“Good morning, Commander Grant.” I greeted the older Navy officer with a salute.

  “Lieutenant Anderson. The brass told me you were coming.”

  “Did they tell you why I am here?”

  “They said you needed a team off the books, and they wouldn’t tell me why.”

  “Regretfully, I am not going to tell you why either, sir.”

  “Well, I am going to need certain assurances before I agree to anything.” Grant huffed.

  “I can guarantee you that everyone will come back. The chances are very high it will be in the condition they will be in when they leave.”

  “You can understand why I get a bit sceptical when someone in Navy Intelligence tells me that.”

  “All I can say is that we need an insertion team that can stay invisible. If things get loud we fall back behind the muscle.”

  “The Seals aren’t the muscle in this operation?”

  “Relatively speaking, no sir. I can’t say more.” I cautioned.

  “Well I have your platoon standing by. Follow me.”

  We walked down a few halls and into a large briefing room. Everyone came to their feet when the Commander walked in the room, and I took a quick assessment before following him to the front. Another Lieutenant, a Lieutenant Junior Grade and 14 ratings of assorted seniority. I joined the Commander as they all sat back down.

  “Alright men, I am as in the dark about this as you all, but the Lieutenant is going to enlighten us.”

  “The actual briefing will be on route.” I countered. “All we are covering right now is that while each and every one of you will be returning with your shield or on it, this is a mission that will never be acknowledged at any level. It is to-your-grave quiet. All equipment will be provided on the transport and it will be models you have not used before and so can’t be tracked back to us. If any of you want to bow out, please do. This will be one of the most interesting things that has ever not happened to you.”

  “That is not how we do things here Lieutenant.” growled the Commander.

  “I understand that sir.” I remained standing at attention. “If you all don’t want to play, I will have to go with Plan B, which means bringing a team with me that won’t be near as quiet.”

  “You are going? I am not sure how I feel about having to babysit someone who is not trained for this.” said the other Lieutenant.

  “While I do have a specific role on this mission, it isn’t to tell Operators how to operate. You can rest assured that I will not be under your feet or require protection.”

  “I’ll leave it to you, Lieutenant.” offered the Commander.

  “Men, stand or sit.” ordered the Lieutenant. Everyone stood. Some more slowly than others, but they all stood up.

  I keyed my communicator.

  “Allegro, I have the team, send the bus.”

  “Bus is on the way, ETA three minutes. I will join you once I have finished what I am doing here on the Intervention. Probably about an hour.”

  “We’re going now?” asked one of the ratings.

  “And we should all be back before morning.” I informed them.

  “Seriously?”

  “As a heart attack.” I let them out to the side parking lot of the building, where one of the squidie’s buses was coming in for a landing.

  “Everyone get on before someone gets pictures of us all.” I ordered as I speed-walked up the ramp.

  Sixteen men followed me. As we took off and gained altitude they were all glued to the windows. As we left the atmosphere the view of the Earth was suddenly interrupted by the hangar bay of a ship, where we landed again.

  “Did anyone see this thing before we reached it?” asked one of the Ratings.

  “Chat later, briefing now.” I speed-walked some more, to a room off of the hangar bay where a robot much like the last ones I saw Allegro with was waiting for us.

  “Welcome honored guests. The room has been configured for your use. My Captain extends her compliments, and this unit will be standing by if you need anything we can fabricate. Your mission equipment is in production now and will be delivered shortly.” it went silent and still.

  “Thank you.” I said and walked past it. Screen on the wall on one end of the room, padded benches with two tablets on each arrayed facing it. Table on the back with a selection of fruits and vegetables and pitchers of water on it.

  “When Allegro gets here we will start. This is her op.”

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  “This is not filling me with confidence.” remarked the Lieutenant.

  “Because you haven’t heard the plan yet. Everyone chill, Allegro will be here in about thirty minutes.”

  I grabbed a drink and headed out to the main hangar again to wait. After several minutes the Lieutenant came out to join me. His uniform said Thomas.

  “How confident are you, really?”

  “That we will get the information we want? Dice roll. That we will all be back in our own beds before morning? Very sure.”

  “Who is Allegro, anyway?”

  “Allegro’s history and experience is opaque to me, but she is the direct representative of the number two in the hive fleet. Arpeggio wouldn’t have sent us someone who wasn’t on board with how she does things. HER role is problem solving, and only the queen holds her leash.”

  “Who holds ours for this?” he asked.

  “Well, I have my own part to play here, and I was told to keep the war crimes to a minimum; but you don’t answer to me. Congrats Lieutenant, the Rules of Engagement are completely up to you.” I snarked. He rolled his eyes at me.

  After another few minutes Allegro’s signature ship flew in, dropping the ramp as it touched down. My augmentations tagged it as “Shall We Proceed To The Finding Out?” I spit out my drink and the Lieutenant looked over at me.

  “I can see its transponder codes. Allegro seems to be in a better mood than the last time I saw her.”

