Commander Zila stormed into his office. It was the middle of the night, and he’d just been woken by a damned footman who’d told him there was urgent news. Standing in the middle of the office was Legioner Goff, around whom five lancer-grade officers scurried, collecting incoming reports from the secure digital comfeeds. “This had better be important,” Zila said, his voice rough and loud.

“The Samara POW camp was destroyed three hours ago,” Goff said. He held out a printed report. Zila snatched it from his hand and scanned the damage reports and casualty lists.

“An avalanche?” Zila said. “You woke me for a flezzing avalanche?”

Goff took the rebuke in stride. “Turn to page two,” he said.

Zila turned the page. The trajectory change of a satellite was the first thing he noticed. Then he saw its impact point. “Its navigational systems were hacked moments before it made premature reentry,” Goff said.

“How many intelligence agencies in the world have that kind of capability?” Zila said.

“Three, maybe four.” Goff handed another printed sheet to Zila, who accepted it politely this time. “I checked the camp’s nightly report for new arrivals. Two X’Mari men and one woman, arrested at the impact site, northeast of Raozan.”

“Arrested at the impact site,” Zila said. “And eighteen hours later a satellite gets knocked out of the sky and lands above the camp they’re being held in. Whoever they are, they’re professionals, and well-connected.”

“Very well-connected,” Goff said. “An interrogator’s report says that one of the prisoners claimed to be a Venekan agent working undercover, but he wouldn’t say for which agency.”

“I’ll bet he’s working for Councilor Urwon,” Zila said, shaking with fury at the mere mention of his archnemesis in the Venekan civilian government. That bastard’s been undermining me ever since I was commissioned, Zila raged. He probably thinks he can beat me to the biggest discovery in history, cheat me out of another promotion. “Where are the spies now?”

“On the move,” Goff said. “The rescue team activated the signal beacons on the camp’s vehicles to help with the recovery effort. One of them is on the Eruc Highway, heading south at nearly a hundred and twenty tiliks per hour.”

“Exact position?” Zila said. Goff pointed to a red circle with a dot in its center, drawn in grease pencil on the transparent map overlay. “It’s already past the Tengma turnoff,” Goff said. “They’re heading for Lersset.”

“Get every jumper you can find,” Zila said. “I want them loaded and in the air to Lersset now.”

“Already done, sir,” Goff said. “We’ll be moving into the city from three directions by daybreak.”

“Get my jumper ready,” Zila said. “We’re going down there.”

“Fueled, armed, flight plan filed,” Goff said. He snapped his fingers, and one of the lancers stepped up, holding Zila’s foul-weather jacket open for him. Zila put the jacket on.

“Well done,” Zila said with a nod. “Let’s move out.”

Hawkins parked the truck in a narrow, trash-strewn alley and turned off the engine. The town of Lersset was smaller than he’d expected, perhaps no more than a hundred thousand people. Its tallest buildings were four stories tall; most were shorter. It looked old, neglected, weather-beaten. He saw signs of skirmishes past—scorches, blast-pitting, broken foundations—but the town was not particularly war torn. Its dominant colors were shades of gray and brown.

The trio had made good time, finishing the trip from Samara in just under six hours, due in no small measure to the fact that Hawkins had kept the accelerator pinned to the floor for almost the entire journey. The real-life vehicle had handled less reliably than had its holographic simulation, but Hawkins chalked that up to poor vehicle maintenance.

Of course, the truck’s tendency to fishtail wildly on fast turns was no doubt a key factor in why both Gomez and Stevens now looked nauseous as they staggered out of the truck, boots sloshing and crunching in the ice-crusted mud. Gomez leaned against the truck, and Stevens bent over and rested his hands on his knees while he steadied his nerves with long, deep breaths.

The sky overhead slowly changed hue, from black to royal purple. Sunrise was drawing near, and Hawkins was eager not to lose momentum when they were so close. “Commander, we should move while we still have cover of darkness,” he said.

Gomez nodded and straightened her posture. “Right. Ready, Fabian?”

The engineer stood up, drew a deep breath, exhaled, and nodded once. “Yeah, I’m set,” he said.

“Carol, you read me?” Gomez said. “Which way from here?”

