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  Looking through his field scanner again, he realized that that time had already come. A smaller wolf, about the size of a large dog, was walking up the hill. It moved slowly, its head low to the ground. Jack had the clear impression that the single dark eye that covered the top of the wolf’s head was pointing at him and Sam. However the wolf saw the world, Jack was sure it was registering them as a potential meal. It came on, leaping forward with a slow and lazy gait.

  The wolf had taken no more than a few steps when it let out a shrill bark. The larger wolves at the kill turned and looked but returned to their feeding frenzy. The many smaller wolves, however, did not, and they turned and slowly hopped forward to come alongside the first wolf and spread out in a wide arc.

  The line of wolves at the base of the hill was now a dozen wolves long. They all had their heads close to the ground. They chirped their sharp bark and moved slowly as one, hopping forward a short distance every second or two.

  “We need to get out of here,” Jack said. He tapped the face of his wrist-mounted control panel and fired up the corvette’s drive.

  The sudden noise and vibration of the corvette caused the vultures to leap into the air. The wolves at the feast were undisturbed and continued to feed, but line of smaller wolves continued forward in their strange, coordinated hopping.

  Then as the corvette lifted off, the entire line of wolves began to move more rapidly. They gained speed with each hopping leap, always maintaining the line of the arc as they advanced.

  “I think you’re right,” Sam said, “as usual.” He stood and aimed down the hill with his pistol. “I wish I had my rifle. I could take them all out from here.”

  Jack stood, his pistol held loosely at his side. “Let’s not kill any unless we have to, Sam.”

  As Jack and Sam watched the corvette turn in the air and begin to head toward them, Jack realized the wolves would be on the top of them before the corvette arrived.

  3

  “Fall back, Sam,” Jack said. He began to move around the side of the hilltop slime pond. He started to jog, and once Sam was running, Jack moved to a fast run.

  The top of the hill wasn’t much wider than the blue pond. Jack and Sam cleared it in a few moments. It was a short run, but the thin air and the slightly heavier gravity made it a struggle. Jack’s chest felt like it was filled with fire, his bones caked in lead.

  The far side of the hill sloped down at the same gentle angle as the side they had just climbed. As Sam began to run down the hill, Jack turned. The pack of wolf-like creatures was leaping up over the top of the hill and around the pond. The corvette was in the sky just behind. The ship would easily beat the wolves over distance, but the wolves were quicker off the mark, and they had a head start. Jack turned and ran down the hill after Sam. He shouted instructions to the corvette into his wrist-mounted control panel.

  “Open the boarding ramp and position it in front of Sam Torent.”

  The beep on the panel confirmed that the ship had received and was acting on the order. The corvette moved over Jack’s head. The boarding ramp on the underside dropped down. The corvette positioned itself in front of Sam, who jumped onto the boarding ramp and collapsed to the deck.

  The snarling of the pack behind him told Jack that the wolves were almost on top of him. He looked to the corvette only a few meters away. Sam was sitting on the boarding ramp. He was holding a pulse rifle in his one hand and balancing the muzzle on his knee.

  The flash startled Jack as Sam fired. The round fizzed through the air next to Jack’s ear. He ran toward the boarding ramp and heard the pulse round slam into a target just behind his right shoulder. Then Sam fired again. Every shot worryingly close, every shot connecting with a target just behind Jack.

  “Hurry!” Sam called and fired again.

  Jack could hear the footfalls of the wolves behind him. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end, and he could almost feel the warm breath of the creatures behind him.

  With only a few more strides to the ramp, Jack spoke an order into his control panel.

  “Lift off on my mark,” Jack said. He reached the ramp and jumped up onto it, his legs hanging off the edge. Grabbing for any handhold, he shouted at his wrist. “Mark!”

  Sam let loose with a burst of automatic fire. He moved the pulse rifle with calm ease, unleashing a stream of deadly pulse fire.

