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orchestra, the high pitched howl of blue-white supergiants, the crackling hiss of yellow primes, the awful shriek of stars being ripped apart by black holes, awesome rumbling from gas clouds giving birth to young stars, the hopeless moaning of a black dwarf—it wasn’t really music but I loved it.
    As the assault craft approached the target, we saturated the area with opstars, tactical nukes, just in case. This set off another massive firestorm, a great ring of fire all around ZA. Then we blitzed the atmosphere with deceptors. The fighters rushed into the center of the target and left behind long lines of fire, greasy black smoke roaring up into the night, highways of fire for our attack.
    The general order from command swamped all channels, “Launch aircars!”
    We launched with a lurch and bang that rattled my teeth. It looked like we were invading Dante’s version of Hell. We fell into a roaring inferno, an evil night sky blazing brightly with the flames of Armageddon over a glowing, blasted wilderness of black smoking rocks and burning earth.
    Despite my fears, I felt right at home. As we rode the flames to our assigned objectives, a wild cheer burst into my ears.
    Snow Leopard barked the warning, “Prep to decar!”
    We crowded by the assault doors underneath the glowing red tac lights.
    The assault doors snapped open and Snow Leopard led the way into the darkness beyond. “Decar...death!”
    We burst from the car into the smoking night, weapons ready, equipment dangling. The firestorm raged around us. Legion fighters blasted overhead, punching holes in the sky. Aircars shot past us, kicking up a wake of black dust.
    We dashed to our assigned positions. Oily black smoke hung close to the ground.
    “Command, Snow Leopard. Beta is in position!”
    We were arrayed in attack formation, tingling with anticipation, weapons at the ready. Nothing stirred, except the Legion. We could see everything, and there was nothing to see. All around us, the land smoked in the darkness. We’d blasted a healthy chunk of real estate into a lifeless moonscape and landed in force, and there was no one there to fight.

Chapter 3:
Grim Reaper

    Days later, we’d settled into routine patrols, crisscrossing the planet in search of what wasn’t there. Gradually, boredom and frustration clawed at the ragged edges of our resolve. Then it happened! A native!
    “Set your E’s on minimum V-stun rounds, ladies. Repeat, v-min.” Snow Leopard was already harassing us—he never let up. I was in the aircar, slipping the comtop helmet over my head. We were at last closing on a native! We’d been called in to pick up the search from the air for the native that Alpha squad had spotted in the forest while on foot patrol. He had gone to ground in a tangle of shrubbery. Redhawk spotted a nearby clearing and swooped down for a hot decar.
    We hit the ground running in armor, but it was a short pursuit. He had disappeared into a very narrow tunnel leading down into the earth at a sharp angle. It was just the right size for a Scaler—our name for the scale-clad natives. They were smaller than us, but we could all see that a Legion soldier could fit in there as well—without armor.
    Merlin launched a trio of microprobes and they showed a well-worn passageway extending a long, sinuous distance. It didn’t get any wider for a long time, so blasting a larger entrance was out.
    I slipped my comtop on and activated the tacmap on my translucent faceplate. The comtop was a scaled-down version of the A-suit helmet. It provided light armor head protection and communication when we weren’t in our A-suits. We hurriedly changed into A-vests, litesuits and comtops.
    “Stun rounds!” Psycho quipped. “Yes, sir! We sure wouldn’t want to hurt anybody.”
    What a bloodthirsty little smartass. Psycho was a mental case. Snow Leopard spent a lot of time holding him back, but he was smart and fast.
    I was not happy about the V-min, either. V rounds would stun and