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  John and Isralla danced lively around the floor having a great time, as Jina was invited to join them.

  Ace watched the display sadly from bitter memory. "It will last."

  He turned to see a seven foot tall woman gazing down on him with emerald eyes, she was graceful and serene, and could easily pass for twenty. "It will last forever," she repeated. "They were blessed by The Lady. They will still fight but never forget their love."

  "You are the Lady Gyor?" Ace asked. "Isralla and Ison's mother."

  "And ten thousand things besides," she laughed. "But I'm quite pleased to be shut of those two trouble makers. The only down side is that they married two more troublemakers. I dread to think what my grandchildren will be like!"

  "I'm sure they will be fine," Ace laughed.

  "They'd better be, because we're planning on building some rather large ships, and I don't want a delinquent borrowing one for a joyride." She sighed, "With June's help, and a lot of brandy, I hope to be a better grandmother than I ever was a mother."

  "Then you won't be joining us on the Iowa?"

  "Not on your life, I wouldn't miss it for the world," she laughed. "In my line of work I go from point A to point B without seeing what is in between. But this time I get to go the scenic route. By the way, we'll be stopping off on Tharsius on the way out, so you get to do a sweep with the Marines, as a taster for space combat."

  "Objective?"

  "Nothing really, just trying out the new hardware," she lied sweetly.

  In the middle of the base, a mile from the Percival residence, the blast doors were withdrawn, leaving a vast pit reaching down into the Uber replicator. Ace stared down into the hole as something moved in the darkness. Navigational lights were springing on, and then a hundred search lights, and a vast form began to emerge from the darkness. She slowly floated free of her artificial womb, reaching for sunlight and fresh air the USSS Iowa was born.

  Ace watched the ship emerging silently from the depths, dwarfing any other ship he had ever seen, she was three times the size of the largest aircraft carrier on Earth. Her hull was a streamlined ellipsoid, with seven huge turrets in a V formation on her upper deck, and a further seven on her keel. Each turret held a twenty meter wide plasma cannon and five gauss cannons flush with the armour, which left the hundred smaller defence turrets in the shade.

  The prow held a spinal mount cannon running the entire length of the mile long ship, and twenty more gauss cannons facing forward. Hatches for the assault ships and launch tubes for the Squadrons of Gnat fighters dotted the hull.

  Ace had spent the last month crawling through every inch of the stupendous ship, getting to know her from the inside, but to see her flying was unbelievable. It was like watching a skyscraper tearing its self from the earth and take to the sky.

  The Iowa gently floated to space where she belonged, and took up geostationary orbit over Percival Base.

  The flight testing took another month, with Ace working hand in hand with the engineers, finding out what would work and what would not. But the design was sound and there was hardly anything needed fixing.

  The Iowa received her certificate of space worthiness, something the NASA Space Shuttles had never earned, and the crew began to board. The Marines flew in on their landing craft. The Air Force flew their Gnat fighters and Hornet strike ships in to the launch tubes and hangers. The Army flew in their Mechanised Infantry and Grav tanks. Even the Navy loaded six attack ships capable of long distance strikes against capitol ships or hardened targets.

  After the last war the Earth was going to the stars in force, to find out what was there and seize it if need be. But mainly to dissuade any potential aggressor from thinking Earth was a soft target.

  With the Percival family back from their honeymoons the Iowa was ready to reach for space. John and Eileen stood before the master navigational tank, plotting her route to Tharsius. At twenty light-years it was the closest nearly friendly planet so far visited, with a twenty man base already set up. There were still five habital worlds even closer, but they were in our own backyard and so beneath the Iowa's notice. NASA was planning to visit them as soon as the Iowa was long out of communication range, they badly needed a public relation's coup to keep their funding.

  The Iowa tested her legs, reaching the edge of the Solar System in three hours, just pushing the speed of light. They shut her down for a complete systems check and found nothing wrong.

