“Commander Siraj,” he said. “You have the conn.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” she replied, unstrapping from her station and returning to the command station. Tyson moved aside to let her sit.

  “Amazing, isn’t it, Navita?” he said, still staring at the primary display.

  “Yes, sir,” she agreed. “I have heaviness in my heart. But also lightness. How many people have dreamed of going into space? I don’t know about you, sir, but I’m eager to turn our defeat into a resounding victory.”

  Tyson smiled, glancing back at Siraj. “That’s a perfect sentiment. One I’ll remember.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m not eager to leave that view behind, but I should head down to the hangar to check on the operations there. We got everything loaded, but a lot of it still needs to be distributed across the ship. If you need me, you know how to reach me. Steady as she goes, Commander.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Then Tyson exited the bridge, stopping just outside the door and looking down the long grey corridor ahead. It took him a moment to trace the path to the main hangar in his mind. Straight ahead to the forward elevator, down to the lower decks and then aft again. All of the corridors were supposed to have plaques offering directions to the most important areas of the ship, but theirs had gotten lost or forgotten among the thousands of palettes going out to the various launch sites from the stronghold in Germany.

  A stronghold that had fallen two weeks after the last shipment went out.

  It meant there were still places Tyson didn’t know how to reach without help from somebody who did. The smaller forward hangar, for example. It was closer to his position than the primary hangar, but he had no idea how to get to it through the maze of passageways. Commander Siraj probably did. She had studied the nearly fifty kilometers worth of corridors and the hundreds of compartments. She could probably walk them all with her eyes closed.

  The thought gave Tyson an idea. He tapped on his comm badge. “Commander Siraj,” he said, telling the ship’s computer who he wanted to speak with. He could have gone back to the bridge to talk to her, but he was hoping he might get to the hangar before the Marines left the area. He started walking briskly along the corridor.

  “Captain Grant,” Siraj replied. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, Commander,” he said. “It just occurred to me as I started walking toward the hangar that my understanding of the ship’s layout is woefully lacking, considering I’m the captain of this vessel. I didn’t have the proper time to explore while we were still on the ground, but I’m anticipating that will change now. In any case, I recalled you told me you had studied the schematics and had a good understanding of the design, and I thought perhaps we could go on an expedition together.”

  “Sir?” Siraj said, confused.

  “I think it would be a benefit to both of us to become more familiar with Pioneer. What better way to do that then by walking her passageways with someone who knows where they’re going?”

  “Is this a request or an order, sir?”

  “Does my answer change yours?”

  “No, sir,” Siraj replied lightly.

  “Then I’ll meet you outside the bridge at eighteen hundred hours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Grant out.” He disconnected the comm. Siraj was a good officer. She probably found the whole idea unorthodox, and it was...a little. But so was his unfamiliarity with the vessel. So was everything else about this ship, this mission and the future they were heading toward. Every passing second pulled them deeper into unfamiliar waters.

  It was good to have people you could depend on to throw you a lifeline.

  12

  Cross

  Pioneer. Guardian Module. 11.11.2052. 1445 hours.

  The door to the module slid open. Joseph was the first one through, rifle magnetically attached to his back, helmet clutched in his right hand. The lights came on at his motion, revealing the room. His eyes quickly swept over it, unconsciously picking out the defensive cover behind the four workstations in the front, and a good firing position behind the primary command station. He found two egress routes through a door in the back of the module, and another on his left.

  His shoulders slumped as he forced himself to relax. This wasn’t another battlefield.

  This was his new home.

  “Not really what I would call cute and cozy,” Corporal West said, entering behind him.

  “I feel like I just walked into a nerd’s wet dream,” Morales added.

  “It’s functional,” Joseph replied. “Just like everything else on the ship. We might be in space, but we’ve still got a job to do.”

  “Are you sure we’re in space?” Morales asked. “Because I haven’t seen any proof.”

  “I could try throwing you out of an airlock and see what happens,” West said.

  “Very funny. Seriously Sarge, you’re telling me this thing really got off the ground? I don’t know if you all noticed, but this boat is like ten thousand feet long and probably weighs a billion tons. I’m not a scientist, but physics, you know? Gravity, mass, inertia—all that good stuff.”

  “They figured it out,” Nori said.

  “Who figured it out?”

  “The smart people. I don’t count you among them.” The comment got a laugh from the others.

  “Okay,” Joseph said. “That’s enough. Fall in, Bastards.”

  The rest of what was left of Joseph’s fire squad filtered into the room, and they quickly formed ranks at the head of it. Joseph turned to face them. He was accustomed to talking to his Marines like this, but the events of the last couple hours—and the loss of the rest of the battalion—had left him grasping for words. He still couldn’t completely get his mind around the fact that Colonel Hale and the others were gone.

  That Earth was gone.

  The banter was their way of releasing the tension and dealing with the stress. Maybe he should have just let them keep talking.

  “It’s okay, Sarge,” West said. “I think we all feel the same way.”

