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We turned back to the wall that had stopped us. I examined it more closely, snapping
on my suit lights.

“Ah,” I said, “I get it. These are dead Lobsters. See these rock-like balls? They
stacked up their own dead and sprayed constructive nanites over them. The smart metal
is acting like a weld to hold the barrier together.”

“What killed them all?” Kwon asked.

I shrugged. “Most likely, Welter’s people did. They’ve been fighting down here for
quite some time, you know. Maybe Welter killed them all or even built the wall himself
during his last stand. There’s still no contact from him, is there?”

“No sir. Lots of interference in this big structure. And the central com system is
worse than dead. It seems to be jamming all long-range signals.”

We blew apart the barrier with grenades and carefully continued past it. I had a grand
total of fifteen effective Centaurs, plus Kwon and I. The lieutenant I’d so recently
promoted to captain was dead, and I didn’t feel like making a new Captain Sky out
of the noncoms to replace him. I took personal command and told them Kwon was my second,
if I should fall.

We continued up the central shaft until our automaps showed we should take a side
route. There, we met up with another platoon—or rather, with their remains.

“They’re all dead, sir,” Kwon said, stumping around the piles of bodies.

There were Crustaceans, Centaurs and humans everywhere. At least sixty bodies, maybe
more, were clustered around a junction of two passages.

“There seem to be more dead Lobsters than anything else.”

“That’s good!” Kwon said. “Let’s make
more
dead ones.”

Grim-faced, I pressed on. We were getting close to the generators now. I could see
signs of heavy fighting, and I could hear laser fire echoing down the passages from
distant fights. I tried my suit radio again, but got nothing other than static. Our
com-links didn’t synch-up unless we were very close. I realized I could probably shout
farther than I could communicate with my headset.

“Let’s stay tight,” I told my troops. “Anyone who gets lost now is never going to
be found.”

This was the sort of instruction the Centaurs dreamed of. They were immediately hugging
up against one another and bumping their horns into my generator pack. I almost yelled
at them, but held back. They’d suffered a lot, and not one of them had broken. I’d
asked for their sacrifice, and they’d given it their all. I wasn’t going to dishonor
any of them by admonishing them now.

For a Centaur, simply being ignored by a superior was a powerful rebuke. Outright
confrontation and enduring an angry display was so humiliating that the underling
in question often took his own life, or he might become so distraught he could not
function properly. I didn’t need any of my surviving troops opening their suits in
despair. They’d suffered enough, and they didn’t deserve a cranky human officer at
this point.

“Good job, marines,” I said. “You’ve all done extremely well. The fallen will water
the grass with their blood, and will never be forgotten in the song of the winds.”

This seemed to make them happy. Tails lifted all along the line. I’d heard the speech
from other Centaurs after rough fights, so I figured I might as well give them what
they expected.

We made it to Generator Room Three after a few more skirmishes with the Lobsters.
I could tell the area had been fought over before. There were bodies here, many of
them Fleet crewmen. They were Welter’s men, and they’d died putting up a fierce defense.

“Plant the charges, Kwon,” I said.

He was already doing it. He hummed as he worked. I marveled at his attitude. All the
blood, all the gore, all the bodies strewn everywhere—they never seemed to bother
Kwon. As long as he was in a battle zone, he was content and life was good.

“Timer set, sir,” he said.

I blinked in my suit. “How long do we have?”

“Ah…oh yeah. Didn’t check.”

“Out! Out! OUT! Everyone move to the exit, now!”

We ran out of the generator room. Kwon was the last one to the door, and his shadow
loomed over me as the explosion bloomed into life. The roar of it was somewhat muted
by my helmet and as I’d managed to turn a corner into a side passage. Luckily, I wasn’t
deafened again. I was, however, smacked from behind and pushed into a pile of squirming
Centaurs by Kwon’s flying hulk.

We picked ourselves up, with our heads ringing. The corridor had gone black—in fact
this entire region of the station had darkened. We turned on our suit lights and beams
stabbed into the dusty darkness around us. Centaurs limped and spoke together in their
own odd language. I could tell their remarks weren’t meant for my ears, as they hadn’t
engaged my translator. I could well imagine what they were saying.

“Sorry sir,” Kwon said. “I have trouble with the timers. I get excited.

“I think you’re going back to the explosives training center after we get back home.”

“You mean the one back on Andros Island? With all the pits and bunkers?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s exactly what I mean. If we ever get back home, that is.”

“Can’t do it, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve been banned from there, sir. The duty Sergeant said he never wanted
to see me again.”

I nodded. “All right. But next time, I’m lighting off the charges.”

“Very good, Colonel.”

-41-

One by one, the generators were taken out. After that, each of the invading companies
had their follow-up orders: we were all to hunker down and stay alive until relief
came. The gunships and the rest of our infantry were inbound, and with the big guns
silenced, they should be able to land as an organized force. We had fifty gunships
and about ten thousand men out there, more than enough to sweep aside the surviving
Lobster defenders. The only hard part was waiting for them to arrive. I looked at
my chronometer, and grimaced. We had about five hours to go. Five hours didn’t sound
like a lot, but when you were crouching in the dark with a handful of troops, it was
an eternity.

“You think squatting here at the gen room is the best idea, Colonel?” Kwon asked me.

I looked at him. My ears had stopped ringing from the grenade attack back on the surface
by this time, but they were still sore. A trickle of liquid ran from each ear down
my neck. I figured that was a mix of blood and nanites. The worst was the itching.
Healing fast always seemed to have its trade-offs. One negative was the horrible itching.
As the pressure was low here, I couldn’t even afford to take off my helmet and have
a good scratch.

