“So you are going to look at this planet on your own?,” asked Guy. He and John had

  met Harry on the planet in Junior’s shadow. The big mechanized monster sent blast

  after blast over the wall bordering his holdings.

  “The Bernies want to send people with me, but I think that will be a bad idea,”

  said Harry. He leaned against the cool hull of his creation. “I don’t want to get

  a lot of people killed.”

  “But you don’t mind getting us killed?,” asked John.

  “You’re competent enough,” said Harry. “And I trust you.”

  “It will be a while before we finish clearing this planet,” said Guy. “We’re doing

  bombing raids almost every hour of the day now.”

  “But it’s not enough,” said John. “Contractors should be arriving soon to try to help

  us with the rest of this.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Harry.

  “Be that as it may?,” said Guy. “What is that?”

  “I’m trying to make my wishes known, so shut it,” said Harry. “I want you guys to

  take care of the kids while I’m gone. Betty Lou needs her birds, and Brophy needs his

  fish. You need anything, Junior?”

  “More targets,” said the machine.

  “See if you can lure the xenos up here for Junior,” said Harry. “He loves shooting

  things.”

  “The review board wants you to look at things?,” said John. “Let’s get back on track

  with that instead of talking about fish for your robot son.”

  “Yes,” said Harry. “And I have the sense they want me to take every raw boot they

  can drop on me to see if the kids can maximize their points. I don’t want to do that

  so I already asked for a ride out to where I have to be, and have decided to go alone.”

  “What does Nick have to say about all this?,” asked John.

  “He doesn’t approve of the plan,” said Harry.

  “I wonder why,” said Guy. You could cut the sarcasm with a dull butter knife.

  “I understand that I am asking you to take over for me here, run the operation, make

  sure the kids are taken care of,” said Harry. “A trip over to that planet is months

  away. Someone has to go to at least try to put down a gate. And that someone is me.”

  “You’re going to need the Jordan for backup,” said John. “There’s no way around

  that.”

  “I don’t need a backup,” said Harry. “I’m just doing a snoop and poop. No one will

  ever know I’m there.”

  “I heard this before,” said Guy.

  “I have too,” said John. “It’s what Kowalski said before he got shot.”

  “I’m better than Kowalski,” said Harry. “Trust me. This place will need management

  for the contractors coming in, and I will need a place to run if I do get the gate set up

  to reach back here, or Fort Honey. And I have blueprints for Milla’s beams, and

  Howitz’s mech. I will be fine.”

  “You say that, but I don’t believe you,” said Guy.

  “If it will make you feel better, I already split the ten million with you in my will,”

  said Harry. “If I die, you’ll get the money.”

  “You can’t buy us,” said John.

  “Not for five mill any way,” said Guy.

  John punched him in the arm.

  “What do you think, Junior?,” asked Harry. Surely his kid would take his side.

  “Fire power makes an optimal solution to subobtimal problems,” said Junior.

  “You can’t go with me,” said Harry. “Maybe I can get a big enough gate for you, but

  you have to hold this planet down until we’re cleared to move on.”

  “I disapprove,” said Junior.

  “And that is why you are the child, and I am the adult,” said Harry. “Now I have to

  go. I want you guys to know you’re the only brothers I ever had. And I want you to

  take care of things for me until I get back. Junior, take care of your brother and

  sister. I need the three of you to be here when I get back so I can move you to

  another planet if that’s what we need to do.”

  “Yema will be mad since this planet is so close to his,” said John.

  “Not my problem,” said Harry. “And it’s not my problem that I’m not taking Milla

  either. They should stay here and smell the roses.”

  “I have a feeling they will make it your problem,” said John.

  “And that’s why I’m not telling them,” said Harry. “I’m going to gate to Yema’s

  planet, and then take to space from there. I’ll let you know when I’m coming back.”

  “Cat is going to be mad about this too,” said John.

  “She’ll have to be mad from a distance,” said Harry. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

  “So when are you are you going?,” asked Guy.

