“Citizens of Metro,” Governor Stone said, drawing her attention. He had positioned himself behind the microphone, his wife fading into the background behind him. “Today is an amazing day. A life-changing day. Today is the day we decide what kind of future is in store for all of us in the city. Today is the day we determine a new path, our path, into this future. Let me explain.” He paused, glancing back at his wife, who nodded in support. Then he scanned the crowd, turning on the bed of the transport to make eye contact with the colonists.

  Riley turned away as his eyes crossed her position, preventing him from recognizing her. She turned back when the microphone popped and whined as he grabbed it and pulled it from its stand. Then she started skirting the crowd again.

  “I know you’re all feeling confused and probably a little frightened. I know you’re wondering what all the shaking was about. I’m sure you’ve heard by now that the seals that have protected us for all of these years are broken and that soldiers have visited us from outside.”

  He paused while some of the crowd began to murmur again, either in surprise at the rumors they hadn’t heard, or surprise that the stories were true.

  “We all know what happened in Metro’s history. We all know about the unrest. The infighting. The Stone family’s involvement in restoring order. We’ve lived peacefully since then, a simple existence that, while challenging, has kept us close to one another as we waited out the war raging beyond our walls. I want to remind all of you about that closeness. I want to remind all of you of the importance of our solidarity as we confront what comes next. “And what comes next? you’re probably asking. Hell, in part I’m still asking myself that very question.”

  Governor Stone paused again. He was using silence well, the dramatic pauses pulling the crowd in and over to his side. He was a charismatic speaker. Much better in front of a crowd than he had been in person. He was comfortable and in control.

  Riley glanced over to the south wall. She could see the hatch now, about fifty meters away. It was closed, but that wasn’t a problem. Her chip would let her through. She started toward it, freezing when it opened. A moment later, a near mob of militiamen poured out of the opening, surrounding someone in the center. Riley watched closely, trying to get a glimpse of the figure they appeared to have captured. The alien AI? That couldn’t be.

  “I’ll tell you what it means,” Governor Stone said. “You see, my friends, we’ve been lied to. Tricked. Treated like cattle herded to the slaughter. That shaking you felt earlier? It wasn’t an earthquake or an explosion. The soldiers who visited Metro? They didn’t come to tell us we were free. No, they came to tell us that we’re not free. That we’ve been their prisoners all along. Cattle, my friends. Packed onto a starship and launched into space, sent light years from home to fight a war we didn’t ask for. A war we didn’t agree to.”

  Riley’s heart thumped in her chest, her anger shifting to confusion. What the hell was the Governor doing?

  His men were pushing through the crowd, forcing it to part. She got a look at the person in the middle now. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or feel sorry for Private Flores.

  A fearful pitch was rising in the crowd, the citizens of Metro struggling to deal with the Governor’s words. Riley could hardly believe how Stone was turning the truth around on the very Marines who had protected them from the Reapers. Who had saved them from the chaos she had accidentally wrought. They had crashed on an alien world, and he was turning on the only people who could help them?

  “That’s right, my friends,” Governor Stone said. “The soldiers told me what they intended. They weren’t concerned about what we might think. They think we’re weak. They think we can’t take care of ourselves. They think we would collapse under the pressure of their demands, and take up arms without provocation when in honesty, all we want is to live our lives in peace. Am I right?”

  The crowd erupted in cheers of support. The militia lifted Private Flores, pushing her up on stage. She was still in her combat armor, her helmet removed. She had bruises on her face. She hadn’t been taken without a fight.

  A few of the guards joined her, keeping a grip on her and tugging her forward.

  “This is the face of our true enemy, my friends. This is the face of the despicable liars who locked us in this city, held us against our will, carried us centuries and millions of light years from home, forced us to live in squalor, and sent us on a deadly journey to a world where we don’t belong. This is the face of the enemy who killed my daughter Orla, murdering her in cold blood!”

