Читать книгу The Complete Inheritance Trilogy: Star Strike, Galactic Corps, Semper Human - Ian Douglas, Matthew Taylor - Страница 47

“General?” Cara said within his mind. “I think the AI search has found something.”

Lieutenant General Martin Alexander had been seated at his office desk, going over an unsettling report from Intelligence. A Marine—specifically, the Marine who’d gone through the Puller Stargate and discovered that the Xul at Starwall knew of Humankind’s recent activities—was missing.

Worse, it seemed likely that the PanEuropeans were behind the disappearance.

But Cara would not have interrupted his work if this hadn’t been something important. The MIEF staff constellations had been hard at it for almost a week, now. Six days ago, at the ops planning session, he’d given them the outlines of what he wanted, but they still had to churn out the hard data. Actually, he’d not expected any real progress for another week or two yet, so complex was this strategic problem.

“Okay,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Whatcha got?”

“You requested an AI search of astronomical databases, specifically seeking information that might reveal unexpected or unknown links between known Stargates and known areas of deep space.”

“Yes.”

The worst problem the planning team faced at the moment was the lack of hard data on stargates and exactly how they interconnected across the Galaxy. Several ongoing database studies were being carried out by astronomical institutes on dozens of worlds, both in the Commonwealth and elsewhere. Alexander had hoped that the staff planning constellations might be able to mine data from those studies, acquiring a better understanding of just how the various stargates were linked together.

“You also requested,” Cara went on, “a list of anomalies associated with areas we researched … anomalies that might indicate Xul presence or interest.”

“Yes. What did you come up with?”

“The Aquila Anomaly. The information is very old … pre-spaceflight, in fact.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“The name is relatively recent. The information, however, was first gleaned from an astronomical compilation known as the Norton Star Atlas before such information was even available on electronic media. While we can’t be certain at this point in the research, the anomaly is significant enough that we felt it necessary to bring it to human attention.”

“Show me.”

A window opened in his mind, opening on to a view of deep space, scattered with stars—one bright star, five or six somewhat dimmer stars, and a background scattering of stardust.

“This is the constellation of Aquila, as seen from Earth,” Cara told him.

“The Eagle,” Alexander said, nodding. He hadn’t recognized the pattern of stars when it first appeared, but he knew the name.

Lines appeared in the window connecting the brighter stars—a parallelogram above, a triangle below, both slanting off to the right. With great imagination, an observer might imagine a bird of prey, wings raised in flight.

“As with all constellation groupings,” Cara told him, “the identification with a person, animal, or object is problematical, at least from the AI perspective. But an eagle is the historical designation, yes.”

“Beauty, and eagles, are in the eye of the beholder,” Alexander quipped. “That bright star is Altair—Alpha Aquilae.” It was, he knew, a shade over sixteen and a half light-years from Earth, and was one of the nearest outposts of the PanEuropean Republic. Commonwealth military planners had been working on contingency plans focused on how to fight a war with the Republic if things came to that unpleasant juncture. If the Commonwealth went to war with the PanEuropeans, getting past Altair would be their first big strategic requirement.

Cara ignored his sally—AIs had trouble understanding certain concepts, like “beauty”—and continued. “You are aware of the astronomical phenomenon of novae,” the AI said.

“Of course. Stars that explode—become much, much brighter in a short period of time. They’re not as violent as supernovae, of course, but they’re violent enough to cook any planets they might have. A handful are reported every year. Most aren’t naked-eye visible, but there have been a few bright ones.”

“Correct. Most novae appear to occur in close-double star systems, where material from one star is falling into the other. At least, that is the conventional theory, which seems to hold for a majority of the novae studied so far. And, as you say, novae are observed and recorded every year. My AI colleagues went through all such lists, among many others, in pursuance of your authorization for a data search on 1811, six days ago.”

“What did you find?”

“An intriguing fact. During a single thirty-seven-year period in the early twentieth century, a total of twenty bright novae—exploding stars—were observed from Earth.”

“Go on.”

“Five of those twenty novae occurred within the arbitrary boundaries of the constellation Aquila.”

It took a few seconds for the import to sink in. “My God—”

“Twenty-five percent of all observed and recorded novae, in other words, occurred within point two-five percent of the entire sky. This, we feel, is statistically important.

