She glanced up, her eyes flickering over my enlarged arm before meeting my gaze. A ghost of a frown played on her lips. “Starn, you’re back in one piece—or should I say, one and a half?”

  “Still counting,” I replied, flexing my mutated arm.

  Her smile vanished, replaced with a stern, captain-like expression. “What’s the problem, Sergeant?”

  I took a deep breath, meeting her gaze straight on. “There’s something wrong, Captain. With… this timeline.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and I could see the gears turning in her head as she processed that information. She leaned back in her chair, her gaze fixed on me. “All right, Starn. Tell me everything.”

  “Some of the things that happened during this campaign are wrong, Captain,” I began.

  She frowned. When she caught sight of my freaked-out expression, her icy blue eyes narrowed in my direction. “Wrong? What in the hell are you talking about, Starn?”

  I tapped a finger on my helmet. “I’ve got the files, from my helmet cam. Vids that show those cruisers out there—Earth’s cruisers—survived the battle. All three of them.”

  Hansen’s eyes widened as she processed my words. She leaned back in her chair, letting out a low whistle. “That’s... impossible.”

  I shared the vids, and she stared at them in shock.

  “There’s more,” I continued. “Redgrave, he... he wanted to make a deal, in the end. He wanted to sue for peace.”

  She ripped her gaze away from videos of a lost time, and her gaze snapped back to mine. “Redgrave? A deal? What are you talking about? When did you talk to Redgrave?”

  “When…” I asked aloud. “That’s a philosophical question, now, I guess. Maybe I never did talk to him in this timeline… But in any case, he wanted to make a deal with us—with you. But now, he’s dead. At least… that part hasn’t changed, has it?”

  “No, Quinn told me he found you struggling with the cyborg, and he shot him down.”

  “Too bad…”

  A heavy silence filled the room as Hansen processed my words. She looked at me, her gaze searching my face as if trying to find a lie. But there was none to be found.

  Slowly, she leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. “All right, Starn. Let’s say I believe you. We need to tread carefully. Very carefully. Don’t talk to anyone else about this.”

  She kicked me out of her office then, and I headed back down to find my bunk. After a quick shower to wash off all the alien mud and blood, I crashed into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  “Just what the hell did you do, Starn?”

  Dr. Sharaf’s words cut through the fog of my sleep like a knife. They pulled me from the depths of exhaustion.

  My eyes fluttered open to find the irate scientist standing over me. Her usually neat bun had come undone, and her face was a mask of anger. I yawned, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I tried to process her words.

  “I’m sorry, Doc, but you’re going to have to run that by me again,” I muttered sleepily.

  “The pyramid, Starn! The portal! The captain has ordered its destruction, all because of your idiotic fear-mongering!”

  I sat up, my back protesting at the sudden movement. “The portal? But that thing was dangerous, Doc. You saw what it could do.”

  “Of course, it’s dangerous!” she snapped, her hand slicing through the air. “That’s the point of discovery, Starn! To uncover the unknown, to face the dangerous and the terrifying and to tame it by force! You’ve robbed us of that—you and your damned fears!”

  “Look, maybe you’re right, Doc. Maybe I got scared and tattled to the captain. But there’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity, and I think we were dancing on it.”

  She glared at me, her lips pursed in a tight line, but she finally shut up and left. That, right there, was a frigging blessing.

  Chapter 36: Paths Not Taken

  Borag rumbled beneath my feet. The pre-flight vibrations resonated through the ship’s titanium bones.

  My eyes were drawn helplessly to the viewscreens. A wide-angle image of Ganymede stretched out before me. The icy surface was in eye-hurting contrast with the dark, velvety expanse of space above.

  As we lifted off, the immense moonscape began to shrink. The shaved-off mountain, the wrecked cruisers—we were leaving all of it behind. For me, it was mostly a relief. I’d lost men on this moon that was so big it would have been called a planet anywhere else. Hell, it was bigger than Pluto and Mercury.

