William C. Dietz - For More Than Glory

This book is for my daughters Allison and Jessica,

both of whom know the meaning of “grit.”

1

War remains an art and, like all arts whatever its variation, will have its ending principles. Many men,

skilled either with sword or pen and sometimes with both, have tried to expound those principles. I heard

them once from a soldier of experience for whom I had a deep and well-founded respect. Many years

ago, as a cadet hoping some day to be an officer, I was poring over “The Principles of War,” listed in the

old Field Services Regulations, when the Sergeant-Major came upon me. He surveyed me with kindly

amusement. “Don’t bother your head about all them things, me lad,” he said. “There’s only one principle

of war that’s this. Hit the other fellow as quick as you can and as hard as you can, where it hurts him

most, when he ain’t looking.”

Sir William Slim

Defeat Into Victory

ABOARD SYNDICATE BASE 012, ON A MOON NICKNAMED

“FLOATER,” IN ORBIT AROUND RIM WORLD CR-7893

The soft but insistent beep of the alarm served to summon Captain Frank Moy from the deep,

alcohol-induced slumber to which he had gradually become addicted. His eyes felt as if they were glued

shut and a sustained effort was required to force them open. Finally, welcomed into the darkness of his

cabin by the smoke alarm’s Cyclops-like red eye, the ex–naval officer ordered the beeping sound to

“Stop, dammit,” and, thankfully, it did.

Then, rolling out of the rack the same way he had for more than twenty years, Moy managed to stand.

The only light came from the smoke alarm and the LEDs embedded in the console next to his bunk.

Seven of them were green but one glowed red. That was bad, very bad, but so was the pressure on

Moy’s bladder. He took a step toward the head and swore when pain stabbed his brain. The light over

the stainless-steel sink came on as Moy lined up on the toilet and gave his body permission to let go.

Finally, once the pressure was relieved, the ex–naval officer turned to the mirror. What he saw made

Moy wince. Much of the once thick black hair had disappeared and what remained was heavily shot with

gray. The blue eyes were faded now, as if the light behind them had dimmed and might soon go out. A

field of black stubble covered cheeks so gaunt it appeared as if the skin rested on bone. A far cry from

the bright-eyed young stud who had graduated from the academy more than two decades before.

Moy shook his head in disgust, considered the possibility of shaving, and remembered the red LED.

Something, a sizable chunk of spaceborne rock was the most likely culprit, had entered the volume of

space that defined the moon’s defensive zone and triggered a number of alarms. Odds were that the

clowns in the control center had dealt with the matter hours before and chosen to let him sleep. Still, once

the situation was cleared, the LED should have turned green.

Moy used half a glass of water to wash the foul taste out of his mouth and the other half to help him

swallow a couple of tablets. Then, gritting his teeth against the pain, he made his way into the middle of

the cabin. “Open com. Moy to control center . . . who’s the OD?”

There was no reply. Either the com was down, something that occurred with disturbing regularity, or the

C&C crew were screwing off. A punishable offense in the real navy—but a joke in the so-called

Syndicate. Just one of the many problems that plagued the organization.

Propelled more by the bone-deep sense of duty the navy had instilled in him rather than any particular

loyalty to the organization he was now part of, Moy turned toward the hatch. There were no uniforms,

not since the “members” had voted them out, so it didn’t matter what he wore.

Moy entered the main corridor, turned right, and followed the B ring in toward the station’s core. Having

been constructed during the early days of the rebellion, immediately after Earth Governor Patricia Pardo

and Legion Colonel Leon Harco had usurped Earth’s government, the outlaw habitat was well put

together. And a good thing, too, because discipline had slipped a lot since then, and maintenance was

abysmal.

All manner of graffiti covered the bulkheads to either side, trash littered the deck, and it seemed as if

every third or fourth light fixture was burned out. The life-support systems continued to receive a fair

amount of attention but even that was starting to slip. So much so that Moy had given serious thought to

leaving. But for what? The Confederacy wanted to put him on trial for mutiny, murder, and miscellaneous

“crimes against sentient beings,” life out on the Rim was hard, and nobody wants to hire an alcoholic.

