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  * * *

  CIC, BMS Trushista, Hyperspace, Approaching the New Warsaw System

  Admiral Paka’s eyes surveyed the CIC of the Bakulu battleship she’d been given. While it still rankled, a little, to have not been given command of New Era, she was sure that she would have it after this battle. Galantrooka would either be too aggressive or not aggressive enough; it was inevitable he’d do something stupid, and she’d be able to blame the loss of something on him. After all the time she had lived with the Humans to bring about this end, she deserved it. Besides, as Peepo’s sister…rank did have its privileges, after all.

  Although she wouldn’t have expected to be commanding the fleet from a Bakulu ship, she had asked for the best and received it. Trushista was supposed to be the best-crewed ship in the fleet, and she had seen nothing so far to prove otherwise.

  With fifteen minutes to go until emergence, the ship’s captain had called the crew to battle stations, and every station was manned and ready as the timer counted down through the final minute before emergence, and her chance to make a name of her own. Although it had been Peepo’s plan, Paka had been the one who’d gone under cover for decades to make it all possible.

  All she needed to do was win this battle, and her name would be as acclaimed as her sister’s; maybe even more. She doubted the Humans would appreciate the grand strategy she had been a part of—it was more likely they would consider her a traitor—but she was first and foremost a Veetanho, and the Veetanho ruled the galaxy because they were the best and the brightest. The sooner the Humans came to terms with this, the fewer she would have to kill. There was no doubt in her mind, though, after all her time with the Humans, she knew they wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  Which was just fine with her.

  * * *

  CIC, MGS New Era, Hyperspace, Approaching the New Warsaw System

  “Twenty minutes until emergence,” the Bakulu navigator said, looking at his console.

  “Set Battle Stations,” Admiral Galantrooka ordered. “This unprofitable war has gone on long enough; it is time to finish it. The Humans have nowhere left to run and nowhere left to hide.”

  Lights and sirens flashed, though there was very little movement throughout the massive dreadnought. Nearly the entire crew—including its admiral—had kept at least one eyestalk trained on the emergence timer for the last day and had begun massing around their battle stations some time earlier. All were excited to finally bring Peepo’s plan to its successful conclusion, and the admiral was proud to be the one chosen to command the Merc Guild’s new flagship.

  Galantrooka bobbed an eyestalk—although not the one watching the timer as it relentlessly counted down. “I just hope they don’t surrender too quickly.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Seven

  São José dos Campos, Brazil, Earth

  “Well, that’s strange,” Corporal Bolormaa Enkh muttered as she reviewed “the take” from their remaining dragonfly drones. They would need a new shipment—and soon—or she would soon be without them. Built to look like one of South America’s dragonflies, apparently they were “too real,” and one of the local predators was picking them off, hoping to get a meal, and a large percentage of the drones they launched never came back. It didn’t help that the nimble craft usually flew straight and level, where the natural ones zipped and flitted everywhere, making them tough targets to catch. Her drones were almost too easy for the predators.

  She turned around from her terminal. “Hey, Major, I’ve got something.”

  “What is it?” asked Major James Good.

  “Do you know of any high value targets that escaped the massacre in São Paulo?”

  “Do you mean the Fae that got away?”

  “No, sir,” Enkh replied, turning back to her terminal. “I have a dragonfly sitting on the comms antenna at the Merc Guild’s headquarters, and I just got two hits of traffic on high value items. Based on the intercepts, though, I don’t think either of them are our wayward Fae.”

  Good’s eyebrows rose. “What have you got?”

  “Well, the first one originated from the headquarters. They contacted some of the local quislings and asked what the best trauma center was in the country.”

  “So? Maybe one of their troops got plugged on a patrol.”

  “No sir; that’s not it. The quisling asked if the injured was an alien or a Human, and he was told that the injured party was a high-value Human. I just wondered if we knew who that was.”

  “Not that I’m aware. Maybe we can send a drone or two to the hospital they sent the patient to? Where is it?”

  “I think it was the Hospital Samaritano in Rio de Janeiro. There were two others the quisling recommended, but they were both in São Paulo and got destroyed in the Raknar attack. The problem isn’t with ‘where’ they’re taking the victim, though; the problem is we don’t have enough of the drones left to spare one without pulling it from the search grid, and I got another hit on that, too.”

  “You found the CASPers that were reported missing?”

  “Well, no, sir, I haven’t yet, but one of the Merc Guild’s informants reported a group of giant metal men just south of Taubaté.”

  “And where the Blue Sky is that?”

  “It’s a small town about thirty-five kilometers northeast of here.”

  “So, you think whoever stole the CASPers is headed toward the Merc Guild headquarters?”

  “Might be, sir. That position’s up the road from São Paulo and near the HQ. All they’d have to do is take the 383 highway and they’d be there. If someone escaped the devastation in São Paulo, stole the suits, and figured out where the guild’s headquarters was, that’s probably about where they’d be.”

  “That’s a lot of ifs.”

  “Yes, sir, it is. But nothing else makes sense. We know the CASPers were reported stolen. We also know it would take a group of mercs to operate them, and the only mercs who would have been in that area were ones assaulting the city.”

