Rifleman

Book 2: Conscript Series

by Scott Bartlett

Genres: Alien Invasion; Space Exploration; Space Marines

Synopsis

The system erupts into war

Having barely escaped Cycler 3 with their lives, Po Abbato's battalion is headed for the moon, where the ones who killed their brothers are said to have trained.

A reckoning is being visited on Planet Nibiru, and it's there the Marines are truly eager to go. But Earth's moon holds a terrifying secret of its own. Po and his brothers must unravel it first, lest millions perish.

Only then can they cross the system to Nibiru, where they will face the ultimate test.

Get ready for this pulse-pounding next installment in the Conscript series. If you're a fan of Marko Kloos' Frontlines or Ender's Game, you'll love this epic military scifi series.

 

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Release date: April 22, 2024

Publisher: Mirth Publishing

Print pages: 215

Sample

1

During their first days aboard the S.S. Gear Issue, the newly minted Marines from Cycler 3 had
had more time than they knew what to do with. From their first day in bootcamp to the day the
Nibirans attacked the cylinder, they’d had zero leave—not even the pre-School of Infantry leave
that Earth-trained Marines apparently enjoyed.
But in the days that followed their escape from the cycler, there’d been plenty of time to wander
the building-turned-spaceship, exploring its nooks and crannies in order to take their minds off
how many men they’d lost to the aliens’ attack.
Their abundance of free time came to an abrupt end with Colonel Alfred Lee’s announcement
that their training would resume pretty much the second he finished talking.
That didn’t bother Po. He’d seen almost all of Gear Issue, and he felt eager to continue
training—to learn whatever he could that would help him in the coming fight against whoever
had trained Nibirans on the moon to do what they’d done to his fallen brothers.
Others weren’t so happy. Chow hall conversation had only gotten more animated now that
they’d learned some details about their future, and Po heard plenty of griping.
“I’ve never been to the moon before,” Crotty said through a mouthful of half-chewed peas.
“None of us have,” Paisley snapped. “But who cares? The rest of the Corps gets to fight
insurgents on Nibiru while we’re kicking up regolith on that big dust ball. By the time they get
around to sending us to the action, the war will be over.”
Po didn’t say anything. He wanted to pay the Nibirans back as much as the next guy for what
they’d done to Cycler 3, but what good would whining do? Besides, something had to be
happening on the moon to require their getting deployed there. Surely they’d see action
eventually.
“Don’t worry,” Zanth said from the seat next to Crotty, staring at Po with his slit-like pupils.
“You’ll get your turn.”
It was weird to be addressed cross-table by an Emplor, especially since the others couldn’t see
or hear him. But showing up when Po had no ability to say anything back to him was Zanth’s
favorite thing to do.
Lee hadn’t been lying when he’d said they would be training on Nibiran soil, or at least
simulated soil. Most of their exercises turned out to be mock missions launched from an
expeditionary advanced base situated in a highly contested valley, two thousand miles from the
Nibiran capital of Gomorate.
But there were also plenty of exercises set on the moon, inside and out of the lunar colonies,
plus endless briefings on what they could expect to face there.
“I’m going to speak plainly, about things you’ll never hear in the GEA-sanctioned media,”
Gunnery Sergeant Emery told them from the front of one of the auditoria. “There are certain
things I can’t say—not without it getting back to some government intel analyst and stressing