  “As soon as I step on the gate,” said Harry. “Then I have a trip to Yema’s planet, then

  I have to get a ship and drop in on target. I’ll see you when I get back.”

  Harry stepped on the gate, waiting for it to switch him across the galaxy. He winced

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  at the ripping feeling it gave him. He nodded when he stepped off in an office

  surrounded by automated guns. The guns relaxed when he raised his hands.

  “Contractor Jordan?,” asked a broad ape in a suit. “I am Administrator Trema,

  Planetary Defense. Your agent said you were only going to be here for a few

  minutes.”

  “I have to catch a flight and head out,” said Harry. “Can you direct me to an open

  area? I have to call my own ship to the scene.”

  “I think so,” said Trema. “What is this about?”

  “I have to look at another planet out here for the Bernies,” said Harry. “A force was

  sent to a planet I was operating on. I was asked to look at the source planet and

  evaluate it for an invasion.”

  “Who is going to be doing that?,” said Trema.

  “Right now, I am just looking,” said Harry. “It will be up to the Bernies if they want

  to send somebody after my lookaround.”

  “You think they are going to send somebody?,” said Trema. “Some of the local

  contractors have been acting strangely.”

  “I can’t say anything about that,” said Harry. “I just know I promised to do the

  lookaround, and then head back to Delgas. Anything after that will mean that I have

  to move a force into the area and do something. Right now, I am not sure what that

  something will be.”

  “A force?,” said Trema.

  “Delgas is partially clear of enemy forces,” said Harry. “A team of contractors went

  in and killed a bunch of grunts.”

  “Contractor Yema?,” asked the administrator.

  “I’ve met him,” said Harry. “He seems like good guy.”

  “He has more incursion battles than any other contractor out here in the system,” said

  Trema. “He is regarded as someone who is unstoppable. When the invasion was

  heavy here, he led the counterassault that shut the gate down and killed one of the

  bigger enemy forces.”

  “I heard he was in the forefront on Delgas,” said Harry. “He is helping clear the xenos

  off Delgas with the other contractors. I think the word is going out that the planet

  will need a rotating force of contractors to finish the job. I am not sure right now.”

  “How long do you think that will take?,” asked Trema.

  “It will take years to clear the planet, but I assume the original group of contractors

  will be dispersed back to their original area of operations,” said Harry. “I don’t know

  right now.”

  “Where did you come in?,” asked the administrator.

  “I was stationed on Wallens, and asked to look at things on Delgas,” said Harry. “I

  have some associates and we supplied backup resources for the other contractors.”

  The two of them had walked through a building made of glass looking out on a jungle

  of blue trees. The administrator led him to a courtyard to one side of the building.

  A pool of water filled with fish formed a moat around the courtyard. The city beyond

  was hidden by the variety of plants growing along.

  “Can you make a note about this pool and send it to my agent?,” said Harry. “One

  of my kids wants something like this. I don’t know where he got the notion. I

  don’t think he has seen a fish in his life.”

  “I will be glad to,” said Trema. “Delgas was a rescue mission. Did it succeed?”

  “Yes,” said Harry. “There were two contractors stranded by crossing through a

  random gate. They had no way to get home and were surrounded by the xenos.

  Yema’s force extracted them and started the clean up. I don’t know when the

  paperwork will hit this office. Delgas is inside the line.”

  “I wish you the best of luck, Contractor Jordan,” said Trema. “Please let me know

  how things go from here.”

  “Nick will file our paperwork,” said Harry. “Hopefully, this will be an easy walk in

  the park instead of what it looks like.”

  “And what does it look like?,” said Trema.

  “A long fall from a midair collision without a parachute,” said Harry.

  Harry opened his menu and summoned one super bee covered in as much stealth

  technology as he could buy. He climbed the stairs and went to the control seat. He

  buttoned everything up and let the bee talk to the local airspace control before giving

  it directions. The bee took to the air, heading for space.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?,” said Nick.