  “So that would have been the Cavaliers, then. I thought they were all wiped out assaulting the fake Merc Guild headquarters in São Paulo, though.”

  Enkh shrugged. “I don’t know; I thought so, too. At least some of them were in there—we saw the video Peepo broadcast of when she blew up the tower with the Cavaliers’ XO inside it. We thought all of the Cavaliers were with him…but what if some weren’t in the building at the time and escaped?”

  Good nodded. “Their suits would have been about out of power and ammo by now. They would have needed replenishment…or new suits.”

  “And if they happened to find the ones Peepo had…”

  “They would have taken them and gone after Peepo to get some payback for the people who died.”

  “That’s what I think, sir.”

  “I think you’re right,” Good replied. He thought for a moment and then said, “We need to get in contact with them.”

  “How are we going to do that, sir?” Enkh asked. “Tie a little note to a dragonfly and send it out? What happens if it falls into the Merc Guild’s hands?”

  “I might be able to help you with that,” a new voice said from behind them.

  * * *

  Somewhere near Taubaté, Brazil, Earth

  “Where are we, Sergeant?” Major Alvarado asked over the comms.

  “Lost, sir,” Buddha replied sullenly.

  Their convoy of thirteen trucks was not distinctive in and of itself, despite being composed entirely of stolen trucks. What was unusual was the distinct lack of darker-skinned teamsters to operate them. Buddha and the other surviving senior NCOs had scoured the Cavaliers for everyone who bore even a remote resemblance to a native of the region. Two men were of Indian descent, another was from Jamaica, and another woman was Native American. That left nine trucks driven by light-skinned people, a job seldom done by such people in Brazil.

  “We can’t risk uplinking with the planetary navigation network,” Private Aidan Lynch said over the
squadnet. A young member and a recent addition to the Cavaliers, his only real faults were over-eagerness and an unwillingness to follow the chain of command.

  “The first sergeant is well aware of that, Private,” Corporal Solberg replied.

  “Sorry, Corporal,” Lynch said.

  Buddha knew they were somewhere between São Paulo and the northern coastal region. Their theft of Peepo’s brand new Mk 8 CASPers and tons of supplies had also yielded intel that Peepo had another base on the coast north of São Paulo. The same intel confirmed the Raknar pilots weren’t in São Paulo. After Buddha consulted with Major Alvarado, Captain Wolf, and the other senior NCOs, they’d agreed their objective was probably there.

  “If the Raknar drivers aren’t there?” Wolf asked.

  “Then we still get another swing at Peepo,” Alvarado said.

  Everyone liked the sound of that. Since they’d already stolen everything not nailed down in the São Paulo warehouse, it wasn’t much of a leap to help themselves to a small fleet of heavy transports next door. As an added bonus, that facility was a food distributor. They had brand new CASPers, ammo, batteries to bring the Mk 7s back online (for those who couldn’t fit into the Mk 8s, like Buddha), and plenty of grub. What they didn’t have was a map.

  “You’d think someone would have thought to steal a map,” Solberg mumbled to Buddha off the radio.

  The big Polynesian first sergeant just shook his head in frustration. CASPer drivers were used to having all kinds of intel and orbital data feeds, or, worst case, their suits had built-in navigational aids to get them to their target. They didn’t have any of those things this time.

  The thirteen-vehicle convoy had pulled over along the SP-070 to try and get their bearings, and instantly began drawing attention. So, Alvarado ordered them onto the side streets. Nobody in the unit spoke Portuguese, which all the street signs were printed in. The trucks were also big and couldn’t fit down many of the small side streets. They’d been forced to make several turns, and the result was their current predicament.

  “We’re going to have to send out scouts,” Buddha finally said to his commander.

  “I think that’s too risky,” Alvarado replied immediately.

  “Getting caught here is more risky,” Buddha countered. “Send out Private Seeley with three others in the new Mk 8s. They aren’t painted, so there’s nothing to identify them. Even if they’re spotted…”

  “Which they most certainly will be,” Captain Wolf interjected.

  “But nobody will know it’s us,” Alvarado finished. He sighed. “Peepo and her people are bound to figure out we were the ones who stole those CASPers sooner or later, anyway. Very well, First Sergeant, do it.”

  The thirteen trucks were more or less hidden on a rundown road near some abandoned apartment buildings. Buddha watched via a pair of newly “acquired” drones as the four CASPers slipped out of the trucks and quickly moved into the shadows around the surrounding structures. The new CASPers had all been given quick and dirty paint jobs of black and brown primer; the new suits had come out of their boxes as shiny as rolls of aluminum foil. Buddha and the rest of his squad were geared up as well, just in case.

  In moments, the four scouts were gone, and Buddha watched their progress over his battlespace Tri-V projected inside the CASPer Mk7 cockpit. The four scouts moved out quickly, their sensors extending the battlespace in leaps and bounds. He quickly saw their problem. The vicinity they’d found themselves in was made up of many circular roads, each tending to branch in and around to others. It was like a damned maze.

  “Find a thoroughfare,” he ordered.

  “We’re not looking for a pizza,” Seeley responded.