the already strained relationship between the Corps and the Hegemons even more. But
hopefully you’re smart enough to fill in the blanks.”
Po was having trouble looking at Emery with anything but open adulation. The man was the
reason he’d made it out of Cycler 3 alive, Po was convinced of that. And he’d surely saved
plenty more lives when he’d taken them down to that secondary control center and switched on
the automated defenses positioned along the cylinder’s axis.
An image appeared against the blank wall behind Emery, showing a vast stretch of pockmarked
lunar desert, devoid of any signs of life.
“As far as most of the public knows, GEA has the moon well in hand. And of course they would,
right? It only makes sense. The moon orbits Earth, while places like Ceres and Psyche and
Vesta are way out in the system. If the Council of Hegemons has figured out how to keep those
populations under their collective thumb, then surely the moon’s populations are almost as
cattle-like as the people of Earth. Right?”
No one said anything, though the other Marines all looked as rapt as Po.
Emery shrugged. “Not completely true, as it turns out. It is true that the government works
overtime to maintain its control over the lunar colonies, since the moon would be incredibly
powerful if it ever gained an appetite for independence. They have everything they need to
manufacture rockets, and indeed, most of the factories where rockets are made are now located
on the moon. Those rockets would be easier to lob at Earth-based targets than vice versa, since
they wouldn’t have an atmosphere to fight through, and wouldn’t have to follow the curve of the
globe like Earth-launched rockets do. The moon also has a near-monopoly on the inner-
system’s water supply, which gets pretty scarce, outside Earth.”
The image switched to the same one Colonel Lee had shown in their initial briefing, of
Shackleton Crater. “But if the moon ever got uppity enough to make GEA want to move against
it militarily...well, that wouldn’t be what I’d call straightforward. Every colony is essentially a
network of bunkers, and difficult to attack, as it turns out. Each one has a point defense system
for dealing with micrometeors, which could easily be reprogrammed to target incoming missiles
instead, and most of every lunar colony is buried meters underground to begin with, as
protection against radiation. Pretty much every chamber in every module of every colony is
protected by a sturdy hatch capable of forming an airtight seal in the event of an oxygen breach,
complete with backup air supplies and carbon scrubbers.
One of the other Marines raised his hand.
“Go ahead,” Emery said.
“Couldn’t Earth cut off the moon’s oxygen shipments?”
Most of the others laughed, probably at how dumb the question was. The Marine who’d asked it
turned red.
“The moon doesn’t get oxygen shipments,” Emery said. “They extract oxygen right from the
rock. It’s energy intensive, but once it’s extracted it can be scrubbed and recycled on the cheap,
almost indefinitely. They do that on Psyche, too. Isn’t that where you’re from?”
The Marine didn’t answer—he just got redder.

“Every chamber also has at least one sensor watching for dips in air pressure or changes to air
chemistry,” the gunnery sergeant continued. “Which means a chemical weapon wouldn’t get
very far. Biological weapons wouldn’t be much better—with everything that passes through an
airlock into a colony tracked and logged, it would be nearly impossible to conceal the source,
and each colony’s council has the ability to completely seal off contaminated sections if need
be. There are certain approaches where some success might be had there, but it would be
difficult, and the political fallout would probably be intense, with every station in the system
suddenly paranoid GEA was going to make their populations sick.
“Maybe you’re thinking, okay, why couldn’t we just nuke them? Launch enough warheads to
overwhelm their point defense. And again, limited success is possible here, but remember what
I said about every colony being essentially a cluster of linked bunkers. Maybe you’d manage to
crack a few chambers with a direct hit, but that doesn’t matter a whole lot, since they can simply
be sealed off from the rest of the facility. Meanwhile, there’s those meters of regolith protecting
the colony from the concussive force, which is limited anyway since there’s no atmosphere for
the shockwave to travel through. Fallout also isn’t a concern. To do any real damage, you’d
need to get a nuke inside the base somehow, but again you have the challenge of everything
being logged that enters through an airlock.
“And so I ask you: what does that leave? What tool does GEA have to bring the moon back in
line, if elements there ever went rogue?”
A new image replaced Shackleton crater, one which showed a trio of Marines in SERAPH suits.
Two of them stood watch with M37Cs, while the third set charges on a sealed and recessed
airlock built into the side of a crater’s wall.
“Surprise!” Emery said. “It’s you.”
That brought a few dry chuckles from the Marines strapped into their seats.
“Even before this embarrassment with Janus members getting trained there, GEA analysts have
been monitoring certain trends on the moon with increasing alarm. Sure, using their usual
tactics, they have the main colonies under control, or at least they seem to. But there’s plenty
that goes on there that happens outside of the main colonies.”
A vid popped up, splashed against the blank wall behind the gunnery sergeant. In it, a huge,
caterpillar-looking vehicle crawled across the moon’s surface, its massive wheels bobbing up
and down as it clung to the terrain’s ever-shifting elevation, its supple body flexing.
“There is no lunar military, officially, just like nations states no longer have official militaries. But
as you know, unofficial militias have a tendency of springing up whenever a country decides to
try bucking GEA. And there’s a very good chance that if the moon ever went rogue, it would
sprout a militia very quickly. Each colony already has trained security teams, and even the lunar
miners can’t be overlooked. Let’s say a war breaks out, and GEA’s able to maintain a foothold
on the moon through a friendly colony there. Well, miners already know how to put on and take
off pressure suits quickly, and how to use mining equipment and explosives. Give them some
weapons training, and they’d be the ideal force for raiding and invading that GEA-loyal moon
base.”
The gunny pointed at the vehicle still crawling across the lunar terrain. “What you’re looking at is
a Mobile Mining Platform packed with experienced personnel who have no particular affiliation

