hands into his pockets. The gloves he had intended to bring remained on his desk. Warning lights chased each other around the opening, deck icons warned of danger, and snowflakes swirled beyond. The sun struggled to push its pale yellow light through a corona of white mist and failed. Rawan stepped over the kneehigh safety chain and paused to eye the twin energy cannons positioned to either side of the passageway. Stripped from a decommissioned cruiser and protected by localized energy shields, they could defend against both aircraft and a ground assault. Even the Sheen would be forced to take such weapons seriously. It was a comforting thought. The admiral leaned into the wind and forced himself onto the outer platform. Moisture formed at the comers of his eyes and he blinked it away. Though technically classified as “Earth normal,” the Hegemony planet designated as BETA018 was actually quite marginal, which had everything to do with why the clones allowed the Thraki to establish a colony there.
The entrance, and the base to which it led, were located at the head of a U-shaped canyon, and, more than that, were roughly one hundred units off the ground. That meant that any pilot so foolish as to attack would have to fly between the computer-operated weapons positions that lined both walls of the valley and into the combined fire of the energy cannons that flanked the entrance. Not a pleasant prospect. The same thing would apply to ground forces, since Rawan and his staff had gone to considerable lengths to ensure that all of the defensive weaponry could depress their barrels and launch tubes far enough to reach the canyon floor.
In addition to those precautions, Rawan had laid a minefield across the canyon’s mouth, ordered his robots to construct a variety of obstacles, and even gone so far as to prepare trenches for the six hundred ground troops assigned to protect his air squadron.
The wind renewed its assault on the officer’s face and only the fact that the Thraki had short, bristly fur prevented him from getting frostbite. He stared down into the valley below but was unable to see his marines. Because their camouflage was so good? Or because he was getting old?
Whatever the reason Rawan feared that the ground forces represented the chink in his armor. The navy was strong, very strong, thanks to hundreds of years spent fighting duels with the Sheen, but the ground arm was weak and relatively inexperienced. Just one of the things that explained his Runner sympathies. A klaxon sounded somewhere behind him. Fighters probably—back from a sortie. He could clear the deck or risk being blown off the ledge. Rawan took one last look at the valley and turned away. The cavern yawned and he stepped inside.
The holo, shot during a rare break in BETA018’s cloud cover and augmented by footage supplied by recon drones, ran its course and faded to black. The Gladiator’s hangar deck had been pressurized and, with the addition of folding chairs, transformed into a serviceable auditorium. The tights came up as Booly stood and made his way to the portable podium. The ship’s motto, “For glory and honor,” faced the audience. He looked out at the crowd. It was the most unlikely gathering the officer could have imagined. The Jonathan Alan Seebos claimed the first couple of rows and, if it hadn’t been for differences in age, would have been as identical as the hard eyed stares fastened on his face. Immediately behind the clones sat the men, women, and Naa warriors still at the Legion’s core. Further to the rear, like mountains rising from a human plain, the Hudathans loomed. Their skins were gray, their backs uncomfortably exposed, and their expressions were grim.
And behind them, like a race unto itself, the cyborgs stood. Some human, some Hudathan, they were big, but dwarfed by the aerospace fighters beyond and by the scale of the Gladiator herself. Here, Booly thought to himself, are the real aliens, beings who no longer resemble the species from which they came, and no longer perceive life in the same way.
None of the Ramanthian ground forces had been as signed to the assault on 18, both because of their lack of experience in fighting on ice worlds and their participation in other initiatives. These were the minds that would take Booly’s ideas, translate strategy to tactics, and lead their troops into battle—not in segregated units, as certain politicians had suggested, but in integrated groups in which Hudathans, Naa, and humans would fight side by side. It was a risk, a big risk, but so was the alternative. Assuming the Confederacy managed to win most of the upcoming battles, assuming that it managed to survive the Sheen onslaught, the heat of the conflict would bake the military into its final form—a form that would be difficult to break without causing considerable damage. The kind of damage that might lead to another rebellion or civil war.
Still, it was with a sense of deep-seated concern that the officer started to speak. His words were translated as necessary. “You’ve read the reports, heard the analysis, and seen the footage. So you know what we’re up against. Given the threat posed by the Sheen, the Gladiator is the only ship the Confederacy could put against BETA018. One ship—on& planet. Why use more?”
Booly waited for the laughter to die away. “The Thraki are extremely experienced warriors. They have their backs to the wall and are well dug in, not only dug in, but dug into an allied planet, with civilians in residence. The settlement called ‘Frost’ lies only six miles away from the Thraki base. An orbital attack would destroy both.
“To root the Thraki out, Admiral Tyspin’s fighters are going to have to penetrate the valley and put weapons on hardened targets.. . me most important of which is the base itself.” Booly paused to scan their faces. Pilots stared up at him. “In order for the jet jockeys to hit their targets, the ground pounders will need to silence at least some of the batteries that line both sides of the canyon.”
A major yelled, “Camerone!” and a substantial portion of the audience roared the appropriate response.
“CAMERONE!”
Booly noticed that many of the Jonathan Alan Seebos remained silent, as did a substantial number of the Hudathans, but some joined in. That was progress. He grinned.
‘Thank you. I’m glad to see that someone’s awake out there.”
Laughter rippled through the audience. Booly picked up where he had left off. “You and your troops come from different worlds, pack different DNA, and have different cultures. Those differences could manifest themselves as a weakness, a. fatal weakness, or, and tremendous progress has been made in this direction, they could become the source of our strength, and the reason we emerge victorious. Not just here, but elsewhere, when the Sheen drop hyper.
