Judge by Karen Traviss

a good job, Boss. You always do.”
    â€œI might,” she said. “If the first job wasn’t pursuing the FEU to hand over the tossers who authorized Rayat’s use of cobalt bombs. I think that’s going to get a bit hairy.”
    The Eqbas didn’t believe in any statute of limitations. The order had been given at least twenty-five years ago, more than fifty if you counted the fact that Actaeon deployed with neutron bombs—BNOs, biohaz neutralization ordnance, banned for use on Earth—in the first place. Whoever gave Rayat his orders was old or dead, but the Eqbas didn’t give a shit. If the guilty were alive, they wanted them; and their concept of guilt was just as inflexible as their Wess’ej cousins’. Only outcomes mattered, not motives, but giving an immoral order was as bad as obeying it. Ade was still struggling to reconcile the two. He wasn’t sure that he ever would.
    â€œIt’s been years since I arrested anyone.” Shan felt down the back of her belt and withdrew her 9mm handgun, ancient and still in excellent, lethal working order. “Think I can still feel collars? Nick a few bastards?”
    â€œDamn sure of it,” he said.
    He could have sworn she was looking forward to that. She was a copper, a hard street copper, back on the familiar beat of Earth. And she’d remembered what she did best.
    He watched her go. There was nowhere obvious to secure himself for landing, and he wasn’t up to facing Barencoin for a while, so he kept out of the way in the comms alcove and touched the bulkhead to see if he could make it transparent. It became an instant window on an Earth that was now an ice plain, not desert.
    As the ship dropped—or the focus shifted, he was never sure which—he strained to work out scale and position, and failed. But it was white beneath, and there wasn’t much snow left on Earth now. Where were they?
    Jesus, she’s coming in over the South Pole…
    Esganikan probably just wanted to see for herself, like the big kid she sometimes seemed to be. She didn’t have to worry about triple-A or even being detected. Ade wondered what would happen if the Eqbas ever came up against a civilization as advanced as them but as dishonest as humans. Maybe they already had.
    Becken appeared and crammed into the alcove with him. “Shit, Ade, look at that.”
    â€œIt’s Antarctica, Jon. Big white flat place. Didn’t you do exercises down here?”
    â€œNot at this speed—”
    A piercing rapid blipping sound almost deafened him. Something mid-gray and matte streaked backwards past them at eye level, then another. “ Shit. ”
    â€œFighters.”
    â€œOurs?”
    â€œNot now…”
    â€œ Shit. ” Ade hadn’t even heard engine noise. It was like watching a vid minus audio. “She’s coming in from the west, through FEU airspace.”
    Both marines looked at each other for a split second in disbelief before a searing white light blinded them and left green spots in Ade’s field of vision. The jets had passed; now the Eqbas ship was clear of the ice and over tundra, a moss-green and gray blur, and then there were the tops of low buildings. The ship seemed to slow instantly with no feeling of inertia—Esganikan had given up sensors in favor of sightseeing, Ade suspected—and came to a dead stop over a small town.
    â€œDid we shoot something down?” Becken whispered. “Where are we now?”
    â€œChrist knows.” Ade gathered his wits long enough to touch the magnification. He was looking down onto a narrow street at the upturned faces of people as frozen as any startled wess’har. Here’s your first real UFO, folks. Be amazed. “I can’t see any flags. Jesus, if she’s shot down an FEU vessel—”
    The ship moved off again and passed the coastline at a more sedate patrol speed. Ade saw something he recognized: the