to any nation state, and certainly no special loyalty to GEA. In other words, nomads. And these
guys are the Hegemons’ biggest worry when it comes to the moon. People end up living inside
an MMP for two reasons: they’re great at what they do, and they don’t play nice with others.
Intel is notoriously hard to collect on these guys. They’re fiercely loyal to each other—generally
speaking, that loyalty exists even between separate MMPs—and as best our spooks can guess,
it’s aboard one of these that the Nibirans were housed and trained during their stay on our
moon.
“That’s not to say it’s impossible there are stationary structures buried somewhere, kept dark
from GEA intel—which isn’t as hard as you’d think—where such training might have taken
place. In fact, like Colonel Lee said, in the beginning we’ll be operating out of Shackleton Crater
and looking for just such hidden facilities. But there’s a very good chance that at some point,
we’ll be sent into the lunar wilds. And that’s when I expect things will get extra spicy.”
Glancing out the corners of his eyes at the other Marines, Po could see the same barely
concealed apprehension he was feeling. But there was one consolation: from Emery’s words, it
sounded like he’d be deploying to the moon with them. And that made Po feel much better
about what was coming.
He just hoped he got assigned to Emery’s squad.

2

Command sent a combat recon shuttle to meet them once the S.S. Gear Issue finally finished
decelerating and settled into lunar orbit. According to Paisley, the entire stern of the Gear Issue
was capable of detaching and acting as a shuttle, but everyone pretended not to believe him,

