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  Having no reason to look like anyone other than himself, Verafti had reverted to what the Sagathi thought of as his true form. Like all his kind, the shape shifter had a vaguely triangular skull that narrowed to an abbreviated snout and a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. His green lizardlike body was humanoid, and covered with iridescent scales, which offered good camouflage within the thick foliage of Sagatha’s equatorial jungles, an extremely dangerous environment where his race’s ability to morph from form to form enabled them to survive and eventually rise to sentience.

  Now, as Sivio, Cato, and two sections of heavily armed Xeno Corps variants marched past on their way to the main lock, Verafti rattled the bars on his cell in an effort to get their attention. Though he was not privy to Hong’s plan, the fact that his jailers were dressed in space armor told Verafti everything he needed to know. “Take me with you!” Verafti demanded loudly. “You know what I’m capable of. I’ll rip their guts out!” The words had a sibilant sound, reminiscent of the so-called hiss speech that the Sagathies spoke to each other.

  Sivio knew that much was true, but he was also aware that once free, the carnivore would kill everyone if he could, which was why two of his most reliable officers had been detailed to guard the prisoner.

  For his part, Cato was thinking about the job ahead. It was a task that none of them were trained for but which he likened to entering an urban structure occupied by well-armed criminals. They faced a very dangerous room-by-room clearing process in which the defenders would have a distinct advantage. This was an unsettling thought and one he was determined to ignore.

  Technician Raybley was waiting for the police detachment when it arrived at the lock. His voice was clearly male, but his face was invisible behind a visor, and, like the rest of the Umans’, his body was sealed in a suit of space armor. The police officers could “sense” his personality, however, and all of them took comfort from Raybley’s calm persona. Cato felt a sudden jolt and struggled to keep his feet as the Umana’s NAVCOMP spoke. “Hull-to-hull contact has been made. . . . The boarding party has entered the lock. . . . All crew members will don their helmets and lock them down in case of a partial or full decompression.”

  Cato felt a sudden emptiness at the pit of his stomach as he and his companions were sealed into what could turn into a communal coffin, and the air was systematically pumped out of the Umana’s lock. Then it was time to question everything that could be questioned, including Cato’s decision to remain in the Xeno Corps despite his so-called disability, his choice of two energy pistols rather than a more powerful rifle, and the time spent preparing his subordinates for battle rather than taking a much-needed pee.

  The time for self doubts was over as the outer door cycled open to provide the would-be boarders a clear view of the enemy ship’s gray, nearly black, hull. It was pitted from the wear imposed on it by hundreds of planetary landings and had been scorched by at least one hit from the Umana’s energy cannons. The two locks were slightly mismatched, but not by much, which constituted a miracle given the hellish conditions under which the two ships had been brought together. Light flared from both sides as the ships fired into each other at point-blank range. A battle the Vord warship was bound to win unless Sivio and his subordinates could board quickly and seize control of the destroyer.

  Raybley knew that too, and was quick to step forward and slap a self-adhesive preshaped charge against the other vessel’s lock, before backing out of the blast zone. The silent explosion came three seconds later, followed by a flash of light, and a miraculous transformation as what had been solid metal morphed into a large man-sized hole. The jagged edges were bent inwards as if pointing which way to go.

  A squad of six suit-clad Vords had been waiting inside the lock, but the superhot jet of plasma created by Raybley’s demolitions charge had cut through the aliens like a hot knife through butter and scorched the hatch beyond.

  Sivio started to advance, but Raybley motioned for the Centurion to stay back as he stepped over a half-cooked body to place a second charge against the inner hatch. Then, having backed away, the technician triggered another explosion almost identical to the first. That was when Sivio shouted, “Now!” and led his eight-person section into the swirling smoke.

  Cato saw one of the dead bodies start to sit up, shot the Vord through his faceplate, and saw the surrounding vacuum pull a column of viscous goo out through the newly created hole. At that point Cato had to step over the bodies as he followed Sivio into the ship’s interior, where they came under fire. Such were the close conditions, however, that only a few of the defenders could fire at any given time. Of course the reverse was true as well, which was why Cato tossed an energy grenade down the corridor to his right, and waited for the telltale flash before advancing farther.

