

Far from the glowing jewel that was Styrling, the darkness of the sky was absolute. Arcturus sat on the walnut bench his father had built at the end of the path from the villa, watching the sea explode against the cliffs below in silver cascades. A bronze plaque in the middle of the bench was carved with a memorial inscription to Arcturus's grandfather. Augustus, but the words had been obscured by a green skim of corrosion and could no longer be read.

Hle sat and looked up at the stars, wondering which ones he would travel to next. The possibilities were endless, and certainly he was likely to see a great many different worlds with the Marines.

And once he was tired of military life, a point he knew was fast approaching, he would muster out and head to the rim. Just far enough out to be free.

Arcturus felt a vibration in his pocket and took out his fone. He waited until the tone had stopped and then flipped it open. Another message from Juliana. That made fifteen since he had arrived on Korhal.

He sighed and replaced the fone in his pocket as he heard footsteps behind him.

"Mind if I join you?" said Achlon Feld.

"If you're here to convince me to stay then you're wasting your breath."

"I'm not. I know it's a lost cause trying to convince you of anything."

Arcturus nodded and gestured toward the bench. "Then sit down."

The two men sat in silence for a while, content to simply enjoy the majesty of the view. Farther out to sea, the ocean was like a black mirror, vast and reflecting the stars above in wavering pinpoints. Occasional sliver streaks flashed across the sky. Arcturus liked to believe they were shooting stars, though he knew they were simply starships hilling the atmosphere.

"You'll regret this, you know," said Feld eventually.

"What?"

"Leaving like this. You don't know what's going to happen in the future, so do you really want this to be the last memory you have of your folks?"

"You're being melodramatic, Feld," said Arcturus. "It doesn't suit you."

"I'm not, Arcturus. Trust me, what's happening on Korhal is more dangerous than you know. The Confederacy is running scared here, and anyone who's seen combat knows that's when the enemy is at its most dangerous. They'll try anything and, as good as I am, I can't guarantee anyone's safety in the face of that kind of desperation."

"Are things really that bad?"

Feld simply nodded and said. "You can never go home. Isn't that what they say?"

"Who?"

"They. Them. Whoever. It doesn't matter."

"What does it mean?"

"When you live here on Korhal, you think it's the center of the world and you believe nothing will ever change. Then you leave and don't come back for a few years. And when you come back, everything's changed. The connection's broken. What you came to find isn't there and what was yours is gone. You'll have to go away for a long time before you can come back and find your people. The world where you were born. But now, for you, it's not possible. You're not ready to come back to Korhal. Or maybe she's not ready for you. I don't know."

"Since when did you become a philosopher, Feld?"

"I've been around," said Feld, "and I picked up a few things along the way. Just don't do anything rash, okay? If you're going to leave, fine, leave, but say good-bye first. Don't leave like last time."

"Don't burn any bridges? Is that what you're saying?"

"Yeah, I guess it is," agreed Feld. "Say your good-byes, and then go. And don't come back until you're ready to come back. Make a clean break until then."

Arcturus's fone trilled again and he knew who it was without even looking.

Juliana.

“A clean break, you say?"

"Yeah."

"I think you might be right, Feld."

CHAPTER 11

ARCTURUS LEANED HIS HEAD BACK AGAINST THE plyboard wall of the office and closed his eyes, letting the hum of the air-heaters and the clicking sound of Lieutenant Cestoda's typing lull him into a semi-doze. It would be at least another half hour before he was admitted into Commander Fole's office anyway. Appointments with Brantigan Fole were always late. The bullish commanding officer of the 33rd Ground Assault Division of the Confederate Marine Corps kept very much to his own schedule and no one else's.

Lieutenant Lars Cestoda, the adjutant tasked with keeping track of the commander's appointments, was a waspish and punctilious man who, at first glance, seemed an unlikely soldier, but who positively thrived on the minutiae of army regulations.

Desplle the convection heaters warming the office, Arcturus still fell the chill in the air and pulled his uniform jacket tighter. He'd need to request a new one soon: this one barely fit his broad shoulders and wide chest.

The summons to Commander Fole's office in Camp Hastings had come out of the blue, as most orders did in the Marine Corps, but this one had the reek of importance to it and thus Arcturus had arrived early, even though he knew it would be a while before the commander deigned to see him.

The outer office was plain and stark, the only items of furniture an uncomfortable couch on which Arcturus sat, a pair of iron filing cabinets (that looked old and battered enough to have come from the Sarengo), and the desk and chair used by Lieutenant Cestoda. A few marine recruitment posters were stuck to the wall with thumbtacks, which seemed a little redundant to Arcturus, since anyone likely to see these posters would already be in the Marine Corps.

Arcturus stood and stretched. He'd been waiting for an hour and had already thumbed through a copy of Battle Flag, the magazine of the CMC. The paper version of the magazine had long since been replaced by digi-tome editions—and this copy had seen better days. Cestoda looked up in irritation as Arcturus rose to his feet.

"Something I can do for you, Captain?" asked Cestoda, as though Arcturus had violated some unwritten rule of the office.

"No," said Arcturus. "Just stretching my legs. Do you have any idea when the commander will be available?"

"Presently."

"That's what you said thirty minutes ago."

"Then you shouldn't have needed to ask again."

Arcturus approached Cestoda's desk and perched on the edge, knowing it would annoy the man. Sure enough, Cestoda glared at him, but Arcturus met his stare with one of his own.

"You are aware of the etymology of your name, I presume?" asked Arcturus, picking up a stylus from the desk. Cestoda snatched it back. "The what?"

"Etymology," repeated Arcturus slowly. "It means the origins of words and how they arrived at their current meaning. I was asking if you knew what your name means."

"It doesn't mean anything," said Cestoda. "It's just a name."

"On the contrary, my dear fellow, in times past, a man's name was what defined him. Many names came from a man's profession, such as Smith or Cooper, while others made reference to his disposition or appearance."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"Ah, well you see, Cestoda is a class of parasitic flatworms that live in the digestive tracts of vertebrates and absorb food predigested by their host. They're ugly creatures, little more than a body with only a rudimentary head for attachment to their host. And one most common complaints regarding them is the nausea they cause. Just thought you ought to know."

Arcturus got up from Cestoda's desk before he could reply and moved toward the insulated window that looked out over the barren, blue-lit hinterlands of Onuru Sigma. The outlying buildings of Camp Hastings huddled beneath the cobalt sky, and beyond the defensive turrets, icy tundra spread out for hundreds of miles toward escarpments of glaciers that towered kilometers into the sky.

The sealant around the glass was degrading and the sulfurous chill of the planet's arctic temperatures stole what little heat the convectors were generating.

Arcturus studied his reflection, his features rugged and handsome in the tinted glass. His cheeks were well defined and he now sported a neatly trimmed goatee around his full mouth. His eyes were as piercing as ever they were, though far older than any twenty-four-year-old man's eyes should be, and his dark hair was thick and black. He smiled as he saw he was the image of his father.

A younger, handsomer version of his father, of course.

Though virtually every UNN broadcast was filled with images of Angus Mengsk—the Madman of Korhal, they called him—it had been a long time since Arcturus had consciously thought of his father. Almost five years had passed since he had seen his family and though he had not passed a single word with his father, he kept in regular with his mother and Dorothy.

His sister had just turned eleven, an age that made Arcturus feel very old indeed. It seemed like only yesterday Little Dot had been born, but now her conversations over the vidfone were filled with talk of boys and parties and how she hated not being able to leave the house without an escort of soldiers. The trouble on Korhal was on the verge of getting completely out of hand, and the pundits agreed it was only a matter of time until martial law was declared.

Arcturus wasn't worried for his father, who had chosen to live such a dangerous life, but he fretted constantly for his mother and sister. He had once promised Dorothy he wouldn't let anything happen to her, and Feld's warning that their safety couldn't be guaranteed still echoed in his imagination.

He turned as he heard a chime from Cestoda's desk and smiled at the irritated glance that ghosted across the man's features as he listened to Fole's voice through his earpiece. Cestoda looked up and said. "Commander Fole will see you now."

The commanding officer of the 33rd Ground Assault Division was a short fireplug of a man with a short temper and a quick manner that left many of his fellow soldiers floundering in his wake. His salt-and-pepper hair was kept cropped close to his skull and his skin was tanned the color and texture of worn leather from the rays of a hundred different suns.