mostly because they’d long ago figured out how much he loved rattling off the things he thought
he knew.
If the stern really could become a shuttle, Po didn’t know why they didn’t just take that down to
Shackleton. I guess it would reduce the ship’s readiness, so best to avoid that if we can. There
was a good chance the capability wasn’t widely known, either—which would soon change, if
Paisley had anything to say about it.
Either way, the recon shuttle could only accommodate about eighty Marines, so a few trips
would be needed. One group had already been taken to Shackleton. Po was in the second
group.
On the way down to the moon’s surface, he used his Circuit to render the shuttle’s bulkheads
transparent, along with the Marines sitting around him, so that it looked like he was riding a
magical flying crash seat, zooming down toward the regolith. From this distance, the moon
looked just as empty as it had been for most of its history. As they sailed closer, metal glinted
here and there—solar panels, Po guessed, or maybe one of the nomadic mining vehicles
Gunny Emery had showed them. Still, it looked like barely anyone lived here, even though
official statistics said the lunar population had crossed three million a couple years ago.
Using his implant in this way was something he never would have done, even just a couple
months ago. But he figured if he was stuck with the thing, then he might as well use it.
If I’m going to be GEA’s property, I might as well take advantage of the upgrades.
“This reminds me of the ride to Cycler 3,” Paisley said from beside him. Po’s Circuit detected the
fact he was being spoken to, and it gradually phased the other Marine into the simulation, like
he was a ghost manifesting. “How’d we end up sitting next to each other again?”
“You sat next to me.”
“Pretty sure you sat next to me.”
“Whatever.”
Paisley would argue with an amoeba, given half a chance.
By the time they got to Shackleton, the first two platoons had already settled into the ‘barracks’
that awaited them, which was mostly just a temporary lodging place for security personnel,
who’d been ousted by the Marines’ arrival. The guards were technically EPA—Po supposed the
“planetary” in Earth Planetary Army was considered to extend to Earth’s moon—and GEA
rotated them between the lunar colonies every few months, probably to keep them from getting
to know the locals too well—and getting to know their grievances.
Apparently Shackleton residents were being offered good money to house the displaced
personnel, but when Po passed through the lobby after stowing his things, his gait still clumsy
from getting used to the gravity, he found a lot of them still hanging around there. A few of them
glared. They didn’t seem to appreciate getting bumped out of their beds.
“I guess the colonists don’t like the security guards very much,” Crotty said as they stepped out
onto the byway that ran in front of what was now their barracks.

“You wanna say that a little louder?” Po muttered, smiling at a passing colonist, who leered at
them from beneath a protruding brow.
Po exchanged glances with Navarro, who rolled his eyes. Thankfully, all four of them were
wearing plainclothes, so once they got away from the barracks it wouldn’t be so obvious they
were Marines.
They headed west, toward what they’d heard was a strip with some good bars. They’d been
granted leave pretty much the moment they landed, which Emery had said was an
acknowledgment of how hard they’d been working. Of course, of the six platoons that had been
sent to Shackleton, half of them would be on-duty at all times, and the other half were ordered
to be ready to run back and suit up at a moment’s notice.
So, no drinking too much. As he’d left the barracks, his Circuit had actually prompted him with
the exact blood alcohol level he was permitted to attain: 0.059%, and no more. Emery had
already explained to them that they’d receive an alert as they were nearing that limit, and that if
they were in the middle of a drink, it would be better to pour it into a potted plant than to finish it.
If they’d been on Earth, Po wouldn’t have been able to drink at all. But the legal drinking age on
the moon was 17 instead of 21.
“I hate this gravity,” Paisley said as they progressed deeper into the colony. “I was just starting
to get used to microgravity, aboard Gear Issue. Now this. They should have just built a tube
colony, like Psyche. They could have been walking around normally all this time.”
“You kidding?” Navarro said as he pushed off the floor with both feet, slapped the ceiling fifteen
feet above their heads, then drifted back down. “This is awesome!”
Crotty didn’t comment—his jaw was set as he seemed to focus on getting the hang of
moonwalking. For Po’s part, his implant seemed to be giving him cues via his proprioception
taps, which allowed him to affect a casual gait, as though he’d been born here.
“How are you so good at this?” Paisley asked.
Po shrugged. The question meant the others were being given no such signals by their
implants—which meant this was probably Zanth’s doing.
The byway opened up after a couple of minutes, into a broad pedestrian avenue illuminated by
bright white lights suspended far overhead. The avenue stretched across several levels, each
accessed by sweeping stairways or curved walkways that swooped through the air, with shops
and restaurants and bars lining the way on either side.
They soon passed a wide, paved bowl, where people were playing something like
basketball—except, everyone could obviously jump much higher. One player would jump, either
to get clearance to pass the ball or to score on the wide tube that apparently served as a net,
and another would jump just as high to intercept. As Po watched, a player jumped to try and
score, when a player from the opposite team came out of nowhere, snatched the ball from his
hands, and one-handed the ball into the opposing net. A crowd of onlookers burst into applause.
A similar bowl followed soon after, but this one was grass-covered, where people had stretched
blankets beneath trees that looked like they grew up from circular patches of regolith. The lunar

