Old Soldiers

Sa-Chelak nodded inside his helmet, then chopped his arm in a gesture towards the distant dot his suit's computer assured him was the Bolo transport. It was little more than a speck, gleaming faintly in the reflected light of the system primary, but they were more than close enough for their delivery vehicle.

Na-Hanak entered a final sequence on the weapon's control pad, then punched the commit button. A

mist of instantly dispersed vapor spurted from the weapon's small thruster, and it accelerated away from the platoon.

Sa-Chelak watched it go. It was fitting in many ways, he thought, that the very primitiveness of their weapon helped explain how it would penetrate the Humans' vaunted superior technology. Its warhead actually relied upon old-fashioned chemical explosives to achieve criticality, and the total power supply aboard warhead and delivery vehicle combined was less than would have been required to supply a pre-space hand lamp. Its guidance systems were purely passive, relying upon an optical lock on its designated target, and the control systems for its primitive, low-powered, but effective thrusters used old-fashioned mechanical linkages. Not that more modern technology was completely absent from its construction. In fact, it was built of radiation-absorbent materials so effective that at a range of barely two meters (with the access ports closed to hide the glowing giveaway of its displays), it was impossible for the Melconian eye to pick out against the backdrop of space. It was, in fact, as close to completely invisible and totally undetectable as the Empire's highly experienced design teams could produce.

It only remained to be seen if it was invisible enough.

"So are you going to save that castle as effectively as you saved your queen?" Willis inquired interestedly.

"You're not doing your next efficiency report any favors, Sergeant," Chin told her ominously, regarding the rapidly spreading disaster in the middle of the chessboard.

"Hah! Captain Trevor knows what a sore loser you are, sir. She'll recognize petty vengefulness when she sees it."

"Unfortunately, you're probably right about that." Chin reached for his surviving knight, then drew his

"Anytime you're ready, sir," she told him with deadly, affable patience.

"Which will be—"

"Alert!" The bulkhead speaker rattled as the baritone voice barked a flat-toned warning. "Alert!

Sensors detect incoming—"

Guthrie Chin was still turning his head towards the speaker, eyebrows rising in surprise, when the multimegaton demolition charge exploded less than fifty meters from Stalingrad's hull.

Maneka bounced twice on the end of the diving board, then arced cleanly through the air. The grav-lift dive platform floated a meter and a half above the gentle swell, and the ocean surface was a translucent, deliciously cool sheet of jade. She sliced through it cleanly, driving deep into the even cooler depths, before she swept back up towards the sun-mirror of the surface.

Ocean swimming wasn't something which had been very practical back on Everest, she admitted to herself. And she supposed that, under the circumstances, she would have to concede that its practicality here was, indeed, a point in favor of Indrani over New Hope. Not that she was prepared to admit that to anyone else.

Her head broke surface, and she used both hands to slick back her short, wet, dark hair. Half a dozen other heads bobbed near her, and the two air cars designated for lifeguard duty floated watchfully overhead. Sonar transducers adjusted to a frequency which had been demonstrated to repel the local sea life protected the swimmers from the possibility of being munched upon, and Maneka rolled in the water and began backstroking back towards the platform.

Another three or four dives, she thought, then back to work and—

"Alert!" Lazarus' voice blared so loudly in her mastoid-mounted speaker that it felt for an instant as if someone had slapped her. "Alert! Mickey reports—"

The nuclear detonation overhead was bright enough to bleach the sapphire sky pale amethyst.

"Mother of God!" someone gasped. It took Lieutenant Hanover over two seconds to realize that the words had come out in her voice.

She stared in horror at the visual display, which had just polarized as the sun-bright flash licked away Stalingrad as if the transport had never existed. But it had, and she swallowed hard as the instant of paralyzing shock faded into something resembling coherent thought.

Fusion plant? she wondered automatically, only to reject it instantly. She was at standby, just like the Forest. And Bolos don't have that sort of accident—ever. But then what—?

She never knew exactly what caused it to click so quickly. Maybe it was the memory of what had happened to Kuan Yin, causing her to jump instantly to a conclusion which was preposterous on the face of things. Maybe it was some sort of subconscious logic flow which would have made impeccable sense if she'd been able to analyze it. But how it came to her was supremely unimportant beside her total confidence that she was right.

She punched the key on her console while the other four members of her duty watch were still gawking at the beautifully hideous blossom of brilliance on their visual displays. A musical tone sounded in her earbug almost instantly as the communications computers routed her priority message to its destination.

"Captain Berthier," she heard her own voice say calmly, "this is Hanover, on India Mike Three. Sir, the Dog Boys have just blown Stalingrad—and Mickey—to hell."

She was still talking when the same finger which had hit the com key punched another button and alert sirens began to wail all across Industrial Module Three.

Maneka was still dripping when the lifeguard air car came screaming in to deposit her atop Lazarus'

war hull. She didn't waste time thinking about uniforms or towels. She just dashed towards the heavily armored topside perso

"—to the Armory now!" she snapped. "Full equipment and ammunition for First, Second, and Fourth Battalions. Deploy First and Second to the Alpha One positions, and alert Major Atwater for probable immediate embarkation."

"Understood," Brigadier Jeffords said sharply. She could hear the reverberations of shocked disbelief echoing in his voice, but he was alert and tracking well, and that was about all she could have asked of him under the circumstances.

"Good, Peter," she said a bit more gently, then ducked and twisted in a familiar contortion that deposited her onto the upper access ladder to Lazarus' command deck. She braced her bare insoles against the outside of the ladder uprights and slid down it, com dangling from her wrist by its lanyard, and the vibrations of ponderous, delicate movement shivered in her hands and feet as Lazarus maneuvered himself back up the loading ramp of the assault pod.

She left that up to him and the pod's onboard computers while she concentrated on getting down the ladder in one piece as quickly as possible. Adrian Agnelli's face already showed on one of the multiquadrant communications screens, and other members of the colony's command structure were blinking onto other quadrants even as her bare feet hit Command One's decksole with a stinging impact.

Agnelli's expression was a combination of horror, shock, disbelief, and confusion, but if there was any panic in it, Maneka couldn't see it. Fear, yes—but not, she was certain, for himself. And despite all the myriad questions which must be hammering at his brain, he didn't waste time battering her by demanding answers to them.