  Grabbing hold of Sam’s left ankle, he pulled himself further up the ramp. Then, Jack turned to see the wolves leaping forward. The corvette climbed up from the ground, but still the wolves leapt, narrowly missing their target and falling back to the blue grass slopes.

  Jack stood on wobbly legs and hit the panel on the bulkhead that closed the boarding ramp. It closed with a thump as Jack staggered toward the flight deck.

  “Thank you,” he called back to Sam, who was still sitting on the boarding ramp, pulse rifle in his lap.

  “Sure,” Sam replied, breathing heavily and setting the rifle to safe mode. “But next time, let’s just try the burger, yeah?”

  Jack staggered to the flight deck and sent the corvette hurtling into orbit.

  “As soon as we catch up with the fleet, you can eat whatever you like. For now, let’s start processing that nutrient fluid,” Jack said. “I’m half-starved.”

  Jack looked at the scene below on the flight deck holostage. The wide blue valley fell away. The wolves feasting on the dead cow were shrinking then vanishing in the blue. Away in the distance, the herd of massive cows was heading out of the valley onto a wide plain. And on the horizon, Jack spotted a circle of low structures made from the same blue grass that covered the valley and the plains. Wisps of smoke rising from the center of the collection of structures showed a large central firepit. He zoomed in the active scanner. The round structures were also surrounded by a defensive ditch. A village. He wondered what it would be like to meet these people of the blue grass plains, an intelligent yet primitive people, but it was his own people that he really wanted to meet. And they were still far away, somewhere in the depths of space.

  There was a lot of space to cover before Jack would be back with his own people.

  “Only a pitstop,” Jack repeated as the wide plains fell away, revealing the curve of the planet and the black of space. He set the corvette on a heading away from the planet and activated the interstellar drive systems. He accessed the status of the nutrient-processing apparatus. The sooner the blue goop was processed, the sooner he and Sam could eat.

  The flight deck of the corvette had become home for Jack. The craft was small enough for them to operate without a full crew, but not so small that they couldn’t find personal space and save themselves from becoming too annoyed with each other. Even though they had been friends for a long time, had lived and fought next to each other for more time than either of them cared to remember, they had never before been trapped together inside a single small boat for weeks on end.

  It was necessary for Jack to spend long periods at the flight controls, but he chose to spend even longer there than necessary. The pilot’s chair was comfortable, and it was a place away from Sam.

  Sam had set up a small camp at the rear of the corvette, near the drive room access. It was only a few meters away from the flight deck but removed enough to create personal space. A number of emergency blankets hung from the corvette’s upper hull that reached down to the deck. Jack disliked the untidy appearance of the hanging blankets, but this corvette was not equipped with private bunks and it was Sam’s only private space. Jack tolerated it. He had not commented on it, although he was sure Sam knew him well enough to know it irritated him.

  Jack had not once in the last few weeks looked behind the curtain. Sam was a hero of the Fleet Marine Service, he had fought bravely in the Chitin War and had saved countless lives, putting himself in danger on an almost daily basis. He had given his commitment, his energy, and even his right arm to the service. Jack could let Sam have his curtain of privacy. He had earned at least that much.
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  And so the pair raced across the vast emptiness of space in pursuit of the fleet.

  Jack checked the status of the drone net. The dozen drones were positioned around the corvette at a distance of ten thousand kilometers. The network created a detector that was practically planet-sized. Although it could not detect any significant detail, it could detect large bodies at several lightyears’ distance. The active drives of all the ships of the fleet would show up as a single fuzzy blip on the active scanner when they were close enough.

  And speed was the key. Jack had chased after the fleet and had initially only been a day or two behind. But events had conspired against him, and he had dropped off the pace. The fleet was now far out of sensor range. They followed using any hint of a signal, or any sign along the way: a distortion in spacetime left by an adjustment in a drive reactor, either a massive acceleration or deceleration, a drive assembly reset or an energy weapon discharge. Bread crumbs dropped in the black of space.

