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to train with the new weapon systems…with which we will defeat them.” She allowed herself a bleak smile. “By the time we reach them, we may be coming from four hundred years in their future. That’s the length of time that elapsed between the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the first nuclear war.”
    Of course relativity does not favor one species over the other. The Taurans on Aleph-10 might have had visitors from their own future, bearing gifts.
    The troops were quiet and respectful, absorbing the fraction of information that Major Garcia portioned out. I supposed most of them knew that things were not so rosy, even the inexperienced Angels. She gave them a few more encouraging generalities and dismissed them to their temporary billets. We officers were to meet with her in two hours, for lunch.
    I spent the intervening time visiting the platoon billets, talking with the sergeants who would actually be running the show, day by day. I’d seen their records but hadn’t met any of them except Cat Verdeur, who had been in physical therapy with me. We both had right-arm replacements, and as part of our routine we were required to arm wrestle every day, apologetic about the pain we were causing each other. She was glad to see me, and said she would have let me win occasionally if she’d known I was going to outrank her.
    The officers’ lounge was also a plastic room, which I hadn’t known. It had been a utilitarian meeting place before, with machines that dispensed simple food and drink. Now it was dark wood and intricate tile; linen napkins and crystal. Of course the wood felt like plastic and the linen, like paper, but you couldn’t have everything.
    Nine of us showed up on the hour, and the major came in two minutes later. She greeted everyone and pushed a button, and the cooks Jengyi and Senff appeared with real food and two carafes of wine. Aromatic stir-fried vegetables and zoni, which resembled large shrimp.
    â€œLet’s enjoy this while we can,” she said. “We’ll be back on recycled Class A’s soon enough.” Athene had room enough for the luxury of hydroponics and, apparently, fish tanks.
    She asked us to introduce ourselves, going around the table’s circle. I knew a little bit about everyone, since my XO file had basic information on the whole Strike Force, and extensive dossiers of the officers and noncoms. But there were surprises. I knew that the major had survived five battles, but didn’t know she’d been to Heaven four times, which was a record. I knew her second-in-command, Chance Nguyen, came from Mars, but didn’t know he was from the first generation born there, and was the first person drafted from his planet—there had been a huge argument over it, with separatists saying the Forever War was Earth’s war. But at that time, Earth could still threaten to pull the plug on Mars. The red planet was self-sufficient now, Chance said, but he’d been away for a century, and didn’t know what the situation was.
    Lillian Mathes just came from Earth, with less than twenty years’ collapsar lag, and she said they weren’t drafting from Mars at that time; it was all tied up in court. So Chance might be the only Martian officer in service.
    He had a strange way of carrying himself and moving, wary and careful, swimming through this unnaturally high gravity. He told me he’d trained for a Martian year, wearing heavier and heavier weights, before going to Stargate and his first assignment.
    All of them were scholarly and athletic, but only Sid, Isidro Zhulpa, had actually been both a scholar and an athlete. He’d played professional baseball for a season, but quit to pursue his doctorate in sociology. He’d gotten his appointment as a junior professor the day before his draft notice. His skin was so black as to be almost blue; with his chiseled features and huge muscularity, he looked like some harsh