Moy palmed a lock, waited for the hatch to hiss open, and entered the station’s control room. It smelled

of sweat, alcohol, and ozone. Screens flickered, air whispered through vents, and the computer

nicknamed “Bitching Betty,” spoke via the overhead speakers. “Incoming targets, one, three, and four

are continuing to close. Target two is stationary, repeat, stationary, but well within range. Recommend

that all station personnel don space armor, report to assigned battle stations, and prepare for combat.

Screens, ready. Electronic countermeasures, ready. Weapons systems, ready. Downloading firing

solutions now.”

Moy swore, stormed up onto the command platform, and looked for someone to kick. Ex–Naval

Lieutenant Tosko had passed out in the command chair, the com tech was facedown on the deck, and

the weapons officer sat with her forehead resting on the control panel. The injector tube, which was still

clutched in her hand, told the officer everything he needed to know.

Back during the rebellion the Syndicate had “liberated” any number of naval vessels, not the least of

which were the Ibutho and the Guerrero, both of which had taken on stores and departed roughly six

hours earlier. In spite of specific prohibitions against taking part in the typical bon voyage celebration, it

appeared that the control room crew had ignored regulations and partied anyway. Now they were going

to pay for their laxity, for his laxity, because the navy had taught him that the responsibilities of command

reach everywhere even into one’s sleep.

Tosko felt something hard connect with his leg, jerked in response, and opened his eyes. “What the hell?

Who kicked me?”

Moy looked grim. “I did . . . and I’d kick your ass if you weren’t sitting on it. Look at those screens.”

Tosco looked, swore, and slapped the general alarm button. Klaxons sounded, weapons came on line,

and groggy crew members stumbled down corridors.

Betty, oblivious to what her owners did, continued to chant. “Targets one, three, and four are launching

what appear to be short-range in-system spacecraft having target profiles consistent with CF Dagger

180s, CF-10 assault boats, and CF electronic countermeasure (ECM) decoys. Tracking, tracking,

request permission to fire.”

Everyone in the Control Center knew that the letters “CF” stood for Confederacy Forces and what

would happen if they were captured. Tosco, his eyes wide with fear, flipped a protective cover up out of

the way. The button glowed green. He mashed it. The verbal command came a fraction of a second later.

“Fire!”

The station’s Class I weapons, those which were computer controlled, burped coherent light, spit

missiles, and launched torpedoes. The speakers rattled with ECM-induced static as com calls began to

flood in, and the station fought back.

“Damn,” Tosco said, his eyes glued to the screens. “Where the hell did they come from?”

“From our past,” Moy answered grimly, “from our past.”

Legion General Bill Booly III and Navy Admiral Angie Tyspin sat in the Ninja’s Command and Control

Center and listened as Big Momma, the ship’s primary C&C computer, provided her own low-key

narration for the assault. “Fighters launched . . . Assault boats launched . . . Lead elements taking fire.

Units F-5, F-6, and A-3 destroyed. Units F-9, A-9, and A-12 damaged. Enemy fighters launching,

repeat launching, profiles are available screen right.”

Booly glanced at the profiles, confirmed that all of the Syndicate’s fighters dated back to premutiny days,

and nodded. “I don’t see anything new, that’s good.”

Tyspin, who had known Booly for quite a while by then, and fought at his side through two major

campaigns, looked into the steady gray eyes. The lines that extended away from them cut deeper now,

dividing his skin into white deltas, before disappearing into what remained of his youth. Some gray had

crept into his close-cropped hair. “Yes,” the naval officer agreed, “the prerebellion stuff is bad enough.

Lord help us if they get their hands on any of the new fighters.”

The possibility caused Booly to grimace. The new fighters, the 190s, were equipped with cloaking

technology obtained from the Thrakies, and were very dangerous indeed. However, assuming all went

well, the Syndicate would be broken long before the criminals were able to lay their hands on a 190.

“Roger that. Fortunately, judging from how long it took them to respond, we caught the bastards

napping.”

“True,” Tyspin replied grimly, her eyes on the screens, “but F-5, F-6, and A-3 won’t be coming back.

That’s a high price to pay for a bunch of deserters. Maybe we should nuke ’em.”

“I’d be tempted,” Booly responded levelly, “if I knew where the Ibutho and Guerrero were. How many

raids are they responsible for? Twenty-six at last count? Intelligence claims there’s some sort of harbor

inside that moon . . . Maybe they’re in there, like fleas on a dog, or maybe they aren’t. We need to

know.”

