BLUESHIFT

JOSHUA DALZELE

CONTENTS

Blueshift

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Also by Joshua Dalzele

Afterword

BLUESHIFT

Joshua Dalzelle

©2018

eBook Edition

Blueshift

Copyright ©2018 Joshua Dalzelle

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, events, or places are purely coincidental; any references to actual places, people, or brands are fictitious. All rights reserved.

Edited by Monique Happy Editorial Services

www.moniquehappy.com

Developmental Editing by Clark Chamberlain

www.thebookeditorshow.com

1

Polaris Mission

Spacecraft Daedalus, Solar System

Day: 3061 (Crew Waking Time)

"FUCK ME … I'm never going to get used to that."

"SUCK IT UP, buttercup. That was the last time. Just a little longer on this flying deathtrap and it's nothing but fame, fortune, and drinks with little umbrellas for us."

"How do you hop out of these things so chipper, Jelly?" Nigel Vanbroke looked like he had more to say, but he was hit with another wave of spasms as his body fought to expel the rest of the oxygenated fluid from his lungs. Even as his emaciated form was wracked with nausea and muscle cramps, he raised his head to throw her one more glare.

Dr. Jelena Burnette—just "Jelly" to all her friends—seemed to suffer little to no ill effects from the induced stasis save for the standard pruned skin, disgustingly long finger- and toenails, and the very unpleasant side-effects of getting the digestive tract working on real food again.

"Once I'm done puking up my spleen, I'll check the ship's vitals," Nigel said. "Initial scan showed green across the board and we have gravity this time so the damn drums started spinning properly at least. Maybe we'll get lucky and this pile of shit will actually make it all the way back home."

"See, I knew you were an optimist deep down," Jelena said as she gingerly maneuvered herself from the open stasis pod to the large padded chair beside it, not bothering to cover herself or even wipe off the suspension gel that made her glisten in the soft light. She laid her head back and closed her eyes, breathing dry air again for the first time in forty-nine months. Nigel envied her. He would love to give his eyes time to readjust to direct light, but as the expedition's lead engineer he had to check the ship over immediately after waking.

Nigel's pod had automatically begun systematically working his major muscle groups via electrodes four months prior to waking him, so he barely had the strength to stand and make his way to the alcove near his pod that displayed all the critical information he would need quickly. The system, like most aboard Daedalus, didn't work as well as its designers claimed, and he still felt weak as a newborn kitten after pulling off all the pads, letting them fall to the deck with a disgusting splat. He hobbled the short distance over, leaning on a cane and praying to a god he'd never actually believed in that Daedalus had not drifted off course or suffered a catastrophic failure while they slept.

Daedalus was the final product of the Polaris Project: the attempt to reach an exo-star with a manned research vessel. Given the level of technology available in 2067, this was no small undertaking. There had only been a few dozen or so successful manned missions to the outer Solar System by the time Polaris began building actual flight hardware, and even these were not considered "routine" by any stretch of the imagination. The bulk of those missions were rushed as the extent of the mineral riches available in asteroids was discovered and the technology caught up with the private sector's ambition. Given the mortality rate of those early steps outside of Earth's orbit, Daedalus's mission was viewed as either a publicity stunt or an elaborate suicide attempt in the world press.

Nigel's mind still felt fuzzy and distant by the time he clomped up to the terminal and did his preliminary status checks. This would be the forty-third, and final, time he would squint at the display while the soft lights in the chamber seared eyes that had been closed for years.

Five green blocks and one amber. He took a steadying breath and focused on the amber block and saw that it was a habitat rotational drive failure on F-Ring … that fucking thing had shit the bed two years ago and the entire drum was now just being used for storage since, even with no gravity, it still had heat and air. All the other critical systems were operating nominally and, most importantly, Daedalus was still on the correct course.

"How we doin', puddin'?" Jelena called. "Still alive?"

"As much as we were before the last stasis cycle. She'll get us back … barely," Nigel said, walking back to his seat on legs that shook so hard he was stuttering when he spoke. "How're the others?"

"Still sleeping like babies. I'm seeing seven still alive with vitals are within acceptable norms. I'll check the others manually to see if we have more pod telemetry errors on our flatliners," Jelena said. "I'll authorize the computer to begin resuscitation cycles after I'm able to move about more." She was starting to stretch her legs by pulling her knees to her chest one at a time. When Daedalus had first launched, Nigel had gotten an illicit thrill at how the ship's flight surgeon would casually stretch and contort herself while completely nude.

Now? Now he didn't give a shit. He just wanted off this flying death trap and away from this pack of assholes and all their constant bickering, drama, complaining, and dysfunction. The crew had been hastily assembled by Polaris Project management, and while they were technically qualified for their positions, it was clear that much of the psychological screening that flight crews of the big governmental aerospace agencies went through was skipped or glossed over.

Nigel's sigh turned into a wet, hacking cough as his body fought to expel the last of the fluid his lungs had been filled with for the duration of the stasis cycle. He pulled the monitor attached to his chair closer and began a more detailed inspection of Daedalus so that by the time the mission commander was awake, he'd be able to give a full report. The fact he'd never again have to climb into the stasis pod and be knocked out while intentionally drowned made him want to break down and weep with joy.

"I wonder how His Highness has fared after such a long duration in the pod," he remarked absently as he flicked through acknowledgements one at a time for the two thousand, eight hundred and eleven warnings and faults Daedalus's computers had logged while he was asleep. Sadly, that was a shockingly low number and it made Nigel suspicious that the integrated fault reporting subsystem had an issue as opposed to the spacecraft having operated so long without a major problem.

"His pod was specially built, remember?" Jelena asked. "Lot more redundancies and some features that ours didn't have. He fully intended to not be awake for most of this trip."

Nigel just grunted. "His Highness" was one Mr. Xavier West, originally Eugene Pembroke before legally changing his name in college. He was also the man that had bankrolled the Polaris Project from inception to launch with a combination of personal money and raised funds. One of the last tech billionaires to emerge before the crash of 2052, West had taken many by surprise by his sudden decision to fund a manned exo-planetary mission and then join the expedition himself. It wasn't that the world wasn't used to the man's erratic nature or eccentricity, it was more that even if Polaris was a complete success, the crew would return home nearly a full millennium after it had departed. Everyone they knew would have been dead for hundreds of years and the planet would be very, very different from the one they'd left … why a man living in the lap of luxury in the prime of his life would volunteer for that defied explanation.

"Fair enough," Nigel said. "Power, life support, and gravity are all nominal in the hab areas. Heat failed in hydroponic bays two and five, so that's a total loss. A few minor hull breeches from micrometeorite impacts and the loss of another long-range telescope seem to be all the damage we took this last time."

"As long as this heap can get me back to a planet with unlimited hot water showers and food that wasn't freeze dried or grown in a tank, I'll be happy," Jelena said. She had wiped most of the suspension gel off with a towel by now and was shrugging into a paper-thin set of coveralls so she could begin reviving the rest of the crew. It would take everyone days to shake off the effects of long-term stasis, a technology that was in its infancy when they'd departed. Nigel grabbed a towel himself and began cleaning off, disgusted by his pallid, wrinkled skin and long fingernails. By now he was able to ignore the harsh, grinding vibrations he felt through the deck and the occasional, inexplicable thumps that used to set his heart to racing.

"I WANT A FUCKING RARE, bloody, dripping ribeye steak with a huge baked potato and a beer so big it takes three naked ladies to lift it to my mouth."

Mission Commander Markus Brentwood scowled at Nigel Vanbroke's comment, just one of many in what seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of complaints. They all handled reawakening differently, but his chief engineer's habit of rehashing every injustice the universe had heaped upon him once he was pulled out of his pod was like stabbing an exposed nerve with a screwdriver over and over for the ex-Air Force officer.

"How about we don't talk about real food for a bit … how about that, champ?" Jelena beat Markus to the punch and managed to shut Nigel up without the inevitable argument that would have kicked off had he been the one to say something.

"I'm just saying—"

"Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!" Everyone jumped as Jordan Korpal, the expedition's only surviving technician, exploded. The normally stoic young man had a wild look in his eyes as he glared across the composite table at the man who was his supervisor. After a long, uncomfortable moment he went back to eating as if nothing had happened.

"Why don't we all take a break from conversation while eating this … glop," Rebecca Palmer said, letting the thin, tasteless substance dribble off her spoon. Dr. Palmer was part of the science crew, a biologist specializing in extremophiles, and had only been awakened half as many times as the flight crew during the voyage out and back. Despite spending the least amount of time with them, she seemed to have the least amount of patience when it came to dealing with her fellow crewmates.

The technology that allowed them to sleep through most of the trip out to another star had been bleeding edge when the Polaris Project began designing flight hardware. So much was still not fully understood about how to keep a body alive and healthy in long-term stasis, the scientists just knew that their methods worked … most of the time. One of the major hurdles was the health of the subject's digestive system and keeping all the symbiotic microorganisms alive and well once the stasis pods lowered the body temperature and slowed the subject's metabolism to a crawl. The Polaris team's workaround—rather than to actually research and understand the issue—was to supplement the intravenous feeds with a flavorless nutrient paste that was pumped directly into the stomach. The miniscule amount of "food" that was introduced kept everything working in the body as nature designed it, just at a much slower pace.

When they first emerged from the pods and pulled all the tubes and plugs out of every orifice, they had to consume the same paste for the first few days or so until the musculature in their bowels caught onto the fact that they were awake and eating again. An involuntary shudder rattled the paper of Markus's coveralls as he thought ahead to the days of trying to get his system normalized back out.

"I'm assuming still no word from Earth?" Dr. Miriam Vega asked.

"Nothing on the alert pages, love," Nigel answered, leering at the Daedalus's chief science officer. His advances had become aggressive enough in recent awakenings that the fiery Latina had threatened him with physical violence. "Doesn't mean anything, though. There could be ten thousand messages stacked up in the queue and the damn computers wouldn't have sent them down to me unless it was flagged as an emergency."

"This is concerning," Markus said, frowning into his paste. "When's the last time we received a transmission from home?"

"It was the second year into the mission so that would be … maybe eight hundred years and some change in normal time," Nigel said. "It was just procedural stuff, nothing to indicate they were writing us off. You'll remember that our high-power directional array was damaged so we couldn't send a reply."

"We've been decelerating at full burn nearly a year now," Miriam said. "They'd have been observing our blueshifted light … there's no way they could miss it. They have to know something is inbound."

"I'm just telling you that there's nothing that I saw on the initial warning screens … that doesn't mean once we get to the flightdeck that we won't have detailed landing directions right to the parade they're going to give us," Nigel said with a shrug. "But that's not what you're asking, is it, my dear?"

"What am I asking then, you obnoxious toad?"

"You want to know who is going to win the pool," Nigel said. "And since I know what your guess was, I can already tell you you're out of the running."

"Shit," Miriam said in disgust.

2

Polaris Mission

Spacecraft Daedalus, Solar System

Day: 3062 (Crew Waking Time)

"WE LOST TWO MORE."

"FROM WHAT I CAN TELL, Simmons died almost as soon as he went to sleep, and Wakens had a pod malfunction … she died under heavy acceleration but the data logger shows she was asleep for the event." Jelena's voice was clinical, sterile.

"Damn," Markus muttered, but it lacked any real feeling. This made seventeen lost in total, eleven during the stasis cycles, three during an EVA to repair their high-power com array, and three more who had succumbed to an airborne illness that started in one of the greenhouse chambers. Over two-thirds of the ship's original complement were dead. Now that the grueling mission seemed to be coming to a close, he was surprised by his lack of feeling at the announcement. But why should he burn calories pretending to care? Anybody that knew the deceased would themselves have been dead for centuries, their names long forgotten.

It had been over eight hundred years Earth-time since Daedalus had launched, but the ship had experienced barely half of that thanks to the special relativity and the phenomena known as time dilation. As the deep-space exploration vessel roared closer to the speed of light on her pulsed nuclear engines, time slowed aboard Daedalus. Even though the crew was technically hundreds of years old, they'd only been awake, and aged, for eight and a half of those years due to their extended time in stasis. They all knew what they had been signing up for when they agreed: They would be returning to a planet and society that would be completely foreign. Assuming they returned at all.

"Still no signals from Earth?" Markus asked, returning to his meal. It had been a week since they'd emerged from stasis and they were enjoying their first solid meal since they had emerged from the stasis pods.

"We've been receiving something, but it isn't coming from Earth," Nigel spoke up. "I'll have a better idea of an exact location the closer we get, but it appears to be coming from Mars. It's not a signal we're able to decipher yet, just a short burst that repeats over and over. I've got Jordan getting a computer set up to do the analysis."

"Some sort of automated beacon?" Miriam asked.

"That'd be my guess," Nigel said with a shrug. "Maybe Earth isn't using RF-based broadcast tech anymore. Who knows … I had put my money on an faster-than-light ship being developed and beating us to Angel-21 or at least meeting us on the return trip once our blueshifted light was detected."

The four of them fell into silence and continued to eat without extraneous conversation or unnecessary eye contact. Since the Polaris Project was a private enterprise and completely civilian-funded, they had opted not to adhere to the rigorous crew selection process that the governmental space agencies demanded. Markus suspected that may have been a mistake. It wasn't just that he didn't particularly like most of the people aboard Daedalus, it was that he didn't trust them. His chief engineer, Nigel, had been caught cutting corners and then lying about it when caught. It wasn't that he was lazy, far from it. It was more that he assumed he knew more than the mission commander about what to do and rather than argue for his own solution, he just did what he wanted anyway. When confronted, he would bluster and blame it on one of his technicians.

Their flight surgeon, Jelena, was a British expat with an IQ of 146. Her accomplishments were as varied as they were impressive in the fields of biology and infectious disease, but the woman was a borderline sociopath. As with most who have above-average intelligence, her inability to empathize or relate to her fellow crewmates was a constant pain in the ass for the mission commander. Had he been given a choice in the matter, Markus would never have approved her for a long-duration flight.

An insistent beeping shook Markus out of his ruminations. "The big boss should be ready to get up and start moving," Jelena said, consulting her tablet and silencing the alert. "He'll be fully up and about by the time we're crossing Saturn's orbit, per his instructions."

"Wonderful," Markus grunted. "I can't believe that—" He never finished his sentence as the deck below them lurched, followed by several sharp bangs that reverberated through the ship. Red lights flashed and alarms blared while Nigel ran to one of the wall-mounted terminals to see what had happened.

"You better get to the flightdeck, Mark!" the engineer shouted over the alarm. "Fuel pressure is dropping in the expansion tanks for engines two and four. The computer has already shut them down and is locking down the storage tanks."

"Get down to the engine service bay!" Markus yelled over his shoulder as he climbed the ladder towards the access tube that ran the length of the ship. He ignored the moment of vertigo as he flipped out of the rotating habitat drum and into the zero-g environment of the tube. As he pushed himself along, grabbing the handholds that dotted the bulkheads, he fervently hoped they hadn't lost too much fuel.

The computer had shut down and secured their nuclear pulse engines automatically once they'd cleared the Kuiper Belt, and they'd been continuing their deceleration on the massive chemical boosters that would smoothly and precisely put them in orbit over Earth. If the engines were damaged or had lost too much fuel, they were in a real spot of trouble. The pulse engines couldn't be restarted in time to decel them enough for orbital insertion, not to mention they couldn't operate them while outside the protective confines of the stasis pods. There were two other failsafes aboard, but they'd been dormant for the entire trip and Markus was loathe to trust his life to them. If they couldn't decelerate enough to be captured by Earth's gravity, it was likely over for them; at their current levels they wouldn't have enough fuel to sling around the Solar System for another attempt.

Daedalus was deceptively large. Crew spaces only accounted for sixteen percent of the ship, and that included the chambers their stasis pods were mounted in. The other eighty-four percent was given over to engines, fuel, and the machinery that allowed humans to even attempt such a foolhardy journey. Of the six massive rotating habitat drums that provided gravity, only two were used for the crew. Three housed the myriad of flora that helped feed them as well as filter much of their air and water. The sixth was now just storage since the rotary drive had seized up halfway to Angel-21.

The flightdeck was near the front of the ship, just over one hundred meters from where the crew had been eating in D-Ring. By the time Marcus glided into the zero-g compartment, the monitors near his station were already scrolling a running assessment of the damage and a window had opened up showing live video of Nigel frantically checking his instrumentation.

"What've you got, Nigel?" Markus asked after slipping the headset on and strapping himself into his seat.

"Expansion tank two has ruptured and the proportioning valve on the crossover line to number four failed in the open position!" Nigel had to shout over the screech of machinery in the service bay. "This is bad, Mark. We lost over six hundred thousand kilos of fuel before the damn computer shut off the main valves to the storage tanks."

Markus turned to another terminal and began doing a series of calculations based on what his engineer was telling him. The news was grim.

"We still have enough for a full decel … just," he said. "But without Expansion Two, can we fire all four chemical engines?"

"Yes, but only at forty percent thrust … maybe a little more," Nigel said. "Everything is stabilized down here and there's nothing more I can do. I'll send Jordan out to see if we can figure out what happened."

Markus leaned back and exhaled loudly.

"How screwed are we?"

The voice made him jump in his seat, he hadn't heard Miriam glide in. "We have some options even without the main engines," Markus said. "With the crew so … reduced … we can be a bit more flexible, but we'll have to make some decisions quickly."

"Commander, we have a problem down here," Jelena's voice came over the intercom. "Could you please report to pod bay two when you can?"

Markus and Miriam looked at each other and shrugged … what the hell could be going on by the stasis pods?

"On my way."

"COMMANDER, what the fuck is going on!?"

"Excuse me, Mr. West?" Markus asked, taken aback by the hostility of their VIP. The eccentric billionaire was pacing around the bay, his coveralls half on, dragging a biomonitoring station behind him.

"Dr. Burnette tells me we have had no contact from Earth? None?"

Markus looked at Jelena, who just shrugged helplessly and rolled her eyes at their benefactor.

"That's correct, Mr. West, but we've only begun to try and ascertain what that might mean," Markus said. "It could be equipment failure on our side, it could be—"

"Did you even get us back to the right solar system?" Xavier West shouted, waving his arms around. "When's the last time we heard from home?"

"We … haven't heard from Earth since the early years of the mission, Mr. West," Markus said uncomfortably. "Our primary long-range communication system was taken out by micrometeorite strikes. Replacing the damaged antenna array did not resolve the problem, and subsequent troubleshooting failed to isolate the issue with the transmit side. We think that without our scheduled updates, Earth likely wrote the mission off as a total loss."

"So why didn't you turn around and go home?!"

"Following mission protocols, developed in part by you, the decision was made to press forward with the mission and try to make contact on the return trip," Markus replied, struggling to remain respectful.

"Where was I during—"

"You were still in your pod, sir," Jelena interrupted. "You specifically demanded that the only times you wanted to emerge from stasis were during exploration of the exo-planet and when we crossed Saturn's orbit since you didn't get to see it on the way out."

"Okay, okay." West put up his hands to calm everyone down, seemingly oblivious that he was the only one yelling. "So what do we do now?"

"We've verified our position and we're right where we're supposed to be in our home star system," Markus said. "We've had an issue with fuel containment for our main engines that will be quickly sorted, and then we'll continue our braking maneuver that will put us in orbit over Earth. I'm certain by then we'll have resolved our communications issues … for all we know radios went obsolete shortly after our departure."

"Yes … yes, they'll have something much better by now," West said, placated. "I'm sure of it. It's all very exciting. We have so much to catch up on! I'll be in my quarters getting cleaned up and ready, Commander Brentwood. Please make sure I don't miss Saturn."

"We're many days away from … unbelievable," Markus said as West popped off the biomonitor pads and walked out, ignoring him.

"What an asshole," Jelena said.

"I suppose we should be grateful he slept most of the trip," Markus said. He left the doctor to clean up and went in search of his engineer. If they were going to salvage the situation, they'd need to come up with a plan and a few contingencies quickly. He'd be damned if they made a round trip of hundreds of lightyears only to fly by Earth with no way to slow down or talk to them.

3

Polaris Mission

Spacecraft Daedalus, Solar System

Day: 3063 (Crew Waking Time)

"THE SHORT ANSWER IS: We're not totally fucked.

NIGEL VANBROKE LOOKED around the room as he started his brief. All six surviving members of the crew, along with their VIP, were seated around a large plastic table while the mission's chief engineer spelled out the bad news. "Since it was an expansion tank breach we were dumping fuel and oxidizer in proportionate amounts, so the good news is that almost everything left in the storage tanks is still usable."

"The bad news is that we'll just barely have enough to execute our final braking maneuver and achieve orbit over Earth," Markus said, taking over and ignoring Nigel's hate-filled glare at the interruption. He brought up three screens on the wall that were covered in acceleration equations and navigational data. "We do have two contingency plans that have better than even odds of success. The first and most obvious is the fourteen solid rocket boosters attached to Daedalus at various points. These boosters are capable of varying thrust levels and duration and were a last minute addition to the ship for just such an emergency. The main issue with this plan is I don't fully trust the boosters after forty years of dormancy nor how they were attached to the ship."

"What's the second option?" Xavier asked. He appeared to be completely calm and collected, a far cry from when Markus had last seen him in the pod bay. The man was even wearing a stylish suit designed specifically for a zero-g environment as opposed to the utilitarian crew uniform.

"Since only seven of us have actually survived this mission so far, we can all load into the Kepler lander—"

"I do NOT recommend this," Markus interjected.

"—and detach from Daedalus as she flies by Earth. By that point, even with degraded engines we'll be slow enough to reenter the atmosphere with the lander," Nigel finished loudly.

"Why are you opposed to this, Commander?" West asked. "What the hell is the—Kepler, was it?—Kepler lander?" Everyone at the table just stared at their benefactor for a moment in disbelief before Markus answered.

"If you'll remember, the lander is a separate, independent spacecraft that's currently slung up behind F-Ring," he said. "It was designed and included on the mission on the very slight chance that the target planet had a suitable spot to land."

"Why would I remember that?"

"Because it was your idea, sir," Miriam Vega spoke up for the first time. "When we began planning the Polaris mission, you had the laughable idea of being the first man to walk on a planet outside the solar system. We warned you repeatedly of the risks, but the craft was built and included anyway. Obviously we never used it. You know, Commander, it's not a bad idea to at least consider using it now."

"I trust that thing even less than I trust the auxiliary boosters," Markus grumbled. "But … it does have its own propulsion, life support systems, and the capability of comfortably accommodating the seven of us for a short time." He stopped and rubbed his chin, staring off into space for a moment. "Go ahead and prep Kepler," he said finally. "Give it a complete ops check and make sure it has air, food, and water if we have to use it as a lifeboat. There's no point in not being ready for all contingencies."

"Will do," Nigel said, mollified now that he was given the go-ahead for his idea.

"Next thing; any progress on the Martian signal?" Markus asked.

"Nothing significant," Jordan Korpal said. The young Indian-American technician was so quiet that Markus would often forget he was even there. Korpal would disappear into the bowels of the ship's mechanical access bays for the entire time they were awake and then slink back in when it was time to get back into the pods for stasis. "The computer has isolated the carrier and is in the process of stripping the intelligence out of the signal."

"And still nothing from Earth?" West asked.

"Nothing," Miriam confirmed. "We're now broadcasting with every transmitter we have … even if they don't see the engine flare coming at them there's no way they'll miss all the RF we're pumping out."

"Let's not look too much into that until we're closer," Markus cautioned, giving a warning look to Miriam. "We'll be able to tell more once we're near enough for a visual."

"And when will that be?" West asked, already standing.

"We'll be completely blind while the main engines are thrusting during braking," Nigel spoke up. "If everything goes as planned and our decel burn is successful, we'll be spinning the ship about and putting the high-power optics on the planet once we're within five million kilometers, give or take a few hundred thousand."

"One thing I don't get … how are we almost out of fuel even with the leak?" West asked. "You said yourself that it was quickly contained. Why wasn't there enough onboard to account for such emergencies?"

"Our course out of the Angel-21 system consumed far more fuel than originally intended since we had to navigate around two gas giants, one of which the survey team wasn't even aware of," Markus said. "That sustained burn all the way to where we could switch over to the nuclear pulse engines chewed up almost all of our extra fuel."

"I see," West said, now looking bored. "If there's nothing else?"

"Nothing we need you for," Markus said, refusing to address him as sir as most of the crew did. "We'll get to work preparing for our arrival back home and will let you know if there is any change in our status."

"Please do," West said. "Good work, everybody … it's been a hell of a ride, but it's almost over now."

"What the hell does he know?" Jelena griped once he was gone. "He looks younger than when he went into his pod, and he was asleep for nearly the entire damn trip."

"Let's get to work, everyone," Markus said. "Send regular status reports to the flightdeck … I don't want any surprises."

They grumbled and filtered out of the conference room, that also served as the galley, and went back to their stations. Nigel could be heard filling the air with a profanity-laced tirade about how all of his technicians were dead and all he was left with was a bunch of candy-assed scientists to get the ship ready for arrival.

"Nothing but a bunch of whiners," Jelena said conspiratorially once she and Markus were the only ones left in the room. "It'll be nice to be rid of them once we're back home." She'd skillfully maneuvered Markus into the corner furthest from the hatch so that he couldn't casually get by without physically moving her.

"I doubt it'll be that simple," he said. "There will be press and governmental hearings … the works. I have a feeling we'll be stuck with each other for some time to come."

"I like the way you say that." She smiled and pushed off the bulkhead, sauntering out through the hatch without looking back.

"Interesting," Rebecca Palmer said, seeming to materialize in the hatchway just as the flight surgeon had left. Markus sighed heavily.

"What do you want, Rebecca?"

"A commander with a bit of decorum and professionalism would be nice, for starters," Rebecca said. The thirty-five-year-old biologist looked as stunning as when Markus had met her when she'd been twenty-three and he thirty.

"Leave it alone," he warned.

"Why should I?"

"Because you're no longer Dr. Rebecca Palmer-Brentwood," Markus said as calmly as he could. "This isn't an appropriate discussion and I don't have to stay and listen to it. Please report to Nigel to get your assignment."

He pushed by her and escaped the confines of the room, feeling her icy glare on his back. By the time he'd found out that his ex-wife had applied for the Polaris Project, he had already been confirmed as the mission commander. He'd been confident that his no-vote on her application would have been sufficient to keep her off Daedalus. Unfortunately, the civilians that were overseeing the project felt he was "too close" to be objective and thought the idea of two formerly married professionals blasting off to another planet, putting aside their differences, made for great press.

It had, just not in the way they'd intended. Rebecca's naturally awkward demeanor coupled with his inability to contain his unfavorable views of her less charming personality traits led to some truly embarrassing video bytes for the news. The situation became worse when Jelena Burnette had decided that it might be a fun social experiment to step into the domestic squabble. Before the launch, Jelly had flirted outrageously with Markus, tiptoeing right up to the line of unprofessional before reeling it back in. Rebecca, while having no love left for Markus, still rankled at the other woman's behavior.

For his part, Markus was no fool. He'd read Jelena's psych profile and knew that it was unlikely she gave a shit about him at all, or was even capable of truly caring about another person. This was all just a fascinating distraction for her while she did a job that required less than half her available brain power, and Rebecca, despite the cool demeanor, had been unable to help her reaction.

"Dear God, if you get me off this flying asylum I'll do anything you ask," he muttered as he slowly floated back to the flightdeck.

THE FOUR MAIN engines went through their preheat cycle without issue and fired when the command was sent. Markus was on the flightdeck and felt the jolt against his back as the engines ran up and stabilized at twenty percent thrust. He'd breathed a sigh of relief when the proper valves all actuated to feed mixed fuel from two expansion tanks into all four engines.

Daedalus's main engines were as low-tech as anything available when the ship had been built in orbit: binary fuel rocket motors. At the time, the Martian Express shuttles were using efficient, reliable EM-drive propulsion, but the systems couldn't be quickly adapted for such a massive, interstellar vehicle. Instead, Daedalus used the tried and true method of mixing hydrogen and oxygen and igniting the mixture in a thrust nozzle, but the implementation was done in such a way as to make the engines damn near bullet proof. That style of brute force engineering was something Markus heartily approved of.

To keep the propulsion system as robust as possible, since it would be dormant for decades while the Daedalus was pushed along by the violent shoves of the nuclear pulse engines, the engineers had taken most of the moving parts of a liquid rocket motor and moved them into serviceable areas within the ship. The fuel and oxidizer was pumped from the cryogenic storage tanks into an intermix chamber and then from there directly into the four heated expansion tanks where they would revert back to a gaseous state. The idea was to keep the expansion tanks at a constant pressure so the engines could be easily controlled via a simple throttle valve that would feed the fuel into the injection manifold of the engine. It was laughed at in the press at the time; the nicest thing the system was called was "quaint," while others weren't nearly so generous. They didn't have near the thrust capacity of a traditional liquid fueled engine of comparable size, but they were bulletproof and could perform extended burns without damaging themselves.

"Well who has the last laugh now?" Markus asked aloud as he watched the nozzle temperatures come up to nominal. "My engines lit off even after critical component failure and you've all been dead for hundreds of years."

"Talking to yourself is one of the first signs of dementia, you know."

"You're an astrophysicist, Miriam, not a psychologist," Markus quipped as the chief science officer slid into the copilot seat and strapped in. He stole a sidelong glance at her as she adjusted the straps, appreciating what the nylon webbing did as it pushed against her body. Miriam was forty-one but could easily pass for ten years younger, her Mexican-American heritage giving her that perfect complexion that seemed to shrug off the years.

Miriam was hired more as a project manager than an actual researcher and was supposed to ride herd over the rest of the younger scientists aboard. As more and more of them died, however, it became obvious that she was going to have to do some real work. With her usual good humor, she dove into the actual data collection and cataloging without so much as a whimper. Markus appreciated her easygoing nature and, despite his effort to maintain a stoic professionalism, took delight in the woman's utterly filthy sense of humor. There were things that came out of her mouth that would have made hardened soldiers blush.

"Looks like all four are green across the board," Miriam said. "Moment of truth?"

"Moment of truth," Markus said, flipping on the intercom. "Stand by everyone … we're getting ready for throttle-up. We'll be at about two and a half g's for six hours and then pull back to one point three g's for the rest of the trip home."

He said a brief prayer to a god he hardly talked to anymore and commanded their first power adjustment. The pair watched as the engines pushed up to thirty percent, stabilized, and then all the way to forty-four percent where they maxed out with the available fuel flow from the two remaining expansion tanks.

"Nozzle temperature is nominal, fuel feeds to the intermix chambers are within limits … everything looks good. If it was going to break it would have done it at the initial throttle-up."

"Way to jinx us," Miriam grunted as the g forces pressed her back into the seat.

4

Polaris Mission

Spacecraft Daedalus, Solar System

Day: 3067 (Crew Waking Time)

"WELL … that ain't good."

PROVING NIGEL VANBROKE WRONG, the engines were able to provide ample thrust for the braking maneuver through the Solar System and Daedalus had been spun about and was now past the Martian orbit, heading for Earth. For the first time since awakening, the crew was able to see their home planet with the ship's optics.

"What's not good?" Xavier West asked. He'd demanded a spot on the flight deck once they'd finished their deceleration, cramming in behind the pilot and copilot seats.

"Earth's completely dark … I'm not detecting a single light source." Miriam elbowed the billionaire's hand off her seat's shoulder bolster for the tenth time in as many minutes.

"What's that mean?" West's voice kept pitching up as he caught on that the crew was becoming extremely agitated about something.

"Are you fucking serious?" Miriam exploded. "You were there when this piece of shit was launched out of orbit! You know that the night side of Earth should be lit up like a Christmas tree. There's nothing down there … no lights, no broadcasts, no EM emissions of any kind."

"Something has happened," Markus said. "The odds of a planetary blackout seem … slim. Spectrographic data is showing the atmosphere is the same as when we left, but—"

"But no people!" Miriam almost screamed. "Markus! The fucking planet is—"

"Control yourself!" Markus snapped. He was fighting down his own panic and he didn't need one of his science officers flying off the handle. "Are you guys seeing the same thing down there?"

"Yeah … this is unbelievable. Thermal readings are consistent with what we'd expect to see from a populated planet minus the urban center heat blooms." Rebecca's voice was calm, but Nigel could be heard in the background screaming at someone about how they'd come back to a dead planet. Jordan Korpal seemed to be trying to calm him down.

