“Kane—” Alina started.

  “Just… give me a minute.”

  I pressed my forehead against the cool metal of the bulkhead, trying to steady my breathing. My body knew what my mind was trying to ignore. That capsule was a death trap. Every instinct screamed at me not to get in that thing.

  I thought about backing out. We could find another way, right? Maybe negotiate with the quarantine fleet, or wait for them to power down again, or—

  No. Axion was down there with my ring, and he knew where the weapon was. Every minute I delayed was another minute he had to get ahead of me.

  “You okay?” Alina asked softly, approaching.

  My hands were shaking. I clenched them into fists, angry at my own weakness.

  “Help me with the gear,” I said.

  She gave me a long look.

  Then we loaded the equipment into the capsule’s small storage compartment. Every item had to be secured, strapped down so it wouldn’t become a projectile during entry. My hands steadied as I worked, focusing on the task instead of what came next.

  Finally, I slid into the capsule, feeling the padded interior conform to my body. Once closed, a screen would be in front of my face. Control panels flanked both sides, covered in switches and indicators that meant nothing to me yet.

  Bill was supposed to guide me during some of this. Alina had turned him on already. He was presently working on the capsule’s launch system.

  “Are you comfortable?” Alina asked.

  “Yup,” I said, although my gut was beginning to knot again.

  She bent down and pressed a switch and the hatch sealed with a series of mechanical clicks. I didn’t care for their ominous finality.

  “Can you hear me?” Alina’s voice crackled through the comm system.

  “Loud and clear,” I said.

  “The Theron is at the L5 Lagrange point, about sixty thousand kilometers from the planet,” she said. “The launch system will give you initial velocity toward the planet, but you’ll need to use the maneuvering thrusters for course corrections. Bill will help with that.”

  I switched on the screen, using a camera outside the ship. I could see stars wheeling slowly as the Theron rotated. Then the planet came into view. It was beautiful.

  “See the red button on your left panel?” Alina said. “That arms the maneuvering system. The green button activates the thruster controls. The joystick between your knees controls pitch and yaw.”

  I found the controls, although I was already cramped in the tight space. “Got it,” I said.

  Gorrax now wheeled the capsule through the ship, bringing it to Bill and the launch system. It took time, but soon enough, like a shell in a shotgun, the capsule was set and the firing system primed.

  “Launch is in ten seconds,” Bill said.

  “Try not to die down there,” Alina said.

  “That’s the plan,” I said.

  Bill talked me through what he was doing. Even so, the launch hit like a mule kick. One second I was looking at stars on the screen, the next I was pressed back into the padding as the capsule shot away from the Theron. This was literally like a bullet from a gun. My vision grayed at the edges, and I tasted copper.

  “The launch is successful,” Bill said through the comm. “You’re on course for atmospheric entry in forty-seven minutes. Use the side thrusters to fine-tune your approach vector.”

  “That’s it?” I said. “That’s your vaunted instructions?”

  Bill began to tell me more.

  I experimented with the controls as he talked, feeling the capsule respond to gentle nudges from the maneuvering jets. Each burst sent a vibration through the hull, and I could hear the hiss of compressed gas.

  I thought of crazy things, mostly stuff I’d done in the past. Axion had taunted me. The super-android wanted me down there, probably needed me down there. He thought I was suboptimal, a boob. Yeah, right. I was going to teach him what this Neanderthal throwback could do. Captain Kirk had a knack for beating computers. I was hoping for something like that against arrogant androids.

  Still… this was not encouraging, lying in my coffin, shooting for a showdown with my mental superior. What was the saying? This was clobbering time.

  Time passed with me practicing Bill’s advice. When I was done, the planet had grown much larger on my screen, resolving into continents and ocean systems. I could make out mountain ranges, vast forests, and something else.

  “Bill or Alina, are you seeing this?” I asked.

  “Do you mean the temples?” Alina said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “They’re massive structures, probably several kilometers across each.”

  “Any idea what they’re for?” I asked.

  “It’s all on the memory stick,” she said.

  “How about giving me a ballpark idea?”

  “Priestesses control them,” Alina said. “They appear to share planetary control with aristocratic lords in the hinterlands. There does seem to be some evidence of other alien life.”

  “What kind of life?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. The temples appear to have advanced technology, and are linked in some manner. There’s more on the stick, but that’s the basics.”

  “Who do they worship?” I said.

  “They’re not that kind of temple,” she said.

  “What other kind is there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

  “Good luck, Kane.”

  The first wisps of atmosphere kissed the capsule’s hull. Orange streamers of plasma danced across the screen. The temperature gauge started climbing.

  Then we hit the real atmosphere.

  The deceleration slammed me into the padding. Fire surrounded the capsule, turning everything orange and white. The roar was deafening—like being inside a jet engine. The temperature gauge climbed: 500 degrees, 1000, 1500…

  I could smell burning, hopefully just the ablative coating. The capsule bucked and shuddered as heat tiles tore away. Each one made a sound like a gunshot.

  This was literally falling through hell in a tin can.