  Joseph nodded, eyes flashing over each of them. Only his direct team had made it through the battle intact, with a total of five Marines from two of the other three teams. The third team was a total loss, and realizing it was another punch in his gut.

  They had all heard Captain Grant offer a moment of silence to everyone they left behind. After getting onto Pioneer right before the hangar doors sealed, the hangar boss directed them to their hands and knees, explaining that it would help with the increased g-force from the liftoff. The Marines, being Marines, had stayed on their feet, rifles ready, facing the hangar doors. Just in case. They had all dealt with g-forces before, and like Morales said, the ship’s liftoff had been so smooth it was hard to believe it had happened at all.

  As soon as the moment of silence was done and Grant had signed off, the hangar boss gave them the directions to the Guardian module. It was located on the deck directly above the hangar, a quick elevator ride away. Joseph didn’t know what to expect until they had walked in. This was his first time on board, and so far nothing was going according to the briefings Colonel Hale had given.

  The briefings hadn’t accounted for so many of them dying right before launch.

  He was accustomed to being in charge of his fire squad. He wasn’t used to being in charge of the entire battalion. Not that there was any difference between the two...now.

  “I don’t think I need to tell you the kind of loss we suffered today,” Joseph said. “This is the hardest hit I’ve ever taken. So many good brothers and sisters didn’t make it today. There are still so many more back there, still fighting for the freedom of humankind. I don’t think I need to ask if you’d rather be down there with them, given the choice. But we weren’t given that choice. We had orders. We followed those orders. We’ll continue to follow them. The best thing we can do for everyone we lost is to stay true to what we all believe in. To stay strong against adversity. To remember we’re Marines.”

  “Oorah!” the others replied.

  “I look at each of your faces, and I see the same strength and determination that I feel. We can’t ever forget what our brothers and sisters sacrificed, or that the best way we can honor their sacrifice is to make our own. I know you’re hurting. I know you’re exhausted. But the mission doesn’t end here. It can’t.”

  He paused, eyes crossing over the faces of his Marines. He could see the tension in Nori’s eyes. The anger in Corporal Levi’s expression. They knew what he was going to ask them to do, and they already didn’t like it.

  “The Guardian program called for ten pairs of Marines, two out of stasis per two year cycle, monitoring ship’s systems in a rotating twelve hour shift and ensuring the safety of everyone on board. I’m sure all of you can do the math, with the possible exception of Morales. There are only nine of us here.”

  “Sarge,” Nori said. “I didn’t apply to be a Guardian. I’m supposed to join my wife and daughter inside Metro.”

  “I know.”

  “I have family in the city too,” Levi said. “And the Guardian program was voluntary.”

  “It was supposed to be. I know this isn’t what you want. It isn’t what I want either. I’d be much happier sending you both back to your families. Hell, it’s what I would want if I still had one. But you know we’re shorthanded. And you know we’re lucky to be alive at all. Our Marine family died down there to get us here so we can get the colonists to our new home. I need all of you to be part of that. That was our mission while we were on the ground, and that’s still our mission now.”

  Nori nodded curtly, lips tight, jaw still tense. “Understood, Sarge. I’m with you.”

  Joseph could see how much it hurt him to let go of the future he had expected, despite the Marine’s efforts to hide it.

  “I’m not,” Levi said. “I’m sorry, Sergeant, but I thought the Guardian program was bullshit then, and I still think it’s bullshit now. The smart people can counter gravity and inertia but they can’t program a computer to wake someone from stasis if it detects a problem? There’s no reason the ship needs more than four Marines at most. And I would argue that it shouldn’t need us at all.”

  “I don’t disagree, Corporal,” Joseph replied. “But I don’t make the rules. The powers-that-be wanted ten cycles of two Marines. As it is, we can only do four.”

  “Four is impossible,” Levi countered. “Two hundred years at two year cycles? That’s twenty-five rotations each. We’re going to age sixty years during the trip. I’m twenty-six now, Sarge. I’ll be close to ninety by the time we get to Avalon. How is an old man supposed to help protect the ship?”

  “Any way they can,” West replied. “Can’t you see this isn’t just about you? Command believes we need real people monitoring the ship. Real eyes, ears and noses that might pick up trouble the ship’s computer misses. I don’t know about you, Alan, but before all this bullshit with the trife, I could barely get my car to go from point A to point B without needing manual intervention at least once. Do you really want to put the fate of the colony, possibly the fate of human civilization, in a computer’s figurative hands?”

  “What I want is to go into Metro to be with my kids,” Levi said. “Their mother died of the virus, and their grandparents didn’t pass the health test to get a spot on board. I’m all they have. I talked the board into taking them with the understanding I would be inside with them.”

  “What was their contingency if you died?” Morales asked. “Because ninety-eight percent of us did die.” He glanced at Joseph with a smirk. “Math.”

  “One of the other parents took them in. But she isn’t their father. There are nine of us here. Four cycles of two is eight Marines. I’m the odd man out.”

  “You aren’t the only one with family in Metro,” Nori said. “You don’t get to decide what you want above anybody else.”