  The guards held Flores while the crowd became more agitated. Riley almost did feel sorry for the Marine. She had no love for Flores, but none of the marines deserved the betrayal the Governor was committing to.

  “What do you think we should do to our captors?” Governor Stone said. “We outnumber them by a hundred to one. They can’t make us do anything we don’t want to do. This is our future to decide. Do we want to become soldiers in their war? Or do we want to settle peacefully? If there are any other intelligent life forms here, we can talk to them, negotiate with them, and live our lives in peace and comfort. But this isn’t just for me to decide. Give me your opinion, my friends. Do we lock her up or let her go?”

  The crowd was so enraged they had already forgotten all about the fact that they were on a starship that had crashed on an alien world. They were too concerned with the enemy they could see to worry about the real enemy outside.

  “Lock her up!” some of them started shouting.

  “Kill her!” someone else said. “Kill her!”

  The chant shifted quickly from imprisonment to death. Governor Stone looked at Flores, eyes wild, face curled into a wicked grin.

  “Kill her,” the crowd shouted. “Kill her! Kill them all!”

  Riley shook her head. The Governor was an idiot. He was making a horrible mistake that was going to get them all killed.

  But that wasn’t her problem anymore.

  She turned and ran for the engineering hatch, the crowd a hateful mob behind her. She slipped away.

  Nobody noticed.

  Chapter 12

  Caleb and Sheriff Dante didn’t linger in the server room. They rushed back to the corridor and headed back toward the armory. Caleb’s heart rose to his throat, his instinct telling him that Riley’s false death was going to become a problem in a hurry if it wasn’t already.

  He could barely believe what the out of control doctor had done, or how well she had covered up her enhanced strength and healing factor. There hadn’t been any indication that she had used the CRISPR editing sequence on herself, becoming the same essentially super-human that she had made David into.

  In hindsight, he should have guessed. Riley had managed to disable David after all, putting a bullet in his head and keeping him down long enough for his body to be pulled out of the airlock along with Sho and the alien AI. He had assumed she had caught him off-guard and disabled him before he could react. Riley was smart and he forgot sometimes how devious she was, but surely he would have noticed an increase in her overall intelligence as David had exhibited.

  -Regardless, they had to get to her before she woke up, if that was still possible. If she found out what Caleb had told the the governor and Sheriff Dante, among others, that her dirty laundry had been aired, there was no saying what she might do. The recording they had found only cemented her guilt, offering proof of her plan to use the colony. What would she do if Caleb were to bring that recording to light?

  He could already imagine.

  They hurried back to the armory, rushing through the hatch toward the lift. They were halfway to it when Caleb’s ATCS suddenly lit up, revealing there was someone to their right. It he marked the individual as a threat and signalled him to take evasive action.

  He grabbed Dante’s wrist with his replacement hand, using its strength to throw her to the ground behind one of the APCs, at the same time he broke in the opposite direction, diving behind a second machine. The ground between them erupted in sparks and ricocheting shells, the sudden burst of gunfire echoing loudly in the enclosed space, though his helmet helped dull the roar.

  Caleb rolled to his feet, pressing against the vehicle. He checked Dante’s vitals on his HUD. She was alive and unharmed, hidden behind the APC.

  His ATCS was tracking the shooter as best it could, using the noise of the gunfire to estimate position and movement. Radio waves bounced out from his helmet, painting a view of the room and putting their opponent in it. Whoever it was, he or she had been firing an MK-12 at them.

  “Dante, did you get a look at the target?” Caleb asked.

  “Negative,” she replied.

  “I’m going to see if I can get an ID. Be ready to cover me.”

  “Roger. I’ve got your back.”

  Caleb began moving along the side of the APC, toward the rear of the vehicle. His ATCS was tracking the target, showing their assailant moving toward the center of the carrier and splitting the difference since they couldn’t know what side the target would emerge from.

