“Yeah, I was. I got better,” I said in my best British accent.

  Both men fist bumped me, then Halo hugged me tightly. “Really effing great to see you back, brother.”

  “Same. So, bring me up to speed.”

  It didn’t take long; fifteen minutes later, I was scratching a patchy beard and probably wondering the same things Bayou had previously. Onboard the massive ship there were eight of us, including Carol and her son. The maintenance team included twenty-two engineers and several maintenance bots, two dogs, and apparently a cat who had stowed away from the last crew. Thirty people on a ship that was meant for thousands.

  “The ship’s internal systems have been resisting our authorization,” the pilot said. “We don’t have the right command codes to break orbit and lock in new courses.”

  Internally, I asked Ada to see what she could do. Like the ship’s AI, they would both likely have similar levels of encryption, possibly both based on the same military crypto-architecture.

  “Other than that, we have control?”

  “Yes, sir!” Packer said. “The engineers have helped, but almost everything you need to know about ship systems are on the flats.”

  Flats were essentially video postcards that you could place on any surface, and they would play tutorials on how to use what was beneath it. They were flat video, not holographic, but made a simple task very easy to familiarize yourself with. I’d gotten used to them over the many ships I’d been aboard. There were just too many things to learn for people to teach you, from how to take a shower in low gravity to what to avoid when firing live rounds in the onboard range room. Ship systems got updated frequently, so new flats showed up all over on a near daily basis.

  “Roger that!” I responded.

  “So, let’s focus on Hauk’s men first. Seems like that is the priority. I know we can’t take every group in distress aboard, but I wouldn’t mind having more trained shooters.”

  “Halo, did you get a name on the asset?” Bayou asked.

  “Negative contact with Red-7 so far.”

  “Packer, ready the dropship for extract,” I ordered.

  “Sorry, sir, the carrier has the TriCraft locked in its docking cradle. Maintenance logs say it’s time for her repulsers to be cycled out.”

  “Fuck!” The damn repulsers were a mystery all on their own. They provided all the lift and propulsion for the odd little spaceship. Even the mechanics who did the replacements for them didn’t seem to understand how they worked. Every twenty-four thousand flight hours, each of the glowing cylinders had to be removed, placed inside a special containment case and shipped to a ground side base for maintenance and recycling. The entire process was a closely guarded secret, including an elite group of heavily armed sentries that stood guard over each step of the swap.

  The TriCraft and its unique drive system was one of the Alliance’s biggest secrets, and they took no chance of it falling into enemy hands. “So, the dropship is essentially dead weight to us now, is that what I am hearing, Captain Packer? ‘Cause I don’t think we’re going to be getting refreshed units anytime soon.”

  Packer had a smirk on his face that intrigued me.

  “Go on, Packer, speak your mind.”

  He looked down, brushing some invisible thing from his shirt, seemingly uncertain if he should even say what he was thinking. Finally, he apparently won his mental wrestling match and confirmed what I’d been thinking for years.

  “It’s a hoax.” He paused for effect. “Swapping the drives out, I mean. We don’t need to. As far as we can tell, the repulser engines never degrade.”

  The other members of Banshee looked at him like he had just blasphemed the Lord’s name. The entire process was so highly classified that few people even knew enough to question its legitimacy. My dad, the legendary colonel, was one that had. He’d claimed that no one even knew how the damn things worked. No one alive at least.

  “Any proof to back that up?” I asked.

  “Well, yes. First off, the performance never drops, and I have run ships well over the mysterious twenty-four-K cycle’s mark several times. But also… well, sir, we routinely marked our units.”

  “You marked them?” Bayou asked.

  Packer nodded. “We did, yes… with micro etching in ways that you would have to know what you were looking for to even spot.”

  “And they showed back up on other TriCraft,” I offered.

  “Yep,” the pilot answered. “Sometimes the same day, occasionally on the same ship. The techs would just move them around. They come out really easily if you have the right tool.”

  “Good enough for me. Ada, try to cancel out that maintenance hold. We need that ship. In the meantime, what else can we do for that squad?”

  “Ballistic entry, we can give them more firepower.”

  I grimaced. Priest was right, but that just put more men at risk. I knew Hauk by reputation mainly. Liked him, but was it worth taking that chance? “Packer, can you move us in close enough for launch?”

  “Yes, sir, sort of. We have little orbital maneuvering, but we will pass over the target area on several upcoming passes. And we have launch capabilities. It won’t be an LEO drop, though.”

  They all knew what that meant. LEO, or low Earth orbit, drops in the flying coffins were bad, but only experienced a few minutes of the intense reentry effect, the bone jarring and highly dangerous atmospheric burn. High altitude drops increased that time and risk exponentially. The Space Force had specially designed drop pods for HAO jumps, very expensive pods that even I had never been allowed to look at. Unlike the standard atmos pods, these were X-class and supplied directly by Hammer Industries. “We have X-class pods?”

  Packer nodded. “The new ones with the retrieval system to bring them back aboard after use.”

  “Okay, Banshee, prep for launch on next pass. Pilot, get us in position.”

