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shooting stopped, and the USNA forces secured the Russiancarrier.

Now they needed to discover the reason for the attack.

 

Lieutenant Adams

Moskva

N’gai Clluster

1845 hours, FST

Lieutenant Adams had been alone in this cell for what felt like hours. The place was essentially a steel box three metersby four meters by three meters high—scarcely enough room to pace. A fold-down bunk occupied the back bulkhead. Toilet facilitiesand a water tap folded out of another. The light overhead was never off.

Occasionally she could hear a commotion in the distance: boots running down corridors, piercing yells and shouts. Once sheheard the dull, distant boom of an explosion.

What the hell was going on out there?

At last, the door to her cell slid open, and an armored figure leaned in . . .

An armored figure wearing the insignia of the USNA Marines.

Rising from her bunk, Adams couldn’t resist. She was a devotee of old movies, especially space yarns. “Aren’t you a littleshort to be a stormtrooper?”

The Marine seemed taken aback. “What the fuck?”

“Sorry,” she said. “Classical reference. What the hell is that ruckus out there?”

The Marine seemed to recover his composure. “Sergeant Hobbes, ma’am, USNA Marines. We saw there was a prisoner in here . . .so I guess this is a rescue. Who are you?”

“Julianne Adams, Lieutenant,” she managed. “VFA-198, off the America . . .”

Then the enormity of what was happening struck her, and she sagged, racked by sobs.

But she was able to walk out of the cell under her own power, and minutes later she was on her way back to the America.

 

USNA CVS America

Officers’ Mess

N’gai Cluster

1850 hours, FST

“The question of the hour is why the Russians attacked us,” Gray said. “Are we at war with them back home? There wasn’t anyproblem with them of which I was aware.”

Truitt made a face. “Who knows why the Russians do anything?”

They were sitting in the officers’ mess, located within Hab Two, one of the modules rotating around America’s spine in order to create a spin gravity equivalent to about half a G. With Gray were Truitt and Kline, who’d just returnedon board after interviewing several of the Nungiirtok on the Moskva, and Dr. Greg Mallory, from the xenotechnology department. Dinner had just been served by a human messman—one of the perksof the officers’ mess—and Gray was enjoying a concoction of shrimp and rice that completely hid its humble origins as reconstitutedrawmat.

“Now, Doctor,” Gray chided. “If I’ve learned anything from you, it’s that intelligent beings have reasons for doing what theydo. Humans, Turusch, Nungiirtok—it doesn’t matter. Each has an agenda.”

“Sorry, Admiral. My specialty is xenosophonts—aliens. Humans . . .” He shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Okay . . . so what have you learned about the Nungies?” Gray continued. “What the hell were they doing on board a Russianstar carrier?”

“Well, Oreshkin claims it was a humanitarian mission,” Kline told him. “A group of Nungiirtok were stranded on Osiris twentyyears ago, out in the mountains beyond the city of Abdju.”

“Stranded?”

“They were cut off when Confederation forces landed and retook the planet,” Truitt said. “They refused to surrender, but their Turusch transports were gone and they had no way of leaving the planet. Apparently the Russians made contact and convinced them to come with them.”

“To where?”

“They appear to have been on their way to the Russian research station on Mars,” Mallory replied. “Presumably they would havebeen repatriated to their home planet, since we’re no longer at war with either the Sh’daar or the Sh’daar Collective.”

Gray nodded. This was old news, practically ancient history. He’d been a fighter pilot on board the America, back when the Nungies and their Turusch allies had captured the 70 Ophiuchi system. The Nungies had held a fearsome reputationas hulking, heavily armored ground troops, and they’d rolled right over the lightly armed colonial militia out there.

European forces had gone back to 70 Ophiuchi A II—Osiris—several years later and retaken the colony of New Egypt on the planet’ssouthern continent. With the Turusch naval forces broken, the Nungiirtok on the planet had been unable to resupply and unableto evacuate. Apparently, though, the counterattack hadn’t cleaned out all of the invaders. A planet, after all, was an enormousplace, offering way too many places to hide.

“Are they going to be a problem?” Gray asked Truitt.

“I don’t think so,” the older man replied. “Especially since we can essentially offer them the same thing the Russians did—repatriation.”

“They did attack us, Doctor.”

“At the Russians’ behest. I see no advantage in punishing them for the sake of punishment. All they want is to go home.”

“I don’t care about punishment. I’m worried about what twenty-five Nungiirtok warriors are going to do on board America, especially when they learn we will not be taking them home right away.”

“We could leave them on the Moskva,” Kline suggested.

“Where the Russians might try to retake their ship, maybe with help from their Nungie allies?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“You know, there’s an alternative,” Mallory said.

“Yes? I’d love to hear it.”

“We transfer them to the Arlington. Better yet, make it one of the Russian destroyers. We take off the human crew, we make sure the rawmat reserves are adequate,and we remove the drive module so they can’t go anywhere.” He gestured toward the viewall bulkhead, at thronging stars andthe tight, tiny circle of stars in the distance, the accretion disks of six brand-new black holes. “We leave them here. Makesure their shielding is okay, of course—we don’t want them to fry in a high-rad environment. Then we go do what we have todo and pick them up on our way back.”

“Turn a destroyer into a prison camp, huh?” He nodded. “Makes sense. They’re gonna be pissed if we don’t make it back.”

“They would be pissed if they went with us and we didn’t make it back,” Truitt pointed out. “It’s a humane option, given the constraints of our mission. Besides, we leavethe ship broadcasting on a distress frequency and leave a recording describing what we’ve done. Other expeditions are boundto come to the N’gai Cluster over the next few months to study the aftereffects of the hypernova. The prisoners will be fine.”

“Okay. We’ll need