“I suppose,” Marcus replied as the Osprey banked to the west and continued to climb.

  “Say, do you want to do a barrel roll?”

  Marcus sighed. “I don’t know what that is.”

  Rogers laughed. “It’s a big, 360-degree roll, but this hunk of shit would probably rattle apart around us. It’s pretty old.“

  Marcus wondered why he’d even brought it up then. Besides, he had more serious things on his mind. “Do you know why the Colonel wants me in Sanisco so badly?”

  “No fekking idea, mate. But the Colonel doesn’t just send for people willy-nilly. If he asked for you, he wants you, specifically, for something.”

  Marcus couldn’t imagine what that something was. Did it have anything to do with Sheriff Duke? Rasha hadn’t been convinced the Sheriff was dead. But Marcus was certain he had to be. “What’s he like, the Colonel?”

  “I’ve never met him in person,” Rogers said. “Only heard his voice on the comms into Control, passing orders through. But we’ve been running the emergency messaging system the last few weeks since the switchboard went dark. Text only. He seems like a serious fellow, judging solely on his voice. Maybe a little too serious. All business, you know what I mean?”

  “Unlike yourself, I’m sure,” Marcus said.

  “When life gives me lemons, I make lemonade. I have a real affection for Earth history, especially popular humor. You savages were a crazy lot, you know?”

  “Everything I know about Earth history I read in books,” Marcus said. “It didn’t seem all that crazy to me. And even if it was, I’d sure as hell take that over this.”

  “I hear you, mate. Especially since we’re going to lord over you all and make you fight a war for us, eh?” He laughed again. “That was rude, eh mate? Bad Jake. Bad!”

  Marcus looked away from him. He didn’t want any part of the Custodian’s bullshit. He just wanted to strike out on his own. Or maybe he would find Fairy and hook up with her crew. They were young. Impressionable. The beginning of his version of the Scrappers?

  For now, he was stuck with this lunatic, on his way back to where he started, still trapped in the group. But only until he could break away. He had no intention of helping the Colonel with whatever it was he wanted if he could possibly avoid it.

  The only problem? Avoiding it might not be possible.

  12

  Hayden

  The Osprey had enough space in the back to load Zorro onto the aircraft. That didn’t mean the horse wanted to get on board. He shuffled nervously as Hayden led him up to the back ramp.

  “It’s okay, boy,” he said, speaking softly and trying to calm the stallion’s nerves. “Just a short ride, and then we’ll be back on solid ground.”

  Zorro whinnied in complaint, looking longingly at the patches of green grass sprouting up through the otherwise dead grass and bare dirt of the field. Hayden scratched the stallion’s chin and then reached into his saddlebags, producing Zorro’s favorite treat. The apple immediately grabbed the stallion’s attention as Hayden held it for him to bite off half before feeding the rest of it to him as he led him up the cargo ramp. It wasn’t the most comfortable fit. Zorro had to lower his head to squeeze into the space, but it worked. Hayden hitched him to a fuselage hardpoint, still stroking him and offering gentle praise.

  “Sheriff, we’re ready when you are,” Thomas said from the cockpit of the aircraft. Vazquez occupied the pilot’s seat beside him, a helmet covering her head, an old pair of sunglasses over her eyes.

  “Zorro’s in, you can close the loading ramp,” Hayden replied, pulling down a jump seat next to Zorro and quickly strapping himself in. “Just give me a minute to buckle in.”

  “Roger,” Thomas replied.

  A moment later, the Osprey’s engines turned over with a strident whine, and Zorro whinnied again, jerking his head up and banging it against the overhead.

  “Easy boy.” Hayden stroked the stallion’s quivering wither. “Nothing to worry about.” As the aircraft’s propellers—set in their vertical takeoff position—began to turn with their helicopter-like throb. The aircraft rattled in response and Zorro again shifted in distress. “A few hours, that’s all, buddy, and we’ll be back on solid ground.” He would have preferred to tie Zorro down better. Fortunately, there was no reason for the craft to make any hard maneuvers. “I’m in,” he announced to the two Custodians. “Let’s go.”

