“They were in with the first thrust unit,” Caleb said. “Do we have a camera there?”

  Sho checked the list and switched to THRUST UNIT 1.

  More dead trife. No sign of Washington, Gold, or Flores.

  “They didn’t die in there at least,” Sho said.

  “See if you can get the sensor grid up on the display.”

  “Roger that, Sarge.” Sho manipulated the control surface, flipping through screens until she found the sensor grid. Caleb studied it for a moment. There were no life signs in any of the live zones.

  “Damn it, where are they?” Caleb said.

  “Behind you, Alpha,” Flores said.

  Caleb turned around. Washington and Flores were standing in the doorway to the bridge. Flores’ bodysuit had cuts along both sides and down one of her legs. Washington’s already scarred face had taken another hit, and he had another wound on his arm.

  “Where’s Gold?” Caleb asked.

  Washington shook his head.

  “He fought well for an old man,” Flores said. “Went down swinging.”

  “I didn’t see him in with the thrust unit.”

  “We retreated up the steps and back into the corridor. You’ll find him there.”

  Caleb lowered his head. Six surviving Marines out of hundreds.

  “You’re hurt, Alpha?” Flores asked.

  “It’s nothing,” Caleb replied. “I’ll probably lose the arm. I can’t even feel it.”

  “We don’t have replacements out here. You’ll have to go into Metro.”

  Caleb shook his head. “No. I’m staying out here. Even Washington couldn’t drag me away.”

  Washington made a face as if to say, are you kidding?

  “The queen is dead,” Sho said.

  “But we still have a lot of work to do,” Caleb replied. “Most importantly, we need to be completely sure the ship is clear. One trife can turn into thousands in the right environment.”

  “Roger that,” Shiro said. “We should get you properly treated first, Alpha. All of us could use medical attention.”

  “I can’t argue that. Let’s head back to the module. Stay alert, Guardians. We can’t be sure we’re free and clear just yet.”

  The six remaining Guardians moved into formation and headed out. They crossed the corridors to the lifts without incident, taking it back down to Deck Twenty-nine. No trife attacked them on their way to the module, and they made it home without any sign of demons.

  “Do you think we got them all, Sarge?” Sho asked.

  “I don’t know. I hope so. If not? We will. I won’t rest until we do. One-armed or not.”

  “You’re a badass, Sarge.”

  “Oorah!” Shiro and Flores barked in response.

  Chapter 51

  Caleb stood on the bridge of the Deliverance, looking up at the black expanse of space as projected through the high-definition cameras mounted along the bow. He had been back here plenty of times in the sixty days since the Guardians had destroyed the trife nest, killed the trife queen, and set about finishing up the first leg of their mission by ridding the ship of the demonic aliens. He had come up more often with each passing day as the work the Guardians had to do to get the ship back to where it should have started continued to diminish. He enjoyed looking out at space. He found it comforting to know they were headed to a place where the trife couldn’t reach them, even if that place wasn’t the one he had initially expected.

  He reached down toward the primary terminal control surface with his left hand. He hardly thought about that hand anymore, growing more accustomed to the sensations from the artificial limb. Doctor Valentine had warned him that the standard mechanical replacement took about a month to integrate and fully synchronize with its organic host, and what she had given him was anything but standard.

  She called the unit experimental, an offshoot of the technology that had produced her Cerebus armor. It was composed of hundreds of rings of alloy wrapped around a base gel material where the wires, actuators and micro-motors were positioned. It was about the same weight as his original flesh and bone arm, but it was much stronger, and way more durable. According to Valentine, there hadn’t been a trife yet that could even dent the advanced material.

  Of course, she wouldn’t say what it was made of, or where she had gotten it. Research maintained their secrets as fully as ever, in spite of the thaw that had occurred between their team and the Guardians, and especially between Caleb and his counterpart. He and Riley had come to an understanding and a level of mutual respect that he would never have thought possible the first time he met the doctor. She didn’t make the best first impression, but she wasn’t as bad as he had thought.

  That was something, anyway.

  He tapped the comm controls, opening a link to Metro.

  “Sheriff Aveline, this is Guardian Alpha, are you there?”

  “Caleb Card,” Lily said, responding to the comm. “You’re late.”

  “I know. Sorry, Lily. One of the Dragonflies picked up a random audio fluctuation and sent us running to investigate.”

  “A day in the life of a Guardian, I suppose.”

  “Yes, ma’am. How’s your day going?”

  “No cats today.”

  “No cats ever. We didn’t bring any with us.”

  “True. It’s quiet. A good quiet. People in Metro seem happy enough, and Engineering is getting a handle on some of the teething problems.”

  “Please don’t use that term,” Caleb joked. “It brings back bad memories.”

  Lily laughed. “I thought you liked your new hand?”

  “I do. But I’d still rather have the original.” Caleb paused. “Lily, now that things are more settled, we’re planning on initiating the original Guardian protocols as they were designed. We’ll be doing alternating rounds of stasis cycles to prolong our lifespan until we arrive at our destination. The loss of so many of our people means we’ll only keep one Guardian active per shift.”

