“That’s all the same to me,” he said, “I find your terms acceptable. Do I have your commitment to this mission, Captain?”

  The colonel stepped forward, offering his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached out and shook it.

  No one looked happy, not exactly. But there was a slight smile on the Colonel’s face.

  Blackwood, on the other hand, definitely looked chagrined. I could tell he wasn’t too fond of all the arrangements.

  For my part, I was conflicted—I liked Captain Hansen, and I understood why she’d taken this deal. We were in trouble and under threat of liquidation. No one wanted that, but at the same time, I didn’t want to go on a year-long mission into the unknown.

  What had happened to the ship and crew that had gone out there before us…? I didn’t know, but I was fairly certain it hadn’t been anything good. Quite possibly, this golden opportunity would result in our utter destruction.

  Chapter 19: The Secret

  When we’d returned to Mars from Vesta, morale had been low. We’d felt defeated after failing to achieve our goal of destroying the pirate solar array, and everyone aboard had been in a glum mood. The ship was in financial trouble. We’d had too many recent failures. We were all worried about what we’d have to face next.

  Then, the captain had made her fateful pilgrimage to the corporate buildings and come back triumphant. When the crew was finally allowed to disembark at the spaceport and explore Mars City below, everyone was surprised and relieved. The fact we were allowed to exit Borag meant we were under no immediate threat of dissolution.

  Then, the captain announced the good news: we’d been given a new mission, one with a startling upfront bonus attached! The worried crew immediately transformed into a happy-go-lucky crowd.

  Everyone, including the Red Company marines, immediately sought ways to spend some of that newfound wealth in celebration. We spent a significant portion of that unexpected bonus money in Mars City. We ate real meat, danced with real women instead of robots, and generally partied in relief.

  For my own part, I was somewhat more somber than the rest, as I was among the very few who knew the true nature of this new mission. The captain had only announced it was a very well-paid mission into deep space. She explained we would be completely outfitted, with every debt cleared before we set off.

  While the ship was outfitted and new crewmen were recruited, a few days passed. I spent that time trying to get somewhat closer to Freya, but alas, the respite was all too brief. We were called back to the ship and ordered to cast off for parts unknown before a single week had passed.

  I had to admire Captain Hansen’s cunning. She had everyone aboard in a good mood, even while she kept us in the dark about the details. I reflected that she had the instincts of a salesman. She knew she should hide the ugly parts of this deal until the very end.

  She’d only said we were on a secret mission to an unknown destination, and that for reasons of security, our goals couldn’t be revealed until we were on our way and far out into space. Everyone accepted this, partly because of our general relief that we’d been granted a new mission at all—and also because we’d been paid a significant sum in advance.

  Borag’s massive frame rumbled as she began easing away from the spaceport. Her hull was a lumpy metallic gray, and her surface was covered in a patchwork of solar panels that glinted in the sunlight.

  As she jetted away from the space station, her powerful engines roared to life, propelling her forward at incredible speeds. The ship’s thrusters fired in short bursts, sending plumes of blue flame shooting out from behind her as she gathered speed. Soon, she was hurtling through the black void of space.

  Inside the ship, the crew of experienced miners and engineers worked tirelessly to ensure that Borag’s equipment was functioning at optimal levels. They monitored the ship’s various sensors and navigational systems, scanning for obstacles. These days, with all the increased space traffic around Mars, chunks of debris were everywhere.

  Borag’s longest voyage began normally enough. The ship soon got up to cruising speed and the engines eased down to half-power. Stars twinkled in the distance, and the red glow of Mars loomed large in the ship’s rearview cameras.

  Everyone aboard seemed cheerful, even the officers—but there was one exception: accountant Blackwood. Every time I saw him lurking in the passageways of the upper decks, he looked glum.

  As for Captain Hansen, I rarely saw her at all. She was either holed up in her personal quarters or busy on the bridge. Whatever her reasons were for remaining secluded, I was left to stew in my own thoughts.

  Freya, of course, asked probing questions of me whenever we had a chance to talk. We even shared a brief kiss in a quiet passageway, but our privacy was short-lived. A couple of officers soon came marching along, laughing at us. Privacy was a rare commodity on Borag when the big ship was underway.

  Freya was a smart girl, and she knew something was up. She was associated with the bridge staff, and they’d already done the math plotting our course. It was clear to anyone with a tiny modicum of navigational skills that we weren’t heading for the asteroid belt. We were going into deep space, and there didn’t seem to be any planets directly in our path.

  That meant we were heading for an object that was alone in the cosmos. Either a wild asteroid, a comet—or something much stranger and farther out.

  Rumors soon began running wild on the ship. Some said we were going to rendezvous with another ship carrying valuable cargo. Others claimed there was a pirate base located at a distant Lagrange point that no one had previously explored or suspected.

  When Freya asked me about it, all I could do was shake my head and tell her I had been sworn to secrecy like everyone else. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I couldn’t tell her the truth, either. She knew I was hiding something. The look on my face gave that away.

  “But I told you what was going on before,” she protested. “When we were heading for Vesta, I acted as your private conduit for information from the bridge. And now you’re not telling me anything?”