“One of these novae,” Cara went on, as a bright, new star appeared on the skymap just to the west of Altair, “was Nova Aquila. It appeared in the year 1918, and was the brightest nova ever recorded until Nova Carina, almost six centuries later. Two of the other novae appeared in the same year—1936—here, and here.” Two more bright stars appeared as Cara spoke, followed a moment later by two more. “And the last two, here in 1899, and here in 1937.”

“Five novae, though,” Alexander said slowly. He didn’t want to jump to unreasonable conclusions. “That’s still too small a number to be statistically significant.”

“It could be a random statistical clustering, true,” Cara told him. “Statistical anomalies do occur. But the extremely small area of sky involved—one quarter of one percent—seems to argue strongly against coincidence as a factor. And there is this, as well, a datum not available to twentieth-century cosmologists.”

The group of stars showing in Alexander’s mind rotated. The geometric figures of parallelogram and triangle shifted and distorted, some lines becoming much longer, others growing shorter.

A constellation was purely a convenience for Earth-based observers, a means of grouping and identifying stars in the night sky that had nothing to do with their actual locations in space. With a very few exceptions, stars that appeared to be close by one another in Earth’s sky—all members of the same constellation, in other words—appeared to be neighbors only because they happened to lie along the same line of sight. That was the fatal flaw in the ancient pseudoscience of astrology; one might as well say that a building on a distant hill, or the sun rising behind it, were physically connected to a house three meters away—or to one’s own hand—simply because they all appeared from a certain viewpoint to overlap.

Rotating the volume of space that included Aquila demonstrated this fact clearly. On a 2D map, the stars of Aquila appeared close together—the three brightest, Altair, Alshain, and Tarazed, for example, lay almost directly side by side in a short, straight line. Viewed from the side, however, Altair—Alpha Aquilae—was only 16.6 light-years from Earth, while Alshain, Beta Aquilae, was 46.6 light-years distant. Both, in fact, were quite close to Sol as galactic distances went. Gamma Aquilae, however, the third brightest star in the constellation and better known as Tarazed, was 330 light-years from Earth. Epsilon was 220 light-years distant; a few others were extremely distant; Eta Aquilae, for instance, was 1,600 light-years away, while dim Nu Aquilae, so distant it vanished off the window to the left when the display rotated, was actually a type F2 Ib supergiant 2,300 light-years distant.

The novae could be expected to show a similar range of distances, but this, Alexander saw, was not the case. They were clustered; Nova Aquila was about 1,200 light-years from Earth. The other four were all positioned at roughly the same distance, though they were spread across the constellation like a sheet, defining a flat region of space roughly fifty light-years deep and perhaps 200 to 300 light-years wide, some 800 light-years beyond the borders of human-colonized space.

Alexander felt a stirring of awe as he examined the 3D rotation. “Just when did these novae actually light off?” he asked.

“That represents a second anomaly,” Cara told him. “The light from all five novae arrived at Earth within that single thirty-eight-year period between 1899 and 1937. Again, that might have been coincidence, but, as you see, they actually are located in relatively close proximity to one another. All of them, we estimate, exploded within a few years of one another, right around the year 700 c.e.”

In the year 700, Alexander knew, Byzantines and Franks had been battling it out with the Arabs for control of the Mediterranean world on Earth, and the most startling advance in military technology was the stirrup. Twelve hundred light-years away, meanwhile, someone had been blowing up suns.

Random statistical anomalies happened, yes … but as Alexander studied the 3D constellation map, rotating it back and forth for a better feel of the thing’s volume and the relationship of the stars within it, he was dead certain that something more than chance was at work here.

“If this is … artificial,” he told Cara, “if this is deliberate …”

“We estimate a probability in excess of sixty percent that this clustering of novae is the direct result of intelligent action.”

“Intelligent action.” Alexander snorted. “Funny term for something on this scale.”

“We know of several sapient species with technologies sufficiently high to effect engineering on such a scale,” Cara told him. “The Builders, the Xul … and possibly the N’mah of several thousand years ago, though they would not be capable of such activities now. The artificial detonation of a star is certainly feasible, given what we know of the three species.”

“I wasn’t questioning that,” Alexander said. “It’s just, well, I see three possibilities here, assuming that those novae were artificially generated. One, of course, is that the star-destroyers were the Xul.”

“Possibly. We have no evidence that they have blown up stars in the past.”

