Chapter One

Chapter One

March 5, 2227, United Terran Confederation (UTC) Standard Date. Mu Arae System, Molino, First Moon of Planet Quijote

THWACK!

A few in the crowd groaned.

A few always take the sucker bet.

THWACK!

Erik grinned as his final metal dart hit the board.

A moment later, there was a satisfying chime. Another bullseye.

He looked around with a smile on his face. “It’s hard being this good, and this handsome.” He watched as the waitress, Janette, walked by and winked at her. “But I’ve been blessed, so who am I to complain?”

She waved the back of her hand twice, telling him to deal that talk to someone else, although she had a smirk on her face. She grabbed two empties and disappeared through the crowd.

Dammit! Model-good looks, and I can’t even tease the waitress and get more than a smirk in return?

That’s it

. He shook his head, although he kept a smile plastered on his face. He raised his arms in triumph, but in his mind, the conversation ended with

I’m officially old, and I suck.

A roar of approval erupted from the men and women surrounding him. The group of them were clad in loose black pants and white undershirts, and they had dog tags around their necks.

The dog tags were deceptive, nothing more than a thin piece of metal to the naked and ignorant civilian eye, despite being one of the more sophisticated examples of non-volatile nanomatrix storage in the entire United Terran Confederation.

That level of technology was necessary to store the gene sequence of the relevant soldier along with other data while maintaining fidelity even under extreme conditions, such as exposure to pure vacuum.

None of the soldiers concerned themselves with the possibility of their demise. The only enemy action they feared at the moment was death by boredom.

There weren’t a huge number of off-duty soldiers in the room, only twelve out of the fifty making up the UTC Army Expeditionary Force 108

th

Assault Platoon. Their boisterous voices were more than enough to challenge Erik’s ears in the small, windowless and mostly empty barracks rec room, however.

A lanky dark-skinned man standing next to Erik shook his head. “It’s been four days since your birthday, but I don’t know if I can let this go anymore, Major. Big five-zero or not.”

He chuckled and gestured at Erik’s hair. “Getting a lot of gray up there.” He pursed his lips as Erik raised an eyebrow. “Just saying, maybe it’s time to get some rejuvenation treatments.” He grabbed the darts being handed to him and waved them to catch Erik’s attention. “I know I’m new here, but come on. You think I’m an idiot?”

Erik eyed the other man with a slight frown. “I know you’re new here, but I’ve told you this before. When we’re off-duty, it’s just Erik or Blackwell.” He nodded at the darts. “What aren’t you going to let go?”

The other soldier shrugged. “I’m just saying, si…Blackwell.” Adeyemi gestured at Erik’s left arm. “It’s cybernetic. It’s not fair. If you want to link up with your smart lenses, that’s one thing, but you can also guide that arm with the smart lenses. I can’t do that.” He flexed his arm. “I lost the minute you convinced me to even play.”

The soldiers gathered nearby shook their heads, some smirking, others looking annoyed. A young, stocky Asian woman with short black hair stepped forward—Lieutenant Biyu Yang.

“He’s just that good, Adeyemi.” She waved at Erik’s darts, which were still stuck in the board. “Trust me. Everyone who comes into the Knights Errant figures that out soon enough.” She rolled her eyes. “Because he always tricks someone into playing, and once we get suckered, we have to let the next guy do it. It’s kind of our platoon’s initiation ritual.”

Adeyemi grunted. “Maybe he’s that good,” He eyed the darts in the center of the board. “But I’m not convinced.”

Erik’s lips rose at the corners, just the tiniest amount. “You think I’m cheating?”

Poor bastard,

Erik thought.

He comes from an important military family. No reason to cause trouble unless I want to end up stuck doing nothing for years instead of only months.

“I’m not saying you’re cheating,” Adeyemi replied. “Just that you’ve got an advantage.”

“An unnatural advantage?” Erik raised an eyebrow in challenge.

Adeyemi snorted. “I don’t have time for Purist garbage. I hate people because they’re annoying, not because they’ve got some extra genetic engineering or a few metal parts. No, I only care about how that arm is helping you win against me in darts right here and now.” He slapped his hand on his chest. “I’ve got some pride. I won almost every tournament in my old unit.”