  It had not helped matters that Jack had stopped the corvette to perform an emergency repair on the life support system. There was little point in the corvette catching up with the fleet only to present the desiccated corpses of two Fleet Marine officers.

  And then there had been the diversion to the blue star system. With supplies running low, it had been a necessary diversion, and a terrible gamble. The bio-scans had shown high levels of life on the planet, but that did not mean there would be food there. The nutrient ponds had been a lucky find. A quick pitstop, and now they were back on the trail of the fleet.

  “Hey, Jack,” Sam called up to the flight deck. “It looks as if the processor has finished its operation. Do you want to try this?”

  From the tone of Sam’s voice, Jack guessed it was not the most appealing-looking meal, but he had been waiting anxiously for this. The nutrient soup from the blue grass planet would be their main source of food for the foreseeable future. It passed all the requirements for the processor to create replacement nutrient bars. Now it was time to see if they were palatable. Jack stood up out of his chair.

  “Coming down,” Jack said. He slid down the handrails of the short set of steps to the gun deck that ran the length of the ship. Sam was sitting at the table, an upturned equipment locker in the middle of the gun deck that served as their mess hall, their meeting room, and their social area.

  Sam dropped two of the blue nutrient bars on the table. They were the same shape and size as the familiar Marine ration blocks. Jack looked at the bar. It seemed to shimmer with an oily sheen under the dim lights of the gun deck. How Jack wished he could have one of those old, dark, sticky ration blocks now.

  The supply of ration blocks was dangerously low. They had only a few days’ supply left. The discovery of the blue star system and the nutrient pond was literally a lifesaver. And now here they were, looking at the slimy blue block that would keep them alive.

  Sam looked at Jack. His nose wrinkled in displeasure.

  “Do you want me to try first?” Jack asked.

  Sam shrugged, his face distorted with apprehension of the nasty taste to come.

  Jack scooped up the bar and took a bite. There was no alternative and the blue nutrient blocks would have to be eaten, whether they were enjoyable or not.

  The first sensation Jack felt was the bar’s texture. It was similar to thick gelatin but was slippery as if it had a covering of mineral oil. It tasted bland at first and then a strong aftertaste of chemicals suddenly burned Jack’s mouth.

  Sam looked at Jack with horror and pity as Jack distorted his face as he chewed. He forced the bite of blue down.

  “Not bad,” he said unconvincingly.

  Sam picked up his block of blue and nibbled. He shrugged and chewed and took another bite.

  Jack took another bite. He chewed once or twice and then swallowed the lifesaving nutrients in a single slippery mass.

  “What do you think?” Jack asked.

  “Not bad at all.” Sam held the block of blue at arm’s length and moved it under the lights. The oily slick shimmered. “Tastes like apples.”

  “Apples?” Jack said with incredulity. “What kind of apples have you been eating?”

  Sam laughed. “Don’t you like it?”

  Taking another bite and forcing down the foul mess, Jack shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess.” Jack knew Sam could see right through the lie.

  “I’ve tasted worse,” Sam said happily.

  “Where?” Jack asked in disbelief. He dropped the bar onto the makeshift table. It landed with a wet slap.

  “Prison,” Sam said, then took a big bite of the blue and chewed it up gleefully.

  Jack looked at him, his mouth open in surprise. He knew a lot about his friend’s nefarious past before the two had met at Marine training, but he hadn’t realized his most trusted friend in the entire Fleet Marie Service had actually served time.

  Sam looked at Jack and his surprised expression. He spoke with a mouthful of chewed-up slimy blue.

  “What?”

  Jack picked up the blue bar and took another bite. “Prison?” he asked. “I thought you joined up to avoid a cell.”

  Sam shifted in his seat and leaned toward Jack.