An unlit cigar was clamped between his teeth and he chewed a wad of tobacco, a habit he'd picked up while stationed along the outer rim and never saw fit to discard when he'd returned to more civilized space. His uniform was immaculately pressed and decorated with enough stars to fill a decent-sized planetarium.

Arcturus snapped to attention and saluted the commander, who returned the salute without looking up from the papers arranged haphazardly on his desk. Another officer, one with the rank badge of a captain pinned to his white uniform, stood at attention beside the commander.

This captain was broad-shouldered and wore the power of his rank like a threat. His features were arrogant, rugged, and pugnacious. Arcturus disliked him instantly.

He guessed the man was around forty, which made him old for a captain, and his physique was impressive for a man his age.

"Sit down, Captain," said Fole. "I have a job for you."

"Yes, sir," said Arcturus, taking the seat in front of Fole's desk.

"This here's Edmund Duke," said Fole, jerking a thumb in the direction of the man standing beside him. "A captain in Alpha Squadron. His outfit is heading out to the Noranda Glacier vespene mine and I want Dominion section to go with them."

Arcturus nodded. He'd heard of Alpha Squadron, who were supposedly the most efficient fighters in the Confederacy—which meant the most brutal—and whose motto was "First group in, first group out." They were nicknamed the Blood Hawks, which spoke volumes for Arcturus's assessment. "Yes, sir. What's the mission?"

"Convince the miners it'll be in their best interests to move on and leave the place to us. The Kel-Morians have been busy around this system and the brass thinks something big's in the wind, which they ain't too happy about. We're to keep a lid on things and make sure those damn pirates don't get too uppity. You know, the usual."

"The usual," said Arcturus wearily. If Fole heard his tone, he didn't comment on it, but Arcturus could see Duke bristling.

"If you have Alpha Squadron, why do you need Dominion section?"

"Orders from on high are to combine some of our active squads. I'm thinking of attaching your men to Alpha, so I want Duke to carry out an evaluation in the field, make sure everyone's up to scratch."

Arcturus was horrified al the idea of Dominion section's coming under the command of Edmund Duke. Though he had never met the man before, he instinctively knew he was an arrogant blowhard. As he looked at Duke's smirking face, he realized he recognized him.

He'd seen the same arrogant face on the UNN when its reporters covered the activities of the Old Families.

"Edmund Duke?" he said. "As in the Tarsonis Dukes?"

"The one and only," drawled Duke. "I hear most of your boys are rim world yokels. That the case? Only two things come from the rim worlds, boy—"

"Yes, yes, I know," interrupted Arcturus, returning his attention to his commander. "Sir, you can't be seriously considering this. You can't put Dominion section under this man's command."

"You telling me what to do with my own division, Mengsk?" asked Fole.

"No, sir," said Arcturus hurriedly, "but—"

"Just as well," carried on Fole, as though Arcturus hadn't spoken. "You're a good officer, Mengsk, and the men respect you, but I'll have you scrubbing latrines in a heartbeat if you try and tell me my business again. Are we clear?"

"Crystal, sir," said Mengsk.

"Anyway, what do you care? You're due to muster out soon, so it doesn't matter who commands them."

"I just want to make sure my men are in good hands," said Arcturus, glaring at Duke.

"Well that ain't your concern no more, Mengsk," replied Fole. "Now get out of here and make sure your men are ready for action. Mission briefing is at 19:00 and dropships are skids up at 20:00."

A spiteful wind scoured the glaciaal slopes below the Noranda Glacier vespene mine. Arcturus kept his helmeled head down against the force of it, his gaze firmly fixed on the blue ridge of snow ahead of him, beyond which lay the mine itself. The streaked sky above the ridge was squalid with scads of vapor and the emphysemic discoloration of poor emission control.

He marched alongside Edmund Duke, the man's while armor decorated with dozens of rank badges and combat citations. It seemed that for all his bluster, Duke had seen his fair share of battle. It didn't make Arcturus like him any better, but at least he wasn't going into action alongside a rookie.

A hundred marines spread out in combat formation trudged up the rugged slopes toward the ridge. Seven goliath walkers marched in support of them, but even thiese hardy machines found the terrain challenging, their gyros fighting to keep them stable on the treacherous ice and snow.

Vulture hover-cycles zipped around the flanks and Arcturus could just about hear the engine roar of the two supporting Wraith fighters over the howling winds as they circled above. The dropships that had ferried them from Camp Hastings had been forced to debus them a kilometer back, the crafts' poor aerodynamics unable to cope with me high winds and low visibility.

"Hell of a force, eh, Mengsk?" said Duke over the comms between their helmets. "You ever seen such righteous display of Confederate might?"

"It's impressive," agreed Arcturus. "It's been some lime since I've seen this amount firepower gathered in one place."

"Yeah, just wish I had me one of them siege tanks."

"The ice here is too unstable," said Arcturus. "In all likelihood we would have lost it down a crevasse before we traveled half a kilometer."

"I know that, but with one of those babies we coulda just scared thiese damn miners out like the yellowbellies you ran into at Turanga Canyon."

"You heard about that?"

"Sure did. You handled it pretty well, but you were damned lucky those miners didn't have a pair of balls between the whole lot of them."

Arcturus shook his head al Duke's simplistic reading of the engagement, but didn't reply as his fellow captain continued. "If I had my way we'd just be chasing these dirt-grubbers away at the end of a volley of Impaler fire and that'd be the end of it."

"If a trifle heavy-handed," said Arcturus.

"Heavy-handed? Who do you mink you work for, the Boy Scouts? This here's me Confederate Marine Corps, and if you're ever gonna make something of yourself, Mengsk, you're gonna need to get some ruthlessness in you."

"Is that a fact?"

"Damn straight," said Duke, slapping a heavy gauntlet on the side of his gauss rifle. "Ain't no messing with one of these babies."

"Tell me something, Edmund—You don't mind if I call you Edmund, do you? How is it that a scion of one of the Old Families ends up out here pushing miners around as a captain? With your family's influence and the amount of combat it looks like you've seen, I'd have thought they'd have made you a general by now."

Duke stopped and turned to face him, and Arcturus could see the cold anger in his eyes.

"Yeah, I do mind you calling me Edmund. And why I'm here is none of your goddamn business. We got our orders and I'm a man who obeys orders, so why don't you shut the hell up and follow yours."

Arcturus smiled as Duke stomped off toward the ridge, letting the man get a goodly distance ahead before embarking himself.

"Gee, Captain, I reckon you done annoyed the big fella," said Chuck Horner, coming alongside him. "What you say to him?"

"Nothing much," said Arcturus. "How's the section, Lieutenant?"

"They're okay," answered Horner, "de Santo's grumbling about the mission, Yancy won't shut up, Chun Leung's bitching about what this weather's doing to Mayumi, and Toby ain't said squat since we touched down, so business as usual, I guess."

Chuck Horner had served as Arcturus's unofficial second in command since me fighting on Sonyan, a position he had fulfilled admirably, eventually earning himself a commission to lieutenant.

Arcturus turned and looked behind him, the blue armored shapes of Dominion section marching a discreet distance away from the marines of Alpha Squadron. Their walks and posture were as familiar to him as his own, and he nodded to each of them as they caught up.

"What's the story, Captain?" said Yancy. "We there yet?"

"Nearly," said Arcturus, pointing to the ridge a hundred meters or so above them. "Just beyond there."

"This is some weather, huh?" said Chun Leung, holding his rifle protectively across his chest to protect it from the worst of the wind. The man's visor was fogged and the plates of his armor were stained with pollutants, yet somehow his weapon was still pristine.

"We saw worse than this on Parragos, remember?" said Yancy.

"I'm trying to forget that one," grumbled Chun Leung. "Took months to get all that grit out of Mayumi's breech."

"This gonna be more of the same?" asked Dia de Santo.

Arcturus didn't have to ask what she meant. Most of their ops in me last few years had involved securing mines or frontier exploration sites from Kel-Morian prospectors. Either that or providing heavily armed backup to local enforcers.

Riots and thousands-strong protests were flaring up throughout the Confederacy with ever more regularity, and you couldn't watch the UNN without some report coming on about a disaffected populace attacking police or marching beneath waving banners.

