Chapter One
Colonel Rodger Murphy tapped the secure opening tab twice, the first touch releasing the lock so that the second could activate the mechanism.
Within the gray bulkheads, infrequently used motors growled to life. The compartment’s faux-rock blast covers slid back, revealing the two stars that comprised the 55 Tauri binary system. The approaching F7 primary known as Jrar now appeared almost two-thirds the size of the orange K3 secondary Shex, although that may have been partially due to the intensity of the larger and hotter star’s light. After a moment, the two-inch glass polarized enough to make the double-glare bearable.
Major Mara “Bruce” Lee folded her arms. “How long can we stay here?”
Murphy shrugged. “Ten minutes. The REMs aren’t so bad at this distance and there’s a gel-layer embedded in the glass that picks up a lot of the large-particle radiation.”
Captain T. J. Cutter peered into the riot of untwinkling stars. “Where’s R’Bak? I know we’re on the same side of the sun—damn, Shex—right now, but to me, everything is just stars.”
Murphy smiled. “You and me both.” He gestured toward the left-hand margin of the cosmic mural that crept constantly, slowly downward. “I wouldn’t have any idea if I didn’t have Makarov showing me charts so I can keep track of our shuttle traffic and line-of-sight commo windows.”
They gazed at the stars in an easy silence, but there was a thread of expectation underlying it; Murphy hadn’t told them why he had asked them to meet him. No time like the present. “I want to share something with all of you. I wish Bowden and Tapper were with us—and even that pain Chalmers. But in a few hours, I’m going to be gone, too. So I guess it’s now or never.”
Bo raised an eyebrow. “What gives, Colonel? First the other guys go back dirtside, and now you’re following them? I thought the handful who didn’t get up here for the wedding were supposed to be extracted by the end of next week.”
Murphy shook his head. “Several had to go back to tie up loose ends, and Kevin had to finish training some pilots, as well as gathering data for the simulators we need to use as long as we’re hiding out here.”
“That’s a lot of new, and changed, plans,” Bo said. He studied the faces around him. “And no one thought to tell me?”
Mara smiled. “You were busy…on your honeymoon.”
Bo, badass tanker that he was, blushed just a shade shy of crimson. “Oh. Yeah. Right. That.” He stared at the slice of velvet black where R’Bak was located. “Y’know, with all the rush to get spaceside for my wedding, I didn’t stop to think that it would be the last time I’d see R’Bak for…well, years, maybe.” He shook his head. “I never thought I’d say this, but it was starting to feel a little bit like home.”
“More than a little, for some of us,” Mara muttered.
Cutter glanced up. “What do you mean?”
Before Murphy could answer, Bo jutted his chin at the approximate location of the planet. “Harry has a wife and child down there. The tribe has adopted him—formally, if I understand what he told me.”
Cutter’s face was creased in confusion. “But his family—they were cleared to come up here, right?”
Murphy sighed. “They were. But there’s been some unexpected push-back.”
“Nothing’s ever simple with SpinDogs,” Bo muttered.
“Or RockHounds,” Mara added.
Cutter raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you’re a lady who’s in the know, Major.”
Lee rolled her eyes. “Not so much. And yet, more than I’d like.”
Bo murmured, “The real problem is that Harry doesn’t want to come back at all.”
Murphy shrugged. “Can’t say I blame him. He’s making a life for himself, over a hundred and fifty light-years from home.” He glanced at Bo. “Not a lot of us can say that, yet.”
Cutter was staring hard at the stars, as if they’d just affronted him. “Not like there’s been a lot of time. Or opportunity.”
“No, there hasn’t,” Murphy agreed, “but after a certain point, it really doesn’t matter how good—how unavoidable—the reasons have been for not building a life. Times before, when soldiers were away for years, at least they always had something to go back to—a spouse, kids, a city, a town, even a war-ravaged country: something. But here?” Murphy gestured at the featureless gray bulkheads. “We’ve got none of that. And I’m not sure we’ll ever really fit into life on these spins. Particularly since neither the SpinDogs nor the RockHounds think we’re a good fit for their culture, and vice versa. Hell, that’s about the only thing they can agree on.”
Mara smiled, but her eyes drifted sideways toward Murphy, faint worry in them. “So…what was it you wanted to share with us?”
He smiled back at her with a slight shake of his head. Her gaze relaxed, which meant she’d read the reassurance buried in that gesture. No, Mara, the MS hasn’t gotten bad enough to reveal it to the other cadre—yet. He returned to the crate he’d lugged into the compartment, moving its other contents out of the way until he could lift out a heavy, squarish object wrapped in cloth. He brought it over to the others, making sure they were all in front of the observation panel.
“What is it?” Mara asked. She sounded surprised and curious.
Probably because she always knows what’s in the wind before anyone else, Murphy reflected with a private smile as he held it concealed for one more moment. “Makarov and I and a few others have been working on this for the better part of the year. We always kept hoping we were done, but sadly, there was always more to add. I just hope we really are finally finished.”
He drew back the cloth. Bo was already in a position where he could look over Murphy’s shoulder, and he expelled his breath in a long sigh when he saw what the object was: a square plaque with a long list of names etched into it. The metal’s surface was almost granular instead of smooth, betraying its humble origins as a hull replacement plate.