  Bayou placed her hand on my arm. “You can’t go, Master Sergeant. We must have you up here.”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek while I mulled over which of my responses to hurl at the lieutenant.

  “Joe, we’re playing for survival here. Not just our survival, but as a species. This won’t be the only time we’re needed. You can plan ahead, try and figure out what comes next. You’ve been through a lot. We can go get those guys. We need you to be in command.”

  I didn’t like it, but I saw her logic. Then Ada decided for me.

  “The system still has you listed as dead, Kovach, so the only launch you would be authorized for is a funeral pod.”

  “Fuck… again. Get me back on the payroll, Ada. Do whatever to unfuck my life, okay?”

  Carol asked me to come meet her son in the meantime. She glanced down again as she came over. “Maybe we should stop somewhere along the way first just to get you tidied up a bit.”

  I couldn’t hide my grin. “Lead the way.”

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  The gunfire was drawing closer, but that wasn’t what she was focusing on. She had built her entire career by getting information no one else could. Calling her a hacker was like calling Da Vinci a doodler. All modern systems used Qubit matrix storage, a tremendous advantage over the clunky binary code of the past. Xero could predict, manipulate, and know where data was leading before anyone else.

  Now, she had intercepted a data feed that simply could not be true. She looked out at the sunlight reflecting off the water. Ripples shimmered as something large moved beneath the surface. If this was true, then a single entity may have orchestrated the entire plan for Eradication Day. She reran the analysis again; it seemed inconceivable that one person brought down the world’s major powers and unleased a near biblical horde of horrors on the survivors. Who on Earth hated humanity to that degree?

  That was what she was chasing down now; she could piece together much of the how. Shell companies, off the books deals, some significant government black budgets. They all pointed in one direction, but so far, no identity to attach to all these dirty deals. It was a puzzle, and she was good at solving puzzles. Still, a master had put together this one.

  The P-cell in her portable server was running low. The internal quantum processors sucked up energy like a drug addict snorting coke. She looked for a power tap she could recharge on, then remembered where she was. The gunfire was closer, followed by occasional screams of pain. Maybe there was an outlet on the far side of camp, surely the command tent needed power.

  Not that Xero was unconcerned with the carnage that was playing out around her. Well… not only that. Years ago, they would have said she was on the spectrum. Now it was back to just being antisocial. Everything about her was purposeful and designed to keep people at bay. Her fierce looks, the tattoos and piercings, the clothes, voice, the entire package told everyone to fuck off. Most weren’t even sure she was a she. She liked androgyny, she could be anybody, or more often, nobody. Thankfully, superficial things like gender had become much less divisive since the turn of the century.

  Despite her default state of disdain from her fellow humans, not even she would have wished this on them. She ran slender fingers through her short black hair. It was an unconscious gesture that helped her focus that razor sharp mind on solving this puzzle. The sudden hand on her shoulder was intrusive and insulting, and seconds later, the young private found himself disarmed on his back looking up into her steel-grey eyes.

  “The… the captain, he send for you. Me to bring you.”

  She placed his broken English and pronounced accent to Basque country of Spain, close to the border with France, but not so close. The mental games continued even when her mind was at rest. Everything was a puzzle. She helped the soldier back to his feet and wordlessly followed.

  “You find anything else?”

  The captain wasted no time; he had a sharp mind that Xero found surprising and appealing. She would like to fuck him… but not now, now she had other priorities.

  “I’m not cleared to reveal anything to you, Captain Hauk.”

  He knew that, and truthfully, he didn’t give a shit what this wisp of a woman knew. Unless it was actionable intel that might help his unit unfuck themselves from this situation.

  “Xero, Command gave me the mission to pick you up. I don’t know why, but so far, that order has cost me nearly two dozen lives. That number will go higher before the day is over.” He retreated to a bunk and opened up a hard case withdrawing a flask and two cups. He poured two fingers into each and handed one to the hacker.

  Xero took it thankfully with a small bow. Good scotch from a Japanese distillery was what she smelled. She could detect the grains used and even a whiff of the salty seaweed that had been added to the smoldering fires used to dry the grain before distilling. She sipped it, savoring the flavor.

  “Hakushu, Oban style from Nagano,” she stated. “Thank you.”

  The girl, or guy, knew its stuff, Hauk thought. Could she help him, though? He was burning through the troops at an alarming rate, no exfil and no reinforcements. He needed options.

  “Xero,” he began. He hated using the hacker name, but that seemed to be the only identity anyone had on her. “We’re deep in the shit. I’m going to level with you, I don’t know if we can get out of this goddamn marsh alive.”

  “I understand, Captain. You are one of the best, we will be fine, but my analysis will survive whether I do or…” All of her work was saved into the cloud and would be distributed to key parties if she were unresponsive for any period for more than forty-eight hours.

  “So, you know the TWC bastard who attacked us?”

  At least he didn’t think it was the Russians or the Chinese like media had first reported, Xero thought. “It was not anyone from the Third World Coalition, Captain. Not directly at least. I don’t have a name, I have a profile, a very specific pattern.”

  “How does that help us?” Hauk asked, his frustration increasing with every passing minute.