  The next test was a five light-year leap across space, stopping briefly at one of the worlds NASA was planning on visiting. Agent Darko did a full sweep of the planet and transmitted the data back to Earth, revealing a lush world that would support human life if you like bugs, big bugs, about ten feet high.

  They didn't seem to be intelligent but they did have termite type cities as big as New York.

  For some reason Darko didn't like NASA.

  Again the Iowa leapt across space, taking up orbit around Tharsius, and let the Navy launch their ships to scout the system properly.

  John asked Ace to use his Marine Rifle Platoon to provide an escort as the family flew on down to the Backbone of the World, seeing a stupendous range of mountains that cut the world in half. As the sun revealed new fertile land and the night gobbled up the rest. The Percivals swooped down towards the world in their personal Frigate, the Arrow, as the Marines followed them in a delta shaped Lander, that dropped four flying personnel carriers and a scout vehicle for Ace and his driver. The Lander fled back to space, ready to pick them up on command.

  With the Percival's safely in the tunnel through the Backbone of the World, Ace put his men through ambush drill, reminding them that it didn't matter which planet they were on, they were still Marines.

  The driver was a short, dark and pretty Latino, and could have made it as a model if she didn't like blowing things up so much; she put the combat car down on the dry savannah, between three distant herds of creatures, one of which would make a T-rex look warm and fuzzy. The other two herds were armoured, spined and mountainous.

  Ace leapt from the car to work his way towards the top of a high bank, scanning the distance with his electro binoculars, looking for the ambush he was supposed to walk into.

  One of the EAI Carriers left a distinct shadow from the rear cowling, giving him the chance to locate the other three by what he could not see, rather than what he could. Three patches of the dry grass were so ordinary they could only be camouflage, nature likes diversity.

  He slipped back into the gully, and noticed his driver was filing her nails, waiting for orders. "Stay here Sal, I'm going to rip them off for this." He slipped his carbine into the cover under his rear battle harness, strapping it down.

  Sal nodded, it was what she expected. Nobody got to be a Gunny through being nice.

  Ace slipped back down the gully half a mile and began to out flank the ambush, hitting them from behind.

  But as he closed with his team mates he heard a noise from beyond a low strand of bush. A grunting rustle and a faint jabber of an alien tongue. He had no remit to mix with the locals, but that had never stopped him before.

  Ace crept through the grass, closing with his prey, slipping silently ever closer to the aliens. He knew that most of the population were humanoid, small greenish and greedy, so he didn't expect to run into anything big and creepy.

  What he certainly didn't expect was for a girl to run into him, fleeing from a pack of creatures that looked half wolf and half mantis.

  She slammed into his chest, rolled over and continued running without a pause, vanishing into the brush in seconds.

  Ace leapt to his feet to see three short green men bleeding on the dry grass with light lances sticking in their guts, while four more charged after the girl with long swords.

  He saw her drop a spear thrower and run for her life as the hounds from hell chased her down. All he could do was turn around and chase after her.

  She was fit and athletic, not loaded down with enough equipment to start a war,
and scared out of her mind; so he had trouble keeping up. The hounds didn't have that problem, they swept out and closed in from three sides.

  He knew she wasn't in real danger, but she did not. If caught she might spend a year or two held captive before being traded at the Backbone of the World; to be bought and freed by the Earth outpost. She thought her fate was to be fed to the Aelder that once controlled the passage to the far side of the world.

  To Ace this was not really serious, but to the girl it was life and death.

  She kept glancing over her shoulder seeing the strange man always a few feet behind her. The only chance she had was to kill him and then the hounds, and hope the little thieves would attack one at a time.

  It was impossible, she knew that, but it had never stopped her before. In the last twelve years of hopeless drifting this was not the first time she'd had to fight for her life.

  In desperation she stopped dead and turned to face him with a drawn knife. He pulled to a stop just out of knife range, panting and had to smile. She was tanned heavily by the sun and didn't wear much, just a light strip of leather that ran from one shoulder to mid thigh, barely covering her firm breasts; her hair was long and dark, and her face frantic with terror. She could have been in her early twenties, but was so covered in dust, sweat and fear it was hard to tell.

