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go and no way
to get there. Peter paced the rock’s perimeter; the asteroid was
still moving, and he hoped to pick up a signal from Command. Ramirez
sat in seeming thin air, having bent his leg and locked his
artificial muscles. Saul was sprawled out on the ground, which in
zero gravity was more of a statement than a comfort.
    “Why
not?” Ramirez asked.
    “Who
ever heard of a sergeant with a missing foot,” Saul replied.
    “They’ll
give me another one,” Ramirez said. Then, to Saul’s dubious
look, he added, “A better one, like what the Gyrines get.”
    “With
a gun?”
    “Sure.
Why not?”
    “You
ever seen anyone with gun feet?”
    “We’re
recruits,” Ramirez protested. “We just got here.”
    “What
about you, Sarge?” Saul called to Peter.
    Peter
ignored him at first—this was the third time they were having this
conversation, even though they’d been stuck here only a few
minutes. But then he was struck by a thought. “Mickelson has a
limp,” he said, and then corrected himself. “That is, he had one.”
    “No,
he didn’t,” Saul replied, firing a look at Ramirez.
    “I
never saw him limp,” Ramirez said, thinking. “Not in Basic,
anyway.”
    Peter
thought about it, but then his visor flashed; it had found a
connection to the battle computer.
    “Hang
on,” Peter said. “I’ve got the location of the outpost.”
    Both
men got to their feet.
    “Where?”
Saul asked as the asteroid slowly rolled down, revealing a battle in
progress.
    “There,”
Peter said, raising a finger.
    —   —   —
    Not
a hundred yards away, a platoon of marines advanced over an asteroid
the size of a small mountain. Peter had an overhead view of the men
as they moved over the rough surface, trading shots with what he
assumed was the Riel outpost—from this angle, all he could see was
a steel base at the top of the rock.
    Peter,
newly crowned Sergeant Garvey, had orders to take charge of the
battle, but had no idea how to do so. His map showed eight blue dots
on the face of the asteroid, as well as four red ones—unidentified
Riel clustered at the outpost. The battle computer scrolled through
possible attacks, filling his screen with lines and arrows mixed in
with confusing code names. It was beyond comprehension. Peter was
about to pick one at random when three Riel fighterships shot into
view.
    The
fighterships were perfect spheres, fifteen feet in diameter,
gleaming of polished steel. An assortment of armaments dented their
smooth surfaces, both guns and rocket launchers. They moved in a
tight line arcing out from behind a far asteroid and heading
straight for the other marines. Machine guns strobed as they
approached, and through the green trapezoidal cockpit window, Peter
saw a Gyrine sneering with pleasure.
    The
ships streaked past, curved away, and disappeared into the belt. The
screech of their engines came to them in the gas from their exhaust,
and then all was silent. Across the expanse the eight marines
floated lifelessly.
    “That
your new command?” Saul asked.
    “Yeah,”
Peter said, “my very first.”
    —   —   —
    Peter
had known from the start this was a suicide mission, but that
abstract idea was now spelled out in three concrete, and equally
hopeless, options. They could wait for reinforcements, which were
unlikely. They could retreat to the edge of the belt and call for
evac, but with no gas for their rocket packs, that would take days
and they’d run out of oxygen long before they got there. Or they
could attack the outpost by themselves—an idea well past the line
where courage becomes stupidity.
    “So
what’s the plan?” Saul asked.
    “I’m
open to suggestions,” Peter replied.
    “Right,”
Saul said, whipping his giant multi-pulse cannon up to his shoulder.
“We know those fighterships saw us, so I vote we start this attack
before they circle back.”
    Saul
was right. Peter nodded. He backed up to get a running start and
leaped into the