  “Copy that,” Thomas said.

  A moment later the engines gained an even pitch, and the aircraft lifted vertically from the field, shuddering enough to again rattle Zorro. He danced from one hoof to another in the small hold, his eye rolling back to keep Hayden in sight. Fortunately, his master’s calm worked to settle him down.

  Brink had thought Hayden crazy for taking the stallion with him, a horse that had never been onboard an aircraft before. She’d been equally concerned about the two Custodians flying him anywhere, but this wasn’t his first rodeo when it came to working with Centurions. He had little doubt the pair would see their mission through. The Centurion Space Force was nothing if not loyal to the code of ethics instilled in them from the time they were born in Thomas’ case or grown in Maya’s.

  If he hadn’t been able to enlist the Custodians to fly west with him and link it to helping them, it might have been a different story. Their inherent ability to rationalize honor and integrity was a powerful thing. Besides, he figured their sense of self-preservation would keep them from crashing the aircraft. Should that rationalization fail, his reputation would keep them from trying to kill him.

  He hoped.

  The engines hummed as they began rotating from vertical to horizontal, increasingly propelling the aircraft forward as well as up. Once they had locked into place, Hayden unstrapped himself from the jumpseat, patted Zorro one more time, and moved up to the cockpit, standing behind the two seats.

  “Must be hard to learn to fly something like this,” he said, noticing all of the buttons and switches amidst the monotone displays. “Primitive compared to a Centurion starship.”

  “It wasn’t that hard,” Vazquez replied. “In a lot of ways, it's a hell of a lot more fun. Starships practically fly themselves. You need to have a real feel for these things or you’re liable to plant them in the ground.” She turned her head to glance back at Hayden. “Not that I intend to do anything like that. I don’t plan on dying today.”

  “That makes two of us,” Hayden said. He looked through the cockpit windows, out at the landscape, still growing smaller beneath them as they continued to climb. “I know you’ve got another installation out west.”

  “Haven,” Thomas said. “The Western Reach is in Haven. It was part of your United Western Territories. They still use those coins for barter there.”

  Hayden still had a few of the metal coins in his saddlebags. He wasn’t sure how he felt about heading back west. He had tried to avoid that part of the continent over the last few years, leaving a wide radius around the spot where Natalia had died as though it were radioactive.

  In his heart, it was.

  “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to land there,” Hayden said. “Though you’d probably like that outcome. I’d be hog-tied before I could get my bearings.”

  “I certainly don’t recommend bringing the Osprey within a hundred miles of the city,” Thomas said. “They’ve got active radar set up there, monitoring incoming and outgoing deliveries.”

  “How many of these things do the Custodians have?”

  “Three Ospreys. Six helicopters. A few drones. Most of them were built from cannibalized out-of-commission aircraft we found at abandoned airbases.”

  “Thomas, you don’t have to tell him everything,” Vazquez said. “You shouldn’t be talking about any of this.”

  “If you’re so sure the Colonel’s going to take me out, there’s no harm,” Hayden said.

  “It’s not like I’m telling him where they’re deployed, and it’s not like he can fly them,” Thomas added.

  “Whose side are you on?” Vazquez countered.

  Thomas hesitated, eyes shifting between her and Hayden. “I’m not sure, to be honest.”

  Vazquez head whipped in his direction, the force lowering her sunglasses low enough for Hayden to see the anger in her eyes. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? You’re a Centurion. Your loyalty is to—”

  “What?” Thomas said. “My loyalty is to what? Proxima? They reprimanded me over a minor infraction and sent me to Rehabilitation. The Trust? They gave me a new job and sent me to Earth, and then they left me here, same as you. The Grand Custodian? He wants to start a war that’s going to get the people we care about killed, and as of yet hasn’t offered a single word of reasoning for the decision. We just follow along blindly while the real Earthers suffer and die in our name.” He exhaled sharply, trying to maintain control of his anger. “I was locked in a cell for three weeks, with nothing to do but think about why and where things went wrong. Do you know the conclusion I came to?”