Of course, these were downplayed as a few malcontents, but Dominion section's experiences and Arcturus's last visit to Korhal told him that things were far worse than anyone suspected. The Confederacy was rotting from the inside out and the powers that be were holding on by their fingertips.

"More of the same?" said Arcturus, as a sudden shiver ran along the length of his spine. "You know, I rather think it won't be."

"What do you mean, Captain?" asked Yancy.

"I have a reeling that Duke isn't playing with a full deck," said Arcturus. disregarding the military protocol of not criticizing fellow officers to lower-ranked soldiers.

"You think he's dangerous?" asked Chuck Horner.

"Very much so, Charles," said Arcturus. "I'm just not sure whom he's dangerous to."

Noranda Glacier itself towered over them, a solid escarpment of blue ice on the opposite edge of a shallow-bowled meteor crater gouged into the ice thousands of years ago. The crater's ridge curved away to either side, and its far edge was over three kilometers away. The cliff of the glacier reached thousands of meters into the air, like the dwelling place of gods from ancient legend.

In the center of the shallow bowl a dark fault line spill the ice, and the tendrils of a yellowish green vapor issued from all along its length. A giant, metallic refinery structure of huge pipes, towering collection vats, and flaring exhausts squatted at the center of the crater like a giant, oil-stained spider, surrounded by a host of prefabricated storage sheds and rough-looking living compounds.

Men in hostile-environment suits went about their business below, oblivious to the marines poised to march in and take their livelihood, and huge trucks with spiked wheels crunched over the ice as they loaded up with containers of the precious gas.

It looked as though the place had been built in the midst of what had once been a ruined city, with jagged spires of dark, crystal-veined stone clustered around the more recently built constructions. The architecture of these ruins was a mystery, but there was something about them that looked oddly out of scale with the humans tolling in their shadow.

Brantigan Fole's marines lay in the lee of the crater's edge, looking down into the enormous crater. The goliaths were hunkered down behind them and the vultures did looping circuits of the snow farther back. High overhead, the Wraiths flew figure-eight patterns, lost in the clouds, their engines inaudible.

A thrumming vibration was carried through the ice toward the waiting marines, and Arcturus couldn't help but admire the skill with which the builders of this complex had managed to anchor the refinery over the vespene geyser.

How had they overcome the problem of the shifting ice and the need to keep the collection heads stable? Arcturus couldn't wait to get in and examine the complex.

"Hell, they must have to drill down a ways to get any vespene outta there," said Chuck Horner.

"Indeed they do," said Arcturus. "According to the briefing, the vespene is nearly thirty kilometers beneath the ice."

"Man, that's deep," said de Santo. "Surely there must be easier places to mine?"

"Undoubtedly, but this is an uncommonly large underground geyser," said Arcturus. "And even though it's contaminated with some very noxious chemicals from beneath the ice, it's so vast that it's still worth all the extra effort and danger to get it out."

"Danger?" asked Yancy. "What danger? Aside from drilling over a dirty great crevasse, I mean."

"Look at the color of the gas coming from the extractors," said Arcturus. "You see how it has a yellowish tinge?"

"Yeah."

"Thai's hydrogen sulfide, a very toxic and flammable gas. Mix it with vespene and you have a highly unstable compound indeed."

"So this place is like one big damn bomb?" asked Dia de Santo.

"Potentially," agreed Arcturus.

"Great," said de Santo. "This just gets better and better."

Leaving his marines to gripe about the danger of this current mission, Arcturus returned his attention to the target below. The ground was open and inviting, easy to walk over, but with precious little cover. And to reach the central refinery itself, the marines would have to negotiate the tangle of abandoned maintenance sheds and sagging storage hangars.

From the flaring exhaust gases, it was clear the facility was in use, but there seemed precious little activity for so large a refinery. It was almost as though the few workers in view were going through the motions. Something about this whole setup rang false to Arcturus, but before he could give the matter any further thought, Edmund Duke ran over at a crouch and dropped to his knees beside Arcturus.

"Your men ready, Mengsk?" demanded Duke.

"We are," confirmed Arcturus. "How do you want to do this?"

It galled him to defer to Duke's authority, but Commander Fole had been quite clear as to who held the reins of command in this operation.

Duke looked at him as though he'd just asked something stupid. "How the hell do you think I want to do it? We go straight toward them and shoot anyone who gets in our way. I'll take most the men out front with the vultures and five of the goliaths. You and your men fallow with what's left."

"Captain Duke," said Arcturus, giving Duke his full title as a salve to the man's ego. "That seems a little heavy-handed. We don't know what's down there, and I have just finished telling my soldiers that the gases collecting there are extremely dangerous. We have to be careful here."

"Careful, my ass," said Duke, waving a dismissive gauntlet. "Ain't nothing down there but a bunch of ditch-digging yokels, Mengsk. Nothing we can't handle. Of are you telling me your boys ain't up to the job?"

Arcturus could feel his hackles rise at the insult to his section, but kept his temper in check, knowing that to let Duke see his anger would give him the advantage in this exchange.

"Not at all. Dominion section is ready for action, but we need to think this through. We can't just go in guns blazing."

"Why the hell not?"

Arcturus bellied up lo the ridge and gestured to the refinery complex. "Look at the number of maintenance sheds and derelict structures down there. For all we know there could be a hundred or more men waiting for us. It's a ready-made killing ground. I don't like the look of this, Duke. It smells of a trap."

"Mengsk, the only thing I'm smelling here is cowardice," snarled Duke. "Now get your goddamn men ready to move out or I'll haul your ass in front of Commander Fole on a a court-martial."

Alpha Squadron formed up and moved out on Duke's order, climbing to their feet and marching over the ridge toward the refinery. Almost immediately, the workers in the mine ceased their labors and withdrew to the central complex. The marines set a punishing stride across the ice, their powered suits allowing them to close the distance to their target at a run.

Five of the goliaths loped across the ice with Duke's men, their heavy autocannons spooled up and ready to fire. Dartlike vultures skimmed over the ice at speed, easily outpacing the marines and moving in to circle the refinery with their grenade launchers locked and loaded.

Arcturus let Duke draw close to the refinery before passing the order to move on to his own men and the twenty his fellow captain had deigned to leave with him. The two remaining goliaths lumbered alongside them, one on either side of their dispersed formation, though Arcturus didn't think they'd be much use back here, where their guns couldn't engage anything for fear they'd hit their own men.

"Man, this stinks worse than that dead guy we found on Pho-Rekh," said Chuck Horner.

"Stay watchful," ordered Arcturus. "And Chuck, keep in contact with the dropships?"

"Sure, but if the winds don't ease back they ain't gonna do us a whole lotta good."

"I'm aware of that. Just do it."

"Sir, yes, sir!" said Chuck, recognizing the authoritative tone of his superior officer.

Arcturus watched as Duke's men reached the outermost building in the refinery complex, passing it at a run and spreading out to secure the target.

Nothing happened, and Arcturus let out the breath he'd been holding.

Vultures scooted in behind the men and the goliaths picked a path over the frozen gravel that served as a level surface. A Wraith screamed overhead, its spiraling white contrails painting the sky and throwing up billowing ice chips as it roared over the refinery at low altitude.

As the Wraith pulled out of its run, Arcturus heard the metallic cough of a missile launch from within the compound. How he could have heard it so clearly over the boom of the Wraith's engines and the thunder of blood in his ears he didn't know, but he would swear on his sister's life that he'd heard it as clearly as if the missile had launched right next to him.

Climbing on a glowing, fire-topped column of white smoke, the missile corkscrewed into the air from one of the dilapidated supply sheds, shreds of camo-netting trailing behind it.

"Oh no...." whispered Arcturus.

At first it seemed as though the missile could not hope to catch the Wraith, but its rocket motor flared and it surged upward at a tremendous velocity. The pilot of the aircraft saw the threat and pushed out the throttle, twisting his vehicle and heading for the open skies.

The missile exploded less than two meters from the pilot's canopy and blew the front of the aircraft off in a bright orange fireball. Spinning wreckage tumbled down on trails of black smoke and slammed into the ice.

As though the downing of the Wraith was a signal, the rattle and pop of distant small-arms fire erupted from the compound ahead. Arcturus saw flashes of gunfire and heard shouted cries of alarm over the comm net in his helmet.