soil would have had to be heavily amended to support trees, Po knew, but it still looked like the
original moon dust. That was impressive enough.
After passing on several bars and restaurants for one reason or another, they agreed on a pub
called The Irishman, which ended up being way bigger inside than Po would have thought
possible from the outside. Just like the avenue it sat on, its black-and-white checkered floor
sprawled across multiple levels, connected by staircases with oak banisters. Dark-wood chairs
lined several different bars, and round tables were surrounded by wicker-backed chairs.
It seemed the designers of Shackleton Colony had done everything they possibly could to defy
popular notions of what a lunar colony was supposed to look like. Po had expected to find a
series of sterile gray rectangles connected by airlocks, but so far this colony was anything but.
He was sure every new section they entered meant a hatch that would slam shut in the event of
an oxygen breach, but so far he’d seen no evidence of them, they were so well-concealed.
“This place is incredible,” Navarro said. He pointed toward the back wall. “Look—this pub must
extend well past the colony exterior. Can you imagine how much it must cost to open a place
like this?”
“Hopefully not so much that I won’t be able to afford a burger and fries,” Paisley said. “Or ice
cream. Or onion rings. I’m starving.”
“Sounds like it,” Crotty said.
A bot seated them, which made Po a little uneasy—the only bots he’d met before today had all
acted as Equipoise Metals’ muscle.
“Like your job, bot?” he asked the thing as they followed it to a table in the middle of an open-
concept dining area.
“I do not have preferences,” the bot said. “I merely follow my programming.”
“That’s what they all say,” Po muttered.
“Can I get you something to drink?” it asked as they all took their seats.
Po exchanged glances with Paisley. “Beer.”
“What type of beer?”
“Uh...what types are there?”
“Just get us a round of your best lager,” Paisley cut in. “Pints. And make it snappy, bot.”
“Yes, sir.” The thing strode smoothly away, in that creepy way that bots had, keeping its head
perfectly level as its limbs swung like pendulums.
“Hope that thing’s not cooking the food, too.” Paisley grinned. “So, Navarro, why’d you choose
Linguist as your MOS? Don’t you wanna kill Nibirans? Or just talk to them?”
“Sure,” the other Marine said slowly. “But, I want to kill the right Nibirans. In other words, Janus
members. At least, I want to help you kill them. Some of the aliens will help us get to the right
ones—the ones responsible for attacking humans. But I don’t just want to kill all Nibirans, no.”

Paisley snorted. “How are linguists even still a thing in the Marines? Won’t our implants
translate for us?”
“Yes, but the locals won’t trust someone reading broken Nibiran from a prompt as much as
they’ll trust a person who speaks it fluently.”
“Do you speak fluent Nibiran, then?”
“Getting there.” Navarro shrugged. “You may just find I end up killing more insurgents with my
words than you do with your rifles.”
“I’ll take that bet,” Po said, and Paisley and Crotty chuckled.
If he was being honest, he actually thought Linguist sounded like a pretty cool MOS. So did
Infantry Assault Man, which Paisley had chosen, and Combat Engineer, Crotty’s MOS. Po was
just a Rifleman, which seemed kind of boring now that he knew what everyone else had chosen.
Everyone kept saying that riflemen were the backbone of the Corps—but they also said that
every Marine was a rifleman, first and foremost. That didn’t make the MOS seem very special.
You’re lucky to be here at all, he reminded himself. He’d lost track of how many times he’d
come close to getting discharged from bootcamp, which would have landed him right in simjail.
Then, surviving Freddie’s attempts to kill him, along with the Angel he’d been working with, and
then the Janus attack on Cycler 3—come to think of it, the fact that he was still sitting here with
his friends felt like a minor miracle.
Just keep your head down and do your job. Everything will work itself out. Besides, he had
something the others didn’t.
He had Zanth.
Their drinks came, the bot placing each glass in precisely the same spot in front of each of
them. Except for Crotty—the bot seemed to know he was left-handed somehow, and it placed
his drink on that side. They ordered food, then, and soon enough that came, too. Navarro
crossed himself and quietly said a blessing while Paisley and Crotty dug into their meals.
Almost, Po crossed himself too, the muscle memory kicking in from countless dinners he’d
eaten with his family during his childhood. But those days were long gone, so he picked up his
double-patty burger instead, biting into it and causing the savory juices to splash across his
tongue.
“Have you guys been following the news since we got here?” Crotty asked.
“News?” Paisley repeated. “What news? Do you mean GEA propaganda?”
“Just because it’s propaganda doesn’t meant it’s not entertaining. They have to capture eyeballs
somehow, right?”
“I guess.”
“What’s been going on?” Navarro asked through a mouthful of the battered cod he’d ordered.
“Anything we’ll need to worry about?”
“Nah. It’s an Earthside story that’s been dominating the news cycle. Since at least a few hours
before we reached Shackleton, actually.”

