I knew those capsules didnt contain explosives. They were carrying troops. Each one was a drop pod firing down through the atmosphere into the murky clouds of this new world.

My heart went out to the Solstice legionnaires. What a way to enter a war! There was no way theyd reached their optimal drop point. The legion commanders had to be panicking to order a general drop from such a height, trying to save their- Thats the point Id reached in my thoughts when Pegasus exploded. I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer for the thousands that still had to be aboard her.

-12-.

Ive been to war in three star systems over the years, with Gamma Pavonis being my fourth deployment. That doesnt make me some kind of grizzled old-timer, but it does mean Ive been around the bush a few times.

I could tell already, this campaign felt different.

In the past, thered always been a certain degree of restraint. Thered always been orderly rules applied, to some degree, to each battle Id witnessed. Hiring out as mercenaries to various planets with internal problems, one never knew when things might get hairy, but there were certain things you could trust would or would not happen.

One such rule was the sanct.i.ty of Empire ships. No one, I mean no one, fired on Imperial warships. To do so not only meant your own destruction but very likely would result in the destruction of your entire species.

I found myself commiserating with some of those old-time European generals. This must have been how it had felt for them when they met enemy troops who didnt line up in colorful costumes and fire their guns all at once. There was no sense of honor or reticence in these aliens. They meant to kill us all. They didnt care about our contracts, our revival machines or the consequences of their actions. They meant to kick our collective a.s.ses anyway they could.

To me, the fact the enemy had destroyed Pegasus indicated that we were engaged with the squids. These guys might not have spines, but they had b.a.l.l.s. They didnt care two hoots about Imperial might or the threat of eventual annihilation. This was war of a different caliber entirely. All-out war. A total war.

Taking a deep breath, I cut Carlos feed to my tapper when we hit the upper atmosphere. I couldnt see anything but white clouds after that, anyway. We hit a patch of turbulence right off, and it kept getting worse as we went down. Whatever this atmosphere was made of, it was thick. The vapor never broke from the mesosphere on down to the troposphere. We were bouncing and thumping every kilometer of the way to the surface, and more than a few of my troops puked.

"Shut those visors the second youre done throwing up," I ordered. "You never know when well take a hit and lose pressure."

"Permission to get out of my dragon, sir," Carlos asked. Hed toppled over onto his nose, and was having trouble getting up. Servos whined and his claws gouged the metal of the ships floor.

"Permission denied," I said, clanking over to him. I threw out my grippers and caught hold of his tail, which was whipping around, trying to get him back into balance. I hauled him up onto his hind legs and clanked away.

"Hold onto something-anything," I told them. "Ill try to get a weather report from the techs."

As a veteran, I was now permitted to log into command chat and listen in. It would have been considered bad manners by my officers if Id said anything, so I kept quiet. On the inside of my helmet, the names of the speakers lit up in green when they spoke. That was helpful because a lot of the transmissions were sketchy.

Winslades ID flashed up first. "Whats your status, Graves? Give me a count of effectives."

"Were at full capacity, sir," Graves responded. "4th Unit is on the same lifter with us, and I think theyre as ready and able as we are."

"No casualties?"

"No sir. My unit was on the first lifter out of the ship. We didnt take any flak."

Winslade chuckled unpleasantly. "That figures. Your team is made up of the fastest rats in this part of the galaxy."

I wanted to jump in and yell at Winslade, but I held my tongue. Wed followed our orders, thats all. If we moved fast, it was because wed been prepared, not because we were chickens.

"What are your orders, Primus?" asked Graves.

"Looks like youll be on the first lifter down. Spread out and secure the LZ for the rest. Report back any resistance or hazards encountered. Winslade out."

That was it, then. We were going to be the point formation on this invasion. I relayed this to my team, and they produced a general chorus of groans.

"Okay people, hustle up. Lets be ready to scramble when we touch down. The second that ramp drops, I want to see nothing but metal tails and dust as you rush out there to surround the lifter."

We didnt have long to wait. The general rule when making any kind of a.s.sault from s.p.a.ce was to get the flying part over with as quickly as possible. Every second we were in the air increased the odds the lifter would take a hit and wipe out whole units of troops at once.

The pilot seemed to be exquisitely aware of this reality. He maneuvered the lifter like it was a dive-bomber, taking us down to the deck in a screaming swoop then pulling up at the last second.

A message came from the pilot. "Were about to hit the surface. Crouch your machines and wait it out."

This was a maneuver Id practiced but never executed under live conditions. To keep upright, our machines could crouch like nesting birds if we wanted them to. We all folded the legs up-just in time.

The bottom of the ship shuddered and my teeth rattled. We landed hard, the shocks on our landing struts groaning and bucking.

