“Captain, can I have a word with you?” Joseph asked.

  “Not now, Prime.”

  Joseph’s anger burned in his throat. He didn’t know what to think. He felt betrayed by Grant. Lied to. Ashamed. “Captain, I really need to speak with you.”

  Grant’s eyes narrowed. He looked at Levi instead of Joseph. “You should be grateful, Corporal,” he said. “You were grateful, the last time I saw you. What changed?”

  “The medics figured out what you did to me. And Governor Nash figured out why.”

  “Whatever you allege I was going to do or could have done, it didn’t happen. You’re alive, you’re in Metro. I’m sure your kids are waiting for you back home. You would do well to keep your damn hands to yourself.”

  “You owed me that one,” Levi said.

  “And I gave it to you,” Grant replied. “It’s over now.”

  Levi shook his head. “No.” He looked at Joseph. “I still owe you, Sarge.”

  “Good luck getting even inside Metro,” Joseph replied. “Maybe I’ll see you in a hundred years.”

  Levi screwed up his face and lunged at Joseph, who stepped nimbly aside, grabbing his arm, turning him and throwing him into the bulkhead again. Levi was a Marine, but he had never been a good hand-to-hand fighter.

  “All right, all right,” Governor Nash said. “Can all of you please start acting like adults instead of a bunch of shit-flinging apes? This is worse than the playground in elementary school. Levi, one more time and you’ll spend the next six months in the Law Office jail instead of behind one of the desks.”

  Levi turned around, his back against the bulkhead. “I’m sorry, Governor.”

  “I want you to apologize to Prime Cross,” Nash said.

  “What?”

  “Do it.”

  Levi looked at Joseph. “I’m sorry, Joe.”

  Joseph nodded, cooling off a little. “Me too.”

  Levi smiled stiffly enough to give Joseph the feeling the man wouldn’t forgive him that easily.

  “Shaw, why don’t you and Levi go back into Metro? I think Prime Cross has everything under control out here.”

  “Yes, Governor,” Shaw said. “Levi, let’s go.”

  “Copy that,” Levi said, without looking at Shaw. He kept his attention on Joseph. “See you around, Sarge.” Then he winked before heading away with Shaw.

  Joseph looked at Grant and then at Nash. The Governor was smiling, calm and collected, radiating confidence and friendliness. The man had an undeniable charisma, but Joseph wasn’t sure he was all he pretended to be. The Captain obviously didn’t like him and there had to be a reason for that.

  “Are you okay, Prime Cross?” Nash asked.

  “I’m fine, sir. Thank you,” Joseph replied stiffly. He returned to his place in the line, helping to keep it moving.

  The crew members processed through quickly, with Grant thanking them for their service as they passed him and Nash welcoming them to Metro when they reached him. That sound was mingled with excited greetings, tearful welcomes, kisses and shouts of daddy or mommy. Families. Joseph remained composed and focused on his job, but he was lying to himself to say he didn’t feel it. He missed his family, and the image of his dead sister had only made it worse.

  He had another family now. His Guardian family. He didn’t know all of them that well, but he wanted to. He decided he would arrange wake cycles paired with each member, to make sure he got to know them better.

  As long as he made it to tomorrow.

  The process took almost an hour. Thankfully, there were no other problems and no other interruptions. When the last transferring crew member vanished around the curve down to Metro, Governor Nash approached him again, holding out his hand.

  “Guardian Prime Cross,” he said. “Thank you again for everything you and your team are doing out here. You have my utmost gratitude and respect.”

  Joseph took Nash’s hand, shaking firmly. “You’re welcome, Governor. You keep the people safe in there, we’ll keep them safe out here.”

  “I know you will.” Nash let go, heading back to the other side of the seal without a word to Grant. It was clear the two men didn’t like one another, but Joseph had no idea why. Did it have anything to do with Levi?

  The blast door began sliding down as Nash walked away. Captain Grant stared at it intently, as if he could keep it permanently shut by sheer force of will.

