Harry almost stopped dead. It was his first time off Earth. This could be his last time.

He didn’t have time to enjoy it.

First, his life support was on a timer. He needed to get done with his job and get back to Earth before the life support ran out.

The second is that his bomb was on a timer. He needed to get rid of it before it exploded and took him with it.

His bees went to work around him. That was one of their primary duties. And they were in a target rich environment. Some of the smaller xenos blew up with one shot. Some of the bigger ones had to be sliced apart in precious seconds.

Harry shoved on the cart. The surface was rough and he wanted it further away from the gate. He didn’t need anything to spray back to Earth.

“The spray has stopped hissing,” said Nick. “I think we need to go, Harry.”

Harry agreed with that. Cold had rushed in. He could feel his skin start to prickle. He need to get back to Earth before he froze. He should have known he would go somewhere colder than Hel.

He started choking. He realized he didn’t have any air either. He called up a oxygen mask and bottle and strapped them on as he ran for the gate. He waved for his bees to fall back.

They flew around the gate, strafing to clear the xenos away, and followed him back home. The last one paused to keep blasting to stall the enemy. It backed over the line.

A blast blew through the gate, pushing everything in front of it toward the smashed apart door. Harry had rolled into a stall just before the wave of sound and low air pressure made the room look like a tornado had decided to try to kill him.

The gate snapped shut instantly.

“What was that, Harry?,” asked Nick. He sounded surprised his contractor had survived.

“I am so cold,” said Harry. “Where was I?”

“Somewhere in space,” said Nick. “You just need to take few moments to thaw out. The collapsing air bubble saved you from freezing solid. That’s something I need to make a note on. I have never seen life support used like that before.”

“What is this wetness?,” said Harry. “Did I break a blood vessel?”

“The toilets burst,” said Nick. “You’re lying in toilet water.”

“That’s an excellent way to end the day,” said Harry. He assessed his body as well as he could. He had lost the helmet somewhere. He got to his feet and looked around. He still had xenos to kill, and a friend to look out for in the dangerous situation they were in.

He found the helmet after a few moments of looking around. He should have installed a light on his vest. He picked it up. He looked around some more. He couldn’t find his rifle.

“Have you seen my rifle?,” he asked.

“You dropped it on the other side of the gate,” said Nick. “I’m getting radio messages from the police.”

“Let them know the gate is closed and the only xenos we have to deal with are on the bottom floor,” said Harry. “It would be too much to ask for John to have killed all of them, but he might have.”

“The drones downstairs are reporting no escapes,” said Nick. “So they are dead, or in here with us.”

“That’s not something I want to hear right now,” said Harry. He flexed his hands to get the feeling back. “We’re going to have search and destroy to clear the building.”

The bees took off first. They checked the rooms on the top floor to make sure they were empty before dividing at the two staircases at either end of the hall. They went down with an angry buzzing.

Harry followed at a slower pace, helmet in hand. He swiped at the wet spots on his clothes. John was going to have something say about this.

He decided to go down the nearest stairwell. He still had to check on the other gate before he cleared the building. He put the wet helmet on his head, and summoned another rifle.

“I already filed for a repair crew to fix any damage to John’s house and the school,” said Nick. “That’s covered.”

“Thanks,” said Harry. “That will save me some problems down the line.”

“Do you want to talk about what you just did?,” said Nick.

“Nope,” said Harry. He paused at the landing to the second floor. He didn’t see anything with the scanner. Maybe none of the xenos had retreated upstairs.

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“All right,” said Nick. “But you’re going to have to file reports.”

“Reports are for the weak,” said Harry. He checked the rooms before moving

down to where the gate should be.

“Planetary defense is a huge bureaucracy,” said Nick. “And the blood of a

bureaucracy is paperwork, savvy?”

“You can have your paperwork over my dead body,” said Harry. He peeked inside the classroom where the other gate should be.

“If I have to mind rip you, I will,” said Nick. “You are not the first obnoxious

contractor I have dealt with. You’re not even the most obnoxious I deal with now. I have no problems turning you into a vegetable, taking what I want, and putting you back together. Do we have an understanding? Do you savvy the brain I will be cooking?”

“Can you really do that?,” said Harry.

The gate had closed, taking half of the barrel of the sentry gun Harry had set up to hold the position with it. The wall was still in place. He decided to leave that until he had made sure the building was empty.

“It’s in the paperwork you signed,” said Nick. “In the event of dereliction of duty, such as not filling out the forms, the contractor can be stripped down to component parts and sold after an extraction of whatever value can be done.”

“I don’t believe that for a moment,” said Harry.

“Fool around and find out,” said Nick.

Harry shook his head. He started down to the bottom floor. Despite winding up wet, he had earned some massive points. His farming strategy seemed to be working.

