Dan paced back and forth, hands on his hips as he and Marcus waited for Blake Halls to meet them. It had been about thirty minutes already and Dan was starting to feel anxious.

At least there was a breeze and some damned shade! The roof was a makeshift material, probably designed to defuse direct sunlight. It was full of holes. Streams of light shot through to the pavement, moving about as the wind rocked the overhangings. Rork’s plants were everywhere, set in neat rows. There had to be a few thousand up here.

“The man sure is serious about his terraforming project,” Marcus said.

Dan didn’t respond. He didn’t care about Acheron or Rork’s crazy plans. He just wanted to rescue Diplomat Kolivar and get the hell out. He still couldn’t believe Ambassador Silverman was in on all this. In fact, it sounded like he was the mastermind. Rork was just his bulldog, whether or not the warlord knew it. Dan shook his head. Crazy.

The door to the roof screeched open. Dan turned around in a whirlwind, ready for a fight. He had picked up an old pipe he’d found out here, but it was only Blake. In his left hand was a black bag. “Is that it?”

Blake nodded, then turned around to close the door. “We need to be quick. Rork knows I have the device.”

“And he just let you come up here?” Marcus asked.

“I told him Silverman wanted to get a message off planet,” Blake said, wiping his forehead. “He believed me, but it won’t be long before he figures out that I was lying.” He pulled the IC unit out of the bag and turned it on. Then he handed the device to Dan.

Dan’s heart started to race as he inputted the right frequency to contact Cerberus Station. “Cerberus Station, this is Dan Parsen, Alliance military, do you copy?”

A voice came through. “This is Cerberus Station. We read you loud and clear. How can we be of assistance?”

“I need you to contact your supervisor and tell him to tell Colonel Taver that Dan Parsen is on the line and needs to speak with him. This is urgent, so please, be quick about it.”

“Will do. Please hold.”

Dan glanced around, hoping a bunch of Iron Kin clan members weren’t about to storm through the door.

After a few minutes the IC unit chimed and Colonel Taver came on the line. “Taver here. Dan is that you?”

“It’s me,” Dan said in a rush. “We found Kolivar and we’re ready for those assault and extraction teams, sir!” Then he added, “Where the hell have you been? Losing contact nearly got me killed!”

“Somebody aboard the station hacked our network. Haven’t found the culprit yet, but we’re still looking. Whoever he was, he relayed the instructions through about a million subsidiary consoles.”

“Great…”

“How are you getting this message to the station?”

“A little help from a local,” Dan said. “His name is Blake Halls.”

“Well...make sure he hitches a ride on the evacuation shuttles,” Taver said. “I’m sure he’ll be very interested in a pardon agreement when he gets back.” The old man changed tracks, got grumpy. “What the hell, Dan! Did you say you found the Retuailian Diplomat?”

“Yes, sir. She’s in the base but we don’t have her exact whereabouts.”

“What about Ambassador Silverman?”

“He’s dirty, sir—in league with a local warlord named Rork.” He pulled out the audio recording tech from his pocket and turned to Blake. “How the hell do I get this thing to read and transmit what’s on this?” He shook the little ball.

“Dirty?” Taver sounded incredulous. “What the hell are you talking about, Parsen? Did you knock your head on something while you were down there?”

Dan handed the IC unit to Blake so the man could do his work.

“I was able to record a conversation between myself and Shane Threscher—who’s evidentially Silverman’s man. He admitted to everything, sir. Just wait. We’re going to transmit the recording to you.”

Blake fiddled with the IC unit for a couple more seconds, then nodded to Dan. “It’s transmitting.”

“Are you getting that, Sir?”

“Hold on, dammit! I’m trying to listen.” After a few more minutes Taver spoke again. “Good, god! I can’t believe it, Dan.”

“I told you Shane was dirty, sir!”

“You sure did,” Taver said. “Still, it’s Threscher’s word. He could have just been screwing with you about Silverman. We can talk more about that when you get back, but for now—“

“Hey,” a female voice interrupted. It sounded like Yuen. “You recorded that convo with my tech didn’t you, Dan?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

“I know my toys,” She said. “Hey, Dan, want to go out when you get back?”

The question took him off guard. “Uh... If I make it out of here alive, that sounds great.”

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“Enough!” Taver barked. “What does this look like, a dating hotline?”

Dan laughed.

“See you soon, Soldier,” Yeun said.

Dan thought he heard Taver mutter something about “damn kids, then he said, “All right. Any idea how to best assault this base?”

“Wouldn’t be hard to get a few hundred men to repel down straight into the base, sir. It’s actually an old mining shaft. Most of the military is out in the city, so the marines can keep them from breeching the base—use it against them.”

“I’m looking at the shaft right now on the sat feed,” Taver said. “Your plan sounds good.”

“One other concern, sir. Rork has some surface to orbit missiles and the ability to use them.”

“You mean those old rust buckets are in working condition?”

“We—” Dan said, glancing at Blake. “—we’re not sure, just be careful.”

“Will do,” Taver said. “Now just hold tight. The marines are going to be swarming in within the hour.”

“Can’t wait, sir.”

Taver grunted. “I bet.”

The IC unit chimed off.

“Now what?” Marcus asked. Do we just wait up here for rescue?”

Dan wasn’t going to sit around and “get rescued.” He’d done his job, but he was Alliance military and he would go above and beyond. Besides, he was probably looking at promotion if this went well. “To hell with that. Blake, take us to Kolivar’s quarters.”

Blake nodded.

“Well this sounds like it’s gonna be fun,” Marcus said, a stupid-looking grin on his face.