  “No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell us,” Vazquez replied.

  “It’s bullshit, Maya. All of it. We have the tech and the resources to rebuild this planet with the help of the sav…the Earthers. Instead, we’re treating them like shit for our own personal gain. Manipulating the many for the benefit of a few.”

  “Our benefit,” Vazquez said.

  “Yeah. How does this benefit us? Because I’m not seeing it. We go start a war with Proxima? Then what? Your wife dies. Your kid dies. Everything is in ruins. For what?”

  A heavy silence fell across the cockpit. Vazquez didn’t know how to answer the question.

  “My point exactly,” Thomas said. “Maybe we’re fighting for the wrong side.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Vazquez replied. “We’re fighting for our side. That’s what we do. We’re Centurions.”

  “We’re Centurions,” he mimicked with no little amount of disdain. “They abandoned us. That’s what all this is about. I think you should give that some thought.”

  “I think you should shut the hell up.”

  “All right,” Hayden said. “That’s enough. The point remains, we can’t go directly to Haven. And I reckon you don’t know where the Colonel is holed up?”

  “Need to know,” Thomas said. “And we don’t.”

  “Right. Who might know, then?”

  Vazquez glared at Thomas again, warning him not to say too much.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Rasha at Fort Hood would be my first guess,” Thomas said, ignoring the look from Vazquez. “Based on the calls I was getting from the Western Reach, they’re still moving a lot of equipment in and out of the bunker there. If it’s going to where the Colonel is, he’ll know it.”

  “I don’t suppose I can get you to tell me what the defenses are like at Fort Hood?”

  Thomas smiled. “I do have my limits, Sheriff. I can tell you there aren’t any Earthers there.”

  Hayden nodded. He could read between the lines. The Custodians didn’t have an endless army of Proxima-born fighters. They needed to recruit residents to bolster their ranks. If Fort Hood didn’t have any of those recruits, they were bound to be lightly guarded. At the same time, he imagined they possessed enough tech to make up for at least some of that shortfall. More Shield bots perhaps.

  “Okay. Our first stop is outside of Fort Hood,” Hayden decided. “Well clear of any radar they might be running, unless you can get clearance to land there?”

  Vazquez laughed. “I can get you clearance, Sheriff. Just let me have a chat with Control.”

  “She’ll turn you in,” Thomas said. “They’ll have guards waiting for us when we touch down.”

  “Thomas!” Vazquez growled. “I swear, first chance I get I’m putting a bullet through your head.”

  Thomas patted his sidearm. “You’re the only one here who’s unarmed, Maya. Face facts, we can do a lot more good for everybody concerned by helping the Sheriff.”

  “Doesn’t loyalty mean anything to you?” she snapped back.

  “To a point,” he hissed, getting angry himself. “And I’m past it. The Colonel captured an alien rock from an offshore rig, Maya. We expended a lot of energy to capture it. What do you think it is? Why do you think the Grand Custodian wants it?”

  “I don’t know. Why should I care?”

  “Because the Hunger is bad,” Hayden said. “For Earth. For Proxima. And everything in between. And people consistently think they can control it, and people are consistently wrong.”

  “If it kills more savages, I’m all for it,” Vazquez said.

  Thomas opened his mouth to rebuke her. Hayden put up his hand. “It’s okay. Actually, it’s more than okay. You want to turn me in to Lieutenant Colonel Rasha? That’s fine by me. I want you to.”

  “What?” both Thomas and Vazquez said.

  “You heard me. When we get in range, make the call. Do whatever you need to do to make yourself feel better, Maya. Just get us clearance to land inside the perimeter.”

  Vazquez smiled. “If that’s what you want, Sheriff.”

  “That’s what I want.”

  “So be it. It’s your funeral.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  13

  Hayden

  The Osprey cut northwest, staying relatively low to the ground and covering distance in a hurry. Only twenty minutes had passed before they were tracking over the highway en route to Fort Hood.

