“All is quiet on the perimeter, Captain,” Aiken said. “Sounds like the Frogs’re pretty riled up in the ’ville, though. Do you think they’ll attack us?”

“It could happen,” Pearson replied. “The ambassador still hasn’t answered Geremelet’s ultimatum.”

“They’re not talking about … surrendering, are they?”

“Not that I’ve heard, Master Sergeant. Don’t worry, it won’t come to that.”

“Yeah. The Marines never surrender.”

“That’s what they say. Keep a sharp watch.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Aiken turned and looked into the southern sky, where the first stars were beginning to appear. Eight light-years from home had not much altered the familiar constellations, though the dome of the sky was strangely canted against the cardinal directions. There was a bright star, however, in the otherwise dim and unremarkable constellation Scutum, not far from the white beacon of Fomalhaut.

Sol. Earth’s sun. As always, the sight of that star sent a shiver down Aiken’s spine. So far away, in both space and time.

Eight point three light-years. Help from home could not possibly arrive in time …

Prologue

12 MAY 2138

Firebase Frog

New Summer

Ishtar, Llalande 21185 IID

72:26 hours Local Time

Master Sergeant Gene Aiken leaned against the sandbag barricade and stared out across the Saimi-Id River. Smoke rose from a half-dozen buildings, staining the pale green of the early evening sky. Marduk, vast and swollen, aglow with deep-swirling bands and storms in orange-amber light, hung immense and sullen, as ever just above the western horizon. The gas giant’s slender crescent bowed up and away from the horizon where the red sun had just set; its night side glowed with dull red heat as flickering pinpoints, like twinkling stars, marked the pulse and strobe of continent-size lightning storms deep within that seething atmosphere.

The microimplants in Aiken’s eyes turned brooding red dusk to full light, while his battle helmet’s tactical feed displayed ranges, angles, and compass bearing superimposed on his view, as well as flagging thermal and movement targets in shifting boxes and cursor brackets.

The sergeant studied Marduk’s blood-glow for a moment, then looked away. At his back, with a shrill whine of servomotors, the sentry tower’s turret swiveled and depressed, matching the movements of his head.

He could hear the chanting and the drumming, off to the east, as the crowds gathered at the Pyramid of the Eye. It was, he thought, going to be a very long night indeed.

“How’s it going, Master Sergeant?”

Aiken didn’t turn, not when he was linked in with the sentry. His battle feed had warned him of Captain Pearson’s approach.

“All quiet on the perimeter, Captain,” he replied. “Sounds like the Frogs’re pretty riled up down in the ’ville, though.”

“Word just came through from the embassy compound,” Pearson said. “The rebel abos have seized control in a hundred villages. The ‘High Emperor of the Gods’ is calling for calm and understanding from his people.” The way he said it, the title was a sneer.

Abos, abs, aborigines; Frogs, or Froggers. All were terms for the dominant species of Ishtar … ways of dehumanizing them.

Which was a damned interesting

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