A few of us nosed over and smashed down, and we busied ourselves with pulling one another back up into a standing position. The dragons were top-heavy and not as natural to maneuver in as our own bodies, despite our training.

"Gather up whatever you can carry," I ordered. "We dont know what well find out there, and we might need just about everything."

I saw troops packing on saddlebags of extra ammo and the like. Then a gray-white line appeared in the hull, and everyones turret-like head section rotated in that direction.

"1st Platoon, move out!" Graves ordered.

We raced along the aisles and down the broad ramp. It felt good to get out of the lifter. After having watched Pegasus explode, Id been itching to get out into the open where ground forces could care for themselves.

"Swing right, McGill," Leeson ordered. "Harris, you take your team with his. Get clear, at least two hundred meters, then grab cover and park your machines."

We did as he ordered. Leeson himself was the last man of our platoon to exit the ship. He followed us to an outcropping of shiny rock. I couldnt tell if the rock was laced with metal or ice. Maybe it was a little of both.

The world itself was a strange one. Id never been on anything like this place. It was foggy, with swirling gray-white mist everywhere. The place was bone-chillingly cold. I could tell that right off, even though my suit was pretty warm with the engine under my b.u.t.t heating it up.

The surface of the planet had a light dusting of what looked like oily snow which I knew was probably frozen methane. There were rocks and spurs of mineral deposits everywhere. They were stark, and there was no sign of vegetation of any kind.

"What a garden spot," Carlos complained. "Let me guess, this is high summer, right?"

"Shut up, Ortiz," I said.

"But Vet, where are we going to sleep? Inside our suits?"

"Weve got tents. Weve got insulated gear. Well be fine."

"Who wants to start a pool on whose waste-chute is going to freeze up first?"

I clanked over to him and put a fresh dent in his cha.s.sis. I understood as I did it that Harris would have done the same thing, for the same reason. He shut up after that, but he buzzed my helmet privately.

"What?" I demanded.

"Are you going to be a d.i.c.k the whole campaign just because you got rank?"

"Carlos, you made a good point, in fact, you made plenty of them. But I need my people to be alertly watching for trouble, not p.i.s.sing and moaning about the conditions."

"Well, at least you admit Im right. Thats better than Harris ever did."

"Right. Just try to support me by playing it straight, okay?"

There was a pause, but he finally answered. "Will do, Vet. Clearly, life is going to be pretty bleak on this s...o...b..ll. Weve got to make the best of it."

I was impressed by his att.i.tude. Maybe asking him nicely and expressing a request in terms of helping the legion out worked better than just beating on him. I wasnt sure if Harris could have done the same, but that was history. Carlos was my problem now.

For about an hour, we patrolled around the lifter and certified that the region was unoccupied. We only found one odd thing during our search.

"Command?" I asked, holding up a mystery item with my grippers. "What do you make of this? Can you read my cameras?"

"Have you got your lights on, McGill?" Leeson asked.

"Yes. Here, let me defog my camera lenses."

Doing as I proposed was a delicate operation. I couldnt use a gripper for fear of cracking my external lens. Instead, I popped open my suit at the arm, letting it fall down and swing in the wind. My right hand and forearm were thus exposed, but inside a sealed vac suit.

I could feel the cold right off. It cut through the thin smart cloth without hesitation. Knowing I didnt have long, I reached out with my barely protected gloved hand and rubbed at the lens. Then I closed the arm and lifted the object in question up to the camera again.

"You see it now, sir?"

The object was rectangular. It had a corroded case and two metallic k.n.o.bs protruding from either end of it.

"Yes...Im pa.s.sing on the vid to the techs. Looks like some kind of burnt-out battery."

"Thats what I was thinking. Thats acid leaking from it. To further support the theory, theres a very weak current flowing from the two metal poles."

"Cant be from us," Leeson said, "its not our design, and it looks too old. Thats a mystery all right, McGill. If it does belong to the squids, it means they must have been here for years. Wouldnt you say it looks like its been lying out here for a long time?"

"Definitely, sir."

The connection broke, and I directed my recon team to pick over the area where wed found the discarded battery. We found two more like it, also in disrepair. I logged the information and relayed it to command.

"Machines," Carlos said, looking over the third one. "This has to be a discarded battery from a big machine."

I thought about that. "But what kind of machine would be wandering around out here? And if it has batteries, how is it recharging them?"

"No clue," Carlos said. "Can we go back to camp now?"

We were recalled about an hour later. We headed back to where the Units had made camp under the lifter. We had polymer sheets draped down from the bottom of the landing ship to the rocky surface. Inside, the troopers who hadnt been sent out on patrol had been busy building a bivouac. We were grateful for their efforts. Even with hot engines, the extremities of our machines got cold, especially our metal-encased feet.