“No. I agree, it’s just not their style.” The Xul’s usual modus operandi was to pound a target planet with high-velocity asteroids, quite literally bombing the inhabitants back into the Stone Age … or into extinction. “But the Xul have been around for at least half a million years, now, and if anyone has the technology to blow up a star, they should.”

“Agreed. What are your other two possibilities?”

“One, and the most intriguing one, I think, is the possibility that another technic species was detonating stars out there in Aquila over two thousand years ago.”

“That is the possibility that we noted when we uncovered this data,” Cara said. “Another high-technic species fighting a war to the death with the Xul. If we could make contact with such a species, ally with them, it might mean the difference between survival and extinction for Humankind. I do not see a third alternative, however.”

“It’s possible that what happened in Aquila had nothing to do with the Xul,” Alexander told the AI. “It was a civilization busy destroying itself. It might even have been an accident.”

“What kind of accident could—”

“An industrial accident on a colossal scale. Or an engineering accident … an attempt to manipulate whole stars gone terribly wrong?”

“I have no data that will permit me to evaluate these ideas.”

“Of course you don’t. We’re not used to thinking about engineering on an interstellar … on a galactic scale. But it is a possibility.”

“Perhaps the data was not as useful as we first believed,” Cara told him. The AI sounded almost crestfallen, and Alexander smiled. Artificial intelligences were superhumanly fast and possessed a range and scope and depth of knowledge that far surpassed anything humans were capable of, even with the most sophisticated cybernetic implant technology. Where they had trouble matching their human counterparts was in creativity and in imagination. Being able to imagine a cosmic engineering project on a scale that could annihilate stars was for the most part still beyond their operational parameters.

“No, Cara,” he told the AI. “The data are tremendously useful. This is exactly what we’re looking for … a focus, a direction in which we can work.” He thought for a moment. “The question is how to get out there. It’s a long way.”

“Which brings up the second bit of information our research has uncovered. Look at this.” The image changed, showing what appeared to be a photograph of open space. A number of stars were visible, but one in particular stood out—a dazzling, white beacon. “That is the star Eta Aquilae,” Cara told him. “A star’s spectrum is unique, as unique as human fingerprints. There is no doubt as to the star’s identity.”

“Right. You just pointed that one out on the constellation image.”

“Actually, this image is in our files from one of our early Gate explorations. Our probes moved through a particular Gate pathway, took a series of photographs for later analyses, and returned.”

“Ah! And which Gate? …”

“As it happens … Puller 659.”

“God. …”

“This pathway appears to open into a star system four hundred light-years from Eta Aquilae.”

“Four hundred … Then, the other end might be close to the area of novae?”

“A distinct possibility. Further, there did not appear to be a Xul presence there. For that reason, we have not been monitoring that path, but the original photographs were still on file.”

“Outstanding,” Alexander said with feeling. He was seeing all kinds of possibilities here.

“You concur that an expedition to this region of space might allow us to contact another technic species, one sufficiently powerful enough to help us withstand the Xul?”

“Yes, although we seem to be back to needing to enter Republic space. Again … we have several possibilities in front of us.”

“Perhaps you should list them,” Cara said. “I don’t seem to be seeing as many options and outcomes as are you.”

“Well … the big possibility is that there’s someone out there who beat the Xul two thousand years ago. If we can make contact with them, ally with them, like you said, we might have a chance to beat the Xul on their own terms.”

“Yes. This was the possibility we had noted when the data first turned up in our research. But … you also said the novae could have been caused by the Xul. If so, the species we’d hoped to ally with might have been wiped out two thousand years ago. A mission to the Nova Aquila region would be futile if that was the case.”

“Not at all. If the Xul resorted to blowing up stars—incinerating whole star systems—then they must have been up against someone or something that scared the liver out of them … assuming they have livers to begin with. Even if this hypothetical technic species is now extinct, we might find remnants … like the ruins on Chiron and elsewhere. We might learn why the Xul feared them that much.” He shrugged. “At least it’s a damned good place to start.”

“That possibility had not occurred to me.”

“Here’s another one. Imagine you’re the Xul, hard-wired to be paranoid about anyone different or advanced enough to be a threat. Two thousand years ago, someone in that one region of space gives you such a damned bad scare that you detonate stars to get rid of them. You think they’re all dead, wiped out when their worlds were incinerated … but two thousand years later, someone with a large battle fleet shows up in that same region and starts nosing around the wreckage of those stars. What do you think?”