"Miriam, bring up the tracking radar," Markus said. "Let's see if there's anything over the planet before we go bumbling into orbit." Miriam had been acting copilot since their actual copilot had died during an EVA. She'd trained on the ship's flight controls and systems and had become decently proficient.

"How long until we're close enough to begin making out surface detail?" Rebecca asked over the intercom.

"Another six days, ten until we reach our orbital vector," Markus said. "We're approaching the night side so we won't get a good look at things until we're actually able to fly around the planet."

"Understood," she said. "You'd better come back down here when you get the chance. It's getting a little … intense."

Intense turned out to be a bit of an understatement. When Markus flipped over the lip of D-Ring's entrance and went down the ladder, he could hear a physical altercation going on in one of the rooms that held most of the science monitoring stations. When he barged in, he saw that Nigel had his hands around Jelena's throat, choking her. Rebecca was huddled in one corner and Jordan was trying to pry Nigel's hands away.

Markus grabbed one of the small fire extinguishers that dotted the bulkheads and, without hesitation or warning, slammed it into the base of Nigel's skull. He'd not wanted to kill or permanently injure his only engineer, but when Nigel turned towards him wearing a mask of wild-eyed rage, he was forced to reverse his grip and bash the man right in the forehead. Nigel's face went slack and he crumpled to the deck without so much as a moan.

"What in the hell is going on here?!"

"There was some disagreement about what we're seeing on the surface of Earth," Jordan said. His voice was bizarrely calm given the spectacle he'd just participated in. "Nigel seems to be taking it harder than the rest of us."

"We don't know what we're seeing right now," Markus said. "But we're not going to just lose our damn minds about it! We just flew hundreds of lightyears to another star and back … you're all going to fall apart on me now?"

"What do you want to do, boss?" Jelena croaked, rubbing at her neck where angry red welts were already appearing.

"Jordan, help me drag Nigel into the conference room and restrain him to a chair," Markus said. "Once he wakes up, we will all calmly discuss our options and plan of attack as we continue on towards home. Everybody got that?" There was some mumbled agreement before they looked away and went about their tasks.

Markus was just as scared as everyone else had to be, but he knew what a mass panic would mean in a ship as small and fragile as Daedalus. He was the only one who'd served in the military, but he expected a certain level of professionalism from everyone on the crew, even if half of the people couldn't stand the others and vice versa. He had no idea how he was going to handle Nigel physically assaulting Jelly; it was a scenario so far outside the norms there really wasn't a procedure to handle it. There was no brig, no punishment system that would work, but certainly he had to exert some sort of authority over the situation or he risked losing the entire crew.

"What's that beeping?" Markus asked as they were dragging Nigel through another work area.

"Huh," Jordan grunted, tapping at the screen on the comm station. "The Mars signal has changed … it's now a plain-text message in English. Still on a loop."

"Holy shit." It was the only thing Markus could think to say. The mission had been decades of pure monotony, but it was devolving into utter chaos now that they were so close to home. A change in the Mars signal denoted intelligence, the change to a language that they would recognize meant that the intelligence knew who they were. The chance of English surviving, at least as they knew it, in the passing centuries was slim at best. His hand was shaking slightly as he reached up and flicked the monitor to enlarge the message so he could read it.

"This … makes no sense."

"THAT'S ALL IT SAYS? 'No Earth'?"

"That's not all it says," Markus said. West had been nothing but contrarian since they'd all sat down. The others seemed to still be in a state of shock, all except for Nigel, who was still unconscious and bound to a chair with speed tape.

"There were also a series of numbers that we found were changing with each repetition. Miriam?"

"They're coordinates," the astrophysicist said. "Specifically, heliocentric spherical coordinates. In other words: positioning coordinates for within our Solar System. The first set was our own current position at the time, the second set we believe was a fly-to position that would put us on course for a Mars orbital intercept."

"So something wants us to go to Mars?" West asked. "Could it be an automated system?"

"That was our first thought as well, but the message included makes me think it's not," Markus said. "Not to mention the fact the first bunch of transmissions were in a language we didn't recognize; it only recently switched to English.

"The real question is what 'No Earth' means … since Earth is obviously there, I'm guessing it's either a warning not to go there or maybe they know why we're not seeing any signs of technology or civilization yet."

"Should we send a return message?" Jordan asked.

"Saying what?" West scoffed.

"It might not be a bad idea to at least acknowledge we've received their transmission as well as confirm that English is our preferred language," Markus said. "Jordan, why don't you go ahead and get started on that since it looks like Nigel won’t be waking up anytime soon."

"On it." Jordan stood and left the room. Markus was certain he had been the only one to catch the hostile glare the young tech had sent West's way.

"You really knocked the shit out of him," West was saying, pulling one of the chief engineer's eyelids up with a thumb.

"Screw him," Jelena declared, still rubbing her neck. "The son of a bitch lost it when the visual data was displayed."

"It's true," Rebecca confirmed. "Jelly made some comment about how spooky and dead Earth looked from this far away and Nigel grabbed her, started screaming at her to shut up."

"Whatever," West said, waving a dismissive hand at Nigel. "Leave the dumbass trussed up for the rest of the trip for all I care. How soon until we really know what's going on here, Brentwood?"

"Once we're in orbit over Earth, we'll have a much better idea of what we're dealing with," Markus said. "I'm hoping that whoever is talking to us from Mars will have some more detailed information before that, but it could very well be that your theory of it being an automated system was correct and all it can do is spit out intercept vectors.

"In the meantime, let's all try to maintain boundaries and professionalism. It's been a long damn trip, but it's almost over … I won't tolerate any further altercations, physical or otherwise. We have a lot of work to do before we're home, so everyone just stay busy and we'll get to the bottom of the communications blackout before you know it."

"You don't really believe any of that bullshit you just said, do you?" Miriam asked once everyone else that wasn't unconscious had filed out of the cramped compartment amid a chorus of grumbling complaints.

"What do you mean?" Markus asked.

"Mark, something horrible has happened back home," she said with exasperation. "You know it as well as I do. A stable atmosphere but zero EM emissions and zero sources of artificial light on the night side? Not to mention a Solar System that's a lot less crowded than when we left. No asteroid mining operations, no exploratory probes hanging out around the outer planets … there's—"

"We really don't know what's happening, Miriam," Markus cut her off. "I'd prefer not to let the wild speculation get out of hand if possible to avoid any further … unpleasantness." He gestured to Nigel, whose head was now lolling back and forth. "Everyone is right on the edge at the moment and I'd like to wait until I at least get a good look at the surface before the real panic sets in."

"Your call, Commander," Miriam said. She slithered out of the hard plastic seat and left the compartment.

Her mocking tone had stung Markus to a degree that surprised him. Miriam was an outrageous flirt, constitutionally incapable of being serious, and constantly teased anyone she was friends with. For reasons that he'd rather not examine too closely at the moment, her opinion of him held considerable sway over how he felt about himself.

"Whaaaaat," Nigel groaned as drool slipped over his bottom lip and onto his flightsuit. "Whaaat haappened?"

"You physically assaulted my flight surgeon. I want to know why." It had been rare at any point on the expedition that Markus had had to be the "Commander." They were all professionals—ostensibly—and thus far hadn't needed any of the type of supervision he'd been familiar with while in the military. "If I don't like your answer, I'm going to leave you taped to that chair."

"I don't remember." Nigel was blinking hard in the harsh LED lighting and wincing whenever he moved his head to the left or right. "I attacked Jelly? That doesn't make any sense."

"Something we agree upon, at least," Markus said. "Nevertheless, you did. You had to be … subdued. You're going to feel like shit for a while and likely have a mild concussion."

"I remember … Earth," Nigel whispered, haunted. "Earth was completely dark. That's impossible though, right? Gotta be something wonky with the telescope."

"I'm going to cut you loose and then confine you to berthing," Markus said. "If you still feel ill in a few hours, we'll arrange for you to go to the infirmary and hopefully by then the only medical doctor aboard will have forgiven you enough to treat you."

"I still can't—"

"I need you calm and collected, Nigel. You're the only full engineer we have left aboard. Jordan is capable, but I can't lean on him to put this ship in orbit and keep us flying until we figure out what the conditions on Earth are like and how we're transferring back to the surface. Clear?" When Nigel just nodded, wincing again, Markus unwrapped the tape around the engineer's wrists and torso.

Once he'd gotten Nigel to bed, he set up a routine on the security subsystem that would alert him if the concussed crewman tried to leave berthing. He didn't think the man would actually go so far as to fake being injured so he could sneak off and attack Jelena again, but he wouldn't have thought the initial episode was a possibility either.

"Please let none of these people turn homicidal before I can get off this flying beer can," he said, floating lazily back up the access tube to the flightdeck.

5

Polaris Mission

Spacecraft Daedalus, Earth Orbit

Day: 3097 (Crew Waking Time)

DAEDALUS SLUNG into high orbit over Earth without fanfare of any kind or even a 'Who the hell are you?' message from home.

THE MARS SIGNAL had gone silent after they'd been captured by Earth's orbit, and the message Jordan had transmitted back had also gone unanswered. The message had been a brief description of their mission, the ship, and how many souls were left aboard. Miriam had wanted to send high resolution pictures of the planet they'd orbited in the Angel-21 system, but Markus had nixed the idea as needlessly complicating things.

Nigel seemed to be fully recovered and, from the looks he was giving Markus, had been informed of how he'd been injured. West had locked himself in his personal quarters, only appearing for meals and talking little before going back and closing the hatch. The rest of the crew went about their tasks with all the enthusiasm of automatons, speaking to each other only when necessary and avoiding almost all small talk or social interaction. The air aboard Daedalus was heavy with tension as the moment drew near when she'd fly over the terminator and they'd get their first look at Earth in the daylight. So far, nothing they'd seen on the night side had alleviated the concerns they'd all been harboring. The visible spectrum may have been inconclusive in the dark, but the thermals didn't lie: There were no signs of heavy population centers anywhere on the surface. When they'd left, the planet had been home to thirteen billion people.

"Stand by, we'll cross the terminator in ten more minutes," Markus said into his headset.

"Planetary instrument suite is deployed and ready," Miriam answered. She, Rebecca, and Xavier West were in the Science Observation Compartment. The SOC was another zero-g workspace that was directly beneath the flightdeck, accessible only via the narrow access tube behind the copilot seat. Jordan and Jelena were on the flightdeck with Markus, while Nigel remained in D-Ring to monitor the ship's systems.

Daedalus had been oriented so that the powerful large-aperture imagers in her belly could be aimed at the planet as the ship passed overhead. The six telescopic cameras were useless for deep space observation, specifically designed to soak up the minutest details of a planet during an orbital pass. The individual imagers fed their input into powerful processing avionics that then combined the data and displayed it on the SOC's massive, curved monitor as one contiguous feed.

"Here we go," Jordan said as the sun came up over the horizon and the flightdeck windows dimmed automatically. Daedalus was screaming around the planet at an altitude of just over three thousand kilometers and a velocity that tickled twenty-six thousand kilometers per hour. The speed was lower than optimal for their altitude, but they still had plenty of propellant for their maneuvering jets to stabilize their orbit. Any faster and the cameras would be outside of their operational limits.

Markus ensured the flight control computers were all green and slid out of his restraints. "I'm going down to watch the show," he said to Jordan, not waiting for an answer as he deftly maneuvered his body around to slide headfirst through the opening that led to the SOC. Daedalus needed very little in the way of actual pilot input, and he wanted to be among the first to look at the imagery as it came in.

"WE'RE RECORDING NOW," Rebecca was saying. "Overflying the Pacific Ocean and coming up on the coast of North America."

"The coastline is different," Miriam remarked. Markus noticed that his two observers seemed completely detached from their emotions as they watched the data roll in.

"Looks like Southern California is gone," he said. "Flag that … we should be able to determine if it was geological activity that caused it."

The landscape of what had once been the United States of America swept by as Daedalus overflew the planet. Markus had to admit that it was formerly the U.S., because from what they were seeing, there wasn't a single city left on the continent. No cities, and no ruins or evidence of cataclysmic events or war … whatever had happened here had happened a very long time ago and nature had reclaimed the planet.

"It's … it's all fucking gone, isn't it?" West whispered. "Not a single goddamn city left in the whole country."

"Looks like the whole world, actually," Miriam said. "Markus … I'm not seeing anything that would indicate humans still live on this planet. At least not anywhere near the numbers we had when we left."

Miriam's flat delivery of such devastating news meant that it took a second for it to sink in. The bulkheads of the SOC seemed to fade away as his vision grayed out to a pinpoint, and his ears were ringing. As his chest tightened up and he felt his heart hammering in his head, he could vaguely make out Xavier West screaming profanities and his two observers telling him to calm down.

"What do you mean gone?! Like, as in we're the only goddamn humans left in the universe?!"

"Mr. West, we have only begun our analysis—"

"This is impossible!"

"—and we knew this sort of thing was a possibility. It was a risk we were willing to take in order to be the first to see another star system." Miriam's words brought West's tirade up short, and he turned and looked at her with bulging eyes, as if he couldn't believe how utterly dense she was.

"What did you say, you bitch? You … you think I paid for all this and climbed into this ship with you morons because I give A FLYING FUCK ABOUT OTHER PLANETS?!" he roared. "Why do you think I wanted to sleep through most of the trip, you imbecile? You seriously think I cared one flying fuck about a bunch of giant trees and beetles or whatever the hell else you found there?"

"Sir, if you would just—"

"SHUT UP! I paid for this ship and hired you clowns—mostly because no real astronauts would sign on to this expedition—for one reason." Spittle had been flying from Xavier's mouth at high velocity and had begun to land on the SOC monitors. He looked completely unhinged and Markus was afraid he would have to grab another fire extinguisher off the wall in a moment, but when the billionaire—former billionaire—spoke again, his voice was a bit steadier.

"I wanted to live in the future that it looked like we were heading towards when we left in '67. Only problem was I wouldn't live long enough to enjoy it. I wanted the flying car having, disease free living, perfect utopia that only advanced technology could provide. More to the point, I wanted to be the richest man in the world in that future. I looked into all the longevity treatments coming down the pike, even toyed with letting them tinker with my genetic code to slow my aging. But the solution was so easy and obvious after a bit of research; I created this mission and pretended it was for scientific discovery so that my name would be associated with the great adventurers of history, not to mention allow me to secure outside funding, but the real reason was to leapfrog through time. The magic of time dilation and stasis would transport me to that future where my money would be waiting on me, accruing interest. When we returned I'd also be famous … that was a nice added bonus."

"That's utterly insane," Markus spoke up. "You risked your life on a mission that only had a survivability rating of fifty-three percent because you wanted to see the future? We don't even know what the long-term side-effects of extended stasis might be … we could all be dead soon anyway."

"Please," Xavier scoffed. "We already knew the viability of near-lightspeed ships. Our unmanned probes had proved it worked on a small scale. By the time we left, the Japanese already had four unmanned craft on the way to Alpha and Proxima Centauri. You can think I'm insane, but it worked exactly like I'd hoped … sort of. I suppose the house in Malibu is a total loss."

"Wouldn't have been cheaper, easier, and much safer to just put yourself into stasis in a secured facility on the planet?" Markus noted that Xavier completely ignored his point about long-term damage from stasis.

"Obviously not." Xavier waved at the screen. "This debacle aside, I'd have to place my trust in generations of employees and a shifting legal system on the planet. No … much safer to leave and come back with a group of people just as committed to survival as I am."

The three crewmembers just stared at each other, unsure what to make of Xavier's speech. Was this some sort of grief reflex? His claims were absurd on the surface: Who in the hell would submit themselves to that level of danger just to come back to a society that they wouldn't even fit into anymore? The psychological conditioning they'd all undergone prior to launch stressed that on the off chance their mission was a complete success, they'd be returning to an alien culture. In eight hundred years, borders would change, languages would disappear, and any semblance of the life they'd led before would have been long gone. Xavier West had gone through the exact same training they had, complete with examples of small pockets of people living outside the linear timeline of societal development for even short periods of time such as the jungle-dwelling tribes of Central America. The difficulty they'd had integrating into modern society was a stark reminder of what they'd actually volunteered for.

"Perhaps you'd like to return to your quarters and get some rest," Miriam suggested, willing to ignore his profanity-laced outburst that had been directed mostly at her. "We have a lot of data to collect and analyze before we move the ship out of low orbit. Once we have something more definitive, we can better determine what happens next."

"Of course," Xavier said, blowing his breath out through pursed lips. "If you'll all excuse me." His demeanor had gone through another diametric shift so that he was once again the cool, calm, and collected figure the media used to portray. He pushed off gently and guided himself back up through the access opening in the ceiling.

"Little prick," Miriam spit out once he was gone.

"He's not conditioned for this sort of situation," Rebecca said defensively. "He's a tech genius, not a trained scientist. He'll be okay after a moment to let it sink in."

"We're coming up on the night side terminator," Markus said, wanting to change the subject.

"The imagers will switch over automatically," Miriam said. "We'll continue to scan in infrared on the night side and visible spectrum on the dayside until we have to push up to higher orbit."

"Work in shifts, call in others if you have to," Markus said. "We have seventy-two hours before maneuvering jet propellant becomes an issue and we have to bounce to a higher altitude. Let's do everything we can to figure out what happened here in that time because I think we're going to have some really hard choices to make soon."

"THERE ARE a few interesting things the computer has dug out, but the complete analysis is still going to take some time. You'll be happy to know that we've found only three radiation hotspots on the globe so apparently the cleanup of old fission powerplants and radioactive waste continued once we left.

"After a few passes we did find some evidence of past civilizations. Unsurprisingly the Giza Pyramids are still there, though mostly buried in sand, and a good chunk of the Colosseum is still there. Not much from the modern world, but that's not really what I wanted you to see."

"Just show me what you have," Markus said. His eyes were gritty and, like the others, he'd barely slept over the last two days and even then it was a restless sleep that left him more tired than before. The grind of all the things Daedalus needed after waking from a stasis cycle wasn't enough to keep them distracted from the horrific reality spinning below them.

"I'll keep it short since I'm so tired I think I might actually be hallucinating," Miriam said. "If you'll look at this clip here, you can see a pride of lions hunting."

"So there are wild lions still on Earth? That's what you asked me down here for?" Markus could barely hide his irritation.

"No, I just thought it was interesting since this was taken in what used to be Iowa," Miriam said. "And that's not all. African elephant herds in Mexico, Bengal tigers roaming through Canada … and that's just North America. I have a whole catalog of positively identified displaced species, apparently living in perfect equilibrium on continents they never appeared on naturally. The software is very good at picking these things up; it was how we tested it before using it to catalog all the alien flora and fauna we saw on the target planet. Daedalus actually spent the first four years of her life tracking and updating population levels for endangered species."

"Okay, you have my attention," Markus said, tossing back the rest of his instant coffee and making a face. The stuff was vile and now it looked like getting a cup of real chicory coffee in New Orleans was out of the question. "This is genuinely fascinating if it's as widespread as you're saying. Theories?"

"None … and I'm too tired and scared to give a shit right now," Miriam said.

"Damn … we just don't know what happened once we left," Markus sighed. "Even before our comm gear was perforated by interstellar gravel, we had stopped receiving regular updates from home. I'll take over here. Why don't you go down and grab something to eat and rest. I'd say get a hot shower, but the water reclamation system is still down."

"Wonderful," she said. "So … no bullshitting me. How much longer can we remain aboard before we're in trouble?"

Markus looked at her closely, came up with a few meaningless platitudes, one outright lie, and then decided on the truth. "Reactor containment has been sketchy at best for the last few years," he started. "The harsh g-loading of the nuke engines has compromised the casing beyond our ability to repair it. We have enough food for another two full years, but potable water is an issue if we can't get the reclamation system to do anything but jettison the water it collects from the air dryers into space. So far, Nigel has no clue why it's malfunctioning. Plenty of breathable air, but maneuvering jet propellant is low and fuel for the main engines is critical thanks to the leak. Ballpark number? If we can't find some way to disembark within the next couple of weeks, we're in real trouble."

She just stared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment with an unreadable expression. "Thanks for being honest with me, boss," she said finally, sliding over and kissing him on the cheek. "But next time, lie to me."

"Will do," Markus said to himself, hooking onto one of the crew restraints to take his turn staring at the SOC's massive wall monitor.

6

Polaris Mission

Spacecraft Daedalus, Earth Orbit

Day: 3100 (Crew Wake Time)

"WHAT THE HELL could that have been?"

MIRIAM FLOATED down the access tube towards the spinning hab rings, her mind focused on the strange creature the computer had captured, the one she hadn't told Markus about. It was a mental exercise that was meant to keep her mind off the fact that during her long shift in the SOC she had come to the conclusion that there weren't likely any humans hiding out on Earth anywhere. She'd had the computer looking for any signs of modern humans, from small patches of cultivated crops, to fences, and even miniscule thermal blooms on the night side that would indicate a large communal campfire.

Nothing.

It was a strange thing. She'd made peace with the fact that Polaris was likely going to be a one-way trip, but even that improbable chance at laying eyes on another world orbiting a star light years away had been worth it in her mind. Now that she was sitting in a ship above her home planet that appeared to no longer be her home, she was hit with a gut-wrenching sense of loss and despair. But why would it matter if she had already come to terms with the fact she wouldn't survive the duration of the mission?

A short giggle caused her to grab a handhold and arrest her trip down the tube. The noise seemed wildly out of place given the gravity of their situation, not to mention it was coming from A-Ring. The rotary drive for the drum had failed some years back, so there was no gravity. After finding the problem couldn't be repaired in the field, they'd just used the large chambers as overflow storage. Why would anybody be in there?

Miriam spun back around and looked in, not trying to be sneaky, just genuinely curious who was messing around in a zero-g hab ring full of junk. Whoever was in there wasn't in the compartment that led to the access tube, so she could only hear snippets of conversation.

“… always been like that? ...”

“… or less. I can't remember a …”

“… normal rules are out the …”

The rest of the muttered conversation was punctuated with a few more giggles, but Miriam couldn't make out any further details thanks to the ever-present hum of machinery aboard Daedalus. She pulled back and continued her trip down to D-Ring. While she couldn't make out the conversation, she could at least identify the participants: Rebecca and Xavier. When had they become so chummy? As far as Miriam could tell, Rebecca didn't actually have any emotions under her ice queen exterior, and Xavier was just a pompous asshole that had won life's lottery. She hadn't thought it possible to despise the little bastard more than she did, but his semi-coherent rant in the SOC had proved her wrong on that count.

She shrugged as she drifted along. It was none of her business, and she'd actually rather not know. At this point in the mission, Xavier was nothing but a nuisance and a liability as he had no skills that were at all helpful in the situation they found themselves in.

"Dr. Vega! I was just coming to find either you or Commander Brentwood."

"What do you need, Jordan?" Miriam asked the technician. He had his head popped up through the access port for D-Ring, and even as far away as she was, his excitement was evident.

"WE RECEIVED a reply from our Mars transmission," Jordan said. "It's in clear English this time."

"Well … isn't that is something."

"IT CAME through just like this? You haven't tweaked it any?" Markus asked.

"Nope … this is it. Came over the same UHF frequency we transmitted on and it was broadcast in plaintext."

"You can't transmit 'plaintext,'" Nigel said. "What's the protocol?"

"ASCII code, the same as their initial transmission," Jordan said. "It's the most basic—"

"I know what ASCII is," Nigel mumbled. "Just surprised that whatever is on Mars knows what it is. It was ancient before we left. "

"Could someone tell us what the damn message said?" Jelena asked, slapping her palm on the plastic table.

"Oh, sorry," Jordan said, turning back to the display. "'Greetings, Polaris Project. We have observing your blueshifted light for many years and have try many methods to contact you. We are Caelestis Colony. We are one of five major settlements on Mars with a population of over five hundred thousand. We are sent vector intercept coordinates to try and deviate your course. Do not go to Earth'—that emphasis is mine—'is no safe. We were able to correct our ancient English translation with your message. Hopefully respond before you attempt landing.'

"That's all there is. The poor grammar is all theirs. Apparently English isn't used anymore, at least not the flavor we speak."

"We knew that would be the case," Markus said. "Do we believe there are over half a million people living on Mars right now? And if so, what do we do about their warning? They didn't tell us why Earth is dangerous. From what we can see, it's simply depopulated, but nothing dangerous."

"How did they know who we were?" Xavier asked.

"I'd imagine they have historical records of previous space missions," Jelena said. "Once they saw our decel burns, it wouldn't be difficult to determine where we were coming from and then look up our mission."

"The warning is moot, we're already here," Markus said, wanting to maintain control over the gathering before everyone just started shouting opinions. "We need more information. Jordan, go ahead and compose a reply verifying that we are indeed Project Polaris and that we'd like some clarification about what's happened to Earth. Feel free to make it as wordy and detailed as you'd like; I think the more contextual data they get from us, the more accurate their translations will be in the future."

"On it," Jordan said and spun around to his terminal.

"Hang on, I'm not finished." Markus grabbed the tech and spun him back around. "We have up to a forty-eight minute transmission delay when talking to Mars depending on where she's at in her orbit in relation to us. Let's make sure we're not wasting hours by not getting as much information as possible in one shot. What else would we like to know?"

"I think we should find out how many people are on Mars total," Nigel said. "Read that message again … the half a million number was just for the one settlement. It might not even be the biggest one. Hell, if Earth is abandoned we may be able to go there."

"Yes!" Xavier exclaimed. "Hell, for all we know all the old institutions are still in place, just transplanted to Mars!"

"I highly doubt that," Markus said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He'd not mentioned Xavier's bizarre outburst in the SOC to those that hadn't actually been there, but it was clear the man still thought that there was something from his previous life he was coming back to.

"We need to know how long there has been a significant, breeding-sized population on Mars," Miriam said. "From how long it looks like Earth has been given back to nature, I have to assume these humans on Mars will have major physiological differences from us as they adapted."

"Commander?"

"Just start with that for now, Jordan," Markus said.

"Make sure you get a flight plan for the trip to Mars," Xavier said.

Markus and Nigel exchanged a look, but said nothing. For his part, Jordan just waved at the civilian but appeared to be ignoring the request.

The meeting quickly devolved into wild speculation, inflated hope, and the almost manic energy people seemed to adopt when their situation was too horrific to face head-on. While it was heartening to talk to other humans after the shock of finding Earth depopulated, the fact that Daedalus could not make the trip to the red planet was firmly in the front of Markus's mind. The ship was, for all intents and purposes, out of fuel, and no matter how hard they wished it, there was no way to repair and replenish their tanks.

Amid the excited babbling, Markus discreetly slipped out of the compartment and made his way up to C-Ring where the physical fitness center was. They'd been some weeks out of the last stasis cycle and he was just now feeling like himself from his thrice a day regimen of resistance and cardio training. It also seemed that his guts were reaccustomed to a normal diet quicker than usual, which wasn't a bad thing. The third cycle out of the pod had been near torture as Jelena had worked tirelessly to get his digestive system working again.

He may have been working so hard for nothing, as it looked like their options were being reduced to dying aboard Daedalus after they ran out of consumables or descending to the surface of Earth aboard the Kepler lander and taking their chances down there. Neither were particularly appealing for someone who had spent his entire life spoiled by modern convenience.

"'GREETINGS AGAIN, travelers. We have found two more experts on ancient Earth languages, so communication will be more precise moving forward.

"'There are over one and three quarter million citizens on Mars distributed among seven settlements; two orbital colonies and five on the surface. We are loosely governed by a single body, but each colony is somewhat autonomous. Our academics are anxious to talk to people who lived during the early twenty-first century. Your insights to that time will be invaluable. When the Collapse began, it happened at such an astonishing rate that, before we knew what was happening, Earth had gone silent. We discovered that a virus originating in what was Eastern Europe spread quickly and the resulting pandemic wiped out sixty percent of the population within the first thirty months.

"'The remaining people were unable to maintain Earth's infrastructure, and before long powerplants began shutting down, crops went unharvested, and the natural world devoured abandoned cities. From the transmitted data we were able to develop and manufacture a vaccine, but there was no quick way to get it back to Earth. In the end, we loaded it into air-burst deployment missiles and fired them at our former home planet. That was six hundred and eleven Earth years ago, and we have not heard from the planet since.'"

"Holy shit," Miriam breathed as Jordan paused in his recitation of the lengthy reply message they'd received.

"Makes sense," Rebecca said. "For a society wholly dependent on technology, you wouldn't have to wipe out everyone to doom the species, just enough so that modern conveniences began to fail. Civil unrest and starvation would take care of the survivors of the virus. The mass transit of our day would have spread the disease too quickly for them to react in time."

"And the Martian airborne vaccine was likely in such limited quantity it was like pissing into a hurricane," Jelena said. "Assuming it even made it here at all."

"Go on," Markus said to Jordan.

"'We would very much like to continue this exchange, but it is not safe to continue broadcasting on the frequency you're using. Please transmit on 511 GHz if you are able. We will be listening. We crave knowledge from Earth's distant past,'" Jordan finished the last bit. "That's all there is."

"Can we transmit on a frequency that high?" Markus asked.

"Sure, we're equipped for THF band," Nigel said with a shrug. "We were using UHF and SHF simultaneously because those were the two most common when we left. What do you suppose that bit about UHF being 'unsafe' was about?"

"I couldn't begin to guess," Markus said. "Maybe another translation error. Jordan, go ahead and reset our transmitter for 511 GHz and then let them know that we're carrying practically the whole of human history up to the year 2067 in our servers and that we'd be delighted to share it with them … but they'll need to figure out a way to come and get it. Daedalus is too damaged to leave Earth orbit, and the files are too large to transmit."

"Nice bit of gamesmanship there," Xavier said approvingly. "If they're living in self-sustaining habitats big enough for a population of one point seven-five mil, they surely have some type of ship that could come pick us up."

"Maybe," Markus said. "But if they did, why didn't they return to Earth once the worst of the virus had passed? Living in a stable biosphere your species originally evolved in has to be more pleasant than whatever they have on Mars."

"Wild speculation isn't helpful here," Rebecca said, earning an openly hostile glare from Markus. "Nigel, is it at all possible to repair the ship to make it to Mars or not?"

"Pretty sure I made this crystal clear, but sure … how about I try to dumb it down just a bit more." Nigel put his mug down and made a semblance of a megaphone with his hands. "The ship is fucking broke. There is no fucking fuel left. Was there any ambiguity this time, sweetheart?" The look he received in return would have frozen water, but the engineer just laughed at her.

"Moving on," Markus deadpanned. "Send the message with the offer of our server content and let them know that any way they have to get us to Mars would be appreciated … and necessary, if they want that data."

"You think they'll bite on the offer?" Miriam asked Markus as the rest of the room erupted into separate conversations, the loudest of which was Rebecca attacking Nigel for his previous comments.

"Maybe. Probably. If they really want that data, they'll have to give us something for it," Markus said. "Let's just say I'm skeptical that human goodwill has evolved that much in the last eight hundred years that they wouldn't leave us stranded if we transmit it to them first."

7

Polaris Mission

Spacecraft Daedalus, Earth Orbit

Day: 3101 (Crew Waking Time)

BANG!

NIGEL WAS USED to the pops and groans that were a near constant on Daedalus, but the shit he was hearing from down in the ship's guts didn't seem to jive with micrometeor impacts or thermal expansions.

"What are you trying to tell me?" he asked, laying a hand on one of the support spars for F-Ring's rotary drive actuator. Just as there was another harsh, metallic bang, the red emergency lights began flashing and the alarms began blaring.

"All crew into emergency evac suits! All crew into emergency evac suits!"

The automated voice repeated the message again and then directed them to hardened shelter locations. That could mean only one thing: hull breach. Something had hit the ship hard enough that the computer felt the crew was in danger, and it had been down near the powerplant. Nigel turned deftly in the microgravity and shoved off, racing up the access tube to where his sealed enviro-suit hung, charged up and ready to go.

"Everyone to the command module!" Markus Brentwood's voice came over the intercom. "I don't want anyone down in the aft shelters … we're under attack."

"What the fuck? By who?!" Nigel exclaimed to nobody as another hard hit reverberated through Daedalus.

"EKVS," Markus said. "Three of 'em just appeared on the anti-collision radar and opened fire on us."

"What are—"

"Exo-atmospheric kill vehicles," Markus said. "They're small, stealthy hunter-killer satellites that take out enemy satellites. When we left Earth, they used directed microwaves … these little bastards are shooting some sort of hardened projectiles."