Erik strolled over to the black, red, and green board and pulled the darts out one by one. The room had quieted, and his voice, which came out gentle but unforgiving, was heard by everyone. “My unnatural advantage is thirty years of playing darts when I’m stuck in some backwater system like this one with nothing better to do than play a little hand-eye coordination game to keep things fresh.” He stepped away from the board and made two quick tosses, this time with his right arm. Both darts landed dead-center in the bullseye.

He kept one dart and twirled it in his fingers, his eyes watching the dart but his mind lost in the past.

The other soldiers clapped, except for Adeyemi. He looked at the board and Erik with a frown.

“I told you,” Biyu offered, shaking her head. “Just give up while you’re ahead. You’re not going to win this. I should know. I went through this

last

year.”

Adeyemi laughed. “Come on, he can’t be that good. He’s just gotten inside all your heads.” He scratched his chin. “Okay, if he’s that good, let’s see the real deal. I knew a man back in Lagos who could hit bullseyes blindfolded. Are you

that

good, Blackwell?” He gestured at the board. “You land those kinds of darts without your metal arm, and then I’ll be impressed.”

Erik glanced at the board, the rest of the soldiers, and finally at Adeyemi. “I don’t know. How about we bet and find out? It’s no fun if there is nothing to lose.”

He felt the tension in the room rise.

“What are we even supposed to bet? The commissary here is sad and empty, and the civilian store isn’t much better. A few extra credits aren’t going to help me three months from now.” Adeyemi shrugged. “You going to pull strings and get me off some mission rotations?”

Erik reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick silver coin decorated with an elaborate embossed image of a soldier in an exoskeleton, the blue and white UTC flag in the background. He walked over to a nearby black metal table and tossed the coin down, the ring as it settled going on for fifteen seconds.

Adeyemi stared at the coin, brow furrowing in confusion. “You’re coin-checking me? There’s not even any alcohol on this blasted moon to drink.” His eyes widened as he glanced at the item and back to Erik, who was licking his lips. “You know where some is, Blackwell? Is that it? I’ll bet whatever I need to get a drink. There was no alcohol on the transport out here, and it’s been three months since I’ve had anything decent. Someone’s got to have something on this rock. Anything.” He looked around the group. “Can’t we distill a drink out of something?”

“You’re not understanding what I’m betting.” Erik patted his left shoulder. “Let’s back up, so you’ll understand. You know how I lost this arm?”

“To an angry Zitark?” called Twizzle. The pain-in-the-ass rifleman snarled and raised his hands like they were claws, lowering his voice with a hiss. “I’ll eat your spleen, human, and then I’ll feed the rest of your body to my babies once they come out of their eggs.”

Most of the people in the unit knew how Erik had lost his arm, but he didn’t doubt they wanted to mess with the new arrival a little.

As long as they kept it to jokes, he didn’t mind.

Biyu laughed, her brown eyes lit up with merriment. “We’re only on this damned moon because someone’s worried about those little reptiles getting jumpy and poking at UTC territory again like last year.” She shook her head. “Who would have thought the first aliens humanity would run into would be tiny dinosaurs with spaceships?”

“Not worried about them.” Erik tapped the table and sighed. “Nah, plenty of humans around to shoot at other humans before we go wailing on the local neighborhood races, but this isn’t about featherless velociraptors in space.” He nodded at Adeyemi. “Or maybe it is. Maybe they’re really good at darts, and they might have a chance against me, but for now, this is about my arm and my coin. So, I’m asking you, do you know how I lost it?”

The other soldier frowned. “I assume you lost your arm during a mission.”

“Yeah. One of the first battles during Wolf’s Rebellion. Some of the bastards got the drop on me when I was away from the rest of the squad checking on a hunch. They thought they were lucky. It turns out I was the one who was lucky.” Erik’s grin turned feral and hungry.

Adeyemi grimaced. “But you lost your arm after getting ambushed. Why the hell do you think you’re lucky?”