“Either that the old enemy has reappeared, and is still a threat,” Cara said, “or, somewhat more likely, that another technic species is examining the wreckage of that former civilization—”

“And might learn something from the ruins. Exactly.”

“At the briefing, you emphasized that we needed to find a means of getting the Xul’s full attention,” Cara said. “A means of getting them to follow the MIEF off into the Galaxy instead of striking into Humankind space. The perceived threat posed by the MIEF at Nova Aquila might be sufficient for this.” The AI paused. “But suppose the Xul are not involved at all? You mentioned the possibility of a cosmic engineering or industrial accident involving some other species.”

“If all we find are the leftovers of a colossal cosmic engineering experiment gone bad,” Alexander said, “it still might help us. Even a mistake on that scale, something capable of detonating multiple suns, would represent an extremely advanced, extremely powerful technology. I would be willing to bet my pension that the Xul keep a watch on any such system, just in case.”

“Unless the system in question was so completely obliterated that, literally, nothing remains.”

Alexander shook his head. “Not possible. A supernova might vaporize any inner planets the star once had, and even then, I wonder if there wouldn’t be rubble of some sort left over, moving outward with the outer shell of explosion debris.”

“According to current astrophysical theory, supernovae are generated only by extremely massive stars,” Cara told him. “Stars that massive do not have planetary families, and in any case would be too young and short-lived to support the evolution of life, much less advanced technology.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved the remark aside. “That wasn’t my point. In Aquila we’re dealing with ordinary novae, not supernovae. The explosion blows off the outer layers of the star’s surface, and what’s left collapses down to a white dwarf. Any planets in the system would be cooked, maybe have their outer crusts stripped away, but the planetary cores would remain.”

“I fail to see how that helps us. Surely, the wreckage of any advanced technology would be obliterated by any wave front energetic enough to strip away a planet’s crust. Buildings, power generators, spacecraft, they all would be vaporized.”

“But the Xul watching the system, wouldn’t know that every trace had been vaporized,” Alexander replied. “Not with one-hundred-percent certainty. And with a spacefaring technic culture, there might be asteroids or outer-system moons with high-tech bases on them or inside them, or starships or large space habitats that rode out the nova’s expanding wave front relatively undamaged, or bases hidden inside some sort of long-lived stasis field.” He shrugged. “Endless possibilities. The chances of our going in and actually finding anything like that are remote in the extreme, granted, but the Xul won’t know for sure why we’re there, or what we might find. If they’re as paranoid as our xenosapientologists think they are, they’ll by God have to respond.”

“I take your point.” The AI hesitated. “It must be comforting to know—or at least to have a good idea—how the enemy will react in a given situation.”

He grunted. “There are still too damned many variables, and we still just don’t know the Xul well enough to predict how they’ll respond, not with any degree of certainty. The idea of them being xenophobes certainly fits with what we’ve seen of them up until now, as does the idea that they are extremely conservative, and don’t change much, if at all, over large periods of time. But, damn it, we don’t know. They’re still aliens … which means they don’t think the same way we do, don’t see the universe the same way we do, and we’d be arrogance personified if we thought we understood their motives or their worldview at this point in time.”

“But this gives us a starting point,” Cara observed.

“That it does,” Alexander agreed. “I’m actually more concerned—”

“Just a moment,” Cara said, interrupting. “Just a moment. …”

Alexander waited. He knew the AI well enough to recognize that she was momentarily distracted by something entering her electronic purview. Whatever it was, it had to be a very large something to so completely monopolize her awareness, even for just a few seconds.

“General McCulloch’s EA is requesting connect time,” Cara told him. “Will you accept?”

“Damn it, Cara, when the Commandant of the Marine Corps requests an electronic conversation with a mere lieutenant general …” Alexander replied, letting the statement trail off.

“Will you accept?”

He sighed. AIs could be narrowly literal to the point of obsession. “Of course I will.”

“General McCulloch’s EA states that the general will be on-line momentarily, and to please hold.”

“Then I guess we’ll hold.

“Give me a quick update,” he told the AI. “I’m actually a lot more concerned about the PanEuropeans and how they’re reacting to the political situation than I am about the Xul right now. Is there anything new this morning on NetNews?”

“I’ve prepared your regular daily digest, which you can download at your convenience,” Cara told him. “Two hundred ninety-five articles and postings concerning the PanEuropean crisis. Most of those are classified as opinion pieces or commentary, and most tend to be alarmist or sensationalist in nature.”

