Nash laughed. “Maybe you see it that way, Captain. But I was selected as Governor for a reason. The people inside Metro need me. They need me here, and they need me where we’re going.”

  “No, they don’t. As soon as Pioneer lands the pods will open I’ll become Avalon’s most senior official until we’ve reached specific milestones. After that, we’ll transition to a democracy and hold elections. I’ll see to it that the people are prepared for the hardships we’ll have to face. That’s the job I was selected to do. Captaining Pioneer is the easy part.”

  “I know about hardship, Captain. I built my company from nothing. I’m a proven leader. A proven winner. You know it, or you wouldn’t have picked me from all of those applicants.”

  “That’s beside the point.” Tyson leaned forward to match Nash, meeting his gaze and holding it. “Here’s the only deal you’re getting, Governor Nash. Sign the form, go back to Metro and get the people ready for launch. The counter-inertial generators will diminish the force of the ship’s initial burn, but it won’t eliminate it. There’s a reason you’ve spent the last four months training at 2g. The rest of your people aren’t that lucky. They need you to keep them calm.”

  Nash leaned back, eyes defiant. “So you won’t consider my proposition?”

  “Even if I agreed with you that the fact we’re alone out there means we’re free to negotiate our own terms, you haven’t presented anything you can offer to make your proposition at all worthwhile. If you’re going to barter, Governor Nash, you need to have something to bring to the table.”

  Nash smirked at the response. “Who says I don’t have anything?”

  “Until you state what you do have, you don’t have anything.”

  “I think there’s something you should consider, Captain,” Nash said, leaning forward again, a devious smile on his face.

  “And what would that be?”

  “You read the manual. You know the directives, I’m sure.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re also aware the Governor of Metro’s identification chip contains the codes needed to unlock the seals.”

  “In the event of an emergency,” Tyson said.

  “Yes, that’s what it says in the manual. But who defines what constitutes an emergency? Who’ll be there to tell me my opinion is wrong?” His eyes narrowed, his smile becoming almost feral. “Who’ll be able to stop me?”

  Tyson took a deep breath, fighting to control his anger. He wasn’t going to let this man get the best of him. “You’ll have access through the seals. What you won’t have is access to the ship’s systems, including the stasis pods. There’s no benefit for you to exit Metro other than to jeopardize the lives of everyone on board.”

  “Maybe I can’t change the pods, but what if I damaged them?” Nash said. “What if I damaged yours?”

  Tyson stared at Nash. He could hardly believe the words spilling out of the man’s mouth. Every applicant had undergone a psychological evaluation. Every selection was considered of sound mind and body, with the right markers to make for good leaders during a potentially stressful experience. Had Nash managed to navigate himself through that web? Or had he already cracked?

  “That’s what I’m bringing to the table, Captain,” Nash said. “I want to live to see Avalon. You can make that happen. In exchange, I won’t cause any trouble for you. I’ll be a good little Governor.”

  Tyson still didn’t speak. He was tempted to call the Marine into the room, to have him take Governor Nash to the brig. Only they didn’t have a brig. There was a Sheriff’s Office in Metro. That was the only place he could lock someone up.

  But the Governor? Right before launch? He could only guess what kind of chaos that would cause.

  Nash was bluffing. He had to be. The man was still traumatized by what he had gone through out there, and now he was panicking at the idea of dying on a starship, his body broken down and recycled. Tyson had seen others go through this, but they were usually rooted out through the evals.

  He calmly reached forward, tapping on the tablet to activate it and pushing it at Nash. “Sign the form. Formalize your part in this. We’re going to save thousands of lives, Governor Nash.”

  Nash smiled slightly at the remark. “Whether I sign that or not, you’re still going to launch.”

  “Yes. With full control of the entire ship.”