  “There’s only one way to go from here,” said Harry. “I feel like we can do this, and

  get back. At least we know one thing about the target.”

  “What’s that?,” said Nick.

  “It’ll have a spot where the bomb went off and killed their super titan,” said Harry.

  “We can try to use that to build up our forces.”

  “If this succeeds, it will be because of dumb luck, and crack planning done by yours

  truly,” said Nick. “Savvy?”

  “I’m not going to steal your thunder,” said Harry. “How are the rest of your

  contractors doing?”

  “Fairly well,” said Nick. “I have three based on Mas, where we just were. They don’t

  usually have to deal with planet incursions. They usually deal with fleet actions. The

  problem is it takes a lot of points to build ships the way they want to do it. No one

  trusts automation so something like the Jordan would not be considered.”

  “Sometimes you have to experiment, or be desperate,” said Harry.

  “We’re going to be coming out of jump right at the edge of the system,” said Nick.

  “What are we supposed to be doing when we get there?”

  “We’re just looking,” said Harry. “Ideally, we hit the system and find some place we

  can land and look at things. Then we do a drone pass to get as much information as

  we can. Then we fly back to Mas. Then we go back to Delgas and I process whatever

  we find into something usable for my real assault.”

  “How smooth do you think this will go?,” said Nick.

  “I think the real problem is what happens if we get spotted,” said Harry. “This bee has

  weapons, but it’s not one of the kids.”

  “I can see where that would be a problem,” said Nick.

  “The main thing is we don’t attract attention and pretend to be an asteroid,” said

  Harry. “Once we have what we’re looking for, we exfiltrate. No fuss, no muss.”

  “We’re getting ready to come out of the jump,” said Nick. “Passive sensors are ready,

  weapons are locked to prevent detection.”

  Harry nodded. Anything with some kind of threat assessment would be able to tell

  a missile was locking on from a distance. He didn’t know if the fleet xenos could do

  that, but he didn’t want to find out the hard way.

  “We’re in real space,” reported Nick. “This looks worse than what I thought.”

  Harry looked at the screens, letting the sensors do the work. He grimaced at the

  number of space xenos that filled the space. He was glad none of them had started

  shooting at him.

  “Point us at a moon, or something, and let us drift to a landing,” said Harry. “This

  could get ugly quick.”

  “There is an asteroid right there,” said Nick. “I’m bringing us down. We would need

  a few Jordans to break this. Every planet I can see is covered with pings from the

  mana trackers. This is the first systemwide stronghold I have ever seen.”

  “Copy this for the review board,” said Harry. “They want to send new contractors

  into this? A lot would get killed before they even started clearing the planets.”

  “Someone would have to land and plant a gate to bypass all of this,” said Nick. “I

  know it’s the same strategy that the enemy is using, but it has been working so far.”

  “It looks like they have dry docks like mine,” said Harry. “Either that, or those things

  over there that look like lungs are respawn points for space xenos that are killed

  in combat.”

  “They are priority targets if we want to clear this system,” said Nick. “We need to

  take them out and then we can kill the forces on the ground with bombardment.”

  “We have gates on the surface of the main planet,” said Harry. “Either they are going

  out to attack, or they loading up their numbers there.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about that,” said Nick. “All of this is being sent to the

  review board. I hope they see this and think twice about doing anything rash.”

  “I think this will make them think twice about sending in contractors,” said Harry.

  “But contractors will want to come here and earn their points. This place is nothing

  but targets.”

  “I think we should go,” said Nick. “I am getting some increased readings from those

  fighters. I think the locals call them Shrais.”

  “Set the self-destruct,” said Harry. He unstrapped from his chair and went to the

  middle of the cabin. He worked his menu. He put down a gate in the middle of the

  cabin. “Activate countdown. Switch us back to Junior.”

  The small dragons roared down on the blackened bee before it blew up in their faces