There was a large area, maybe two hundred meters in diameter, which was enclosed, heated and pressurized. The outer chambers were like airlocks. There, we garaged our dragons. The center of the region was almost homey. Condensation dripped from the belly of the lifter some ten meters over our heads.

"It stinks," Carlos complained.

I didnt argue because he was right. Melted methane-well, thats pretty much what a fart is.

We were cautioned against creating any open flame for any reason. Troops grumbled, but they didnt argue. No one wanted to burn their hair off playing with a lighter out here. The combination of warm oxygen from the lifter being pumped in so we could breathe easily, and the melting methane was a lethal mixture if combustion were to be introduced.

"Is this safe, sir?" I asked Leeson when I caught up with him to make my report. "The atmosphere in here, I mean?"

"How the h.e.l.l do I know?" he asked. "Thats up to the bio people and the techs to work out. If I die though, I hope they revive me without a nose."

I nodded in agreement. Adjunct Leeson was nothing if not a pragmatic man.

After some warm food, clean clothes, and a few hours of rest, I was awakened and summoned to an officers meeting.

For a few seconds, I felt my heart race. Id been summoned to the officers tent plenty of times in the past. It had almost always been for the express purpose of chewing me out.

But not this time. From now on, I was expected to attend command meetings. Veterans were often invited to such affairs. We werent expected to partic.i.p.ate materially in the discussion of strategy, but we had to know what the plan was so we could help execute it.

Graves was there with three other centurions. Another lifter had landed about a kilometer off, and wed joined forces. Graves was the senior officer so he seemed to be in charge.

On a makeshift command table in the middle of the group was a flat glowing diagram of the local region. There was a large silver patch directly north of us, representing a methane lake. To the east and west were badlands full of gullies and ridges. To the south, however, it looked like a wide-open plain.

"Were only about a hundred kilometers away from the next grouping of lifters." Graves said, zooming out the map so we could see the bigger picture.

I was immediately envious of the other group. There were six more lifters there, all cl.u.s.tered up in a valley. Cyclops only had ten lifters, so most of our troops had to be there. I scanned the map for the rest of the auxiliary cohort, but I didnt see it.

"Legion Varus is planning to land here, at the main camp, tomorrow morning," Graves told is. "Since the ships took out the moon base, weve seen no other resistance. The infantry have naturally chosen to reinforce Winslade at his largest concentration, making that our beachhead."

Frowning, I almost raised my hand. I managed to stop myself in the nick of time, and I was proud of that. To my relief, an adjunct beat me to the punch and asked the question I had rattling around in my head.

"Sir? Why dont we just get back aboard the lifter and fly there?"

"Thats exactly what were going to do-when our current mission is finished, that is."

The adjunct looked confused, and I joined him. Graves continued with a sigh. "Weve been ordered to mount a rescue effort first. Remember Legion Solstice? The survivors abandoned Pegasus. Theyre scattered to the north of us, just past this big lake."

"How many, sir?" asked the adjunct.

"About two thousand of them."

The adjunct whistled. I grimaced and gnawed at my lower lip. Thousands? That was a lot of troops, and they were probably spread out over a large area. All of us were wondering if it might not be better to let them and their equipment go, and churn fresh troops out of the revival machines.

"These men are the last of Legion Solstice," Graves said, reading our expressions. "Theyre still alive, so we cant just write them off and revive them. Accordingly, were going out there to render a.s.sistance. Theyve reported encountering some kind of mechanized resistance at their location. Theyre avoiding further radio transmissions, claiming it attracts danger of some sort."

"Danger? What kind of danger?" blurted Adjunct Mesa.

Graves gave the adjunct a stare. He swallowed and apologized.

"We dont know," Graves answered finally. "Theyve suffered casualties. Theyre spread out and unable to form a nice cozy camp like this. I asked if we could bring the lifters over to pick them up, but the request was denied. Command doesnt want to risk losing more of our a.s.sault vehicles."

"Command" meant Winslade, I thought to myself. I couldnt help but notice he didnt mind risking his cavalry, just the lifters he needed to get back off this rock. That was typical for any officer, but the ruthless ones were worse than others. They valued expensive equipment more than human flesh.

"This is where we get into the game, troops," Graves said, standing up and raising his voice. "Well ride to the rescue in the morning. And by the way, this is a fast-rotating planet, so night is only about nine hours long. Get to bed as soon as you can."

We broke up and headed to our bedrolls which were alien-made products especially designed for humanoids suffering in cold climates.

"You know what the quartermaster told me?" Carlos asked as we bedded down. I didnt answer, but he kept going as if I had. "These sleeping bags are made from alien spider-silk. They can keep you warm down to negative two hundred degrees C, and they weigh less than a kilo. Perfect for troops on icy little s.h.i.t-holes like this one."

"Thanks for the infomercial, Carlos, now lets get some sleep."