Judge by Karen Traviss Page A

angled boxy shape of a frigate churning a white wake behind her. The next thing he saw was a billowing mass of yellow flame and white smoke, and he was looking straight down the line of a missile.
    Becken ducked instinctively despite the Eqbas shielding. Ade did too. Two or three seconds: no explosion. They straightened up and there was nothing out there but choppy sea smearing into a pale gray blur as the Eqbas ship headed north.
    â€œWelcome home,” Becken muttered. “Who shot at who?”
    It wasn’t a great start. It was Umeh all over again, except this was Earth, and that hurt.
    Â 
    F’nar, Wess’ej: Nevyan’s home, upper terraces.
    Â 
    F’nar had been Eddie Michallat’s home for twenty-seven years, but he never took the view for granted.
    It beat the Leeds skyline for grandeur by a long chalk. At this time of the morning, Ceret—Cavanagh’s Star to humans—had risen high enough to cast a peach light over the unbroken layer of nacre that covered the whole city, and gave it the name the colonists sometimes used: City of Pearl.
    The gleaming layer was insect shit, deposited by millions of tem flies swarming on every smooth and sun-warmed surface. But it had the luster of extinct Tahitian pearl, and, as shit went, it was breathtakingly lovely.
    Eddie stood at the irregularly shaped window and stared out across the caldera. He knew every house excavated in the walls of the caldera itself, every clan of wess’har who lived there, every territorial call of the matriarchs who ran the place. It was as much home as any place he’d ever known. He liked it here.
    â€œEddie, you know they’ve arrived, don’t you?”
    â€œOkay, sweetie.”
    â€œYou’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
    â€œOkay.”
    He didn’t turn around right away. The ITX screen was active—he could see the reflection on the glass bowl by the spigot facing him—and he knew he was going to have to psych himself up to see old friends who were now much younger than he was. For c’naatat hosts, age was irrelevant. But time had passed; time, and people, and events. In all those years, he’d been broadcasting into what felt like a silence, waiting for the reply that would come one day from his closest confidants. ITX no longer felt instant.
    I miss you. All of you.
    â€œEddie, you knew this would happen one day.”
    â€œI did,” he said, and turned around. “God knows we’ve talked about this enough. Maybe I’ve worked myself up too much.”
    Erica was one of the civilian contractors who’d stayed behind on Wess’ej when Actaeon ’s crew left, and had this been Earth, they’d have been celebrating their silver wedding. It was the longest relationship Eddie had ever had, lived out wholly in an alien city, quietly comfortable in the way of couples needing to stick together, and it had produced a son. Barry had seemed like a blessing until Eddie began to worry about what kind of life he had forced on a kid who would have to return to Earth simply to find a girlfriend.
    Other than that, he had no complaints.
    â€œYou think Shan’s going to go ballistic at you for staying here, don’t you?” Erica said. “Look, she’s half a bloody galaxy away. What’s she going to do about it?”
    â€œYou never met her, did you? And it’s not that far.”
    â€œI saw her a couple of times. But she’s still a long way away.”
    â€œThat’s the problem. I let her down.”
    â€œEddie, do you really want to be back there? With half the world waiting to start a war with the other? Oh, wait—that’s just what you miss, isn’t it? The good old days of watching someone else get their head blown off.”
    â€œOkay.” Eddie waved vaguely, not sure if he was waving her away or waving her off. “Okay.”
    Erica turned up the audio. The sound of studio chatter filled