* * *

Rork sat in his underground nursery taking care of his trees. The Retuailian water fruit tree he was pruning would be ready to plant outside below shade after the new shoots grew and became strong.

He snipped another branch. These ones were already quite strong, but Rork wanted the trees he was going to plant outside for the very first time to have many branches. More branches meant more leaves and flower buds for fruit production. It was advantageous to grow these trees here, but he would have to do it right. They were used to growing on Retu’alae, not Acheron.

Rork smiled, thinking of the fruit his dozens of trees would produce. One water fruit melon could hold upwards of one gallon of water. He imagined having thousands of these trees in Life City. The trouble was getting them to grow in the desert. These small trees were an underbrush plant on Retu’alae, not designed to survive in direct sunlight. And they needed a lot of water.

Rork glanced around his nursery. He had a few thousand plants and trees growing in here that he wanted to grow outside. Preparing them for a climate change though, that was the big problem.

Silverman had scoffed when Rork had asked the man to bring him seeds in those drops. He didn’t understand what Rork was trying to do. What he would do. Acheron would one day be a lush planet. People would travel here for business and vacation time.

His lips turned up in a partial smile. One day, he thought. One day...

He frowned, thought he heard gunfire. He got up from his stool and made his way to the window. His eyes widened. “No...”

He couldn’t believe it. The Alliance wasn’t supposed to be here. They didn’t even know where Kolivar was!

As Rork watched, dozens of Alliance fighters flew in, attacking anything they thought posed a threat. He jerked in surprise when an explosion hit near the main complex and a flash of light lit the dusky sky.

He snarled.

And then a dozen drop ships appeared and Alliance soldiers were lowered onto the ground. Rork’s soldiers fought back. He had the numbers, but not the training or the weapons. Only his personal bodyguards had the advanced weaponry Silverman had dropped him.

Red lights started to flash and a loud buzz echoed throughout the station again and again. The emergency alarms.

Rork screamed in anger and ran, making his way to the command room. Maybe he would be able to blast some of these ships out of the sky.

* * *

Rork entered his command room. A flash of anger overtook him when he saw the tech men still installing the guidance system. “How much longer?”

One of the techs turned around. He was a skinny little man with wide eyes. “At least another few hours, sir.” His hands were shaking.

“We don’t have that time!”

The small man didn’t seem to know what to say, but Rork ignored him, moved to the station intercoms switchboard and flipped the station wide intercoms. “All warriors, this is your leader. Life City is under attack by Alliance military. Repel borders!”

Rork moved to the camera system on the left wall. “What is happening?”

The room was almost always left dark to conserve valuable power, but now that they were under attack the command room operatives were here, doing their jobs. Where was Blake Halls? he wondered. The man was supposed to meet Rork here in the event of an attack.

“Sir, we have hundreds of Alliance soldiers in Life City—they’re attacking us from all sides!”

Rork narrowed his eyes. “Show me the pit.”

The tech flicked some switches and the cameras blinked to reveal several areas of the pit. At the bottom were a few teams of Alliance soldiers garbed all in black and guarding a three-sixty degree area.

Another camera at the top of the shaft showed two drop ships lowering men on pulley systems. Rork snarled, slammed his hand against the intercom. “All warriors, make your way to the shaft. We’re under attack! Fight!”

The shaft was supposed to be impenetrable, but with hundreds of Alliance soldiers dropping in, Rork wasn’t sure his men would be able to repel them.

He turned back to the camera tech, his face feeling hot. He slammed his fist down on the console and the man jumped. “Show me the entries into the shaft from ground level!”

Rork bared his teeth when he saw. Each of the three entries into the pit from ground level were being guarded by Alliance soldiers.

None of Rork’s soldiers were getting inside the shaft now, not with that many Alliance soldiers guarding the entries.

“Sir?” The camera tech said. “Is the shaft lost?”

Rork snarled at the man and he recoiled slightly. Then Rork backhanded the weakling. The tech yelped, covering his face with his hands.

It was over. The base was stormed. Rork had a few hundred warriors inside the shaft, but they weren’t going to defeat the Alliance soldiers.

The Alliance had just destroyed his only chance for Acheron. But how did they know to come now?

Blake Halls...

He had the IC unit. He said he was taking it to Silverman.

Rork had only one option now. Escape. He had a fully working vessel in the station’s shuttle bay. But he wouldn’t just run. He was going to kill as many of these Alliance soldiers as he possibly could.

He moved up to the techs who were working frantically to get the guidance system installed. “Move.”

The two men backed away and Rork picked up the guidance system, snapping and tearing circuitry as he lifted the device over his head.

He slammed the guidance system onto the cement floor and it cracked and flickered with sparks.

The two techs shied away from him in fear. But he turned to the two men. “Activate the missiles.”

The two techs looked at Rork in horror. “But sir,” one of them said. “Without the guidance system we won’t be able to direct the missiles to Cerberus Station—and we can’t destroy those Alliance assault ships either.

No, he couldn’t. But he could detonate the missiles. “That’s not what I want you to do. I want to program the missiles on a timer to detonate in their silos.”

The two men’s horror increased and their eyes widened. “All twenty two missiles?”

“All twenty two.”

The techs just stared at him like rats caught in a trap.

“Do it!”

The two techs turned to the console, obeying his commands. “How long of a timer do you want, sir?”

Rork smiled, imagining the aftermath. Diplomat Kolivar and Ambassador Silverman, both killed, along with hundreds of Alliance soldiers and millions of credits in gear and hardware. “Set it for ten minutes.”