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unloaded on her right in front of Dean. The first round that hit her blew off her arm at the shoulder. The force of the blow spun her around like a helpless rag doll to face her attackers. Dean emptied his gun at her killers, but it did no good. Gore and blood flew everywhere as hundreds of rounds ripped into her limp, lifeless body. They made a statement by continuing to shoot the bloody, mangled mess for another twenty seconds. By then, there was nothing left to bury.
    Dean was completely numb and his ears rang with the choppers’ thunderous attack. He stumbled back through the door in a sick daze. Gretchen’s carnage was burned indelibly into his mind. The only thing driving him now was finding out who set them up and avenging Gretchen’s death. It had to be someone high up in his chain of command. He would listen to their lies in the mission debriefing and act like he believed them. Once he knew who was responsible, he would establish a plan and no force on Earth would be able to save that person.
     
    Years ago, when Dean joined the Corps, everything was easy – nothing felt impossible. But after hundreds of missions and the death of so many of his partners, Dean had developed a sense of his own mortality. He wondered if those experiences were worth so many lives. Were they worth the pins and metal plates that now held him together and made those God-awful detectors go off every time he walked through a door? Would his experience and new partner be enough to get through this latest…?
    “Sir, I can’t believe how calm you are under pressure!”
    Right on cue, the rookie once again interrupted his thoughts drawing him back to the Moon and his current mission.
    “I’m about to explode!” she continued with rookie enthusiasm.
    Dean glanced at his new partner and latest project, Lieutenant Beth Stone. Because of his success through the years, the Corps looked to Dean, with his leadership and experience, to break in the most promising new academy graduates. But Dean hadn’t felt like a success in a long time. In fact, feeling responsible for Gretchen’s death and the death of so many other talented people made him feel less successful all the time.
    He hoped things would work out differently with the Lieutenant. Although ten years younger than Dean, she was mature with a resume that read like she had spent much of her life preparing for the Corps. The first time they sparred, he found that she was physically equal to many of the men in the Corps that he had fought. She was skilled, athletic, and mildly distracting in her red spandex top and matching shorts. Now he could barely make out her large brown eyes through her visor’s heavy tint.
    Light from the sunrise finally lit up the floor of the crater and brought it into focus on their surveillance gear. Beth stared into the monitor. Slowly she panned the camera across the vast basin and was first to break the tension. “My God, it’s like they’ve been there for years!”
    Dean could feel the beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he watch the monitor expose strange machines and tall silver-and-black structures that seemed to sit randomly across the crater floor.
    Struggling to control his thoughts, Dean mumbled, “Maybe they have.” Gathering himself, he continued with more authority. “We don’t know how long they’ve been putting this together. If we hadn’t picked up their transmission, we’d still be in the dark about this. We’ve been busy with things on Earth, not interstellar threats.” Beth nodded in agreement as he asked her, “Do you think it’s a coincidence that they waited until Earth consolidated its defenses under the Corps’ command and control? Just a year ago we were still…persuading some major players to join us.”
    Beth was excited that Colonel Forge was asking her opinion, but she didn’t want to show any emotion. She tilted her head quizzically in a bid for time to compose her thoughts. “Do you think they were waiting