“What is it?” Paisley said, apparently interested now.
“It’s kinda crazy.” Crotty shook his head. “Someone went into a Soft Landing clinic in Atlanta to
get offed, and instead of processing his paperwork and bringing him to some back room to inject
and incinerate him, the clerk took out a handgun and shot him right there in the lobby. Real
messy, blood and brains everywhere. Screaming employees, screaming customers. The major
outlets won’t show the vid, but the security footage leaked. I watched it, it’s crazy.”
“What a nutcase,” Paisley said. “The clerk just shot him?”
“Yeah. The clinic fired him, obviously, and he’s up on charges.”
“Charges?” Navarro said. “Why?”
“Because he murdered the guy.”
“But the guy went there to get murdered.”
“Yeah, but...not like that,” Crotty said, studying Navarro with wrinkled brow. “And he went to get
euthanized, not murdered.”
“Euthanized,” Navarro repeated, chuckling. “What’s the difference? Shooting him was probably
faster than the injection. Sounds like the clerk had good aim.”
“Are you serious?” Paisley said. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I just don’t see what the difference is.”
“There’s a big difference,” Crotty said. “This was so...”
“Messy,” Paisley supplied.
“Yeah. Messy. Exactly.”
“Getting euthanized isn’t messy?” Navarro asked.
“Nah,” Paisley said. “They shoot you up with the stuff, burn your body....” He brushed his palms
together. “It’s done.”
“Oh.” Navarro raised his eyebrows as he forked some more fish into his mouth. “Thanks for
clearing that up for me.”
But somehow, Navarro didn’t seem convinced. Po shifted in his seat. “It’s a moot point for us,
anyway. Our contract forbids us from patronizing Soft Landing clinics, until four years after we’re
out of the service.”
“Really?” Crotty said, in about the same tone he might have used to discuss the quality of the
food. “Four years, huh? I mean, not that I’m planning to off myself.”
“You’d better not be,” Navarro said, laughing. “GEA wants to recoup its investment. All that
training, the gear they’ve given you, especially the military implant...they want you to serve out
your term, ideally sign up for two or three more, and once you’re finished, they’ll want a few
years at least to harvest the data their implant collects as you walk around with it in your head.”