  Xero threw back the rest of the whiskey and lowered the cup delicately to her lap. “All we are is patterns, patterns of information. No two people have the same pattern. When you wake up, what you eat for breakfast, what newsfeed you watch, when you start work, and who you connect with during the day. It is as individual as a genetic sequence. I have this person’s pattern locked in, now all we have to do is find the person who matches it.”

  Jordan Hauk was not an intelligence officer; he left the heavy mental lifting to others. He was a warrior, a fixer, but even he saw the obvious problem with Xero’s analysis. “Ma’am, sir. Shit, do you have a preferred way of being addressed?”

  “I am third sex, you may refer to me in whichever way you wish. My gender identity is not what defines me.”

  He nodded. Three-S, or third sex, had been a growing segment for the last half century. “Ok, ma’am. The problem is we have no idea who is even still alive. Last intel I got was upwards of 100 million dead in the U.S. alone. Many other countries are far worse, plus comms are down, most Internet bands are compromised. Where will you be looking?”

  “The datasets are still out there; I can design recursive search algorithms to parse old data for pattern matches.” She considered her datapad. “I could use a fresh P-cell or power supply, though.”

  He downed the last of his scotch and nodded, that made sense. It was embarrassing how much the military relied on computer analysis these days, but the data was just as important as the ammunition, even more so sometimes.

  They heard excited voices from outside the tent. Their eyes met briefly before the captain pushed the flap aside and walked out. Three soldiers stood over the limp body of a creature that had to be over eight feet tall.

  “This is another one of those things coming at us from the north,” a sergeant said, toeing a boot into the scaly flesh at the base of the thing’s neck. “You were right, thigh shots work great, Cap.”

  This 0one seemed slightly different but Hauk still thought they were the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen, but Xero bent down and examined it with an almost loving tenderness. She fanned out the tiny wing-like fins that flowed from the head toward the broad shoulders. They snapped back and retracted into gill slits. She took a penlight from a pocket and examined the eyes, the mouth, and what may have been a nose, or ears. The analogy to humanoid was inaccurate beyond that.

  Gunfire resumed behind them, and Hauk dismissed the men. He made Xero stand back while he removed his sidearm and double-tapped the greenish grey skull. He then donned his pulse rifle and tactical helmet from nearby. “What else should I know, Xero?” He pointed down at the thing. Xero pursed her lips in a way he found unusually erotic, especially for a Three-S.

  “Not my area of knowledge, Captain Hauk, but best guess, they are hunters, they are designed to kill. I am guessing they have a genetic level of control at best. Natural instinct, not some elaborate plan. Captain, I think these were experiments that got loose, not some intentional mutant combatant.”

  He nodded, “Thanks. Use the Command tent, the power should be more stable. But leave me some whiskey.”

  Jordan Hauk had many reasons to seek the truth, but the one that burned the brightest was worry about his younger brother, Logan. Their parents had died suddenly his first year in the Army. They were overseas when a high-speed train was derailed by a terrorist attack. It had shaped his resolve and forced him and his brother even closer as Jordan took over the parental role. That hadn’t lasted long, as Logan proved to be just as capable as his brother but in remarkably different ways. “Where are you, kid?” Jordan whispered into a night as dark as sackcloth.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  “Wake me up before you go-go.”

  I slapped at my ear knowing that was a stupid thing to do. Carol was still asleep, and my internal clock said I’d been out only a couple of hours. I slipped on some workout pants and moved into the corridor.

  “Pops, that you?” The ancient song was still blasting, and I couldn’t think of who had sung it but knew it was one of his faves. The volume reduced incrementally, and my old man’s voice came through, although a bit tinny.

  “Hey, shithead, how did you enjoy the Nightmare Factory?”

  I really hated telling him he was right and that I shouldn’t have gone.

  “It was fine,” I lied.

  “Liar. Nearly fucking killed you, didn’t it?”

  “No.” Technically, that was correct, it had in fact killed me. My natural body functions had ceased. So now what was I? I still wasn’t sure if my dad, the retired colonel, had secret access into my internal AI or just an excellent sense of intuition. Either way, he’d always known when I was lying, and apparently, his ability to expect enemy actions had made him a legend and an absolute horrible father. Well… horrible if you measured success by what you could slip past your parents.

  “Okay, well now, if you are over your little vacation, you need to get back to work,” he stated, while still humming away with the tune in the background.

  “Vacation?” I asked dumbfounded. “How are things there?”

  “I don’t know, you know, I don’t get out much.”

  The man was infuriating. In fact, he had turned being an asshole into an absolute art form. “You are in Florida, they attacked it, EMP blackout, and biological monstrosities are turning the coast into wastelands.”

  “Sounds like a Tuesday,” my old man said.

  I snort-laughed despite the absurdity.

  “Have you seen Orlando when the snowbirds come down each year? Can’t be worse than that.”

  “Okay, Dad, so what’s on your mind?” Truthfully, he did call a lot just to check on me. By ‘check on me,’ I mean he delivered heaping loads of verbal abuse. But as strange as that seemed, it was his way of letting me know he loved me. Our banter was almost ritualistic now with each one trying to outdo the other… he always won.

  “So, where you at, when you going to drop by?”