  My vision started to tunnel again. The heat was incredible, even through the supposedly insulated hull. Sweat poured off me, soaking through my clothes. My throat felt like I’d swallowed sand.

  The shaking got worse, violent oscillations that felt like the capsule was coming apart. Through the flames, I could see the ground rushing up.

  My brain started to shut down from the heat and terror. Memories flashed randomly—my mom crying when I got expelled, the first time I’d ridden my Harley, Alina’s face when she’d said goodbye. Was this how I died? Burned alive in an alien atmosphere because I was too stubborn to let Axion win?

  “Drogue chute deployment,” Bill said, his voice barely audible over the roar.

  I pulled the yellow handle. Nothing happened.

  I pulled again, harder. Something went bang, and the capsule jerked slightly. Partial deployment.

  “Main chute deployment in ten seconds,” Bill said.

  The altimeter spun down like a slot machine. Through the flames, I could see water below. At least I wouldn’t splatter on land.

  “Main chute… now,” Bill said.

  I yanked the handle, but nothing happened.

  “Kane, deploy the main chute.”

  “I’m trying,” I said, yanking at the handle.

  “It will soon be too late,” Bill said.

  I knew that, but I couldn’t make it budge any more than I already had.

  -14-

  I yanked like a crazy man, but I couldn’t get the right leverage until I sat up, and I couldn’t do that in here. I pulled, pulled, and then the handle moved.

  A second later, the capsule lurched so hard I bit my tongue. The deceleration crushed me again, but it meant the chute had deployed.

  I felt insane gratitude. I wasn’t going to just burn up or go splat against the sea.

  The secondary chutes opened with a series of smaller jolts, stabilizing the descent. Through the screen, I could see the landscape rushing up to meet me: forests and water, all growing larger by the second.

  I laughed, but then I got my shit together.

  “Bill, I’m coming down in a bay or huge lake.”

  “I see it. The bay is connected to an ocean. Try to steer toward the eastern shore.”

  The landscape below was alien in every sense. The water wasn’t quite the right shade of blue—it had a greenish tint that made me think of copper oxidation. The forests were wrong too—purple instead of green and laid out in odd patterns.

  A heat tile peeled away right in front of the screen, spinning off into the atmosphere. Through the gap it left, I could see the actual hull underneath—scarred metal that glowed cherry-red. How many more could I lose before the hull itself failed?

  The capsule spun slowly under the parachutes, giving me a full 360-degree view of my new world. Mountains in the distance looked like broken teeth. Three moons hung in the sky, faint but visible even during daylight. And those forests—they stretched forever, an ocean of purple vegetation broken only by rivers that gleamed like mercury.

  This was insane. I was a kid from Nevada who’d spent his life running from responsibility, and now I was dropping onto an alien world to fight an android for a weapon that could kill a god. How did my life get so weird?

  The altimeter read 5,000 feet. Close enough to see details now. The trees were massive, taller than redwoods. Something flew between them—not birds, but something with too many wings. The water near the shore was clear enough to see the bottom, and things moved down there. Big things.

  At two thousand feet, the capsule swayed under the chutes, and my stomach lurched with it. The water was coming up fast.

  I worked the steering controls, tugging on cables that adjusted the parachute’s trim. The capsule responded sluggishly, drifting east but not fast enough.

  Then the capsule hit the bay with a tremendous splash, driving me down into the padding. Water exploded across the screen, and for a terrifying moment, I thought I was going to sink like a rock.

  Emergency flotation bags inflated around the hull with a series of sharp pops, and soon I bobbed to the surface.

  I lay there, listening to water lapping against the hull and the ticks of cooling metal.

  “Kane, report,” Bill said.

  “I’m down. Wet, but down.”

  The hatch release was a red handle near my left shoulder. I pulled it, and the seal broke with a hiss of equalizing pressure. The hatch swung open, and alien air rushed in.

  It was breathable. Bill had been right about that. But it had a sharp, almost metallic tang to it, like the air after a lightning strike. My lungs adapted quickly, though each breath carried flavors I couldn’t identify.

  I pushed myself up and looked around. The bay stretched away in all directions, dark water broken by occasional ripples. To the east, I could see a shoreline maybe half a kilometer away, lined with strange trees that looked like purple ferns grown to impossible size.

  In the capsule’s storage compartment, I found an emergency paddle—a collapsible thing made of lightweight alloy. I assembled it and started working toward shore, each stroke sending small waves across the still water.

  Moments later, I saw fins.

  They were big—maybe three meters long—and they cut through the water with the calm dominance of apex predators. One surfaced briefly, giving me a glimpse of something that looked like a cross between a shark and a crocodile, with too many teeth and eyes that held an unsettling intelligence.

  I started paddling faster.

  My arms soon burned. Every stroke with the paddle sent fire through muscles already traumatized by the G-forces. The capsule didn’t want to go straight. It kept trying to spin, and I had to overcorrect constantly.

  The alien sun beat down differently from Earth’s. It was smaller but more intense, as if I were under a welding torch. My skin prickled with what felt like instant sunburn. The air had weight to it, thickness, making each breath an effort.

  One of the fins disappeared. That was worse than seeing it. Where had it gone? Was it coming up from below?