"They've stopped," Xavier whispered, looking around.

"They can't hear you," Markus said. "They're probably out of ammo. If these are like their ancestors, they won't be equipped for much more than a couple shots."

"I want Dr. Vega in the copilot seat; everyone else get back into the auxiliary crew compartment and strap in," Markus said. "Grab Nigel and Rebecca as they come up and have them do the same and then seal off the command section."

Daedalus's size had necessitated a modular construction method, her pieces hauled up bit by bit and assembled in orbit. The command section had been one of the first modules lofted and had some unique properties since it served as a potential lifeboat for work crews. It had its own backup life support, fuel cells for power, and an emergency descent system that would allow it to actually deorbit and land safely on the surface … in theory.

"Are we picking them up on radar anymore?"

"No," Miriam said. "It's like they disappeared. Could they have moved off so quickly they're not showing up anymore?"

"Unlikely," Markus said before flicking the intercom on. "Is everyone accounted for and strapped in? Make sure all your headsets are plugged in too."

"Roger that!" Nigel called back over the open channel. "Command section is sealed off from the rest of the ship, but all the umbilicals are still attached."

"Go to external cameras near where they were firing at," Markus said. "Turn on all the flood lights as well."

It took Miriam a moment to remember how to execute his request, but soon the main monitors lit up with outside views of Daedalus's drive section. They were streaming atmosphere from a few punctures and it looked like one of the cryogenic tanks that held reserve oxygen had taken a hit.

"There they are," Miriam said, pointing. "They didn't leave, they're latched onto the superstructure."

"Oh shit!"

"What?" Miriam's voice was tinged with panic. "What does—"

"Everyone brace!" Markus shouted and began entering in the coded command sequence to detach the power and air umbilicals from the command section and bring up the internal backup systems.

"I don't understand what—"

"No time to explain." Markus cut her off and continued his frantic inputs. "Hopefully I'm wrong, but in case—"

He was interrupted by a tremendous jolt that blew out the cameras and spun Daedalus so violently that they were tossed about in their restraints. Markus had been expecting that since he saw the small killer satellites clamped onto his ship: Once out of ammo for their kinetic weapons, they were programmed for one last suicide attack, likely with a powerful onboard explosive.

"Try to send a voice transmission to Mars!" he shouted to Miriam over the blaring alarms. "Tell them we've been attacked and that the ship is damaged!"

"How bad is the damage?" Nigel asked. Markus didn't answer immediately as he watched instruments.

"We're going down." He said it with such a calm finality that it took a second before everyone began shouting and asking what he meant.

"Silence! We've lost structural integrity and the drive section is only being held on by two struts. The reactor is in emergency shutdown and won't respond. Attitude jets are at maximum but won't be able to pull us up out of low orbit. There's no debate … Daedalus will enter the atmosphere within forty minutes."

"Mark, I'm coming up and strapping into one of the forward system stations before the ride gets bumpy," Nigel said. "You're going to need me."

"Agreed," Markus said. "Get your ass up here and be quick about it."

The engineer came flying through the hatchway a moment later and used the webbing handholds along the bulkhead to get into his seat while Daedalus continued to spin.

"The cryo tank rupture is acting like a thruster and pushing us around, Mark," Nigel said after a cursory glance at the telemetry. "If we hit the atmosphere in this spin, we're dead."

"Options?" Markus asked, feeling a strange calm in the face of probable death. It felt like cool water had been poured over his brain and down his spine; his thoughts were clear and he took in everything with a dispassionate eye. It was a trait that had made him an exceptional fighter pilot when there had still been such a thing.

"Authorize the det charges to my station," Nigel said. "We need to get rid of some ballast. Let's jettison the main drive and the reactor section and see what happens."

"Authorizing." Markus entered a ten-digit command code into his terminal to allow all flightdeck stations full command-level access to ship functions. "Go ahead and blow it."

There were a few muffled whumps as cutting charges blew support pylons and structural spars, detaching the massive drive section from the rest of the ship. Nigel continued his demolition of the ancient vessel until he'd worked his way up to the cryogenic storage modules. Once the ruptured O2 tank was gone, Daedalus's maneuvering jets were able to reassert authority over the ship's attitude and bring them out of the spin.

"We're going to have to lose the hab drums, too. The parasitic drag could—"

"Just do it!" Markus snapped as he adjusted their course to shallow out the descent angle, praying that the small jets had enough collective power to extend their flight just a bit more. "Get me down to a ship that can enter the atmosphere without tumbling and killing us all, Nigel. We'll separate the command module after we're into the troposphere."

"You got it."

"Poor bastard survives an interstellar trip to a distant star and back, dies orbiting home from a bunch of old military junk left in orbit."

"Keep the channel clear," Markus said. He couldn't tell if it had been Xavier or Jordan making the comment, but he guessed it wasn't the obnoxious billionaire that was prone to moments of introspection while they were about to plummet to their deaths.

"That's the best I can do right now," Nigel said after the massive hab drums were blown off, each launching off sequentially in quarter sections. Markus was well aware that most of their food and water had been jettisoned with them. "I want to keep as much of the trailing structure as possible to provide stability … it'll burn off by itself anyway."

Once Markus felt Daedalus begin to rock and bump through the thermosphere transition layer, he flipped the switches to deploy the thermal shields over six trapezoidal windows that made up the flightdeck canopy. He hoped there had been no further compromises in the section's shielding or this was going to be a short trip.

"Computer has locked in our insertion vector," he said to his flight crew. "Green across the board, we'll separate at thirty-six kilometers altitude and deploy airfoils at twenty-seven."

"Acknowledged," Nigel said. "Landing systems have all reported back with no faults. Still going to be rough as fuck, though."

Within minutes the temperature within the command section had climbed well above comfortable, and alarms screamed at them as Daedalus shook mightily as she passed into denser air. The noises coming from the aft of the ship were nothing short of horrifying as the hellish heat of reentry melted alloys and composites like butter. A large warning popped up, telling them the main reactor had been lost, and Markus mentally kicked himself for not jettisoning it first when they could have picked an impact zone for it.

The few minutes it took to transition to the lower altitudes and shed off their excess velocity seemed like hours, but eventually the harsh vibrations subsided and, mercifully, the temperature inside the compartment began to drop. Markus verified their altitude and retracted the heat shields so he could at least get a visual confirmation of where they were. Only three of the six fully retracted, but it was enough to see that Daedalus was streaking over the Pacific and her flight profile was extremely unstable, really more of a semi-controlled fall at this point.

"Separate, Nigel," Markus ordered.

The engineer executed the command script without comment and there was another hard jolt felt as the entire command section blew up and away from the main structure that remained of Daedalus. The module was wide and flat, so it had a little better aerodynamic performance than the charred lattice structure that was now falling away.

"We have a problem," Nigel said. "The Kepler lander also separated. It … I have no idea what it's doing, actually."

"It's in a controlled descent and leveling out," Miriam said. "Its wings are deployed and we'll actually cross below its altitude in a few seconds."

"Ignore it," Markus ordered. "The emergency descent must've triggered an automated flight mode."

"Air foils deployed," Nigel said. "All flight control surfaces fully extended and responding, for all the good they'll do." The stubby little airfoils weren't meant to turn the massive command section into a glider like the Kepler lander, just give the pilot enough flight control authority to steer them to an area where the real landing systems could take over.

"Final course is locked in," Markus said, beginning to believe they might actually make it to the surface in one piece against all odds. "We'll be touching down somewhere in what I guess was Kentucky … maybe Tennessee."

"Touching down is a novel way to say crash."

"I said keep the channel clear!" Markus snapped. They were descending fast now that the command section was losing most of its forward velocity. The front may have been sculpted to cut the air, but the back was a flat, perpendicular surface and was creating a lot of drag.

"Everyone hang onto something and try not to bite your tongues off … chutes deploying in five seconds," Nigel called out.

A moment later there were a few pops and then a bone-shaking jolt that slammed Markus's head forward so violently he felt something pull in his neck with a sharp pain. Above them, three enormous ram-air parachutes unfurled and inflated, taking up the load. Their rate of descent was still fast but now manageable. The computer used the trailing-edge brakes on the chutes to continue to guide the ship to its final resting place.

The flight was bouncy but uneventful as the computer fought varying wind conditions as they descended through each flight level. The command section swayed and rocked, but compared to guiding Daedalus through reentry, the ride was almost serene. It wasn't until Markus could actually detect the ground coming up to meet them that he cringed in anticipation at what was coming.

"Retro boosters will fire in 3 … 2 … 1."

The deck heaved as twelve chemical rockets ignited, blowing their cover hatches off and throttling up to full power to arrest their fall. There was a heart-stopping wobble as the weight of the ship was transferred from the now-deflating chutes to the pillars of fire roaring out of ventral ports.

"Landing skids deployed!" Nigel shouted over the roar of the rocket motors. "Brace for impact!"

Still too fast! The ground rushed up at them until the hill they were flying towards fully consumed the view through the canopy. Markus felt the initial impact, heard the skids crumple, and felt the ship bounce back into the air. The pitch of the rockets changed as the slow-reacting throttle mechanisms fought in vain to stabilize the headlong rush. The next impact slammed his teeth together, he felt a few break, and then his vision tunneled down to a point before he lost consciousness. The last thing he heard was Miriam screaming that they couldn't stop.

"MARK, are you okay?"

The words seemed as if they were spoken through a pipe at great distance. He struggled to get his eyes open and at first saw only darkness, but as his eyes adjusted he could make out dried blood splattered on his helmet's faceshield and saw that the heavy composite itself was spiderwebbed in an intricate pattern of cracks.

"I'm okay … stop shaking me," Markus managed to get out, his voice echoing in the helmet. He vaguely recalled how the system worked and knew that he'd lost suit power if noise-canceling was inactive. When he sat up, a wave of nausea crashed over him and he closed his eyes again, breathing shallowly until it passed. "What … what happened?"

"We hit harder than expected, crumpled the skids," Nigel said. "Your right shoulder restraint failed and you wanged your head on the console pretty hard."

"You're almost certainly concussed, sweetie." Jelena’s voice came through muffled. "We're all alive, though, so good job there. Jordan broke his arm, ulna and radius bones, but he'll be okay."

"Status of the ship?"

"What's left of it, you mean?" Nigel scoffed. "Well, the part we're riding in appears to have little structural damage, although we lost a forward window. Oh, and power is out and I can't correct the problem from in here."

"Well, let's get out—"

"There's something else, Mark," Miriam cut him off. "It's nighttime for one and we have no light source, but the main thing is that … there's something out there. Something has been hitting the hull randomly and we heard growling through the busted window. Nigel was able to use the manual crank to get the shield back in place so we're secure. For now."

"Help me get this helmet off," Markus said. Miriam reached over and disengaged the locks before gently twisting and pulling the helmet up and off. Markus greedily gulped in air that was tinged with the smell of hot electronics and burning plastics. He'd begun to get claustrophobic in the helmet without the suit power being able to cancel echoes and run the holographic HUD. "Thanks."

"What do we do now?" Jelena asked Markus from where she stood behind the pilot seat.

"Now hold on," Xavier grunted, trying to push between Rebecca and Miriam to get onto the flightdeck. "The dynamics of this little group have changed somewhat … Brentwood isn't necessarily in charge just because—"

"He's been the commander of this mission since day one!" Jelena said.

"And his final action was to crash my ship onto a deserted planet," Xavier shot back. "Not stellar leadership in my book. What we need to—"

"And what qualifications do you have, asshole?" Nigel cut him off. "Look around, douche bag … there aren't any ATMs or check cashing joints. Right now you're just an untrained civilian, a liability. But while you may be an idiot, you do have a point. Why should Mark be calling the shots right now?"

"What we're going to do is sit tight until daylight so that you can get main power working on this ship," Markus said loudly, the effort causing excruciating pain. "There's nothing we can do right now except hunker down and take stock in the morning … not if there's something outside patrolling around." As if to emphasize his point, there were two hard thumps against the left side of the hull that reverberated like a bell.

"I'm sleeping on the floor in the SOC," Nigel said, pushing past Jelly to get up and around the flight stations. "There's only room for one to lay down there, so don’t anyone else bother."

"This is going to be pleasant," Rebecca remarked before disappearing back into the crew compartment.

"So what's really going to happen, Mark?" Miriam whispered into his ear. He glanced over and saw Jelena glare at the two of them before slipping back into the crew compartment as well. What the hell was that about?

"Honestly? Odds are good we'll live out the week; we have at least enough supplies for that." Markus was in too much discomfort to formulate meaningless platitudes for her. "We'll either die from evolved Earth microbes we don't carry antibodies for, starve to death, or maybe whatever is throwing shit at the hull will get us.

"But in the meantime, we'll come up with a plan that makes sense. Once we have power, we'll try to get in contact with Mars and see if they have any ideas. At least we know what their warning meant now … probably. Looks like the UHF signals woke up those old EKVs. Talk about shit luck."

She seemed taken aback by his frank assessment of their situation. "Try to get some rest and don't move around too much," she said gently, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek but managing to get half his mouth, lingeringly, in the process. The sudden spike in his heartrate didn't help his pounding head. She shuffled over and sat back down in the copilot seat, kicking her discarded environmental suit out of the way as she did.

Markus settled back into his seat. All the flight stations were designed with the possibility of heavy g-loading in mind, so they were already reclined back enough to sleep in comfortably … thank God. He fell asleep that night with mild vertigo, a pounding headache, and the serenade of something slamming into the hull periodically.

HELL OF A DAY.

8

Planetside, Earth

Day: 1

"YOU SEE ANYTHING?"

"FOR THE TENTH TIME, no. But there are only windows in the front. Just get out there and get this over with."

"Listen, Jelly, it's my ass on the line here, so I'll take as long as I like."

"Nigel, just pop the top hatch and climb up on the top of the hull," Markus said. "You should be able to at least see for some distance without putting yourself at too much risk."

Nigel grumbled but climbed back onto the flightdeck and began pulling the lock pins out of the dorsal hatch. It was only for emergency use, but it could still be opened and closed without firing the explosive bolts. It swung inward and slid back against the ceiling, the air pressure ensuring there was no chance it could be accidentally opened while the ship was in space.

Markus had felt remarkably better when he'd awoken save for being hungry and very, very thirsty. He only had a mild headache left, and the vertigo seemed to be only when he moved his head sharply left or right. The emergency rations and food were in the cargo hold below the crew compartment, behind the SOC, but couldn't be accessed from inside the ship. Their hard landing had flexed the structure just enough so that the hatch in the deck was jammed tight and no amount of pulling would dislodge it. Their only solution was to go outside and hope the rescue access hatch on the lower deck could open.

There was a groan of metal on metal and the grunts of Nigel and Xavier exerting themselves, but the dorsal hatch locks finally released and the engineer could climb up and onto the top of what was left of Daedalus.

"Holy shit! We bounced almost a mile back down that valley and slid all the way up to here. It looks like you hit a big ass rock, Mark … must have been what collapsed the skid."

"I wasn't exactly steering at that point." Markus rolled his eyes. "What else do you see?"

"Woods, some beautiful rolling hills … it's really quite peaceful," Nigel said. "If I have to be stranded someplace to die, this ain't bad."

"Cute … but can you get down to where the food is?" Xavier asked.

"Sure, toss me that rope," Nigel said, pointing to the heavy nylon line that was coiled up in a compartment next to the open hatch. It was standard equipment for a rescue hatch so the crew could, theoretically, shimmy down off the wreckage no matter the orientation.

"I still don't know why we couldn't cut through the back of the SOC and get in that way," Xavier said.

"Like I already said, the main avionics bay is there," Jordan said. "Not to mention I'm fresh out of cutting torches."

"Well there should have been a door then," Xavier grumbled.

"It's your ship," Markus remarked. "Stand by before you drop down, Nigel, I'm coming up."

Markus had no real need to go outside other than a sudden, overwhelming desire to not be inside a ship he'd spent decades in with people that were beginning to make his teeth itch when they talked. He stood next to his engineer and took in the view, possibly the most beautiful thing he'd seen in his entire life.

He nodded to Nigel, who was already holding the rope in his gloved hands, and watched as the engineer gingerly planted his boots against the hull and slowly lowered himself down. Daedalus's command module was only twelve meters tall and was partially buried, but by the time he got to the bottom, Nigel was panting and shaking.

"I'm okay." He waved Markus off. "The gravity is a bitch right now."

"That's why I told you all to—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I should have spent more time in the gym. Spare me the lecture, would ya?"

Markus walked along the length of the dorsal surface and looked around, keeping watch as Nigel fought with the cargo hold hatch. He thought he saw something moving among the trees that were nearest the ship so he focused on that area. Nothing definitive emerged from the brush, but he suddenly felt like he was being watched and not by something overly friendly.

"How long to get main power up?" he asked, more to break the silence that had befallen the shallow valley they were in.

"Can I get the fucking tools out of the cargo hold and take a look first?" Nigel's shout echoed through the hills. Markus definitely saw something move this time. He bit back his reply to the engineer and watched the spot intently, but there was no further movement. It was then that he noticed a discolored patch on the hull and the dozens of grapefruit-sized rocks that surrounded the ship.

Holy shit! That was what had been hitting the hull all night … something had been throwing huge rocks at them. Markus's mind raced as he thought about the implications. Great apes could use rocks as missiles, but other than that he'd not heard of any known animal employing tools as weapons. The more he looked, the more marks he found on the hull, scrapes where the rocks had rubbed away the carbon scorching of reentry.

"Mark, you care if everyone else comes up? It smells like old balls and sadness in here, and the sun is really cranking the temp up." Miriam's head barely peeked over the curve of the dorsal surface. Markus only smiled and shook his head at the scientist's blue humor and aggressive lack of decorum.

"Come on up," he said. "It'll be good to get some natural sunlight and fresh air."

"You wish. That air is full of microbes and shit like we've never been exposed to, so don’t complain when you're all sick for the next week … if you even survive at all," Jelena said, coming up through the hatch first.

For the next two hours they all laid on the upper hull listening to Nigel swear viciously about everyone else getting to lounge around while he did all the work. When any of them offered to come down to help, he just as viciously refused their unqualified aid, saying that Jordan was the only one that knew what the hell he was doing.

Just as the shadows began to lengthen and the air picked up the cool bite of early evening, there were a few muted thumps felt through the hull and then the marker lights started flashing brilliant red and green. There was a lot of whooping and cheering when the hiss of the air exchangers coming online could be heard. Markus took a peek and saw that all the lights on the flightdeck had come up and the monitors were all showing boot screens. So far, so good.

"Nothing seems too mangled in the avionics bay," Nigel said, popping his head up through the hatch. "I also got the floor hatch to the cargo hold open from below with a dead-blow hammer. We can use the ladder down to there and come and go through the side hatch."

"Good work, Nigel." Markus swayed a bit as he stood. "Let's all get inside and break out rations and medical supplies for those that are injured. Jordan, your arm has to be killing you right now."

"No argument here," Jordan muttered.

They filed down into the now-recirculating air of the command section, all of them looking forward to something to eat and a calm night of rest. They would get one, but not the other.

JORDAN KORPAL WAS FEELING no pain after the powerful opioids Jelly had pumped him full of to try and stay ahead of the pain of his broken arm. It was now properly set and secure within an emergency cast and slung firmly so it wasn't banging on anything in his drug-addled state. He was sitting in one of the SOC's ultra-uncomfortable chairs and watching a show he'd found on one of the servers on the large monitor, barely aware of it as his glassy eyes took in the frenetic action. The compartment was normally at zero-g when in use, and as such, the furnishings were spartan, only really meant to hold someone in place.

On two of the other, smaller monitors the feeds from the working external cameras were displayed. Nigel had removed the scorched and pitted shielding from the multi-spectral imagers so that they had decent coverage around the ship with only two blind spots. Nobody felt like trying to program the system to alert them to motion, so Jordan was supposed to be watching them for the next two hours until Rebecca relieved him.

She's not bad for an older chick. Of all the surviving crewmembers of the Polaris Project, Jordan was by far the youngest at twenty-seven. The young Indian-American had joined the mission because the up-front pay would ensure his large family was well taken care of. He was the eldest son, and after the economic collapse of '52 he'd been obsessed with finding a way to provide. When his mother had found out at what cost, she'd screamed in anguish, vomiting on the floor before passing out. To spare everyone else any further spectacle, he simply left to live fulltime at the Polaris facility in New Mexico.

His thoughts drifted back to the women left on Daedalus … or at least what was left of Daedalus. He knew Rebecca had been married to the commander and noticed that even though she seemed to despise the man, she became flustered and snippy when Jelly would flirt with him. Dr. Vega was smoking hot for forty-one, but women with multiple doctorates didn't tend to have flings with lowly technicians … at least they didn't with him. But now he found himself in the catbird seat of being a virile twenty-something among a few broken-down middle-aged men.

Jordan was so engrossed in trying to work out all the interpersonal angles in his head that he missed the flurry of motion on one of the monitors. Even the harsh scratching and banging didn't penetrate the fog. It wasn't until he heard Nigel yelling at him that he noticed anything was amiss.

"What?" he asked dumbly.

"You don't hear that?!" Nigel shouted, scrambling down the ladder and bumping into his injured arm. Thankfully he had enough drugs to knock a horse down in his system, and though he felt the pain, he couldn't care less.

"Move, you doped-up dummy!"

Nigel took control of the main monitor and killed the show that had been playing—"Hey!"—and brought up all the working external camera feeds.

"I don't see anything; they must be in the blind spot," Nigel mused to himself. "Sit here and let me know if anything moves on the screen. Can you handle that?"

"Sure can!" Jordan assured him. Nigel looked at him skeptically and then climbed back up the ladder. Now that he had something to focus on, Jordan could hear something that sounded like it was coming from the back part of the ship. It was a sort of scrape/bang that repeated a few times, paused, and then started up again.

He heard the commander yelling about turning on external floods and then the monitor washed out momentarily as the computer tried to decide which spectrum would work best. When the picture came back up a split second later, Jordan caught something as it dashed out of frame. A second later it was followed by two more.

"That's … not possible!" he said, blinking and trying to force his mind to focus. If what he saw was what he saw, then things were about to get a lot more interesting.

"SO … what the hell is it?"

"The computer says it's human," Miriam said calmly. "We ran the footage through the classification software six times."

"It's too fucking fast!" Nigel said. "The computer clocked it at thirty-four miles an hour? That's impossible! The fastest people on Earth were short-distance sprinters and they could barely hit the high twenties."

They'd all crammed onto the flightdeck to look at the brief bit of video the camera had managed to capture of … something … fleeing back into the woods when the flood lights came up. The—animal?—they'd seen flitting across the screen as the imager had been switching between spectrums was disturbing. It was bipedal, just under two meters tall, and heavily muscled. At first glance it appeared that the thing's skin was loose and flapping behind it, but the closer Miriam looked, the more it looked like something else altogether: clothing.

"Not necessarily impossible," Rebecca spoke up. Her icy demeanor was borderline creepy juxtaposed among the obvious anxiety of the others. "We know that, in theory, modern humans could be capable of mid-forties. That's just based purely on the mechanics of our physiology, but there have been fossilized footprints discovered in Australia that showed a barefoot hunter running into a riverbed while hunting … it was doing thirty-eight miles per hour and accelerating. This wasn't one of our protohuman ancestors either, we're talking about homo sapiens. This could be a human being."

"A super buff dude is just running around naked in the woods on a planet without any obvious human presence?" Xavier scoffed. "Give me a break."

"Part of the issue we had in the society we left behind in the twenty-first was that it was too easy to survive and pass your genes on, even defective ones," Jelena said. "If modern technology was suddenly gone, it's not inconceivable that the subsequent die-off would leave a group of humans tough enough to survive nature and in numbers that are more in equilibrium with nature."

"Isn't that a little … I mean—"

"I'm simply describing the human population in terms being of a group of mammals," Jelena sighed. "It's not whatever 'ist' you were about to toss at me. Think of all the congenital defects built into our population by the ‘60s, enormous groups within populations that wouldn't be able to survive at all without modern medicine. Then they pass those genes on when, in nature, that would never happen. We could be seeing what's left of the natural culling that occurred once the lights went out."

"She makes a compelling argument," Markus said, speaking up for the first time since they began watching the video on a loop. Miriam had observed him pretending to be engrossed in the display, trying his best to ignore Rebecca and Xavier subtly brushing up against each other. She could only shake her head and laugh at the human animal … in the midst of such a dire situation they were still driven by their most base instincts.

"Hell, even someone who just needed glasses to correct shortsightedness wouldn't last long here," Markus went on. "I suppose the question is, what do we do about it?"

"We need to go see what the asshole was doing at the back of the ship," Nigel said. "After that? Well … I'm an engineer, not a strategist."

"I'll go outside and check that out at first light," Markus said. "Your job is to get us a working radio link to Mars. They need to know our status and we need to know what the hell we're in for down here. Given Mars's position right now, we'll have a shortened transmit and receive window in late evening thanks to the lack of communication relay satellites and reduced broadcast power. Pick whoever you need to help."

"I'll take rich boy, here." Nigel gestured dismissively to Xavier. "He's slightly less than useless, but with Jordan's arm in a sling, he's all I have."

"Excuse me?" Xavier was indignant. "I was building computers before I was running a boardroom. I wasn't born a billionaire, you little pissant."

"You're not going to die one either," Jordan said, obviously still heavily drugged.

"Shut up," Xavier snapped.

"I think that'll be all for now." Markus stepped in front of Jordan to see if just blocking his sight would keep his mouth closed. "Let's try to catch as much rest as possible in what remains of the night. Tomorrow will be busy."

9

Planetside, Earth

Day: 2

"YOU KNOW what you're looking for?"

JELENA HAD DECIDED to come with Markus to inspect the aft end of the ship where their mystery biped had been banging around. So far she'd been of little help.

"I do have a master’s in aeronautical engineering," Markus sniffed. "But somehow I don't think it'll be too hard to find." He stopped short and pointed.

"Holy shit!"

"My thoughts exactly," Markus said, moving closer to the ship and inspecting the hull. There was a design etched into the finish, explaining the scraping noise they'd heard, and the banging had apparently been where the creature had swung its tool especially hard to add dimples to the metal within the pattern. "Animals don't do this, do they?"

"Not that I've ever heard of," Jelena said. "What do you make of it?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was a tag, like the graffiti used to mark out territory back from when we come from," Markus said. The temporal "when" had automatically replaced "where" in the crew's lexicon without anyone having specifically mentioned it.

The design had three interconnected circles in a triangle formation, two perpendicular lines that made an “X” over top of that, and then what could only be an approximation of a human skull in the top circle. It was chilling.

"Mark, this is more significant than just being tagged. This design shows an understanding of basic geometric shapes, the use of metaphors with the skull … this is a level of intellectual awareness that is still pointing at this thing being human."

"I don't disagree with you," Markus said. "But I still don't know what we do about it … if anything. It appears that other than a few dings and scratches there was no actual damage to the ship. Let's see if we can get at least two more of these external cameras working to improve our coverage."

They went back into the open cargo bay hatch to collect some tools and began taking the protective covers off the non-functional cameras to see if there was something simple that could be done to get them working again. All the while, Nigel could be heard on top of the ship berating Xavier West about how useless he was as the pair began affixing a new antenna mount in place directly to the hull with scavenged fasteners.

After six hours of work, they'd managed to patch-up the two cameras they needed to provide full coverage. The first had been simple. Markus simply had to repair the power connection and it booted right up, the data line still intact. The second camera had been a lost cause, so to expedite things he'd taken a working camera from the left side since it had redundant coverage and installed it in the aft location. The units were designed to be field serviceable, so the removal and replacement should have been easy, but the impact of landing had flexed the hull just enough that he'd been forced to cut some metal away from the mount and be extremely liberal with the sealing compound.

"Doesn't have to be pretty," he said to himself, Jelena having long since become bored with the procedure. "This poor bastard will never be back in space."

"Mark! We've got a signal!" Nigel was shouting from the top of the hull.

"On my way!" he answered and took one last look around the area before entering back through the cargo hold and closing the hatch behind him.

"You're not going to believe this," Jordan said as soon as he walked onto the flightdeck.

"I might," Markus said. "Another Mars colony?"

"It's the Kepler lander," Jordan said. "It survived. When it detached from Daedalus, its main power and automated protocols kicked in and it landed somewhere about two hundred kilometers northwest of here."

"Landed might be too strong a term." Nigel held up a hand. "The ship is pretty banged up. It's true the computers did bring it in controlled, but it still slammed into the turf pretty hard. From the limited status it's sending back, it looks like the landing gear is crushed, but it is still powered up and talking."

"Fascinating, but does this help our immediate situation?" Markus asked.

"Not that I can see, no," Nigel said. "Although we at least know the radio is working. We're listening on the Martian frequency now and will be in optimum broadcast position within a few hours. How do you want to handle it?"

"Let's just give it a shot and hope they haven't tuned out after we went dark," Markus said. "Give them a brief synopsis of events since our last transmission, including running into defunct military hardware that brought us down. Tell them we've also made contact with an unknown species of biped and see if they have any insights regarding that—what?"

"I think maybe someone else should take over as head scribe," Jordan said, indicating his slung arm.

"Oh, of course."

"I'll do it," Xavier said, sliding into the station behind the pilot seat. "Maybe then I won't be less than useless."

"I won't hold my breath," Nigel muttered.

"Once the message is loaded into the buffer, set it up so that it's transmitted every thirty minutes until we get a reply," Markus said. "We're in a valley with the wrong type of antenna and an underpowered transmitter … let's just hope this works at all."

"Instead we could program each transmission sequence to fire off the message three times and lengthen the pause," Nigel suggested. "That will increase our chances of getting a whole message through without risking broadcasting while they're replying."

"Good idea … do it," Markus said.

After the message was set up to repeat at prescribed intervals, half the crew broke off to have their evening meal while the other half monitored the radio and exterior cameras. Markus took the time to climb up once more onto the dorsal hull and look around in the early evening before locking the ship up for the night. He quickly wished he hadn't.

Somewhere on a distant ridge came a howling call that made the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up and turned his blood cold. It might have been a wolf, but there was something about the duration and pitch that was all wrong. What it did sound like was a human imitating a wolf call. The answering howl coming from the opposite direction and about the same distance did little to calm his fears. It was unlikely a coincidence that the ship just happened to be almost exactly between those two opposing calls.

As the noise continued, he caught sight of a rustle in the foliage that didn't appear to correspond with the light breeze … something was out there again. He now felt exposed, vulnerable as the light faded and the activity increased, and he sensed he was being watched. With a final shudder he slipped back into the ship and slammed the hatch shut, locking it as tight as the handle would allow.

"I'm going to check the locks on the outer hatches and then I'll be up to relieve you," he told Jordan, slipping past on his way back to the crew compartment. He had a feeling they were in for another strange night.

10

Planetside, Earth

Day: 3

THE NIGHT HAD PASSED PEACEFULLY.

THERE WERE no strikes or unexplained noises against the hull, and the cameras, range-limited as they were, didn't detect motion in the narrow valley they laid in. Markus had even gone so far as to run a more focused search on the footage from the night … nothing. Not even possum or deer.

"We didn't receive a response last night from the Martian colony," Miriam said when he walked onto the flightdeck.

"Damn," Markus mumbled. "We have no good way to test if our cobbled transmission hardware is actually capable of getting a signal out, either. Let's set up to repeat the same message, same protocols tonight. If we go another night without a reply, we'll rethink our strategy."

"And then what, Mark?" she asked. "We can't stay here until the food runs out or someone snaps."

"I've been thinking about that," he admitted. "We need a goal, something real to work towards if for no other reason than to keep everyone's mind off the reality of our situation."

"That being?"

"We're marooned on a planet where we'll probably die soon … and not from anything pleasant," he sighed, deciding against false hope when talking to someone who was smarter than he was and could easily calculate their odds herself.

"Blunt, but honest," Miriam said.

Markus stood near her seat until the silence between them became awkward and then turned to open the dorsal hatch and take a look around. The sun was already streaming in through the forward windows and the fog that blanketed the valley was beginning to burn off. Once out, he took a moment to enjoy the crisp air, far cleaner than he remembered Earth being when he'd left in '67, and began to scan around the ship with one of the small monoculars they'd found stashed in the survival gear.