Tyspin knew that the other officer was correct but hated to take the casualties. Especially from mutineers,

whom she saw as the lowest form of life in the universe.

The legionnaire saw the pain in her green eyes and nodded. “I know how you feel Angie, honest I do,

and I’ll do everything I can to keep the engagement short.”

Booly stood. He wore a full-combat rig, including body armor and a sidearm. The grin was genuine.

“Keep the coffee on . . . I’ll be back shortly.”

Like the rest of Booly’s staff, Tyspin thought it was foolish for him to participate in the assault, even if it

was in wave three, and took one last shot at dissuading him. “This is a mistake, sir, and your wife will

blame me.”

Booly laughed. “If you don’t tell her, then neither will I.”

Tyspin thought about what it would be like to notify Maylo Chien-Chu of her husband’s death, and was

just about to answer, when Booly disappeared.

The control room was fully staffed by then, as were the rest of the station’s various departments. Having

claimed the command chair for himself, Moy touched a control and allowed the power-assisted seat to

swing left. A large diagram filled most of the wall, and rather than the lines being green the way they

should have been, one end of the habitat was red. It had taken the navy less than two hours to silence

most of the habitat’s weapons systems and land the marines. All of which was little more than a diversion

since Moy knew that the harbor located below his feet was the real objective. Neither the Ibutho nor

the Guerrero happened to be in port, but the navy didn’t know that, and hoped to trap them.

So, the ex–naval officer thought, what should I do? Surrender? So they can try me for mutiny and

lord knows what else? Or die for the Syndicate? Neither alternative seemed especially attractive.

Others must have been thinking similar thoughts because that’s when the weapons officer stood, removed

her headset, and dropped it on the control panel. “I don’t know about you,” she said, her eyes sweeping

the room, “but I’m outta here.”

“What?” Moy asked sarcastically. “No vote of the membership? No valiant defense of the Syndicate?”

“Screw the Syndicate,” the weapons officer replied. “There’s only one way off this turd ball and it’s

through the harbor. We go now, or we don’t go at all.”

The others agreed with her. Moy watched in silence as the rest of his staff stood in ones and twos,

averted their eyes, and made their way toward the lockers that lined the room’s back wall. Once in their

space armor they would drop through the tubes, seize whatever vessels they could lay their hands on,

and run like hell.

The weapons officer faced him, hands on hips. They’d been lovers once, many months ago, and she still

felt something for the gaunt-looking man who sat slumped in the chair. “So,” she said, “are you coming?”

“No,” the ex–naval officer heard himself say. “I don’t believe that I am.”

“Then I’ll see you in hell,” the weapons officer said, “or wherever people like us go.”

“Yes,” Moy agreed thoughtfully, “I’ll see you in hell.”

Floater hung like a silvery ball against the backdrop provided by the planet designated as CR-7893, a

brownish sphere, heavily marbled by white clouds. Now, as assault boat A-12 drew closer, Booly

looked out over the pilots’ heads and to the scene beyond. The faceplate restricted his total view but not

the area straight ahead of him. The Syndicate’s habitat looked like a barnacle on the surface of a rock.

Down farther, roughly midway between the satellite’s poles, a black hole was visible. Small minnowlike

spaceships, none larger than a shuttle, darted out of the tunnel and sped away. There were dozens of the

small craft, which suggested that those who could were trying to escape. And that was fine with him.

After all Booly reasoned, once the officers ran, the troops were likely to follow.

Thanks to his status as CO, Booly had access to all radio traffic and listened in satisfaction as Tyspin’s

fighters took off in hot pursuit. Each of the departing vessels would be intercepted and called upon to

surrender. Those who complied would face trial. Those who refused would die. That part of the

operation appeared to be a complete success.

But where were the battle cruisers? Why hadn’t they emerged to give battle? Because the bastards

aren’t there, Booly thought to himself, because they already left.

The tunnel yawned in front of them. Dozens of red beacons, still blinking their endless warnings, guarded

the passageway’s enormous circumference. The tunnel was huge, more than large enough to

accommodate the Ibutho and the Guerrero, and a testament to the Syndicate’s initiative during earlier

times.

There was no way to know what sort of object had struck the moon’s sunward side, but whatever it was

had been big, and judging from the amount of debris thrown up around the point of entry, moving at a

high rate of speed.