“There were ten of them. I survived. They didn’t, and all it cost me was a replaceable arm. I’m good, but don’t ever count out Lady Luck on the battlefield, or she might just decide to stay home when you most need her.” Erik nodded at the coin. “I asked to get a cybernetic arm. I wanted to get back into action and not waste time with regrowth and the time to attach it.”

“Still sounds unlucky to me, and I’m trying, but I still don’t get it.” Adeyemi frowned. “Why didn’t you just get a new one grown once you got away from the frontlines? I mean, I don’t care, but there are a lot of Purists out there.”

Erik clenched and released a fist, his eyes watching the movement of his fingers. “Because in a battle right after that, some insurgent tried to stab me. I threw up this new toy, and his knife broke.”

He looked up, his eyes glinting. “After that, I started thinking it was my new lucky charm. I survived against ten guys, and then it saved me against another, so I decided to keep it.”

He shrugged. “My CO at the time gave me that coin after I asked for the arm. Turns out the enemy squad I ran into was a recon squad. They were supposed to be probing our line for weaknesses so the enemy artillery could light us up. We had total control of the skies. You couldn’t get a bird up, let alone a spotter drone. The CO was all impressed that I took them out because the artillery could have ripped our flanks to shreds. But I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. I was just trying to take out some cocky guys who thought they had gotten the drop on me.”

Erik paused, then pointed at the coin. “But that, along with the arm, always reminds me that it’s a combination of skill and luck that keeps us going. A good soldier always needs both, even if he has to make his own luck on occasion.”

“I get it.” Adeyemi swallowed. “But look, I don’t

have

anything that important to bet.”

Erik shook his head. “Who said anything about you betting?”

This time, even the squad seemed confused. “Wait.” Adeyemi held his hands open. “You just did. That’s why you told that whole story.”

“Nope, not quite,” Erik replied. “You don’t need to bet anything. I’ll be the only one to bet. If I lose, you get the coin. If I win, I get the satisfaction. Can’t buy that with money, and it’s worth more than gold out here. I told that story because I wanted it clear I’m beyond one hundred percent confident I can bullseye without looking at the board. That might not be a blindfold, but it’s got to be good enough to impress you. How about this? I’ll turn around and toss it.” He paused for a moment. “

Guaranteed

bullseye.”

Adeyemi frowned, now looking more annoyed than worried, and waved a hand in a negative gesture. “No way, no how.” He jerked a thumb behind him. “You can’t hit that target with your back turned. Smart lenses aren’t going to help you if you’re not using your cybernetic arm.”

Erik lifted his right hand and waved the dart. “You’ve got nothing to lose but your pride, or are you ready to admit that I’m just

that damned good

?” He gave a lopsided grin.

“Sure, why the hell not?” Adeyemi snorted. “Let’s see it, Blackwell. Show me the pride of the Knights Errant. Make me believe I didn’t shoot myself in the foot when I got a transfer here.”

Erik laughed. “So if I’m good at darts, that makes all this worthwhile?”

“It’s something.” Adeyemi shrugged. “Better than sitting around on my hands.”

Erik turned around and closed his eyes, then took a few deep breaths and stepped a few centimeters to the right. After a quick jerk of his arm and flick of his wrist, the dart flew out of his hand. A thud and a familiar chime followed. The room filled with the roars and cheers of the other soldiers.

Erik opened his eyes and faced the dartboard. His throw didn’t place the dart directly in the center of the board. It lay just inside the bullseye circle.

Close enough.

Adeyemi’s let out a loud groan. “You have

got

to be kidding me.” He slapped his forehead and pulled his hand down his face, his eyes focusing back on the board one more time. “I can’t believe what I just saw.” He pointed at the board but was talking to two of the guys to his left. “He didn’t have his freaking eyes open, and his back was turned!”

Biyu smirked and popped him in the stomach to get his attention. “Told you. At least he let you off easy.” She reached up and patted him on the shoulder. “We all think he’s lucky, too. Our platoon hasn’t lost a single soldier since he took over, and we saw plenty of action before getting sent here to watch dust and rocks and wait for hissing aliens.”

Erik’s mark looked around, exasperated. “You’re not a bunch of green scrubs,” Adeyemi argued, his hands up as if he were preaching to a bunch of sinners. “That’s not luck. It’s

experience

.”