  Two dead bodies lay where the grenade had gone off, but a third Vord had survived the explosion. A thin stream of vapor shot away from his left knee as the air inside his suit continued to escape through a pin-sized hole. Because each Vord had a sluglike Ya wrapped around his neck, their space suits incorporated large, collarlike extensions that stuck up behind their helmets, and were intended to protect the parasites. That made the aliens look clumsy, but such was not the case, as the defender lurched out of a side passageway and knocked one of Cato’s pistols away. Then, having created an opening, the Vord made a grab for Cato’s space armor.

  Cato didn’t recognize the significance of the act at first, and was in the process of bringing the other handgun to bear, when he remembered that the release lever for his suit was located in a recess on the front surface of his armor! The Vord was trying to open his suit!

  So Cato made use of his free hand to push the alien away, fired the pistol at point-blank range, and swore as the bright blue beam of energy was momentarily dissipated. Strong though it was, however, the Vord armor couldn’t take the punishment for long, and as the alien fumbled for the double-edged battle-axe slung across his back, the space suit gave way, allowing an energy bolt to punch its way through his heart. The Vord’s Ya was still alive, of course, but the parasite couldn’t exert enough control to keep its host upright, so both of them went down. The whole experience scared the hell out of Cato, so he shot the Vord again, just to make sure.

  Then it was time to rally his section and lead them deeper into the belly of the alien ship. A quick glance at the data projected on the inside surface of Cato’s visor showed that while Ritori was down, Honis, Batia, Tonver, Moshath, and Kelkaw were still on their feet and immediately behind him. Sivio’s section was headed toward the ship’s bow. “All right,” Cato said into his lip mike, “let’s keep moving. Remember, stay close to your partner, and eyeball everything. These assholes play for keeps.”

  There was a series of double clicks as the rest of the section acknowledged his instructions. Then it was time to split up into pairs, put their backs to both sides of the corridor, and edge along. There was no resistance at first, which caused Cato to wonder if the aliens had given up, but any hopes of a relatively easy victory were shattered when the passageway opened into an area dedicated to the ship’s life-support systems. From his position at the entry hatch Cato could see the tanks that were required to recycle water, the big rack-shaped air scrubbers, and a sealed climate-controlled hydroponics section in which fresh vegetables were grown. It all made for a maze of machinery and pipes.

  Cato was forced to retreat into the corridor as four or five Vords opened fire and ruby red energy beams sleeted his way. Cato removed a “roller” from a pouch at his waist, pinched the device “on,” and tossed the little camera into the area beyond. Video appeared in front of him, turned topsy-turvy, and finally came to a rest. The panoramic shot was somewhat distorted, but crystal clear, and therefore useful, especially when the defenders were stupid enough to fire at the roller, thereby signaling their various positions.

  “Okay,” Cato said evenly, as he turned to address his team. “I’ll toss a flash-bang in there. Once it goes off, we en
ter. Honis, Batia, you take the targets on the right. Tonver and Moshath will go after the slimeballs on the left. Kelkaw and I will go straight up the middle. Questions? No? Let’s do this thing.”

  Like the other members of Cato’s section, Brice Kelkaw had a generally low opinion of the Section Leader (SL) because of his tendency to duck work, break rules, and drink too much. But there was one category of activity in which Cato excelled, and that was the area of tactical operations, where he was second to none. For some unfathomable reason, Cato’s freewheeling ways were frequently successful when the chips were down, a fact that accounted for both the stripes on his arms and the handful of badly tarnished medals buried at the bottom of his footlocker.

  So Kelkaw was secretly glad of the fact that he had been assigned to Cato’s section rather than Sivio’s, as he followed the noncom out into a sleet of incoming fire. Some of which left scorch marks on Kelkaw’s light gray armor but failed to hole it. Projectile weapons would have been much more deadly, but could have caused serious damage to the ship, which neither side wanted to do. But even though the so-called blasters weren’t immediately lethal, they could drill holes in armor if given the three or four seconds required to do so. And that made it important to keep moving.

