“Yes, sir. Governor Nash is waiting for you in the conference room.”

  “Has he been waiting long?”

  “No, sir. He arrived at twelve hundred, right on schedule.”

  “Thank you, Commander. You have the bridge and the conn.”

  “Yes, sir.” Tyson moved to leave the bridge, but Siraj stopped him. “Sir, you’ll need this.” She held out a thin piece of transparent plastic, about the size of a standard sheet of paper.

  “Of course,” Tyson replied, realizing he still had his shaving bag in his hand. “I’ll trade you.” He placed the bag on the command station, accepting the offered tablet. “Thank you, Commander.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Tyson headed off the bridge. Starting the reactor had gone off without a hitch. He expected his meeting with the Governor would be just as smooth.

  3

  Cross

  Rocky Mountains, Colorado. 11.11.2052. 1200 hours.

  “Echo Two Two, Echo Two Two, this is Mother. Sitrep. Over.”

  Sergeant Joseph Cross turned his head, squinting his eyes a little more to instruct the small cameras mounted on either side of his helmet to zoom in another fifty meters. He thought he had seen something in the woods ahead, a dark shape moving across the white landscape. He pivoted his rifle, balanced against the rise of stone he and his squad were organized around, keeping the reticle in his helmet lined up with the shape.

  “Mother, Mother, this is Echo Two Two,” he replied. “I’ve got eyes on a potential hostile about half a klick south near the tree line. Setting marks now. Over.” Joseph blinked his left eye to outline the target, marking it for his Advanced Tactical Combat System to follow. The dark mass was suddenly outlined in red, making it easier to track. Two rapid blinks passed the mark to the rest of his rifle squad—eleven men and women, his Marines—all sending a silent acknowledgement back through the system.

  “Roger, Echo Two Two. It’s probably a scout. Continue monitoring. Do not engage. Over.”

  “Wilco, Mother. Echo Two Two out.”

  A soft click signaled the general comm channel was closed. Joseph returned his full attention to the dark spot ahead as it vanished behind the trunk of a large evergreen. His eyes kept moving, expecting it to reappear on the other side. It didn’t.

  The outline of the shape remained fixed behind the tree. A moment later, the red turned to orange, indicating the target was lost, and the position was its last known location.

  Where had it gone?

  “Echo Two One, Echo Two One,” Joseph said. “This is Echo Two Two. Tracking a potential scout. It stopped behind a tree. Any sign of movement from your position? Over.”

  “Echo Two Two, Echo Two Two, this is Echo Two One. Negative. East slope is all clear. Over.”

  “Roger, Echo Two One. Echo Two Two out.”

  “What do you think that demon’s doing out there, Sarge?”

  The question came from Corporal West, crouched beside him. Over six feet tall, her upper half was all muscle, her lower half made of the latest synthetics, composites and alloy. She had nearly gotten knocked out of the fighting once. Thanks to advances in cybernetics and prosthetics, she was back in.

  “Probably taking a piss,” Private Morales said with a short laugh. A small man, stocky with muscle, he and West made for a stark contrast whenever they lined up behind one another in the mess.

  “The trife don’t piss,” Private Nori added. Average height and slender, with a zenlike disposition, nothing ever rattled him. It was a good trait for a sniper to have. “Sarge, we should get a closer look.”

  “Negative,” Joseph said. “Mother says we watch.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nori replied.

  “Sarge,” Corporal Avila said, getting his attention from the far side of the formation where Team Two was positioned. “I’ve got visual on a second one. Marking.”

  “Copy,” Joseph replied as a red triangle appeared on the tactical map in the top left corner of his helmet and the helmets of the other eleven members of the fire squad. There should have been twelve, but the trife got Private Klein in a raid the week before. It was unconventional, but Joseph had moved into Team One, rounding out the four-person team while still managing the full squad.