  But my sense of loss was greater than that. I was thinking about my memories. It was a weird feeling to clearly recall events that had never happened. This must be what it felt like to be schizo.

  I didn’t know what to do with these upsetting facts, so I tried to bury them. Bury them deep.

  Ganymede’s craters and fissures, once grand and imposing, transformed into splotches of light and shadow as we climbed higher. Soon, the alien base was barely visible. A few minutes into the flight, it was a faint scar on the otherwise pristine landscape. Then, the ground fell away completely, replaced by the inky blackness that filled the vast majority of our universe.

  Brilliant Jupiter loomed large as we left the little stuff behind. He was a swirling mass of storms. Reds, whites, and browns created a slowly spinning stew. The gas giant seemed to watch us—no wonder the Romans called this planet their greatest god.

  Once we’d left Ganymede well behind, I walked the cold steel corridors of Borag alone. The constant hum of the ship was comforting. I was looking for Ana, and when I found her in the bustling mess hall, I felt a smile spread across my face.

  “Ana!” I called out, striding over to her. I reached her and, without thinking, scooped her up in my arms. But the joy I felt was cut short as she stiffened in my grasp.

  “Starn?” she gasped out, her eyes wide with surprise. She wriggled out of my grip, landing on her feet with a thump. I barely had time to register her reaction before her hand connected with my cheek with a resounding slap.

  “What in the holy fuck do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. Her face was flushed with anger.

  “I... I thought...” I stammered, taken aback.

  “You thought what? That you could just come back here and act like nothing happened? After you chose Freya over me?”

  Ana’s words were sharp. I found they hurt a lot. I was stunned.

  “But Ana, you’re my...”

  My voice trailed off. I didn’t finish the sentence, because I couldn’t finish it.

  I had to remind myself that things were different here. Different timelines, different relationships… that had to be it.

  “I’m your what? Your back-up? Your second choice?” Her eyes were hard, her voice bitter.

  “No, hey, I...” I began, but she cut me off.

  “Go back to Freya, Devin,” she snapped, her gaze icy. “If you had a fight with her, go kiss her ass and make up. That’s where you belong.”

  Confusing emotions twisted in my brain, but I nodded, respecting her wishes. With a last lingering glance at Ana, I turned and left. I headed, still stunned, toward the upper decks. My mind was a blur of thoughts and feelings.

  I soon stood at the entrance to the command deck. My eyes were immediately drawn to a slender figure hunched over the sensor console.

  She was Ensign Freya Carter. Her hair was tied back into a neat bun, but stray wisps escaped here and there to frame her face. The glow from the console illuminated her features. I studied the faint creases between her brows. She was concentrating hard on her work.

  I knew I should leave her alone—but I couldn’t. I was fascinated. I was entranced.

  Her quick hands danced over the controls with practiced ease. She was beautiful. Even prettier than I’d remembered.

  There was a strange tug in my chest as I watched her. I’d always been drawn to Freya’s smooth charm and tight body. Her laughter, rare as it was, had always been my favorite sound aboard Borag.

  In this timeline, I thought, things were different. I was different. In this universe, I hadn’t chosen Ana—I’d chosen Freya.

  As I stood there, watching her work, I realized that maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

  Despite the chaos of my recent adventure into the distant past, despite the twisting timelines and shifting realities, my feelings for Freya had remained constant. Maybe, just maybe, I could learn to navigate this new universe. I’d have to be flexible. I’d have to embrace the changes that had come with it.

  Who hadn’t dreamt of doing things differently? Who had never considered a vital choice in their past, a love lost, an opportunity passed by… I had been given just such a second chance. Maybe that would turn out to be for the best, in the end.

  Time would tell, I figured.

  * * *

  Weeks passed after those first few fateful days. To the best of my knowledge, nothing else significant had changed—but it was hard to tell.

  Sometimes, something small and insignificant felt wrong to me. Like the door handle at the entrance to Red Company headquarters. Hadn’t it been on the opposite side… before? Before everything had shifted ever so slightly?

