Free Titan (Old Ironsides Book 2) by Dean Crawford

decisive strike against an aggressive and implacable enemy, but the council had countered that the same had been said of the previous Ayleean War, which had dragged on for more than a decade and cost the lives of thousands of human soldiers.
    Marshall’s voice broke through the sergeant’s reverie.
    ‘Bring them back from that ship before it falls apart.’

    Agry blinked in surprise. ‘Seriously? You know what they’ll do once they wake up, they can’t be trusted after what happened at New Washington and…’
    ‘Those were the actions of one Ayleean,’ Marshall cut him off, ‘not their population. We don’t know what happened here but those warriors might. Once you’re out we’ll blast that warship and finish the job. No sense in leaving it for them to put back into action, but if we can save the lives of those survivors it might convince the Ayleean leadership that we’re not intent on their destruction.’
    Agry sighed. Marshall was right, of course: a political olive branch now might pay dividends in the long run and nobody wanted another war with Ayleea, but even so he didn’t like the idea of cheerfully transporting three of their hated enemies straight aboard the fleet’s flagship.
    ‘Roger that,’ he replied. ‘My teams will be clear in fifteen minutes. Have Schmidt on stand by to thaw these guys out and find out what happened to them. If this is another ruse, I want the warriors perforated with plasma before they can think to take their first breath.’
    ***

IX
    San Diego,
    California
    Although a great many things had changed on planet Earth in the four hundred years since Nathan Ironside had left his old life behind, the crystalline blue waters of the Pacific Coast had not.
    The taxi–shuttle descended down through a layer of light cumulus cloud and the city of San Diego glittered in the sunlight like jewels encrusted into a sandy beach, the ocean stretching away toward the west and a milky horizon.
    ‘Now this is what I call heaven,’ Foxx said as she leaned across Nathan to watch more closely as the shuttle came in over Ocean Beach to land at the city spaceport.
    Nathan could see that the city was much smaller than it used to be, the sprawl from Miramar to Spring Valley now reduced to a patch of glittering skyscrapers that touched the three thousand foot cloud base, like giant glass crystals embedded into the earth. The spaceport was smaller than the airport that he remembered, no runways but merely large circular landing pads surrounded by dozens of smaller, similar pads and terminal buildings. He could see small craft catching the light as they flew out of the port toward terrestrial destinations around the globe, no location more than an hour away at near–orbital velocities.
    Most all of Earth’s cities were a fraction of the size that Nathan recalled, his own home town Denver likewise reduced to a patch of human occupation on a planet now largely returned to nature. San Diego had once been home to well over a million people, but now his optical implant informed him that just seventy five thousand people called the city home. Only the wealthiest lived here on the surface, and such a visit was considered a luxury by Detective Foxx, her green eyes gleaming and a soft smile touching her sculptured lips as she pushed a strand of silvery hair over one tiny ear and watched the city passing by below them.
    ‘You see, hanging around with me is good for you. This is the second time you’ve been planet–side since I showed up,’ Nathan grinned.
    ‘Since you showed up I’ve also almost been killed several times,’ she reminded him. ‘But at least I get to breathe fresh air for a change.’
    The shuttle landed on one of the smaller pads at the spaceport and a small vehicle drifted across to them, four seats inside and a low wind shield that apparently had no wheels and merely hovered just above the surface of the dispersal area. Nathan spotted a police department emblem on its side as he