  “I can’t, Freya,” I said, feeling frustrated. “You have to trust me on this. Even if you knew, there’s nothing you could do about it.”

  She sighed, looking hurt. “I do trust you, Devin. It’s just hard not knowing what’s going on. We’re in this together, you know.”

  I nodded, feeling guilty. “I know, Freya. I’m sorry. As soon as I can tell you more, I will. I promise.”

  She frowned, put her hands on her hips, and looked suspicious. I reached for her, hoping for another kiss, but she backed away.

  “I think I’ve got some work to do,” she said, and she skittered off.

  I cursed under my breath and trudged back down to the lower decks. I wandered the ship in a glum and dismal mood.

  “Hey, Starn!” someone called out behind me. I turned, wondering who it was. I didn’t even recognize the voice. “Hey man, it’s me. Charlie.”

  I stared at Charlie, blinked, and then smiled. “My favorite rock-rat,” I said.

  “That’s me.” He came forward and offered me a handshake.

  I knew a regular marine would never be caught dead shaking hands with an indentured contract-D, but I grabbed his hand and shook it firmly.

  Charlie smiled. “We’re still brothers, man,” he said.

  I nodded. “I guess we always will be.”

  Charlie stepped closer and lowered his voice.

  “Hey,” he said. “You gotta do me one last favor. I’m in a bit of trouble.”

  I shook my head slowly. Maybe this chance meeting wasn’t so random. “What is it now, Charlie?”

  “Well, you know… I might have overspent,” he said.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Overspent?”

  “Yeah, yeah… look, you know we all got a bit of money, right?” Charlie began.

  “Oh no,” I said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t put that against your contract—or save it for a better day.”

  He hung his head. “I should have. I know that—don’t you think I know that? But… I got some ideas. If I’d banked it all, I would have paid half of my contract down right then and there and been on my way to being a free man again. But I got a little greedy.”

  “What do you mean, greedy?”

  He shrugged. “Mars City got to me, you know? I haven’t been off-ship on my own in over a year. I could never afford it. So… I just had to do something besides squat with in the hold with the drill-bots.”

  I nodded, understanding.

  “So, I rented one of the bracelets, you know, and I went out on the streets and had a great time.”

  I grimaced. I’d forgotten about the strict rules people like Charlie lived under, even though it had been my life just months ago. Everything cost money, or more time in service, when you were one of the D-class contracts. If you wanted to walk off-ship and go into a port of call, you were charged for the service. Additionally, you were marked with a tracking device. These tiny tags made it nearly impossible to escape into the populace and disappear. Not only did such a device track you and make sure you couldn’t evade your financial obligations, it also cost money just to rent it.

  “So,” Charlie continued, “I had a few drinks. That’s when an idea hit me.”

  “An idea? What kind of idea?”

  He rolled his eyes and winced. “A stupid idea. But you’ve got to realize, when a man has a couple of heavy, narcotic-laced beverages… Well, it was the first time I’d been hit with that kind of thing in a couple of years. You got to understand, man, those drinks slam a man harder when you’ve got no resistance.”

  “Okay, okay. So, what happened?” I asked.

  “I went into this casino, see—”

  “Oh no. Come on, Charlie. Seriously?”

  “Yeah… seriously. I went to the casino and there were a lot of pretty women there. I haven’t seen such beautiful women in a long time. Anyway, I went in there, Devin, and it suddenly hit me like a bolt of lightning. If I put my money down and played smart, I could take that bonus money and double it, right-quick. Then, I’d be able to pay off my contract right then and there. There would be no more waiting, no more paying it down some and then watching it build back up again. Freedom was staring me right in the face, Devin. I just felt the luck was there. I felt certain of it. I felt like I could do anything.”

  I knew that Charlie was talking about the intoxicating effects of narco-laced beverages. In the old days, people drank alcohol and sometimes did drugs. These days, they did both at the same time in a legally prescribed fashion. But for the uninitiated, it was a very powerful and mind-altering experience.

  “How much did you lose?” I asked.

  Charlie shook his head. “Everything that I got from the bonus—and more. Then when it came time to walk aboard Borag again, I had to pay enough to get the bracelet off me. That put me into debt… I’m redlining, Devin.”

  I made an unhappy hissing sound on his behalf. Redlining meant that Charlie wasn’t just a D-contract. He was now so far in the red, owing Borag’s accounting software such a large amount, that the computer had automatically calculated that he would never be able to repay it.

  Charlie had become a man who was such a debtor, such a lost cause, that he was literally costing Borag more than he was worth just by breathing.

  That was a very dangerous place for any man to be. Crews, especially those who were under financial stress, tended to take matters into their own hands. They weren’t supposed to, mind you. People had rights, even non-citizens, even those who were nothing but D-class contracts. They had rights on paper, at least.

  But then again, there was always a hose full of oxygen feeding the deadbeat individual. If that hose were to become mysteriously cut, somehow… well, the ship’s problem would be solved.

  I tilted my head back and looked at the ceiling. “Seriously, Charlie, are you trying to ask me for money? Is that what this is about?” I asked. “Man, I don’t have much money. I’m a marine, sure, but I’m just a private. I just got my second stripe, dude.”

