NEW YORK CITY

FEDERAL CAPITAL DISTRICT

DONOVAN HOUSE

NOVEMBER 12, 1988

"We can't let the Snakes monopolize this thing they've found on Mars," Frederick Lefarge ground out. He was leaning forward slightly in the stiff government-issue office chair, his dark-grey eyes blazing.

Nathaniel Stoddard raised his hands, palms up, as he stiffly made his way back to his chair behind his desk and sat with a small sigh. His mustache was solid grey streaked with white now, just like the thinning hair on top he kept in a semblance of an academic's shag-cut. Eighty-four this year, he thought wearily. Who would have thought I'd be around to see something like this come to pass?

"I happen to agree with you, Fred," he said in a voice with the flat vowels and drawl of Boston. "It's bad enough trying to keep their Krypteia people from stealing too much of our technology. If they really have an alien base under their control..." The head of the OSS paused and shook his head. "Still damned strange to be actually saying that."

Lefarge sat back in his chair and briefly ran a hand back through his black hair just beginning to be streaked with grey. "They found something there, General. You wouldn't have brought me all the way back from the Belt if this was nothing, alien base or not."

Stoddard pressed a spot on his desk screen, and a thin-film rectangle slid up along one wall. "True enough. Traffic, both physical and communication, has spiked sharply between their bases in the Earth-Moon system and Mars." He hesitated a moment, then produced his pipe and lit it, taking a couple of puffs before looking back at the younger man across the desk. "We've also gotten reliable intelligence from a source close to the top hierarchy on Mars. Nova Virconium. Commandant-Governor's office, in fact."

Lefarge seemed to tense, though he made no outward signs. "Marya?"

A nod. "Ayuh. She reopened contact through channels we'd prepared in advance for such an eventuality." A slight grimace passed over the old man's face. "I don't like that events have forced her to this. I'd prefer that she'd waited until she felt she was deep enough to reestablish contact of her own volition. But as you said, they've got some kind of structure there and they're treating it like the Holy Grail. Spy probes confirm that they've moved an entire merarchy of those ghouloons to that site in the southern hemisphere."

Frederick closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Ma soeur, he thought. My sister. Marya, I hope you know what you're doing. His twin sister, Marya Lefarge, had been under the Draka yoke ever since she'd been captured during the India fiasco back in '76. She had been bought by a pilot officer shortly after the Domination's conquest of the subcontinent had wrapped up, a Draka named Yolande Ingolfsson.

He opened his eyes and his lips thinned as he clenched his teeth. The same Yolande Ingolfsson who had boarded the Pathfinder in '82, the ship that had been transporting his wife, Cindy, and their two daughters to Ceres for the New America project. He had stayed behind to deal with final business before taking a faster warship to meet his family there at roughly the same time. Ingolfsson nursed a grudge against him for killing some redhead in India in a passing firefight, and when she had discovered who Cindy's husband was-

Later. Now wasn't the time to bring those memories back up. "If it's a structure, then it has to be alien," Lefarge said, bringing his mind back to business by main force.

"So it would seem," Stoddard agreed. "In a more perfect world the discovery of life beyond Earth would be some watershed event in human history, showing us all how small our petty differences are. As it is..."

"The Snakes are barely human themselves," Lefarge nodded. "They probably see their discovery of it as confirmation of this delusions of being the Master Race, the opportunity to put the Alliance under the Yoke once and for all."

"Something we're going to have to disabuse them of." A smile crossed the bony New England face as he took a few more puffs from his pipe. "You're aware of the convention the Domination has allowed to grow up? No peace beyond Luna?"

"I damn well better." Memories of the Pathfinder ran through his head again.

Stoddard grimaced. "Sorry about that, Fred. You know what I meant." He sighed and cupped the bowl of the pipe in his hand, running a finger and thumb along his mustache with his other hand. "The Draka use their corvettes and gunboats to highjack our shipments of materials from the Belt back to Earth. We've decided that it's about time we return the favor.

"Sources have revealed that there's going to be a big shipment of artifacts and such from that ruin from Mars to Aresopolis, the main Draka base on Luna."

Lefarge stopped to consider a moment, then reluctantly shook his head. "General, you know as well as I do that any such shipment is going to have heavy security. The Space Force is spread across the solar system, and they know where every one of our cruisers is."

Stoddard studied his young protege for a long moment. "Not all of them."

"Wait, you can't mean-"

"Ayuh, it's exactly what I mean. You think I brought you back here just to have a chat?"

Lefarge stared at the older man, floored. "The New America is supposed to be used as a last resort! It's supposed to take colonists to Alpha Centauri in case the war destroys Earth. Besides, it's not even finished."

"But enough of it is, and a good many of those auxiliaries are ready, right?"

"I..." Lefarge shook his head, then straightened in his chair. "Yes, sir. About a half dozen are ready with another one ready to be launched within the next couple months." A pause. "Sir, are you sure about this?"

"Sure? No. But I do know that we can't let the Domination have sole access to whatever technology they may have found there. Most everybody in San Francisco agrees, and they've convinced the Alliance Chairman the same." A warm smile. "I understand your hesitation. New America has been your baby for over a decade. But there's times to keep the knife in your sleeve, and times to take the thing out and stab the bastard. This discovery has changed everything, Fred. Get those ships ready."

Frederick Lefarge stood and saluted sharply. "Yes, sir!"