These miners weren't going without a fight.

A column of flame whooshed skyward, followed by a rattling, staccato burst of secondary explosions. Armed men in green powered combat suits poured from the supply sheds previously thought abandoned and opened fire on Duke's men. Goliaths in the same livery stomped into view and streams of fire erupted from the weapon mounts on their arms.

"Everyone forward!" shouted Arcturus, breaking into a run. "Move it!"

While the enemy troops were still tangled up with Duke's marines, they weren't pouring any fire toward Arcturus and his section, but that would soon change if they didn't close the gap. They were headed toward an olive-drab hangarlike structure with a curved roof. If they could get around it, then perhaps they could fall on the soldiers attacking Duke's men from behind.

A vulture screamed around the building, chased by a rippling stream of Impaler spikes fired from loopholes cut in the building Arcturus's men were heading for. The pilot jinked his machine like a snake, weaving In and out of the streams of fire, but he wouldn't last long without help.

"Golialhs!" cried Arcturus. "Engage those shooters. Now!"

The two armored walkers braced themselves and their arms spun up and around. The already rotating barrels suddenly roared and meter-long tongues of flame blasted from the ends of their weapons. Flickering sparks and torn metal exploded from the building's flanks, thousands of rounds caning the sheet metal like a whipping plasma torch. Entire strips of metal fell from the hangar, closely followed by torn-up bodies.

For good measure, a salvo of missiles rippled from the shoulder mounts of the two goliaths, streaking inside the holes their guns had torn. One after another, they exploded inside the building, and the roof boomed upward with each detonation. Flames billowed and smoke boiled from the shattered walls and roof.

The vulture pilot sketched them a quick salute before pulling his hover-cycle in a screaming turn and heading back to the battle.

"Mengsk!" shouted Duke over the comm net. "Where the hell are you? We need help. Now, goddammit, now!"

"On our way, Duke," said Arcturus. "Hold on."

The fighting al the edge of the complex was fierce, groups of armored soldiers dashing from splintered wreckage to piles of stacked steel as they fired quick bursts at one another. Arcturus chopped his hand right—the direction the vulture pilot had flown—and led his men into the complex.

Impaler spikes chimed on steel and armor plates. Explosions flared and shrapnel spanged from the walls of buildings. Thankfully, no one had been foolish enough to show anywhere near the refinery, but that was surely a miracle that couldn't last forever. Closer to the complex, the air was greasy and yellow, and a thick fog coiled around their ankles.

Arcturus heard shouts over the comm and skidded into cover at the corner of the building. Closer in, he could see the trap that had been laid for them. The supposedly dilapidated buildings were in fact cunningly constructed strongpoints disguised to look unfinished or abandoned.

An enemy goliath strode around the comer and swiveled its gun mounts toward him.

"Down!" he yelled, and dropped into the fog.

A roaring, sawing line of shells sliced the air like a fiery blade, tearing up the icy ground and sending pulverized chips of gravel flying in all directions. Even through the dampening systems in his helmet, the noise was deafening. Arcturus heard screams and the ringing hammer blows of shells tearing through armor and flesh.

A body fell on top of him, most of its side chewed away. Blood squirted from the torn-up flesh, spraying Arcturus's breastplate in arcing lines. Arcturus gagged back a surge of vomit as he saw Toby Mercurio's lifeless features staring up at him through the smashed ruin of his helmet.

The goliath smashed through a pile of fallen sheet metal, another roaring torrent of shells ripping through the fog toward them. Scattered marines were firing at the armored walker, but their shots were having little effect.

Arcturus pushed Mercurio's body away and rolled to his knees as another hail of explosive 30mm shells reduced what little cover there was to mangled splinters of plascrete and metal shavings.

A series of explosions burst against the goliath's legs and it stumbled, its cannons swiveling to face this new threat. Arcturus saw the vulture they'd saved earlier streak toward the walker. Streams of grenades launched from the hover-cycle's frontal section and a series of explosions burst around the goliath.

It wasn't enough, and Arcturus saw that the pilot had doomed himself in his noble attempt to save them. Then a missile streaked past him and slammed into the pilot's compartment of the enemy walker. As the missile exploded, fire blossomed from the machine and it toppled to the ground in a blazing mass of buckled metal.

Arcturus twisted and saw one of his own goliaths, the blue and red of the Confederate flag a welcome sight on its front glacis. Smoke trailed from Its Hellfire missile launchers, and Arcturus let out a shuddering breath at how close they'd come to death.

The vulture pilot looped his vehicle around and sped off into the thick of the fighting without waiting for any thanks.

"Sir!" shouted a voice through the smoke and confusion. "Sir! Are you all right?"

He looked up and saw Dia de Santo, the faceplate of her helmet cracked and scorched. Blood streamed down her arm where her armor had been penetrated, and he saw that her eyes had the glassy look of stim use.

"Yes... yes, Dia, I'm fine," he said, pushing himself to his feet.

Chuck Horner ran up to him, his armor similarly dented and battered. "Holy crap," he said when he saw Mercurio's dead body.

Chun Leung and Yancy Gray covered their blind spots as Arcturus shook his head and regained his equilibrium.

"What's the plan, Captain?" shouted Horner. "This here's a real mess now. That idiot Duke really screwed the pooch on this one!"

Arcturus nodded and glanced around the ruined corner of the building once again.

The interior of the mining complex was a hellish war zone. Marines lay dead and dying as Impaler spikes streamed back and forth like horizontal rain. Explosions mushroomed skyward and fires licked at the edges of the habitation compound.

The operation, which had started so simply, had turned into a disaster of epic proportions.

Duke and his men had fought their way into and captured one of the strongpoints, a brutal and heroic action that had probably saved their lives. Gunfire blasted from loopholes, cutting down the armored soldiers who were attempting to rush them.

Smoke and flames obscured much of the battlefield, but Arcturus could already see that it was only a matter of time before Duke and his men were overrun.

He dropped to one knee and turned back to his own men.

"Sound off," he ordered. "How many have we got?"

Altogether he had sixteen marines left alive and one goliath, the other lying in a smoldering heap of flames and popping ammunition. Arcturus hadn't noticed its destruction.

"Charles! Do you still have a line open to the dropships?"

"Yeah, but fat lot of good its gonna do us under fire like this!" shouted Horner. "Ain't no way those pilots are dumb enough to bring them flying coffins into this shitstorm!"

"Tell them if they don't want to be shot by court-martial they'll come!"

"I'll pass that onm but I'm telling you those flyboys ain't that dumb."

"Just do it!"

Arcturus opened a link to the surviving Wraith pilot and issued her fresh orders. Thus far she had kept her altitude high to avoid any more missiles, but that was going to have to change if they were going to get out of this mess. Next he cycled through the comm channels until he hit upon Duke's.

"Edmund!" he said. "This is Mengsk."

"Where the hell are you?" demanded Duke. "We're getting slaughtered here!"

Quickly Arcturus outlined his plan to the besieged captain, who didn't like it, but was at least savvy enough to realize that it was the only way he was going to see another dawn.

"Okay, Mengsk, we'll do it your way. Duke out."

With his orders issued, Arcturus turned back to his marines and said. "When I give the word, we're going to move forward and form a corridor between us and Captain Duke. We'll babysit him back out of the complex so the dropships can pick us up. Got it?"

They got it, and he could see a fire ignite in their eyes at the thought of hitting back at these Kel-Morians. His earpiece chimed with a shrill buzz and he turned away from the battle.

"Everyone! Incoming!"

A sudden sonic boom announced the arrival of the Wraith as it roared overhead on a strafing run. A streaming cascade of laser fire tore through the middle of the camp n a storm of high-energy bolts, ripping through dozens of the green-armored soldiers and exploding amongst the trucks carrying the barrels of vespene gas.

One of the trucks detonated in a storm of razor-sharp fragments and spraying gas. Fires ripped through the enemy ranks and the shooting ceased as men burned and died. A thunderous salvo of air - bursting missiles hammered the enemy ranks, and bodies flew through the air as billowing pillars of smoke and flame erupted skyward.

"Now!" shouted Arcturus, and his marines broke from cover to rush toward Duke's stronghold. With Arcturus leading the way, they formed a cordon of soldiers with gauss rifles blazing to keep the survivors' heads down. Arcturus saw an enemy soldier pick himself up from the ground, and shot him through the head with a burst of Impaler spikes.