  It was hard to be sure.

  And orange juice. It tasted wrong, somehow. Not bad, mind you… but different.

  Sure, it was just some sloppy concentrate that the ship’s food service people had frozen and taken with us. But… did real oranges taste different in this timeline? Had some farmer—somewhere along the line—cultivated a different species of orange tree? Had that new orange tree pushed the old flavor into history and replaced it forever?

  I didn’t know. I’d probably never know. It was weird.

  Over forty thousand years had passed since I’d killed those aliens on Ganymede. Now, things were different—forever.

  One thing that hadn’t changed was my relationship with Captain Hansen. She still had me down as her personal bodyguard. If anything, she seemed more paranoid than ever. As we approached Mars, she became practically jittery.

  On the big day, when Borag returned to Mars and gently glided up to the spaceport over Mars City to dock, I found myself marching down the expansive metal corridors of Borag in the captain’s wake.

  Her boots and mine echoed in the metallic stillness. The ship was unusually quiet. The sound of her powerful engines merged into a low thrum in the background. Many of the crewmen had already disembarked, filtering into the spaceport to find wine, women, and song.

  When we reached the tubes, I stared at the space around us—around the spaceport. The docking tubes were so much emptier than they had been. Earth’s squadron of gleaming cruisers was absent from the docking bays.

  All six had been lost. It was a catastrophe without precedent. To the best of my knowledge, Earth had never lost a cruiser—not one.

  Maybe that was why Captain Hansen was so nervous today. We were on our way to a mandatory meeting at company headquarters, and she wasn’t in the best mood.

  As we exited the ship far above the dusty red plains of Mars, I could feel the weight of real gravity, and the pressure of our situation. Both seemed to press down upon me.

  Under my boots, the vast, domed structure of Mars City spread wide. There seemed to be—was that a new, small sub-bubble to the west?

  I blinked and squinted at it. Had it been there before? I couldn’t recall…

  After riding the space elevator down from orbit to the distant ground, we exited the lobby and headed across town on foot. The oddly shaped building that housed Interplanetary Excavations loomed ahead. At least that looked the same. Its polished surface glinted redly in the weak Martian sunlight.

  “C’mon, Starn,” Hansen said. She was putting on a brave face, but I could see the strain in her eyes. We were about to step into the controller’s lair without knowing the lay of the land. Were we heroes for having defeated Redgrave? Or villains for having lost so many warships?

  “Be ready, Starn,” Hansen said, her gaze locked onto the tall, wedge-shaped building. “We don’t know what we’re walking into.”

  I nodded, feeling the pressure. This wasn’t just about us anymore. It was about the entire crew of Borag and everything we’d been through. I could only hope that we’d find some understanding here, some sense of justice for our fallen comrades. But I wasn’t sure such frivolities existed in the cold, sterile heart of Interplanetary Excavations Inc.

  When we were about to cross the final street, Captain Hansen paused. Her eyes scanned the towering structure before us.

  “Starn…” she said quietly, “do you see anything... wrong with this building?”

  I frowned, and my gaze followed hers across the street. “Off how?”

  “Like… anything different?”

  I squinted, my gaze sweeping across the sprawling complex, the structures, the vehicles, and then... “Those warbots,” I said, pointing to a cluster of hulking, metal figures positioned strategically in an alley. “They weren’t there before.”

  A sigh of relief escaped Hansen’s lips. “Thank God,” she muttered. “I thought I was losing my mind. They weren’t there in my past, either.”

  I frowned, glancing at her. “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, her gaze hardening as she looked back at the building. “But it can’t be good.”

  I nodded, a frown playing at the corners of my mouth. The presence of the warbots was yet another sign of the changes we’d inadvertently brought about. A stark, metallic reminder of the repercussions of our actions at Ganymede.

