Blimey, this anthology appears to be doing something with the space-time continuum as I seem to have been reading this forever!
Here Sparks cleverly contrasts the hard life of a front-line soldier/oppresser/invader as a team struggling on an inhospitable planet, with acid rain heading their way and genmod super-men to fight, with that of a group of indigenous members of a holy order, who are implacably carrying out their religious duties, even on a battlefield in a challenging climate.
There’s a lot of devil in the detail and the story works well.