  As Cato fired on a Vord who was hiding between a recycling tank and the air scrubbers, Kelkaw heard someone shout, “Above you!” and raised his energy weapon just in time to fire at the alien on the catwalk above.

  The Vord got off a series of energy bolts as well, some of which came within inches of Cato’s helmet, but that took time. Enough time for Kelkaw’s energy rifle to stitch a line of black divots across the alien’s chest plate. The last bolt found the seam between shoulder and arm, burned its way through, and opened the suit to the vacuum. The results were not very pretty.

  Having nailed his target, Cato took a quick look around. The incoming fire had stopped, Honis and Batia were busy securing a group of Vord prisoners, and the other two were going from body to body checking to make sure that the beings inside were truly dead. “Hey, Cato,” Tonver said, as he knelt next to a badly scorched Vord. “The big sonofabitch is history—but it looks like the slug might be alive. It’s sealed in a pressurized pouch.”

  Cato went over to inspect the body and saw that Tonver was correct. Even though the Vord was dead, a pressurized sack had been deployed to protect the parasite wrapped around his neck. Tonver winced as Cato put an energy bolt through the taut semitransparent plastic film. Green goo erupted from the newly created hole as all of the pent-up air gushed out of the container. “That’s for Ritori,” Cato said grimly. “Rot in hell.”

  Tonver wasn’t sure that aliens went to hell, but it was a moot point, so he let it go. The battle was over.

  The better part of one standard day passed while both of the badly damaged ships floated side by side off Nav Beacon INS4721-8402. There was a lot to do, including treating the wounded, in-processing the Vord prisoners, and conducting a bow-to-stern survey of the Pax Umana to determine how spaceworthy the vessel was.

  Finally, having completed their inspection, Captain Hong and her engineering officer concluded that while one of the ship’s in-system drives was still functional, her hyperdrive was going to require a complete overhaul before the Umana would be able to complete the journey to Sagatha.

  That was the beginning of an effort to identify a planet with a Class III or better shipyard that was within the range of a vessel traveling at sublight speeds from Navpoint INS4721-8402. The answer, because there was only one possibility, was a former prison planet named Dantha. None of those on the Umana had ever been there; but, according to the NAVCOMP’s files, Dantha was a mostly preindustrial Corin-Class planet, having large deposits of iridium located due west of a Level Eight settlement named Solace. And Solace, in turn, based on a two-year-old database, was home to a Class III shipyard.

  So with nowhere else to go, Hong had her crew place explosive charges aboard the Vord raider, cut the destroyer loose, then put a lot of distance between the two ships before sending the necessary signal. Most of the crew were watching the video feed when the explosion took place, but the momentary flash of light was strangely anticlimactic, and left most of them feeling sad rather than jubilant. All except for Cato, that is, who was taking a nap when the charges went off, and was snoring loudly.

  It took almost two standard weeks to reach Dantha. Long, increasingly difficult days, during which one of the four air scrubbers went down, the water-purification system failed, and everyone went on short rations. Including the Vord prisoners, who suffered in silence, unlike Verafti, who complained nonstop.

  The Xeno cops were used to that, however, and proceeded to ignore the shape shifter, who was forced to entertain himself by showing the neighboring Vords what they would look like if turned inside out! It was a pastime Cato rather enjoyed—and did nothing to discourage.

  So it was with a communal sigh of relief that the Pax Umana entered Dantha’s atmosphere, bumped her way down through layers of air, and leveled out over a vast water-filled crater created some fifty million years earlier when a sizeable meteorite had roared out of the sky to slam into Dantha’s surface.

  The lake glittered with reflected sunlight as the space-ship flew over both it and the vast plain beyond, on its way to the Imperial settlement of Solace. And it was then, as the ship circled the city prior to landing, that Captain Hong felt the first stirrings of concern. Because rather than the neat, carefully laid out city typical of Uman-controlled planets, Solace was a sprawling undisciplined maze of structures that been allowed to evolve according to the whims of those who lived there. People who, according to information supplied by the NAVCOMP, were the descendants of prisoners brought in 242 years earlier to work the now-abandoned iridium mines.