  There were no extra Marines in Echo Company. Not a single body to spare in all of the 2nd Battalion. The days were getting longer, the raids more frequent and intense. The trife knew they were up here, and despite their dislike for the cold air at this altitude they had their own mission to complete.

  Eradication of humankind.

  It was a good thing they wouldn’t be up here too much longer. Joseph didn’t know if they could hold out.

  “Sarge, I’ve got contact,” Corporal Danai said, adding another mark to the tactical. The scouts were spread across the western slope.

  His slope.

  “Mother, Mother, this is Echo Two Two. We’ve marked three scouts on the western slope. Please advise. Over.”

  “Copy, Echo Two Two. I have them on the tactical. We’re flying the kite. Standby. Over.”

  “Wilco, Mother. Standing by. Out.”

  Joseph swallowed the growing lump in his chest, shifting his head around and up to the flatter top of the slope, where a large, superlight drone was suddenly drifting into the air on gossamer kevlar wings. The drone was shaped like an old-fashioned kite and powered by a tether that spooled out from beyond his view. It wasn’t standard issue, but rather a homebrew creation cooked up by Pioneer’s lead engineer, a stern, intense man named Oslo. He had designed it to monitor trife movements without being spotted itself. It registered only enough heat and energy to power the load of sensors in the small box at its center. A fragile machine, it was useless without the right amount of wind sweeping over the mountains and it was easily damaged, but when it worked it was a real lifesaver.

  The breeze was probably too stiff for the drone, but today wasn’t like all the other days. Today was launch day, when Joseph, his fire squad, all of the 2nd Battalion, two hundred USSF crew members, and forty-thousand civilians would leave Earth behind.

  If they could survive the next four hours.

  It didn’t matter if the kite didn’t survive for long up there. It only mattered that Echo and Fox Company held the ridge for another one hundred and eighty minutes while the personnel beneath the ground under their feet finished loading the last round of supplies and people airdropped in two hours earlier.

  Joseph had watched the delivery from his position, awestruck when a scarred and filthy dropship with the word ‘Vultures’ painted across the fuselage swooped in, a half dozen ragged men and women running out from the back hatch while the team’s leader spoke briefly to Mother.

  Caleb Card. That was the man’s name. His reputation preceded him. A former Marine Raider, now commander of the United States Space Force’s most successful search and rescue team. Whoever Card had brought up here, the Chiefs of Staff considered them vital.

  For a brief moment, Joseph had thought the Vultures might be joining them on their trip out. He had felt a surge of excitement at the prospect of actually meeting them. But Card had saluted Mother and hurried back onto his craft, the rear hatch closing and the ship launching skyward, vanishing into the distance.

  “There she goes,” Corporal West said, watching the kite.

  Joseph watched it for a moment too before looking back at the tree where the first scout still hid. He had seen enough attacks on the facility to know another was imminent. The entire 2nd held its collective breath, hoping they could lift off before that assault came.

  “Magnificent Bastards, Magnificent Bastards, this is Mother. The kite is flying. Standby for results in five. Take ready position and prepare for orders. Over.”

  The comms went to the entire active battalion. Echo was arranged on the west and north sides of the slope, while Fox covered the east and south. There had originally been a third company, Golf, but all of those Marines were folded into new squads, the shrinking size of the defenses forcing constant reassignments.

  “Two two, Two two, this is Snowman,” Joseph said. “Weapons hot, switch to automatic. Watch your counters. Ready position. Over.”

  The rest of the rifle squad shifted their positions, each of the Marines getting into a standing crouch that would allow them to maneuver more easily if the kite’s sensors came back with bad news. Joseph’s helmet registered each Marine tapping off the safeties of their M-32 assault rifles. He blinked his left eye four times in a rapid cadence, a line of designations and diagnostics appearing at the base of his helmet’s augmented reality overlay. Everyone was green and healthy right now. If this turned into a fight it probably wouldn’t stay that way.