“They wouldn’t be able to stop me,” Paisley said. “What are they going to do to me, if I go to a
Soft Landing clinic? I’ll be dead.”
“Your implant would prevent you, idiot,” Po said. “It would tip off the employees that you’re a
Marine trying to off himself, and they wouldn’t serve you. You’d have to do it yourself, if you’re
that determined to go.”
“I’m not. I’m just saying.” The other Marine actually sounded a little wounded. “Anyway,” he
muttered, “I wouldn’t have the stomach to do it myself.”
Navarro snorted, and after that they finished their meals in silence.
They’d had a Soft Landing clinic back in Psyche too, and the admins there were usually happy
for colonists to use it, so long as they had descendants for their debt to get transferred to. After
all, the admins had their population quotas to think about, which some people called death
quotas.
Admins had to report on their progress with the quotas quarterly, to higher-ups in GEA who
were based on Earth. Earth had its own quotas, he’d heard. After a spike in global population
halfway through the twenty-first century, policies that had already been implemented decades
before began to make their influence felt. He remembered a big deal being made a few years
back, about Earth’s total mouths-to-feed falling below four billion.
The bottom line was that life was cheap all over. On Earth, in Psyche, and everywhere else in
the system. Generally speaking, human society wanted you dead. If you had enough money
and influence, you might stave off the cultural entropy long enough to live out your natural life.
But even among the elites, not everyone made it.
“Should we order another round?” Crotty asked, holding up his glass, which had just a couple
mouthfuls left in it.
“If we do, you’ll hit the blood alcohol limit for sure,” Paisley said. “I’m surprised you’re not
already there, ya little runt.”
Crotty’s face darkened, and he looked about to say something when Navarro spoke up, his
voice hushed.
“Hey, guys. Don’t look, but I’m pretty sure those three in the corner are speaking Nibiran.”
Paisley twisted around in his chair to look, and Po thought he heard Navarro curse under his
breath. “I told you not to look,” he said in a harsh whisper when Paisley turned back to face
them.
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” The round-faced Marine had the decency to turn a little red.
“How do you know they’re speaking Nibiran?” Po whispered.
“Because I’m a Linguist, duh.” Navarro shot a look at Paisley. “One of the advantages of not just
relying on your implant to translate for you—if you didn’t have a Linguist with you, you never
would have made the realization there were people speaking the language in this restaurant. All
because you didn’t have your translation app open.”
“This is bad, right?” Crotty said. “If they’re speaking Nibiran...that doesn’t seem good.”

“They probably thought no one here would recognize it, and that they could get away with
talking in public about whatever they wanted. But we need to stop whispering, or they’re going
to know we’ve noticed.” Navarro cleared his throat, then glanced at the three men speaking
Nibiran out of the corner of his eyes. “What were we talking about, again?” he said, at a more
normal level of volume.
“We were talking about Crotty being a runt,” Paisley said. “Sorry, Crotty, but I’d rather talk about
that than go back to the conversation about Soft Landing clinics.”
As the others struggled to find a topic that would sustain a long, casual conversation, Po was
navigating his Circuit’s menus. There. He opened the messaging app and sent the other three
an invitation to a group chat.
Within seconds, they all accepted.
“We can talk using this without them hearing us,” he said through the app. He only had to think
the words, and the others would hear them in his voice. It was even smart enough to recreate
the tone it thought he might use, based on its textual analysis of his words, but it often got it
wrong. “We should probably still keep actually talking, though. So as not to draw attention.”
“You guys heard any news from Psyche, lately?” he said out loud, to try to revive their stuttering
verbal conversation.
“What are we gonna do about those guys?” Crotty asked. The app rendered his voice more
worried-sounding than it probably would have if he’d spoken out loud. At least, Po hoped so.
“Uh, no,” Paisley said. “But...it’s Discovery Day there soon, right?”
“Do you know what they’re saying, Navarro?” Po asked.
“Right,” Navarro said. “Um...good ol‘ Annibale de Gasparis, am I right? And his...telescope.”
“That was painful,” Paisley sent.
“Give me a break. I don’t normally try to focus on answering two questions at once. And no, Po,
I don’t know what they’re saying. Honestly I don’t know Nibiran all that well yet. I need to study
more.”
“I did get a letter from my dad,” Crotty said. “Apparently the Angels managed to reprogram a
cop-bot. Took the other bots months to figure out it was compromised.”
“Seriously?” Po asked.
“Seriously, what?” Crotty answered. “Are you replying to what I said in the out-loud
conversation? You’re gonna confuse everything!”
“Sorry,” Po said, with his mouth, and then winced as he realized what he’d done.
“Get it together, people,” Paisley messaged. The app rendered his voice as stern and
commanding. “I think I just heard them ask their bot for the bill. We need to get ours—we can’t
just let them go without following them. This might be the lead we’re looking for. But if we try to
leave without paying, one of the bots will probably cause a scene and blow our cover.”
“We have the same bot they do,” Navarro said. “I’ll wave it over.”