"What the hell?" There was something at the edge of the clearing that was just too far away for the optics to resolve clearly. It looked like a jumble of sticks that were definitely not there the evening before. After a hesitation born of fear of what might be lurking in the woods, he scrambled down off the top of the ship and exited through the cargo hold hatch, making his way across the field at a light jog.

He'd almost become fully reacclimated to Earth-normal gravity again, and by the time he reached the treeline he was only barely starting to sweat. Ten feet away it became clearer what he was looking at: a whole bunch of human skulls hanging from a cross that had been driven into the ground. No, wait … one of them wasn't human. What the hell was that? A lion skull? The lupine muzzle structure and huge canines made it obvious that it was from some large predatory cat. Markus supposed it was irrelevant which one at this point.

Ignoring the macabre totem for the moment, he peered further into the woods now that he was at the edge. He saw what appeared to be two wide, well-used game trails, one going to his left and along the perimeter, the other intersecting that one and disappearing into the trees beyond. His curiosity won over his fear and he took a step past the boundary where the wild grass butted up against the scrub of the forest edge, wanting to get a better view of any tracks that might be on the hard-packed dirt of the trail.

"I'LL BE DAMNED," he whispered, running his finger along the inside of a shallow depression that must have been made when it had been raining. The footprint looked about the right size for a large human, which was interesting by itself, but what caught his attention was that the foot had obviously been shod in some sort of shoe. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could make out dozens of impressions of varying size and stride. If the thing they'd captured on camera was indeed human, he had definitive proof there was more than one.

"Mark! … Mark!!!"

The frantic shouts coming from the ship shook him out of his reverie and he realized, with no small amount of chagrin, that he hadn't told anyone where he was going. He hustled back into the clearing and waved his arms over his head so they could see him.

"I found something!" he shouted.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?" Nigel demanded.

"Skulls hanging from a stick, it would appear," Jelena said, examining the gleaming bones. The rest of the crew, suffering from the same boredom he had been feeling, had all come out to inspect the object left last night. "These fellas have been dead for some time; looks like two were killed by blunt force trauma and all of them have tool marks … possibly from when they were stripped of their flesh."

"Disgusting," Xavier said with a yawn. "But what's it mean?"

"I don't follow," Nigel said.

"Someone showed up in the middle of the night and left a bunch of hanging skulls … that's not exactly subtle," Xavier said. "So … what's it mean?"

"There's something else," Markus said. He led them into the woods and showed them the footprints and the trails. It was then that Rebecca pointed out that humans weren't the only ones using the trail. She found tracks from what she assured them was a grizzly bear and a few from some sort of canine, too large for a coyote.

"Wolves and grizzlies … in Kentucky," Xavier deadpanned.

"Way to pay attention, champ," Nigel said. “Miriam already explained that we've found displaced species across the entire globe."

Xavier looked like he wanted to fire back but couldn't think of anything suitably insulting.

"Do you want to follow this trail for a bit?" Jordan asked.

"Not particularly," Markus said, eyeing the darkened woods beyond. "I would like to skim the perimeter of this valley a few kilometers in either direction and then repeat on the other side. You want to stay together for that or divide and conquer?"

There was some grumbling about the second team having to cover more distance because of needing to cross the valley first, but in the end Rebecca, Xavier, and Jordan split off to explore the treeline on the opposite side of their new home.

For the next five hours they covered three kilometers west and then backtracked and went three additional kilometers east using the skulls as a landmark. They'd found some more animal sign, a couple of pieces of metal that couldn't be identified, but nothing like what Markus had stumbled across earlier. They were walking back towards the ship for lunch when they heard screaming, Rebecca's voice reaching an octave and volume Markus didn't know she possessed.

"What the—"

The group of four broke into a run, and when they rounded the bulk of Daedalus's command section they caught sight of their crewmates huddled around something near the trees. Markus, being in better shape than the others, ran ahead. When he slid to a stop, he saw that Xavier and Rebecca were kneeling over a blood-covered Jordan. The technician’s face was pale, and his face had a slick sheen from sweat.

"What happened?"

"He was attacked! Something came out of the trees here, and when Rebecca screamed it let go and ran away!" Xavier's hands were flapping about in the air as if he couldn't figure out what to do with them.

Markus shoved him out of the way and pulled open the bloody flightsuit to see a ghastly wound that ran across Jordan’s chest and halfway down his abdomen. The cuts were very deep and looked like they were made from something with claws. "An animal then?" he asked.

"Yes," Rebecca said. "It happened so fast that—"

"MOVE!" Jelena knocked Markus out of the way much as he had done earlier and began a qualified assessment of the wounds. "Holy shit! Something big grabbed him. Come on … we have to carry him back to the ship. The wounds are bad, but it won't be life-threatening to move him. Just very, very painful."

It took everyone working in turns to helping Jordan limp back to the ship. By the time they'd reached the hatch on the far side of the ship, he was shaking and barely clinging to consciousness. Jelena directed them as they rearranged cargo containers to make a suitable flat surface to lay him on before she pulled out one of their trauma kits and began going to work.

"I’m injecting you with a heavy dose of morphine, sweetie," she said to her patient. "I'm going to have to clean these wounds out thoroughly and that means going in deep. You don't want to feel this … trust me."

"Y-y-y-y-you don't have to try to c-c-convince me," Jordan managed to spit out, even cracking a half smile before his head thudded back onto the plastic crate.

"So what was it?" Nigel asked, the fifteenth variation of the same question they'd been asking since the attack.

"From the width of the claw marks, the power and speed of the attack, the type of terrain, and keeping in mind Dr. Vega's displaced species theory … I'd say we're looking at a Bengal tiger," Rebecca said. "I caught a glimpse of the animal, but whether it was definitely orange or definitely brown I can't say."

"So it could be a lion, not that it matters at this point?" Nigel asked.

"Lions aren't solitary ambush hunters that lurk in the foliage like that, and jaguars and leopards aren't big enough to cause this sort of wound," she said. "Either way, I'd say Jordan's lucky to be alive."

"Yeah … lucky him," Xavier said in a tone that caused Markus and Nigel to both turn to him. He just returned their questioning gazes with a blank one of his own and then left the cargo hold, climbing up the ladder and into the crew compartment.

"Weird," Nigel said. "So, Jelly, what do you want us to do?"

"Leave," the flight surgeon answered without looking up.

Once outside, they huddled close to the ship, nobody wanting to venture too close to the woods now that they knew without a doubt that dangers lurked within.

"Guys, was this one of you?" Miriam asked, pointing to something on the hull. When they went around to look, they saw that the same design that had been etched into the aft of the ship had been drawn near the hatch with some sort of red pigment. It was still wet.

"That wasn't there when I left this morning," Markus said. "I'm certain of it."

"So what the hell … something came and drew on the hull while we were out walking around being tiger bait?" Nigel asked.

"It would appear that way," Markus said. "Which means whatever it is, it's coming out in daylight now to—"

"Oh! I forgot to tell you," Rebecca cut him off. "We found another one of those crosses with hanging skulls. It slipped my mind in the aftermath of the attack, but it was similar to the one you found. Except the skulls were all covered in etched symbols and the animal skull on top wasn't a cat, it was a deer or something like it."

"The hell with this, I'm going back inside." Nigel pushed past them all and went back into the cargo hold.

"Yeah, I've had enough nature for one day," Miriam said.

Once she was gone, Markus and Rebecca looked at each other for an uncomfortable moment before she also turned and went inside without a word. He just rolled his eyes and followed, closing and locking the hatch behind him.

"'POLARIS CREW, we are overcome with relief that you all survived the destruction of your ship. We witnessed the reentry from our orbital observatories and feared the worst. Please accept our most sincere apologies for not warning of the risk the hunter-killer satellites posed. We were unaware of how many still might be dormant, only that over the centuries their software seemed to become corrupted and they would target the source of any transmission within a certain frequency range.

"'We are alarmed by what you claim you've encountered on the surface, but we feel comfortable asserting that it can't be human. Earth's population died out hundreds of years ago; perhaps a new type of bipedal primate has emerged in our absence.'"

"Bullshit," Jelena snorted. "I know what those skulls are from."

"Moving along," Miriam said, clearly annoyed at the interruption. "'We have assigned a team of engineers and experts to begin analyzing what might be done for you. We'd also like to confirm that the data you spoke of survived the demise of your ship.'"

"Of course …"

"Shhh!!!"

"That's more or less it," Miriam said. "There are some technical specifications they provided so that we can begin transmitting video as well as data formatting protocols."

"So we still have an ace we can play." Xavier smiled. "As long as we have the data archives, they'll work to come get us."

"Is that what we're wanting?" Nigel asked. "To leave Earth? I mean … there's no modern conveniences, but we'd be leaving a veritable paradise here. For what? To spend the rest of our lives in another artificial habitat?"

"Jordan was almost disemboweled by a tiger while walking around outside," Jelena pointed out.

"Yeah, you're right … fuck this place."

"How hard will it be to set up our equipment to broadcast video so that they can see it?" Markus asked.

"Let's see." Nigel leaned over Jelena, moving in much closer than needed to see the screen. "Simple enough. Just some adjustments within the software," he said as Jelly shoved him away.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" Rebecca hissed after following Xavier into the furthest corner of the crew compartment away from the gaggle around the flight stations. "You can't seriously think that—"

"Give me a break," Xavier scoffed. "You haven't had a shower in days. Trust me, that's the last thing on my mind right now. What we need to discuss is how much longer we're going to let your dipshit ex-husband call the shots. He's a pilot and an—"

"He's a former military officer with experience in leadership, not to mention having gone through survival and tactical schools," Rebecca said. "Like it or not, he's the best we have right now. Why? Did you think you were going to take over?" Her soft, patronizing laugh seemed to enrage Xavier.

"So you still have a thing for him?"

"Of course not," Rebecca said, rolling her eyes. "I couldn't give two shits about what he and that whore flight surgeon do in their free time, but I'd rather not die from following your idiot lead."

"You little—"

"Listen, hon … it was fun while it lasted," she cut him off. "Banging someone else a few meters from my ex was … exhilarating. The fact that it was a possibility you'd be the richest, most famous man on the planet when we got back was also fun to think about, but that's pretty much out the window now, isn't it? In fact, what do you even bring to the table right now?"

Xavier West was left spluttering indignantly as Rebecca pushed past him and climbed down the ladder into the cargo hold. How dare that bitch talk to him like that!? She wasn't even that good looking; too thin with a pinched face … certainly nothing like Miriam Vega. He'd only pursued her because, despite having hired the man, Markus Brentwood annoyed him like no other. If he were honest, it was probably what drove him to accept the ex-wife on the expedition in the first place … nailing her in some wild zero-g positions while the dumbass strutted around and tsk'd at the rest of the crew was a bonus.

"Stupid whore," he muttered angrily before pasting a fake smile on his face and walking back to the flightdeck. He was mostly angry because she brought up a valid point: This mission no longer needed a financier and there wasn't much else he was good for. How long until this dysfunctional group decided he was no longer worth the food he was consuming?

That thought gnawed at him while the others prattled on about who should record the message and what they'd say to the Mars colony. He nodded along as if he understood and offered a few throwaway comments like “interesting idea” or “that's something to think about” all while studying the group from a new perspective: Now he was the outsider and the Polaris Project had just turned into a survival scenario. Not good.

11

Planetside, Earth

Day: 4

"A PROPER GREETING TO YOU, Commander Markus Brentwood!"

THE FACE OF THE—Martian?—on the display was decidedly human, but there were some glaring differences to the faces they were accustomed to. The skin had a bronze hue and it seemed too thin, almost translucent. The neck was so spindly that it appeared to be elongated, and the eyes were very large and dark. On a whole, the man beaming from the monitor had a willowy, fragile look to him.

"Your appearance is much as we expected from viewing our historical archives … fascinating! My name is Ellek Ustuon and I am chief among historians at the Austory Institute. It is a place of learning that specializes in our ancient history on Earth. As you can well imagine, your appearance has created quite a stir. When we detected your blueshifted light we were easily able to determine that you must be the Daedalus. Our information from that time is sparse, but the name of your vessel and mission appears in many records of the period. For generations we've watched your approach until the light went out and we began receiving your radio transmissions letting us know you had arrived home at long last.

"Listen to me ramble, my word! I have taken the data you've sent to my contemporaries for analysis. The imagery was … disturbing … but hardly conclusive. My initial assessment of the incident remains: It must be a previously unknown primate, though I must admit that our knowledge of contemporary Earth is limited to remote observations.

"A council has been convened to discuss what may be done for your situation. Rest assured that we will do whatever is within our power to … help." Ellek made an uncomfortable smile at that last part, unwilling to commit to what sort of help they might be able to provide.

"I will sign off with that, I think. We now have three listening stations tuned to your frequency and awaiting your transmissions so there will be no delay this time. I look forward to our next communication."

"That fussy little dweeb is our only hope of getting out of this?" Nigel snorted. "We're boned."

"He's only the translator, you halfwit. Try and keep up or go do something elsewhere," Jelena sighed before turning to the others. "I noticed he didn't say anything about what they could actually offer to help us short of good vibes and best wishes. What do you think, Mark?"

"I agree that he's being very careful about what they might be able do, likely because they still want what's on our servers. That data is sitting on a crashed ship on emergency power," Markus said. "The clock is ticking and he knows it. Is anybody else still curious about why they've made almost no effort to check in on Earth? Even if the idea of living under a natural sky terrifies you, wouldn't you still send probes to check things out from time to time?"

"You mean if they haven't even tried to check in on home once in a while, what are the chances of them having the capability of rescuing us," Xavier said. "Right?"

"We didn't see any other spacecraft or robotic probes about in the Solar System on our way in." Markus didn't answer the question directly. "And we were looking closely by the time we crossed Neptune's orbit. Even in 2067 the asteroid belt was being mined and we'd sent manned craft to the outer planets."

The group fell into an uneasy silence, each staring at the frozen image of Ellek still on the monitor.

"I'd better go check on Jordan," Jelena said and shouldered past Xavier off the flightdeck. The others began filing out as well, some back to the crew compartment, others back outside to take advantage of what little daylight remained. Markus slid into the pilot seat and tried to think through his response to the Martian colony. While he was loathe to agree with Xavier West on anything, he was getting the feeling that if he was able to transmit the data from their servers there would be little motivation on their part to assist the stranded explorers. For now the miniscule transmit window and low bandwidth were working in their favor, but how long until Mars offered to fly out a relay satellite to "aid" their communication? If they did he was certain the next request would be for them to begin transmitting the data … just to be safe.

There were just too many unanswered questions for him to place much trust in the strange man on the screen. It wasn't as if he had too many options, however, since they'd soon run out of food and potable water, so whatever they could negotiate out of the Mars colonists would be critical for their survival. That chain of thought jarred something loose in his mind and, on a whim, he went down into the SOC. He logged into one of the maintenance terminals with his command codes, allowing him full access to all ship systems.

"And there you are, still chirping," he muttered to himself. The Kepler lander had come to a final resting place just over two hundred kilometers from where they sat in the command section. The small ship was reporting damage during landing, but from what he could see it was still mostly intact. The lander was far better equipped for a stay on the surface than the chunk of ship they were in now. There were more powerful radios, better provisions for an extended stay, and actual sleeping quarters. Using an overlay from the orbital data they'd collected before Daedalus had gone down, he saw that to reach it they'd have to traverse some formidable terrain. It sure as hell wasn't going to be something they'd be able to do in a day, and they had to contend with what or who had been drawing on the hull to say nothing of the other dangerous wildlife.

Still … the supplies and equipment aboard the Kepler represented their best chance for extended survival. The issues were that they couldn't realistically transport Jordan Korpal the entire distance, they couldn't get the supplies back to the command section, and the lander had no capability to fly around within an atmosphere once it landed. Even with the powerful retro-thrust system that handled the final stage of the descent, it looked like it had taken a hard hit upon landing. The initial report showed the hull could be compromised. Depending on how damaged the ship was, the orbital ascension systems might be inoperable.

Markus used his full-access codes to download the full system status log from the lander and saved it in his personal folder for further review. It would give him something to do on the three hours of night watch he had to pull. He closed down the connection and made sure to completely log out of the terminal. Even with only a part of the ship still in existence, he was a stickler for rules, and procedure stated that nobody but him and Dr. Vega were authorized to use the root level command access. Not even Nigel had that level of clearance, and he was the chief engineer.

With a weary sigh, he hauled himself up the ladder and went back to try and catch a few hours of sleep before Jelly woke him up for his shift. He hoped for a boring night but had little hope of actually getting his wish.

"HOW IS HE?"

"Even with my best efforts, his condition is degrading," Jelena said. She was changing out Jordan's IV drip and redressing the horrific gashes left by the predatory cat earlier. Xavier was hovering over her and, in her opinion, was a bit too interested in what she was doing. "He's running a high fever and I can't get to come down. I'm still afraid to completely close up these wounds given how deep they are, and I only have limited medical supplies to clean them out. I've got him pumped full of antibiotics, but he's still at risk for a serious infection. Why do you ask?"

"Just trying to get a handle on how bad he really is." Xavier leaned over and peered into Jordan's unfocused eyes. "Resources are finite at this point … how much sense does it make to waste an inordinate amount of irreplaceable medications on someone who might not make it no matter what you do?"

"Would you feel the same if it was you lying on this crate, flayed open and helpless?" she asked.

"Obviously not," Xavier snorted and rolled his eyes. "But I also wouldn't be in any position to offer an argument, would I?"

"We're not going to start triaging patients because they're inconvenient, West," Jelena said with steel in her voice. "The supplies down here were only meant to last for a short time while this section of the ship was used as a lifeboat. Do you really think it makes a difference at this point? We'll be out of food in a matter of days. I'd be worried about that more than I would about Jordan getting too much of our meager medical supplies."

Xavier didn't answer her. He poked around the crates, taking stock of what was left. Much of what was there was useless to them. Since the chances were equal that the command section's secondary function would need to be used in space as opposed to landing on the surface, the cargo hold was packed with items like heated pressure suits and spare oxygen tanks. Most of it was just in the way now that they'd landed on the surface.

Jelena watched him as he seemed to lose interest in his inventory and went back outside where Rebecca and Nigel were sitting near the hatch. The conversation had bothered her more than she let on. The arrogant little prick had been talking about letting Jordan die an excruciatingly painful death because he was worried he might need those supplies in the near future. Miriam had told her of his bizarre outburst in the SOC and his claim as to why he'd come on this mission in the first place. She wasn't sure how much of it she believed, but it did indicate that he was cracking under pressure. He was a tech geek playboy, not a trained astronaut or scientist, and he sure as hell wasn't a survivalist. During the final days of training before they'd deployed to Daedalus for the final checkouts, he'd been having his favorite coffee from New York flown all the way to New Mexico. In other words, this wasn't a man accustomed to tolerating discomfort and there was going to be a lot of discomfort in the days ahead.

She finished applying fresh bandages to Jordan after another round of cleaning his wounds with saline and sterile gauze. Mark would need to be told of Xavier's bizarre behavior, and they'd need to keep an eye on him. She knew the crew dynamic was a tenuous thing at best, and if someone was actively spreading discord it would completely break down at a time they could least afford it.

"Try to get better, sweetie," she said to Jordan. The tech remained unresponsive, but she also had him doped up pretty good. Between the previously broken arm and now the aftermath of an animal attack, the poor kid just wasn't having a good run of things. If she could just keep him from developing sepsis from the deep rents in his torso, she was confident she could at least get him back on his feet. To what end, she didn't know … Jelena was beginning to have serious doubts that any of them were going to survive on Earth much longer anyway.

MARKUS CHECKED over all their major systems once he came back onto the flightdeck and relieved Jelena later that night. Electrical power reserves were down to sixty percent, so he made a few notes to go over with Nigel to see if they could lessen the load on the fuel cells. He also jotted down a reminder to get the server data Mars wanted so badly on some type of stable media in case they did lose power to the servers.

He'd originally planned to go over the Kepler lander status report in detail on his shift, but movement on the monitors caught his attention. The cameras on the exterior of the command section were like the hundreds of identical imagers that had dotted the entirety of Daedalus: They were merely maintenance tools, not meant to be used as an impromptu security system. As such, they had a fixed, shorter focal length that wasn't optimal for making out detail past fifteen meters, and the fish-eye effect created further issues.

It started as a bright, amorphous shape in the infrared part of the spectrum that alerted him something alive was emerging from the treeline on the right side of the ship. At first it seemed something quite large, but as it approached the shape began to take greater definition and he saw that it was actually three of the locals—he was still hesitant to call them human—and they were carrying something between them. They moved cautiously but with purpose as they approached the ship directly.

"Is that a dead deer?" Markus saw that the larger of them had what looked like an animal carcass slung over its shoulders, too bulky to be just the hide. He lost sight of the trio as they passed beneath the camera's field of view and closed in on the hull. After what seemed like an eternity, there were no bangs or scrapes, but he couldn't take the waiting anymore and reached over to activate the floodlights.

The reaction was immediate. Markus swore he could almost hear a loud, whooping cry and then the three individuals raced back for the treeline, again astounding him with the speed they could attain over rough ground. They were also short one animal carcass. He assumed they dropped it when he startled them with the lights, but what the hell were they doing with it in the first place?

The rest of his shift passed without incident, but after the adrenaline shock earlier, he completely forgot about the report file for their wayward lander. Nigel walked onto the flightdeck to replace him, bleary eyed from having to wake up at 0300 hours. The engineer grunted his greeting to Markus and slid into the seat, rubbing his face and stretching but otherwise showing no reaction to what he was being told about the earlier incident. After waiting an uncomfortable few seconds for some sort of response, Markus just shrugged and walked back to where he'd been sleeping in the crew compartment.

12

Planetside, Earth

Day: 5

"I … don't even know what to say to this."

THEY'D ALL WALKED outside in the early morning light to find that there was, in fact, a dead deer that looked to be a mature whitetail. It had been field dressed like any hunter would have done, just like Markus remembered from when he had hunted with his father. The deer wasn't what was causing all the excitement, however. It was what had been left next to it that had shocked them all: the severed head of a Bengal tiger.

"There's no way this is a coincidence, but what does it mean?" Markus asked. "Is it a threat?"

"I think it could be an offering," Rebecca said. "The deer is obviously meant as food, and this tiger could only be the one that attacked Jordan … or one identical to it."

"This means they're watching us," Markus said. "All the time, they're out there watching us."

"This is significant." Jelena was prodding around in the remains of both animals. "Think about it; this part of the ship comes screaming out of the sky and lands, the retrorockets shaking the ground and lighting up the night … what would a primitive people think of such a thing?"

"Assuming you're correct about these things and they're actually … people … I'd have to assume they would deify whoever came out of this ship," Rebecca said.

"And they might not be as primitive as we're thinking," Jelena said. "These cuts are clean. Far too clean to be chipped flint or even soft metals like bronze; this cat's head was removed with steel."

"Smelting iron into steel isn't necessarily an indicator of advanced culture or tech," Markus argued. "The ancient Chinese did it with wood-fired forges. If they are able to make a hardened alloy, however, we may not be as secure within the ship as we thought. The hull is too hard for them to get through, but the right tools might be able to force a hatch open."

The conversation continued while they tried to decide what to do with the dead animals left on their doorstep. Most people were too absorbed in the points they were trying to make to notice that Nigel had remained silent the entire time, his face unreadable. Xavier West noticed. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the engineer turned and walked back into the ship, apparently completely disinterested in the little drama unfolding outside the hatch. Or was it something else?

Xavier could feel the group crumbling with each day that passed. Markus was more interested in the technical minutiae of running the ship and seemed to be missing the big picture. The fact was they were dangerously low on basic necessities and that wasn't even the worst of their problems. They were surrounded by a potentially hostile force, they had a critically wounded man that was a drag on their meager resources and frayed emotions, and the people on Mars seemed to be dragging their feet when it came to committing to some sort of rescue plan.

At his very soul, Xavier was a coward. He preferred the term “survivor,” but he was at least honest enough with himself to admit that he wasn't an especially courageous man. Some might point to the fact he'd volunteered for such a dangerous exploration mission as proof otherwise, but his funding and participation in the Polaris Project had only been because his fear of something else had been greater than his fear of extended space travel. He'd mitigated his risks by developing bleeding-edge technology that allowed him to stay in a state of near-suspended animation for far longer than the others, requiring him to only be awake for a short time during the eight-year mission.

"Xavier … Xavier! Are you even listening?"

"What? No, sorry … I drifted off for a moment," Xavier stammered. "What were we talking about?"

"We need to get rid of this mess," Jelena said. "You're one of the few people here with nothing pressing to do, so you've just been volunteered."

"What do you mean 'get rid of’?"

"I mean I do not want it here, by the hatch," Jelena said with exaggerated slowness. Her patience for Xavier's dislike of anything resembling work had worn thin over the past few days. "We can't risk eating that deer, even if it's cooked thoroughly. The cat head is useless and I don't want it attracting insects."

"Come on, there are tools in the back of the hold," Markus said. "I'll grab Nigel and we'll bury this back behind the aft of the ship where the landing chewed up the soil and loosened it."

Although he'd rather be doing anything else than digging a hole big enough for a couple of dead animals, Xavier couldn't think of a valid excuse to get out of it. Soon he, a brooding Nigel, and a pensive Markus were chopping at the soil behind the ship. Armed with two collapsible multi-tools, whose package labels claimed they could be used as spades, and a large pry-bar Nigel wielded to break up the larger clods and pry loose rocks, the trio worked through the afternoon until they had a pit deep enough to safely bury the carcasses. Not a moment too soon, either, as they'd really begun to stink.

"I'd kill for a shower," Xavier complained, drawing an odd look from Nigel. "What?"

"Nothing." Nigel looked away. "Is this all we're going to do today? Bury dead animals?"

"This wasn't exactly planned for," Markus said. "But while we're here, there is something you can do: We'll need the contents of the archive server compressed and transferred to a stable medium. Anything come to mind?"

"That's already done," Nigel said. "I did that the first full day on the planet when the folks on Mars were still clamoring for it. I thought I told you that? Anyway … the entire data dump—including all the data from our mission to Angel-21 and the complete technical drawing package for Daedalus—is on two spare solid state data cores, redundant copies. The spare cores come in hardened cases that are impervious to damn near anything and are easily portable. They'll be stable inside there for the next couple centuries or so."

"I … uh, good work, Nigel." Markus wasn't known for giving unconditional praise to his chief engineer. It wasn't that Nigel wasn't qualified for highly capable, he wouldn't have been on the project otherwise; it was more that the two of them were unable to move past personal differences as the mission wore on. Xavier had watched their dynamic with interest when he'd been awake, taking a perverse pleasure as they circled each other and postured like two dogs in a literal pissing contest.

After the hole was filled in and they'd jumped on the pile to pack it down, they policed the area and went back into the ship to cool off in the air conditioning. Jordan was pale, sweat-soaked, and shivering under the sheet Jelena had pulled over him. The kid didn't look good. At all. If it wasn't for the quick, shallow breaths he was sucking in, Xavier would have sworn he was already dead. At least it'd be a damn sight easier if he already was. They were anchored to the crash site and their current non-plan while he was still clinging to life by a thread.

"A word, Markus," he said, grabbing the commander's arm as Nigel climbed the ladder up into the crew compartment.

"Sure," Markus said, suspicion etched onto his features.

"If we're to take this theory of the locals viewing our arrival as a religious experience, and the … gift … outside was meant as an offering, wouldn't it be wise to reciprocate?"

"I'm following your line of reasoning, but what could we offer that is guaranteed to be viewed in a positive light?" Markus asked. "I’m inclined to leave well enough alone at this point, at least until we're more certain what we're dealing with."

"But you'll consider what I'm saying?" Xavier asked.

"I will," Markus promised. "It's not a bad idea, just maybe a bit premature."

After Markus had left the cargo hold, Xavier let the fake smile slide from his face. That patronizing tone made him want to smash the pry bar right into the asshole's skull. The decision to hire Markus Brentwood hadn't been entirely his; it was more due to a lack of options. Not many qualified candidates were willing to sign on to what the press had called a "well-intentioned suicide mission." But Markus had entered into the astronaut corps just as NASA folded up shop completely and most private companies began scaling back manned exploration missions altogether so they could focus on mining operations. The Polaris Project had been his last ditch effort to get into space. Whoever flew out on Daedalus would be guaranteed to never see anyone they knew ever again, even if it was a success, so there weren't as many volunteers as the organizers had assumed there would be.

But now? Now the straight-laced, forty-three-year-old, ex-fighter jock was turning out to be a liability. Xavier didn't know what they should be doing to improve their situation, only that they should be doing something. If something didn't shake loose soon to get them all moving in some direction, he had a feeling their dysfunctional little group was going to tear itself apart.

"WE HAVE EXCELLENT NEWS, Commander Brentwood!" Ellek's annoyingly chipper face filled the screen. "Our engineers have confirmed that we have a ship that can make the journey to Earth! Fortune is with us and the orbits of our planets have them close enough that the trip will only take seven Sols, or seven and a quarter of your days.

"We're currently working on a method of extraction in parallel with prepping the ship. We'd prefer an automated lander as we are ill-equipped to handle Earth's gravity for very long. There are relics in long-term storage from previous exploration and mining operations that might be quickly adapted for a recovery mission. If not, our manufacturing capabilities are extensive. Fear not, brave explorers … we will get you off the planet.

"In the meantime, we would appreciate if you could provide us with your impressions of what you saw around the star you called Angel-21. We would, of course, like to parse the hard data later, but your personal recollection as an eye witness would be appreciated for our official records."

Ellek droned on for a bit more about how important they were to filling in the gaps in the official record, blah, blah, blah. More and more he was coming across as a slimy used car salesman rather than a serious researcher and historian, at least to Markus. He had no choice but to humor the man, however, and he took a moment to collect his thoughts before starting the recording and recounting his experiences as Daedalus had approached a planet teeming with alien life. Nothing that could conclusively be called “intelligent,” but life nonetheless. The odd thing was that given his current situation, and the strange effects extended stasis seemed to be having on the human brain, Markus could hardly recall what his emotions were upon laying eyes on that planet for the first time.

Nor did he particularly care.

"WHAT THE FUCK?"

Nigel was sitting in the pilot seat, watching the split-pane display they'd rigged up to monitor the exterior cameras. The SOC system was much easier to see, but the seats down there were horrendously uncomfortable for any real length of time.

Currently, there were large numbers of whatever had been drawing on the hull slipping out of the treelines on either side of the ship. It was hard to tell at that range, but it had to be fifty, sixty on each side. It was a clear night with a full moon, but Nigel kept the system in IR mode for the moment so he could easily pick out something warm-blooded against the foliage, the creatures showing up as bright globs at this range.

Almost as if they'd heard some unspoken signal, the figures at the edge of the clearing began moving wildly, running back and forth and waving about. Even over the hiss of the air handlers and the hum of the ship's electronics, Nigel swore he could hear a chorus of howling like Markus had described a few days ago. As the cacophony seemed to increase, the two groups bunched up on each side and then, at the peak of their frenzy, both groups began sprinting towards the ship.

"Oh shit, oh shit!!" Nigel began to panic. "Everyone! Wake up!!"

"What the hell are you yelling about?" Markus had only gone to lie down an hour ago and didn't look like he appreciated the ruckus at all.

"We're under attack!!" Nigel gestured wildly to the monitors. "I think." It now looked like the groups would intercept each other well in front of the ship.

"They're attacking each other, not the ship," Markus said. "But I'm sure this still has something to do with us being here. Look … they're almost to each other."

Both groups were now in the forward camera's field of view, having covered the distance from the treeline at an astounding pace. The scene soon became gruesome beyond all measure. Hulking fighters in both groups tore into each other with reckless abandon, brandishing a strange mixture of melee weapons that looked as if they were meant to maim and kill in as painful a way as possible. The screams of the combatants were now clearly audible for the two men on the flightdeck, and hot splashes littered the ground in the thermal optics as blood was spilled at a prodigious rate.

"Do we have anything besides the floodlights that might scare them off?" Markus asked.

"No, this thing wasn't—wait! There is something!" Nigel slid out of the seat and ran to a panel on the bulkhead that was marked "EMERGENCY ACCESS ONLY" and yanked it open before Markus could protest. The commander had assumed the panel held the controls for the hatch jettison circuits, and it did, but it also had controls for the command section's visual acquisition aids.

"This section still has the flares up top in case they needed to guide in rescue craft if the radios were down," Nigel explained while arming the system. "They're monster flares too … big boomers that explode at the apogee."