  “Captain Grant,” Doctor Okoye said, getting Grant’s attention. “You should get your jaw looked at, sir.”

  Grant glanced at him. “It’s fine.”

  “Some ice at least, sir.”

  “I’ll come by when I’m ready. Thank you for your help, Doctor. You’re dismissed.”

  Okoye nodded to Joseph, motioned to the two nurses, and the three of them headed away from the seal.

  “Hoffman, Bourne,” Joseph said. “You’re dismissed. Keep your mouths shut about Levi when you get back to the module.”

  “Copy that, Prime,” Hoffman said. She and Bourne trailed behind the medical team, leaving Joseph alone with Grant.

  “Captain,” Joseph said.

  “Not now, Prime,” Grant replied.

  “If not now, then when, sir? I’m not going to let this lie.”

  “You will if I order it.”

  “With all due respect, sir, you can’t hide from this. You told me we had to space Levi. You convinced me it was the right thing to do. And then you took him to Metro? At least now I know why you were down near the perimeter when I pinged your badge.”

  Grant’s eyes flamed, expression grim. For a moment, Joseph thought the Captain would chew him out for pushing the issue. Then the fury faded, and Grant suddenly looked like an old man lost at sea.

  “I thought I could do it,” he said. “I took him to an airlock, even put him in it. But I think we both knew it wasn’t the right thing to do, even if it felt like the only thing we could do...at the time. I just couldn’t kill him like that. So I took him to Metro. I thought if you never found out, you and your Guardians could forget all about Levi and he could go on with his life. But I underestimated Nash. He brought him up here intentionally. He wanted you to see him. I think he wanted Levi to sock me.” He rubbed at his jaw, already bruising. “You saw him. The way he acts. He’s trying to make me look weak.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Grant hesitated. “What I’m going to tell you stays between you and me.”

  “Of course, Captain.”

  “Governor Nash wants to make it to Avalon. He isn’t satisfied with the rules he originally agreed to, and has been trying to convince me to let him use one of the stasis pods to prolong his life.”

  “What?” Joseph couldn’t believe it.

  “When I took Levi to Metro, I called the hospital to send medics to pick him up. I was trying to get in and get out. But Nash caught up to me before I could get out of there. He was going to lock me up unless I agreed to let him have time in a pod. Then the alien object appeared and he had no choice but to let me return to the bridge.”

  “Why does he want a pod so badly? I don’t get it.”

  “I think he wants to be in charge of the colony when we land. Being Governor is a nice, cushy job, but I believe he sees it as second-best. In ten generations, people might remember his name, but it won’t mean all that much. Metro can’t grow. Can’t change. Can’t evolve. It’s designed to stay the same. A fixture in space and time. But as the first leader of Avalon—if he does a good job—he’ll be revered for eternity.”

  “I don’t get how making you look bad now will help him centuries later?”

  “I’m supposed to assume command of the colony when we land.”

  “You are? Whose idea was that?”

  “You don’t think I would make a good leader?”

  Joseph opened his mouth but didn’t speak.

  “It’s okay, Prime. We’re alone. Be honest with me.”

  “You lied to me about Levi.”

  “I didn’t. Not at the time.”

  “You didn’t tell me later. You’re only telling me now because you got caught.”

  “I didn’t say anything to protect my Guardians and to enable them to do their job without distraction.”

  “That sounds like an excuse to me, sir. You also put us at tremendous risk by not pulling the pilots out of Metro.”

  “I told you why I didn’t want to do that.”

  “Yes, sir. It was a convenient excuse. A logical excuse. But not a tactically sound one. When you have assets that can help you deal with an extinction level threat, you don’t leave them on the sidelines, no matter what their limitations might be.” He paused. “You knew what Nash would require if you requested them, didn’t you?”

  “He would have forced the issue.”

  “You two are playing a dangerous game with all of our lives, Captain.”

  “I’m not playing a game, Prime. I’m trying to get this ship safely to its destination.”