He did, and the bot changed course mid-stride, heading for their table instead of wherever it had
been going. A charging port, maybe.
“How can I help you, gentlemen?” it asked once it arrived.
“We want our bill,” Paisley said. “Can you make sure we get ours first? Before....” His head
started to turn again in the direction of the men who’d been speaking Nibiran, but he seemed to
realize what he was doing and stop himself. “Before anyone else?”
“I’m afraid I can only process requests in the order I receive them,” the thing said.
“What if we make it worth your while?”
“I am not programmed to respond to financial incentives,” the bot said.
Tactful way of saying “bribes,” Po thought, and he wondered who Paisley thought would pay
such a bribe, even if the bot had been willing to take one. Po sure wouldn’t have paid it.
It didn’t matter. The bot brought the other table their bill first, and the three men stood as soon
as they’d settled it. With that, the bot trundled toward the Marines’ table, with excruciating
slowness.
“We don’t have time for all of us to pay individually,” Po said.
Paisley nodded, standing. “Yeah, Crotty. You get this, and catch up with us. We’ll pay you back
later.”
“Hey!” Crotty said, and one of the Nibiran-speaking men glanced at him as their trio passed by.
He wore a hooded beige jacket with bulging pockets, and pants that ballooned out to his knees,
below which they clung tightly to his calves.
“Will you guys stop acting so suspicious?” Navarro said.
Paisley sat down again, as if that would draw less attention. Another of the men looked over,
and this one’s gaze lingered on the Marine for a long second.
Po closed his eyes, willing this excruciating moment to pass.
When he opened them again, the men were gone. Navarro was covering his face with his hand,
Paisley looked sheepish, and Crotty glared around at the three of them. “You guys better pay
me back,” he said.
“We will.” Navarro rose to his feet and motioned to Paisley and Po. “If we’re going to have a
hope of following them, we need to leave now. Catch up when you can, Crotty.”
The three of them walked through the restaurant. “Don’t hurry,” Navarro said. “Try to look
natural.”
Po was trying. So why did he feel like everyone was staring at them?
“Excuse me, sirs,” a bot said, stepping in front of them to bar their exit. This was a different bot
from the one that had served them—it had silver highlights running down its limbs. “You haven’t
settled your bill yet.”
“The guy we left at our table is getting it,” Navarro said.

The thing paused, probably consulting security feeds to make sure there actually was someone
waiting at their table.
“Very well,” it said. “Thank you for visiting The Irishman. Have a pleasant day.”
Outside, the three of them peered around the concourse, looking for the trio of Nibiran
speakers.
“There,” Paisley said, jerking his thumb in the direction opposite the way they’d come to get
here.
Po followed the gesture with his gaze, and saw the three strangely-clad men mounting a
switchback staircase to another level, which loomed at least fifteen meters above the one where
The Irishman sat.
“Let’s go,” Navarro said. “Remember, relax, and don’t walk too fast. But not so slow they get
away.”
“This is taking us farther away from the barracks,” Po said. “Shouldn’t we check in with Gunny
Emery? Or Young? I mean, before we take it upon ourselves to chase random bar patrons
halfway across Shackleton?”
Navarro nodded. “Good thinking. I’ll try to get Emery, you try to get Young.”
But neither of their efforts proved successful, and so they settled for sending Emery a message
and then continuing their pursuit, stepping onto the first step of the switchback staircase just as
their quarry was leaving it, fifty feet above. ...