  “I had a short detention for fight. I punched a cop,” Sam replied quietly. “I’d been out for a few weeks. I was trying to get away from some old friends, make a new start, and I got caught dodging payment on a cross-continent transport loop. Only a misdemeanor. But, with violence against police on my record, I was in deep. And the war was getting bad by then. My lawyer, some crusty old scroat, told me to expect heavy time. The judge said I could choose to take a tour in the service instead. They were desperate to push kids like me into the front line of that war. I chose the Marines instead of more time in prison. It seemed like a good deal, really. I didn’t know what war was like back then. If I’d known, maybe I’d have taken a cell.”

  Sometimes, Jack could remember nothing of the hardship and brutality of that long and bitter war. Sometimes, he could remember every horrible detail, recall every round of pulse rifle he had ever fired. Every enemy he had ever killed. Every moment of close combat with the fizzing electron bayonet burning on the end of his pulse rifle. And, worst of all, he could remember the faces of every Marine who had died under his command.

  Jack took a big bite of the slimy blue bar. The chemical tang was bearable and less overpowering now after a few bites. He swallowed the bite and dropped the bar back on the table.

  “One thing you can say for the new rations,” Jack said. “It should last a while, because I don’t think we are going to rush to eat it all.”

  A beep from the flight deck was a welcome distraction.

  “Drone network has detected something,” Jack said.

  “You need me?” Sam asked.

  Jack nodded. “Sure, I could use a hand.”

  Jack looked at the endcap over Sam’s right arm stump with the black composite tendrils dangling.

  Sam stood up, seemingly not noticing Jack’s poor choice of words. He licked the blue slime off his fingers and walked toward the flight deck.

  Jack followed Sam up the short stairway to the flight deck. He hoped the drones had good news.

  4

  On the flight deck, the aftertaste of the blue bars in their mouths, Jack and Sam searched for the source of the signal that had interrupted their meal.

  Jack routed the signal through the processor. There was a small reflector at around fifteen billion kilometers away off to the corvette’s port side.

  “The fleet?” Sam asked hopefully.

  “No. A single ship. It’s small,” Jack said. “But it created a big energy spike, big enough for the drone net to detect it.”

  “It’s really far off, Jack.” Sam looked out of the small forward view screen at the deep black. Somewhere in front of them was the fleet. “We will fall even further behind the fleet if we go scooting off to investigate every little blip and energy spike.”

  “It might be nothing
,” Jack said. “I won’t change course just out of curiosity. Focus the drone net on that signal. Direct active scanners to narrow field. Let’s see if we can’t get a bit of an image.”

  Jack worked the controls and sent the drone network racing off. He brought them closer together—the detection field would be much smaller, but the resolution would be increased dramatically. The arrangement was of no use in trying to locate the distant fleet, but it would allow Jack to look at a small area.

  With the drones re-deployed, Jack focused the active scan at the center point of the drone network. He took a snapshot of the point. A dim, fuzzy image appeared on the holostage. A long bright reflector in the black of space set to one side of the holostage.

  “A rogue asteroid?” Sam asked as he leaned closer to the image.

  Jack set the image capture to place the object at the center. He narrowed the drone network and activated the scan again.

  The reflector appeared again, fuzzy and faint. This time, it was on the other side of the holostage.

  “Boy, it must be traveling pretty fast to move across the image like that,” Sam said.

  “Correcting for speed,” Jack said. His hands danced over the controls. “Tightening up the drone network. Focusing active scanner. Capturing image now.”

  The image that appeared was still faint and fuzzy, but even at the limit of the equipment’s capabilities, the image was clear enough for Jack and Sam to identify it with near certainty.

  “A frigate,” Jack said. “A Fleet frigate.” Jack jumped up and punched the air above his head. “Yes, another boat. And they must be powered, or they would never be traveling at that rate.”

  Then the detector chirped again as another signal was detected.

  “It’s that energy spike again,” Jack said. He had set the detector system at its finest, most detailed resolution. There was only one way to get a better look.