More soldiers were climbing to their feet. Wraiths lacked a real punch when engaging ground targets, but the shock and noise of the attack had given them some breathing room. Duke and his men were pouring from the wrecked stronghold to join them, and under the covering fire of the few surviving goliaths, the Confederate force began to retreat from the ambush.

Something exploded next to Arcturus and he was slammed into the ground. His rifle spun away and warning lights flashed on the HUD of his visor. A long crack appeared in the plasteel, and the acrid, rotten-egg smell of sulfur clogged his nostrils.

He pushed himself to his knees, and felt a series of ringing hammer blows on his side. He fell back, seeing a pair of green-armored soldiers advancing toward him. They were good, disciplined soldiers and walked their spikes into him, keeping him pinned with the weight of fire. More red icons flashed up on his visor, warning of imminent armor penetration.

Then one of the enemy soldiers fell, his faceplate a mask of red where a stream of Impaler rounds had punched through in one sustained burst. Arcturus looked up to see Chun Leung standing over him, Mayumi pressed light into his shoulder as he calmly aimed at the second soldier and put him down with another fiendishly aimed stream of spikes.

With the immediate threat neutralized, Leung slung his beloved rifle over his shoulder and offered Arcturus his hand.

"With respect, sir, this probably isn't a good time to be having a lie-down."

Arcturus wanted to laugh at the absurdity of this remark, but accepted Leung's hand and hauled himself to his feet. An explosion burst nearby, and no sooner had Arcturus gained his feet than he saw a strange look enter Chun Leung's eyes.

A froth of blood sprayed the inside of the man's visor.

" Leung!" cried Arcturusm now seeing the plate-sized piece of shrapnel embedded in the back of Leung's helmet. As Chun Leung dropped to his knees, he held his rifle out to Arcturus.

"Look after her," said Leung, and pitched over dead.

Arcturus walched Leung's helmet fill with blood, obscuring the man's features, horrified at the sudden, random nature of his death. He clutched Mayumi tightly to his chest, and with a final glance at Chun Leung's body, turned and ran after his retreating men.

"Captain Mengsk!" shouted a voice in his ear. "This is Lieutenant Wang in Wraith One Fox Three. Over."

"What is it, Lieutenant?" replied Arcturus, running backward and firing Leung's gauss rifle into the regrouping enemy.

"Your dropships are inbound, but you better get your asses moving. I'm picking up a hell of a lot of incoming contacts on your location. Ground and aerial units. Big stuff, too, battlecruiser-sized. Looks like these guys are playing for keeps."

"Understood," said Arcturus. "Can you give us any more cover?"

"I've got fuel and ammo for one more pass," said Lieutenant Wang.

"Then that will have to do. Mengsk out.”

Arcturus found himself next to Edmund Duke, the man looking more angry than exhausted by the day's events. Duke looked over at him, glaring in unreasoning bitterness.

"You took your damn time!" was all he said.

Arcturus bit back an angry retort as the last of the goliaths finally toppled, its missiles cooking off In the heat of the explosion and skittering across the ice as they were released from exploding launchers. A vulture smashed into the ice after raking fire from a valley of Impalers blew out its engine. The hover-cycle exploded into a thousand pieces as it hit the ice and its pilot bounced across the rocks, every limb in his body broken.

Arcturus hoped it wasn't the same pilot who'd helped them earlier.

The mining complex was ablaze from end to end and Arcturus was amazed the whole place hadn't gone up in one enormous explosion. Looking at the towering glacier above complex, he saw dark shapes against the midnight blue of the sky.

Starships. Impossibly huge behemoths of neosteel descending from the skies on fiery jets like avenging angels. A fleet of ships was coming in over the glacier and Arcturus knew that the conflict between the Confederacy and the Kel-Morlans had moved on from skirmishes and raids. This was something much, much bigger.

He caught up to the survivors of the attack as the howling, lurching forms of their dropships swooped down into the crater, their pilots braving the storm of enemy fire and the elements to rescue their men.

"Angels on our shoulders," said Arcturus, running toward yhe ramps of the dropships.

Arcturus stepped from the reeking, red-lit dropship almost as soon as it touched down on the gridded landing platform of Camp Hastings. Marines staggered from the bloody, smoky interiors to be met by medics and triage attendants. One dropship had crashed during the extraction, but as Arcturus looked along the line of survivors, he was disappointed to see that Duke hadn't been aboard it.

The camp was in an uproar, as though someone had run an electric current through the entire staff. Arcturus ripped off his helmet and took a deep breath. Even the foul smell of the air here wasn't as bad as that of the blood and sweat inside his helmet.

Chuck Horner. Yancy Gray, and Dia de Santo marched down the ramp to stand next to him. Horner looked at the rifle Arcturus carried.

"Chun Leung?"

Arcturus shook his head.

"Damn," was all Chuck had to say about that.

Arcturus ran a hand through his hair, watching as SCVs went about the task of dismantling the base. Ground crews were already dragging refueling lines out to the dropships and armored marines were hauling silver steel trunks from the buildings to the large-scale flyers.

"What the hell's going on here?' asked Yancy.

"Looks like we're bugging out," said de Santo. "And in a hurry, too."

Arcturus had to agree with that assessment. Everywhere he looked, he saw military personnel breaking down the base, packing up what could be recovered and destroying what couldn't.

At the center of this controlled chaos, Arcturus saw Commander Fole, clad in a suit of powered combat armor and directing operations with his customary brusqueness. Arcturus slung Mayumi over his shoulder and marched up to him.

Fole saw him coming and nodded curtly. "Glad you made it out, Mengsk."

"Thank you, sir," replied Arcturus. "What's going on?"

"What does it look like? We're pulling out of Onuru Sigma."

"What? Why?"

"Because this conflict just got hotter'n hell," said Fole. "General Mah Sakal's Kel-Morians are bringing in battlecruisers and brigade-strength farces to push us off this rock."

"Battlecruisers? Where did they get ships that large from?"

"Don't matter how they got them, they got them," snapped Fole as Edmund Duke trudged over to join them.

Fole planted his hands on his hips and said. "Now you're both here I can tell you the bad news. Word from on high is that everyone's term of service just got extended, so I sure hope neither of you was planning on seeing home soon."

"Extended?" said Arcturus. "Why?"

"Because, gentlemen, we are now officially at war with the Kel-Morian Combine," said Fole.

CHAPTER 12

ARCTURUS ADJUSTED THE DIALS AT THE SIDE OF the resonator, wiping a film of moisture from its screen as the green lines of the display shifted and danced. The gravimetric readings were fluctuating, and though he was sure there was a sizable deposit beneath his feel, the machines just weren't confirming what his instincts were telling him.

Looking up from the magnetic resonator, Arcturus cast his eyes over the dig site. Situated in one of the deep, mist-shrouded valleys of Pike's Peak, the cleared terrain was dominated by six tall drilling rigs that cored the dense rock at the base of the river canyon.

Battered hab-units and storage bins were scattered across the drier pans of the valley floor while men in SCVs worked the coring drills and chugging sifters worked night and day to separate what came up.

Which, so far, was absolutely nothing of worth.

Arcturus knew he was risking a lot with this venture, having sunk most of the money he'd made in the last two mines into this hunk of rock out in the far reaches of the rim. But so far his intuition—which had served him so well in the past—hadn't uncovered the vast seam of valuable minerals he felt sure was burled far below the regolith. The shallower valleys were paying out for other prospectors, but so far this deep one had failed to yield any treasures.

He swore and slammed his palm against the side of the machine as a voice behind him said. “I keep telling you, Arcturus, there's nothing in this valley worth a damn."

"It's here, Dia," said Arcturus, looking up to see Diamond de Santo watching him, her hands planted squarely on her hips. "I can feel it."

Like Arcturus, de Santo wore the heavy-duty work clothes common to most outer rim prospectors: heavy-weave trousers, a quilted jackel with numerous pockets, and a battered hardhat. She wore her dark hair in dreadlocks now and had them pulled in a tight ponytail at the base of her skull.

De Santo bent down to examine the resonator as a jerking sine wave wobbled across its display. At last, Arcturus gave up on the magnetic resonator and stood up straight, wincing as sharp pain flared in his lower back.