  “Don’t be a smart ass,” Buddha replied. He could almost see Seeley mouthing a less than appropriate reply. Then he watched as one of the scouts sailed over an alley on his jumpjets, with a civilian watching in surprise below. Damn it, he thought, so much for stealth.

  “Got the main road,” Seeley said a second later.

  Buddha watched the map fill in, and the computer automatically drew a path for the convoy to reach it.

  “I’ve got recon flyers in the area,” another scout reported in.

  “Road is out of the question,” Alvarado said.

  “Concur,” Wolf agreed.

  “Find us some cover, First Sergeant,” Alvarado ordered.

  “Roger that,” Buddha said, and analyzed what the scouts had found so far. It only took him a minute to locate something. “I have a commercial vehicle maintenance facility, less than a kilometer to the north east. Bonus, it’s in our direction of travel.”

  “Facilities for the troopers?” Alvarado asked.

  “Only just,” Buddha said. “But the trucks won’t stand out.”

  “Another recon flyer transiting our AO,” Seeley, reported.

  “Buddha, transmit the location and get them moving.”

  Buddha fed the coordinates to the squadnet. In a moment, the trucks’ hydrogen engines came alive and the convoy moved out. The four scouts also zeroed in on their destination. Maybe when night came, they could send out more scouts. He was keenly aware they still lacked even the most basic plan. All he knew was they needed to find their commander and the other Raknar drivers.

  “Hang on Jimbo,” he said inside his CASPer as the truck rumbled along. “We’ll find you.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Eight

  CIC, New Warsaw Defense Command, New Warsaw System

  A new point of light appeared, slightly left of center in the emergence area.

  “Emergence!” several voices cried simultaneously.

  “Steady!” Sansar ordered as she waited to see if this was indeed the main assault, and where the bulk of the enemy’s fleet would show up. “Hold your fire. Get me an ID.”

  There was a pause, and a second light appeared close to the first, then a third. “Maki battleship!” the sensor tech called. “Maki light cruiser! Another light cruiser” Lights began separating from the first ship that had emerged. “Riders detaching from the battleship!”

  Sansar nodded. The Merc Guild had arrived. “All weapons, target the battleship and fire!” Hopefully, they could pick off some of the riders, too, before they all detached, giving them two kills for the price of one. “Drone and asteroid controllers, move forward and attack!”

  “I had expected better of them,” Nigel said from behind her. “They were five seconds late.”

  * * *

  CIC, MMS Morning Dew, New Warsaw System

  “Emergence!” the battleship’s sensor tech noted.

  Captain Sartyl nodded as the Tri-V began filling in. “Cast off all riders!” he ordered. “Fire on targets as they are identified.” The one good thing about being the first ship in an assault was that you didn’t have to identify any contacts as friend or foe—if you were the lead ship, everyone else was the enemy.

  “Damage control reports several large explosions on decks 11, 44, and 9. Unknown origin.”

  “Dispatch control teams,” the captain ordered.

  “Targets everywhere!” the sensor tech exclaimed. “I have multiple targets…no, hundreds of targets inbound.”

  “They’re everywhere,” someone said.

  “Target the riders on the biggest concentrations of inbound targets and fire! Individual weapons, fire as targets bear.”

  The motors on several of the riders ignited, and they roared off to intercept the incoming streams of what were probably drones, based on their numbers and flight patterns. Then it seemed like every system defender in range fired at him. His shields fell in under two seconds, and the ship was destroyed half a second later.

  He had just long enough to note that the bad thing about being the lead ship into a system was also that everyone else was the enemy, and they could concentrate an awful lot of firepower on you if they were all waiting to do so, as it appeared the Humans had been.

  * * *

  CIC, New Warsaw Defense Command, New Warsaw
System

  “Target One destroyed,” one of the ship controllers noted, and a small cheer went up.

  “Focus!” Sansar ordered. Enemy ships were now showing up faster than they could be targeted. Twenty-seven ships had emerged so far, although the dreadnought had yet to make its appearance. The four riders that had detached from Target One before it was destroyed raced forward faster than she would have believed a ship could go. “What did Target One launch?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am,” the closest sensor tech replied. “They were too big to be missiles, but they are accelerating on a near-missile profile.”

  Sansar watched the ship riders continue toward the drones that were inbound to where the Merc Guild ships continued to emerge. What was big enough to be seen detaching like a rider, but could accelerate like a missile? Sansar didn’t know, but it had to be something defensive in nature. “Scatter the drones!” she ordered.

  The drone formation had just begun to open up when the first not-missile arrived and detonated in a massive explosion, wiping out dozens—if not hundreds—of the agile drones. “What the hell was that?” she asked as the second, third, and fourth not-missiles exploded, destroying huge chunks of their drone formation.

  “Captain Teenge of the Arion on comms.”

  Sansar gave a “go ahead” motion, and the Aposa captain’s voice came over the radio.

  “That was an antimatter blast,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” Sansar asked.

  “Trust me, Colonel, I was pretty damned close to one a few months ago—a lot closer than I would have liked. We’re feeding the data to Commander Kowalczy on Alicorn now so we can factor it into the main attack, but I am sure that was an antimatter blast.”