“Out of the alley, right thirty meters. Then left, up the main avenue, forty meters.”

Gomez led the way, and Hawkins and Stevens fell into step right behind her. Hawkins scanned every window and rooftop for sentries, snipers, or simply unwelcome observers. The city was quiet, not yet roused by the coming dawn. Gomez darted across the street, her mud-splashing footsteps answered by sharp echoes. She paused at the corner before the left turn.

“Vance, take point,” she said. Hawkins slipped past her and moved down the street on its sidewalk, which was lined with dilapidated parked cars. He crouched low, keeping himself mostly concealed behind the row of vehicles until he’d covered roughly the forty meters Abramowitz had directed.

“Checkpoint,” Hawkins said. “Where now?”

“Narrow gap between the buildings on your right. Slip through there to an alley behind the building on the left.”

Hawkins scouted the street in both directions, then ducked across it to the gap. It was barely wide enough for them to move through sideways, single-file, backs to the wall.

Hawkins went in first, followed by Gomez, then Stevens. He inched ahead, scraping against the wet, rough-stone wall. They emerged in a wide alley that ran behind two rows of buildings situated on parallel streets.

“We’re in the alley,” Hawkins said.

“Go to the alley on your right, five buildings ahead.”

Hawkins led Gomez and Stevens into the intersecting alley, which was cluttered with debris and overflowing garbage bins. It reeked of rotting food and stale urine.

Overhead, the sky was now a deep sapphire blue and getting brighter by the minute. “Checkpoint,” Hawkins said.

“In the building across the street, second from the corner. Elevation ten-point-two meters above ground level.”

Hawkins eyed the target building. It was narrow, three stories tall, and nondescript except for the garage door at street level, which was uncommon among the buildings he’d seen on the surrounding streets. The elevation Abramowitz had cited would place the probe on the building’s top floor, where the window shades were pulled closed.

Silhouettes played across the drawn shades, overlapping one another and preventing Hawkins from making an accurate guess as to how many people were inside. The one thing he could tell from the occupants’ silhouettes was that they were armed, whereas he—and the rest of the away team—were not.

The building’s front door opened. Three teenage X’Mari boys stepped out the door and walked down the front steps to the street. They carried heavy backpacks and wore loose, flowing dark serapes that Hawkins could tell were being used to conceal long-barreled weapons. They moved quickly, without talking, and continued around the corner and out of sight.

The Starfleet trio huddled together in the alley.

“What’s the plan, Commander?” Hawkins said.

“We sneak inside,” Gomez said. “Cause a distraction. Keep the guards busy while Fabian fixes the probe. Start the timer, signal the da Vinci for beam-out, go home, and get some sleep.”

Stevens and Hawkins stared at Gomez through narrowed eyes. “No disrespect, sir,” Hawkins said, “but that’s a bit vague.”

“I’m open to suggestions,” she said.

“Maybe Carol can drop another satellite on them,” Stevens said. Hawkins struggled to suppress a chortle.

“It’s still an open channel, Stevens. Watch it.”

“Seriously,” Gomez said. “Does anyone have any ideas on—”

“Cover!” Stevens said, pulling Hawkins and Gomez behind one of the putrid-smelling trash bins. From the street, ear-splitting explosions chewed up the pavement and turned parked cars into hurricanes of shrapnel. The rumbling blasts melded with the engine-roar of a pair of Venekan jumpjets screaming past, low over the rooftops.

The town quaked under the simultaneous impacts of hundreds of air-to-surface missiles, which shredded vehicles, collapsed buildings, and turned streets into jumbles of broken stone. Hawkins shielded his head with his arms and strained to think of a way to reach the probe before a Venekan missile destabilized its antimatter containment and vaporized most of this continent.

Trooper Maleska gripped the piping that ran from the front of the armored attack vehicle to its rear. He and eleven soldiers from his squad—all outfitted with body armor and anti-gas masks—squatted on top of the AAV. Each man hung on with one hand and balanced his rifle across his knees with the other as the AAV rolled down Lersset’s eastern boulevard toward the center of town. Coils of smoke twisted through golden, horizontal shafts of dawn light as jumpers streaked overhead and unleashed their ordnance on suspected key enemy strongholds.