  Still, the way the local population chose to live was unimportant so long as Hong could get repairs to her ship, and return it to service. That thought gave the naval officer a renewed sense of confidence as the third, and final, clearance was given by the spaceport’s Traffic Control computer, and the NAVCOMP brought the badly damaged Pax Umana in for a landing. Both Hong and her pilot were on standby in case the NAVCOMP failed, so there was very little opportunity to eyeball the spaceport as the ship’s powerful repellers sent clouds of reddish dust billowing up into the air.

  Minutes later, once the ship’s massive skids were safely on the ground, the air began to clear. That was when the main cargo hatch whirred open, a ramp was deployed, and Hong made her way down onto Imperial soil. Sivio was by her side, and the ship’s hull made loud pinging noises as it began to cool.

  Both Imperials expected a reception of some sort. No brass bands, or anything like that, but a Port Captain and some of his or her subordinates at a minimum. What they weren’t ready for was a portly civilian in stained overalls, a work-worn robot with mismatched arms, and a black-and-white mongrel, who immediately took a possessive pee on one of the Umana’s landing skids. “Hello!” the man in the ragged overalls said cheerfully. “Welcome to Dantha! My name is Kinkel. Homer Kinkel. I’m the Port Administrator, Port Captain, and Maintenance Chief.”

  Nearly all of the dust had settled by then, and as Hong eyed the blast-scarred area around her, she saw three dilapidated in-system freighters, an old liner that had been cannibalized for parts, six Imperial fighters that constituted the planet’s entire air defense capability, a low-slung prefab building that was at least fifty years old, and a row of multicolored atmospheric craft of various designs that presumably belonged to wealthy citizens. Assuming there were any. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Hong lied as she offered Kinkel her hand. “No offense, but we need a Class III yard, and your spaceport looks like it might be a Class V at best.”

  “Yup,” Kinkel responded unapologetically. “We were decertified about a year and a half ago. There isn’t enough money to keep things up. Or that’s what Procurator Nalomy tells me—and she oughtta know.” At that point his tiny eyes went up to the ship that loomed a
bove them. There was plenty of visible damage, including blackened craters, metal-bright scars, and a collection of scorch marks. “What hit you anyway? A swarm of meteorites?”

  Hong shook her head. “No, we were attacked by a Vord raider. The ship needs a whole lot of things—but a reconditioned hyperdrive tops the list. If we had that, we could make it to a Class III yard.”

  Kinkel shook his head sympathetically. “I’m sorry to hear that. . . . The Vords are starting to get out of hand. The Emperor needs to teach the ugly bastards a lesson! As for the hyperdrive—well that’s gonna take some time. Say a month to get the request in, another month for the bureaucrats to approve it, and a third month to ship it here. Then it’ll be up to me to install it, and I’m shorthanded at the moment.”

  A dust devil appeared out in the middle of Landing Zone Two, the dog gave chase, and the robot’s head began to twitch uncontrollably. The journey was over.

  TWO

  Imperial City, on the planet Corin

  LEGATE ISULU USURLUS WAS SEATED AT HIS SCRUPULOUSLY clean glass desk, reviewing the items he hoped to discuss with Emperor Emor, when he heard the familiar swish of expensive fabric as Satha entered the sun-splashed room. She was tall, willowy, and as beautiful as a slave costing ten thousand Imperials should be. Satha had luxuriant shoulder-length brown hair, a shapely body that was only partially concealed by a diaphanous gown, and perfectly formed bare feet. She brought her hands together in front of her chest and lowered her forehead until it came into contact with them. “The cars are here.”

  Usurlus said, “Thank you,” rose, and took a thin leather briefcase with him as he crossed the study to the point where an oval mirror was set into the wall. Appearances were important within the upper reaches of Uman society, especially on the home world of Corin, so good looks were something of a necessity. Usurlus knew he was vain—and why not? The man who stared back at him had artfully tousled blond hair, gray eyes, and an aquiline nose. Women liked him, as did men, which made his sex life wonderfully complicated.