“Nothing I need to be briefed on before I talk to the commandant?”

“In my estimation, no.”

“The usual crap, then.” He sighed. “Why do we have more trouble understanding ourselves and those like us than we do entities as alien as the Xul?”

“Human history suggests that this has always been a factor in human politics.”

“Mm. Yes. Agreed.”

“I am opening a virtual room for your conference with General McCulloch.”

“Thank you.” Alexander felt the familiar, lightly tingling surge across his scalp as the external reality of his office on board Skybase was swept away, replaced by a star-strewn void. The poly-lobed sprawl of human space filled his visual field; Puller 659, near the outer fringes of PE space, was highlighted as an unnaturally brilliant white beacon, outshining the strew of other stars.

“It appears General McCulloch is concerned about PanEuropean reaction if 1MIEF enters Republic space,” Cara told him.

Alexander snorted. “I’m concerned that we’re, both of us, Republic and Commonwealth, acting like apes around the water hole, thumping our chests, shrieking and grimacing at each other, and all the while the leopard is watching from the underbrush, getting ready to pounce. We should be working together, damn it, working toward the common cause, not clawing at each other’s throats.”

“Again, this appears to be a common pattern in human history. I submit that it represents a hard-wired feature of human psychology, and no doubt derives from the pre-tribal evolutionary period you refer to. Humans are apes, remember, and still possess the ape’s instincts regarding territory, protectiveness, threat, and strangers.”

“Tell me about it.” He realized Cara would take his words literally, and hastily added, “Belay that. Don’t tell me. The question is whether or not we’re going to have to go to war with the PanEuropean Republic in order to force them to help us against the Xul.”

“Would their cooperation be worth the effort?” Cara asked.

“Good question. They have a large fleet, and we’re going to need warships, both to protect the home front, and to carry out 1MIEF’s long-range mission. Their ground forces aren’t as good as ours, though.” He didn’t add that PE planetary assault units in particular didn’t measure up to U.S. Marine standards. “But the stargates they control could be the key to hurting the Xul. Especially the Puller Gate … and Starwall. There’s also the alert flashed from Tomanaga’s LP. That, I imagine, is what General McCulloch is going to want to discuss.”

“I have an incoming data feed from his EA, which I’ve been processing as we speak,” Cara told him. “It includes intelligence reports concerning PanEuropean fleet elements and activities within the Puller 659 system, which supports your supposition.” There was a brief hesitation. “Channel opening from General McCulloch.”

And General Vinton McCulloch appeared, his icon bright with his official corona flammae, his full-dress uniform bright with luminous decorations and awards. “Good morning, General,” McCulloch said, voice gravel-rough. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Not at all, sir.” In fact, Alexander suspected that the higher the rank, the more you needed to keep subordinates waiting, just to keep them aware of who they were dealing with.

“We have a final go from the Senate,” McCulloch said. “It was damned close, but Operation Lafayette has been approved.”

“Lafayette?”

“Obscure historical reference, I’m told—‘Lafayette, we are here.’ Don’t ask me. I just work here.”

“But we’re going in to get our people.”

“Ay-firmative.”

“When?”

“Riki-damned-tick. As soon as you can get an assault team together.”

“I’ve tapped the 55th MARS,” Alexander told him. “They’re only just back from Alighan, but that means they haven’t scattered to the four corners yet. The platoon COs are authorizing liberty, but no leave.”

“Tough break for them.”

Alexander shrugged. “They’re Marines. They’re squared away and set to boost. We just need to load their AT with fresh supplies and expendables. We have some more data, though, that you should see. I’m uploading to you now.”

He waited as General McCulloch assimilated the data. “It seems Puller 659 has become doubly important,” the older man said after a moment.

“Yes, sir. A bit of serendipity, actually. It gives us a choice from the same Stargate … Starwall, which appears to be a major Xul base, or the Nova Aquila region.” He briefly outlined his ideas about the Aquilae novae, and why they might be important. “I was recommending Starwall,” he concluded. “I need to study this data from the AI research team, but right now my inclination is to try that route instead.”

“Have you considered both options?”

“Not yet. I will. Of course, we’re so badly outnumbered and outgunned as it is. Splitting my force in the face of the enemy might not be the brightest of ideas.”

