Free The Phobos Maneuver by Felix R. Savage

connection in Amsterdam.”
    Colden also worked for the Space Corps. They had been summoned to a ‘training session’ at an undisclosed location. So, as far as they could tell, had every other Space Corps agent on Earth. Their itineraries went as far as Antarctica, so Elfrida suspected they would be heading off-planet, because one of Earth’s three big rail launchers was on Mt. Erebus in Antarctica. In answer to Petruzzelli’s unasked question— How big of a thing is this going to be?— Elfrida could have answered, if she weren’t concerned about having her email flagged for security issues: BIG.
    She and Colden had shuttered the Space Corps office in Rome, which doubled as Colden’s apartment. Now they were at Elfrida’s parents’ place on Piazza Benedetto Cairoli.
    As Elfrida dragged long-unused cold-weather gear out of the closet, her mother hovered, offering to pull strings to get them out of it. Elfrida’s mother, Ingrid Haller, worked for the NHRE—the New Holy Roman Empire: a shambolic little state occupying most of old Italy plus a chunk of the Balkans. Ingrid Haller had formerly been undercover, but now she assisted the cardinal who ran the Foreign Office. She thus had access to a lot of information she was not allowed to share with her husband and daughter.
    It was pretty clear what she was driving at now. Elfrida sat back on her heels. Her chest felt tight. “Mom. I don’t want a religious exemption or anything like that. Am I getting through to you? I am NOT quitting the Space Corps.”
    Colden retreated into the living-room.
    Elfrida kept talking loudly enough for Colden and her father to hear. “I know you’ve probably heard things that make you pessimistic about this, this whole, this war. Which is why you’re trying to get me out of it. But please, just STOP!”
    Ingrid Haller folded her arms. Her Austrian accent thickened, proving how upset she was. “All right, Ellie. I hear you. I will stop. But—”
    “There is no but,” Elfrida said, yanking the toggle of her rucksack closed. “We’ve been through this already. You wanted me to quit after I came back from Mercury. And then you wanted me to quit after I came back from Luna. But because I’ve seen the worst the PLAN can do, that’s exactly why I have to be a part of fighting them!”
    Colden said from the living-room, “I’m really pretty sure we won’t be fighting, per se, Ms. Haller. I mean, we’re the Space Corps. A typical day in the life is vaccinating livestock or teaching kids culturally appropriate nursery rhymes.”
    Ingrid Haller twitched her head as if Colden’s voice was a fly buzzing around her ears. She said quietly to Elfrida, “You think you have seen the worst the PLAN can do, but that is exactly my fear. You haven’t seen the worst. No one has.”
    They humped their rucksacks downstairs. In the alley off Piazza Benedetto Cairoli, heads popped out of windows, and shopkeepers came out of doors to wish them buona fortuna. Their departure was supposed to be a secret, but there were no secrets in an inner-city piazza. Elfrida’s eyes teared up. Romans! She loved them, and they considered her and Colden to be hometown girls, although Colden was the adopted daughter of FUKish aid workers, and Elfrida was Japanese-Austrian.
    Amid the warm salutations, Elfrida’s mother crammed bags stuffed with food into their hands. Her father whacked her shoulder lightly. This was the closest Tomoki Goto ever came to a public display of affection.
    “Itte kimasu,” [I’ll be back soon,] Elfrida said to him.
    “Ki o tsukete ne.” [Take care.]
    In Amsterdam, they boarded a chartered supersonic jet with two hundred other Space Corps agents.
    “OK, now I’m scared,” Elfrida said.
    “Me, too; I just saw Sophie Gilchrist. Put your bag in that seat, make her think it’s taken.”
    “Colden, a chartered jet? We usually have to fly cattle class, at our own expense. Is this still the Space Corps?”
    Colden looked up from