As the others gathered close, they became as still as they were silent. Because each of them knew all those names. All the Lost Soldiers who, like the rest, had wanted so badly to go home, but instead, had permanently departed this battlefield in a fashion familiar to—and too common among—warriors since the beginning of time.
Cutter cleared his throat, sounded more grim than touched as he murmured, “It’s a nice memorial, Colonel.”
“Have you decided where you want to put it?” Bo asked, reaching out to run his fingers over a cluster of names. He’d been the CO for the Lost Soldiers’ first real engagement and had yet to come to terms with the number who had fallen there.
Murphy sighed. “Finding the right place for it has been troubling me. If you have a country you call your own, then you set aside a town square, or a spot in a cemetery: a place where the names will remain across the years, so that they will not be forgotten. Hell, even if you’re the crew of a ship without a home, you could put it at the foot of the binnacle, for all to see, for as long as the ship remained afloat.”
He grimaced at the featureless walls of the compartment. “But this spinhab is never going to be any of those things, for us. We’re just guests in a community of control-freak exiles hiding inside a long, rolling rock.”
He stared down at the plaque. “We need a place of our own, a place where we can put this plaque so that it has some meaning to those who come after us. Assuming we last long enough for that to matter.” He found a way to smile. “And on that cheerful note…”
Murphy returned to the crate and pulled out the remaining contents: a bottle of genuine Terran whiskey and glasses. As he poured out each measure, he said, as much to himself as them, “After every casualty we took, I wanted to do this: to mark their sacrifices with words and a drink and a permanent memorial that had their name on it.”
He raised his glass. “So, for all the ones commemorated on this plaque, I say: here’s to absent friends and comrades. Missed every day, and we’ll never see their like again.”
The others raised their glasses with a muted chorus of “Hear, hears,” and sipped rather than threw back the shots. This real whiskey was not merely hard to come by; it wasn’t to be found anywhere within a hundred light-years, let alone this system.
“God willing, we’ll never have to do this again,” Bo breathed. But his voice echoed what they all accepted: that such a happy outcome was very, very unlikely.
Mara cradled her glass in both hands. “How’s the situation on the ground?”
Murphy glanced at Bo, who took up that tale. “Pretty much what we were aiming for before we had to pull out. The indigs are in control of the Hamain and most of the Fringelands along the Greens. The satraps are panicked because they’ve always been able to rely on one ironclad truth: that when the Searing comes, so do their Harvester allies. They only had to follow the Kulsians’ orders to get their coffers filled. Now, they’ve got nothing to show their masters but empty hands, so they aren’t sure how they’re going to pay their troops and keep their power after the Harvesters leave. A few are wondering if they’ll come at all, or whether that’s good or bad—since their first order of business might be replacing the satraps. With extreme prejudice.”
Cutter nodded. “Yeah, from the time the locals learned that the reavers—excuse me, ‘coursers’—couldn’t warn the Overlords about how things went sideways, they’ve started double-guessing everything. But they are all sure of one thing: if their bosses show up, they’re gonna be pissed as hell.”
Mara smiled coldly. “Sucks to be a satrap.”
Murphy nodded, took a pull at his drink. “Yeah, but it could suck even worse to be us. It’s not likely the inbound surveyor flotilla will have the time or resources to untangle what actually destroyed their coursers: namely, us. But, when the Harvesters arrive, they’ll have ample time and reason to start a thorough investigation. Sooner rather than later, they’re going to realize that the disruptions weren’t random, despite all the confusion and contradictions we’ve sown in our wake. And if that happens, and they decide to cast a wider net that includes the whole system…well, we can forget surviving to the end of the year.”
Bo nodded. “So far, we’ve been fighting a bunch of gun-waving whack-jobs. Any battles after this—on the ground or in space—will be against professionals with good equipment and decent training.” He sipped at his whiskey. “Like you say, Colonel, it would suck to be us.”
“Which has me wondering why you’re going back at all, Colonel,” Cutter said with a frown. “Kind of moving in the wrong direction, aren’t you?”
Murphy smiled. “Along with a few other people, I’m taking the last transatmo planetside to wrap up some loose ends. Then we gather most everyone still on R’Bak and take the already on-station shuttle straight back here.” When Mara stiffened at the qualifier “most everyone,” Murphy shook his head at her. “That includes El—eh, Sergeant Frazier. Last word is that he’s doing a lot better, thanks to the local, er, experts. But the last phase of his rehab requires the facilities up here.”
“And the shuttle you took down?”
“That’s truly the last boat out, mostly for the ground crew. The only people staying behind are Chalmers, his team, and a small group that will be setting up new landing fields in remote areas so that when we return, we can operate out of locations that the Kulsians have never visited. We’re leaving them one small passenger transatmo for emergencies.”
“That last boat out,” Mara almost whispered, “that’s the one Harry will be on?”
Murphy nodded. “I promised him he wouldn’t have to return until the very last minute.”
“I’m surprised he agreed to return at all,” Bo murmured.
Murphy nodded. “In that matter, his sense of duty won a narrow victory over his personal inclinations.” This time. He glanced at his G-shock. “If I don’t get moving, I’m going to be late for a meeting with our hosts.” He waved toward the observation panel. “According to the SpinDog techs, you can safely spend another few minutes here.” He tossed back the last of the whiskey and strode out of the small observation compartment, the plaque secured tightly under his arm.