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the medic away.
    From the look the colonel gives the major, he’s obviously wondering whether to send him away as well. In the end the senior officer shrugs and lets the major stay.
    “You know as well as I do, ferox don’t speak.”
    The major has obviously thought of something else. He’s practically hopping from foot to foot. “This man made their barricades,” he tells the colonel. “Ferox don’t have that level of skill.”
    Helping the enemy is a capital crime. Around here, practically everything is.
    “They cut it with their claws,” I tell him. “A hundred miles from their camp, they shaped ballistic-strength ceramic from memory, with every single sheet proving a perfect fit.”
    Whatever the major is about to say gets chopped short by a single glance from the colonel. “You’re saying they’re intelligent?”
    I think about this. “Maybe not in a sense we understand,” I say. “But they’re organized and they plan ahead.”
    “And you talked to them?”
    “Yes, often.”
    The colonel shakes my hand, which is so unlike a senior officer that I’m immediately suspicious. He wishes me well and says he’ll probably see me again. A few hours later the major comes back to tell me I’ve been tried in my absence, found guilty of desertion, and condemned to death. Since I’m to die at dawn, the major suggests I spend what remains of tonight making peace with whichever God the scum from my planet embrace.

 
    CHAPTER 7

    W ITH MORNING come six soldiers in the combat dress of the Death’s Head elite. They tote pulse rifles across their chests and wear dark glasses beneath their raised visors. An affectation, since we are still barely into half-light.
    “You,” they say. “Come with us.” There must be a boot camp somewhere that teaches these people how to speak.
    Two of the Death’s Head drag me from my cell, which is actually the luggage hold of an air copter. It’s an overhot, sticky, and deeply unpleasant place to spend the last few hours of my life.
    The major waits at his chosen spot, stamping back and forward in irritation, as if my death is just another inconvenience keeping him from breakfast. “Stand him over there,” he orders.
    Death’s Head troopers are far too professional to roll their eyes at the stupidity of a senior officer, but if they did, now would be the time to do it. A natural wall is formed by an outcrop of sandstone, so it’s fairly obvious where I’m meant to stand.
    When a trooper tries to blindfold me, I begin to struggle. God knows why I ever took that stupid vow, but promising to face death with my eyes open seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
    “Leave it,” says the major, sounding bored. “We’ve wasted long enough.”
    I stand where I’m told to stand.
    As an unexpected mark of respect, the sergeant flicks off my cuffs to let me face death freestanding and unbound.
    “Don’t try to run,” he tells me.
    “The legion never run,” I reply. “We stand and we die.”
    The look he gives me is almost sympathetic. And suddenly it seems more important than ever to die well.
    So when they raise their rifles and sight along the barrels, I stare back. My head is high and my body locked so solid that my arms and legs refuse to shake.
    “Load,” says the major.
    The sergeant nods, his response instinctive, and I watch his finger begin to tighten on the trigger. He will shoot first and the rest will fire in the split second that follows his shot. This is how the Death’s Head work, the legion also…
    Unless free fire is declared, firing before your NCO is a capital offense, much like lying under oath, treason, and hitting a senior officer. And if not for an eccentric interpretation of those rules by my old lieutenant, I’d be dead long before this anyway.
    As it is, I was simply broken from sergeant to private for wanting to hit a senior officer. Actually, I had hit him, but the lieutenant decided it was the wanting he found offensive.
    As the