“Sure, but it’s like he said. It helps to have both luck and skill.” She winked. “And now we’re so lucky we’re sitting at the edge of UTC space doing nothing but playing darts and going on boring patrols. Maybe it’s a reward, as boring as it is.” She stopped for a moment, pressing her lips together. “Not that I wouldn’t mind a crack at the Zitarks,” she mumbled. “But I’m not all that eager to see if those bastards are tough little dinosaurs or not.”

“Don’t worry.” Erik grunted. “There’s a reason the 108

th

is the last major platoon left on this rock. Once the garrison relief arrives, we’ll move on to something more useful.”

The passage of time had convinced Erik that some idiot desk ranger, or worse, desk Marine in intel, had freaked out too much about routine Zitark ship movements and spun the whole UTC military up into almost starting a war.

He could imagine how they had loaded up thousands of troops and gathered a decent-sized fleet, only for absolutely nothing to happen for months.

Say, the months he had been sitting on his hands here, for example.

And that meant vital military resources which could have been used against humans who were actually causing trouble weren’t available.

Erik was as eager as anyone in his group to go on leave and then get back to doing something—

anything

—useful with his platoon.

How many terrorists we could have smoked are out there causing trouble?

“Are you shitting me?” Adeyemi sighed. “It took me two months of travel to get here, and now it’s all over?” He shook his head. “I was good with a transfer here. I wanted to be there when the first intergalactic

war

started.”

Erik grinned. “I was wondering why someone would suddenly request a transfer to 108

th

when we were stuck in the middle of nowhere counting dart scores. Sorry. The Zitarks aren’t going to make a move on human space. We’d promptly make them as extinct as the dinosaurs on Earth, and they know that. It’s probably why they backed off so much once they saw we were getting ready for a fight.”

“Damned right!” Jekowski, and Butters in the back fist-bumped. They were both adrenaline junkies, but damned good when life showed up and bitch-slapped your plan for the day into next week.

Adeyemi narrowed his eyes. “You really don’t think they’re going to be a problem?”

Erik considered his answer before shaking his head. “Highly unlikely. You know they apologized for that crap they pulled last year, right?”

Adeyemi shrugged in that way which suggested it rang a bell, but it was ringing in the other room.

“Well, they did. Which is why we’re here playing darts instead of wasting space raptors in our exoskeletons. Besides, everything we know says there are a lot more humans than Zitarks.” Erik shrugged. “We stay out of their way, and they’ll stay out of ours. Hard to win a war when the other guy’s guns are as big as yours, and they’ve got a lot more people than you do.”

Biyu snickered. “So, even if we couldn’t beat them, we would win by breeding them out?”

“Hell, yeah!” Jekowski called.

“In your dreams,” one of the ladies shot back.

“Hey!” Jekowski turned to her. “We signed up for whatever it took to win this war, right?”

Erik noted the mostly male grunts of agreement.

Jekowski jerked a thumb to his chest. “It might not be the way you want to serve your world, but if I’m told to go breed for the benefit of mankind, I’m taking that shit seriously.”

“Just call it the great human advantage.” Erik spoke over Jekowski.

Adeyemi shook his head. “What about the Orlox? Can’t they just basically sneeze out new little fungi?”

Erik chewed on the inside of his cheek in thought, then said, “It’s kind of hard to be intimidated by a bunch of glorified walking mushrooms. Trust me, I’ve seen one in person. They’re weird, not scary.”

His hands outlined an Orlox’s shape in the air. “They’re not even all that intelligent by themselves. They’re only self-aware in groups. They won’t last long in war if they all start drooling when we shoot one out of four of them.”

“Do Orlox drool?” Biyu asked.

“Hell if I know. I’m not a xenobiologist. They look kind of…sticky.” Erik chuckled and gestured around the room. “The UTC might be pinned in for the most part by the Local Neighborhood races, but none of them seem like they’re going to mess with us anytime soon. It’s been almost forty years since first contact with the Zitarks, and the most we’ve had are a few border skirmishes. I’ve been in the Expeditionary Corps for thirty years, and I’ve only ever had to fight humans.” He scratched his chin. “There’s no Thucydides Trap when all the races are balanced in power already.”