  “No, no, no,” Charlie said, putting his hands up. He covered his face with his laced fingers. “No, man. No, don’t even think that. I’m not asking you for money. I would never hit you up for money. First of all, I know you don’t really have any—and secondly, it just wouldn’t be right.”

  “Okay. Okay. So what’s this about?”

  Charlie didn’t answer right away. First, he looked over his shoulder, then craned his neck to look over the other shoulder. Next, he made a show of glancing over my shoulders as well.

  He saw no one. We were in a quiet spot in the passageways, a place where there was no one listening and no one wandering. At this point, I was beginning to think he’d planned out this entire thing.

  “Just tell me the truth, Devin,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking. Tell me the truth, and I’ll leave you alone. I promise.”

  “What truth?”

  “Where the hell are we going?”

  I blinked, and my jaw sagged. “What?”

  “You heard me. Just tell me where we’re going. Doesn’t a man have the right to know, Starn?”

  “Look, man… I can’t tell you. I’d be toast if they even suspected—”

  “But they won’t suspect anything,” Charlie said urgently. “If you tell me, they might come and find out I was the source. I’ll never tell anyone where I got the information. I’ll let them beat it out of me, then I’ll make up a dozen good names. I’ll tell them Accountant Blackwood himself told me.”

  By this time, I was shaking my head and walking away.

  “Hey, Devin? Where the hell are you going, man?”

  “I don’t see how this is going to help anything,” I replied.

  He reached out one skinny hand with even skinnier fingers, and he clutched at my bicep. He could barely get his fingers around it.

  “Listen, listen, Devin,” he pleaded, “we’re talking about my life, here. I’m not going to last long. There are people who’ve asked me to help them out. If I don’t help them out, then I don’t keep breathing. Understand?”

  I stopped, and I sighed. Charlie seemed encouraged. He whispered in my ear like Satan’s sidekick.

  “Just tell me this one thing, Devin,” he said. “No one has to know where I got the information, or who leaked it. The truth is going to get out eventually anyway. We’ve been traveling for a couple of months. Anybody with half a brain and a calculator can figure out we’re shooting right out of the Solar System.”

  I looked at him, thinking hard. Charlie smiled at me hopefully. A few of his teeth were missing.

  “What is it?” he asked in a whisper. “Some kind of weird black rock full of metal? A dead abandoned ship with a lost cargo? Maybe there’s a rich load somewhere that needs to be scooped up?”

  Slowly, I shook my head. It was a sad shake because the news was nowhere near as good as everyone was hoping. As far as I knew, there was no pot of gold at the end of this black rainbow.

  “All right, Charlie,” I told him. “I’m going to tell you one word—just one word. And the only reason why I’m going to tell you that one word is because it’s the only word I know—but maybe it’ll help.”

  And then, I whispered the word to him: “Eris.”

  Chapter 20: Mutiny!

  The hint I’d let leak out of my lips about our true destination was only one word long—but it was enough to make me regret it.

  I didn’t see Charlie again after that one single time, not for quite a while. But when I bothered to check the rosters, I noticed that he was still alive. He didn’t seem to be under any special punishment or duress, nor was he incarcerated or confined to one of the tiny cells down near the radioactive piles. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t mutilated, dead, asphyxiated, or otherwise abused.

  That left me with a shrug of the shoulders. I guess I’d done my good deed for the day by helping him out.

  Three days passed by after that, and I began to breathe easily again. This wasn’t because my circumstances had appreciably improved, but rather because I was feeling less stressed about helping Charlie. With every passing day, the odds that the leak would be traced back to me diminished.

  Sure, I’d released a secret that I had sworn not to—but the information wasn’t sweeping across the ship. If it didn’t turn into an ugly rumor, how could it be traced back to me?

  Maybe Charlie had passed on information to just one party who’d been interested, but then that fellow had decided to do nothing with it. Or, maybe that single word “Eris” had meant nothing to them. After all, it pretty much meant nothing to me.

  Whatever the case, as each day went by, I began to believe that my fateful meeting with Charlie in the passages of the lowest decks hadn’t resulted in anything dramatic or unpleasant.

  Unfortunately, my growing sense of optimism was wrong. Very, very wrong.

  On the morning of the fifth day, I woke up to the sound of klaxons hammering and clanging away.

  “Green Company to the lower decks!” a voice rang out. “Red Company to the upper decks, full kit! This is not a drill. Muster and move to your battle stations.”

  No set of words could spur Red Company into greater action. Being a marine aboard a starship like Borag was like being a fireman in a big city. Most of the time, you spent your days responding to occasional heart attacks, brush fires, that sort of thing. But once in a while, one of those big-ass skyscrapers lit up—and that’s when you really earned your pay.

  Red Company was like that. We were the final defense for the ship and her crew if everything went to hell in a big way. That was when our contribution really amounted to something. Most of the time, we trained, strutted around, and looked tough. We usually kept people from getting into trouble by looking mean and causing them to question their plans.

  But now and then, that wasn’t enough. Today was such a day. In fact, the simple detail that they’d called Green Company to the lower decks and Red to the upper was an obvious giveaway.