  “Why not keep control, Captain? That’s what I would do. Why have a Governor at all?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “It was a study on perceived power. I’ll spare you the details, but the end result is that if Metro were analogous to a prison as you suggested, and the military analogous to guards, our journey would end in horrific chaos. While Metro isn’t a prison, the separation of power is still vital to the success of this mission. I was under the impression you understood the game and its rules, and that you wanted to play. Instead, you’re trying to cheat.”

  “If this is a game, then I would call it improving my position.”

  “Only if I were willing to play along, which I’m not. What I’m telling you is that you have the whole of this mission in your hands, Governor Nash. Your choices will either see Pioneer make it to Avalon intact and ready for the struggle of settling a new world, or they’ll damn us all. I’m appealing to your humanity to make the right decision. You’ll be a hero.”

  Nash was silent as he leaned back again, considering. “My humanity.” He paused again. Tyson’s words seemed to finally reach through the trauma and fear. Tears started running down his face, his lip quivering as his shell cracked. “I lost my wife. My kids. Everything to the trife. Sally and Henry got sick from the virus. The aliens killed Hannah and Laurie. They came into our house.” He lowered his head into his hands, sobbing softly.

  “I’m sorry for your losses,” Tyson said. “A lot of people out there lost loved ones. You have the power to either stop those losses, or see them continue on in perpetuity. Help yourself and the people in Metro heal, or continue to salt the wounds. Those are your only two choices.”

  Nash looked up at him, then down at the tablet. He began to collect himself, sniffling slightly. Then he reached out and picked up the device, reading the beginning of the document. He used his finger to swipe to the bottom and sign it.

  “I just didn’t want to die in a tin can,” he said. “I’m sure you can understand that.” He put the tablet back down and pushed it to Tyson.

  “I do,” Tyson replied. “But this is bigger than both of us, Governor. Thousands of people are counting on you. Please don’t let them down.” He took the tablet, glancing at Nash’s signature before signing beneath it. Then he tapped on the submit button, transferring it to Command. Nash was right that it was more symbolic than anything. Even with it signed, there was really nothing he could do if the Governor changed his mind again and decided to make trouble. But so many things were already out of his hands, what was one more?

  Both men stood up. Nash extended his hand again, and Tyson took it.

  “Pleasure doing business with you, Captain,” Nash said.

  “Thank you for doing the right thing,” Tyson replied. “I’ll have the guard escort you back to Metro.”

  “Of course. Good luck with the launch, Captain.”

  “Good luck with the city.”

  Nash went to the door, wiping the tears off his face as he did. It slid open as he approached, and Tyson heard him say something to the Marine and the Marine laughed. Then the door slid closed and muted them.

  Tyson leaned back in his seat. The whole episode with Nash was strange. Had his appeal really been effective, or were those crocodile tears? He would make sure to instruct the Guardians to keep an eye out for breaches to the seals from inside, just in case. It wasn’t as if Nash could just leave Metro without anyone knowing or confronting him before he did any damage.

  “Captain Grant, sir,” Commander Shiraj said, his comm flashing. Was that a tremble he heard in her voice, or just the lousy speakers?

  “Commander,” he replied. “What is it?”

  “We just got word from Colonel Hale. We’re under attack.”

  5

  Cross

  Rocky Mountains, Colorado. 11.11.2052. 1215 hours.

  “Bastards, standby,” Mother said, her voice regaining its air of authority and attitude. “Hold your fire. Wait for them to show aggression. Over.”

  “Wait for aggression?” Corporal West said. “Can she count? They’ll be all over us before we can even start to fight back.”

  “Two Two, maintain comms silence and hold your fire until my mark, over,” Joseph said. He was fighting against the same panic he was sure the rest of his squad, excluding Private Nori, grappled with. Maybe it was worse this time. Four hours. They were so damn close. It was as if the trife knew they were only going to get one more shot at the base.

  He knew what Mother was thinking. Sometimes the trife would gather nearby, and it would take hours before they actually moved in. They would just stand there, totally still, an occasional hiss carried through the air and up to his ears. They weren’t hissing now. His external mics didn’t register any sounds from them at all.