Adeyemi pondered Erik’s reply before trying again. “What about the Leems? They’ve been coming to Earth since 1947. You know, what was it…Roswell? That Leem ship that crashed, even if they didn’t admit it until recently. That’s got to mean they’re planning

something

.”

Chuckles ran around the group.

Erik snorted. “An almost three-hundred-year head start on having hyperspace tech, and all those little gray freaks did was run a few worthless experiments and buzz the occasional farmer? I’d put my money on the Orlox to win a war before I put it on the Leems. Please note, the minute we started sticking our satellites up, they were afraid to do much. And keep in mind, the Leems who were in the Solar System were stuck there because of some weird hyperspace accident. It wasn’t like they were in communication with the rest of them. It also doesn’t do a race any good to have tech if they don’t know how to fight. That’s the other great human advantage—the will to fight, honed over thousands of years fighting each other.”

Erik thought about it for a moment. “That, and we have bagels and fried rice. I don’t think any of those other races have bagels

or

fried rice.”

“The power of biryani will defend humanity,” declared another soldier, Lieutenant Ahuja. “It’s even better than fried rice.”

Harold, known to most here as Lieutenant Sampson, made a face. “Ugh. Why are we talking about good food when we’re stuck with rations here? I’d kill for real food.” He turned to look over his shoulder. “Especially Jekowski.”

“Hey!” came the automatic reply. This generated the expected chuckles, as well as the single-finger salute that seemed to go with mankind no matter what world, planet, planetoid, or barren rock humans took root on.

Along with pizza. Erik agreed with Sampson’s thoughts

. He’d be tempted to kill Jekowski for a bite of pizza.

Sampson waved off the man’s complaints. “They say printed food is the same nutrient-wise, but it’s definitely not the same flavor-wise. I don’t care if it’s cheaper to ship out the nutrient paste tubes and print them into a meal. They should give us some real damned food if they’re going to stick us on rocks like this for so long.”

The room became a cacophony as people shouted out the foods they missed.

Erik shook his head, a slight smile visible in his eyes, if not on his lips.

If you looked hard enough.

The Knights Errant had earned a long leave, and he’d been promised one from up above. Just two more months and a garrison platoon would arrive.

Too bad the Zitarks won’t let us show up and hit their beaches. They’ve got to have at least a few decent ones.

A small silver card clipped to his belt vibrated; it was his PNIU, personal network interface unit. He tapped it and waited for a chime to signal connection, then put up a hand. Those around him lowered their voices and hit those who had loud voices behind them who hadn’t noticed Erik’s raised hand yet.

“This is Major Blackwell.”

“Sir,” came the response. The sound was transmitted almost directly to his ear, granting him some privacy. “That UTC auditor who is evaluating the mine just sent out an SOS. He says he’s under attack by terrorists.”

What the hell? I’d believe the Zitarks showed up all of a sudden sooner than terrorists.

“Terrorists?” Erik echoed. “What are you talking about?”

“We don’t know, sir. Just got a garbled transmission about him being under terrorist attack.”

Everyone fell dead silent and turned to look at him, excitement in their eyes. A little action, especially against terrorists, would be welcome.

Erik frowned. “Do we have any drones in the area?”

“No, sir. We’re getting some transmission errors. I’m also having some trouble communicating with the satellites.”

His frown deepened. “Prep additional drones. We’ll launch them ourselves on the way. Send out an all-call alert as follows.” Erik glanced around. “We’re suiting up. Full battle-rattle. We have a possible terrorist incursion at the mines. Enemy number and capability unknown.”

A moment later, a harsh alarm emerged from everyone’s PNIUs, the sound repeating from nearby rooms as his message was issued. There was intentionally no directional sound for full alerts.

Erik gestured toward the door. “Let’s move. Some poor bureaucrat probably just hit his head and is seeing things in the shadows. I expect everyone in this room to be suited up and ready to go before the rest of the platoon even gets to the armory.”

Terrorists? How could terrorists get from the gate all the way here without the destroyer picking them up? Infiltrators with the company workers?

If this auditor idiot is wasting our time, we’re going to have a loud, vociferous one-way conversation.