"Too much bending over," said de Santo.

"You're probably right," agreed Arcturus, rubbing his hand over his grimy face and then through his hair. There were strands of gray in it now and he knew there was only going to be more of them in the future. He'd seen Angus on the UNN yesterday and his father's hair had gone almost completely silver, so he at least knew he'd likely not be bald when he got older.

"You ain't a young man no more," said de Santo, with a smile. "Nearly thirty."

"I'm only twenty-eight," said Arcturus. "I'm not over the hill quite yet."

"Yeah, but you can see it from here. Soon it'll be all downhill for you."

"You're in a cheery mood today, Dia. What's the matter?"

De Santo shrugged, waving a hand at the work going on around them. "You need to ask?"

"Of course. What's the matter?"

"Look around you, Arcturus," said de Santo. "We've been here two months and we ain't found a damn thing worth sticking around for. I know you think there's a big score in this valley, but there's nothing here."

"There is, Dia, I'm sure of it," said Arcturus. "I can feel it."

"Oh, you can feel it, can you? Then how come the geological mapping, the gravimetric analysis, and the rock assay reports all say the same thing? There ain't nothing here, and you're going to lose everything if we don't cut our losses and move on soon."

Arcturus rounded on de Santo. “Our losses? I seem to remember it being mostly my money that started this venture—bought all these machines on credit and hired the workers to use them. We made a little on that first venture, enough to pay back our creditors, and a lot on the following one. You've done well for an ex-marine, Dia, but don't think for a minute that you are taking the same risks as me."

"Damn, but you are one selfish son of a bitch, Arcturus Mengsk," snapped de Santo. "I put all my share of those two mines into this one, and I stand to lose as much as you. Man, I figured once we got out of the Marine Corps you'd become less of an arrogant asshole, but you're getting worse, you know that?"

"Thank you for your candor," said Arcturus. "Now was there anything specific you wanted or did you just come out here to berate me?"

"A little of both," said de Santo wearily.

"Fine, so you have expressed your opinion," said Arcturus. "What else was there?"

"There's a message arrived for you on the vidsys console. Figured you'd want to know."

Arcturus took a deep breath, fighting down his annoyance at de Santo's interruption, but knowing, deep down, that she might be right.

"Fine," he said at last. "Keep working the resonator. I'll go see what it is."

De Santo sat behind the surveying equipment’s display as he set off toward the central hab-unit, where the crew gathered for meals and relaxation after the day's labors.

He turned back as he walked. "Any idea whom the message is from?" he asked, expecting it to be from either his mother or Dorothy.

"Signal origin code is Umoja," said de Santo.

"Umoja?"

"Yeah, some guy called Pasteur."

Arcturus shucked off his boots and jacket as he stepped into the entry hall of the hab-unit, letting the flow of dry air cool him down after the humidity of the dig site. As he hung up his hardhat, he saw that his palms were sweating and realized he was apprehensive.

Whal could Ailin Pasteur want with him after all these years?

It had been nearly a decade since he had seen the man, and their last words were not ones of abiding friendship. Was it perhaps Juliana using her father's console?

He hoped not. He'd taken Achton Feld's advice literally and made a clean break with his previous life when he'd left Korhal all those years ago. Through the hellish years of the Guild Wars, he'd not thought of Juliana or returned home on any of his infrequent periods of leave.

Instead, he had entered the Marine Corps study program, earning himself innumerable qualifications in prospecting and mineral exploration in preparation for the day he could stand before Brantigan Fole and resign his commission.

"Damn, but I hate to lose you, Mengsk," Fole had said when Arcturus slid his discharge papers across the commander's desk. "The Kel-Morians are on the run, and it's only a matter of time until they got no choice but to surrender. You sure you don't want to wait a while, son? You're a colonel now, but they're gonna be handing out promotions like party favors when this is all over. You could be a general if you wanted."

"No, sir," said Arcturus. "As appealing as that is, I've done my time and just want out."

"What you gonna do with yourself, Mengsk? You're a soldier. You were born to be a soldier. I don't think you've got it in you to be a civilian. Come on, son, the things we've done, the things we've seen... How can you go back to being an ordinary joe after that?"

"With respect, sir," said Arcturus. "It's because of the things we've done that I'm leaving."

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Fole, all civility gone.

Arcturus sighed. "I suppose I just don't believe in what we're fighting for anymore."

Fole had glared up at him and, without another word, signed his discharge papers.

Arcturus shook off the memory and pushed open the door to the rec room. Inside, conditions were spartan, the meager furniture battered from the many times it had been shipped around the rim from potential claim to potential claim. In one corner sat an old cine-viewer where everyone caught up on the latest broadcasts from the UNN or their favorite holodrama. A number of mismatching chairs were gathered around a chipped Formica table, and a pool table—its felt faded and duct-taped—sat in the corner.

Beyond a bead curtain was a small kitchen unit, and a communal ablutions block lay at the far end of the quarters where Arcturus and a number of others slept and kept their few personal belongings.

Against the far wall was the vidsys console, a battered unit they'd bought secondhand and that had never quite functioned as the seller had promised. But it was serviceable enough, and Arcturus had enough technical savvy to keep it running and allow his prospecting crews some fleeting contact with their homes.

A blinking red light flashed on the grimy, oil-stained panel of the console and Arcturus set himself on the stool before it. Taking a moment to compose himself, he ran his hands through his hair once more and wiped the worst of the grime from his face as he always did before opening any communication. An unnecessary ritual, since the message would have been prerecorded, but Arcturus never liked to begin anything without looking presentable.

Satisfied, he punched the red button, and the screen fuzzed with static before a grainy image of a pair of three-pointed stars, locked together within a circle, flashed on the screen. For all his skill with electronics, Arcturus had never been able to get the color to work properly, but he knew that one of the stars was jet black, the other pure white.

This was the planetary icon of Umoja, and Arcturus look a deep breath as the image faded and was replaced with the face of Ailin Pasteur.

The man had aged, his face deeply lined and his hairline having receded alarmingly. Arcturus saw the years had been a burden to Ailin Pasteur and that he carried their weight in his eyes.

"Hello, Arcturus," said Pasteur.

"Ailin," replied Arcturus, falling into the habit of most people when viewing such messages and thinking that the other person was actually on the other end of the link.

"It's been some time since we spoke, so I'll keep this brief."

The man might be looking aged, but his voice had lost none of its strength and Arcturus was quietly impressed as Pasteur continued.

"Your mother told me you'd left the Marine Corps and that you're working your way along the outer rim territories as a prospector. Well, you always said that's what you wanted to do, so I suppose that counts for something. But a lot of things have changed since you left your old life behind, Arcturus, things you need to face up to. I haven't contacted you before now, because Juliana asked me not to, but, like I said, things have changed."

Arcturus's brow furrowed at Pasteur's words. What had changed?

"I need you to come to Umoja," said Pasteur. "I know you probably won't want to, bul, I'm appealing yo any shred of humanity you might have left in you. Come to Umoja, Arcturus. As soon as you can."

The image of Pasteur faded from the screen and Arcturus chewed his bottom lip as he considered what he'd just heard. He replayed the message twice more, searching for the meaning lurking behind Pasteur's words, but he could detect nothing beyond their face value.

He shook his head and went into the kitchen to fix a hot drink, and armed with a tin mug of steaming, military-grade coffee, he made his way to his quarters.

Something had changed, and it was something he was going to have to face up to...

What in the world could it be?

The room Arcturus had taken within the hab-unit gave a narrow window into his personality. He kept it as clean as was possible in a prospecting camp, which wasn't very clean at the best of times. A narrow cot bed sat against one wall, with a gunmetal gray footlocker at its end. Bundles of clothes in need of washing were piled at the foot of the bed and a number of disassembled pieces of electronic kit lay strewn on a collapsible table in the corner. The walls were largely bare steel, though one wall had a gleaming gauss rifle hung on cloth-wrapped bolts, and another boasted a collection of curling holographic images lacked to it.

In one of these images, Dorothy waved to him and blew him a kiss. The image had been captured on her thirteenth birthday and a cake bedecked with candles flickered in the foreground. Dorothy was fast becoming the apple of every Styrling lad's eye, with boys from all the moneyed families queuing up to court her, only to be sent packing by her father and told to come back when she turned twenty-one.