  Mother hoped the trife would stay where they were for just a few more hours. All of the Marines felt the same.

  Joseph’s heart pounded, blood pumping, nervous energy building. When the trife attacked, they needed to hold the line. No matter what. This wasn’t just about his survival. It was about the survival of thousands.

  He shifted the balance of his M-32, aiming it into the distance. The edge of the forest was alight with red outlines of the trife waiting further back behind the trees.

  A minute passed. Another. All of the Magnificent Bastards remained silent, nearly two hundred Marines holding their collective breath and waiting for the gathering storm to arrive.

  A sharp wind blew up the slope, carrying the smell of the aliens with it. A mix of sweet and foul, Morales described it as dogshit dipped in chocolate, and Joseph always thought of that whenever the scent made it through his helmet’s filters. The wind also caught the kite in its grasp, yanking it hard against its tether. The line held fast, and the opposing forces caused the delicate machine’s wings to snap in half, sending it spinning back to earth.

  The red blob turned orange, sensor data and line of sight of most of the massive slick lost.

  Joseph didn’t know if it was a coincidence or if the trife noticed the falling kite. At that moment, the scout behind the tree finally moved out of hiding, taking a few steps forward and clearing the trees.

  “Hold your fire,” Joseph snapped to his squad, at the same time he picked his rifle up off the rock and clutched it in both hands, lining the reticle up with the creature.

  It continued to advance unhurriedly, each step bringing it a little closer to the firing line. Joseph noticed other marks breaking out of the blob, three near his squad and a dozen more around the ridge. He focused on his original target, zooming in a little more.

  The creature was nearly six feet tall, with a slender, lanky frame and abnormally long and spindly arms and legs, both of which ended in claws that could get through the toughest alloys and composites given the chance. Its flesh was a deep black and leathery but not overly thick, its head reverse pear-shaped and long. A round mouth was filled with teeth made of the same substance as the claws and just as deadly, while small reddish eyes and a pair of hornlike protrusions rounded out its demonic appearance. Its hollow bones made it both agile and relatively easy to kill, which might have been comforting to Joseph if there weren’t nearly five thousand of them surrounding the ridge.

  The trife weren’t winning because of their teeth and claws. They were winning by sheer numbers. It took a new human an absolute minimum of ten years to become a viable combatant.

  It took a new trife three to five days.

  The Bastards could kill every single trife here, and a week later an entirely fresh army might arrive, ready to try again. In fact, that’s what had already happened, the numbers the aliens threw at them increasing each time. The Marines had already turned back three waves of the demons, taking heavy casualties in the process. The effort had left them low on available ammunition, low on personnel and low on morale. The only thing that had lifted their spirits was the imminent evacuation. And not because they were eager to leave Earth. Joseph wasn’t the only one who preferred to stay and fight. He just wanted to get the hell off the mountainside to a more defensible position. He was prepared to die. He just didn’t want to die like this.

  The trife weren’t giving him much choice.

  “Hold your fire!” Joseph barked into the squad comms again. The scouts continued to advance. He had never seen them do this before, and the nonchalance of the approach was testing his nerves. He had heard the trife weren’t intelligent, but they seemed to have an almost innate ability to evolve their tactics, to test new ideas, fail and try again. It was easier to allow failure when a life didn’t mean as much.

  “Bastards, Bastards!” Mother snapped. “It’s a diversion. They’re shifting toward the western slope. All units reposition around Echo Two Two. Fire at will. Over.”

  Mother’s voice was collected but stern, her orders taking Joseph and the other squad leaders by surprise. He glanced at his tactical, but the loss of the kite had left most of the aliens orange. How did Mother know they were moving to one side of the slope? The trife had tried that tactic once already and suffered massive casualties.

  But they had also inflicted massive casualties in return, and they had greater numbers this time. They also could afford to lose. If it cost five thousand trife to kill fifty Marines, it was a worthwhile approach.

  Ten years versus five days.