  He reached the rear corner, sweeping his rifle around the edge. Just because the ATCS said the target was somewhere, he wasn’t going to follow it blindly. He had only made that mistake once.

  The system was right. Their attacker wasn’t there. Caleb edged across the rear of the APC, checking on Dante. She hadn’t moved, remaining ready near the corner of the second vehicle. The target hadn’t moved either. Whoever it was, he or she was waiting for him to show his face. There was a fifty percent chance he would get shot the moment he popped out.

  He didn’t like those odds.

  “Dante, I’m going to circle back. I want you to move out into the open.”

  “What?”

  “Cross the center at a run. Unless our target’s a crack shot, they won’t hit you.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “We’re wasting time here, Sheriff. I’ve got your back, just like you had mine. You run, the bastard will follow. I’ll break cover and take them from the rear. Okay?”

  “Roger.”

  “Call the mark, Sheriff.”

  “We go in three, Sergeant. One… Two…”

  “Sergeant Caaaaarrrdd!”

  “Dante, hold!” Caleb barked, stomach sinking again.

  “Caleb, can we just agree to put the guns away and talk for a minute?” Riley asked.

  “How do I know you won’t shoot me as soon as I come out into the open?”

  “I should ask you the same thing. You’re the one with the tactical.”

  “Unlike you, I’m not a manipulative psychopathic liar.”

  “That hurts, Sergeant. Really. We’re supposed to be on the same side.”

  “No. My orders were to protect the colonists. Apparently, your orders were to get them all killed.”

  “Come on, Sergeant. Not this again. We came here to a fight a war. Do you remember that? The war? I’m coming out, Caleb. You can shoot me if you want, but I guarantee I can kill you before you kill me.”

  Caleb stayed silent. He couldn’t argue with that.

  “Sergeant, I think I can get a shot on her if you move into the open,” Dante said.

  “Negative, Sheriff,” Caleb replied. “Stand down. We’re nothing without our honor.”

  “She doesn’t have any.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Roger, Sergeant.”

  Caleb shifted his rifle, snapping it to the back of the SOS. Then he lifted his helmet, taking it off and walking around the corner of the APC.

  Riley wasn’t there.

  “Valentine?” Caleb said.

  “Here, Sheriff,” Riley said, emerging from between the two APCs. She had her rifle against Dante’s back, leading her into the open.

  “Damn it, Valentine,” Caleb said. “You have no idea what a truce means, do you?”

  “Believe it or not, I do,” Riley said. She lowered her gun and shoved Dante forward, sending her stumbling to the ground closer to Caleb. “You still think I’m the bad guy, don’t you, Sergeant? You still don’t get it. Do you think because we lost Earth this war is over? Do you think the enemy won’t figure out some of us escaped? Do you think they won’t come to finish us off? We had one chance to stop it, and you helped ruin that chance. Now we have one shot to learn as much as we can about them before they kill every last one of us. Do you want to ruin that too?”

  “These people don’t belong here,” Caleb insisted.

  “It doesn’t matter. They’re here now. You can try to protect them, but I don’t know if they deserve it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m going out there to track the enemy,” Riley said. “You’re an idiot if you think it’s staying in Metro when all it wanted was to reach the surface. You have a choice to make, Sergeant. You can follow me and try to kill me, or you can stay here and try to stop Governor Stone from killing Private Flores.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sheriff Dante said, getting back to her feet.

  “Did you give any thought to how the Governor was going to settle up on his family’s lie? You know, the one where the colony is on Earth buried underground, only now it isn’t?”

  Caleb stared at Riley. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m totally serious, Sergeant. He sold you out to save his own ass. Last I saw, he had Flores on display and an angry mob screaming for her head.”

  Caleb’s jaw clenched. He wished he could believe Riley outright, instead of wondering if she was spinning another web of deceit. “What about Washington?”

  “I didn’t see him. He might have gotten away.”