  She charged him with her knife slashing left and right. He parried and blocked with ease, enjoying her look of desperation, but behind the short greenish guys were catching up, and the hounds were still closing in.

  All hope of life fled as she realised she was finally beaten by a new breed of man she had never heard of. For a brief second she thought of ending it, rather than becoming a slave and then a snack for a monster. Her knife was sharp, and it would be over soon. She raised her knife to see him smiling gently at her, without threat.

  He pulled back, raising his hands as if in surrender, as the first hound jumped her. She spun at the beast, clearly expecting him to attack her defenceless back. He tried to tell himself it wasn't his problem, and called himself a liar. She might be a savage but he was a gentleman. The first of the men caught up, uncurling a long whip.

  Okay, things were getting out of hand.

  He might not be authorised to help her, but he'd be damned if he'd see her whipped.

  Ace saw another hound about to dive on the girl, and lashed out with one foot, crushing the creatures throat. The green man shouted in anger and tried to whip Ace.

  Without authorisation to draw his weapon Ace was restricted to resolving the situation the old fashioned way. But at least the sides now formally set. Ace grabbed the whip with his armoured wrist and pulled the man off guard, knocking him to the ground. A light tap with his boot gave the victim a nice long sleep.

  The girl turned to see Ace covering her back, and killed her hound with the knife, as two more men burst onto the scene. One charged her with the sword, over extending his reach and slipped as she side stepped the blow. She spun and lunged with her knife into the fallen man, ripping him from chest to groin. He felt her knife enter his guts and slid away bleeding badly, desperately trying to stop his intestines from spilling onto the grass.

  The last man turned on Ace, trying to poke him with a seven foot sword. The response was instinctive, he slid past the sword and slammed it point first into the ground, standing on the tip. The swordsman struggled to free the sword and looked Ace in the eyes for a split second, then dropped the sword and ran for it.

  Ace turned to the girl laughing, to see her knife heading for his head. He ducked as she thrust, and caught her over his shoulder, throwing her to the grass; standing on her knife. She rolled free and he pocketed the blade.

  "Okay, if you want me, come and get me," he laughed.

  Unarmed she dived for him, fighting for her life as he parried her blows with ease. But Ace never stopped smiling, he was enjoying the bout with a worthy opponent. If she had been trained he might have been in trouble. Quite when she started to smile was uncertain, but she knew he could take her at anytime, and that he was playing with her. It was a shock, she had never practised learning to fight, to her it was in desperation not fun. At last she dived at him with outspread arms, but instead of ducking he stood there and let her catch him.

  They crashed to the ground, wrestling together without any kind of hostile intent, just trying to see who could come out on top, and she being the more supple kept beating him, until he used his greater strength to topple her to the ground.

  Finally they both collapsed from exhaustion, and lay side by side panting heavily. He turned to look at her closely for the first time as a new sound emerged from the savannah, that of wild yells and stampeding hooves. The swordsman had returned driving a stampede of monsters before him. This was no attempt to catch the girl, but to kill them both.

  The girl tried to run, but he held her hand tightly and drew his point fifty carbine from the bottom of his battle dress. She could only stare at the weapon with incomprehension. He aimed instinctively and fired once, the shot was quiet but the bullet still streaked past the sound barrier knocking the swordsman back into the stampede. If it was the bullet or the stampede that killed him was not clear, but the dinner plate sized hole in his chest certainly didn't help.

  Then he fired again and again into the middle of the herd, trying to force them to split around them. With any other weapon it would not have worked, but the point fifty bullets packed one hell of a wallop no matter what they hit, and at ten shots a second, every second, very little could withstand them.

  A T-Rex sized beast stumbled first with a missing head, and then a monstrous snake slammed into it, and a beetle as big as a bus collapsed with eight legs torn off. It started to work, a few creatures stumbled before them forming a barrier, and then more crashed into the dead, and the herd ran right and left.