  “You’re going to be out there alone?”

  Caleb hesitated. Doctor Valentine had suggested they not say anything to anyone in Metro about their redirect to Proxima, so as not to get anyone’s hopes up with the news. It was bad enough Governor Lyle and Vice-Governor Jones knew the truth, but they had promised to keep it to themselves in solidarity with the idea. Better to let the passengers be resigned to dying on board and pleasantly surprised when they lived to see their destination, instead of having them get over eager to arrive. They all agreed the population would be easier to manage that way.

  “It has to be that way. As it is, I’ll be seventy-two years old when we get there.”

  “And I’ll be long dead. I’ll make sure my descendants know who you are so they can thank you for what you did. In the meantime, you can always talk to me if you get lonely. Any of you can. I don’t mind doing my part. Just don’t expect me to wait for you.” She laughed, but it was tinged with sadness.

  “I’m sorry things worked out the way they did. I had a good feeling about you when I met you. I think we could have had something.”

  “Me too. But what can you do, right? I know duty comes first to people like you. I respect you more than I can say for the sacrifices you’ve made.”

  “I have another one to make. Guardian protocol limits our communication with Metro to Engineering. The idea is for most of the residents, Sheriffs included, to think about the fact that they’re on a starship blasting through space as little as possible.”

  “That makes sense.” She paused. “So, did you call to say goodbye, Caleb?”

  Caleb swallowed hard. “I did. I wanted to hear your voice one last time before I go into the pod.”

  “You’re going into stasis now?”

  “In about two hours. Private Shiro’s taking first watch with Private Ning, just long enough to help get him back to full health.”

  “You still don’t know what was wrong with him?”

  “No, but he’s improving every day. He just started walking again. Anyway, as long as things stay quiet I’ll be hibernating for the next year.”

  “I hope things stay quiet, for my sake as much as yours.”

  “Me too. Take care of yourself, Lily. It was a pleasure getting to know you.”

  “The honor was mine, Caleb Card. Thank you for everything.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Sweet dreams, Sergeant.”

  “Bye.”

  Caleb closed his eyes, forcing himself to disconnect the link. He opened them again and took a deep breath, staring out at space. He would only have to do four cycles to get to Proxima. It would be lonely, but he would manage. They all would. They had found a vast store of movies on the ship’s data stack. Between that, the gym, and their duties roaming the ship, it would help pass the time.

  He let his gaze linger for a minute, and then he shut down the displays and headed off the bridge.

  Chapter 52

  “Nervous?” Sho asked.

  “Should I be?” Caleb replied.

  “I am,” Flores said.

  They were standing in one of the Marine module’s two stasis chambers. It was the first time any of them had been in the compartment, tucked away behind a blast door at the back of the armory. It was a strange place for the room, but Doctor Valentine had explained how the chambers had been added late in the module’s development, and that was the only area where they could add them without significant cost overruns.

  Government efficiency at work. Not that it mattered all that much where the chambers sat. They were going to be in cryogenic sleep; their bodies shut down to the most base level they could be and still survive.

  All of the Guardians had been through the training on both how to operate the pods inside the chamber and what to expect from their use. It was a misinterpretation of the technology to believe they wouldn’t age while in stasis. Their bodily functions wouldn’t stop completely, but rather slow to a glacial crawl. For every year in a pod, they would grow approximately one week older. That meant they would each be about four years and three months older when they arrived, counting the time they would cycle out of stasis. Not bad when everyone in Metro would gain twenty years.

  Caleb tried to imagine Lily in her fifties, with gray hair and wrinkles, a husband, and a teenage son or daughter. There was a part of him still disappointed he wouldn’t have the opportunity to join her in the city, but only a little. He knew his place was here.

  He would have preferred to take the first duty cycle. He wanted to be the one to kick things off and to keep an eye on the ship during the earliest stage of the journey. While they were as confident as they could be the trife were all dead, it still didn’t sit that well with him that they had never found the man he had seen running from the trife. They had checked every room, every vent, every access panel, every corridor. They had monitored the sensors and the cameras. They had used all of their Dragonflies. They had spent hundreds of hours going over every area of the vessel. No trife. No stowaway. He knew it hadn’t been his imagination. Hell, Washington had seen the man too. But he was gone.

  Just gone.

  They had found Sergeant Pratt. Or rather, they had found his body. It had been severely damaged, sliced and torn by the trife, a few demon corpses nearby. A large group must have found him out there and jumped him, ending his singular war against them before it ever got started. Riley continued to insist the sergeant had cracked. Caleb still struggled to accept it.

  Shiro had volunteered for the first cycle because Ning was still recovering from his mysterious ailment. The private had turned out to be a valuable part of the group and seemed to enjoy his default role as the team’s doctor. He was dedicated to seeing Ning back to health, even if nobody knew exactly what had happened to him, including Ning. All he remembered was helping Pratt batten down Research and coming back to join the fight before starting to feel nauseous. It was strange, and Sho continued to insist Research knew precisely what had happened to both him and Pratt.

