Honor Bound

see a local flyer, aloft on four wings. Finally the picture dissolved in a cloud of dust and fire as the lander came down on VTOL jets, and then the view switched to the helmet camera of a Marine, walking point in a wedge formation of other grey-and-black camo’ed, body-armored ground troops.

Their rifles swung back and forth in a constant scan as the trees slid by on either side; tall, broad-leaved plants tugged at their weapons and harness and once in a while an out-of-focus flitting dot spoke of swarms of flying insect-like life. Then the trees gave way to a wide clearing, the darkened ground speaking of the recent clear-burn that had established the base. As they moved into the clearing, video cut together from different helmet cams showed several domes sprayed from buildfoam, linked together with walkways lined with flat, local paving stones.

Even from more than a hundred meters away, Vinnie and Jock could see the scorch marks on the outer walls and the jagged edges where the doorways had been blown in with some sort of explosives… but no smoke. Whatever had happened was long over. As the images grew closer, the pockmarks of bullet impacts became clear, and on the paving stones leading to the door of one of them was an all-too-familiar dark red stain.

When the image moved to the interiors of the buildings, it was more of the same: bullet holes and blood, but no bodies and no equipment other than some cheap, plastic furniture. Vinnie was about to ask if that was the end of the video when the view swung downward, to a glint of brass wedged behind a broken table. A gloved hand reached down into view and pulled the object free, revealing a spent brass cartridge casing. Vinnie’s blood froze in his veins. No one had used brass-cased ammo in over a century. No one except…

“There were no bodies found,” Shannon told them quietly, switching off the picture and stuffing the tablet back in her pocket. “Every piece of electronic or mechanical equipment, every weapon, every vehicle, everything useful was stripped away and missing. There were a couple dozen of those cases found, mostly buried in the dirt.”

“It’s Antonov,” Vinnie murmured. “The son of a bitch is back.”

Chapter Two

Staring at the rat-faced, slicked-back lobbyist across the desk from him, Daniel O’Keefe wondered idly why he had ever wanted to be President. It was all he had dreamed of since the time he was nine years old and had watched a documentary in school about Calvin Elliott, the first President of the Republic, the man who had brought the whole planet away from the edge of the abyss of the Sino-Russian War. He had worked his way up from a volunteer for a Provincial Commissioner to running for that office himself after graduating college, to the Republic Senate… and now for the last three years, he had been the leader of all humanity

Usually it felt like a sacred responsibility combined with the most thrilling experiences ever—a sort of cross between the Pope and a fighter pilot. But at times like these, it felt like a neutronium anvil hung around his neck and he understood why every president he could remember looked so much older when they left office than when they were elected. He looked at his grey-haired, open-faced reflection in the display on his desktop and wondered if the new lines he saw around his eyes were just his imagination…

“I understand what you’re saying, Mr. Fourcade,” O’Keefe said slowly, trying to keep the perturbed sigh out of his voice, “but I can’t change Republic immigration policy based on the needs of the mining consortium. The colonists on Inferno do not exist to make your multicorp more profitable.”

“The issue isn’t our profitability, Mr. President,” Fourcade insisted, frowning through his neatly trimmed mustache—he was less adept than O’Keefe at hiding his frustration. “The issue is the future of the Republic’s economy, and the hundreds of millions of jobs dependant on supplies of raw materials from the colony worlds. If we can’t make a profit from resources in the colonies, it will not be worth our effort and investment to keep extracting them.” He spread his well-manicured hands. “You’re going to have inflation, shortages of products we all use… it will hurt the less-affluent more than anyone else. Tax revenues will dry up and you will not be able to fund your… generous incentive packages for emigrants to the colonies, which will make the labor situation even worse.”

“Many of those resources could be produced in space-based facilities right here in the Solar system, Mr. Fourcade,” suggested Svetlana Zakharova, his Finance Minister, from the chair to the lobbyist’s right. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman with blond hair and pleasant, matronly face, her business suit subdued but expertly tailored. “In fact,” she went on, “if it weren’t for government infrastructure on some of the colony worlds—laser launch systems, for example—paid for by the taxpayers, you couldn’t profitably produce in the colonies at all.”

“The situation has hardly been one-sided,” Fourcade shrugged. “The government couldn’t have built the fleet that helped save our planet a few years ago without aid from the multicorps. As for space-based resources… yes, there are asteroids in the Belt that hold minerals that we can and do exploit, but the Belt facilities are, as you well know, highly unionized. That greatly increases production costs. And the safety requirements for a space-based facility often offset the transportation costs for a planet-based mine.” He sat back, crossing his arms. “But that only applies to resources available from asteroids and the various moons… iridium, nickel-iron, fissionables, water ice, for example. But there are resources that just can’t be had except on a planet—petroleum for one. Drilling is obviously illegal here on Earth and without the oil from Inferno, our chemical industry won’t last a year and you,” he directed that at Minister Zakharova, “damn well know it.”

“It’s clear that we do have a problem, Mr. Fourcade,” O’Keefe acknowledged. “But that problem will not be solved by forcing the underclass to move off-planet so that you can use them as cheap labor. Those days are gone. We will work with the multicorps to come up with an alternate solution; that one is off the table.”

Fourcade sat back, steepling his hands thoughtfully, as if considering his words carefully before he continued.

“There is,” he finally said, “one option that would satisfy our needs and your requirements, Mr. President. I hesitate to bring it up, because I’ve heard of your opinion on the matter… but Senate Measure 1143B has the potential to provide us with a ready and problem—free labor force without exploiting the masses, as it were.”

O’Keefe took a deep breath, trying to keep it from turning into a shudder as he gathered his thoughts to make a coherent objection rather than the vehement “Fuck no!” that threatened to burst past his pursed lips. He fought back nightmare images of superhuman soldiers hulking in camouflaged battle armor and of pale, blue faces with black, shark’s eyes.

“I am uncomfortable,” he finally said, “with the idea of creating a possibly intelligent slave race out of human DNA.”

“We’ve been working on sentient computer systems for decades,” Fourcade pointed out. “I haven’t seen any angst over the possible use of those for our needs. If our labs were given the go-ahead to experiment with the creation of the sort of biomechanical constructs that the Protectorate used against us, they could make certain that the results weren’t sentient by restricting the amount of brain tissue we used. Sure, we would be working from human tissue samples, but we’re not talking about cloning human beings… these would be meat robots, basically.” He shrugged. “They would just be much cheaper to make and maintain than ones made from artificial materials.”

“And if the technique for producing these… things,” Zakharova said with distaste in her voice, “becomes widespread, we could wind up with someone trying to do the same thing Antonov did and using them as a ready- made army. There are some huge ethical, legal and practical considerations to this sort of enterprise that you are oversimplifying.”

”Any solution to this problem will be complex and problematic,” Fourcade shook his head. “But the problem won’t go away because we don’t like any of the possible solutions. We need those resources and if we’re going to maintain an interstellar civilization, we need them as cheaply as possible. If we don’t get them… well, sir, you will be remembered as the President who oversaw the retreat of humanity from the stars, because the colonies will wither on the vine.”

“Mr. Fourcade,” O’Keefe stood, prompting Zakharova and Fourcade to do likewise, “I am sure that we will be able to solve this problem and prevent that from happening. We will be sure to keep the lines of communication open and perhaps I can task my science advisors with finding out how feasible the limitations you mentioned can be.”

“Thank you very much for your time, Mr. President,” Fourcade shook his hand, taking the hint. “I’ll relay your