"That should do the trick," Markus said, now back to watching the action. "Light a few off."

He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but the concussive booms that shook the whole ship startled him so badly he thought something had gone wrong. The bright red flares lit up the night as they raced skyward, bathing the combatants in a crimson glow that made the blood that covered them appear black. They all stopped fighting and looked up at the spectacle.

The second set of explosions from the flares detonating into brilliant starburst patterns broke them out of their trance and sent them running. It was everyone for themselves as the group scattered and sprinted for the forest. The faster trampled the wounded and slow without a care. By the time the light faded from the last flare, the lead runners had escaped into the trees.

"Well … I'm awake now," Markus said. "I guess I can take watch again if you want to go grab some sleep."

"I don't think I can sleep after that," Nigel said, for once the slight sneering tone he customarily took with his commander absent.

13

Planetside, Earth

Day: 6

"DISGUSTING."

JELENA BURNETTE TRAILED behind the others the next morning as they left the dubious safety of the ship to look at the aftermath of the previous night's battle. She picked her way carefully through the blood-soaked grass, still glistening in the morning dew. There were discarded weapons that were surprising in their construction; these were thoughtfully designed tools, not merely clubs or sharp bits of metal they'd found. The clothing also revealed a level of detail that made her reevaluate her own unvoiced opinion that these things were likely humans that had reverted to a middle-Paleolithic society.

"Hey, Jelly … you'll want to see this," Nigel called out, gesturing to something in a shallow runoff ditch outside the area where most of the fighting had occurred. She picked her way up to it and saw that it was a body, the only one they'd found so far. There had been drag marks to indicate that at some time during the night the survivors had come back and collected their dead, but neither Nigel nor Markus had seen anything on the cameras. Jelena had found them on the flightdeck that morning, sound asleep, the adrenaline shock taking a lot out of them.

"Well, boys … that ends that argument," she said with a smirk. "That's a human, or at least the next evolutionary step in our line."

"You're sure?" Markus asked.

"You can have Rebecca confirm it, but short of pulling DNA I'm as certain as I can be," Jelena said. "Why did they leave this guy here?"

"Probably didn't see him," Nigel said. "He ran away from the fight after getting stabbed in the leg there, but it must have hit the artery. Poor bastard fell in this ditch and bled out quick."

Jelena didn't answer as she knelt down and checked the body over. There were signs of a hard life—heavy scarring, worn-down teeth for such a young specimen—but there were also signs of rudimentary medical treatments. She could see that at least three of the scars were from stitches and even one that looked like it might have been intentionally cauterized.

The man looked like he may have been in his early twenties and was heavily muscled, far more than any normal human would have been in the twenty-first century unless they were obsessive weightlifters. Other than the generally “worn” condition of his body and the fact he would have been a hulking brute in their time, the rest of his features were similar to their own.

"I'd take some pictures of this to send to your linguist buddy on Mars, Mark," she said, finally standing and pulling a sterile medical wipe out of her pocket to clean her hands. "They may have dismissed this planet and tell themselves it's abandoned to ease their conscience, but there are still human beings on this planet and they're fighting off apex predators with pointy sticks while the colonies up there sit on their asses debating philosophy."

"I'll be sure to—"

"Jelly! Get back here now!" Miriam's scream cut through the damp morning air. "Jordan is dead!"

"I THOUGHT you said he was getting better," Markus said quietly as Jelena did a series of post-mortem tests, trying to be as thorough as possible with the limited equipment available.

"He was!" she hissed the words between clenched teeth. It was just the two of them in the cargo hold per Markus's orders, but they were still talking in low tones since everyone else was hovering around just outside the hatch.

"His fever finally broke and the wounds were beginning to heal over on their own without becoming infected. I expected him to be fully awake and alert by today or tomorrow even if he'd still be weak."

"What can you tell me?" Markus asked.

"Without the ability to measure internal temperatures and given the degree of rigor mortis and post mortem lividity, I'm going to say between three and six hours ago," she said.

"So after the fight outside, but before we came down to open the ship back up this morning," Markus mused.

"And within the time window when you and Nigel had nodded off."

"That's a serious accusation," he whispered, looking back at the hatch.

"That asshole, Xavier, was already talking about Jordan being a drain on resources," Jelena insisted. "Seriously, Mark … I checked him over before I went to sleep and he was alive, had healthy vitals, and was beginning to respond to voice and touch. Then we wake up today and he's just dead? That makes no sense."

"It would help if you could tell what killed him, then we could perhaps begin searching for a who."

"I'll keep at it, but we only have a short window before he can't be safely left out," she said. "At room temperature, it won't take long for serious decomp to start, and you don't want him in an enclosed space where you'll be breathing the air."

"Your call," Markus said. "Once it's time, let us know and we'll give him a proper burial."

Markus left the others outside, went back up to the flightdeck, and slid down the ladder into the SOC. He logged in again with his command codes and accessed the ship's internal security systems. As he'd feared, the internal cameras had been disabled once the command section had detached from the rest of the ship. Even though there were no cameras in the cargo hold, he had hoped to at least see who had been up and moving about last night during the time Jelena had given him.

He reactivated the internal cameras and backed back out of the security subsystem before logging out, kicking himself for his lack of foresight in the face of declining crew morale. As he was turning to leave, he saw a case sitting on the floor near an open server locker: the data cores that Nigel had backed up their archives on. A quick check inside the case confirmed that’s what they were, even helpfully labeled by the engineer. They were currently the most valuable thing the surviving members of the Daedalus crew owned. Their only bargaining chip with the humans on Mars that might ensure their rescue.

Markus held the open case for a long moment, staring at the two identical devices as he thought over Jelena's suspicions. Could someone on the ship have actually killed Jordan Korpal in cold blood? If they thought an injured man was too great a drain on resources, who would be next? If they followed their own line of reasoning, they could only conclude that the weaker members of the survivors should also be culled to increase their own chances. What else might they be prone to do?

It was a chilling prospect. As he thought back on the psyche evaluations he'd read for everyone except the mission's benefactor, he had to conclude that at least two of them could be a killer and it wouldn't necessarily surprise him. He finished his business in the SOC and climbed back up the ladder. He'd stashed something on the flightdeck all those years ago when Daedalus was orbiting Earth on her final shakedown flight, something he hoped would never be needed. He'd actually almost forgotten about the Austrian-made synthetic pistol he'd smuggled up in pieces and stashed underneath a panel of soft insulation down near the deck just by the forward windows all those years ago.

Taking a firearm on the trip had seemed like an absurdity, and it had been strictly forbidden by the mission planners, but the military officer in Markus wouldn't allow him to leave without at least some sort of backup plan. The black pistol was just where he'd left it, still in its protective vacuum seal. He pulled it out and checked it before digging out the two full magazines he'd stashed with it. They were loaded with a type of non-metallic “soft” round that wouldn't penetrate the hull or even a heavy bulkhead, plus they allowed him to sneak them up without too much trouble.

After carefully replacing the soft panel and disposing of the plastic bags, he tucked the pistol into a cargo pocket on his coveralls and slipped off the flightdeck. He hoped he wouldn't have to use the weapon, but if someone had indeed killed from some sort of twisted survival instinct, they may see his role as mission commander as their next obstacle.

THE BURIAL of Jordan Korpal was a morose affair, more so than any funeral Jelena could ever remember being at. It was a combination of the reality of their situation finally catching up with her and the fact that she'd really liked the kid that finally broke down the last of her emotional resolve. Since Nigel knew the technician better than anyone else, he volunteered to speak. When he did, they were all surprised. Gone was the sarcastic and callous demeanor they all expected from him; the man was genuinely shook up and hurt by the unexpected death.

This too, bore down on Jelena's soul. Not because she had any particular fondness for Nigel; she detested the man. His clumsy advances during each waking period during the mission had become tedious, and when that hadn't worked he'd gone ahead and spread rumors among the men on the crew that she he'd caught her sleeping with most of the support crew before they'd launched from Earth. If she found out that was the reason Markus kept rebuffing her, she'd tear Nigel's balls off by going down through his throat first. But no … the reason it hit her so hard was because such a self-centered pig of a man could be so visibly wounded from the loss.

"I have something to say," she said once Nigel had finished. She was talking before she knew it, ignoring the warning glare from Markus. She'd shared with him what she'd discovered earlier, but he'd wanted to proceed cautiously. Jelena had no patience for his plodding, a trait that he seemed to apply to every aspect of his life.

"When I examined Jordan, who had been on the mend as of yesterday, I found something … there was another IV injection mark."

"Jelly, that's interesting but—"

"I'm the only one who administered care to Jordan and I put in one IV needle," she said, cutting Markus off. "This one also had a slight tearing that showed up post-mortem, the only reason I found it actually. When I discovered one of the eighteen gauge needles was missing from the kit, I knew what happened." Everyone was stock still, staring at the flight surgeon wide-eyed. A couple looked ready to bolt.

"I’m not sure where this is going," Miriam admitted, breaking the tense silence.

"No? Fine, I'll spell it out. Someone murdered Jordan," Jelly said. "They took a large-bore needle and a discarded IV bag and pumped enough air into his veins to induce a pulmonary embolism. Whoever did this knew that we couldn't perform an autopsy here, so as long as they didn't leave any visible injuries on the body they were in the clear, but the pressure caused by pumping a few hundred milliliters of air into him caused the needle to move and tear the skin."

"This is ridiculous, we don't have to—"

"Wait … Jordan was getting better?" Xavier cut Rebecca off mid-tirade, his eyebrows scrunched together. That was as good as a confession for Jelena.

"I fucking knew it was you!!" she howled, rushing across the space between them. Xavier was too shocked to move as the much smaller woman took him off his feet in a savage tackle, landing on top of him. Jelena had years of martial arts training under her belt, while Xavier had lived the soft life of a computer programmer and then a rich playboy … the results were inevitable. She wrapped him up and brushed his arms away before raining blows down on his unprotected face with her elbows.

It took Markus, Nigel, and Miriam to pull the screeching woman off a defenseless Xavier West, the commander having to hold her in a bear hug and off the ground to keep her from going back at it. Xavier's face was puffy and bleeding profusely, his head lolling to the side as he struggled to even roll over. The attack had happened so fast and was so vicious that she'd done real damage before anyone could react and split them up.

"I didn't kill anyone, you crazy bitch!" Xavier spat blood all over himself while Rebecca helped him up into a sitting position. His balance still seemed off as he struggled to his feet, but his eyes were clear and blazed with hatred.

"Not like this!" Markus hissed into Jelena's ear. "Wait until you can prove—"

"We just buried the proof, Mark!" Jelena didn't make any attempt to keep the others from hearing what she was saying, causing Markus to flinch as they were able to figure out what he'd been whispering. The looks cast his way by Rebecca and Xavier were decidedly unfriendly. Without having consciously decided, it looked like he had just picked a side in this fight.

"Let's all just calm down and talk about this," he said, letting his flight surgeon go but staying close in case he had to grab her again.

"She assaulted someone, Mark," Nigel said. "This can't just be talked away."

"What do you want me to do, Nigel? Call the cops?" Markus asked. "Maybe he could file a civil suit? Oh, wait! Civilization doesn't fucking exist! Short of holding Jelly down and letting West punch her in the face, I'm not sure what you want me to do."

"I'm for that," Xavier snarled.

"Bring it on, doughboy," Jelena snapped.

"Let's just separate while we still have the daylight to do it." Markus injected himself into the fray again, physically placing himself between the two for maximum effect. "We'll talk about this later when emotions aren't so raw."

"Sanctimonious asshole," Rebecca muttered under her breath, throwing an icy glare at Markus before taking Xavier by the elbow and pulling him back towards the ship. Nigel just shrugged and followed them, seeming to be unsure what his level of involvement in the conflict should be.

"I don't need you fighting my fights." Jelena turned on Markus once the three were out of earshot.

"I was deescalating a situation you caused by physically attacking a member of my crew without reason, not fighting your battles. There's a difference. What the hell were you thinking? Your suspicions are unprovable. We have a missing needle that was never recovered and an assumed cause of death, but no evidence and no way to get it.

"Damnit, we're alone out here, Jelena! I need all of them to still be participating, useful members of the team if we're to survive much longer. Six people divided into factions with such limited resources and an increasingly unpredictable local population isn't workable. Understood?" Markus knew from both her Polaris Project psyche profile and his experience working with her that Jelena had real trouble connecting with other people. Her abnormally high IQ seemed to put her on a different plane of existence where she could observe those around her, but not actually interact in the same ways they did with each other. It caused her to be blunt, sometimes shockingly so, and explained why she'd attacked Xavier once she was certain in her own mind of his guilt.

It took her a long minute before she answered. When she did, there was no sign of her earlier rage. "Mark … we're all going to die out here. You know that, I know that," she said, her voice flat and weary.

"I didn't realize you were such a defeatist," Miriam said. It was the first time she'd spoken since the fight.

"I'm a realist. I'm not foolish enough to believe Mars has a spare ship capable of pulling us off this planet, nor am I sure I even want to leave to go live under a dome." Jelena's frank assessment left the other two unsure of what to say, so they all stood near Jordan's unmarked grave in awkward silence.

"WE NEED to come up with a plan. I don't want to die of starvation sitting in a crashed bit of ship," Nigel said. "Mark isn't equipped to make the hard decisions right now … we keep following him, we die."

"Don't underestimate Markus Brentwood," Rebecca said. "But … point taken. I think the interaction with the Mars colony right now is more of a distraction for him than a help. We should already be making preparations for a more permanent arrangement if they can't retrieve us. Hell, even if they left now they're still over a week away assuming the level of tech they're claiming."

"Do you think any of the hab sections survived? We could see if there are additional supplies or shelter," Xavier said. His words were slurred as they passed over swollen, split lips. He was angry and humiliated by allowing that woman to beat him senseless in front of everyone. "I can't believe that whore accused me of murder … probably to cover up her own incompetence that killed the kid."

"Focus." Rebecca snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Your ego is not the issue right now. The hab sections were jettisoned well short of the continent and would not have survived the impact even if they didn't burn up in the atmosphere. They're relatively fragile."

"I have an idea, but we'll need to agree to work together," Nigel said. "I don't like the idea of screwing over the others, but I like the idea of dying in this goddamn valley even less. If we're of a mind that Mark won't be open to a change of strategy then we have to come up with our own plan."

"Agreed," Rebecca said. "The Polaris Project technically ended when what was left of Daedalus hit the Earth. We're free to do what we please without interference from our old boss, but let's keep this among ourselves for the time being."

"I'm in," Xavier said. "What've you got?"

14

Planetside, Earth

Day: 7

THE NIGHT HAD BEEN UNBELIEVABLY AWKWARD.

THEY'D EATEN IN SILENCE, avoiding eye contact and conversation. Rebecca had patched Xavier's face up as it was clear Jelena had no intention of offering aid or comfort, to say nothing of an apology. The battle lines had been clearly drawn after the incident, and Markus was at a loss as to how they'd put it behind them, or if they even could.

Unsurprisingly, his ex-wife had sided with Xavier once he had appeared to be defending Jelena. He'd been able to avoid Rebecca most of the mission. Daedalus had been designed so that the work centers didn't overlap, and there were enough common areas that while they were awake he could spend his time on the flightdeck or in one of the crew support rings while Rebecca worked under Miriam Vega in the science and observation ring. The odds that they were both one of the few survivors that made the trip all the way back home were slim; the fact they were both stranded together on a potentially hostile planet and having to rely on each other was intolerable.

"Any word from Ellek?" Miriam asked. They were standing on top of the ship and sipping on their morning ration of clean water. Jelena had worked out the bare minimum amounts they all needed to survive and help stretch their meager supplies. It was workable, but unpleasant.

"Nothing yesterday and I haven't checked the buffer yet this morning to see if we received anything during the night," Markus said. The Martian colony had a powerful transmitter and a more specialized antenna, which meant they had a larger transmit window their nightly message if they were going to send one. He was hesitant to check today, fearing the skipped message yesterday meant that Ellek didn't have good news and was unsure how to break it to him. They were all in emotional limbo while waiting to see if the humans on Mars could save them. The real desperation and panic would set in if the answer came back that they were on their own. Markus wasn't looking forward to that possibility, unconsciously reaching down and feeling the heft of the pistol in his side pocket. "No time like the present, I guess."

Markus climbed back down into the ship and, moving carefully to avoid waking those in the crew compartment, slipped down into the SOC. In the corner of the main display "38%" was flashing in yellow. It was how much power they had left in the emergency fuel cells. They were losing efficiency at an alarming rate despite Nigel's best efforts to minimize the electrical load. All of the avionics that weren't needed had been physically disconnected from the power bus, and they'd shut down all but the essential systems in the SOC. They were also down to a single environmental unit so the nights were a muggy, uncomfortable affair.

"Commander Brentwood!"

"Oh sweet Christ, just get to the point today," Markus muttered at Ellek's enthusiastic likeness. Today it seemed even more obnoxious than usual, no mean feat.

"I will get straight to the point today. Engineers have successfully reactivated one of our mining support ships. This group was from Lumina, an orbital colony with a population of roughly ten thousand souls and easy access to the dormant vessel. The reason for the break in normal communications was the frenzied negotiations between the aldermen of Caelestis and the administrators of Lumina. An agreement was reached yestersol and the skilled engineers I spoke of earlier went to work.

"I am pleased to say that the ship is even now making preparations to break orbit and begin its flight to you. The flight time will be two of your weeks, but I've been told the ship is equipped to loiter for some time if necessary. I know this is different than the timetable I previously gave you, hopefully this doesn't cause further undue strain on your crew. I will provide further technical details as they become available to me."

"Thank God," Markus said, leaning back onto the hard, uncomfortable seat.

"That, however, is where the good news ends." Ellek's face assumed a somber expression. "We have no means available with which to descend to the surface, retrieve you all, and get back to the ship. Our orbital shuttles, much like ourselves, are completely adapted to Martian gravitational and atmospheric conditions and can't be used for this mission. You'd spoken before of a possible way to get back to orbit … we hope that is still the case. If not, our ship will drop off additional supplies for you and, hopefully, retrieve your data archives with its longer reception window. We are still working out the details, but we're confident that we could design and build the necessary lander within eighteen Earth months. I eagerly await your response."

"Shit," Markus grunted, ignoring the rest of Ellek's blathering. He'd been both expecting and fearing this moment, assuming all along that Caelestis Colony wouldn't have the necessary hardware to effect a rescue. Eighteen months. A year and a half on a wild planet with enough supplies for maybe another week. Not good.

He recorded his next message and saved it in the buffer to be automatically sent during the next transmission window. Even just surviving the next couple weeks until the ship made it all the way to them from Mars was going to be a challenge he wasn't sure his crew was up to.

"I need everyone outside!" he shouted once he was back on the flightdeck. "I don't give a shit if you want to or not … everyone out!"

It took more than a few minutes to get everyone to stop complaining, asking questions, and just get outside. He was dismayed to see they still automatically separated themselves according to the dividing lines of the previous day.

"WHAT'S THE DEAL?" Nigel asked, yawning in Rebecca's face and earning himself a shove in the ribs.

"I've gone through last night's message from Mars," Markus said. "They're sending a ship and it'll be underway soon to come get us." He allowed the excited babble to go on before dropping the heavy stuff.

"There's a problem though … and it's a big one. They don't have anything that can make it down here come get us. The best they can do is maybe design and build something within the next year and half or so."

"So what's the fucking point of sending a ship?" Xavier demanded. His voice was still nasally and muted since it was packed with cotton to staunch the blood from the beating Jelena had handed him.

"We might have a way out of here, but it's a bit of a longshot and it won't be easy," Markus said. "The Kepler lander isn't an insurmountable distance away and it's loaded with supplies and a possible way off this planet."

"You said it crashed." Xavier just wasn't going to shut up, it seemed.

"It did have an energetic landing, but the lander isn't the important part," Markus said. "Once it's down, the ship was never designed to take off again. Kepler is equipped with six ascension pods, each capable of taking two people up to orbit. It's the way the lander crew would get back after an observation mission. The system was tested before Kepler was loaded onto Daedalus so we know it works … technically."

"Why haven't we already been trying to make our way to the lander?" Rebecca asked. "It seems the supplies and the ascension system would be good reasons to relocate there rather than huddle up on this tiny bit of Daedalus." Markus could see the smirk in her eyes. She wasn't asking a serious question, she was undermining his authority in front of the others. Knowing her the way he did, alarms were going off in his head. She wasn't just doing it for fun, everything she did was a calculated move … including marrying him in the first place.

"You may have noticed that public transport and roads don't exist anymore. Oh! I almost forgot, there's also a group of unusually large men that come out at night to kill each other on our doorstep," Markus shot back. "Other than that, I'm not sure why we haven't just strolled through an unexplored bit of forest with only the clothes we wear." The biting sarcasm seemed to work and, while she fumed, she was at least silent.

"How far away is it?" Miriam asked.

"Two hundred and ten kilometers, give or take," Markus said. "Apparently when it disengaged during reentry, the automation locked onto the only signal it could find: the command section's emergency beacon. It followed us down until our signal went dark and then it landed."

"That's over a week of walking," Nigel said. "That's going to be tough."

"Then we'd better get started putting together a plan," Markus said.

He spent the rest of the day dividing the task up, bringing their varied talents to bear and hopefully keeping them too busy to start in on each other again.

"WE HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM," Nigel whispered. "He's trying to fuck us."

"I thought he was trying to fuck Miriam," Xavier laughed. "And Jelly's trying to—"

"Moving on," Rebecca said with a disgusted look. "What do you mean?"

"When I relieved Mark on overwatch one night, he left a terminal logged in with his command codes by accident. It was one of the nights those … whatever the hell we're calling them … they were outside the ship," Nigel explained. "He'd downloaded the entire status report from the Kepler … we can't all make it off this planet. Only one of the ascension pods is showing a green status, one other is showing power but no status, the others are all no-go. That's possibly four people, but definitely two."

"You're sure about this?" Rebecca frowned. "Mark is a stuck-up prick, but he's not a liar and he's not one to play games in dire situations. Are you sure?"

"Yes, damn you! I read the whole report," Nigel snapped. "It was just a way to pass the time before, but when he mentioned making the two-hundred-klick hike through the woods I remembered."

"It's possible he downloaded it and didn't actually read it," Rebecca said. "Or … he's willing to take the chance that we don't all make it to the lander. Third option is that he plans to use us to get him there and then eliminate those he doesn't want to take."

"I'd like to see him try," Xavier said.

"Seriously?" Nigel asked. "Jelena Burnette kicked your ass twelve ways from Sunday and you think you stand a chance against the ex-military guy who actually worked out the entire trip? No … what we need is to adjust our plan. The timing is all off now."

"I'm listening," Rebecca said. She was constantly looking back and forth to make sure one of the others didn't happen to see them all clumped up with their heads together.

As Nigel quickly laid out his modified plan, Rebecca immediately balked. The further he explained, the less Xavier liked it as well. The engineer argued that they were out of time and options, so if they wanted to be one of the ones leaving Earth for the cushy life of an academic on an advanced Martian colony they needed to be willing to make some sacrifices.

In the end, his arguments won them over. None of them wanted to remain behind as that carried a certain death sentence. They were researchers and tech geeks. The odds of them being able to learn the necessary skills to live off the land were slim and that was assuming they even wanted to. Rebecca would rather die quickly than starve to death or succumb to some nasty disease, her parasite-riddled corpse being the only monument to her passing.

Xavier's fears were simpler: He knew that staying on Earth meant a lot of hard, physical work and dealing with whatever the weather had in store for him. Neither of those was anything he was even remotely interested in. He'd funded Polaris for a ride to the future along with fame and riches. Eating grubs with a pack of nerds while predators picked them off one by one seemed as far away from that goal as possible so, distasteful though the plan was, he was all in.

"DO YOU HAVE A MINUTE?"

"Regarding?" Markus asked, immediately suspicious.

"I just need to talk to … someone. Someone I trust," Rebecca said. Markus raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. "You know what I mean. We might have had our difficulties, Mark, but trust was never one of them. At least my trust in you." She hurriedly added the last comment when she saw his expression darken. The final nail in the coffin that had been their tattered marriage had been her infidelity. She'd actually been surprised he cared when she'd been caught as they'd barely spoken to each other for the better part of a year by then.

"Okay," Markus sighed. "I take it this is to be a private conversation?"

"This way." She indicated the back of the cargo bay where the discarded crates had been stacked to make a sort of partition. The longer they stayed aboard the ship, the more they began to carve out personal spaces for themselves.

The instant Markus rounded the corner into Rebecca's little cubbyhole the lithe woman launched herself at him. He braced, not sure if he needed to defend himself or if something else was happening. As it turned out, his ex-wife had intertwined herself into his arms and rested her head against his chest so it was probably good that he’d curbed his instinct to hit her with an elbow.

"What are you doing?" he asked, still tensed at the unexpected closeness but making no move to push her away.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know you don't want me near you … but I just need to be close to someone."

"What about—"

"I'd rather not talk about him." Rebecca correctly assumed Markus was going to bring up the gossip revolving around her and Xavier. "That was a mistake." She pulled back a bit so she could look up at him, but still maintained close enough contact that his body was beginning to respond.

"I don't think this is a good idea."

"Why, because of Miriam?" Rebecca's expression briefly changed to the cold, bitter face that he'd become accustomed to towards the end of their time together before softening again. "Look … I'm not really sure what I'm doing right now. I just know that I feel like we're all going to end up like Jordan sooner than later, and if that's the case I'd at least like to leave this world knowing that the last time you and I saw each other it was something better than cold indifference."

"Is that really all?"

"I'm scared," she admitted. "And not just of the people in the woods either. I feel like the crew is falling apart and that people are making their own plans for survival. You know not all of us went to a military academy; they're not equipped to deal with a situation like this. This could get very ugly, very fast."

Markus watched her closely for any clues that he was being played. He saw none. For this brief moment she really was that vulnerable, open woman he'd met in grad school that, despite her brains, beauty, and aura of strength, was more than a little afraid of what the world around her might do. He had no delusions that this was the beginning of a rekindling, but he allowed himself to lower the emotional barricades he’d built and just enjoy being close to a woman he'd once loved. If he was being completely honest, had she not forced the issue he would have likely overlooked the infidelity and tried to salvage the marriage.

"We'll get through this." He mouthed the meaningless platitude while pulling her in closer. "The lander isn't that far away, and there hasn’t been much action from the wildlife or the people for the last two days. We just have to get to it and then wait for the Martian ship."

He began rubbing his hands down her back without consciously thinking about it, drawing her in closer and enjoying the feeling of her against him again, perhaps taking his own form of solace in the familiarity of it during such extraordinary circumstances. She gripped him tighter and groaned softly, pulling back and looking up at him expectantly.

The muscle memory took over and he leaned down, pressing his lips to hers. He was unprepared for the hunger with which she reciprocated, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down onto the cargo mats, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist. It was all happening so fast. He tried to pull back and protest, but she'd have none of it.

"No!" she whispered fiercely. "Please … let's just forget the past for a bit. I can tell you want this to happen too."

Torn as he was about the situation, biology was a powerful thing and his will to resist was already being coopted by a much more primal, deeper need. He reached up and grabbed a handful of hair, pulling it just hard enough to elicit a moan like he knew she liked, and pushed himself onto her forcefully while her trembling hands fumbled with the zipper of her flightsuit.

He knew this was a mistake. Even as her hands found their way into his own flightsuit he knew he was doing something he would soon regret. But … he didn't care.

EARLY EVENING WATCH CRAWLED by for Jelena. She stared out the window at the fading light, pensive and anxious. Everyone had turned in for the night, each of them retreating back to the comfort of the partitioned sleeping areas they'd created. When she first came onto the flightdeck to start her shift, she'd startled Nigel as he'd been poking around in a panel near the rear bulkhead. The engineer's face had been flushed and he looked guilty of something when she'd surprised him.

She quickly dismissed Nigel's squirrely behavior and slumped into the pilot seat, dejected. Dejected and angry with herself for her petty worries given how serious their situation was. They would likely die in this valley—soon—and all she could think of were the noises she'd heard coming from Rebecca's sleeping area when she'd come back into the ship. She knew exactly what it meant: Markus had decided to find the embrace of familiarity with that shrew rather than take Jelena up on her implicit offer. She couldn't have made it more obvious what she was asking for if she’d tried … at least not if she wanted to retain any self-respect.

The sudden punch in the gut of hearing them rutting like a couple of alley cats had been bad, but she was angry because she let it get to her so profoundly. When the hell did she care one way or another about some man? She enjoyed their company when she wanted it and never let herself become bogged down in the tedium of a relationship. So why stare out the window like a lovesick teenager over Markus Brentwood of all damn people. He wasn't bad looking, but he certainly wasn't the most intelligent, or even the most interesting man she'd ever pursued. Hell, the fact he was in the military should have been strikes one, two, and three against him in her book. Maybe it was just because—

CRACK!

JELENA SLUMPED over in the seat, her body rolling over as if she had been an automaton that somebody pulled the plug on. Blood flowed freely from the split in her scalp, Nigel Vanbroke standing behind her with the same dead-blow hammer he'd used to get the floor hatch to release.

"Damnit, Nigel!" Rebecca hissed from the hatchway. "You weren't supposed to kill her!"

"Just get down to the hold."

Nigel turned and glared at the scientist before going to one of the terminals on the flightdeck and entering a series of commands that he'd set up earlier. He looked over and saw that Jelly's chest was still rising and falling regularly and her eyes fluttered under the closed lids. He'd knocked the shit out of her, but she wasn't dead. This actually worked out in his favor though it hadn't been part of his original plan. Jelena would be concussed and not of much use for some time even after she was discovered. By the time Markus realized what they were up to, it'd be too late.

"You killed her?" Xavier asked when Nigel slipped down the ladder into the hold.

"I didn't kill her. But so what if I did? You realize that by taking these actions we're condemning the others to die, right?"

"Let's go," Rebecca said. "And keep it quiet."

She moved quickly to retrieve a bag from behind one of the cargo containers while Nigel and Xavier worked the outer hatch. The locking mechanism gave with a muted pop and the hatch swung open silently. Thanks to Nigel disabling the circuits earlier in the day, the hatch opening didn't trigger an audible chime like it normally would.

After resealing the hatch, Nigel took a moment to look around the moonlit valley. What they were planning was unbelievably risky, but they didn't have any alternative if they wanted to be the ones who left the planet when Mars sent their ship to pick them up. Markus thought he was so smart keeping the Kepler lander's status report locked down with his command codes, and then the idiot wandered off without logging out of the terminal in the SOC. If he hadn't been bored and snooped through Markus's personal files, he'd have never found out that the mission commander had been hiding critical information. Fuck him. He had never liked the arrogant bastard anyway.

"Let's go," Rebecca said, leading the way across the tall grass. They'd set up landmarks during the day that they'd be able to recognize to get them to their first waypoint, a small nook that had been eroded by storm runoff where they could wait the night out. The trick was to be away from the ship and out of sight but not to go bumbling around in the dark, potentially running into predators or the other humans in the area. Nigel still had his hammer, but he knew it would be useless against even one of the brutes he'd seen fighting in front of the ship.

"Are … are we sure this is the best way to do this?" Xavier asked. He was peering fearfully into the night and had stopped at the halfway point.

"We're committed." Nigel shoved him in the back. "I don't think anyone is going to believe I hit Jelly in the head with a hammer by accident, and the little surprise I arranged can't be easily stopped. There's nothing to go back to."

WHEN MARKUS AWOKE, he couldn't immediately figure out what was wrong. He rolled over and listened, the space in the crew compartment far too dark. "Shit!" He felt his way over to the hatchway and his fears were confirmed: The main power had failed. The displays were all dark as were all the walkway lights they kept on at night. The air handlers going quiet were likely what had caused him to stir.

"Jelly! What's happening?"

He didn't get a response from his flight surgeon. His instincts were now screaming that something was very wrong. After fumbling around in his pockets, he finally found the small flashlight he'd been carrying, giving the pistol in his side pocket a pat for reassurance before flicking it on. He played the light over the flightdeck and almost missed the woman slumped in the pilot seat as she was sitting so perfectly still.

"Oh, no!"

Markus put the light between his teeth and quickly went about checking his friend's vital signs. Her breathing was steady and her pulse was strong, so he relaxed just a bit as he began a more detailed examination. The wound on her head had already stopped bleeding on its own and looked like a pressure cut. What the hell could she have hit her head on while sitting in the seat?

