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anytime soon. He hadn’t thought they would, given the nature of their leader, but as it had taken him over four years to get to this spot, he wasn’t complaining. Altamont would fall; of that, he was certain.
    The other viewing item filled him with disgust. It was the battle report from Omad Hassan’s recent shellacking of the Alhambra flotilla. Trang was absolutely horrified at Hektor’s and his Cabinet’s decision to launch an attack on an undefended civilian outpost—no matter what the nature of those who occupied it. Had Trang known in advance of the Cabinet’s plans, he was certain he would’ve tendered his resignation. Their seemingly rash act was now going to make his job of occupying the asteroid belt that much more difficult. And for what—removing the titular heads of a religious movement already doomed to failure by its archaic logic?
    He gazed pensively at the report. The more he read, the more labored his breathing became. His eyes scanned down to the orders given to the condemned admiral. What incensed him more than anything was the fact that the idiot had complied without registering the slightest protest. If she had, or if she’d even asked for a clarification of orders, Trang would’ve gotten wind of them. It would’ve been enough to countermand the decision, Cabinet be damned. Trang was having a difficult time wrapping his brain around it. What idiot accepts an order to take an untrained crew out with a flotilla of ships so new, most of their systems haven’t even been debugged? Worse, then accepts a mission to destroy a defenseless asteroid settlement. Trang’s cinched brow was the only clue to his silent litany. The irony was that he’d purposely left Admiral Mummius on Mars, thinking the harm she could do there would be minimal. If he’d known the admiral was capable of that much stupidity, he would’ve made her his aid—if only to keep her out of trouble. Trang was hoping that Mummius would not be typical of the officer corps he’d have to work with, but suspected that hope was for naught.
    The report of the battle itself was what he’d expected. The war-hardened Alliance fleet, though heavily outnumbered, had been in no real danger of defeat. Conversely, the untrained crews of the UHF had been so misbegotten that they somehow managed a twelve-ship collision. There’s a reason, thought Trang, shaking his head in disgust, that they call it “space.” There’s plenty of it. Only a moron of superior talent could manage a collision of that magnitude. Hell, it might even be a record .
    As he scanned further, it became quickly obvious how the thing had spiraled out of control. Systems had crashed or hadn’t worked at all, because various safeties had not been removed, live programs had been incompatible with one another, and emergency protocols had not been implemented, much less taught. The entire fiasco was yet another demonstration of what Trang had been saying all along—only properly trained crews, properly led, should actually engage the enemy. Otherwise, all you’d get was unmitigated slaughter. Mummius’s defeat was a perfect case in point.
    The fact that not one UHF marine had been taken alive spoke to a more disturbing suspicion—they probably weren’t given the opportunity to surrender. The truth was, Omad Hassan had probably saved him the trouble of trying to court-martial the bastards himself, which, realized Trang, would have put him in direct confrontation with the Defense Secretary. But none of that mattered now. The marines who’d died were still his people, and their wanton slaughter by Admiral Hassan, no matter how justified, could not be without consequences; otherwise, morale would suffer.
    Before he could work it out, his DijAssist informed him of a call from his number two. She was, he saw by the display readout, bringing up the line approximately forty thousand kilometers away. Even through the interference of radiation, debris, and residual jamming, he