  Hayden retained his position standing behind the two seats in the cockpit, watching the landscape pass ahead of them. It was mostly farmland and wilderness, split occasionally by settlements of different sizes. There wasn’t a lot of activity below. He spied a few scavengers riding horses along the side of the road, another group a few klicks south of the highway and a third further north. They all paused when they heard the aircraft, looking up as they passed overhead, surprised to see anything airborne.

  “ETA, fifteen minutes,” Vazquez said. She hadn’t spoken again since the initial takeoff, apparently satisfied by Hayden’s request to turn him over to Rasha. She had to know he wasn’t going to be taken without a fight, but she probably figured the Custodians at the Fort could take him.

  She figured wrong.

  It was a brazen way to approach the situation but time wasn’t on his side, and despite the odds it seemed like a better plan than trying to sneak up on the base or get close on horseback. The Custodians would see him coming long before he drew near, and they would be ready. This way, he would at least have the element of surprise. He just needed to be quick.

  The Osprey continued over the highway. Hayden’s eyes scanned ahead, noticing a small dust cloud rising from the road near the horizon. He leaned forward a little, putting his head past Vazquez until the bridge of his hat touched the front glass.

  “What is it, Sheriff?” Thomas asked in response.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Hayden replied, squinting his eyes to better focus. “Probably just a modbox heading the opposite way.” The aircraft made up the distance between them and the cloud pretty quickly, bringing it into view. He was surprised to see a second larger cloud of dust behind it, suggesting whatever created the new disturbance was heavy.

  Thomas leaned forward to get a better look. “Huh. That’s something you don’t see every day.”

  With his eyes on the second larger dust cloud, it took Hayden a moment to realize what Thomas was looking at. He shifted his attention to the closer vehicle. A hoverbike. A pair of ropes trailed behind it, towing a small, rusted car. The two people inside were apparently too consumed with whatever was coming up the road behind them to notice the Osprey.

  Hayden looked closer at the hoverbike, spotting the wider rear fenders. A hovertrike. The same one Marcus had stolen from him in Houston. His attention shifted to the rider, who looked up at them as they closed the gap. Not Marcus. A woman. No more than twenty years old, if that.

  Hayden looked out into the distance again, recognizing the heavy vehicle creating the larger dust cloud. A Centurion armored personnel carrier. The APC was still a couple of klicks behind the trike, but it appeared to be gaining.

  “That’s one of ours,” Thomas said, pointing at the APC. “It looks like they’re chasing the bike.”

  Hayden didn’t get to answer before the Osprey’s comms clicked and a voice sounded over the cockpit speakers. “Vazquez, is that you?”

  Vazquez glanced at Hayden, who nodded. “Roger, it’s me,” she replied. “Are you in that APC down there, Martinez?”

  “Affirmative. What’s your status, Maya? We have orders to run down a scavvy who made off with some property of ours, and we could use your help keeping an eye on the prize.”

  “I’m headed to the Fort from the Southern Reach for a resupply.” She looked at Hayden again. He nodded. “I’ve got fuel to spare. I can spot you as long as you file it in your report.”

  Martinez laughed. “Wilco.”

  “I’m going to circle back and try to get over them. Standby.”

  “Roger. Thanks for the assist.”

  Vazquez shut off the comm. “I thought you were in a hurry?”

  “The last time I saw that trike down there, Marcus was riding it. Now some scavvies have it, and they’re coming east from the direction of Fort Hood. One, I want to know if they know what happened to Marcus. Two, I don’t want your people killing a bunch of kids. They probably found that trike somewhere and have no idea why they’re being chased.”

  “So what do you plan to do?” Thomas asked. “We don’t have guns on this bird.”

  “I wouldn’t shoot our own even if we did,” Vazquez said.

  “We’re going to assist like your man asked,” Hayden replied. “The scavengers will pull off the road and try to tuck in somewhere to hide. Get low over their location and I’ll drop in.” He looked at Thomas. “This is where I need you to make sure she doesn’t take off without me. I don’t want to lose my horse.”