  The five seconds the kite needed to acquire and process sensor data seemed like it took five hours. The entire atmosphere around the slope shifted, leaving the air taut and tense. Everyone on the mountain had been through this before, but they all knew each attack had gotten successively worse. They had all hoped to get the hell out of here before it was too late.

  “Magnificent Bastards, sensor data incoming,” Mother said.

  Joseph’s eyes shifted to his smaller tactical map. A red triangle appeared on the western slope. Followed by another. And then another, quickly beginning to fill in. Red triangles started to appear on the southern slope too. And the east. The triangles continued to fill in, one after another after another, each one an individual trife. Within seconds, the triangles began to disappear as each bled into the next, the mass of aliens so thick around the entire mountainside the polygons were turned into a red slick, as if the entire ridge were an open wound.

  “Oh hell,” Mother said, her typical calm failing.

  With all of the red surrounding them, Joseph knew that was exactly what this mountain was about to become.

  4

  Grant

  Pioneer. Conference Room. 11.11.2052. 1215 hours.

  Tyson paused to gather himself as the doors to the bridge closed behind him. He couldn’t afford to show any sign of discomfort around Governor Nash. The appointed leader of Metro had a lot more riding on this than he did, and he deserved to see total confidence.

  Or at least the outward appearance of total confidence.

  Settling his nerves, Tyson made the short walk to the nearby conference room. A Marine stood at attention outside the door, rifle held across his chest.

  “Captain Grant, sir,” the Marine said as he approached, making his posture just a little tighter.

  “Private,” Tyson replied, pausing to tap on the door controls. The door slid open, revealing a small, stark room with the same drab grey bulkheads as the rest of the ship. A medium-length metal and plastic table rested in the center of it, surrounded by eight uncushioned, uncomfortable, white plastic chairs.

  Governor Nash sat at the head of the table. He was a younger man, tall and thin with a tousled head of brown hair and a strong, square jaw. Dressed in a black suit, white shirt and red tie, he looked out of place among the uniformed military.

  He stood as Tyson entered, circling the table and putting out his hand. “Captain Grant.”

  Tyson accepted the handshake. “Governor Nash. Thank you for coming up.”

  Nash smiled widely. “Like I had a choice? It’s all in the manual. Rules and regulations for the end of civilization.”

  “You know the military. We’re nothing without our rules and regs. Organization is the key to survival.”

  “Are you sure about that? Because our survival isn’t looking all that assured right now.”

  Tyson met the comment with a hollow smile. He had introduced himself to Metro’s acting Governor two weeks earlier. He hadn’t liked him then. He didn’t like him now.

  “Pioneer wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the organization of governments and their military branches worldwide. You would be hiding out there among the rubble instead of standing here, showered and clean and wearing a pressed suit, only hours from escaping all of this.”

  “Maybe we wouldn’t need to be here if the military had done their job in the first place,” Nash countered. “You picked the incoming meteors up on radar. You could have obliterated them before they reached orbit. Instead, you did nothing.”

  It was a common complaint, one Tyson had heard hundreds of times before. Survivors liked to opine that the military should have done more about the imminent threat. But nobody knew there was a threat. Nobody knew there were organisms hiding within the meteors, that those organisms would survive reentry or that they would spread and evolve into monsters.

  He was tempted to repeat the line to Nash, but he was sure the Governor had heard it plenty of times before. He didn’t think the man had any qualms about raising the same complaint with as many service men and women as he could find.

  “Why don’t we sit down?” Tyson suggested. Nash hesitated a moment, and then returned to his seat. Tyson took the chair to his right. “Let’s keep this meeting on topic. We’re here to formally transfer control of Metro to your administration. As soon as you sign off, the USSF relinquishes all jurisdiction inside the seals.”

  “But you’re the boss outside the seals, right?” Nash said.

  “That’s correct.”

  “Let me ask you something, Captain. What’s the point of signing something like this when we’re going to be locked in like prisoners?”