Perched on top of another AAV directly behind them was the rest of his squad, led by Senior Footman Yellik. Following them was a column of eighteen more AAVs ferrying nine more squads into town. Ahead of the column, panicked X’Mari civilians ran across the streets and in and out of decaying buildings.

The streets were lined with burning vehicles, incinerated only minutes earlier during the initial aerial assault. The squad’s orders were simple: Neutralize all non-allied vehicles.

The column reached a major four-way intersection. The AAVs carrying Maleska and his squad turned left. Behind them, two more AAVs turned right at the intersection, while the remaining sixteen AAVs rumbled straight, toward the center of town.

Without warning, a spatter of gunfire ricocheted next to Maleska, off the top of his AAV’s gun turret. “Down and cover!” he said. He jumped from the moving vehicle to the muddy, slush-filled street. The rest of his squad followed him. The splashing of their boots into the mud was swallowed by the growl of the AAVs’ wide, armored treads pushing forward. He scanned the rooftops and windows, looking for the shooters.

He saw too many to count. Rows of windows on either side of his squad bristled with the barrels of various small firearms. The street echoed with the cracks of semiautomatic gunfire. Two of his soldiers were hit and fell dead next to him. He sprayed a long burst across a row of windows.

“Rockets!” he shouted. To his left, Norlin hefted a compact, shoulder-mounted launcher and fired a small rocket through a top-floor window in the building on the squad’s left. The explosion sent jets of fire out six adjacent windows and caused the top floor to collapse in a fiery jumble onto the one below. On the opposite side of the street, Pillo and Yellik fired two more rockets and gutted another building. Clouds of smoke and dust rolled into the street, choking out the daylight.

Maleska keyed his helmet mic. “Velkor One, Five-Nine Jazim! Suppressing fire, forward left and right! Over!”

“Five-Nine Jazim, Velkor One. Acknowledged.”

“Fall back!” Maleska said, stepping backward as he peppered the buildings ahead with short bursts of gunfire, even though he couldn’t see through the smoke what he was shooting at. The lead AAV rotated its gun turret slightly to the left, while the second swiveled its massive gun barrel a few degrees to the right. They fired in unison, the booms low and deafening. Ahead of the AAVs, five buildings on each side of the street filled with flames, then imploded. For a moment the harassing fire from above stopped, then resumed from behind the squad.

Norlin and Pillo leveled their rocket-launchers toward the rear-flank buildings. Before Maleska could order them to hold fire, a pair of rockets were in the air, one racing toward each building’s center point. The bright orange flashes turned the buildings into huge brick boxes filled with fiery clouds.

He watched greasy black smoke belch from the buildings into the street and was ashamed that he felt glad he wouldn’t have to risk clearing the buildings room-by-room, as the law required. “Velkor One, Five-Nine Jazim. All secure.” He looked around and counted his casualties. “Notify Sync-Com, we have three dead, four wounded for immediate medivac. The rest of us are up and solid. Over.”

“Five-Nine Jazim, Velkor One. Acknowledged, signaling Sync-Com for medivac. Holding for your go. Over.”

“Mount up!” he said, directing his men back onto the AAVs. There were actually nine wounded among his squad, but five of them were still walking and able to hold their rifles; he’d only counted the four who were still down and bleeding. His men piled on top of the AAVs, found their handholds, and hefted their rifles a bit less cavalierly than before. He climbed aboard, spared one last look back at the soldiers he was leaving behind in the muddy, dust-choked street, and keyed his mic.

“Velkor One, Five-Nine Jazim. All boots are up. Good to go. Five-Nine Jazim out.” With a low growl of their engines, the AAVs rolled forward through the walls of smoke, forging ahead into the town to look for more enemy vehicles to destroy.

He loaded a fresh magazine into his rifle and tried to convince himself that there most likely hadn’t been any innocent noncombatants in the fourteen buildings that he and his squad had just incinerated.

As he scanned the road ahead, he couldn’t decide what stank worse: the burnt bodies along the roadside, or the lies he was now telling himself so that his government wouldn’t have to.

Ganag peeked out of the alley, then ducked back into the shadows and motioned Lerec and Shikorn to stay down.