  The EAIs swooped from the sky, and the girl looked up in horror, stumbling from Ace just as a jagged beast took a shortcut, and clipped her left arm. She went flying before the stampede. Ace had a split second to grab her and jump for the EAI, as the monsters swept below them. The girl could only stare down on the animated death below her, and saw Ace pulling her into an alien craft. Once inside she fainted from shock.

  Ace straitened her clothing and put the knife back in her sheath. "Sleep well," he chuckled as the medic checked her out and gave her a sedative. "You've had a busy day."

  "So what do we do with her?" the medic asked with a grin.

  "How is she?"

  "Pretty beat up, borderline malnutrition and a couple of old wounds that need treating. But apart from that, very nice indeed."

  "I'll hand her over to the Percivals, I'm sure she'll be safe there. Only wish I knew her name."

  The Iowa left Tharsius behind, heading for deep space and the unknown.

  Ace had never seen the girl again, she was not important enough to come up in conversation with the Percivals. Her welfare was not on any list of 'need to do', and so she didn't rate a mention.

  It was three weeks later when Lady Gyor asked Gunny for a favour. A big favour.

  "I've had an SOS from home. Please don't ask stupid questions, I'm sure you know where I mean. My homeland Orissia is being invaded and I have to go back to stop it. I can't let you get involved in my war, my family have already volunteered to help with that. But I am asking you to help cover the gateway, to stop them entering the Iowa."

  "You are talking magic?" he asked with worry.

  "Yes Gunny, I'm talking big magic, to open a gateway to another dimension. And just to make it interesting it will be half way up a tower, so we'll have to clime down into a war without clothing or weapons."

  "Do you ever do anything the easy way?"

  "Now that you mention it, not that I can remember," she sighed. "You'll get your gear back on the ground, but you can't go through the portal carrying anything. This is highly dangerous, but I've been working on the problem for a couple of years, so I know what I'm doing. I think."

 
"Right, we hold the breach and you do your stuff, which is?"

  "Killing the command staff and cutting their supply line, then they can only go home. Most of the civilian population managed to escape, but unless I can stall the invasion the Savages will soon be rounding them up for dinner. The lucky ones. The women of child baring age will have it far worse than being eaten, they will be forced to birth a new generation of monsters, before being eaten."

  "I'm starting not to like them," Ace gasped.

  "If they managed to follow us into the Iowa it will be a blood bath. Your carbines are great, but hardly anyone on the ship is armed. And all the Savages are massive and blood thirsty."

  "Guarding the Iowa from being boarded is a legitimate use of Marines," Ace sighed. "You'll cover my butt if anything goes wrong?"

  "You'll be fine Gunny," she laughed.

  "When do you want us?"

  "Now, I'll be opening the portal in five minutes."

  "I'd better wake them up," he sighed.

  "What the hell am I doing here?" Ace yelled as he climbed naked through a window in an impossible room and lowered himself down the rope that seemed to run through a lightning festooned tunnel between dimensions. He swung downwards as fast as he could, passing through a barrier in reality and landed in a castle courtyard with the family, who were pulling on armour and checking weapons. John, Isralla, Eileen, Ison, their mothers June and Gyor, and John's father Bob. Ace's Rifle Platoon came next, rappelling down the rope and getting ready; Sal came last, a teenage girl without any concept of modesty. Then the teenagers Jack and Lorza. Agents Darko and Karin came last, bringing their young daughter, who also carried a carbine.

  Trust the Percivals to turn a war into a family outing!

  Gyor had opened a pocket reality bringing their gear, and they dressed hurriedly, as the sound of war clashed outside the castle wall.

  The Rifle Platoon formed up, thirty six men in four man fire teams. It should have been a few more, but all married men had been left on Earth. Sal stood next to Ace as his personal driver and general dogsbody. Normally the fire teams would have an assortment of weapons, three M16s, one with a grenade launcher, and a light machine gun.