“What do you suggest, First Sergeant?”

“Let’s go look for Welter. I bet he’s holed up around the backup bridge—if he’s still
alive, that is.”

I snorted, catching on. Kwon wasn’t worried about the dangers of sitting here beside
the blown generator. He was bored and wanted to get back into the action.

“Forget it, Kwon,” I said. “We’re staying put.”

Kwon sat against a wall and pouted. I ignored him and worked on my radio. If I was
lucky, the generators were powering the jamming system. The central com system didn’t
have to work—I could use suit power alone to contact someone.

After a few minutes of fooling with the channels, I managed to get a live conversation
to play in my helmet. It was between two officers, and it sounded urgent. I caught
something about the bridge, then lost the signal.

We were in a small tool room, about as big as a typical two-car garage back home.
Junk was everywhere, and there was a hole in the nearest wall. We used that hole to
peer out and listen for approaching enemies. Around me, the Centaurs tensely watched
the exits with projectors in their hands. Kwon and I were both resting against walls.

I grumbled and sat there quietly in the dark for perhaps two full minutes. I took
those two minutes to think about the Centaurs and how different they were from humans.
Right now, I could see another difference on display. If everything was quiet and
there was a lull in the battle, human troops tended to relax as much as they could,
conserving their energy for the next conflict. The Centaurs didn’t seem to operate
that way. While they were in a hostile environment, they couldn’t rest. Their ears
never stopped twitching. Their head swung this way and that, and they paced around,
trying to sense approaching danger. I guess it all went back to our racial histories.
At some point, they’d spent a lot of time being prey, while we’d become used to the
lazy role of the predator.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I fiddled with the radio again. I thought I
heard a squawk, and the name “Major Reza”. Kwon came alive and leaned toward me when
he noticed what I was doing.

“You got something there?”

“Yeah. Sounds like Reza and her team are in trouble.”

“Sure they are. They are supposed to be in trouble. When you paint your butt red and
moon the bull, you expect things to become exciting.”

I chuckled. “You must have heard that from someone.”

“Yeah,” Kwon said. “A guy back at the base told me that one. He called himself a redneck,
but his neck was as white as a fish belly. Puzzling.”

I chuckled again. “I can’t take it anymore,” I said. “I’ve got to head back toward
the central shaft. From there, we should be able to signal someone. I wouldn’t be
surprised if we found a nanite stream to plug into.”

“Suit power!” Kwon said excitedly. “I’m down to seven hours of juice now.”

That wasn’t much of an excuse, I realized. This entire battle was supposed to be over
in less than seven hours, and moving around wasn’t conserving power in any case. But
I didn’t like the idea of a raging battle going on nearby without even being aware
of how the wind was blowing. I guess it was all my own fault. As the overall commander,
I could have sat outside on the hull calling shots. But I hadn’t, I’d gone into the
shit, and now my boots were all dirty and I was tired of being stuck here.

We carefully picked our way through the darkened station back to the central shaft.
I cautiously opened my helmet to every channel in sequence. Most of them were silent.
But there was some chatter on the general command channel.

“This is Colonel Kyle Riggs,” I said, “identify yourselves.”

“Colonel Riggs? This is Major Reza. I’m pushing into the interior, sir. The enemy
is falling back.”

Another voice came on then. “I thought we’d lost you, Kyle!” said Major Sloan. “I’m
in the middle of an argument with Reza. She wants to advance, I’m trying to tell her
to hold onto the LZ for me. Could you clarify, sir?”

“In my absence Sloan would normally be in command. However, you’re over four hours
out in space, Sloan. I’ve been out of contact for over an hour myself. In this case,
I would normally defer to the commander on the ground. What do you want to do and
why, Reza?”

“I want to break in and follow the enemy, forcing them into a full retreat. They’re
no longer trying to hold the entire battle station. I think they realize that it’s
too big for their remaining forces. I want to push into that vacuum they’re leaving
behind and keep the pressure on. Also, I think there may well be survivors like yourself
and Welter’s troops in pockets. I want to keep them alive by giving the Lobsters something
to worry about.”

I nodded to myself. “Sounds pretty good to me. Sloan, you’ll have to secure your own
LZ. Just pull up some gunships and blast anything that crawls on the exterior hull.
Reza, head for the central shaft. I’ll meet you there with whatever troops I can gather.”

By the time I reached the central shaft again, I’d managed to pull together the remains
of five platoons. Sadly, they numbered less than a hundred troops all told. Losses
had been grim, and the fighting had been universally heavy. Most of the station was
in a vacuum, and my Centaur troops were wearing nanocloth balloons rather than armor.
One hit, and they were usually knocked out of the game. Losses among the human marines
had only been about a quarter as bad. I attributed this somewhat to their superior
experience—but mostly to their armor.

When Major Reza met up with me, she’d lost less than ten percent of her men. Still,
they’d definitely been bloodied. She brought a nanite stream down with her, and we
powered up on it.

“What’s the plan, Colonel?” she asked me.

I could tell she was still in a hard-charging mood. This impressed me. Sloan was a
cautious survivor who liked to do things by the book and take his time. This woman
had fire in her, and she’d done the job I’d asked her to do and more. Still, I didn’t
want a crazy person leading my men into doom. That was
my
job. I decided to give her a little test.

“What if I said we’re going to advance to the top of the central shaft and retake
the bridge?” I asked.

She paused just a moment before saying, “I’d say that was too much to ask, sir. Especially
with Sloan’s reinforcements on the way. We’d do better waiting for the additional
troops before attempting that final assault.”

I nodded. It was the right answer.