  “Your daughter has her mother. My kids don’t have either one of their parents. They don’t have any other family.”

  “At least they’re still alive,” Nori countered. “That makes me a better candidate to go, doesn’t it? You don’t have a wife anymore; I do. I can make more babies to keep the population up.”

  “So that’s what this is about? You want to get back to Metro so you can have sex?”

  “What? That’s not what I said at all. The point is, it’s not your decision to make.”

  “Whose decision is it then?” Levi asked. “Earth is gone. Technically, everything we had there is gone too. The Marine Corps? It’s over. We aren’t Marines out here. We’re nothing more than civilians, just like everyone else on this ship.”

  “We’re United States Space Force Marines,” Joseph said, intervening. “That’s the pledge we took, and if nobody else will hold you to it, I will.”

  “No, only the Guardians took that pledge, Joe,” Levi replied, dropping military formality to prove his point. “I’ve seen the documentation. Once Pioneer leaves Earth, the Marines who signed up for the Guardian program are transferred to the USSF. The rest of us go live out our lives in Metro. It’s not my fault we took such heavy casualties. Why should I be punished for surviving?”

  Joseph stared at Levi. The man had a point, and if he were the only Marine with ties to Metro he might have considered letting him go. But it wasn’t right for him to get what he wanted while Nori stayed behind. And the fact that Levi was calling being a Guardian a punishment made Joseph want to do the airlock test West had suggested.

  “You’re a sorry excuse for a Marine, Levi,” Nori said. “Where’s your sense of responsibility?”

  “What the hell do you know?” Levi spat back. “My responsibility is with my kids. The war is over for us. I don’t want to be a glorified janitor while they grow old and die in that box. You shouldn’t either.”

  “I don’t want to,” Nori said. “It’s my duty. My family will accept that. They’ll have pride in me for it. What are your kids going to think of you?”

  It was the comment that sent Levi over the edge. He broke ranks, pushing through the other Marines to get to Nori. Or at least, he tried. West grabbed him before he got there, shoving him back against the wall with her augmented leg, using its strength to hold him there.

  “Let me go, Keesha,” Levi said.

  “Not until Sarge says I should,” she replied. “You’re out of line.”

  “I’m not doing it,” he insisted. “I won’t. You leave me awake to watch the systems, I swear I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” Joseph growled, his patience finally wearing thin enough to break. He put himself nose-to-nose with Levi. “Choose your next words carefully, Corporal. Either you’re ready to commit treason with your very next words, giving me the right to blow your damned brains out, or you’ll stand with me to defend what little of human civilization we have left.”

  Levi glared at Joseph, eyes narrowing, voice a low growl. “If you make me do this, I swear I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

  Tension thick as ice filled the room, the rest of the Marines, shocked by Levi’s promise. Joseph wanted to try to beat some sense back into him because the man had clearly lost it. He stared at the defiant Marine, locking eyes with him for nearly thirty seconds while he held his fury under control. Then Levi slumped back, diverting his gaze. Submitting.

  “Keesh, let him go.”

  West dropped her leg, letting Levi loose. The Marine still didn’t move, remaining pressed against the wall, eyes to the floor. Some of the sense had returned. Too late.

  “If there anyone else here who feels the same as Corporal Levi?” Joseph asked. “Speak up now.”

  He waited for someone to say something. Even Nori remained silent. But then, he had expected as much.

  He looked at Levi again. He wanted to drop the whole issue, but he couldn’t. Not now. The corporal had crossed a line he couldn’t back down from. He glanced at West. “Make sure he stays in the module.”

  “What are you going to do with me?” Levi asked.

  “Nothing,” Joseph replied.

  “Nothing?” West asked.

  “I’ll let Captain Grant decide what to do with him. For now, let’s see if we can scrounge up some clean clothes.”

  13

  Cross

  Pioneer. Guardian Module. 11.11.2052. 1445 hours.

  The small main room of the module was their CIC. A pair of computer and comm stations rested in front of a main command station, while a viewing screen was positioned on the bulkhead beside the entrance. A second door sat on the rear bulkhead, while a third lay positioned to the left.

  “Queen, why don’t you take Levi and get a look at whatever’s behind door number two,” Joseph said, motioning to the door on the left. “I’ll take door number one.”

  “Copy that, Sarge,” West replied, virtually dragging Levi along with her by implied threat of force. The rest of the Marines split between West and Joseph. Nori, Morales and Privates Chun and Hoffman trailed along behind Joseph as he ventured down the short wide corridor behind the door on the right. There were ten numbered doors on each side of the corridor. Three more doors were unnumbered, one at the end of the corridor, the other two situated on either side at the corridor’s approximate midpoint.

  While the others continued on down the corridor to see what lay behind the doors there, Joseph opened the first numbered door on the right. Inside, he discovered a small, simple barracks room with a bunk in the corner. To his right was a plastic and aluminum desk with a flat display angled up from the desk top. A locker sat in the corner, and he went over to open it, finding it empty. Returning to the corridor, he put his helmet down on the deck in front of the doorway, claiming this living space as his.