He looked around for blood on one of the station fixtures or the seat itself and found nothing. After looking at the wound again, trying to see past all the dried, matted blood in her hair, he could see it was an almost perfect half-circle about two and a half inches across. That still didn't tell him what could have caused the injury, so he put it into the back of his mind as he probed gently to try and determine the severity. Like most scalp injuries, this one had bled like a son of a bitch, but it looked like the damage hadn't gone much past the upper dermal layers. He didn't see any exposed subcutaneous tissue, which indicated the wound was caused by a glancing strike rather than something piercing and sharp.

"Jelly, can you hear me? Jelly!"

"Whaaa…"

"Easy. Don't move." Markus put his hand over hers and moved around so he could shine the light on her face. "You took a nasty hit to the head. Can you remember how that happened?"

"Whaa," she repeated thickly. "I … I don't remember. What happened? It's so dark."

"The power is down and it's still night." Markus shined the light back on himself. "Do you recognize me?"

"Y-yes, Mark … I bumped my head, I didn't have a lobotomy."

The relief that flooded through Markus was almost a physical sensation when he heard her joking despite the pain she was obviously in. Now that Jelena looked like she was coming around, Markus stood up and went to an access panel marked "EMERGENCY ACCESS ONLY" in bold, red letters and popped off the soft safety wire securing the latches.

Inside were a series of mechanical switches that were never used during normal flight operations when Daedalus had been whole. These would allow him to switch the power bus to battery backup in the command section while he tried to figure out what had happened to the fuel cells. The batteries wouldn’t allow him to power up all their systems, but he should at least be able to boot up the diagnostic system.

Markus pulled down the lever for the main load contactor and held it while pressing the button that would energize the coil to hold it in place. It was similar to a basic electrical relay except that the coil couldn't engage the contacts, the armature had to be manually engaged and then the coil would hold it in place. There were some pops and bangs down in the avionics bay and a moment later the faint red glow of the emergency lighting came back up and one of the flightdeck displays flickered on.

"What's going on? Holy shit! Are you okay, Jelly?" Miriam Vega's voice made Markus jump as he hadn't heard her slink onto the flightdeck.

"She's been injured and we lost backup power," he said. "I'm booting up the test and reporting subsystem on batteries to try and figure out what's going on. Could you do me a favor and get Nigel up here?"

"That's why I'm up here … he's gone," Miriam said. "So are Rebecca and Xavier. I just went through the entire cargo hold and crew compartment. They're nowhere to be found."

"Did they go up top?"

"All the hatches are closed, but the cargo hold was unlocked," Miriam said.

A cold chill went through Markus. Jelena had been injured on watch—knocked clean the hell out—at the same time the power failed and the three crewmembers that had been huddled together the last two days disappeared. This was not a coincidence and he was no fool; they were going to try and get to the Kepler lander before the rest of them … but why? There were more than enough pods to take all six of them to orbit and the Martian ship wouldn't reach them for at least another week at last count.

"They fucked us, didn't they?"

Markus ignored Miriam, glancing over his shoulder to make sure she was helping Jelena, and continued scrolling through the status log. The ship recorded everything that happened. Most of the log was endless mundane entries about normal system operations, but he could apply a filter and look through all the unusual or flagged entries. There were still a ton of them so he also applied a filter to focus on the power system, both generation and distribution.

There!

Plain as the nose on his face, there was an entry where override authorization had to be used to execute a command script. The authorization codes were Nigel's. It was a timed event that would purge the fuel cells, venting the reactants and rendering them inert. This meant that not only did they no longer have the backup power ran the command section's essential systems, they had no way to reverse what Nigel had done.

"Yeah … they fucked us," he said finally. "Nigel purged the fuel cells. There's no way to fix that. Battery power is at ninety-seven percent so that's something at least. It isn't much, but we'll be able to keep the lights on the rest of the night and fire up the com system."

"What good will that—ah! Mars."

"Yeah, we'll need to get a message to Ellek and let him know that contact will be broken for a bit but we're still working to get ourselves to orbit and meet their ship," Markus said. He didn't mention to Miriam that he'd suspected that either Nigel or Xavier might pull some crazy stunt like this once food supplies began to dwindle so he had taken some steps to ensure the damage was minimized.

"What do you think Jelly hit her head on?"

"I can't remember," Jelena said, her voice stronger and steadier than it had been a few minutes ago.

"She didn't hit it on anything," Markus said. "Nigel hit her with something, probably that hammer he's been carrying around judging by the shape of the cut. They couldn't leave anyone conscious on watch that would see them escaping on the cameras and raise the alarm." What he didn't mention was that Jelly was lucky Nigel had used the dead-blow hammer, a plastic tool filled with metal shot, rather than a steel hammer that could have caved her skull in. So did that mean Nigel was actually trying to incapacitate her … or had he meant to kill her?

"The son of a bitch!" Miriam swore. "There was enough food and water on the lander for all of us to live for weeks not to mention we'd have better odds reaching it as a larger group. Why do this?"

"I don't know, but I feel like we're missing something," Markus said. "You stay with her. I'm going down to get a message out to Mars and see if I can figure out why half the crew lost their damn minds."

"THEY KNOW," Nigel whispered. He was huddled under an emergency blanket to hide the light from his tablet. It was connected to one of the portable, short-range radios that were in the meager survival supplies. The small, underpowered unit could work in tandem with the tablet and allow them to home in on the lander's beacon signal. The kits also had GPS units, but without the satellite system still being aloft they weren't much of a help. It was too bad the geniuses that put the kits together hadn't included a simple compass. Or had the GPS units also had built in compasses? Nigel mentally kicked himself for not checking.

"How can you be sure?" Rebecca asked.

"The com system on Daedalus just came up on the screen. For that to happen, Mark would have had to switch over to battery power and then fire up the boxes individually."

"You said you'd killed all the power!"

"Your whining is going to get very old, very quickly." Nigel glared in Xavier’s direction. "I killed the fuel cells. The emergency batteries are not so easily taken out. I would have definitely been caught trying to fuck with those if I could even get to them. Doesn't matter … they don't have enough capacity to keep things running for long. They'll be out of power by the time we get a move on in the morning."

"The sooner the—" A piercing howl cut Rebecca off. Nigel froze under the blanket like a prey animal, not even daring to breath. That had been close, and he wasn't entirely certain it had been an animal. When he was able, he reached up and flicked the tablet's display off. The carbon nanotube batteries in both it and the radio would keep them powered up for months continuously, but the light from either unit could attract things in the night they were desperately trying to avoid.

He pulled off the blanket, afraid that the rattling sound it made from his trembling would carry off into the night. Now that they were actually hiding in the blackness of the woods, unarmed, instead of just talking about it while sitting in the safety of the ship, Nigel began having serious second thoughts about their course of action.

"It's too late," he whispered. "No going back."

"Shh!"

15

Planetside, Earth

Day: 8

"THEY TOOK most of the food we had left, all the water, and some equipment was missing from a crate that didn't have a packing list."

"NIGEL PROBABLY TOOK that as well to make sure we wouldn't know exactly what he had," Markus said. "Clever, but I already know what he probably grabbed. One of the portable hand radios would be able to receive the lander's beacon. If I know that, he knows that."

"Does this help us?" Miriam asked. The sun had risen and the two of them had been trying to piece together exactly what the other three had done last night other than almost kill Jelena.

"It might," Markus said. "I found one message on the server that had been deleted from the com buffer from Mars; there was also a record of one being transmitted, but I can't find anything of it other than the transmit timestamp. I have a feeling they made their own arrangements with Ellek, maybe even claimed we were dead, and then erased their tracks."

"The archives from Earth … the data we were carrying in our computers," Miriam guessed.

"Right," Markus nodded. "It was our one big bargaining chip to make sure a colony of evolved humans living on Mars could be convinced to fire up a space ship and bring it all the way to Earth to recover seven people. The case they were in is missing." He turned and gave her a tight smile as he said that.

"Why are you smiling about that? Unless—"

"I swapped them out with blanks," Markus said. "The real copies are hidden still. It was something I did on a whim after catching Nigel in the SOC with a guilty look on his face. The pair they have will pass a quick visual inspection, but if they run a status check they'll see they're unformatted, empty cores."

"That's why he killed the power too," Miriam said. "We won't have enough time on batteries to try and re-transfer the entire archive again."

"Right again," Markus said. "They also didn't make off with all the food and equipment. I moved some into the empty crates and stacked them near the back of the hold where we've been putting the rest of the garbage."

"We should—" A fit of retching from the flightdeck cut Miriam off. She flew up the ladder out of the SOC without another word to check on Jelena. The flight surgeon claimed she was okay, but she was showing symptoms of a traumatic brain injury including severe nausea and vertigo.

Markus paused and listened to the sounds with growing concern. They'd need to be mobile within the next few hours. Could Jelena made the trip all the way to the lander? He supposed it was a pointless question. If she couldn't, then what? Leaving her behind was an automatic death sentence and not a quick, painless one at that. No, he'd have to figure something out. Maybe a drag-litter or something to move her along.

He shook his head to clear away the extraneous fluff from his thoughts and got back to the task at hand. They had a lot to do and not a lot of time to get it done in. Come hell or high water, they needed to be on foot and traveling within the day to make sure the others didn't get too far ahead. Whoever made it to the lander first would control the lion's share of resources the twenty-first century humans on the planet needed to survive.

"Speaking of," he muttered, turning and powering up another terminal. It would burn up more of their precious battery power, but he needed to see if there was anything he could do while the transmitters still operated to give them an advantage.

"IT'S NOT SO bad in the daytime, and holy shit these trees are huge," Xavier remarked. "This is like a weird version of the Sequoia National Forest."

"You realize there are still things that hunt during the day, right?" Nigel asked.

"So?"

"So shut the fuck up!"

Rebecca remained silent, walking between the pair as the column moved slowly through the woods. They were up at first light and were traveling along well-used game trails, hoping that they weren't looked upon as prey like the deer that also used them, and tried to keep to at least the general direction of the lander.

In a turn that surprised even her, she felt no guilt or remorse leaving the others behind. Jelena's continued wanton advances towards Markus had grated on her nerves the entire mission and Miriam, the obvious object of his obsession, did the same to a lesser degree. It was what may have led to an impulsive and ultimately regretful decision on her part to have a fling with Xavier West, a man that was the antithesis of her ex-husband. She had no desire to rekindle her connection with Markus Brentwood; the man had the personality of a tree stump and she'd closed that door long ago, but just because you were done with an old toy didn't mean you wanted others playing with it.

She didn't even have much regret that Nigel had probably killed Jelena with that hammer he still had on him. It probably didn't say much about her as a person, but the thought tugged the corner of her mouth up a bit, thinking of the younger, smarter, more accomplished woman finally having something go wrong … even if it was a likely fatal blow to the head from someone she considered a friend.

It wasn't that Rebecca Palmer was a sociopath in the strictest sense of the term, but she did have the ability to compartmentalize her emotions as a survival response when needed. She'd been one of nine foster children in an abusive home the authorities had dubbed a "welfare farm" when they'd finally come and pulled them all out. As an awkward, terrified preteen she'd not had the ability to fight back like her older siblings. When her foster father would stumble into her shared room on Fridays, stinking of cheap whiskey and leering at her while she slept, her instinct had been to freeze and wait for him to leave. Unfortunately, the tactic just emboldened him and before long the looks evolved into light touching, and from there into a nightmare that she still woke up crying from at times.

But from all that she'd learned to be a survivor, and that's what she'd be this time too. If only a few people could make it off the planet alive, she intended to make sure she was one of them. Morality didn't even enter the picture.

"We're going to need to start moving westerly soon," Nigel said softly, holding up his hand to stop them. "We can keep north for now since this trail makes for good time, but I don't want to get too far off on a dog leg … let's try to keep a direct line as much as possible."

"Wouldn't it be quicker to go north, then west on established trails rather than hacking through the bushes to make it a straight shot?" Xavier asked.

"There's no guarantee there is a trail up ahead that goes west," Rebecca said. She cut off Nigel before he could lay into Xavier again for making yet another stupid comment. She agreed with him on that point; the comments were annoying. For now, though, it was better if the three of them tried to at least pretend to get along. The whole thing almost felt like nothing more than an easy stroll through the woods, but that wasn't going to last. Shit, poor Jordan had just been walking around in the field near the ship and a damn tiger had ripped his chest open. Then there were the other humans in the area that seemed to be hostile to consider as well.

Nigel just grunted at her comment before looking away. He checked his tablet again, turning a few times with the radio in his other hand, and then waved for them to keep moving on in the direction they were going. He'd told her the method of pinpointing the lander wasn't as precise as he'd like, but it was damn sure better than trying to navigate with nothing but the sun to go by.

They'd only made it another half a kilometer or so before the tablet began beeping an alarm. Nigel quickly silenced it and began poking through screens, his expression darkening and his motions more frantic with each passing second. Soon he had the radio out too, cycling power off and on while waving it around in the air.

"Shit, shit, SHIT!"

"What?" Rebecca hissed. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything, you idiot!" Nigel threw the radio down and looked like he was about to launch the tablet into the trees before Xavier stepped up and grabbed it. "Mark was a little quicker than I thought he'd be."

"Speak plainly, you fool!"

"He shut the beacon down on the lander remotely," Nigel said. He bent over and picked up the radio, checking that it still worked before putting it in his pocket. "His command codes are all-access. I can log in and read certain statuses, he can go in and reconfigure things. I figured by the time he realized exactly what was happening they'd already be out of battery power."

"I warned you not to underestimate him," Rebecca said. "He may look like an accountant, but the man didn't get to where he was by being a slouch. Now what do we do?"

"Sounds like you're still carrying a torch for that—"

"Not now," Rebecca sighed. "Just … not now. Well, Nigel?"

"Short of going all the way back and forcing Mark to reactivate the beacon there's not a lot I can do." Nigel shrugged helplessly. "I have the general location and direction saved on this tablet, but I was counting on the marker resolution improving as we got closer."

"Risks?"

"These woods are dense. We could pass within fifty meters of the damn thing and not see it."

"Bullshit," Xavier scoffed, handing the tablet back. "The retro-thrust landing system on that bastard would clear the trees out for a quarter of a kilometer in all directions. We just need to get close and it'll be obvious."

"Maybe." Nigel sounded unconvinced. "Either way, it's not like we have a lot of choices. We have about four hours left before we need to be looking for a place to hunker down for the night."

"Then let's stop jawing and start walking," Rebecca said. "Move it!"

"THAT MIGHT SLOW THEM DOWN," Markus said. "Good thinking using the orbital data we took before the crash."

"Looking at the access logs, I can say with certainty that this wasn't the approach they used," Miriam said. "We might have an advantage."

"We're falling further behind, though," Markus sighed. "It's too late to try and head out today. We'll let Jelly rest up one more night, prep our gear, and then head out at first light."

At Miriam's suggestion, they'd booted the servers long enough to access the detailed orbital data Daedalus had collected of Earth before they'd been attacked by ancient military ordnance. It only took her a few moments to identify the valley where they'd landed and then, using the command section's much better com suite, had pinpointed where the lander had touched down. It was then a matter of plotting a detailed route that avoided a host of natural obstacles and loading it onto another tablet. After that they could try to navigate by landmarks; if they set Daedalus as their starting point in the morning and recognized the markers on the map, it should keep them well on course.

After that, and still assuming that Nigel was using his handheld radio to track the lander's beacon, Markus had used his command codes to access the other ship and shut the transmitter down. He also changed the access codes for the main hatches before downloading another full status report and shutting down Daedalus's radio. He wanted to conserve power for the next burst transmission to Mars.

"It looks like Kepler is still fully powered and functional," Markus said. He was reading off the eleven-page status report while Miriam worked on the text he'd read for the next transmission to Mars. "The power system on that ship is far more robust than the emergency cells we have on—oh! Oh, shit! I must not have scrolled down far enough the last time I looked at this. Damn! This isn't good."

"What?"

"According to Kepler's computer, only one of the ascension pods is fully functional. Maybe two since one of them isn't reading as down, it just isn't polling at all." Markus leaned back and ran a hand through his thinning hair, blowing out a breath. "I don't know how, but Nigel must have gotten a hold of this report. That's why they bolted: Only four people are making it off this planet, and that's a best case scenario. It may be only two."

"How could he have accessed it? Did you log into a terminal with your command codes and leave it?"

"I don't think so, but how else would he have discovered this?" Markus asked. "Maybe the crash reset some of the authorizations … half our avionics burned up on reentry. He must've found a work-around."

"No sense in worrying about that now." Miriam dismissed the issue with a wave. "Here's what I think the next transmission to Mars should be … I'm trying to downplay the fact that we're now two groups and that we've already resorted to violence. Let's just emphasize that some members of the crew decided to try their own luck in the wilderness but that we're heading to the lander and that we have the valid data cores with the archives."

"Good thinking." Markus nodded with approval. "If we start with a bunch of whining, telling Ellek that we're beating each other near to death with hammers and that one group is trying to leave the other stranded, they may be inclined to recall their ship and let nature take its course. I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for importing that sort of potentially violent group into my colony."

"They probably look at us as unevolved barbarians already anyway," Miriam said. "But let's not give them any sort of obvious reason to leave us here."

"If you want to check again on Jelly, I'll get the transmission queued up and then we can go through the supplies one more time before getting some sleep," Markus said. "It's going to be some long, shitty days coming up, I think."

"Will their radio be able to pick up the transmission to Mars?" Miriam asked as she was halfway up the ladder.

"If Nigel is scanning that frequency—and he probably is—then maybe," Markus said. "We're using a directional antenna to try and maximize what little wattage we have to get the signal out, but there will be some leakage from the source, and even a frequency as high as we're using will have a little bounce-back off the ionosphere. Best guess? They'll likely be able to pick it up but it'll be garbled, hopefully unintelligible."

"Lots and lots of 'maybes' and 'hopefullys' in this plan of ours, isn't there?"

"Can’t do much about it at this point," Markus said. "They got the jump on us good. The best we can hope for is that our more careful planning gives us the edge."

"There's something else." Miriam came back down the ladder and stood in front of him, wrapping her arms around herself. "I know that they're trying to sentence us to death by what they did, but this may have been a knee-jerk reaction if Nigel did actually see that status report on the lander. He could assume you were hiding the information from him since the idea to use the ascension pods was originally yours. By trying to beat them to the punch, we're openly admitting that we're willing to kill them instead."

"You think I should get on the radio and reach out to them? Try and fix this?"

"No." Miriam looked away. "It's too late. Everybody knows that we can't all leave the surface and I doubt anybody will volunteer to stay. They made their choice when one of them almost killed Jelly and Nigel sabotaged the ship. I just felt obligated to point it out, that's all."

"I've regretted most of what's happened on this mission right after we crossed Saturn's orbit and didn't make an immediate course change for a Mars intercept," Markus said. "I don't like the binary choice we have of killing others if we want to survive any more than you likely do, but I also don't want to be killed so others can survive … at least not that trio."

Miriam surprised him by walking up and wrapping her arms around his neck, kissing him full on the lips in a way that was so much more than a friendly peck. He reached up to pull her closer but she pushed away with a regretful look. "I have to go check on Jelly."

Markus could only shake his head when she was gone. In his own clumsy way he'd thought his interest in her was clear, but she still kept herself just out of reach, this time literally. If not now, then when? The chances of any of them making it to the lander were slim. Factor in the odds of the lander ascension system working properly and Mars having sent a ship that would actually be able to recover them and it was a bleak outlook for them all. He sighed again and turned back to his work, just as confused about how he stood with Miriam Vega as he was when she'd rebuffed his advances back before the Polaris Project launched.

"THERE! Hold it there! Don't move a muscle."

"… reaching out … last time before … on time." Markus Brentwood's static-filled voice finally cleared up as Xavier West braced against a tree, holding the handheld radio at a specific angle to pick up the weak signal.

"There have been some developments on the surface that you'll need to be aware of. Half of our remaining party has decided that they would rather try their luck out in the wilderness than wait here, possibly not confident that you'll keep your word and fly a ship here to recover us.

"The three remaining members of my crew – myself, Dr. Miriam Vega, and Dr. Jelena Burnette – will be making our way to the Kepler lander tomorrow as planned. We have the data cores in our possession with the archives you've requested. This is a complete record of our mission to Angel-21 as well as the entire contents of the U.S. Library of Congress up to 2067. Once we reach the lander and have use of its more powerful transmitters, I will contact you to verify our safe arrival. Wish us luck … Daedalus out."

"What the fuck is he talking about? You have the data cores!" Rebecca said. The trio had found a dense pile of brush that had been deposited by a flood along a now-dry creek bed to make camp. They still didn't want to risk lighting a fire for warmth against the night's chill, but the brush was thick enough to completely conceal them and make it impossible for anything bigger than a mouse to sneak up on them.

"I do … right here." Nigel hefted the case he'd been carrying.

"Check inside."

"I did before we left," Nigel huffed. He eventually capitulated under her withering glare. "Fine!" He popped the latches and showed her the two cores sitting snuggly in the case he'd found for them, shining the tablet's light so that she could see.

"So it was a trick?" Xavier asked. "Call Mars and tell them that asshole is lying."

"Call Mars … with a handheld, short-range radio?" Nigel deadpanned. "I still can't fathom how you were a 'tech billionaire' given some of the stupid shit that comes out of your mouth on a near constant basis."

"Fuck off," Xavier snapped. "I was a programmer, not some broke-ass aerospace engineer. Why can't you—" He was cut off by the radio coming back to life, static hissing for a few moments before Markus's voice came through loud and clear.

"How're you guys doing out there?" he asked. "Don't worry, Mars can't hear this … I switched over to a UHF channel. You're probably out of range for me to hear you so I guess I'll do all the talking. I'm not sure why you three decided this was a good idea, but I hope whichever one of you almost killed Jelly with a hammer gets eaten by something. I'm guessing it was you, Nigel. While you're patting yourself on the back for the stunt with the fuel cells, you might want to look at which data cores you grabbed in your hasty escape.

"And my lovely ex-wife … kudos to you for really selling it with that distraction. I have no doubt as to when Nigel had the chance to get on the flightdeck and sabotage the ship. While we're being honest, I found the report that shows only one or two ascension pods functional … I guess I have you to thank for making me dig into it a little deeper.

"As for Xavier West, the man who flew to another planet so he could come back richer and famouser … well, what can I say? I don't think there's anybody on this planet that gives a shit if you live or die. Have fun camping outside … you might want to get used to it."

When the channel closed with a double-beep, Nigel grabbed the case again and pulled one of the cores out, pressing the diagnostic button twice.

CORE NOT FORMATTED

"NO!" he gasped. "That son of a bitch!"

"Blanks?" Rebecca asked, sounding resigned about the whole thing.

"This means he had to have made the swap way before we even planned to leave." Nigel threw the core against the brush before standing and kicking the case into the creek bed.

"So he planned to screw us all along," Rebecca said. "I didn't think he had it in him."

"Pretty sure you were the only one he—"

"We're still in this," Rebecca cut off yet another obscene comment about her … distraction … while thinking hard about how to recover from this setback. "We're still ahead of them and on track to get to the lander before them."

"So we intercept them and then what? Kill them?" Xavier asked.

"Now's not the time to get squeamish … we killed them the minute we decided to leave them on this planet," Rebecca said. "Now we just have to do it a little more quickly. Jelly is badly hurt and Miriam can't be much of a fighter. You two jump Markus and grab the cores, we get the lander up and running, and we're heading to Mars before anybody up there finds out what happened."

"Mark has already poisoned the well," Nigel pointed out. "If we're there and he's not—" He left it hanging that Ellek would likely know what they'd done.

"As long as they get their archive I doubt they really care about who delivers it," Rebecca said. "Think about it … this is simply an expensive data mining expedition for them. A handful of people from almost a millennia ago are an intellectual curiosity but hardly worth the trouble they're going through."

"Okay," Xavier said. "It's a workable plan."

"Nobody said this was going to be a cake walk, boys." Rebecca leaned back against a dry log. "By the time this is all over, beating Mark to death for those data cores may be the easiest part of this trip."

"I PROBABLY SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE that," Markus said to himself. He began shutting down all the non-essential systems so they'd have just enough battery power left the next day to send out one more automated message to Mars.

Transmitting the admittedly childish broadcast to the three mutineers had felt good at the time, but now that he thought about it all he’d done was tip his hand. They now knew that they had fake data cores and that they were in a race to the lander. More than anything, he just wanted to take one last shot at Rebecca since it wasn't likely they'd ever see each other again.

The fact he'd allowed himself to be so easily manipulated by her still galled him. He should have known immediately that she was up to something as soon as she pulled out the damsel in distress routine. It had been one of her go-to tactics in their marriage and he fell for it every time. Every. Damn. Time.

He shoved his disgust and self-loathing down and climbed up out of the SOC. After checking on Jelena one more time, he'd try to get as much sleep as he could before they set off in the morning. As he made his way back into the crew compartment, he idly wondered what had happened to the wild humans—as he'd come to think of them—that had been around the ship so much when they first landed. He hadn't even seen so much as a footprint the last few days, a far cry from the skull totems and dead animals that had greeted their arrival.

"Maybe they're nomadic and already cleared the area," he grumbled.

"What's that?" Miriam asked from her makeshift bed.

"Nothing, just talking to myself. Goodnight, Miriam."

"Night, champ."

16

Planetside, Earth

Day: 9

"HOW DO YOU FEEL?"

"I SHOULDN'T HOLD us up too much," Jelena said. Despite her insistence to the contrary, she wasn't looking any better after a couple days of rest than she had when they'd found her, save for her wound being stitched closed. She was pale, sweaty, and would occasionally shake uncontrollably. She still had bouts of nausea and her lack of appetite concerned Markus; she would need to get some calories in her if she expected to make the long hike.

"You're setting the pace starting out," he said. "We have an advantage by knowing the best route and having a better map, so no need to push yourself too far too early."

"Let's just get moving while I still have some wind," Jelena said.

After a short debate, they decided to close the ship back up and lock it. There was little point in letting the locals have their way with it even if they didn't plan on ever returning; the three of them were all aware that this trek was all or nothing. If they failed to reach the lander first, or at all, there would be no second chance for rescue.

One advantage their team had was that they hadn't planned and executed their trip in haste, under a cloak of secrecy. Markus and Miriam had carefully laid out all of their supplies and thoughtfully put together three packs based on his military survival training and her knowledge of the area based on their orbital data. He'd also been able to fashion three walking sticks out of heavy-walled titanium alloy tubing. They'd originally been part of the structural spars for the forward radome that housed the anti-collision radar; now they were wonderfully lightweight supports that would double as a weapon when needed thanks to one end flattening out to a point.

The last thing Markus had done before they gathered outside the hatch was to make his crewmates aware of the semi-automatic pistol he now carried in his hip pocket. He made sure they knew the basic principles of its operation as well as some general marksmanship practices as neither of them had ever fired a gun. Given his limited ammunition, he hadn't been able to do a practical demonstration, but he felt marginally better that if he were incapacitated or killed one of them would be able to use it for defense.

"I suppose now would be as good a time as any to ask about the pistol you're carrying," Miriam said as they set off across the valley. "I don't remember that being part of our basic equipment issue."

"Captain's secret," Markus said with a wink. "I smuggled it up in pieces along with the special ammunition that wouldn't punch a hole in the ship or go through a bulkhead and take out critical components. After that, it was just a matter of finding a good hiding spot that wouldn't interfere with ship operations and still be overlooked by the final inspectors. As you remember, they went through our personal gear and the ship itself multiple times looking for contraband."

"They were mostly worried about narcotics, but yes, I remember," Miriam said. "And while that answers the how, not so much the why."

Markus took a moment before answering. "We had a lot of data on long-duration missions before Polaris," he began. "Hell, there were missions within the Solar System that were longer than ours if you only count the time we were actually awake. The psychologists and behavioral scientists attached to the project assured me that everything they'd learned from those earlier manned missions indicated our hand-picked crew would be fine as well."

"But?"

"But I had my doubts. Sure, we'd seen some—how're you doing, Jelly?"

"I'm fine," she puffed. "Just getting into a groove."

"Where was I? Oh … so we'd had some extreme duration flights on orbital stations and even ships that had navigated around in the outer Solar System, but I was afraid that there would be something … unsettling … about waking up that first time and being beyond all hope of rescue, drifting in deep space without even being able to see the Sun or Earth anymore. I just wanted to be prepared for any eventuality up to and including a mutiny where people changed their mind and tried to take the ship by force to turn back."

"I can't find any real fault with your reasoning," Miriam said. "I'm not a particular fan of the things myself, but nor do I have an irrational fear of them. In hindsight I would say your measures have paid off as half the crew has turned hostile and we're the only ones reasonably armed."

Markus opened his mouth to refute her assertion but fell silent. One of the reasons he wanted to get to the lander first was that he was afraid there might be defensive weapons among the equipment packed onto the Kepler lander that the other group would be able to turn on them. Even if there weren't, Nigel would almost certainly be able to rig something up that would nullify the advantage of his underpowered sidearm.

He'd found the idea of the Kepler lander itself to be completely absurd. Of the two planets they'd planned to orbit in the Angel-21 system, only one had seemed likely to harbor complex life by what they could tell from remote observation. The danger of landing on the surface to poke around, both for the explorers and the local life, seemed far too great to even contemplate risking, in his opinion. But West was the money man and in order to keep as much of his own money out of the project as possible, he'd had to do what he could to drum up public interest and investor cash.

West, in a display that Markus had found embarrassing for the entire program, had launched a media blitz that included animations of him being the first one to step off the lander and set foot on an exo-planet. For a year, Xavier was a regular staple on late night talk shows and the morning news broadcasts, selling the Polaris Project for all he was worth. The fruits of that labor were funds that not only covered much of the project's operational costs but also the Kepler lander. Everyone involved with the project knew that it was a ridiculous idea, but it was built and tested by the winning contractor, named by high school students after a nationwide contest, and slung up under Daedalus after much fanfare.

Absurd at the time? Maybe. But even Markus could appreciate the irony that the Kepler lander was now their only hope for survival, slim though it may be. He just hoped they were able to chip away at the other group’s lead. Nigel was a resourceful engineer; just changing the access codes to the outer hatch wouldn't keep him out for long. Markus said a quick prayer of thanks for the fact the Kepler design team had taken their job seriously and the ship had actually detached and followed the stricken Daedalus into the atmosphere like a loyal puppy.

"You think they're even still alive?" Miriam asked once they stopped at the edge of the woods to let Jelly catch her breath while they consulted one of their tablets.

"I hope not," Jelena said. When the others just looked at her, she pressed ahead. "Fuck 'em. That bastard hit me in the head with a damn hammer and I don't think he was trying to just knock me out. If we pass their shredded corpses you won't see me shed a tear."

"Fair enough," Markus said, holding up the tablet so they could all see it. "Here's our goal for the night. It's just over twelve kilometers away, so let's get at it."

The spot Miriam had found for their first nightly stop appeared to be part of a highway overpass that had survived even though the roadbed and bridge span itself were long gone. Multiple sweeps of the same spot from orbit showed vegetation to be sparse, and minimal animal activity had been detected nearby. Seemed almost too much to hope for on a planet where man no longer ruled supreme.

"WHAT NOW?"

"I still hear something behind us," Rebecca said.

"It's your imagination." Nigel was growing weary of her constant stops and paranoia. "Imagine how much further we'd be if you didn't lock up every three minutes. This is actually turning out to be much easier than I figured it'd be."

"Don't jinx us," Xavier panted as he stood upon a shallow rise on the game trail they'd been following, stretching and looking about. He turned just as there was a buzzing sound followed by a meaty thunk.

"What the fuck?!" Nigel shouted, pointing at Xavier.

"Ungh!" That was all Xavier could get out as he stared in shock at the wooden arrow shaft sticking out of his upper torso near the right shoulder. His eyes bulged from his head and he gaped like a fish out of water when another arrow, this one not buzzing like the first, imbedded itself in the tree by where Rebecca was standing.

"Run!" Nigel took a flare gun from his hip pocket and fired it into the trees towards the general direction the arrows had come from. The flare screeched through the woods at a deafening volume before it exploded in the treetops, showing lit phosphorus through the foliage. He had already been running after the other two when the flare had burst, so he never saw their attackers, but the terrified screams that followed left little doubt that a group of wild humans had found their trail and were tracking them … not that the arrow still sticking out of Xavier West left much room for doubt.