He reached out and touched the image, as he always did, and scanned the other images: one of him at the graduation ball with Juliana, another of being presented his colonel's stripes by Brantigan Fole, and one of him standing heroically atop the glittering seam of minerals at his first strike.

A final image displayed the entire Mengsk family, standing on the balcony of the Mengsk Skyspire. In this picture, Arcturus had just turned thirteen and his parents stood proudly behind him, his mother holding baby Dorothy in her arms. Styrling's silver towers spread out in back of them. It was the last time Arcturus could remember being truly happy.

He cleared a space on the bed and sat on the lumpy mattress with his back resting on the wall upon which hung the rifle.

Arcturus sipped his coffee and winced as it burned his tongue. He put the cup down to let it cool and reached up to lift the gauss rifle from the wall.

Mayumi. Chun Leung's weapon.

He'd been reluctant to part with it after he'd left the Marines, feeling that it would be somehow wrong to simply get rid of it or pass it on to someone else. He'd kept the weapon clean, and maintained it as best he could, but he knew it was a far cry from the immaculate condition it had formerly known.

Arcturus worked the action and began to disassemble the weapon for cleaning as he thought back to the soldiers who had served under him in the CMC. Despite the constant reminder of de Santo's presence, he hadn't consciously thought of Dominion section for some time, their faces growing hazy in the labyrinth of his memory.

Chun Leung and Toby Mercurio had fallen on Onuru Sigma, killed as much by Duke's headstrong foolishness as the Kel-Morian trap, and Yancy Gray died on Artesia Prime when their convoy had been attacked by a chittering wave of spider mines erupting from the ground. The lad's legs had been vaporized in the blast, and not even the skill of the combat medics could save him. He'd died screaming in the back of a truck sloshing with blood.

Only Chuck Horner and Dia de Santo had survived to reach the end of their extended service along with Arcturus. As Arcturus had expected, Dia mustered out and chose to accompany him to the outer rim territories and help him pursue his dreams of becoming a prospector. She had invested what little money she'd saved while still in the service and had become a pretty damn good prospector, with a nose for when a find was going to pay out and when It wasn't.

"What else am I gonna do? Co back to Tyrador IX and work for rich folks? Not this lifetime," she'd said when he'd once asked her why she'd followed him out of the Marine Corps. He suspected that wasn't the full story, but hadn't pressed her for details.

Chuck Horner had chosen a civilian life, and Arcturus was glad his second in command—who'd reached a captain's salary by the time he left—had come through the wars unscathed. Horner had married a woman he'd met on leave and they planned to start a new life together.

Arcturus had shaken Chuck's hand and wished him luck.

"Thanks, sir," said Chuck as they parted on the docks above the gas giant Dylar IV. "I reckon we could all do with a little extra luck now. My own self, I done believe I used a whole lot more'n I could expect to see during this war, so any extra you got's gratefully received. Me'n Carlaare gonna head out to Mar Sara, see if we can't make a life for ourselves. She's a bit young and idealistic, but I guess we all were once."

Arcturus never saw Chuck Horner again.

Captain Emillian had,of course, remained with the Marine Corps, but Arcturus had no idea what had become of her since his departure. Despite her talk of hunting handsome doctors, Arcturus knew Emillian was a career soldier and would no doubt see out her days in the military, either dying on some nameless battlefield or mustering out on retirement.

The odds were vastly in favor of the former, but if anyone could buck those odds, it was Angelina Emillian.

Arcturus and Dia de Santo had taken a ship out to the outer rim territories and set up their prospecting and mining enterprise, taking jobs the bigger outfits didn't like the look for one reason or another, and had quickly made a name for themselves as skillful and dedicated players. Their first strike had enabled them to clear their debts and acquire bigger, more powerful drilling machines, as well as more advanced survey equipment.

Their second strike had been considerably larger and netted them a hell of a payday, but interference from both the Kel-Morian Combine and the Confederate Exploration Corps had become too onerous, and Arcturus had sold the claim for a small fortune and headed farther out into space.

The worlds al the very edge of the outer rim were less frequented and offered the potential for even bigger unclaimed strikes, but by the same token, they were more isolated and vulnerable to piratical bands or heavily armed competition.

With the money they'd made in their second strike, Arcturus and de Santo had bought an old starship named the Kitty Jay and filled her with fresh equipment, skilled workers, SCVs, and even a handful of ex-marines for protection. They had come to Pike's Peak on the strength of prospectors' tales and an old assayer's report Arcturus had found buried within the data architecture of a forgotten Confederate database.

De Santo had balked at risking everything on such scant information, but Arcturus had been insistent, and his instincts had never been proved wrong—yet. For as had been pointed out so bluntly to him not twenty minutes ago, they had found nothing of worth here, and unless they hit paydirt soon, their dwindling capital would soon be exhausted.

It was a depressing thought and Arcturus pushed it aside as he worked an oiled rag along the length of the gauss rifle. The weapon was as clean as it was going to get and he began reassembling it, wondering if he'd be called to use it to defend this claim.

The Guild Wars—as the UNN snappily called it—was entering its fourth year and from what Arcturus had seen of the fighting, he knew that Brantigan Fole was right.

The Kel-Morians were going to lose.

It remained to be seen what that meant for smaller outfits like his, but Arcturus suspected that it wouldn't take long for the Confederacy to turn its attention to the unclaimed resources of the outer rim.

Arcturus snapped the last piece of the weapon into place and clicked the magazine home.

He laid the rifle across his knees and leaned his head back against the wall, looking over at the holographs opposite him. He looked at the image of Juliana and himself smiling for the holocam and smiled at the memory, wondering what Ailin Pasteur could want with him.

It likely wouldn't be anything to do with his family or he'd have heard from his mother or Dorothy. Perhaps something had happened to Juliana, but then why would Pasteur turn to Arcturus?

He didn't yet know whether he'd even heed the request to travel to Umoja. He owed Ailin and his daughter nothing and had no obligation to make such a journey, but a nagging curiosity gnawed at the back of his mind.

His train of thought was interrupted as he heard running footsteps along the corridor outside and the sound of Diamond de Santo calling his name. He lifted the rifle and placed it beside him on the bed as de Santo burst into his room, her eyes alight with excitement and the breath heaving in her lungs.

"Holy hell, Arcturus, you need to get your ass outside. Now!"

"What is it? What's going on?"

"You were right," gasped de Santo. "Goddammit it, but you were right. It's unbelievable."

"Slow down, Dia," said Arcturus, swinging his legs off the bed and standing up.

De Santo threw herself at him, embracing him in a crushing bear hug.

Arcturus prized her grip from around his neck and held her at arm's length. "Listen to me, Dia. Slow down. What are you talking about? What's unbelievable?"

She took several calming breaths before speaking, but Arcturus saw the thrill in her eyes and felt an electric sense of excitement pass between them.

"The claim," said de Santo. "You were right—there's minerals right below us, but we couldn't see them. Turns out the resonators were getting some backscatter from a higher stratum of banded ironstone."

"Are you sure?" demanded Arcturus. "Have you checked?"

"Yeah, one of the drills brought up a core sample that showed a layer of magnetite and shale. Once I adjusted the resonator to filter that out... Oh, man, you gotta see it. It's the biggest deposit I've ever seen. We're rich, Arcturus!"

"Okay, you need to calm down, Dia."

"No way, man. This is big, Arcturus. I never even heard of a seam this huge: it's still gonna be paying out when our grandkids are drawing their pensions!"

Four days later and the party still hadn't stopped.

If anything, de Santo had underplayed the scale of the find, and with the resonator properly calibrated to reach beyond the banded ironstone layer, there seemed no end to the length, breadth, and depth of the mineral seam. With Arcturus's confirmation of the veracity of the find, and the first samples brought to the surface, the assembled workers and marines had broken out the alcohol and the party had begun in earnest.

Heavier drilling rigs were even now being built to more quickly exploit the enormous find, and Arcturus knew that this strike was going to make him a very rich man indeed. Richer than any prospector in the history of the Confederacy had ever managed after a lifetime of exploration and digging.

The rec room was filled with people: miners, assayers, and soldiers. The heavier drilling rigs were due to go online tomorrow and the SCVs had made a good start on the construction of an extraction refinery, but tonight everyone was relaxing. This was likely to be the only time off anyone was going to get in the next few months as they established a more permanent facility on the claim, and everyone was making the most of it.

