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“Ready.”

  The mother of all beams shattered the mobile platforms before they could spit out another one of their cluster abominations. The other three were busy engaging Alpha Squadron which bought Rosco enough time to launch his heavy armor piercing Mk-II Titan torpedoes. The bastards came with terrible targeting, but it didn’t matter since the mobile platforms only moved at eighty-five km/h. But as the name of the large missiles implied, the Titan oozed serious firepower against stationary targets. Expensive, efficient, and simply epic.

  “Titans launched. Impact in T-minus three minutes, ten seconds,” said tactical.

  This is what winning looks like.

  Better than virtual reality, better than life itself.

  Rosco saw how his missiles blew the FLAK platforms into shrapnel shards. Too bad space never offered any explosions like the sim games of his youth. Well, as long as ICED kept score of his confirmed take-downs, screw the fireworks; ranking was all that mattered.

  M should be proud.

  Rosco addressed the comm officer. “Get Commander Wiktor on the line.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The middle-aged man’s coarse voice penetrated Rosco’s ear channels again. “Are you done playing hide and seek with your Hornets?”

  Whop this, Wiktor.

  “Primary mission goals accomplished, sir. FLAK platforms are down.”

  “About time,” the commander mumbled like an old man before an MRI treatment.

  My pleasure, Rosco added in his mind.

  On the big screen of his bridge, he saw the incoming bulky dropships guarded by a squadron of interceptors and corvettes of ICED. The armored troop transporters looked like flying cubes but could take serious damage before vaporizing into the void.

  Better to be efficient than pretty.

  Rosco updated his navigator. “Send out a probe. I want to make sure this perimeter stays free of surprises. Update the changes on the map.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A probe shot out the bay then blew back a few hundred kilometers until its own thrust kicked in. The robot vessel burst forward to the asteroid’s facility and scanned the area in a radius of a few hundred kilometers. The new scans synced to the 3D map on the tactical screen. No other mobile defense platform showed up on the new scans, apart from the remaining fighters that were still engaged with Alpha Squadron.

  Rosco had to admit—those suckers did a decent sector sweep. That stinking meat-boulder of a captain, Cristobale, actually knew how to lead his fools without killing half of them in the process. Pleasant to see that not all of the ICED command sucked colonial dick—apart from the commander puking through his intercom at that particular moment. “Captain Tellride, are you done shaking your balls?”

  The only thing Rosco was shaking up were the enemy’s defense lines. Nevertheless, he nodded and awaited a verbal beating…

  5

  “Then cover our goddamn flanks.”

  Rosco cringed.

  From Wiktor with wrath.

  More Sunblood Hornets and corvettes launched from the asteroid’s hangar bays. Probably their emergency backup as the primary defense lines had failed.

  Rosco kept his cool.

  “Sir, I thought your Gamma Squadron’s convoy was taking care of them.”

  “Don’t think, act.”

  Rosco ground his teeth. The crew of his bridge looked at him with mixed expressions. Navigation smiled, tactical looked concerned. Comm was busy supervising the channels, and engineering was obsessed with checking the ongoing status report.

  So what the hex, Commander Wiktor?

  How dare you lecture me in front of my people.

  I was doing everything according to the mission briefing.

  Every. Thing.

  Forget it.

  Rosco was adaptable. “Tactical, target the corvettes with the main LZR when it’s ready.”

  “Prime LZR needs thirty-two seconds of cool-down. Switch to torpedoes?”

  “Customized chaff, remember?”

  She gave herself an invisible face palm.

  When the capital laser cannon achieved an acceptable operational temperature, it fired again and took down the corvettes. The ICED fighters of Gamma Squadron took care of the remaining Hornets. The dropships could finally board the Burrn facility and unleash their infiltration mayhem. Rosco pictured a squad of badass commandos blasting through the facility’s tight corridors, holing mercs like practice puppets. Ground-pounding wasn’t his thing—he lacked the physical stature. Those giants carried enhanced muscle mass and adrenaline that allowed them to wage close quarters combat in zero gravity conditions. Captain Cristobale once called them 'gorillas with armor' which wasn’t politically correct, but spot-on. Buffed up Rosco Tellride looked like a bulimic dwarf next to a ground-pounder, but he didn’t mind. It was better to be the beast-master than being the beast himself.