His points were still rolling in. He wondered if anyone else had thought to send drones across the gate thresholds and use that to grab up what they could.

Obviously Nick didn’t know what his move had been. Otherwise he would say

something. He doubted it would be complimentary.

“John, it looks like the top two floors are clear,” said Harry into his radio. “The gates are gone.”

“Copy,” said John. “I still got movement on the bottom floor, toward the cafeteria. It looks like your bees are on the job in there. All I can see is a light show.”

“I’ll check it,” said Harry. “Nick says he is filing for repairs on your house. I don’t know when the crew will be there to handle it.”

“I’ll let Cat know in the morning,” said John. “How is he at grading papers?”

“Poor,” said Nick.

“Excellent,” said Harry. “I don’t know how to get him to do it since he doesn’t seem to have a body in the real world.”

“Too bad,” said John. “The mana scanner went blank.”

“The bees probably killed the last xeno in the cafeteria,” said Harry. “I still have to sweep the building, then I need to get some more clothes.”

“What happened to my clothes?,” asked John.

“The bathroom exploded and they are wet and covered with blood,” said Harry. “You know how that goes.”

“I know you aren’t allowed to wear my clothes any more,” said John. “You were supposed to be careful with them, treat them better than your kids.”

“I did treat them better than my kids,” said Harry. “Because I don’t have kids for a reason.”

“Because you can’t help but be negligent,” said John.

“No,” said Harry. “I hate kids.”

“Kids will change your life,” said John.

“You don’t have any kids,” said Harry.

“We just haven’t been lucky,” said John. “We’ve been trying.”

“Do you want me to see if I can find something for you?,” said Harry. “I’m sure there is something in the catalogues that will help you out.”

“I’ll talk to Cat about it,” said John. “Maybe she’ll go for it, maybe she won’t.”

“That’s fine,” said Harry. He paused as his bees gathered around him. He had

searched most of the bottom floor while he had been talking. He had made the cafeteria the last place he needed to search. He frowned at the destroyed door.

“These jokers can cross interstellar space with dimensional gates, but they can’t use a door?,” said Harry. “What is up with that?”

“We think the foot soldiers aren’t that bright,” said Nick. “No one has dealt with a mastermind yet. We don’t know if there is a mastermind.”

“Could be some kind of hive mind,” said Harry. “Could be these are organic drones sent out to do the dirty work.”

“We had contractors capture some of them,” said Nick. “We couldn’t figure out how they worked.”

“That seems strange,” said Harry. He walked in the cafeteria. He checked under the tables which had been knocked out of line. Nothing lurked behind the soda machines. He paused at checking the kitchen. His bees milled around and didn’t spot anything.

“If anything is hiding, they have to be in the walk-in,” said Harry. “None of the exit doors have been knocked down.”

He hopped the counter and made sure of the surrounding area before he went to the walk-in. It still had the lock thrown on it. He pulled on the handle. The door wouldn’t open.

“So it looks like we killed them all,” said Harry. “John, it looks like we killed them all.”

“Copy,” said John. “SWAT is here. They want to know why I’m here.”

“Tell them you’re my driver,” said Harry. “The building is clear unless one of these guys figured out a way to hide from the mana scanner. It’ll have to be watched, I guess.”

“Copy,” said John. He said some things that the mike didn’t catch. “They are going in, entering the main doors.”

Harry went to the light switches and turned them on. He might as well let them know where he was. If a xeno showed up, that was okay too.

“Why the two schools?,” asked Harry.

“I don’t know,” said Nick. “We don’t know how any of their side works. Without

facts, we don’t know why they create gates where they do.”

“The end points are in different locations also,” said Harry. “I noticed when I put the homing beacons down.”

“So the gates were created in different places, but two of them wound up on different floors in the same building,” said Nick. “I have never heard of anything like that.”

“Maybe they targeted something here in the building,” said Harry. “I don’t know what.”

Armored men peered through the door and paused at Harry standing by the wall. He waved at them. His bees turned glowing sparks to point at the policemen.

“How’s it going?,” asked Harry. He whistled and the bees formed up around him. “I think the building is clear. I have to go up and finish destroying some wrecked equipment, and then head out. I’ll file a report tomorrow and give over any feeds I have to. Right now, I’m tired, soaking wet, need another beer, and want to put my feet up and watch my goldfish swim around. If you run into a xeno I missed, I will come back and kill it for you.”

“That’s comforting,” said the guy in charge. “I never saw them stick inside a building before.”

“There were two gates,” said Harry. “I don’t know why. They might have been trying to guard them for deployment.”

“Two incursions?,” asked the officer.

“I don’t think anything got out of the building,” said Harry. “I have to go. Tomorrow, I have to look at the escapees from the incursion from yesterday.”