Arcturus sat on one of the chairs around the table, listening to the excited banter of his staff and letting them congratulate him on the intuitive instinct that had led them to this windfall. Everyone expected to get rich from this find, and for once it looked as though that might actually be the case.

Bottles of alcohol were passed around and toasts raised to future fortunes. Arcturus listened to his men's grand plans about how they were going to spend their money and took a proffered mug of lethally strong hooch.

Dia de Santo sat next to him, smiling broadly and flicking through the few channels they received on the cine-viewer. Various images flickered in the corner of the room, adverts mainly, but Arcturus sat up as a familiar face ghosted into focus onto the projection.

He read the caption that scrolled along the bottom of the image and said. "Wait," as he saw de Santo reaching to change the channel. "Turn it up."

The speakers crackled and spat, but eventually Arcturus heard his father's voice, though the sound of revelry in the rec room all but drowned him out.

"Quiet!" barked Arcturus, and the room was instantly silenced.

He stood and walked over to stand right In front of the viewer as the caption repeated across the bottom of the screen.

Martial Law on Korhal as Senator Angus Mengsk Declares War on the Confederacy! Tarsonis Promises Stern Measures of Retaliation!

On the viewer, Angus stood addressing a thousands-strong crowd from a podium erected on what Arcturus recognized as the Martial Field. A sea of adoring faces stared up at his father as he held forth on his favorite subject, the rampant corruption of the Confederacy. Though the UNN had muted his words, Angus's fist hammered the air as he spoke, his call to arms answered by deafening cheers from the crowd.

Arcturus saw his mother and Dorothy standing proudly behind his father as the announcer spoke disgustedly of planetwide riots, the capture of the UNN tower, and attacks on Confederate outposts that had seen thousands dead.

The view rotated between Confederate barracks on fire, vast crowds of people on the streets with brightly painted banners, and Angus shouting to the gathered followers like the fiery demagogue of some ancient fire-and-brimstone faith.

Was this the reason Ailin Pasteur had wanted him to travel to Umoja?

What did Pasteur know that the UNN wasn't reporting?

"Stern measures of retaliation," he said. What did that mean?

Arcturus turned from the cine-viewer and marched down the corridor to his room. He pushed open the door and began packing a bag, stuffing in the few clean clothes he had left.

Dia de Santo pushed into his room seconds later, her face betraying her worry. "What are you doing, Arcturus?"

"I'm leaving," said Arcturus. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Tell me you're joking. You can't leave now!"

"Just watch me."

"We're on the verge of digging out the biggest mineral strike this side of the Long Sleep and you wanna leave? Damn it, Arcturus, we need you here, I need you here."

"Don't worry, Dia," said Arcturus, reaching out and putting a hand on her shoulder. "I'll be back soon. I'm going to take the Kitty Jay to Umoja, but I will be back, I promise."

"Umoja? Why the hell do you need to go there?"

"I need to see Ailin Pasteur," said Arcturus. "Then I need to make sure my family is safe."

Arcturus stepped through a haze of steam and oilsmoke onto the surface of Umoja. Or at least onto the heat-resistant ceramic landing platform that had just descended a few hundred meters into the surface of Umoja. A drizzle of moisture clung to his skin like humidity and the heat bleeding from the Kitty Jay’s engines warmed the air.

Traveling between worlds always made Arcturus uneasy. The unknown dimensions of deep space and all that might lurk in its vast emptiness fired his imagination with images of as-yet unknown aliens and piratical corsairs.

As master of his own destiny, the placing of his fate in the hands of another, even one as qualified as Morley Sanjaya—the pilot he'd hired when he'd bought the Kitty Jay— unsettled him greatly. Though he could not fly a starship, Arcturus felt sure that if he were to try, he would master it quickly enough.

And make better time than the two weeks it had taken them to get here...

Ailin Pasteur's private landing platform was empty and its underground walls were a mixture of rock and metal, scorched black by the comings and goings of orbital craft. A flashing amber light rotated above a shuttered blast door, and a low buzz of static poured from a speaker recessed In the wall.

The light flicked off and the blast door began to rumble upward.

A squad of men clad in combat suits of pale blue plate and carrying gauss rifles marched out onto the platform, followed by a man wearing a dark suit and a foul-weather cloak.

Ailin Pasteur.

The last time Arcturus had seen Pasteur had been at the Close of Session of the Коrhal Senate, where the man had berated him for how he had just treated his mother. With the benefit of hindsight, Arcturus now accepted that his actions might have been a little rash that day, which bought Pasteur some goodwill.

Pasteur slopped al the base of the steps that led up to the landing platform.

"Hello, Ailin," said Arcturus, slinging his suit-bag over his shoulder. "I'd say good morning or good evening, but I don't know which it is."

"It's evening, Arcturus," said Pasteur. "Welcome to Umoja."

Though the words were said with formal politeness, Arcturus sensed the rancor behind them. Was this some charade for the soldiers standing at Pasteur's back?

"Thank you," said Arcturus, stepping down from the platform and waving a hand in the direction of the opened blast door. "Shall we?"

Pasteur nodded and turned on his heel, clicking his fingers al the soldiers, who quickly followed, marching in lockstep behind them.

Pasteur led him into a series of rock corridors that looked as though they had been bored through with fusion cutters. Arcturus noted the quality and type of the rock, smiling as he found himself calculating the density of the rock and rate per hour that it could be excavated.

Walking alongside him, Pasteur saw the smile and said. "Something funny?"

"Not really," said Arcturus. "I still have my prospecting head on. Look, tell me what this is all about, Ailin. My outfit's just struck a huge mineral deposit and we need to get our operation up and running before the Confederate Exploration Corps gets wind of it. So come on, what's going on?"

"It's better if you see for yourself," said Pasteur.

Arcturus sighed. "If this has something to do with my family, then I want to know now."

"Oh, it has something to do with your family all right," snapped Pasteur, "but I promised I wouldn't say anything. And I am a man of my word."

This last comment appeared to be particularly barbed, and Arcturus wondered what he had done to deserve such animosity. But Pasteur would not be drawn on the subject, and Arcturus left him to his silence as they made their way deeper into the complex. They arrived at an elevator and traveled to the surface within its gleaming, silver-steel interior.

The elevator emerged into the wide hallway of a sizable dwelling, not unlike that of the Mengsk summer villa. The walls were white marble and the floor was a mixture of gleaming hardwood and expensive-looking rugs. An iron screw stair led back down into the rock and a wide set of carpeted stairs led up toward a second story.

A shining dome pierced with panels of stained glass surmounted the hallway, and a chandelier of flickering candles floated beneath its curve.

"Very nice," said Arcturus as Ailin Pasteur led him toward a thick wooden door.

Pasteur opened the door and indicated that Arcturus should step through.

Arcturus swept past and entered a long room set with expensive furniture and a crackling fire that burned beneath a wide mantel. The smell of hot coffee and sweet fruits hung in the air, and Arcturus saw Juliana sitting in a large chair beside the fireplace.

She looked up as he entered and her face transformed, surprisingly, with genuine pleasure at the sight of him. In the intervening years, Juliana had grown up. Features that were girlish and coqueitish when he'd last seen her were now womanly and strong. Juliana had lost nothing of her figure, and when she stood and straightened her dress, Arcturus was again reminded of the poise and grace of his mother.

Arcturus stepped farther into the room, then pulled up short as he saw a young boy sitting on the floor in front of the fire. Dressed in dark trousers and a matching shirt, his shoulder-length golden hair was pulled back in a small ponytail. Arcturus was no expert in such matters, but he guessed the boy's age at around six or seven.

The boy sat in the midst of a pile of colored plastic bricks, built as though he had decided to construct a ruined city. Tiny toy soldiers were scattered through these ruins and Arcturus watched the child move them while making shooting noises with his mouth.

"We have company," said Juliana, and the child looked up.

Arcturus received a dazzling smile from the boy—and felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach.

Startlingly handsome, the child was blessed with high cheekbones, wide gray eyes, creamy skin, and just the hint of a hawkish curve to his nose.

"What's going on here?" hissed Arcturus as Ailin Pasteur shut the door behind him.

"Valerian," said Juliana. "Say hello to your father."