• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Two minutes.

He could remember that world, but it was no longer part of him. It was as though he’d been cut in half, like the park, his life sliced down the middle the moment he’d pulled that trigger and sent the lieutenant’s head flying.

The Vincenzi before that moment still couldn’t quite believe that space wasn’t spacious, that with the whole galaxy to roam in he spent all his time wedged into tin cans or foxholes. Or in crummy barracks, like this one.

Stuck in those foxholes, he’d swapped jokes about the Skag home world, how it had to be like one giant brothel. Stupid kid.

Here, the Skags didn’t shag you. They ordered you the hell out of your nice warm bunk and drilled you until your ears rang.

He was pulling on his uniform when the alarm went off. Ten seconds later the Skag jaresht was in there, a tall fix-fingered woman in a livid red uniform, throwing sluggish soldiers out of bed and shouting, ‘Battle drill for the grunts, tactical drill for the officers, but first, a delicious breakfast and an ice-cold shower to wake you up! Come along, chumanene!’

Vincenzi hadn’t quite puzzled out what rank a jaresht was equivalent to. He had a suspicion it meant ‘shouter’. He’d never heard one of them speak below a hearty roar.

He was lacing his boots when the jaresht boomed, ‘Vinsensee!’

She was standing right in front of him. He hopped to his feet and said, ‘I hear you!’

‘I’ve got something for you, chumanet,’ said the Skagette.

‘Come along, come along.’

Vincenzi followed the jaresht out of the barracks. The training grounds were a wide, barren area between two rocky hills. For the first week, Vincenzi had thought the whole Skag moon was like that, before their first really long run had taken them into the valley next door. Evidently this area had been overfarmed so badly it was useless. The valleys all around were full of fat, healthy alien plants.

204

Vincenzi wondered whether the jaresht had been a farmer before the Empire had gobbled up her world, or whether she’d always shouted for a living.

She led him to the mess hall. A new shipment of recruits had arrived during the night; he’d been woken briefly by the sound of their retros. He wasn’t surprised to find them jammed into the mess hall, looking jet-lagged and nervous.

‘Mooooooller!’ called the jaresht. ‘Come along!’

A short, bulky woman detached herself from the other recruits and hurried to the Skagette’s side. ‘I hear you!’ she said.

Learning the ropes already, good.

‘Vinsensee,’ announced the jaresht. ‘Mooooooller is going to be your sergeant. Once the training is complete, it’ll be time to start putting the units together. I want her briefed by this afternoon.’

‘The COs are arriving today?’ said Vincenzi. ‘Today?’

‘Running ahead of schedule, chumanet,’ said the jaresht. ‘Get talking, have breakfast.’

Vincenzi shook Muller’s hand. ‘Welcome aboard. How’d they get you?’

‘Volunteered, sir,’ she said. ‘I was thrown out of the navy induction program for insubordination.’

Vincenzi blinked at her.

‘I thought I’d better tell you straight way, sir,’ she said. ‘How about you, sir?’

‘Ah,’ said Vincenzi. ‘Insubordination too, I guess.’

Muller nodded. ‘How’s the training been going, sir? Do you think we really have a chance to change things?’

‘Change things?’ said Vincenzi. ‘I think we have a chance at winning this war. But change things… Maybe things will be different afterwards.’

‘I hope so, sir.’

205

3

Kibero

Kibero Patera, Io, 16 July 2982

Chris had been walking for three hours. He took out the map he’d been given, tracing a finger along his route… Grief, he’d covered only a fraction of the distance.

He was parched and his legs were starting to protest. He stuffed the map back in the pocket of his board shorts. There was only one thing for it.

There was a café just up ahead on the right. Chris stumbled inside and sat down at a table, one of a dozen, round dark circles hovering on miniature nullgrav generators. The table