  “Mother, Mother, this is Echo One One,” Master Sergeant Jamal said. “Any chance of air support on this one? Over.”

  “That’s a negative, Echo One One,” Mother replied. “All the birds are in their cages or flew the coop. Over.”

  Joseph didn’t expect air support. Not this late in the game. He lined up his reticle on the original scout, ready to cut it down. Too slow. Nori fired a single round beside him, the bullet punching through the scout’s chest and dropping it instantly.

  “Two two, hold your positions,” Joseph said. ”Fire at will. Conserve ammunition. There are a lot of demons out here. Over.”

  “There’s nothing to shoot,” Private Morales said.

  The hillside around them was still orange, the bulk of the trife slick out of line of sight and beyond the range of the command center’s sensor array. How did Mother know they were on the move? Whatever had clued her in, they didn’t have anything networked reading the data. He didn’t doubt the colonel’s observation, but Morales was right. There was nothing to shoot.

  Yet.

  The rest of Echo and Fox companies were on the move, getting into position around his squad. The elevation allowed them a better opportunity to get a clean line of fire, making the two hundred meters of rocky terrain between the Marines and the trees a deadly kill box.

  Joseph’s external mics began picking up the distant sound of clacking teeth and sharp hisses, followed by a soft rumble that quickly gained momentum. The trees ahead of the Marines started to shift, the trife among them on the move.

  “Here they come,” Corporal West said.

  6

  Cross

  Rocky Mountains, Colorado. 11.11.2052. 1230 hours.

  The trife poured out of the trees like an oil slick spilling uphill, hundreds of the aliens running along the rough ground, headlong toward the Marines lined up behind cover to cut them down.

  All of Echo and Fox Companies opened fire, hundreds of guns releasing hell on the trife all at once. The front line of demons went down in a hurry, the creatures shuddering and falling, their brethren climbing over them like ants, scurrying toward the defenders. Joseph was thankful for the dampeners in his helmet, which dulled the noise from the guns. He was sure he would have been deaf by now otherwise.

  His squad didn’t shoot with reckless abandon like the others. He had drilled the need to conserve ammunition into them over the past few months, and they all knew he would watch their counters through the combat system, and get on anyone who wasn’t smart about picking targets and staying tight. In fact, he spent the first ten seconds of the fight not firing at all, but watching his Marines’ reactions, and how their bullets depleted one to three at a time instead of in a near constant spray.

  The ATCS was supposed to make it easier for the Marines to avoid overlapping targets. When the reticle turned yellow, the computer considered the shot a kill and passed that data along to the rest of the network. They were supposed to shift targets after that, picking a new demon to end.

  Joseph found reality rarely worked like that. Marines were still people. Emotional, fearful, able to be shaken. And in the moment when a slick of thousands of trife were coming at you, it was almost the hardest thing in the world to pay attention to the reticle, the tactical or your finger on the trigger. Every instinct told you to keep firing as often as possible, to cut the enemy down as quickly as possible, and to keep the line pushed back as far as you could because your life and the lives of your fellow Marines depended on it.

  Which wasn’t a bad idea on the surface. Watching the trife fall like dominoes, their hollow bones shattering, their limbs blowing off, skulls exploding, chests tearing open all provided a visceral rush of adrenaline. A violent high. And it was only fair, considering the havoc the aliens had wreaked on Earth. Considering the billions they had already killed. They deserved to get ripped apart by the Marines’ defense, blood and guts quickly staining the rocky kill box dark blue. And if the Marines had an endless supply of ammunition on their belts, if they could just keep firing all day, Joseph would have gladly joined in the massacre with them.

  But they didn’t have an endless supply of ammunition, and they couldn’t keep firing all day. And the trife damn well knew it. They knew massing on one side would cause the emotional humans to use too many rounds to kill a single one of their number, and that those rounds would deplete until the Marines had nothing left to shoot. They expected the first thousand, two thousand, maybe even three thousand of their kind at the head of the line to die. Five days to replace them. The cost was minimal.