  “You can what?”

  “Never mind.”

  As Allegro came down the ramp Thomas’s eyebrows climbed up his skull.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  “Inside, so I don’t have to keep answering the same question.” We all walked in, and the Seals all stood to attention.

  “Alright everyone, we are about ready to get started, but first I’ll explain who this is. Allegro, meet an element of Seal team Four, Team four, Allegro.” The screen behind me displayed a chibi cartoon version of a squid on the left and an image of what one of the extraterrestrials actually looked like on the right. That was new. Nightmare fuel.

  “The squidies are all biological, but for reasons including but not limited to resource conservation and survivability in hostile environments we may decide to digitize our consciousness. We can go back to organic bodies when we choose to do so, but we have to start from scratch. That body can be a human one scratch built from the DNA up, and I moved to using this body about seventeen years ago.” Allegro explained.

  “Prior to this assignment I was a scout ship captain, for about fifty years. I’ve been around since your Monroe was elected president. Let’s get started.” Allegro waved her hand theatrically at the screen.

  A globe appeared on the screen, and it quickly zoomed in to show an estate in the countryside of Bolivia. A man’s face appeared in the corner of the screen.

  “Our target is Hugo Mamani. He is a Peruvian living in Bolivia handling direct action for one of the cartels. Last week he set one of his assets to hit a person on American soil that we have an interest in, and we want to know who gave the order or paid for the job.” Allegro started.

  “Why do you care?” came a question from the back.

  “Navy Intelligence knows why the hive has an interest in this, but we won’t be getting into it today.” I deflected. “The Navy also has an interest in this, but not for the same reasons. Since we both want these guys to stay off our fucking lawn, there is some back scratching going on here.”

  “We will be doing a high altitude drop over the target. The crew of the ship we are on will guide you all into landing so you are together.” Allegro continued smoothly. “You will proceed to the villa and secure Mamani for questioning. We will take out the power, land line and jam terrestrial wireless communication. I will be with you, and Anderson here will be right behind us. My rules of engagement are to eliminate anyone who might compromise the secrecy of the mission.”

  “Does that include non-combatants?”

  “Yes, so do be sure not to get identified.”

  “How sure are we that we won’t have to break any rules?” Asked the senior non-commissioned officer on the squad.

  “Our dossier on Mamani says he is a very paranoid man, and he doesn’t see any visitors at home. Anyone you see on the property should be security, who will kill to defend him.” I answered. “Any further questions on that?” Headshakes. Moving on.

  “Ok, equipment. All the stuff will be here in another few minutes. You all will be wearing a variation of the ship suit I have on now, with custom body armor. You will not leave the ship with so much as a stitch of what you came on board with.” Allegro told them. Shrugs. I could work with that.

  “It will all fit perfectly. The hive does good work.”

  “Weapons?” came the inevitable question.

  “There is an embargo on extra terrestrial weapons tech in your star system. Luckily for us, you have no safeguards from our propulsion technologies, which we don’t classify as a weapon. You will each be carrying a laser rangefinder target designator. Anything you hit with it we will pop from up here.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Five centimeters further out from wherever the laser rebounds we will hit with a sphere the size of both of your fists of 100 gravities, so don’t fuck around with them. Head shots or center mass is instant death.”

  Some robots took the opportunity to interrupt by carrying in cases full of equipment. Each had one of the Seal’s names on it.

  “Get dressed and get some rest.” Allegro advised. “We will be getting you all buttoned up for the drop at 2345 local. Anderson, your equipment is on the Find Out.”

  I followed Allegro up the ramp and into the cabin proper. She pointed me further into the Captain’s cabin where I found my own ship suit. There was even a card with illustrations on how to put it on correctly. The down side was that I would have to almost completely remove it to use the bathroom. At least that was easy to do. When I came out into the main cabin, I saw that Allegro was standing next to a rack with a sleekly streamlined suit of armor that still had enough bulk to it to indicate that it was mechanized. Next to it was a larger but otherwise identical rack of armor.

  “It’s a prototype.” she said.

  “Where do you get such wonderful toys?” I mused.

  “Actually, one of your Marines gave us the idea.” she enthused. “We usually just use combat drone bodies.”

  “I could seriously kiss you right now.” I warned her.

  “Don’t go that far. You can’t keep it. It’s a prototype.” She waved me off.

  Several hours later we joined the Seals on the deck. They had high tech unpowered armor and short bodied lasers, while Allegro and I were empty handed. Laid out on the deck were sixteen curvy boxes that looked like futuristic coffins.

  “Everyone grab a pod. This will keep you pressurized for the first part of the jump.” After they were all tucked in, the gravity nodes all picked them up and dropped them in sequence out the hangar bay door. I closed my visor so I could stick my head out into the vacuum and watch them go.

  “Trust fall.” I heard over my helmet’s audio and Allegro pitched herself out into space.