Xavier surprised Nigel and Rebecca by pouring on the speed and outrunning them both, sprinting blindly into the woods. Nigel swore and tried to catch him before the idiot blundered into another group of hunters or something worse. It wasn't long before the adrenaline surge began to wane and Xavier's stride began to falter. By the time Nigel caught up, the man was pale and sweating so profusely his flightsuit was soaked through.

"Stop, you idiot!" Nigel hissed, grabbing Xavier and instantly releasing him as he realized it was the injured shoulder he'd latched onto.

"Off the path, now!" Rebecca brushed by them and picked her way carefully up a hill. "Make sure he isn't bleeding all over and leaving a trail."

"It's not bleeding too bad yet," Nigel said, helping Xavier walk as the other man's legs seemed on the verge of giving out.

"W-w-we have to stop. Please!" Xavier struggled to get out.

"We can pause here for a moment, but we'll need to keep moving to put some distance on them," Rebecca said. Nigel said nothing as he reloaded the single-shot flare gun. He only had five flares left including the one he'd just loaded into the breach. It seemed to be an effective deterrent—for now—but four shots wouldn't last long considering how far they still had to travel.

"We can begin moving in a westerly direction through the woods," Nigel said, reasserting his authority on the small group. "If we're careful not to leave too much of a trail, maybe we can lose them."

"Why did they shoot me?" Xavier whimpered, appearing to be on the verge of breaking down and sobbing.

"Probably territorial," Rebecca said. Her voice was neutral, but she looked at the stricken man with undisguised contempt. Nigel shuddered, realizing just how ruthless his companion could really be; Xavier was someone she'd been in a relationship with and now that he looked to be a liability she appeared ready to cut him loose.

"The arrow went into the meat here before the shoulder joint," Nigel said, kneeling down and inspecting the shaft still sticking out of Xavier. "The tip could be stuck in the shoulder blade depending on what it was made out of and how sharp it was. Huh … looks like a fletching came loose when it was fired. That explains why this one buzzed and the other one they shot didn't."

"Fascinating," Rebecca deadpanned. "Should we take it out here? Or at least cut it down so he isn't bumping into things with it?"

"Here, drink some water, buddy," Nigel said to Xavier, handing him one of the bottles they'd taken from the dwindling supplies on the ship. "We'll need to do something about it here. It has to be removed and the wound disinfected before we close it up."

"Fine," she said. She'd almost looked like she was about to argue but then knelt down to examine the wound herself. "I'm obviously far more qualified to do this than you are, so keep a lookout and I'll try to get this arrow dislodged without killing him."

Nigel moved his head around erratically, trying to see all directions at once. The effort was counterproductive since all he saw was a blur of trees and he didn't even know what their attackers looked like to begin with. He looked down at his flare gun and shook his head; the weapon would only keep them at bay for so long. Once they figured out it was just a bunch of noise and light, they would ignore it and come at them again. Maybe they should have stuck with the others and at least moved as a larger group for the lander.

"The entry wound is interesting," Rebecca muttered. "There are three cuts radiating out from the puncture, equidistant from each other … the arrowhead used to make this wound isn't some chipped piece of rock; this looks like it was done with a razor."

"How interesting," Xavier grunted. "Pull the fucking thing out!"

"I don't know if I should—"

"PULL IT OUT!"

Rebecca paused for a second, then gripped the bloody shaft with both hands and wrenched upward for all she was worth. The arrow came out with a gut-clenching sucking sound that was quickly drowned out by the shrill scream that came from Xavier's lips. She threw the arrow aside and clamped a hand over his mouth.

"Shut the hell up! You want to get shot again!?"

While she tried to silence the writhing man, Nigel walked over and gingerly picked up the arrow, inspecting the head. Rebecca had been right. This was a tri-bladed nightmare that looked like it was built to cause maximum damage on the way in. What sort of sadistic asshole would even make something like this? He'd rather be shot with a gun.

A closer look told the trained engineer that while the head was well-made, it wasn't necessarily modern in the way that a steel razor blade would be. The metal used was dark and, aside from the sharp edges, rough and pitted. This wasn't a modern alloy, nor was it made by modern machinery. He was forced to reevaluate his assessment of the wild humans still living on Earth. They weren't mere savages throwing pointy sticks at each other; they were modern humans with all the brain power that entailed, and while they didn't have access to advanced manufacturing technology, they were still able to fashion effective, deadly weapons.

"Will he live?" Nigel asked. "More importantly, will he live and be able to keep up?"

"I think he's down for the rest of the day," Rebecca said. "The clotting agent appears to be working, but it's impossible to know how well I was able to clean it out with this shitty first aid kit you took. The instant-skin bandages are also not really ideal for this sort of wound, but they should hold."

"So we're stuck here for the night? It's not even midday yet!"

"What do you want to do, Nigel? Leave him?" When the engineer didn't answer right away, she pressed on. "Don't even think about it. We went along with your slimy plan because you convinced us that Mark was trying to screw us over. This could just as easily be you lying here. Would you want us to just leave you to die?"

"I'm the only one that can operate the lander," Nigel said with a shrug. "Leave me if you want, you'll all just die later. As for him … he's useless. He was an extra body if we needed to fight, but he took an arrow the second day out. I guess in that regard he did actually serve some purpose."

"We're staying," she said firmly. "Let's move him to that depression over there and settle in for the night. By morning we'll be able to determine if he's able to go on or not."

"So you mean—" Nigel left the question hanging.

"I'm a realist. If he can't go on, he can't go on. I'm not willing to die on this planet for him, but I'm willing to give it one more day. Knowing Mark, he's still sitting in a dark ship, convinced that we'll see the light and come back after his melodramatic radio broadcast."

Nigel didn't respond, but he wasn't convinced Markus Brentwood was the pushover Rebecca was trying to sell him as. He was straight-laced and boring as all hell, but there was steel in his backbone when it came time to do what he thought was right. No … he was on his way. He'd quickly figured out how Nigel planned to find the lander and had taken that away. The only advantage they'd really had, aside from a day’s head start, was that Markus wouldn't leave Jelena behind and Nigel had hit her hard enough he doubted she was up to one hundred percent yet. Looking down at Xavier taking quick, shallow breaths, he realized that advantage had just been nullified. Now was not the time to become sentimental and be held up when someone was injured this badly. It was just a matter of time before Xavier died from his wound. Why let it kill them as well?

"THIS ISN'T BAD."

"We won't be able to light a fire, but that's probably not a great idea anyway," Markus said. He eyed the ruins of what had at one time been a U.S. Interstate overpass. Unless one really knew what they were looking for, it appeared to be a steeply rising hill with a strange overhang. One had to look really closely to see the familiar shapes beneath centuries of erosion and growth, but it was there.

Markus drew his pistol and waved for his two crewmates to hold back and crouch down as he inspected the night's sleeping arrangements. The years had pitted the concrete of the abutment ramp so badly that he found the traction surprisingly good despite the lichens and low-crawling vegetation that obscured it. He moved quickly up under what was left of the roadbed and shone a light into the space between the ramp and the bottom of the expansion joint, checking for any signs of hostiles, animal or otherwise.

"We're good," he called down softly. "The concrete isn't too slick either."

He skipped back down to grab his pack and help Jelena make her way up the steep incline. She had shown a tremendous tenacity and courage in how she tackled their first travel day, but he could tell there wasn't anything left in the tank. She was still pale and shaky and once in a while one of her legs would buckle, twice sending her to the ground.

"There's some animal sign up here, but nothing that looks like larger predators or humans," Markus said as he eased Jelly down so she could prop herself up against the cool concrete at the rear of the ancient manmade cavern.

"With the street above sagging down and growing over with vines, it's probably too hidden if you don't know what you're looking for," Miriam agreed. "So you never did answer earlier; do you think that was a gunshot we heard? Could they have a weapon too?"

"Thinking it over, I'm pretty sure it had to be a flare," Markus said. "Nigel might have found a handheld flare gun and is using it to scare the locals away. That could mean they ran into trouble already … either way they're making a hell of a racket up ahead of us and we'll be veering off the path they took starting tomorrow morning."

"Maybe they'll draw attention to themselves and leave the path clear for us," Jelena said. "I hate to be a bother, but do we have any water?"

"Here you go," Miriam said, handing her the bottle she'd been drinking from. "Let's go ahead and break out rations while we still have some natural light. It's going to get very dark out here soon and I don't think turning on a flashlight to rummage around will be the best idea."

Markus moved to sit at the lip of the ledge they were camping on, listening to the forest as the others ate. He could have sworn he'd heard more than just their footsteps three different times throughout the day, but when he'd turned to look there had been nobody behind them. The vision of Jordan Korpal's shredded torso came unbidden to his mind and he shuddered. One small consolation was that if they were being stalked by something like a Bengal tiger, it wasn't likely they'd hear it before it was too late.

"I'll take first watch," Miriam said from just behind him. "It'll be a two-shift night for a couple days. I just don't think she's up to it."

"Agreed," Markus said. He handed her the pistol and the more powerful flashlight he'd been carrying before setting his watch to wake him by vibrating in five hours. "Let's hope it's a quiet night."

"Let's hope," Miriam repeated.

17

Planetside, Earth

Day: 10

MARKUS ALMOST DIDN'T SEE him.

HE'D BEEN LOOKING to his right, letting Miriam and Jelena get the last few minutes of sleep they could before he woke them, and when he turned his head back to the left there was something different. It was another two or three moments before he finally saw a pair of eyes looking back at him. The hair stood up on the back of his neck but he remained still, taking in details of the man he now saw standing among the trees. Neither of them moved, though Markus had no doubt the man below knew he'd been spotted.

With exaggerated slowness, the visitor moved out from among the trees and stood at the base of the ramp, raising one hand in the air in what appeared to be a greeting. Since Markus knew he'd been spotted long ago already, he returned the gesture. There was nothing overtly threatening about the man’s posture or gestures, so Markus risked moving out from under the protective cover and slowly descended the ramp.

"Hello," he said, his heart hammering in his chest. Now that he was closer, he could see that the individual was indeed male as he'd originally thought, but he only looked to be in his late teens rather than the adult Markus had assumed him to be.

"Chola," the boy said, dipping his head. The “ch” sound had been muted in the delivery so that it almost sounded like he was saying “cola.”

"I don't suppose there's any chance that you speak English?"

The boy gave him a tight-lipped smile but only shook his head in confusion. Before he could frame another question, the boy pointed at Markus and then at the sky, then made a fist and lowered it slowly into the open palm of his other hand. When Markus also shook his head, the boy repeated the gestures with an almost pleading look on his young face.

"Ah! Yes … yes, that was us," Markus nodded his head, finally understanding and mimicking the gestures. "That was us, way up in the sky, and we came down and landed."

The wild human's eyes went wide and his mouth gaped open just before he dropped to his knees, placing his forehead on the dirt. It took Markus a moment to realize the poor bastard was genuflecting to him and then it all became clear. "Ah, shit."

"Everything okay, Mark?"

"Yeah … we have a bit of a … situation," Markus said.

Before Miriam could inquire further, the sounds of something coming towards them through the brush reached their ears. The prostrate young man jerked his head up in alarm and then he climbed quickly to his feet, pointing back up to the overpass abutment and whispering quickly in a language that was both incomprehensible yet tantalizingly familiar.

"We need to hide?" Markus asked. His—friend?—just shook his head in confusion and began to lead Markus back up towards where Miriam was peeking out through the hanging foliage. He let himself be led back up the slope and into the darkness under the overhang as the boy artfully rearranged things so they weren't quite so obviously disturbed. He turned and placed a hand over his mouth and, using the other, palm down, indicated they should lay flat against the concrete.

As they lay there, Markus was able to take in the boy's clothing and the short, stout blade he carried. It wasn't steel, but it wasn't bronze or stone either, so the indigenous culture had some capability to work with hard metals. Had it been a relic from the modern world before they'd reworked it, or had they developed their own way of refining raw ores? His clothing was simple and rugged as one would expect, mostly leather, but there were also woven fabrics used in his ensemble. Markus was by no means an expert in anthropology, but he knew what he was seeing didn't mesh with a Middle-Paleolithic level of societal development as Miriam had hypothesized.

"GO wake Jelly up and make sure she stays quiet," he whispered to Miriam. There were now distinct voices coming from the group heading towards them, not overly loud, but they weren’t trying to be quiet either. This let Markus relax a bit; if they were being actively stalked, the hunters would certainly take more care to mask their approach. He saw that his companion had moved his short blade up in front of him as he peered over the edge, his face tense. Just to be ready, Markus pulled his pistol out and moved it up in front of him. The boy looked at it with fascination but said nothing.

It was nearly ten minutes later when the group broke from cover and Markus could get his first good look at them. Six individuals, all male, all heavily muscled and tall. He could also tell immediately that these were not likely from the same group as the boy next to him. Their attire was much more ominous-looking: all black and adorned with various pieces of metal and, disgustingly, animal bones. At least he hoped they were animal bones.

The one who appeared to be the leader paused, raising his head and sniffing around while the others waited. This one had red streaks painted down either side of his face and one that ran from his forehead down the bridge of his nose. While he took in all the details, Markus was fixated on one thing in particular: the man held a crucifix staff with skulls hanging from it, two of them obviously human and covered with the same strange symbols as the ones that had been left at the edge of their valley.

The tension in the air could be felt as plainly as the morning fog. Markus kept catching himself holding his breath as the leader of the party below looked at the ground and then up ahead at the trail they'd been traveling on the day before. After what seemed like an eternity, the fierce-looking man gave his companions a wave and they started off up the trail, now moving more cautiously and without a sound.

"Holy shit," Markus breathed. "That was tense." The boy also exhaled in relief and offered Markus a shy smile before dipping his head again towards the ground.

"What's that all about?" Miriam asked.

"From what I understand, he saw the command section land that night," Markus said. "It must have been impressive for them when it came drifting out of the night sky and the landing rockets fired. If I were to guess, I'd say we have a mild case of misplaced worship going on, but he doesn't seem to go so far as thinking we're gods or anything like that. How's Jelly?"

"Not getting any better," Jelena answered for herself, her speech slurred. Her eyes were unfocused and glassy, but the color had returned to her face and she wasn't struggling to breathe like she had been the previous day. A spark of hope blossomed in Markus until he caught Miriam's eye and she just shook her head sadly.

"Well you look better," he said, forcing a cheerful voice. "Let's go ahead and break out the morning rations and then we can hit the trail. But first, we'll need to see what to do with you and why you're here at all." He'd directed the last comment towards the newcomer, who had been sitting a respectful distance away while they'd been talking.

"Is he … coming with us?" Miriam asked, eyeing the stranger.

"We are leaving soon," Markus said to him, using his fingers to pantomime legs walking up his arm and then pointing in a northwesterly direction.

"Ho lo acompya," the boy said with a firm nod, as if everything had just been settled. Markus just stared at him for a moment before shrugging.

"I suppose if we start moving and he follows that means he's coming with us," he said.

"Then find out what to call him and let's get this shit show on the road." Miriam grunted under the strain of helping Jelly to her feet. The flight surgeon's legs trembled a moment before she was able to fully bear her own weight.

Markus waved his hand in front of the stranger to get his attention and then pointed at his own chest with both hands.

"Markus," he said, exaggerating both syllables, then pointed at the other's chest. Thankfully he was as bright as he appeared when Markus first met him.

"Mias," he said, pointing to himself and then back to Markus. "Mark-oos."

"Mias," Markus repeated. He nodded with a smile but didn't offer his hand or any other physical form of greeting. The last thing he wanted was a simple misunderstanding resulting in his guts being run through with Mais's short sword.

Before anyone could say otherwise, Mias grabbed their packs and began staging everything near the ledge and then moved to help Miriam with Jelly. Markus moved down onto the trail and listened for any indication that the hunting party—he could think of no other term for the group—was coming back their way.

"This is good," Jelena said. "The more I move around, the better I feel. I'll be able to keep up today."

"Of course you will," Miriam said, almost sounding like she meant it.

Markus consulted the tablet and paired the device to his handheld radio. He'd set up a command script aboard the ship that should forward any message from Mars to the tablet, but when he sent the “ready” command he received no reply. It could be that he'd incorrectly programmed the terminal or, more likely, that the batteries had run dead as he knew they might.

Discouraged, he put the radio away and brought back up the map they'd laid out to the lander. They'd need to cover thirteen kilometers today to get to their next camp and, judging by the guarded looks Miriam was giving him, that was going to be a real challenge for Jelena. That would be a hell of a hike even if one were healthy and well fed, and they were neither, especially her.

The trail they'd picked to follow was actually the remnants of the roadbed that their overpass belonged to. They had to climb up and around, but once they did it was clear that the trees were much sparser along what had once been a six-lane interstate highway. There was no direct evidence that the road had ever existed, of course. Nothing would have been left of the asphalt, guardrails, or signs after hundreds of years, but there was a discernible line that they could follow between the older growth trees on either side that hadn't had to wait for the road to dissolve before sprouting.

Mias seemed indifferent to their chosen route and was indeed looking like he intended to follow them. Before they'd departed he'd retrieved his own bag that had been hidden further off the trail, a strange contraption looking like it was made from a single coyote hide with the fur still attached. As they walked, Markus tried to study the young man without staring, utterly fascinated by the opportunity to interact with what humanity had become in their absence. Or at least one of the things they'd become, the willowy people on Mars being the other.

In addition to being much stronger and more heavily muscled than any of the Daedalus crew, Mias also appeared to be in very good health. His hair was glossy and full, eyes clear and alert. Even his teeth were square and white, unlike the body they'd found outside the ship after the midnight brawl. His bronze skin was of a hue that Markus thought could almost be Hispanic, but he dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. It was highly doubtful that after eight hundred years of additional evolution and adaptation the old ethnic groups still existed in a recognizable form. The man he'd been talking to on Mars looked almost alien to him, but they were still technically the same species.

"Do you think we should be trusting him, Mark?"

"I don't think we have much of a choice currently," Markus said. Even though Mias couldn't understand him, it was still strange to be talking about him out loud within earshot. "He did warn us of that other group and I'm inclined to agree with his instincts on that one; they didn't look like a crew we'd want to deal with in our current state. Beyond that, I'm not even sure how I would tell him to stop … he just showed up and is now walking in the same direction we are."

"It just seems a little too convenient," she said. "Keep it firmly in your mind that these people are not simple savages. Their brains are likely more evolved than our own even though they haven't recovered technologically, but they're going to have their own culture, politics, and intercommunal conflicts."

"That's really insulting, Miriam," Markus said. "I'm well aware that he isn't a trained circus animal that's just following along because I have something shiny in my hand. If I were to guess, I'd say he's trying to escape something, the same as we are."

"Then was that rough group looking for us … or him?" She dropped back to lend support to Jelena, leaving an indignant Markus alone to ponder what she'd said. He glanced at Mias, who dropped his gaze the instant Markus's eyes were on him. Maybe she had a point. A language barrier tended to make people try and interact with someone as if they were a child, speaking slowly and using gestures. Once they did that, it was easy to make the mistake that the person they were trying to communicate with was simple or slow of thought. What was Mias's motivation for following a group of strangers that he’d stumbled across in the woods?

"I think we're being followed," Miriam said, looking back over her shoulder. Markus had only partially turned when Mias stiffened next to him and held up his hand, crouching down and facing the way they'd come. Jelena groaned slightly as Miriam helped her down. Markus drew his weapon and focused back the way they'd come.

"What—" Mias held a hand to his mouth and shook his head, silencing Markus mid-query.

Snap.

Markus jerked his head over towards where the sound had come from, but with the sound bouncing off all the trees it was impossible to get a bead on direction or distance other than the fact it was definitely from the way they'd just come. Mias's face was scrunched up in fear, so he couldn't dismiss it as wildlife.

Minutes ticked by and Markus's tension rose proportionately, sweat trickling down the back of his flightsuit. He hadn't fully realized how precarious their position might be until just now. Any sizable hostile force would be able to easily overwhelm him with his peashooter and unfamiliarity with the land. In the back of his mind he'd naïvely assumed that because he was human, and they were human, there wouldn't be any issues with him walking freely to where he needed to go.

"Mark-oos," Mias whispered, pointing ahead and to the left of the roadbed. From his years of hunting with his father as a child, Markus knew not to try and pick out a specific object amongst the camouflaging foliage. Instead, he stared at a single point along the direction Mias pointed and waited until something moved. There! It was just a twitch of a branch, but now that he had a specific location to fixate on he could just make out the outline of a crouching human. Long hair, black clothing … it was likely one of the men from the hunting party which meant they'd lost the trail, doubled back, and then picked them up again.

There was no doubt the man was also staring at them, but he made no move to advance or retreat. He's a scout. His job would be to range ahead and keep them in sight until the rest of them could either flank them and set up an ambush or close in enough to catch them in a rush. Damn … they weren't even halfway to the lander and they were already in deep shit.

Basic military tactics dictated that he couldn't leave an enemy scout trailing behind him, but what options did he have? His pistol was ineffective at this range, so he'd just be wasting precious ammo. Mias was carrying a short sword/machete, so that wasn't any better. The young man could have the skills to slip out and around the scout while the rest of the group stayed put to keep him in place, but they could barely speak each other's names … trying to convey that sort of complex concept within a few minutes would be impossible. That left just one option.

"Ahhhh!!!" Markus bellowed an unintelligible cry and took off towards the scout as fast as he could manage through the trees. His legs screamed in protest at the sudden burst of activity, and he could hear the rest of his group—even Mias—cry out in alarm. The scout was now clearly visible, having stood when Markus began his headlong rush. The man's expression was a mixture of incredulity and fear, the mishmash of emotions coupled with surprise serving to keep him planted in place as Markus quickly closed the distance.

When he'd gotten within twenty-five meters, the man in black leather snapped out of his paralysis and lifted a wicked-looking spear into throwing position, his left hand extended forward for greater stability and accuracy. Markus knew this was as close as he would get, so he raised his own weapon, sighted as best he could at a run, and squeezed off two rounds.

The pistol roared and two 10mm rounds were propelled downrange at over four hundred meters per second. The first round hit the tree next to his target's head. The second round took the man in the neck, just on the left side, the violent spray of arterial blood letting Markus know it was a critical hit. The scout looked shocked for just a split second before collapsing in a heap, the spear falling to the ground.

Markus pulled up his run and approached the downed man cautiously, his pistol held in a down-ready stance. One quick look and he put the weapon back into his pocket. There was no doubt that the scout was dead; the bullet had hit the soft tissue of the neck, tumbled as it was designed to, and done a horrific amount of damage before exiting the back. He heard footsteps running behind him and turned to see a wide-eyed Mias approaching carefully, looking at Markus as if he was Zeus and had just struck down a foe by summoning a lightning bolt.

The look of awe on the young man's face cracked the emotional dam Markus had been trying to keep up. He collapsed to his knees a short way off, vomiting up his meager breakfast. Despite having spent over twenty years in the military, this was the first person that had ever died by his hand, directly or indirectly. He'd been a fighter pilot but had been moved into the test pilot corps before he'd ever had to fly in combat and was completely unprepared for the wave of emotions that washed over him. There was no doubt the man he'd killed would have done the same to him if given the opportunity, or would have led men to them that would, but he couldn't get the look on his face when the bullet struck out of his mind.

"Mark-oos?" Mias whispered.

"Yeah, Mias … sorry. I just needed a minute."

"Mark!"

"We're okay," Markus called back to Miriam. "Just stay put, you don't want to see this."

Rising on shaky legs, Markus went back over to where Mias looked down at the body with a dispassionate, almost clinical expression as he examined what the scout was carrying. "Anything good?"

Mias picked up the finely crafted spear and handed it to Markus, who took it and looked it over. The shaft was smooth and well-oiled so that the water from where it landed beaded up and ran off when he tilted it. The head was long, maybe twenty-five centimeters, and thin too. It looked like it was made from the same dark metal as Mias's weapon, secured to the shaft with leather cord that was coated in some sort of resin. He tried to hand the weapon back, but Mias put his hands behind his back and shook his head.

"Take it," Markus said, handing it over again. "You need it more than I do." Mias reached out slowly with shaking hands and took the spear, clutching it close to his chest and bowing while backing away. He almost seemed afraid Markus would change his mind.

"Chonras, Mark-oos."

"That could mean thank you or fuck you … still not a big help," Markus muttered before turning back to the scout. He pulled the animal skin pack off and examined the contents: some dried meat, a knife, and what looked like a wad of tinder with a slate-colored rock that was probably flint that he used with his spearhead to start a fire. It was an elegantly simple pack for someone who had the skills and toughness to survive in the wild with the barest of essentials.

He stood and stretched, looking about the woods and pondering what it would be like to live here if it turned out they couldn't make it up to orbit and be rescued. Moreover, would it not be better to just accept this life and die here on Earth as nature intended? Maybe Mias could take them to his people and, if they were accepted, spend their remaining years learning about this new evolutionary step of humanity. It almost seemed a fitting end; a mission that started with him flying to a distant star to see alien life then sees its culmination back on Earth, rediscovering what he'd missed.

"Mark-oos," Mias said softly, breaking him out of his ruminations. Markus looked up and saw that his companion was gesturing emphatically that they should be moving along.

"You're right, my friend," he said, shouldering the scout's bag. "The rest of his buddies will be along shortly."

They quickly redistributed all their gear and took off as fast as Jelena could walk. This time Mias was in the lead and scouting ahead. It was amazing how quickly trust could be built in a single life and death instant. Mias had warned them of the danger and had followed Markus in a mad rush towards an armed enemy. For now, they would trust his superior knowledge of the area and instincts honed from a lifetime of living within nature, not outside of it as the rest of the group had.

"THAT SHAKING CAN'T BE good," Nigel whispered, resisting the urge to peek over his shoulder where Xavier was struggling to his feet.

"I think that arrow may have been dipped in something," Rebecca said, her lips barely moving. "That wound isn't that bad for him to be losing motor control like that."

"Poison?"

"Stands to reason. Primitive tribes in South America and Africa used natural neurotoxins on their arrowheads to paralyze their prey. I don't see any signs of infection, but clearly he's not well."

They turned as Xavier slumped against a tree and then fell over. He cursed and grunted as he rolled onto his stomach and began again trying to get to his feet. Nigel looked at Rebecca and arched an eyebrow, a look she returned with an angry glare and a shake of her head. The conversation the previous night had been short but contentious; she wasn't going to just leave Xavier behind and let the locals have their way with him.

During the night they'd heard movement out among the trees but couldn't be certain if it was humans or just some deer making their way down to the trail. The night had been cool just to the point of discomfort given that their thin, sweat-soaked flightsuits did little in the damp air to insulate them, but they hadn't dared try and build a fire. Between the noises surrounding them and the fear that Nigel might take action against Xavier, Rebecca hadn't slept at all. Nigel, not trusting Rebecca when it came to rationing food and medical supplies to the injured man, had also not slept. Now, in the cold light of morning, they were both puffy-eyed and sluggish.

"Was this one of you guys?"

"What are you talking about?" Nigel asked, walking over to where Xavier had finally managed to get himself upright by using a sapling.

"These footprints."

The looked to where Xavier was pointing and saw that there were indeed human footprints in the dirt around their camp. Close around their camp. The prints were large, much larger than any of their own, and from the way the toes made a unique depression Nigel guessed that the person was wearing some type of soft-soled shoes, not the utilitarian synthetic boots that the crew was wearing.

"I guess that settles what was making noise around the camp last night," Rebecca said.

"Maybe, maybe not." Nigel shook his head, pointing at the tracks. "These are really close. The noise we heard was twenty, thirty meters out into the woods at least."

"The people out there were making noise as a distraction," Xavier said. His voice was shaky and his words slurred, but he appeared to have his faculties completely intact. "While we were focused out there, someone snuck right up to the edge here and took a peek at us. The real question is why they didn't do something when they had us at such a disadvantage? They shot me with an arrow and now when they could slit all our throats in our sleep they just walk up to sniff about?"

"I'd rather not stick around to find out," Nigel said. "Let's get the rest of this shit gathered up and get the hell out of here."

Once they started packing up their camp, they realized that the nighttime visit hadn't been quite as pointless as they'd assumed. The arrow that had pierced Xavier's shoulder was missing, along with two of their water bottles, the latter having been near the arrow where Rebecca had discarded it after pulling it out of the wound.

They searched around frantically for a moment, but the footprints leading up to where the items had been left little doubt as to what happened. Beyond the concern they all shared of how easily they'd been approached, the thief had also managed to make off with a quarter of their potable water. They had iodine tablets to sterilize any source they came across, but the loss was still felt keenly as they had a long way to go and one of their party was injured and consuming water at twice the rate the rest were.

"I still can't figure out why all the trouble to come and grab an arrow and then leave us be." Nigel took his bearings and consulted the map on his tablet.

"Pointless speculation after the fact." Rebecca shrugged into the makeshift pack. They'd redistributed the load so that Xavier would be unencumbered, but by the looks of him even that might not be enough. "Let's go."

They set off at what felt like a snail's pace and even then their wounded comrade was dragging his feet and stumbling over low-lying obstacles. While they deferred to him and helped him along at first, four hours into their march they began to ignore his pleas for help and regard him with expressions that could barely mask the malice in the their hearts.

At the pace they were going, they wouldn't reach the second waypoint by the end of the third day. Even if Jelena's injury was holding up Mark's group, Nigel knew they were falling too far behind. If the locals didn't kill them and if they didn't run out of clean water and food, and if they didn't suffer another pace-crippling injury, the odds were shifting in favor of the other group reaching the lander first. He wasn't completely sure how long it would take for the lander to prep and fire the ascension pods, but he didn't think it'd be too long, certainly not enough to bank on giving them enough time to reach the ship and try to force the other group out.

Despite their slow pace and the amount of noise they were making as they left the well-worn game trail and forged westward through the forest, they didn't see any sign that the group that attacked them was still pursuing. There had been a little bit of rustling in the undergrowth when they'd first started out, but after an hour or so the only thing that could be heard was Xavier's labored breathing and their own footsteps. It wasn't that Nigel particularly wanted to waste his remaining flares on deterring the first group of people that stumbled across their trail, but there was something decidedly eerie about being pursued with such enthusiasm and then having it completely break off without any obvious explanation. Did they find something more amusing? Did they have second thoughts about harming fellow humans? Was his little group wandering towards something much worse than they?

"Look at that." Rebecca was pointing down the steep ridge they'd been traveling along at something that was planted in the ground near a dry creek bed. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yep," Nigel said. Without even pulling out the small monocular he carried, he could tell he was looking at another skull-festooned totem. It was similar to the two that had been placed at the edge of their clearing, but not identical. This one had brightly colored human skulls, one yellow, the other blue, and the topmost skull looked like it might have belonged to some sort of large predatory bird.

"We had it all wrong." Rebecca took a long pull from her water bottle before handing it to Xavier. "When those popped up by the landing site they weren't threats, they were property line markers. If I'm right, we're crossing over into someone else's territory. That could explain why we aren't being pursued anymore, maybe even why we were ambushed in the first place and then not killed later that night." Her calm demeanor about the attack unnerved Nigel for some reason.

"Explain that last part. I'm an engineer, not an anthropologist."

"This close to a border area would be patrolled," she said. "When we were spotted, the other group probably assumed we were a raiding party from the Bird Head tribe and gave chase. When they approached later that night and saw that we were a whole new group, they reclaimed their property—along with helping themselves to some of ours, probably as a toll—and retreated back on their side of the line."

"That tracks, I guess," Nigel said. "But why not kill us anyway? Even if we're not Bird Heads, we're still interlopers."

"You demonstrated a great power, at least in their eyes," Xavier said. His voice was soft and raspy, but it wasn't as shaky as it had been when he'd first been shot the day before. "That flare scared the shit out of them. Maybe they didn't want to anger you further, maybe they respected the display of strength … either way they decided to get what was theirs and boogie. Who knows, maybe the metal arrowhead was too valuable to leave behind even if it risked pissing off someone who could summon fire and thunder while taking it back."

"That's … actually quite astute," Rebecca grudgingly admitted. "I didn't know you were so up on the psychology of primitive culture encounters."

"I'm not," Xavier said. "I don't even know what the hell that is, but people are people. The same principles here apply to the boardroom. Strength, or the illusion of strength, can give you a big advantage … at least for a while. Soon they'll test us and when they find out that Nigel's superpower is all bark but not much bite, they'll finish us off."