  Doctor Valentine denied it of course. There was no way to prove or disprove the theory. He had decided to accept he would never know the truth for certain.

  “They told us in training you only have good dreams in the pods,” Caleb said. “Something to do with the cryogel and REM patterns at that level of neural and chemical activity.”

  “Yeah, they said that,” Flores replied. “But they aren’t going to tell us we’ll have nightmares the whole time. They wouldn’t get any volunteers.”

  “I don’t think we’ll experience much of anything,” Sho said. “Go to sleep. Bam! I’ll wake up two years later. What do you think, Wash?”

  Washington shrugged noncommittally. He didn’t care one way or the other.

  “I guess we’ll find out,” Flores said.

  “I want to say, it was an honor to fight alongside you,” Caleb said. “All of you have made me incredibly proud, and I have every intention of calling out your skill and bravery to Command when we arrive on Proxima.”

  “Thank you, Sarge,” Sho said.

  “Yeah, thanks, Alpha,” Flores said.

  Washington flashed his thumb.

  “Let’s do this,” Sho said.

  Caleb nodded, taking a moment to embrace each of the members of the Guardians, and giving them a moment to say goodbye to one another. If they saw each other again before they reached Proxima, it wouldn’t be for anything good.

  Caleb walked over to the last pod in the row. They were all identical, all large enough to fit a man of Washington’s stature, with glass lids on top and wires and tubes running into them below. A display rose from the side of each, a control terminal below it.

  He tapped on the control surface and then entered his identification into the pod. His image appeared on the display, along with his vitals and the current Earth date and time. He adjusted the clock, setting the thaw for a year ahead.

  He pulled off his sneakers, shirt, pants, and underwear, the cool air in the room causing his skin to prickle. It felt weird to be naked. The stasis process demanded having every last hair removed, from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, including his eyebrows and pubic hair. It had something to do with the ability of the sensors to take measurements through the gel.

  For some reason, having no hair made him self conscious. He resisted the urge to cover himself and folded his clothes, putting them beside the pod before lifting himself in.

  “Damn, that’s cold,” Sho said. He looked over. She was sliding into her pod.

  He turned and began sinking into the seat. It was cold all right – damn cold. He shivered slightly, coming to a rest in what turned out to be an extremely comfortable position.

  He reached over with his right hand, tapping the control ring at the top of his left shoulder to power off his artificial limb. It grew heavy against him, and he could sense the gel padding he was resting on adjusting for the new weight and keeping him balanced. The lid of the pod began closing above him.

  “See you on the other side, Sarge,” Sho said.

  “Roger that,” he replied.

  The lid closed. He had gotten so accustomed to the random sounds in the ship he was shocked when they vanished into a wall of silence. He let his head rest back, closing his eyes.

  They had been trained that the hardest part of cryosleep was trusting the system. After all, it was human nature to panic when the head became submerged under liquid. For as much as Caleb promised himself he would be one of the few who could handle it without anxiety when the cryogel reached his face and began to cover his mouth, he tilted his head and sucked in a breath, his heart rate increasing. This was the only time in the process an increased pulse wouldn’t open the seals, and it didn’t matter if he panicked or not. The pod would continue to fill.

  He started to calm as he pulled the gel into his mouth and down into his lungs. The material was formulated to carry everything the body needed. All he had to do was relax and let it work.

  He couldn’t breathe, and it took about thirty seconds for him to realize he didn’t need to. He wasn’t becoming oxygen deprived. He wasn’t dying. The gel was rising over his eyes, thick and warm, and he realized it was pretty comfortable after all.

  He had fought and survived.

  He had fought and saved thousands of lives.

  He had fought and earned his sleep.

  Everything was going to be okay.

  Chapter 53

  Caleb’s eyes opened. He was cold. So damn cold. His body shivered violently, working hard to warm him.

  He couldn’t see at first. He still had cryogel in his eyes. He tried to reach up to wipe it away, forgetting his left arm was offline. He used his right, at the same time fighting not be overwhelmed by the resumption of sensation, the sounds of the Deliverance hitting his ears for the first time in a year.

  Why was it so damn cold? He had thought the cryogel would warm before waking him, but that didn’t seem to be the case. It was like being dumped out of an ice bath into a refrigerator.

  He got the gel out of his eyes and then took a moment to adjust to his senses. He reached over with his right hand, tapping the control on his left shoulder and powering his artificial limb back up.

  Sho had been right. He didn’t remember much of anything. No nightmares. No dreams. One moment he had been fighting the panic of drowning in the gel, and the next he was awake.

  He reached out, taking the sides of the pod and pulling himself to a sitting position, dragging his feet up and then standing in the device. He looked over at the line of pods. The glass lids had crystals covering them, making it impossible to see inside. They were all active, the occupants alive. Not that he expected anything else.

  He jumped onto the floor, pleased to find his muscles felt as though he had only laid down a few minutes earlier. He stretched his arms and legs and then grabbed for his clothes, the gel already evaporating.