served to illuminate thousands of crosses that had managed to stay vertical when all else fell. They marked the graves of soldiers killed in previous wars, when the humans had fought each other, arguing over who should lead. An understandable if somewhat self-defeating activity that plagued Hudathan society as well.
Thunder rumbled across the land and Poseen-Ka looked upward. His eyes struggled to pierce the cloud cover and failed. The stars. What about the stars? Would he travel among them yet again? Or die on this accursed planet, his flesh and bones turning to soup, and seeping down to join the military dead? Acid rain spattered across the Hudathan’s face and made his eyes sting. Only time would tell.
The Hudathan scout ship was small, fast, and lightly armed. It hardly even paused as it dropped hyper on the edge of the solar system, launched the Special Operations package, and disappeared back into the strange continuum where objects can travel faster than the speed of light.
The package, no bigger than a soccer ball, had been fired in a manner that allowed it to join company with a meteor stream that, like Worber’s World itself, orbited the system’s sun. The stream, which consisted of debris strewn along the path of a well-known periodic comet, intersected the planet’s orbit a few weeks later.
Technicians aboard the Old Lady detected the meteor shower long before it arrived, checked to make sure that it coincided with computer projections based on past activity, ran routine detector scans on ten percent of total mass, and cleared the shower for atmospheric entry.
The Special Operations package, along with the true meteorites that surrounded it, entered the atmosphere at a velocity of approximately ten miles per second. Friction caused them to slow slightly while their outer surfaces melted and were swept away in the form of tiny droplets. Most of the heat was dissipated, leaving the inside of the objects cold. During the last seconds of flight a layer of solidified melt called fusion crust formed on the surface of the real meteorites while the Ops package exploded and scattered millions of peanut-sized metal capsules far and wide. The capsules spattered across the tortured landscape like metallic hail. Some ceased to exist. Some survived.
In fact, a full 94.2 percent of the capsules remained operational after impact with the ground, a much higher percentage than required for mission success, and a number that would have pleased a war scientist named Rimar Noda-Sa very much.
It took less than five seconds for the capsules to open and release their micro-robotic passengers. Designed to look like a locally mutated version of B.germanica, or the Earth-derived German cockroach, the tiny machines waited exactly ten minutes, identified themselves with a millisecond burst of code, activated their on-board navigation systems, and scuttled toward the primary assembly point. No one knew it yet, but the Confederacy of Sentient Beings was under attack, and would soon be involved in a full-scale war.
2
The only thing worse than the study of war, is the failure to study war, and life as a slave.
Mylo Nurlon-Da
The Life of a Warrior
Standard year 1703
Planet Earth, the Confederacy of Sentient Beings
Danjou Hall, the traditional residence of senior cadets, boasted four gargoyles. Booly straddled the one located at the building’s northwest corner, just above the room he shared with Tom Riley. He wore black fatigues, the kind favored by the 2d REP, the Legion’s elite airborne regiment, a climbing harness, and a day pack. His feet were bare.
The carefully maintained grounds were seventy feet beneath him. The campus was dark except for the light from an almost full moon, some streetlights that had been placed with military precision, and a scattering of still-lit windows. Booly looked at his wrist term, touched a button, and saw the multifunctional dial appear. It was exactly 2359 hours. One minute to go.
He
Thunder rumbled across the land and Poseen-Ka looked upward. His eyes struggled to pierce the cloud cover and failed. The stars. What about the stars? Would he travel among them yet again? Or die on this accursed planet, his flesh and bones turning to soup, and seeping down to join the military dead? Acid rain spattered across the Hudathan’s face and made his eyes sting. Only time would tell.
The Hudathan scout ship was small, fast, and lightly armed. It hardly even paused as it dropped hyper on the edge of the solar system, launched the Special Operations package, and disappeared back into the strange continuum where objects can travel faster than the speed of light.
The package, no bigger than a soccer ball, had been fired in a manner that allowed it to join company with a meteor stream that, like Worber’s World itself, orbited the system’s sun. The stream, which consisted of debris strewn along the path of a well-known periodic comet, intersected the planet’s orbit a few weeks later.
Technicians aboard the Old Lady detected the meteor shower long before it arrived, checked to make sure that it coincided with computer projections based on past activity, ran routine detector scans on ten percent of total mass, and cleared the shower for atmospheric entry.
The Special Operations package, along with the true meteorites that surrounded it, entered the atmosphere at a velocity of approximately ten miles per second. Friction caused them to slow slightly while their outer surfaces melted and were swept away in the form of tiny droplets. Most of the heat was dissipated, leaving the inside of the objects cold. During the last seconds of flight a layer of solidified melt called fusion crust formed on the surface of the real meteorites while the Ops package exploded and scattered millions of peanut-sized metal capsules far and wide. The capsules spattered across the tortured landscape like metallic hail. Some ceased to exist. Some survived.
In fact, a full 94.2 percent of the capsules remained operational after impact with the ground, a much higher percentage than required for mission success, and a number that would have pleased a war scientist named Rimar Noda-Sa very much.
It took less than five seconds for the capsules to open and release their micro-robotic passengers. Designed to look like a locally mutated version of B.germanica, or the Earth-derived German cockroach, the tiny machines waited exactly ten minutes, identified themselves with a millisecond burst of code, activated their on-board navigation systems, and scuttled toward the primary assembly point. No one knew it yet, but the Confederacy of Sentient Beings was under attack, and would soon be involved in a full-scale war.
2
The only thing worse than the study of war, is the failure to study war, and life as a slave.
Mylo Nurlon-Da
The Life of a Warrior
Standard year 1703
Planet Earth, the Confederacy of Sentient Beings
Danjou Hall, the traditional residence of senior cadets, boasted four gargoyles. Booly straddled the one located at the building’s northwest corner, just above the room he shared with Tom Riley. He wore black fatigues, the kind favored by the 2d REP, the Legion’s elite airborne regiment, a climbing harness, and a day pack. His feet were bare.
The carefully maintained grounds were seventy feet beneath him. The campus was dark except for the light from an almost full moon, some streetlights that had been placed with military precision, and a scattering of still-lit windows. Booly looked at his wrist term, touched a button, and saw the multifunctional dial appear. It was exactly 2359 hours. One minute to go.
He
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