The rest of the work, including the last few miles of tunnel, and the facility at the moon’s rocky heart,

could be credited to the Syndicate’s engineers. Men and women who had turned against the

Confederacy with disastrous results. Thousands of lives had been lost, the Confederacy had been

weakened and forced to fight the Thrakies. A sad affair indeed.

Booly’s thoughts were interrupted as something exploded, an enemy scout ship flashed by, and the

assault boat veered to port. The pilot swore, brought his boxy little vessel back on course, and

apologized over the intercom. “Sorry about that, folks . . . the port engine is going to need some

maintenance, but the starboard unit is fine. Lieutenant Chang and I hope you enjoyed your flight—and

hope you have lots of fun on Floater. Check your harness. We’re two minutes out.”

Lights streaked past to the left and right as the pilot fired his retros, and the assault boat started to slow.

Unlike the station on Floater’s surface, where argrav generators provided something like Earth-normal

gravity, conditions within the harbor approached zero gee. But there was some gravity, something both

pilots and computers needed to compensate for, and that meant things could go wrong. Booly saw an

assault boat, its bow crushed, tumble past.

Then, as the external blur resolved itself into a rock wall, the A-12 coasted out into an enormous cavern.

In spite of the fact that the concepts of “up” and “down” didn’t mean much within the confines of the

globular “harbor,” Booly found it useful to assign such values in order to orient himself.

The legionnaire said, “Map, Floater,” and watched the HUD morph into a line diagram of what

intelligence believed the layout to look like. The map shivered as real-time supplementary input was

entered by pathfinders included in the first wave of troops.

Now, as Booly awaited permission to release his harness, the HUD displayed a macro view that included

the outline of the moon itself, the limpetlike habitat that clung to the service, tubes that dropped straight

down into the moon’s core, and the outlines of the harbor itself.

Then, morphing to a tighter perspective, the officer saw that the surface tubes terminated on what he

thought of as the “left” side of the inverted U, while shelflike landing platforms projected out from the

center wall, and three enormous berths occupied the space to the “right.” All of them were empty. Silent

confirmation of what Booly already knew. The battle cruisers had escaped.

There were other features, many of which could be seen through the viewscreen. A globular traffic

control center floated at the harbor’s epicenter, wrecked assault boats drifted like flotsam on a bay, and

space-armored bodies pinwheeled through open space while an enormous reader board flashed the

same unintentional epitaph over and over. “Remember . . . security first.”

Thanks to the A-12’s high-priority VIP status, the assault boat’s pilot was able to put his vessel

alongside the “upper” landing stage without entering the long queue. Booly felt a distinct bump, followed

by a second bump, and heard the pilot make his announcement. “All right, folks, most of the docking

area has been secured, but watch for snipers. There’s a severe shortage of gravity out there, so be sure

to ‘look and hook.’ The harbormaster and her team have enough to do without chasing floaters all day.”

Booly released his harness, felt his suit start to rise, and grabbed a handhold. Then, turning toward the

stern, he followed his bodyguards back toward the port hatch. Because the marines wore space armor,

and had an ongoing need to deass their transportation as quickly as possible, the assault craft were not

equipped with locks. That made it easy for the general and his staff to push-pull themselves through the

open doors.

Though not as comfortable in space, Booly’s Naa bodyguards were naturally athletic and managed to

look reasonably competent as they swam out through the hatch and found ways to anchor their feet and

themselves in place.

Like them, Booly had been raised on Algeron, a planet with mountains so high that they would dwarf Mt.

Everest. But, the fact that Algeron’s equator was 27 percent larger than Earth’s, combined with the fact

that the planet’s polar diameter was 32 percent smaller than Terra’s, meant the equator was nearly twice

the diameter of the poles. The massive Towers of Algeron weighed only half what they would on Earth.

Facts Booly learned during a childhood when nearly all of his Naa playmates could run faster, jump

higher, and generally outperform him in every way. So, given their warlike natures, and his respect for

them, who better to include in his bodyguard?

The thought caused Booly to smile, an expression the officer waiting to greet him thought unusual given

the circumstances, and would tell his friends about later on. “There we were, still taking the occasional

round from snipers, when the general blows himself off his boat, grabs a monkey bar, and asks how the

kids are. The guy’s smiling! Can you beat that?”

