In the same setting as ‘Bright Red Star’ from Asimovs March 2005, where I noted that it looked at ‘just how far humanity is going to have to go in order to save humanity’, and, seven years on, the story in hand asks the same question, as that which was once combat marine Falcon is deployed onto the surface of a previously human-settled planet that the implacable alien menace, The Shardies, are reducing to little more than fine sand.
There’s enough of Falcon left to hate The Shardies with a passion, on a mission that he/it knows is a one-way mission.
As with the earlier story, there’s a twist at the end.