  More power over his destiny.

  Rosco told navigation to choose an acceptable vector around the asteroid to stay within the optimal range of fire. He and his crew basically waited for the commando to kill the merc hostiles while looking out for potential prisoners and imprisoned civilians. The Sunbleeders liked taking hostages when dealing with the ICED.

  While circumnavigating the asteroid, he watched the 3D schematics of the illegal facility on the side-screen attached to his adaptable seat. The fat towers with extra hull-plating functioned as silo containers for the Burrn liquid. A million or more liters of a substance so dangerous it fried your brain and basically turned you into the lovechild of a zombie and a bi-polar sociopath. During his stint at the Martian Academy of Military Excellence (MAME), Rosco had witnessed revered colleagues in high positions falling victim to the drug. Its vicious promise? Burrn improved your concentration and physical performance in the short-term before sucking you dry and leaving a shadow of a meatbag behind.

  Pathetic, if you thought about it.

  Humans had colonized the main planets of the solar system but still sucked up to substance abuse.

  Two steps forward, one step back.

  Maybe today ICED could take a giant step forward by blasting the distillery to particles. Navigation updated Rosco on the commando troop’s process—they had left the facility and boarded their dropships then left the facility in convoy formation. But the climax that Rosco had anticipated eluded him.

  The distillery didn’t blow up.

  Maybe the dropships needed more safety distance to avoid the debris fallout from the explosion, but the longer Rosco waited, the more he became restless. Something was wrong.

  Comm spoke. “Commander Wiktor is calling.”

  “Put him through.”

  “Captain Tellride, slight change of plans. We’re retreating. All squadrons assemble at the new RV point. Encrypted coordinates will be sent ASAP.”

  “The distillery’s still in one piece, sir.”

  The commander already sounded peeved.

  “Not your concern. Fall back and return to the RV.”

  Months of planning and too many millions of colonial taxes spent to put a dagger through the Sunblood’s heart, and now they left the asteroid with the liquid of death still intact?

  Wasn’t right.

  Seriously.

  Navigation looked up at Rosco. “Captain?”

  “Hold on.”

  He scanned the schematics of the asteroid’s distillery, and cringed at the sight of the containers full of Burrn. Bottled-up death someone had to spill.

  Someone with a vision.

  Like him.

  Rosco Tellride made the decision that would change his life forever. “Tactical.”

  “Here.”

  “Target all four silo containers and launch the Titans.”

  6

  “Sir?”

  Rosco barked at her. “Are your ear channels offline?”

  “But the commander—“

  “Mission briefing said we were to take down the distillery to prevent further Burrn production.”

&
nbsp; He leveled up his volume. “I’m the highest-ranking officer on this ship, so do as I say. Target each tank with a Titan torpedo.”

  Tactical hesitated but launched the projectiles. Rosco leaned into his adaptable chair, breathed out the pressure, and watched the four green dots on his tactical screen approach the distillery. All the tanks detonated and released over a million liters of Burrn into the darkness. The liquid splashed into a thousand self-contained bubbles that dispersed into the void. Maybe the universe was getting high now.

  The comm officer on Rosco’s bridge seemed to suffer from an epileptic shock when she made her final announcement. “C-commander on the line.”

  Wiktor echoed through the intercom again and unleashed a thunderstorm of insults. With his onslaught of shouting, Rosco wondered whether the comm system should press charges for sound wave abuse. A gunshot to the ear sounded more pleasant than Commander Wiktor going full audio psycho. Rosco tuned out and told navigation to approach the coordinates that were just sent through the squadron’s encrypted intranet. He leaned into his adaptable seat and felt like sinking into a coffin. The crew darted quick glances at him ranging from 'I’m so sorry' to utter bewilderment and something in-between. Hex, Rosco didn’t need to be a psi-officer to see his near future. He already knew the final verdict.

