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plenty of ways of countermanding orders from the bridge. The Russians, evenwith their relatively inflexible command structure, were paranoid of any one person seizing control of the entire ship, soeven the bridge could be cut off from the rest of the vessel.

It should be easier once they had Konstantin loaded into the bridge network.

“Colonel! We’ve got Nungies!”

He swung his full attention back to the command link with Hanson. “Say again last,” he barked.

He heard only static in his in-head, but he was still getting wildly gyrating images of something coming through the bulkheads.

He’d seen those shapes, twenty years before when he’d been a shirttail second lieutenant newly assigned to Osiris—hulkingmetal tanks, digitigrade legs, like they were standing on their toes. And headless.

“Hanson! Pull back! That’s an order!”

But Hanson’s bio readouts were flatlined. Who was next in the chain of command? Captain Crawford . . . no, flatlined. Whatthe hell was going on?

“This is Sergeant Fitzgerald, Colonel!” a voice broke in through the static. “It’s Nungies! They’re coming through the bulkhead! Heavy plasma weapons! Can’t hold ’em! We’re falling back to the bridge!”

Nungiirtok. Twenty years ago, a joint Nungiirtok-Turusch force had descended on Osiris and kicked the human colonists offthe planet . . . those who hadn’t ended up in concentration camps.

What the hell were they doing on board a Russian star carrier?

“Barnes! Gomez!” he barked at his two company commanders. “We’re gonna have company in a few minutes. Real bad-assery! Getyour people ready!”

They already were—Marines didn’t stand down in the middle of a firefight. But the momentum of the battle had just been flippedend-for-end, and the Marines now were going to have one hell of a desperate fight on their hands.

Chapter Ten

12 April, 2429

USNA CVS America

CIC

N’gai Cluster

1650 hours, FST

Gray’s head shot up, his full attention captured, at the first call from the embattled Moskva. Nungiirtok? Who the hell invited them to the party?

Very little was known about those lumbering monsters. They’d been part of the Sh’daar Alliance in Gray’s own epoch, and assuch had been responsible for some nasty attacks across the then-Confederation frontier. There was no question that the armoredshapes he was watching on the CIC’s repeater screens were Nungiirtok. Their birdlike legs were pulled up and tucked in againstthe torso to keep them out of the way in zero-G, but the massive, headless bodies were unmistakable.

All that was known about them for sure was that they were ferocious fighters, combining the speed and sheer power of Tyrannosaurusrex with the fierce tenacity of a wolverine and the sheer combativeness of a mantis shrimp. You needed special tactics todefeat them.

He had to bite his tongue to avoid giving McDevitt advice about his troop placement. There was nothing Gray could do to help the Marines, no order he could give that would not be abject micromanagement. And McDevitt was there, with a much better idea of what he was doing than did Gray.

Instead, Gray checked the positions of two more Marine pods, Charlie and Delta companies, approaching the carrier aft of thespin-grav wheel. Again, he wanted to suggest they move farther forward, to add their numbers to the battle McDevitt was wagingagainst the Nungies. Again, he held his peace. All he could do at this point was screw things up if he interfered. McDevittwas an experienced Marine commander. He knew what he was doing.

“Delta Company has just made contact,” Billingsly told him. “They’ve attached to the carrier’s hull we estimate just eightymeters aft of their CIC.”

“Very well.”

“Charlie Company has now locked on. Both pods are eating their way through armor.”

The very worst part of command, Gray told himself, was standing by helpless and watching while someone else carried out ordersyou had given.

 

Strike Force Reaper

Marine Battalion 3/25

N’gai Cluster

1653 hours, FST

“Here they come!” McDevitt yelled. “Remember! Joints and optics!”

The first Nungie rush had been held off—barely—at the vacuum door leading onto the flag bridge itself. There was literallyno place else for the embattled Marines to retreat, and now the Nungies had regrouped and launched another assault.

Years of combat with the Nungiirtok had taught the Marines the importance of pinpoint precision in fire control. Weak points in Nungie armor included the major joints at hips, shoulders, and the attachment point for the third arm; and the four tiny, heavily shielded lenses high on the chest that served as their optical feeds when they were buttoned up. Burn through the armor and you could cripple the being inside; burn out the optics and you left it blind, though still not completely helpless. The Nungiirtok possessed other senses besides sight or hearing, not all of them comprehensible to humans.

But it slowed them down, at least.

McDevitt held his Marine-issue M-90 laser rifle steady on the closest Nungie as it arrowed straight for his position crouchedin the open pressure door. His AI locked on to the critical third-arm joint, and when an in-head icon winked green he thoughtclickedthe weapon. A dazzling point of white light appeared against the black armor and pieces flew off.

The massive, armored torso slammed into McDevitt, tumbling him backward. Blaine and Peterson closed on the thing from eitherside, using their lasers as torches at point-blank range to burn their way through. A second Nungiirtok warrior grappled withPeterson, its hinged, lower jaw—encased in an armored sleeve—snapping out faster than human vision could perceive it, catchingthe Marine on the side of his helmet. Blaine turned her laser on this new threat and McDevitt joined in, their combined firemelting into the armor covering what they knew to be the monster’s face.

The Marines standing at the pressure door were pouring fire into the advancing mass, shot after shot snapping down the corridorand flashing with each hit of the oncoming Nungies.

“Pour it on, people!” McDevitt yelled. He could feel the insane bloodlust of combat rising, feel that giddy, out-of-controlwhirlwind of rage and excitement that he’d not experienced since his last hand-to-hand battle ten years ago.

Lieutenant colonels weren’t supposed to feel bloodlust, and they certainly weren’t supposed to engage in combat at knife-fight range.

But McDevitt was a Marine, and every