CHAPTER 1

WE'D BEEN BACK from Taug for six weeks when I heard about Justin Parnavic's death. He was—or, had been—the commander of the base on the moon where we'd recently seen action. Because of how my life has played out, I'm probably a bit more inured to death than most people, but this one struck me pretty hard. Maybe because I'd seen him recently or because it came unexpectedly. Taug had always been peaceful until recently, and I'd thought that when I left there, we'd put it back together so that would continue. Apparently not.

As with a lot of my information, I got the news from Ganos. She knew everything, often before it hit public media. In this case, her sources had been mainstream—in her words, "mundane, but effective." Parnavic had gone down in a crash that the military had categorized as a mechanical failure. Four dead—everyone who'd been onboard the small craft. I thought about it constantly for a day or so, but like most things that happen far away and don't affect us directly, it didn't stick with me much beyond that. Other things came up and pushed it back into the depths of my mind with all the other death and bad things that lurked there. If I let that stuff sit at the surface, I wouldn't be able to function.

Not that I found myself overly busy. My normal routine at home on Ridia 2 consisted of going to Mac's gym two or three times a week, working in my vegetable garden, and reading a lot of books. The garden was mostly a dig up and replant job since we'd missed harvest for a lot of the produce during our trip and stuff had rotted on the vine. Or the deer got it. But in this case, anything they ate, I didn't have to clean up, so I'd give them a pass.

My big event of the week came on Wednesdays at four in the afternoon when I met Mac for drinks at Moop's. It probably sounds like a boring life, and maybe it is. But boring is nice sometimes. Nothing exploding, nobody trying to kill me. Or, if they were, they were at least being subtle about it.

So it came as a surprise when I woke on a Saturday morning to find that something had tripped my new security system in the night. Mac had immediately upgraded everything I had when we returned from Taug. I'm pretty sure we paid extra for rush installation. It was mostly legal—which was saying something considering my recent life—though it probably skirted the edges of some of the rules on lethal force. And maybe taser drones. Mac had become obsessed with those after he'd seen Alanson operate them on Taug.

The system hadn't woken me, which meant that it hadn't assessed the threat as serious enough for that. But any incursion was enough to mess with my head, and I'd promised Mac that I'd act with an abundance of caution when it came to security matters. I called him, first thing, even before I made my coffee. I'd just finished it twenty minutes later when he came through the back door without knocking.

Mac had on running shoes, shorts, and a stretchy t-shirt with Mac's Gym on the front that might have been half a size too small, muscles bulging. I couldn't make fun of him for it. It made for good advertising.

"You get to finish your run?" I asked.

"Nah. I broke it off at the five-kilometer mark when you called."

"Sorry." Saturday was his distance day. He'd probably planned on fifteen.

"Don't worry about it. I work in a gym. I'll make it up later—this is more important." I had my doubts about that, though I'd shared them often enough with Mac that I didn't feel the need to raise them again now. On the other hand, given how little running I did these days, maybe security was more important.

"Did the cameras pick anything up?" asked Mac.

"I didn't look. I figured I'd wait for you, and we'd check it together."

"Let's fire it up." Mac moved to the far side of the living room and pushed the camouflaged activation button. A section of wall slid up and a terminal folded down. He entered a six-digit code on the keypad along with his thumbprint and the metal casing that protected the screen slid away.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned that my security system might be a bit over the top.

Mac played with the interface for a bit while I went to the kitchen to make him a cup of coffee. I didn't need to watch over his shoulder—I'd hate if he did that to me, and he'd show me whatever he found anyway.