  7

  The flight back home to ICED military space station Red Bastion had taken many sols but Rosco Tellride wished he’d never return at all. His battered cruiser chilled in the station’s orbital shipyard and enjoyed first-class repairs. Rosco wanted to swap places with it; instead, he ‘visited’ Commander Wiktor's office on the higher decks. Two security guards with rubber-pellet stuffed scatterguns followed him. Was that really necessary? Rosco had no desire to desert. A captain of his caliber didn’t flee when the going got tough, on neither the intergalactic front nor the personal battlefield.

  He reached the door where a small biometric scanner analyzed him from head to toe. An affirmative beep sounded. The door slid sideways and ushered Rosco into the feral world of the Wiktor. The old bastard with the white, short-trimmed hair and goatee sat on his throne and rubbed his hardened fingers against each other. He looked as if one liter of pure acid had burned through his gamut while corrosive dust farted from his giant nostrils. Rosco aimed straight for the desk reminiscent of a refurbished version of a shuttle rear. He saluted and expected the ‘At Ease’ order.

  Instead, the commander said, “What in the off-world were you thinking?”

  Military etiquette took a backseat.

  “Sir, our mission was to take down the distillery and prevent the Sunblood cartell from producing Burrn.”

  “No, your mission was to act as a secondary flank to assist Alpha Squadron in taking down the FLAK and the enemy fighters. Which you actually accomplished despite the time delay.”

  “But our mission brief—“

  “You ignored a direct command from a superior officer, Tellride. I knew there wasn’t much going on in that void between your ears, but I thought even you couldn’t be dumb enough to ignore a commander.”

  Dumb?

  Rosco ranked among the top of all flight simulations. Some of his peers called him the daredevil of VR. The commander knew about his high scores.

  “What did they teach you at MAME?” Wiktor said.

  “Tactics and strategy, sir.”

  “Should have taught you more about the command chain. And how to respect it.”

  Wiktor pushed back into his throne.

  “For the future, if your superior orders you to retreat, you don’t fire a Titan torpedo. Simple as that.”

  Commander Wiktor's old eyes narrowed. He seemed to age by the minute, or maybe frustration just turned him ugly.

  “Sometimes I believe you’ve never really left the VR capsule. Field missions have no reloadable save game. You screw up, you pay for it—forever. And although I believe in second chances, some failures are too big to glance over.”

  He paused and sharpened his lips. Wiktor seemed to enjoy this situation.

  “I’ve contacted High Command and the Council. They wholeheartedly agree with me. Don’t expect a parade for your services. Be glad we don’t throw you out the airlock.”

  His smile turned into an ugly grimace.

  Rosco felt the frustration bubbling up. His teeth ground so hard they were about to crush each other. His entire military career was supposed to be in front of him. He had just entered the second level. It couldn’t end on such a pathetic note. Rosco’s shaky voice battled the desperation taking over his body. “How about a temporary suspension, sir? I have an impeccable track record.”

  Commander Wiktor crossed his legs.

  “Correction—you had.”

  Rosco saw the end of the conversation and he didn’t like it. Every cell of his body wanted to explode like a supernova. He had done the right thing, saving millions of people while financially stabbing the most vicious of all orbital syndicates. And yet, with the commander throning in his chair and going protocol pathetic, Rosco knew he wasn’t going to sway anyone. The first rule of the ICED was not to break the chain of command.

  Ever.

  He had done exactly that.

  Rosco’s last words crumbled out like loose pellets. “Sir, can I see M one last time?”

  “No. That privilege has been revoked. You don’t deserve to see her.”

  M, the secret love of his life.

  Now gone forever, like a far-off memory. No, he couldn’t think like that. Defeating thoughts triggered depression. Rosco had to stay the captain of his emotions. He could still turn this conversation around.

  “Why are you still sitting in my office?” Wiktor said.