Booly listened to the major’s reply, slapped him on a well-armored shoulder, and said, “Glad to hear it! I

don’t have any children of my own, but the wife wants some. Just a matter of time I suppose . . . So, it

appears that the Ibutho and the Guerrero both got away. How’s it going otherwise?”

The marine major, an officer named Koski, delivered a concise sitrep. Initial resistance had decreased

rather dramatically as the Syndicate’s officer corps piled into ships and took off. Now, with hundreds of

prisoners in the bag, the marines were dealing with a mere handful of holdouts. Within an hour, maybe

less, the opposition would be neutralized. It was great news, fabulous news, except that the real

objectives were still on the loose.

Booly nodded. “Thanks, Major. You and your troops did one helluva job. I’ll tell the admiral that when I

return. In the meantime, knowing how generals tend to get in the way, I promise to maintain a low profile.

I would like to take a look at their control center, however—assuming that’s convenient.”

Koski nodded. “No problem, sir. Gunnery Sergeant Benton! Take the general topside, show him the

control center, and tell our people not to shoot him.”

Benton grinned through his visor. “Sir, yes sir! Follow me, General and I’ll take you up.”

The noncom used steering jets to guide his suit away from the harbor and in toward a long bank of lift

tubes. As Booly followed he noticed the scorch mark on the marine’s left shoulder. Not the sort of burn

that a hand weapon would cause, but a deep gash indicative of something heavier, like a crew-operated

weapon. A clear indication that some of the bad guys had come damned close to bagging a jarhead.

If Benton knew how close he had come to death, there was no sign of it in his cheerful demeanor. “The

argrav generators are out of service, along with lift grips, but the tubes are clear. Just dive inside, aim for

the top, and fire your jets.”

The marine led the way. As Booly entered the vertical passageway he noticed that there were handholds,

or “lift grips,” all linked to a continuous chain. Now, motionless as a result of battle damage, they

functioned like markers.

The officer, closely followed by four bodyguards, propelled himself upward, fired his retros at what he

judged to be the right moment, felt the suit slow, brought his boots up over his head, and used his feet to

bounce himself off a wall. Then, gliding free of the tube, he gave thanks for the miraculously clean exit.

Benton yelled, “Attention on deck!” and half a dozen marines, all anchored via foot rails, came to

attention.

Booly nodded, said, “As you were,” and followed Benton into a passageway. The visitors used suit jets

to propel themselves down the hall, through a blown lock, and into the C&C. The screens were on, the

facility’s computer continued to deliver information that no one cared to listen to, and all manner of debris

drifted through the room. A hat nodded agreeably, coffee droplets orbited around their mug, and a stylus

turned cartwheels in front of an air vent.

The place was deserted, or that’s the way it seemed, until Booly rounded the command platform and

caught sight of the station’s duty officer. For some inexplicable reason the mutineer wore no space

armor, and the sudden loss of pressurization had practically ripped him apart. He was smiling though, as

if in response to a private joke, and wore a tag which read FRANK MOY.

Booly winced, wondered what was so funny, and continued his tour.

PLANET HIVE, THE CONFEDERACY OF SENTIENT BEINGS

During his travels throughout the Confederacy, Senator Alway Orno had seen many planets but none

more beautiful than Hive. Now, as the pilot prepared to dock with one of twenty-four heavily armed

space stations that orbited the Ramanthian home world, Orno took a moment to gaze out through the

viewport.

Thanks to the special contact lenses, which the representative routinely wore off-planet, the multiple

images produced by his compound eyes came together into a single picture. The planet, for which Orno

had sacrificed so much, seemed to hang in space. The north pole, the only one that was visible, was so

white it seemed to glow. Lower down, below the cold, inhospitable, subarctic regions, the land appeared

to be brown. That was deceptive however since the diplomat had walked those gently rolling plains, had

gazed on seemingly endless fields of grain, and listened to the rhythmic grunting sound that the herds of

domesticated animals made.

South of there, spanning the planet like a thick green belt, lay the equatorial jungle. An important source

of oxygen and the place from which his people had risen to sentience and still regarded with reverence.

Yes, he concluded, here is a treasure worth defending.

The view changed suddenly as the ship skimmed along the station’s sunward flank. Built to defend the

Ramanthian home world against the possibility of Hudathan attack, the massive platform bristled with

energy projectors, missile launchers, heat deflectors, landing platforms, antenna arrays, and all the other

paraphernalia required to defend the planet below. The look of the structure, the psychological heft of it,

was sufficient to make the diplomat feel proud.