“Well, it’s going to be your call,” McCulloch told him, “pending Senate approval, of course. Just keep me in the loop.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“I actually came down here to see what you could tell me about the Puller situation. What’s the latest on that front?”

Alexander lifted his eyebrows. “I’d think you would know more about the situation out there than me.”

“Hell, son, no one tells me anything. By the time the EAs finish filtering out the news they think I shouldn’t be burdened with, there’s not enough left to let me ask intelligent questions. I just know the PEs have some of our people at Puller in custody, but that some of them are still loose and lying low.”

“That’s right, sir.” Alexander thought-clicked an animation into view, showing the tiny, red Puller sun, the orbit of the system’s lone gas giant, and the wider orbit of the stargate. “Our covert base in that system consisted of two facilities. The larger, main base is dug into the surface of an ice-covered moon of this gas giant, here. The giant’s radiation belts mask any electronic leakage. The smaller facility is out here, dug into the interior of a 10-kilometer asteroid that’s in orbit around the stargate itself.

“Lieutenant Lee reemerged from the Gate on 2410. One month later, on 1911, a PanEuropean battlefleet arrived in-system—we think from the base at Aurore. Assault troops landed on the gas giant moon and took over our facility there. The LP commander, Major Tomanaga, reported PE troops inside the base, and then all communication with the unit was lost.

“Our best guess is that the PEs had a small, probably robotic probe in the Puller system, and that it detected and tracked the ships Tomanaga sent out to pick up Lieutenant Lee when her Night Owl reemerged from the Gate. It would take about a month for Republic ships to get out there.

“Apparently, however, the Republican forces did not detect the asteroid LP near the Gate. There are still five Marines there, under the command of a Lieutenant Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick has been sending us regular updates via QCC.”

QCC, Quantum-Coupled Communications, possessed two singular advantages over any other form of long-range communication. It was instantaneous, and there was no way an enemy could tap into the transmission because there was no beam or wave to tap. A message spoken or typed at one console simply appeared at the designated receiver without passing through the intervening space, a satisfyingly practical application of what the long-dead Einstein had called “spooky action at a distance.”

“So Fitzpatrick and his people are still undetected?” Mc-Culloch asked.

“As of their last report, yes, sir. He was able to tell us that the PE squadron consisted of twelve ships, including the fast cruiser Aurore, a heavy monitor identified as Rommel, and a fleet carrier, Le Guerrier.”

“I saw the list,” McCulloch said. “They came loaded for bear, didn’t they?”

“I’m not sure what ‘bear’ is, but, yeah. They came in with their heavies. Our best guess is that Tomanaga, Lee, and thirty-five other Marines and naval personnel are now being held on board the Aurore. She will be our chief target.”

McCulloch nodded. “I just had some intel passed down from I-squared. You’re going to have help when you get there.”

Alexander felt an internal twist of hard suspicion. “What kind of help?”

“You’re aware of the religious problems in the French sectors?”

Alexander nodded. “Somewhat. I don’t understand them. …”

“The Republic’s French sectors are officially Reformed Catholic. But there’s a strong Traditionalist Catholic element in their fleet. DCI² tells us that the T.C. is set to mutiny if and when our forces appear. If they can take over the French warships before we can deploy, they will … and they’ve promised to try to protect our people.”

Alexander groaned. “Gods. …”

“What’s the matter?”

“That complicates things, General. You realize that, don’t you?”

“I know.”

“We’re going to need to go in hot and hard. We do not need a bunch of friendlies running around, getting in our way and maybe taking friendly fire. That could get real nasty, real fast.”

“Affirmative. But we work with what we’ve got.”

“Ooh-rah.” Alexander looked at the animation of the Puller star system for a moment. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the PE fleet will pull out before we get our act together.”

“Don’t count on that, General. So far, they haven’t admitted that they have our people … and we haven’t admitted that we know they have our people. Their safest bet is to sit tight at the Puller system, especially since they’re probably questioning our people on exactly what Lee saw on the other side of the Gate.”

“Starwall. Right. Okay, General. We’ll take them down and we’ll get our people out. But …”

“‘But?’”

“Nothing. But when we go in, those so-called friendlies in the PE fleet had better stay the hell out of our way. Our Marines are going to be moving fast and kicking ass, and they will not have the time to find out what church their targets attend.”

“Understood. Just do your best.”

Damn, Alexander thought. It’s going to be a cluster-fuck.

And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.