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Go to your quarters and gather your things. The documents are landing in your inbox as we speak. Be glad we’re settling for a General Discharge instead of an Inappropriate Conduct Discharge. You will find work with your current standing; although, I pity the fool who would hire you.”

  Every other word was a hit to Rosco’s crumbling ego. “Thanks for nothing, sir.”

  Wiktor waved him away and swapped attention to his displays. Before Rosco left the office, the commander said,

  “You got great tactical skills, kiddo, but in today’s age, social intelligence is just as important. You’ll never succeed if you can’t communicate with people, regardless of their ranks.”

  Wiktor started to sound like a frustrated MAME instructor who had battered his cadet for the umpteenth time. Rosco couldn’t leave like that, with his shoulders slumped and his voice squeaking. He raised his chest and answered with a deep voice. “I’m the best junior captain of my age group, sir. Incompetent peers receive minor punishment for screw-ups far worse. Please reconsider this decision.”

  Wiktor's eyes narrowed, which seemed to double his crow's feet.

  “Get the hell out.”

  8

  Rosco returned to his quarters and found Cristobale chilling in his cubed bed. The junior captain sucked on a straw cable connected to a bag of liquid sweets.

  “Hello, Burrn-breaker,” Cristobale said with a smile. “Please don’t torpedo my sugar slush.”

  “They discharged me.”

  “What?”

  “Wiktor just kicked me out of ICED.”

  Cristobale’s eyes widened and he seemed to struggle for the right words. “Man, don’t pull that shit on me.”

  “I’m not pulling anything.”

  In a fit of anger, Rosco grabbed a glow stand and flipped it around. “They can’t do this to me.”

  He kicked the mobile trash compiler through the quarters. It bounced off the walls and almost hit Cristobale. He hunkered down and flailed his arms. “Hey now.”

  Rosco punched the locker, ripped it open, and pulled out his belongings. He tossed them to the ground, stomped on each utensil, and then yanked the rods from his bed supply.

  Cristobale’s voice quivered. “Amigo, come down.”

 
; Rosco grabbed a mini-cargo crate and burst it open. He smashed its contents. Ripped the pouches apart and sliced through the boots with a laser-cutter, before smashing the device into sparkling pieces. Rosco threw an uppercut to the locker from the rear and kicked it two meters across the ground. He ripped off its door for good and threw it like a shield. The dented door ricocheted off the wall with a dull clonk sound. Rosco picked it up again and used the hull plate as a tool to smash every broken piece into finer fragments which he then kicked like sand pieces through the quarters.

  Cristobale sweat pearls and fled the zone of destruction. Rosco didn’t notice; he was too busy battering his body and the quarters along with it. Blood dribbled from his hand knuckles and flowed down his arms like a river of lava. Anger ate up the pain; Rosco didn’t care if every bone of his were pulverized into calcium dust. Two armored guards approached the entrance ten seconds later, their batons set on burning stun. “Calm down, buddy.”

  Rage flamed through Rosco’s veins as the two men approached him with careful steps. He already hated the way they branded him—the frustrated officer losing his shit. Someone in the ICED media department was going to spin a nice story around his breakdown, which would justify his discharge in front of the unknowing public.

  “I’m the best junior captain in my age category.”

  “Sure you are,” the left guard said with forced empathy.

  Rosco heard the hissing of their batons. A device to take down thugs and low-lifes, not a captain of his caliber. He did nothing wrong. This wasn’t fair.

  “Just because I’m young doesn’t mean I can’t handle a cruiser. I took down that production facility on purpose. I destroyed the Burrn. I mastered the mission!”

  The two guards spread out. One came from the left, the other flanked from the right. So much for peaceful conflict resolution; these brawlers were in for a beating.

  “Come with us and we'll sort this out,” said the left guard while shifting to an offensive combat stance.

  Rosco had no desire to fight these guys, but the anger paralyzed him. The same negative thoughts looped around his brain again and again, voiced by M—of all beings, the one he actually admired.