The ship slowed, banked to the right, and entered one of the cross-station passageways reserved for

passenger traffic. Orno felt a bump as the ship touched down, a second bump as the lock-to-lock

contact was established, and a subtle change as the space station’s argrav generators overrode those on

board the spaceship. A tone signaled the fact that it was safe to stand and move around.

The diplomat touched a control, waited for the saddle-style seat to lower itself out of the way, and turned

to depart. Confident that his luggage would be dealt with and that someone would be there to meet him,

the senator left through the lock. A low-ranking functionary bowed, escorted Orno into the deceptively

titled Detox Center, and promptly disappeared. Though far from pleasant, no one was allowed to bypass

the ensuing process, no matter how senior they might be.

As with most of the Confederacy’s many races, the Ramanthians wanted to make sure that no alien

microbes or other organisms made it to the surface of their home world. But the detox centers on the four

stations to which off-worlders had access were intended to protect against much more than that.

First it was necessary to ensure that Orno was who he said he was rather than a cleverly engineered

cyborg, a surgically altered traitor, or a nano-generated construct.

Then there was the need to cleanse the diplomat of artificial contaminants, including robots smaller than

the dot on an “i,” bioengineered spores that could be tracked given the right equipment, and tiny

biometric devices that might have been introduced into his food or drink.

Not a pleasant process, but necessary if the race hoped to not only maintain the sanctity of their most

important world, but protect the secrets hidden there. All 5 billion of them, since that was the number of

eggs scheduled to hatch during the next year—forcing the Ramanthians to make massive preparations lest

Hive be overrun by the very race it had nurtured.

That’s why Orno dropped his robes and allowed himself to be herded past three banks of highly

sophisticated sensors, marched into then out of two chemical baths, and swabbed for DNA. After that

his retinas were scanned, his voice was sampled, and the whorls on his chitin were compared to those

already on file.

Then, certain that the diplomat was who he claimed to be, and amazed by the total number of

intelligence-gathering mechanisms they had either destroyed or removed from his person, the technicians

allowed the senator to dress and enter the station proper. Unlike the so-called commercial platforms, on

which off-worlders were allowed to buy and sell goods, Orbital Station-12 was “race restricted,”

meaning that no one but a Ramanthian could board or conduct business on it.

That being the case, Orno was not only spared the often objectionable sights, sounds, and smells

associated with alien races, but took advantage of the opportunity to exercise his priority status and claim

a seat on the next shuttle.

The crowd included a significant number of commercial functionaries, but there were warriors, too, off

duty or on their way to another assignment. The very sight of them, and his home through the viewport

beyond, was sufficient to trigger feelings of sorrow.

Like all Ramanthians, the diplomat was part of a three-person unit which was chemically bonded prior to

birth. Each grouping included a functionary such as he, a warrior, and a female who required both males

to fertilize her eggs.

More than that, the adults needed each other in order to achieve vis, or balance, lest they become

emotionally unstable. But now, ever since the War Orno’s death on the surface of Arballa, there could be

no vis, a fact that ate at him like the drops of acid used to recondition criminals.

Making the situation even worse was the knowledge that it was his scheming, his manipulations, that led

to the duel in which the War Orno was killed. But given the fact that there was no way to bring the War

Orno back, the diplomat tried to suppress such thoughts in the hope that time would heal what nothing

else could.

The shuttle departed on time, bucked its way down through the upper layers of Hive’s atmosphere, and

leveled out over the gently rolling plains. Here, clearly visible through the side ports, was the beauty Orno

had only imagined up in space.

Thanks to the common vision embraced by three successive queens, not to mention the aesthetic natural

to the Ramanthian race, a great deal of thought had gone into the way the surface appeared.

Unlike worlds like Earth, where undisciplined humans had allowed scabrous cities to spread across much

of the planet’s surface, Hive was a place of perfection. In fact, were it not for rivers that looked like

canals, fruit trees that stood in uniform ranks, and crops that grew in perfect circles, Hive looked largely

untouched.

That was because the cities in which Ramanthians lived, the power plants upon which they relied, and the

factories that produced their goods were all underground.

First, because underground living came naturally to the insectoid race, second because it allowed them to

optimize the use of their arable land, and third because an underground culture is less vulnerable to attack

than one that dwells on the surface. An important consideration in an age of faster-than-light (FTL) travel.

