Star Marines. Ian Douglas

I believe the situation warrants this action.”

      “Very well. I am retargeting the array.”

      Retargeting required only an adjustment of the primary mirror, a change of a couple of degrees. There was no sensation of movement or of acceleration within the microgravity of the control deck.

      “Retargeting is complete. We are locked onto the coordinates provided by the Commodore Edward Preble.”

      “Initiate firing sequence.”

      “Capacitors are not yet up to—”

      “The target is not solid rock. Fire. Now. If you please.”

      “Firing.”

      If the AI governing HELGA Three’s systems was chagrined, it showed no sign of the fact. The energy of multiple fusion bombs streamed into space.

       We Who Are

       Asteroid Belt

       1236 hrs, GMT

       The Lords Who Are had directed the huntership to approach the fourth planet of this system. They’d detected a high concentration of electromagnetic signals emerging from several points on the planet’s surface, and from the inner of the planet’s two small moons, and there were a number of spacecraft in the vicinity as well. The Lords Who Are felt it necessary to examine the world more closely, especially in regard to its military capabilities and potential.

       The blast of coherent energy that struck the huntership, then, caught the Lords Who Are somewhat by surprise. Their approach had been cautious, with EM shields fully up and powered, but they were prepared for an attack from the planet in question, or from one of the tiny spacecraft swarming through this region; the laser beam arrived from a different direction and source entirely—from a base circling this system’s star between the orbits of the second and third planets.

      That orbital base had fired once, a few tanut earlier, and at least partially annihilated the first of the asteroids already set in motion toward the third planet. The Lords Who Are had analyzed the data, and concluded that the laser array was designed to intercept and destroy small asteroids, but that it was not primarily a military weapon. The array’s output, based on the reflected light from the laser strike against the rock, suggested that the array was not capable of seriously threatening the huntership in any case.

       It was clear now that the analyses of the beam’s power was understated by at least eighty percent. Possibly, much of that initial beam had actually missed the hurtling asteroid, and been lost in deep space, a possibility that the Lords Who Are had not considered.

       They considered it now, as the beam struck the huntership’s shields, overwhelmed them, and drove them down. Star-hot radiation struck the living surface of the huntership, flash-boiling vast quantities into the vacuum. The power plant and the reactionless drives, both those that maneuvered the huntership through normal space, and those that made faster-than-light travel possible, began boiling away an instant later, as heat exchangers and quantum dampers strove to compensate for the torrent of coherent EM radiation.

       Worse, optical and other sensors located in the huntership’s skin were seared into uselessness. New ones could be grown, but, for the moment, at least, the ship and the Lords Who Are were blind, deaf, and helpless.

      Given the technology of the species inhabiting system 2420-544, this was not a serious situation, but it was irritating. And frustrating. Vermin were not supposed to fight back.

       There would be no more experimentation with the locals’ defenses. The damage to sensors, power plant, weapons, and drives would be repaired, the huntership restored to full operational capacity, and the worlds of this star system would be sterilized.

       Once and for all.

       Assault Detachment Alpha

      On Board Commodore Edward Preble

       Outbound from Mars

       1308 hrs, GMT

      “All right, Marines,” Garroway bellowed over the platoon channel. He was standing in the central aisle of the crowded autie, gauntleted hands braced on seatbacks on either side. The CAS helped him stand, but it still wasn’t pleasant. They were pulling, according to the telemetry coming through his link, two and a half gravities. “Noumie briefing in five! Check your contacts!”

      “Damn it, Gunny,” Corporal Kevin Yancey said. “When can we peel out of these tin cans? It’s getting freakin’ ripe in here.”

      “Stew in it, Yancey. ‘Your combat armor is the Marine’s skin. Your combat armor will keep you alive and able to kill your enemies. You will care for your combat armor as though it was your own body. …’”

      The old litany out of boot camp raised a chorus of groans from the Marines, which had been Garroway’s intent. A griping Marine wasn’t necessarily a happy Marine, but he was an alert and attentive one. And he needed their attention now.

      He didn’t blame them, though. They’d been suited up for the better part of nine hours, now, ever since they’d prepped for the IMAC launch at zero-dark-thirty that morning, Zulu. The Marine CAS was a flexible and remarkably versatile instrument. It had its own water supply, and a ready cache of combat rations, which, of course, the more inventive Marines stocked with candy bars and other gedunk. It had attachments to let you piss and shit, too … all the comforts of home.

      Well, most of them. The trouble was, after a few hours sealed in the thing, the best filtering and air scrubbing cyclers in the world couldn’t keep up with the canned stink of excrement and sweat. They said you got used to it after a while. Once, Garroway had been on a training exercise where he’d donned a CAS and kept it donned for fifty-three hours. “They” were wrong.

      “Man, I don’t see why we have to stay suited up either, Gunny!” Sergeant Roderick Franks said. “This stink ain’t never comin’ out!”

      “Don’t worry, Roddy,” Chrome told him. “You couldn’t get a date, anyway.”

      “Says you. Anyway, we all know the brass is just jerking us around.”

      “Jack in and ice it, people,” Garroway said. “The word is we’re on another op. We stay in the cans until the Man says otherwise. Ooh-rah?”

      “Ooh-rah!” several Marines chorused back … but not many, and not with a lot of enthusiasm. Morale was not good.

      Lieutenant Wilkie had passed the word coming down from higher up on the chain of command. The RST had been ordered both to stay suited up and to remain on board the dust-off autie, which had been swallowed whole a few hours ago by the transport Preble. Now they were going somewhere in one hell of a hurry. Two point five Gs was about max for a Patriot-class transport.

      That told Garroway that they wanted the Marines ready to go at an instant’s notice. Unfortunately, no one had yet bothered to tell any of them what the hell was going on.

      But maybe that was about to change. Wilkie had just passed the word that there would be a noumenal briefing in five more minutes. About damned time, he thought fiercely. Marines never liked operating in the dark … at least, not the kind of political-situational darkness that even Mk.XC night-vision equipment simply could not penetrate.

      The minutes dragged past. Then the noumenal link alert flashed on. Garroway took his seat, making the connections with his armor gauntlets on his seat.

      Lieutenant Wilkie’s virtual image appeared in the window that opened in his mind. The face looked a lot like Wilkie’s real face, Garroway thought, but had obviously been aged a bit, to give it a more experienced and commanding presence. Garroway didn’t like playing that sort of game with the noumenon, though he knew a lot of officers who did.

      “Texten