  We crossed the threshold into the headquarters. A cool rush of conditioned air hit us as the doors slid shut behind us. The lobby was vast, and it was normally filled with employees scurrying about like ants in a disturbed nest—but today, things were different.

  My eyes were drawn to the receptionist’s desk. A grisly sight made my stomach churn. A woman, crumpled and lifeless, was sprawled across the smooth surface. Her once vibrant uniform was now stained a gruesome red.

  “Captain...?” I began. I moved instinctively toward her, my larger arm looping around her shoulders. “We should leave.”

  Hansen turned, then she froze. Her eyes had fixed upon something behind me. “We can’t.”

  “Why the hell not?” I asked, my voice raising a notch.

  She pointed, her finger stiff, toward the entrance. The warbots were on the move. Their towering figures now loomed ominously at the exits. Their gun-arms raised and aimed at us, ready for any sudden movements.

  “Shit…” I muttered.

  The reality of our situation was sinking in. There was no way out. We were trapped.

  Wearing a grim expression, Hansen started toward the elevator. Her boots echoed ominously in the deathly quiet lobby. I followed close behind, my eyes scanning our surroundings. The bodies of guards and office personnel were scattered haphazardly around the floor of the elevator lobby—perhaps they’d all been shot as they came down from the floors above.

  Hansen pressed the button for the elevator. Moments later, a soft chime sounded. The cheery tone was horribly out of place amidst the carnage.

  As the doors slid open, she turned to me, her eyes hard. “You don’t have to die for me,” she said. “If it comes down to that.”

  “I disagree,” I told her. “What else did you hire me for? My looks? My brains?”

  We exchanged quick smiles and walked onto the elevator.

  We rode to the top floor in silence. There was nothing but the soft hum of machinery. It was a silence that seemed extreme in a normally busy office building.

  When the doors finally slid open, I unslung my rifle. A wave of dread washed over me.

  We stepped out into the opulent office of the controller. Fat, bald Malkin was there, sitting motionless behind his lavish desk.

  He didn’t say a word, he just stared at us with an inscrutable expression. His eyes were hollow and empty of any emotion.

  Around him, the office was deathly still. Everyone else in the place—his staff, his guardsmen—they were all dead. Twisted corpses lay all over the rich carpets.

  There was one other individual in the room who was still on his feet. I knew him only as “the colonel”. He’d never provided us with more detail than that. To either side of him, motionless and unlit, stood a towering warbot.

  The colonel was wearing his Earth-Gov uniform today—like every other time I’d seen him. A thick mustache dominated his stern face. His hand rested on the grip of a firearm holstered at his side—but it was the warbots that worried me, not the pistol.

  His knuckles were white with tension. There was a dark look in his eyes, one that spoke of anger—even hate.

  “Well, well,” the colonel said, his lips curling into a cruel smirk. “Look what finally dared to return to me.”

  Captain Hansen approached him with her usual confident step. I’d long thought to myself that if they ever dared to execute her, they’d find she kept her head up and shoulders squared until a dozen bolts crashed into her body, finishing her off. I followed my captain and stood nearby.

  The colonel’s angry gaze slid once to me, but then quickly returned to the captain. He knew I’d take no action unless she did. He seemed to have a predator’s eye.

  “What seems to be the trouble, Colonel?” Captain Hansen asked.

  “Your incompetence lost us those cruisers!” he boomed at Hansen, his mustache twitching with his anger.

  She stood her ground, her face set in a determined grimace. “Our job was to explore Ganymede, Colonel. I did not order your cruisers to follow. That decision was all yours.”

  His eyes flared at that, but he bit back whatever he was about to spit out.

  In the tense silence that followed, I couldn’t help but glance at Malkin. He was the very picture of fear, his bald head shiny with sweat. He stayed quiet, his eyes darting between the Colonel and the Captain. I couldn’t help but think that maybe he knew better than to open his mouth. He was a cornered rat with nowhere to go.

  The Colonel turned his baleful gaze on me next, which was a surprise. I felt his scrutiny like a physical weight.