So, while the beauty visible through the viewport might have been by way of an unintended consequence,

it was a source of considerable pride, and still another reason for living below Hive’s surface.

The shuttle swept in over what appeared to be a gently rounded hill, dropped into a well-manicured

park, and was immediately lowered into the ground.

In spite of the quick rate of descent the trip still lasted for the better part of ten standard minutes. Finally,

after a gentle bump signaled the end of the ride, Orno rose and made his way outside. The combination

train-air terminal was crowded but not oppressively so. Because there was no need for windows or

doors, public structures were open on all sides. Fractal art graced what few walls there were, green

plants grew in lavishly decorated pots, and the air was warm and balmy.

The diplomat followed a group of warriors across the tiled floor and out into the sunlight which

Ramanthian engineers had funneled down from the surface. Galleries rose to all sides and were generally

accessed via ramps, although the younger members of the race still had the ability to fly, and could flap

from one building to the next.

The city was called The Place Where The Queen Dwells, and as such ranked as one of the most

important habitats on the planet. Orno was not only proud to live there, but to occupy quarters adjacent

to the eggery, from which the Queen mother continued to rule.

Now, before he could go home for a much-delayed reunion with the Egg Orno, the diplomat had to

make the requisite courtesy call, especially in light of the fact that the Queen had almost certainly been

informed of his arrival and would take offense were he to go elsewhere first.

There were no private vehicles within Ramanthian cities, a policy that not only served to conserve the

space that would otherwise be dedicated to driving, repairing, and storing them, but reduced air pollution.

Something that holds special interest for any race that lives below ground.

As befitted Orno’s rank, a government ground car waited at the curb. The politician approached the rear

of the vehicle, waited for the hatch to hiss up out of the way, and slid onto one of two saddle-style seats.

The driver waited for Orno to settle in, turned the handlebar-mounted throttle, and merged with traffic.

There was no need for the politician to provide a destination since the driver already knew where he was

going.

The car swept along busy arterials, through an open-air market, and under a heavily reinforced arch.

Orno knew that above the arch, ready to fall, was a thick blastproof door. The Queen, not to mention

the billions of eggs stored in the climate-controlled vaults located directly below her, lived within a

containment so strong that it could withstand a direct hit from a subsurface torpedo.

The vehicle was forced to stop on two different occasions so that guards could scan the driver, the

passenger, and the ground car before it was allowed to proceed through the royal gardens, along a gently

curving ramp, and up to the eggery itself.

The carvings that decorated the facade were said to be more than three thousand Hive years old. When

viewed from right to left, and without benefit of contact lenses, the panels told the story of the first egg,

the first hatching, and the glory to come. A future that Orno would not live long enough to see but for the

fulfillment of which he bore a great deal of responsibility.

The car eased to a stop, an entire squad of heavily armed warriors crashed to attention, and Orno

backed out of his seat. Then, his heart pounding, the diplomat entered the royal residence.

The Queen, her huge, grossly distended body supported by the same birthing cradle that her mother’s

mother had used during the last tricentennial birthing, waited for her visitor to appear.

Her feelings toward Orno were decidedly mixed. Though fallible, and overly given to scheming, the

diplomatic functionary was dedicated to betterment of his race. A quality the Queen valued so highly that

she had seen fit to ignore the manner in which some of his most recent schemes had failed.

Now, as Orno returned from time spent with the Confederacy’s Senate, what sort of news did he bear?

The fact that she was trapped, unable to move, was a constant source of frustration. No more than a

year in the past, she’d been blessed with a normal body and lived a normal life. Well, not exactly normal,

since members of royalty do have certain privileges, but relatively free. Freedom she made use of to

travel off-planet, experience everything that she could, and prepare for the obligation ahead.

Now it was upon her, and the Queen’s body, which everyone treated like some sort of factory, had

become her prison. Yes, there were times, more and more of late, when the Queen wished she could

have been a common everyday female with only three eggs to produce and a lifetime in which to enjoy

the results.

But for reasons that only the gods of evolution could explain, her race had been gifted with a second

means of reproduction, a birthing so huge that earlier hatchings sometimes led to war and famine.

Meaningless where nature was concerned, so long as the race survived, but cruel and degrading for those

who suffered through it.

William C. Dietz - For More Than Glory

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