  “Then why not give Nash what he wants? We have ten spare pods in the Guardian module. He can have one of them.”

  “Nash’s willingness to bargain Metro for a pod is the exact reason why we can’t give in. He doesn’t care about the people on this ship. He cares about what he can get for himself.”

  “But your stubbornness in giving it to him could get us all killed just as equally quick. Either way, we’re dead and maybe humankind dies with us.”

  Grant stared at him, looking a little bit older as he seemed to realize what Joseph was saying was true. He had put Pioneer in unnecessary danger because he didn’t want Nash to get his way. And Joseph understood why. Putting the pieces together, he sensed the Governor was dangerous, and he was sure the Captain saw that danger too.

  “We’re both trying to do the right thing, sir,” Joseph said.

  “While looking through a fogged window,” Grant replied. “I suppose I still haven’t fully accepted the finality of it all.”

  Joseph smiled. “This isn’t over yet. We’re still here. We just need to get rid of our stowaway.”

  “I’ll talk to Nash about his pilots.”

  “No,” Joseph countered. “My Guardians are in the simulators as we speak. Second West has some experience in Utopia, and Alesso and Turani are both showing strong aptitude so far.”

  “That’s great to hear. What about you?”

  Joseph laughed, remembering his half-dozen subsequent attempts to get through the training program. “I have great aim with the weapons’ systems and a bad habit of exploding upon landing.”

  Grant laughed with him. “I’d love to try the simulator sometime.”

  “It’s your ship, sir. You can come down and check it out anytime you want. Just be aware, Goose is an asshole.” Joseph froze. “Pardon my language, sir.”

  “Never mind language, Prime. We have much larger things to worry about. For my part, I’m sorry about Levi and about the pilots.”

  “It all worked out, didn’t it? Levi is in Metro. So is Nori. They were the only two with family inside.”

  “In hindsight, I suppose we should have let them both go to the city and spared everyone the whole complicated fiasco. But you’re right, it all evened out in the end. I guess we can put it behind us.”

  “Yes, sir. Even so, I’ll talk to Oslo about programming the dragonflies with facial recognition. If Nash is as eager to hibernate as you say, he won’t be satisfied to remain in Metro for the rest of his life. He’ll find a way to get out.”

  “He doesn’t need to find a way out. He can override the seals, even once they’re fully locked down. Command didn’t want to risk Pioneer floating aimlessly through space without a crew in the event something happened to us. It’s better to let them have the conn than leave them dead in the water, so to speak.”

  “Yes, sir. All the more reason to keep a lookout for Nash.”

  “Thank you, Prime. Please return to your module and get some rest. We’re going to have a busy evening.”

  “The Guardians will be ready, sir.”

  “I know they will, Prime. Dismissed.”

  45

  Cross

  Pioneer. Guardian Module. 11.12.2052. 2100 hours.

  Joseph didn’t mention Levi, even to West, when he returned to the Guardian module, and Hoffman and Bourne were smart enough not to mention him either. Joseph had orders to rest, and since he was still tired from the day before he figured it was wise to follow them.

  He parked himself in his quarters for the next few hours, finding it hard to fall asleep. Not because he was nervous about going back out to the alien object. He had already come to terms with that. But the alien entity had awakened long-dormant memories, and mixed with more recent losses, it was hard for him to keep them at bay. He saw his sister when he closed his eyes. Not the oily black version, but as she was, playful and full of life. The old scar tore open, the old pain coming with it. And when he managed to overcome it he saw the remains of Earth. The terror. The violence. The death. It wasn’t only the trife killing people. Humans turned on one another—for scraps of food, for supplies, for places to hide. It had become a planet fueled by fear that had never been all that far away from their lives in the first place.

  He had helped forty-thousand people escape that fear.

  So why was he still so unsettled?

  He fell asleep for a while, his mind filled with visions of his sister, the alien entity, the trife in the UN research lab, Levi and Grant. Even Nash. He woke a few hours later, not really refreshed but definitely eager to keep moving forward. He slid off his mattress, yawning as he pulled his boots back on and tracked out to the CIC.