  “Damn it, Valentine. How can I believe you?”

  “How can you not? You can’t take the risk. Not unless you want Flores’ blood on your hands. Isn’t there enough already? I don’t know if Stone would have gone this route if Orla had survived.”

  The comment stung. Of course, Caleb was sure Riley intended it that way. She was right. They both knew it. He didn’t have a choice.

  “You know what I’m going to do,” Caleb said. “Get out of here, Riley. I’ll catch up to you later.”

  “Part of me hopes you do,” Riley replied. “Honestly.”

  “Whatever. Get the hell out of here.”

  Riley didn’t say anything else. She turned and ran back between the vehicles, disappearing from sight.

  Caleb yanked his helmet back on, tense and angry. “Dante, you heard her. I’m not about to let Stone put Flores to death. You need to pick a side.”

  “I know the truth, Sergeant. I’m with you. I don’t know how many others will be.”

  “Understood. I never thought I’d be glad the colony ran out of bullets. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 13

  Caleb’s heart thumped hard, his pulse raced. He was worried. More worried that he had been through any of the challenges he had faced since boarding the Deliverance. It was one thing to go to battle against the trife. They were the invaders. They were the enemy.

  It was another to suddenly be at war with his own kind.

  On one hand, he couldn’t believe Governor Stone had turned on him and the other Guardians this way, especially after he had been so composed and focused back at the hospital, taking in Caleb’s input and rightfully releasing the Guardians to continue their work. Stone’s reaction hadn’t cast any doubt in Caleb’s mind that he would do the right thing for the people.

  Maybe he had been too quick to jump to that conclusion.

  Yes, Orla had died, but she had helped Caleb save Stone’s life, along with the lives of the other twenty-six thousand colonists on the Deliverance. To use them as fodder to take the brunt of the populace’s anger over the lie the Governor and his family had perpetuated for the last three generations was weak and spineless.

  At the same time, he could almost understand the Governor’s point of view. Angry and hurting over the loss of his child. Angry over the thought of losing control of his people. Desperate to keep them in line. The Guardians were the perfect scapegoat. Warriors who knew the truth but had kept the colonists locked away for centuries.

  Riley’s actions and motives had only made it worse.

  If Caleb had been up on stage with the Governor instead of under the city, would Stone have used him as the target of the crowd’s anger? He assumed he would have, though Caleb doubted he would have been as easy to control as Flores. For all of the evil Riley had perpetrated, she had given him the replacement arm that allowed him to keep fighting. She had turned his loss at the hands of the trife queen into a lasting strength. He still wasn’t completely sure why.

  She kept claiming they weren’t enemies. And maybe there was some truth to that statement. They were both Marines. Both were fighting the same war, but coming at it from opposite ends. She wanted to protect all of humankind, while his orders and his mission were to protect the colony. The way she did business was despicable. She lied, cheated, manipulated and used people. He could never see eye-to-eye with her on that. But at the root of it, she was still fighting for humanity.

  Maybe it was better they had parted ways. Riley knew she couldn’t take control of the colony. Not anymore. In an hour or two she would be long gone, out into a wilderness that nobody else on the Deliverance had gotten the chance to explore. Was it dangerous out there? Was the enemy lurking nearby? He still had no idea, and neither did Governor Stone. Turning on the only people who could help protect them was short-sighted at best.

  Catastrophic at worst.

  The colony had no real weapons, save for their bows and arrows. They could salvage a few guns and explosives from the main hangar, but it wouldn’t last them very long. They didn’t know about the armory and the cache of weapons inside it. And Caleb had no intention of telling them any time soon. Once they returned to the Law Office, he would pull the wires and hide the panel again. He couldn’t afford to let them get their hands on military weaponry. Not while Flores was in danger.

  The lift stopped, shuddering as it merged with the floor of the Law Office’s garage. Caleb broke for the wiring that powered the platform, reaching out to grab the wires.