“What’s happening?” Lerec whined.

“Shh!” Ganag hissed, waving a threatening backhand at the boy. Shikorn placed his hand over Lerec’s mouth before the boy complained again. In the street beyond the alley, a Venekan armored attack vehicle rolled slowly past, its heavy treads grinding up the brittle and heavily weathered pavement. Marching on either side of the AAV were several Venekan infantryman, all wearing torso armor and anti-gas masks.

Ganag knew that the X’Mari Resistance had never used poison gas; he could only assume that the Venekans had equipped their soldiers to protect them from their own weapons.

I should’ve known better than to hang around, Ganag chastised himself. Should’ve left as soon as we’d delivered the object. After the sun had set last night, Ganag had left Lerec and Shikorn in the skiff to guard the object, and he had snuck into Lersset and made contact with Jonen, the Resistance leader whom Hakona had told him to seek out. It had been nearly midnight by the time he’d led Jonen and his commanders to the object, and a few hours more before they’d smuggled it back to the group’s base of operations on the other side of town.

The commanders had rewarded the boys with fistfuls of cash and backpacks full of food, medicine, and ammunition, as well as new reconnaissance orders. Should’ve left then, while it was still dark, he thought. But they hadn’t left; they had stayed to bask in the praise that the commanders had heaped upon them. It had felt good to be recognized for a change. To be needed.

Now we’re just trapped, he fumed, as he watched three more AAVs roll past flanked by dozens more soldiers. They must have the whole town surrounded. And it’s probably because of us.

The street buzzed with the angry roar of assault rifles. A massive explosion rocked the ground under his feet and knocked him down. In the street, a fireball laced with huge slabs of metal debris hurled a dozen Venekan soldiers backward through the air and dropped them like so many limp rag dolls on the muddy ground. A torrent of burning fuel rained down and turned the street into a lake of fire. The blazing liquid pushed into the alley, toward Ganag and his friends.

“Run!” he said as he sprinted past Lerec and Shikorn. He retreated from the fuel fire that was spreading rapidly into the alley. “Go right! We’re heading for the river!” Neither of the younger boys questioned his order. They simply turned right and kept running, following a half-stride behind him.

The river would be dangerously cold. Trying to float submerged back to their skiff would be a risky proposition; there was a good chance they’d all end up with hypothermia, or catch who-knew-what kind of illness. Sick is better than dead, he told himself, and it’s our only way out of here.

Fighting to remember every pathway and abandoned building between the alley and the river, he sprinted ahead to the next shortcut and prayed they reached the water before Lersset went up in flames.

The entire town was alive with the chatter of weapons fire and the irregular percussion of large explosions. Gomez could barely hear Abramowitz’s whispering voice over the transceiver.

“Abramowitz to away team!”

“Gomez here.”

“The refugees are getting ready to move out, I have to hide the tricorder. Have you reached the probe?”

“Not yet,” said Gomez, who was growing both impatient and frustrated. She leaned out from behind the trash bin to see if the fire at the end of the alley had dwindled enough to allow passage to the street. A wash of searing heat stung her face. She ducked back behind cover. “We’re kind of stuck.”

Going back was no longer an option: A pair of missiles had collapsed a building in the intersecting alley behind them, blocking their only avenue of retreat.

“Well, you need to get un stuck,” Abramowitz said. “The probe’s moving. Street level, coming right at you.”

Gomez, Stevens, and Hawkins scrambled out from behind the trash bin and squinted to see through the flames and the wavy wall of heat radiation. From an alley beside the target building a truck emerged and pulled into the street, where it awkwardly navigated an obstacle course of burning debris. Inside the front cab of the truck were two Tenebian men with sky blue skin and metallic-gold hair. “Those aren’t X’Maris,” Stevens said.

“And they aren’t wearing Venekan uniforms,” Gomez said.

“Game on,” Hawkins said. He ducked his head under his serape and ran toward the wall of fire. Diving through it, he rolled out the other side, singed and smoldering, but all in one piece.

Gomez and Stevens glanced at one another, then turtled into their own serapes. They sprinted forward, leaped through the flames, and hit the ground running.