  “Didn’t you already have this conversation with your liason? They should have explained all of this to you when you applied for a position as an official.” Tyson had read Nash’s file. He knew the man was once CEO for a multi-billion dollar corporation with over twenty-thousand employees. The Governor supposedly knew how to manage people.

  He was hardly convinced.

  “She did,” Nash said. “But that was four months ago, when they first dropped me off here and I was still feeling a bit traumatized. It made sense to me at the time; it doesn’t now. I’m sure you understand.”

  “You aren’t prisoners,” Tyson replied. “And Metro is hardly a prison. The amenities you and your fellow passengers will enjoy are a far cry from these plain bulkheads. You’ll be sealed in for your own safety, and for ours. Once we’ve cleared the solar system, Pioneer will be put on full automation, and most of the remaining crew will go into hibernation. Our Guardians will cycle into and out of stasis. Someone will be monitoring system status at all times, able to wake other members of the crew in the event of an emergency. We can’t be responsible for forty-thousand civilians potentially leaving the city and interfering with the ship’s delicate systems.”

  “Because you and your crew will be asleep while the rest of us are growing old and dying.”

  “Yes. That’s what I said.”

  “If the ship’s on auto, why do you need to hibernate? Why not join the rest of the population?”

  “Again, in the event of an emergency, a full complement of spacers may be required to deal with that emergency. And as I’m sure you’re aware, we will be reducing headcount once we’ve reached the exodus point. Our crew of one thousand will be reduced to only three hundred essential staff. The rest will join you in the city, as will a good number of the Marines currently guarding this facility. By signing the form, you have confirmation that those civilians are under your purview, with the same rights, rules and regulations as everyone else in Metro. It’s for your peace of mind as much as ours.”

  “Mmmhmm,” Nash said. “Tell me, Captain, what good are signed documents out there? What good are they when we’re out of range of comms with Earth and the President? It seems to me that we’re on the edge of complete annihilation, and all the government can think about is how to add more red tape.”

  Tyson smiled. “I’m not saying I totally disagree with you, Governor Nash. It does seem rather pointless, all things considered. Once we clear the solar system, we’ll be completely alone out there. But I’m telling you, as a career officer of the United States Navy, and now the United States Space Force, formality has great meaning to me. To be honest, if the paperwork is meaningless to you, then I don’t understand your reluctance to sign it.”

  “You just said it. We’re in this together, aren’t we? We should share the burden, inside and outside of Metro.” He paused, leaning forward. “We should share the stasis pods too.”

  Tyson clenched his jaw to keep from laughing in Nash’s face. He stared at the Governor without speaking, waiting for him to dig a deeper hole. It didn’t take long.

  “Look, Captain. It’s only fair, right? And nobody else needs to know. You’re in charge of the military side. I’m in charge of the civilian side. We can cut a deal. All I want is a chance to make it to Avalon alive. That’s not a hard ask, is it?”

  “You’re the Governor of Metro,” Tyson said. “Do you know how many applicants we went through to pick you? And now that launch is imminent, you want to what? Give up your position to go into a stasis pod?”

  Nash shook his head. “Oh. No, no, no, Captain. Nothing like that. I was thinking we could share the pod. A few years in, a few years out. I’m only thirty-two. I can spend some time outside the pod and still survive the trip. One to ten, that’s the ratio, right?”

  “I see,” Tyson said. “And do you realize that in order to accomodate you, I would need to displace one of my crew?”

  “You said you have three hundred. Each crew member would only lose a year, and not even one hundred percent of them. Okay, I know, it sounds crazy. But think about it, Captain. It says right in the manual that once Pioneer is placed on automatic our part in the war is considered over and Pioneer becomes a civilian settlement ship. And yet, we’re expected to sign away our rights to the areas of the ship that would give us real control over it.”

  “For your safety.”

  “Yeah, yeah. For our safety. Even if I bought that, it’s not relevant. The point is, the whole concept is flawed. We should work together.”

  “You aren’t talking about working together. You’re talking about benefiting yourself.”