  “Okay, now let’s take a look at the locator system,” he heard West say. He came around the module’s command station to find her on the raised platform, the rest of the Guardians gathered around, taking lessons on how to work the system. She looked up and smiled as he came into view. “Prime, glad you could join us.”

  “At ease,” Joseph said before any of the others could even begin to follow protocol. “You’re all done with the simulator?”

  “We don’t have much time left,” West said. “Commander Siraj says we need to be ready to rock in an hour.”

  “I can crash at least four times in an hour,” Joseph said, drawing laughter.

  “I’ll be out there with Turani,” West said. “We’ll have your back, Prime.”

  “You always do,” Joseph replied. “Carry on.”

  West looked away, her eyes taking in the other Guardians. “As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted, let’s take a look at the locator system. If you’ll turn your attention to the primary display at the front of the room.”

  The Guardians did so. The ship’s schematic appeared, just a wireframe of passageways and compartments for the moment.

  “Okay, so we’re going into the menu here, and that’s where we can pull up a list of every badge in the system, with the owner’s name. So if I find Prime’s badge and select it.”

  A blue light appeared on the schematic.

  “That hardly shows us anything,” Madani said. “I can’t tell where that is.”

  “But you can rotate the schematic. Check this out.” West lifted her hands, acting like she was grabbing the ship. She rotated it to a better angle, making it more clear where the light was. Then she pinched her fingers inward, zooming in on it until the decks began to vanish, leaving a wireframe of Deck Thirty, which was labeled on the side. “Deck Thirty, Guardian module. There you go.”

  “It’s in my room though,” Joseph said. “Can you tell that?”

  “I don’t think the system can see the Guardian barracks,” she replied. “Seems it can’t get in that close. Anyway, you can also check on every badge on the ship at once. There are only about a hundred total now that the techs are in Metro, mostly engineers. You just deselect the badge and go back to the top to select show all. Boom.”

  The schematic lit up, most of the blue dots focused in a few limited areas. Sickbay, the bridge, three sections of engineering, general berthing and their module. The rest of Pioneer was empty, save for a single blue dot moving toward the bow.

  “Who is that?” Joseph said. With all of the Guardians present, nobody should be wandering the passageways.

  “Good question, Prime,” West said. “So, if I want to identify a specific beacon, all I have to do is tap it.” She tapped the air, and the light flashed. “It highlights the user on the control board.” She glanced down. “Looks like it’s Captain Grant.”

  “Grant?” Joseph said. What would he be doing out there alone? “Open a comm.”

  “Prime, the captain already warned you about stalking him.”

  “I remember. Open the comm anyway.”

  West tapped on the control board, and then looked at him.

  “Captain Grant,” Joseph said. “This is Prime Cross.”

  “Prime Cross,” Grant replied. “Is everything okay?”

  “Sir, we were just running training on the locator systems with the rest of the Guardians, and I was wondering why you’re on Deck Eight near the bow, headed toward the secondary hangar.”

  “What?” Grant said. “Prime, I’m not on Deck Eight. I’m on the bridge.” He paused, his voice turning cold. “I gave a badge to Doctor Rose, remember?”

  Joseph’s eyes snapped back to the blue dot. What the hell was she doing out there? “Yes, sir. I do. Morales, are the Dragonflies linked to the ship’s network?”

  “Affirmative, Prime,” Morales replied.

  “Send one up there to take a look. Sykes, Madani, I want you to trail behind it.”

  “Copy that, Prime,” Sykes said.

  “Take a rifle,” Joseph added as they both headed for the door. They cut to the right to hit the armory first.

  “Keep me informed, Prime,” Grant said. “She kicked us out of her lab, I don’t want her wandering Pioneer unattended.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Morales knelt on the floor to the left of the command station, opening one of the boxes and lifting a dragonfly out. He held it in his palm as he activated it, quickly flipping through the menus. The small drone lifted off, drifting toward the module door.