  I paddled harder, fighting panic. The beach was maybe three hundred meters away. Purple sand—what kind of world had purple sand? What made sand purple?

  Something bumped the capsule from underneath. Not hard, just a nudge. Testing. I could feel it through the hull, the massive weight of the creature sliding past. It was big. Really big.

  Don’t splash. Smooth strokes. Don’t act like prey.

  Another bump, harder this time. The capsule rocked, and water sloshed over the open hatch. The creature grew bolder.

  Two hundred meters to shore.

  All three fins converged behind me, following in formation. They knew I was heading for shallow water. Were they smart enough to attack before I got there?

  One of them surfaced right beside the capsule. Its eye—ancient, black, the size of my fist—looked right at me. There was intelligence there. It must be deciding whether I was worth the effort.

  The water was getting shallower. I could see the bottom now—not sand but something that looked like crushed shells or coral. The fins peeled off one by one, heading back toward deeper water. They must have decided I wasn’t worth pursuing into the shallows.

  The capsule’s bottom scraped against the coral and sand, and I hauled myself out onto the beach. My legs felt like rubber, and I was drenched in sweat despite the cool air. I dragged the capsule further up the beach, then collapsed on the purple sand, breathing hard.

  That had to be the craziest thing I’d ever done. I grinned, almost wanting to do it again.

  Above me, an alien sky stretched from horizon to horizon, painted in shades of green and gold by a sun that was too small and too bright. In the distance, I could see the dark spires of a temple.

  I’d made it. Now the real hunt began.

  -15-

  I scanned the bay, recalling the salty droplets as I paddled. The waves reminded me of Santa Cruz, California when I’d gone to the Boardwalk. They weren’t small or choppy but longer rolling things.

  What had Bill said: this was part of an ocean?

  The three-meter-long fins headed back into deeper water. Farther out, I noticed a rippling along the surface that broke up the rolling waves. I’d say it was an even larger aquatic creature approaching, maybe a whale.

  On general principle, I climbed to my feet and backed up. Maybe an alien giant squid with tentacles was coming. I had no idea, but didn’t plan on being anyone’s lunch.

  I eyed the purple beach and the giant purple ferns farther back. The towering ferns had huge broad leaves up top like palm trees, and clusters of what might have been fruit or coconuts. Could I eat those? Or would I foam at the mouth if I tried?

  Thinking about giant squids trying to grab me, I hurried up the beach until I climbed packed rocks like a crude seawall and entered the edge of the fern forest.

  The soil seemed normal and loamy. I didn’t see any creatures so far, maybe some birds or bats in the distance and a general hum of insects in the forest. The metallic taste was still in the air.

  Would my gravity sled have boomed or exploded in the atmosphere while coming down? Had there been a fiery trail in the sky to watch? It seemed possible, but I didn’t know one way or another.

  I studied the gravity sled, with seawater lapping around it, the chutes floating in the water. Maybe I should have pulled the sled higher up. I don’t think I would have been strong enough to do that, though.

  I’d taken the blaster and the computer with the memory stick. Together with my rations, I set them on a rock as I watched…

  The surface ripples from the whale-sized aquatic sea-creature turned out to be a submersible or submarine.

  That shocked me, both the technological level and how fast someone was coming to investigate this. No way was this coincidence.

  The submarine was more flattish than it was round like modern American subs, although it was long like ours. Because of the flatness, it could more easily come into the shallows.

  I heard gravel and rocks grating, metal groaning as the two met. The racket continued until the flattish sub stopped, with the front not quite reaching the sandy shore, although most of it was above the crashing waves.

  The alien sub reminded me of a semi-beached whale, with the back section half underwater. It was bigger than the Theron, making it a large submarine.

  The front section, or ‘hood,’ rose like a DeLorean car door.

  Out of it shuffled figures in bulky protective suits with bubble helmets, astronauts. They clambered over the side and landed in the surf, wading ashore, heading for the gravity sled.

  Why would they wear bubble helmets? The air was metallic tasting, but breathable.

  I squinted, leaning out from behind the trunk of my fern. The distance wasn’t that great…

  Oh.

  They weren’t humans but aliens with fish-heads, with big eyes on either side and with gross fish mouths. I swear I saw water sloshing about in the bubble helmets. These must be some kind of fish aliens and were clearly intelligent.

  As I debated my next move, the astronaut fish-creatures swiveled and looked down the beach to their right, my left.

  I turned to see what they were staring at.

  This was weird. I didn’t know how I’d missed it until now, but there was a large group of people approaching. The purple beach curved and they must have been running from a place I couldn’t see from here. They must have been racing because they’d seen the fiery trail, the billowing chutes and the gravity sled splashing into the sea as it headed for shore.

  The group or party stopped and milled about, with those in front seeming to report to those in back.

  Those in front were humans as far as I could tell. They struck me as legionaries. They were short, stocky men wearing articulated armor and shiny helmets. They had hatchets and cutlasses hanging on their belts. A few were loading flintlock weapons, pouring gunpowder I’m thinking and ramming the shot into the barrel.