"And on that cheery fucking note," Nigel spat out and continued on along the ridge.

Just after midday they found themselves heading downhill off the elevated ridgeline. From their vantage point they could see the tops of the trees in the valley below. It was a natural break in the land and a logical place for a border between groups, but Nigel wasn't ready to accept Rebecca's explanation of the creepy totems at face value just because she sounded confident when she said it. She was a biologist that had spent her entire career studying extremophiles, not a behavioral psychologist or anthropologist. Xavier's outlook wasn't any more optimistic, and he was still a self-serving little shit-weasel, but he had demonstrated that he had a good instinct for reading people and situations. That, more than his unexceptional tech prowess, had propelled him to the top of the heap and allowed him to stay after the markets collapsed.

"The types of trees are changing," Rebecca said. "Further out that way, the direction we need to go."

"Your point?"

"Not sure I have one," she admitted. "It could mean a change in the type of terrain we'll have to walk over, or it could mean nothing."

Nigel just grunted and started picking his way down the descent. Xavier was sweating profusely and moaned in pain now and again if he stepped wrong and jarred his shoulder too hard. It was mildly annoying listening to him whinge the entire time, but Nigel had to concede that he probably was in tremendous pain.

"Let's just get down there and into the heavier growth before we lose the light," Nigel said, sliding over the loose rocks and scrub as he went.

He had just been thinking about how the descent was going to be tough for someone without the use of both arms when Rebecca gave a startled yelp and he heard the unmistakable sound of someone crashing down the hill behind him. Without wasting the time it would take to turn and look, he leapt off the erosion line he'd been using as a trail, grabbing a sapling and swinging himself up and out of the way. He spun about the tree just in time to see what he'd expected to see: Xavier West tumbling in an uncontrolled fall towards the valley floor.

It was far worse than just slipping and sliding on your ass all the way down. Xavier had apparently gone over in a forward direction and he was now bouncing down the hill, hitting every tree and rock along his path. It would have almost been comical if it wasn't for the bloody streaks he was leaving on impact and the cries of sheer agony that were becoming weaker with each hit.

"Why didn't you try to grab him?" Rebecca shouted, her face a thundercloud.

"Are you insane?" By the time Xavier had passed him he'd been moving well enough along that if Nigel had tried to grab a handhold he'd have only been dragged down with him. The engineer had never been a very robust man and the years of ignoring the workout regimens in zero gravity had left him even weaker. Grabbing a falling man that weighed seventy-five kilos if he was a gram was a surefire way to not be one of the people making it off the planet.

They both ran/slid down the hill as fast as they dared to reach their fallen crewmate. Xavier was crumpled in a heap on the ground and wasn't moving, and Nigel had a momentary pang of guilt for hoping that he wouldn't be able to get back up. It was uncharitable, to put it mildly, but if the person on the team that was the biggest liability was suddenly not a factor, he and Rebecca would be able to move a lot quicker and make up for lost time.

"He's still breathing!"

"That's good news." Shit.

"Help me roll him onto his back. I'll need to check if he broke anything."

Nigel bit back his complaints and did as he was asked. Amazingly, it didn't look like Xavier had punched any additional holes into himself. The blood he'd been leaving behind had come from the shoulder wound that tore back open thanks to the improper bandaging they'd used. The bad news was that he now sported a nasty-looking lump on his head and the shoulder wound had not only started bleeding again, it had torn open worse than it had been originally. With the bandages gone, Nigel could now see that the wound was an angry red color with blue lines radiating out away from it … not a good sign, at least not for Xavier.

"We're losing the light," he said. "We should probably see about making camp. I think we can risk a small fire tonight … we haven't seen or heard anything recently that would indicate we've been spotted."

"Good thinking." Rebecca nodded as she continued to examine her patient. "If we get a good enough fire, I can use that knife that was in the survival pack to cauterize this wound and stop the bleeding."

Nigel opened his mouth, about to tell her that it looked like it was far too late for something like that, but decided to leave well enough alone for now. She'd have to come to grips with reality soon enough: Xavier West was becoming an anchor around their necks, and if they didn't make the hard choices now, Mark and the others would be riding in their ascension pods up to meet with the Martian ship.

"THIS ISN'T GOING to work, Rebecca. Look at him! He's barely even aware of what's going on around him. Do you really have that much of a thing for this dipshit?"

"You really are as slow as Jelena says, aren't you?" Rebecca gave a mirthless laugh as Nigel's face contorted in anger at the insult. "No, Nigel, I'm not dragging this half-dead sack of meat behind me because I so enjoy his company." She didn't offer any additional explanation, staring into the small but cheerful fire they'd managed to get going. When it became obvious she was finished talking, Nigel's patience evaporated.

"Well?! Care to fill me in?"

"Not particularly, but I suppose it will help pass the time," she said. "You may have noticed that this isn't the easy stroll through the trees Mark made it out to be. We have multiple groups of indigenous people that are hostile to each other, hostile to us, and we're outnumbered quite badly. What would happen if we were caught flatfooted or ambushed again and they gave chase?"

"We'd have to run like hell and hope—oh! Oh wow … Mark was right about you; you are one cold-hearted bitch." Nigel savored the flash of pure hatred that crossed her face at the insult. "He's both bait and diversion. We run, he falls behind, they catch him, and by the time they've had their fun we may have escaped. So why not let me in on this from the start?"

"I've made a decision to do whatever it takes to survive this ordeal. Whatever it takes. So given that, why would I tell you?"

"Because if I'd been the one hit with the arrow, you'd leave my ass behind just as quickly," Nigel sighed. "But you're forgetting one thing … I'm the only one in this group that has a chance in hell of breaking into the lander now that Mark has likely scrambled the access codes."

"Each problem in due time." Rebecca smiled. It was the type of smile Nigel imagined a rattlesnake might favor a mouse with right before it killed and ate the poor bastard. "So why were you so rattled when I may have hit Jelly too hard with the hammer?"

"Jelena is an insufferable twat, but she still had her uses. Let's be honest, out of two groups taking two different routes, there may still only be a few people left to get into those pods and not necessarily from the same groups. I have no problem culling the herd, so to speak, once someone has crossed the line from being a contributing player to a drag on resources."

"You really think they'd take you with them if you manage to make it to the lander, after what you've done?"

"What have I done?" She looked at him with wide-eyed innocence and her voice had taken on a slightly scared quality before she let the expression slide off and her sardonic smirk was back. "I'm just a frightened academic who got caught up in the rush of things. Before I knew it, you'd attacked Jelena and we were too far away once I realized what was happening." Nigel stared at her in slack-jawed horror. Mark was wrong about this one. She wasn't cold-hearted; she was a fucking full-blown sociopath.

"You're one terrifying woman," he whispered. "So you'd just kill off anyone that looked like they might slow you down? Damn, what happens when—wait, did you have something to do with Jordan's death?"

Rebecca regarded him coldly for a long moment before answering. As she sat there, Nigel found himself actually becoming frightened. Would she kill him for even asking that? The moment was fleeting as the anger of his friend's death rekindled in his chest and blossomed into a rage that burned away his doubts and fear.

"You better fucking answer me," he growled, backing up a bit so he'd have room if she came at him.

"Jordan was already dead. What I did could be considered a mercy. Without proper medical treatment he was in for a long, agonizing death," Rebecca said. "What genuinely shocked me was that Jelly managed to figure out how—"

Her voice became fuzzy and indistinct in Nigel's ears, replaced by a buzzing sound. His heart was pounding in his chest and before he fully realized what he was doing, he rolled to his feet and lunged for her, unaware that his left foot kicked one of the burning branches off the pile.

"You bitch! I'll fucking kill you!" He had her by the throat and was squeezing with everything he had. Her eyes bulged and she flopped under him like she was possessed, but he'd surprised her and had leverage. Just when he thought she was about to lose consciousness, something crashed into the side of his head, knocking him off of her. It was a glancing blow with not a lot behind it, but it let her roll out from under him and climb to her feet, coughing and hacking as she did. Nigel climbed up to his knees and looked over to see what the hell had hit him.

"Xavier! You don't understand! She—" That was all he got out before Rebecca took a two-step wind-up and kicked him, slamming the top of her foot into his testicles with enough force to lift him slightly off the ground.

The effect was immediate. His strength left him like the air from a deflating balloon. He collapsed to the ground, the nausea so extreme tears streamed down his cheeks and he vomited into the dirt. He felt another kick, this one near his kidney, but the pain from his groin was so much that it attenuated all other sensations. Her well-placed kick to a vital organ felt like a love tap, but he knew she was probably winding up to give him another. He rolled over and forced himself to his hands and knees to try and ward her off when a new sound reached his ears. Growling.

"What the hell is that?" Xavier slurred. He'd already sat back down, spent from his earlier exertion. How much had he heard?

"Sounds like dogs," Nigel forced out through clenched teeth. He looked up and saw eyes reflecting back the light from their fire, and it was more than one pair. Shit … there are no dogs here.

"Build the fire up. Quickly!" Rebecca's voice was raspy, but her motions were swift and decisive. She moved quickly to push the disturbed branches back into the crude fire pit they'd made with loose rocks and began adding more fuel from their stack.

"What is it?" Xavier asked again just as a renewed chorus of growls reached them.

"Wolves."

18

Planetside, Earth

Day: 11

"JELLY? Jelly! JELENA!"

JELENA BURNETTE'S eyes fluttered slightly, but other than that she was unresponsive. Markus couldn't tell if she was just sleeping that deeply or if it was something more. By the time they'd found a secure place to bed down for the night, she'd been shaking uncontrollably and was having trouble speaking clearly. She'd promptly passed out before the small fire they'd risked, refusing to eat or drink anything.

"Mark," Miriam said, nodding with her head for him to join her outside the copse of evergreens they were camped in. He followed her out, looking back at his friend one more time before slipping between the green branches.

When he'd awoken just as the sun was beginning to brighten the eastern sky, he'd been startled to find that Mias was gone. A quick inventory showed that only the spear and short blade were missing; his pack was still in a pile next to their things, so Markus assumed he'd gone scouting or foraging.

"She's not improving," Miriam said once they were out of earshot of the camp. "We may be forced to deal with a difficult reality here; Jelena simply won't recover without modern medical treatment, something that doesn't exist on this planet."

"Not true." Markus set his jaw and assumed a stubborn, aggressive posture. "The Kepler lander is jammed full of medical supplies and equipment to support a landing party. There's even a miniaturized full-body scanner and a next-generation automated surgical system. If we can get her there, we can save her."

"She might not make it another twelve hours no matter what we do," Miriam said.

"Fine. So we leave her behind? Triage her here with Mias's spear and move on?"

"No." Miriam let out an explosive breath and looked away. "I … I just felt like we should at least face the reality of it. We're being pursued by a group that will probably kill us on sight, and Nigel's crew is probably halfway to the lander by now. All three of them are healthy, so our advantage of using the orbital data to map our path is likely already gone."

"I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but I just don't see any other alternative that doesn't include sentencing our friend to death," Markus said. "That's a bridge I'm not willing to cross just yet. There're no guarantees that the other group is having any better luck … or that they're even still alive."

"I know. I'm just scared. This is more terrifying to me than riding the launch vehicle up to Daedalus and then using nuclear rockets to fly all the way to another star … at least there we had some control over things. Right now I feel like a spectator and this planet is just toying with us before it decides it's time for us all to die."

"We're doing pretty good, all things considered," Markus insisted. "We don't have the training or equipment for this sort of expedition, but we're still alive. We'll make it."

"Do you really believe that?"

Markus was spared having to lie to Miriam when Mias appeared from the trees, not making a sound as he walked back to the camp. He looked generally pleased with himself and held up a trio of rabbits, already field-dressed, dangling from a leather thong. He waved for the two of them to join him as he slipped into the evergreen copse and began stoking the fire back up.

Just the sight of the animals being expertly affixed to green sticks and placed over the coal bed at the edge of the fire made Markus's stomach clench, eliciting a sharp growl. He'd not realized just how hungry he really was until he saw his new friend strolling back to camp with a few pounds of protein hanging from his belt.

"I had wanted to get an early start," he said absently, still watching Mias's preparations with an almost lustful expression. "But I think our friend here has the right idea."

"Agreed," Miriam said, her expression matching his. "Probably smarter to get started on a full stomach … we'll make much better time that way."

The meal of unseasoned, fire-roasted rabbit was better than any from the Michelin-star restaurants Markus had been treated to in the lead-up to the launch of Daedalus. Hunger was indeed the finest sauce, and even Jelena was able to eat a bit and keep it down, actually beginning to look a little stronger by the time they were ready to break camp.

The smartwatch Markus had worn for the entire mission was still working even if all the data networks that used to feed it no longer existed, but he'd kept it on anyway since it would still at least mark time. In a moment of boredom the previous night, however, he discovered that the watch also had a compass function that was still working perfectly. Armed with this new bit of input, they were able to consult the map on his tablet and, using their camp as a landmark, plot out a much more precise course for the day.

Markus and Miriam had made some progress in communicating with Mias, mostly by coupling words with exaggerated hand gestures, but they couldn't seem to convey the abstract concept of an aerial image. They'd tried three different approaches to see if they could get him to associate where they stood with what he was seeing on the screen, and although he was dutifully impressed with the gadget, he soon lost interest and assumed his self-appointed task of scouting ahead.

"It was worth a shot," Markus grunted as he helped Jelly get to her feet. Although a proper meal had perked her up some, it was clear that Miriam was right: She wasn't getting any better. Her head seemed to wobble on her neck, and her coordination had taken a turn for the worse, forcing her to lean heavily on the titanium walking stick he'd provided her. They had just under fifteen kilometers to cover today before they reached the eastern bank of a river they'd be crossing tomorrow. It wasn't a difficult distance for a whole day of travel, even over rough ground, but watching her plod around the camp while they finished cleaning up made him question if she could even do half that.

"THEY'RE BACK THERE, keeping their distance now."

Markus had kept the more advanced monocular that had been in one of the survival kits. He'd intentionally put it aside as it was much more feature-rich than the two others in the case. It had ranging capability, a laser strobe for signaling overhead aircraft—admittedly not so helpful in their current predicament—and low-light amplification. The others were simply magnification devices, one of which he assumed Nigel took when they left since the only remaining one had been hit with something hard enough to crack the objective lens.

"I can't get a good range with all the tree branches poking into the field of view, but whenever I catch a glimpse, they look to be about half a kilometer back, maybe more."

"The same as a few hours ago," Miriam said. "They're just pacing us, likely waiting for us to make camp again so they can close in."

"That'd be my guess as well," Markus said. "Hopefully they haven't sent runners out to try and get ahead of us since I can't seem to make Mias stay back with us."

"He'll know better than us how to stay safe and avoid them. How you doing, Jelly?"

Markus looked out of the corner of his eye to see if there was any improvement in his friend. There wasn't. She had been moving along well enough but had now stopped talking completely and would only take food or water when forced. More concerning, she looked confused at times as if she had no idea where she was or who they were.

They hadn't made it very far from the previous night's camp when they caught sight of someone in the trees behind them. It had just been a glimpse, but the black outfit had been unmistakable. So far they hadn't made any overt moves to overtake them, perhaps understanding that the loud booms they'd heard earlier had something to do with the horrific mortal wound their scout had suffered.

"This seems strange that they're still chasing us," Markus said. "They have to see that we're not carrying enough to make this worth their time."

"Maybe they want the weapon that caused that other one's death. Or, more likely, maybe we are carrying around a significant amount of food," Miriam said, holding out her hand for the monocular.

"What? You can't mean—"

"Small group, one injured, obviously not from around here." Miriam shrugged. "Cannibalism was still happening among remote tribes in our time. It's even more likely to be prevalent in a culture like this. They had to get the skulls they use on those markers from somewhere."

The idea of his end coming via barbecue made Markus shudder with revulsion. He made a vow to himself that he'd save at least one bullet for himself if it came down to it … although he supposed that wouldn't make any difference. If he was hunting a deer and the deer decided to suddenly commit suicide, that sort of made his job all the easier.

"I'll figure something out," he muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Let's get a move on. We have about another hour before we'll break for midday, and then it's just three more kilometers to the river. After that we'll worry about how we're dealing with these assholes for the night."

They slogged on, weary but determined. Thankfully the terrain was as flat as the orbital data had indicated, and they were able to move over the soft dirt at a decent clip even with Jelena stumbling and sometimes veering off the path. She'd stopped sweating, but her skin was now cool and rubbery to the touch. Markus wasn't certain if that was an improvement or yet another turn for the worse. If her brain injury wasn't addressed soon, he feared they might lose her permanently, or at least they'd lose the person that had been their friend. Just thinking about it made him angry enough to hope that Nigel was waiting for them at the lander so they could have a discussion about it.

"Here he comes." Miriam pointed ahead of them. "And he's hauling ass … this probably isn't good."

"Doch! Doch vinchdo de manachra!"

The wild human ran up to them and slid to a stop, spinning and readying his spear. Before Markus had even cleared the pistol from his pocket he saw two men charging through the brush from the direction Mias had just come, weapons raised and bellowing war cries. These looked to be the scouts that Markus assumed his pursuers would send ahead.

Before he could raise his weapon, Mias launched his spear with a deft overhand throw, hitting the lead attacker in what looked like the groin. Ouch! The man went down with a tortured howl of pain and cleared the shooting lane for Markus. He sighted down the pistol with a steady, two-handed stance and squeezed the trigger once. The light synthetic pistol bucked and the shot took the other scout center mass, just right of the sternum. He collapsed like someone had just flicked a switch, tumbling headfirst into a heap by his partner.

"Sorry about that," Markus apologized as Mias wiggled a finger in his left ear. His head had been right by the weapon when it fired.

He was dismayed to find that the wash of emotions that accompanied the first time he'd killed someone didn't come as strongly this second time. There was still revulsion at what he'd done, but the near-crippling guilt and regret were notably absent. Perhaps it was the group's relentless pursuit and obvious ill-intent that hardened his conscience. The man Mias had skewered was still alive and writhing in agony, but the spear hadn't hit as low as it had appeared at first.

"He'll die quickly if you pull that out." Miriam's tone was detached and clinical. "Looks like it pierced the lower abdomen, likely hitting the abdominal aorta judging by the amount of blood pushing out around the blade."

"Mor, simadre perroch," Mias snarled before yanking the spear free. There was no mistaking the arterial spray from between the man's fingers as he fought in vain to staunch the flow. His eyes were wide and terrified, his breath coming in weaker gasps as he rolled back to the ground flat, a pitiful moan escaping. He was dead a moment later.

"We need to get moving," Markus said. "They weren't too far back and they definitely heard that gunshot."

The Daedalus crew hurried along the path they'd been following while Mias quickly policed the bodies for anything useful. Markus was counting on the fact that they had once again killed the scouts the enemy had sent ahead to at least cause them to back off a bit. Ideally they'd abandon the chase altogether after determining that their prey was simply too dangerous, but that was unlikely. There was probably a single leader in this group that was pushing his people forward, letting them take the risks so he could reap the reward and glory for killing them. Miriam could have it right and they wanted to get their hands on whatever it was that made a sound like thunder and killed men from a distance.

They were now half encouraging, half dragging Jelena along behind them and it was slowing them down significantly. Markus was worried about being overtaken if the hunters lost patience or became enraged at two more of their members being killed and decided to try and take them in a rush. He was also more than a little concerned that they wouldn't be able to get enough separation before they reached their planned camp for the coming night.

"I think we're okay," he said after another hour and no signs that the gang behind them had picked up the pace. "Let's slow a bit and try to make it to the riverbank without leaving too much of an obvious trail."

Mias looked back at them as they slowed, seemed to shrug, and slunk ahead as he had been most of the day. Markus did the math in his head. Assuming the Martian ship left when it was supposed to and the lander was still fully functional, they had two more days to get to it or they'd almost certainly be beat by Nigel's group. His heart sank knowing that Jelena wasn't able to pick up the pace much past what she was already doing.

He looked at his watch again and sighed. The next twelve hours would determine whether they were getting off the planet alive or not.

"WE'VE GOT two flares left," Nigel said.

A hate-filled glare was the only answer he got back from Rebecca. Her neck was a mess of angry purple welts where he'd tried to strangle her to death the night before. Xavier had just barely been in time to stop him and things would have likely devolved into an all-out fight to the death between them all if a new threat hadn't showed up.

The wolfpack had appeared at the edge of the fire's light just in time to save Nigel from being ganged up on by two people, but now they'd shown no inclination to move on and leave them alone. After they'd waited as long as they dared, they fashioned a pair of torches that seemed to help keep the wolves at bay for a bit once they left camp. It was a brief respite and soon a few braver individuals began coming in close, testing them.

It had been around midmorning when a group of five broke from cover and made towards them in a manner that told Nigel the torches weren't going to do shit. He fired another flare directly into their midst, the incendiary munition spinning along the ground where it hit before exploding, showering the wolves with sparks and setting a few brush fires. That sent them running away, yelping, and Nigel hoped in vain that it would be enough to deter them permanently. He'd been wrong. It wasn't even two hours later before he caught sight of two wolves keeping pace with them to either side. They weren't making any overtly threatening moves, but nothing the humans tried could shake them.

Xavier was still in grim shape, but the adrenaline rush of fleeing a pack of hungry wolves had put some zip back in his step, and he was actually doing an admirable job of keeping up. Nigel watched him stumble from time to time when they were forced to pick up the pace, and he hoped for a split second that he'd fall and stay down just long enough for them to get away. That meant that the pack would tear Xavier to shreds, of course, but he'd begun to come to terms with the dark places he would have to go if he wanted to survive.

"Shit! Shit, shit, shit!" Rebecca swore.

"What?!"

"We've been herded this whole time." She pointed ahead in the direction they'd been running. "Tricked by a bunch of fucking dogs."

They'd been following a shallow depression that had been mostly clear of obstructions, adjusting their course when needed to keep maximum distance from the wolves flanking them while allowing them to maintain a westward direction. What they hadn't been able to see through the dense forest canopy was that the depression narrowed to a dead end. A twenty-meter rock face rose ahead of them and extended far enough north and south that there was no way to circumnavigate it, at least not if they wanted to remain outside of a wolf's digestive system.

Nigel slowed up by Rebecca while Xavier huffed and puffed to catch up. The wall wasn't a sheer, monolithic formation as he had feared it would be. It was a jagged gash in the land caused by the quick erosion of the soil, likely from the depression they were following, that left the rock strata exposed without wearing them uniformly smooth. What it meant for their immediate situation was that they could possibly climb it up to the plateau above and escape these cursed wolves. From the excited yips they were making, they didn't have much time before they pounced and, unlike the wild humans in the area, they seemed to be less and less afraid of his flares with each use.

"Think you can shimmy your skinny ass up that rock face?" he asked.

"At least twice as fast as your sickly, flabby ass could," Rebecca answered. Even if she wasn't joking, it was easily the nicest thing she'd said to him that day. The only other times she'd spoken directly to him were to tell him that she planned on killing him slowly and painfully. Apparently she wasn't one to take a little choking among friends with any sort of aplomb.

"I have fifty meters of speed line in my bag," Nigel went on, ignoring her glare. "If you start climbing with one end, I'll be able to tie handholds in it as you go. I'll tie the end off to Xavier and then once I'm up we can both pull him up."

"I don't trust you," she said flatly.

"Damnit, woman! There's no time for this!" Nigel was pulling the plastic wrap off the coil of thin synthetic line. It was unbelievably strong, but thin enough that the loops to grab on the way up were going to cut into his hands terribly.

"If you screw me over—"

"Where the fuck am I going to go?! If anything, I should be worried about you," Nigel spat. "Once you're up there, if you don't tie off the line like you're supposed to I'll kill your friend … and don't keep pretending you don't care. I'm onto your act."

"What? Kill me?!"

"Shut up, Xavier," Rebecca said. "Fine … let's go."

She grabbed one end and waited until he'd played out about ten meters before she stepped onto the first jutting ledge and began her ascent. Nigel had Xavier turned and watching for an attack from behind them while he quickly tied loops every half meter or so. He had a longer reach than that, but he wasn't so confident in his endurance that he'd be able to reach that far between loops as he walked up the uneven rock face.

By the time he was done, Rebecca had made it about two-thirds of the way to the top and was making good progress. He watched anxiously as the growling behind them became more insistent. They weren't going to wait too much longer to try and take one of them down. Every few seconds he'd see one glide out of the underbrush, looking their way with bared teeth before disappearing again.

"You'd better get a move on!"

"I'm going as fast as I dare!" Rebecca shot back.

Two more wolves emerged from the trees, one of which was a monstrous, all-black beast that stood a full head above its packmates. This one did not slink back off. With teeth bared, it advanced slowly towards the two humans still on the ground. Nigel thought about pulling the flare gun again, but the range was too great. He'd actually have to hit the damn thing now that it had stopped being scared off by the noise. If he let it get in any closer before shooting, the rest of the pack would swarm him. Not great options.

Fuck! This was it. All his efforts wasted as he was about to be torn apart by a pack of wild animals. He looked up just as Rebecca's legs went over the edge and watched as the line continued to feed upwards as she ran to find an anchor point, temporarily out of sight. That's when he saw a branch lying on the ground nearby. It was maybe a meter long and stout enough to do some real damage. He looked over to make sure the line was still feeding up before running and grabbing it.

"You think that's going to help?! Get your ass up that rope and then pull me up!" Xavier's voice was at least two octaves too high as he watched more wolves emerge from the brush.

"For what it's worth, I really am sorry about this."

"Wha—"

Nigel swung the cudgel as hard as he could, aiming low and crashing it into the side of Xavier's left knee. The joint gave with a sickening crunch and the already injured man collapsed with a wail. Nigel had to make certain of things so he hit him twice more before backing away. Xavier writhed on the ground in pain, the sounds he made getting the wolves even more excited.

When he turned to run, he could see the line was still sliding around as that useless woman took forever to tie off the other end. Instead of waiting, he grabbed the same toe- and handholds as she had and climbed up about five meters as quickly as he could. As it turned out, it was just quick enough.

If one had never heard a wolfpack tearing into its prey, there was simply no way to prepare for it. The ferocity with which they hit was terrifying, but the kill wasn't instant. Xavier's scream was long and loud, full of unfathomable pain. He kept screaming as the frenzied animals tore through the tough synthetic material of his flightsuit and found the soft flesh beneath.

"NO!!!!"

THIS SCREAM DIDN'T BELONG to Xavier. Nigel looked up to see Rebecca looking over the edge, the horror of what she was watching etched on her face. He reached out and grabbed the first loop he could reach and tested that she'd actually tied it off before continuing his climb. He simply couldn't look back at the tableau behind him. Xavier's screams had ceased, but the sounds of the animals feeding could not be ignored. This wasn't like hitting an unsuspecting woman with a hammer or trying to strangle another to death for killing a friend … this was so much worse. He struggled to keep the bile from rising in his throat as he continued to climb.

"You. You fucking did this." The voice was so soft, so calm that it sent a spike of fresh fear through Nigel. She also had one of their small knives and was holding it near the line. Normally it would be too tough for her to hack through, but with his weight pulling it down and adding tension? He didn't feel like gambling on the specs of something that had been added as an afterthought.

"Now wait a goddamn minute! I didn't do anything! They rushed out of the woods and there was nothing I could do!" Nigel was talking very fast, hoping he was convincing. "Poor bastard didn't see them coming, but there was nothing I could do to save him!"

Rebecca regarded him with cold, expressionless eyes, the knife never wavering from where she held it near the line. Nigel was frozen, afraid to move up and provoke a response from her but knowing that going back down was a death sentence. The line cut into his hands, biting into the flesh so deeply that he was in agony as she held her reptilian gaze on him. The chorus of wolves fighting with each other while they ripped their crewmate to pieces was an especially gruesome soundtrack to the nightmare he found himself in.

"You kill me and you never leave this planet!" Nigel tried a different tactic. "You hear me! I'm the only one that can get you out of here!"

After what seemed like an eternity but in reality had only been a few seconds, Rebecca moved the knife away from the line and disappeared back over the ledge. Shaking from a mixture of relief and exertion, Nigel climbed the rest of the way up without further incident. Once he crested the lip and pulled himself onto the grassy plateau, he could see that Rebecca had moved some distance off and was on her knees, weeping like a child. He felt a momentary pang of guilt for what he'd done, but would he have done it differently had he realized that the ice queen really did love West? No. No, he wouldn't. Nigel could pay lip service to being an honorable man with the best of them … right up until it came time to save his own skin. Had he stayed and tried to tie off the line on Xavier the only difference in the outcome would be that both of their final markers would be unadorned piles from the south ends of northbound wolves.

"Sorry about your luck, pal," he said quietly, tossing a mocking salute to the bloody mess below that had once been one of the richest and most influential men on a planet of thirteen billion people. He moved quickly away from the edge lest Rebecca have a change of heart and shove him over. She couldn't prove a damn thing, but as they'd all learned the hard way: There was no right and wrong on this planet. There was only alive and dead.

He wanted to get a move on before those mangy animals found a quick way up to them that they hadn't noticed, but Rebecca was still doubled over with grief, now crying softly for Xavier. When he went to pat her awkwardly on the back, she snarled and lashed out at him like a wounded animal. He took the hint and backed away, both hands up. He'd give her another few minutes and then they needed to get the hell out of the area.

"AND HERE COMES THE RAIN … of course."

"Count this as a blessing," Markus said. "Our friends out there will be just as miserable in a cold rain and, hopefully, less enthusiastic about trying to come at us at night."

They'd reached the riverbank without further incident, but Jelena had taken yet another turn for the worse. Miriam had only let go of her arm for a second and she rolled an ankle on an exposed root, falling and striking her head against the hard dirt of the trail. What was most concerning to Markus was that she didn't make a sound; no cry of pain, no characteristic cursing, not even a whimper. She just squeezed her eyes shut and let them haul her to her feet, barely able to stand on shaky legs.

He had no doubt that the blow Nigel had dealt her had done serious damage; likely as not her brain was swollen or bleeding and the longer she went without medical treatment, the worse her condition became as the body had no way to heal itself from an injury like that. It broke his heart to see his vibrant, brilliant friend reduced to the husk he saw before him.

Jelena was propped up on a large, smooth rock by the fire, the light casting her face in a sickly pallor and her eyes and cheeks looking even more sunken from the shadows it cast. She was dying. There was no way to refute Miriam now, but what the hell could he do about it? His options were down to leaving her to die slowly of starvation or euthanizing her and pretending it was an act of mercy. As those thoughts flitted through his exhausted mind, he was dismayed to realize that bringing her along with them hadn't been one of the options he'd listed. So this was it? He was admitting to himself that there was no hope for her survival?

"At least we'll be dry." Miriam broke him out of his thoughts.

"And the fire should be hidden for the most part," he agreed. They'd found a hollowed-out section away from the water's edge, almost a cave, that had been carved back into the soil by high water when the river overflowed its banks. It was substantial enough to allow them to get out of the cold rain and even get a small fire started to ward off the chill of the night. The one drawback, however, was that the ground was entirely made of river rocks that were not all that comfortable to lie on.

Mias had proved his skills again and, once they'd established their camp, had sharpened a thin branch with his blade and managed to spear four decent-sized fish from the river. They almost looked like rock bass but lacked the red eyes he normally associated with that type of fish. All he could remember from his youth was that they liked to feed in the early evening and would be near the banks hunting smaller fish and crustaceans. Could it be a whole new species? It had been over eight hundred years since he'd actually seen a rock bass, and evolution never stopped its march.

He'd been delighted with Mias's fishing technique and had sharpened his own spear to try and join in, but after eight attempts and almost falling into the water twice, he gave up and left it to the professional. Instead he'd taken his monocular and scanned the far bank along with patrolling a few hundred meters in all directions of their camp, weapon drawn and ears straining to pick up the sounds of their pursuers creeping up on them. Satisfied that they'd also decided to hunker down for the night, he'd returned to the fire just in time to see Mias and Miriam pulling the fish off of sapling skewers and laying them out on flat, hot rocks.

"That water doesn't look too fast. The crossing shouldn't be too difficult."

"It looks low right now," Markus agreed. "The orbital imagery shows exposed rocks at our crossing point about two kilometers south of here. After that it should be smooth sailing all the way to the lander."

"You don't actually believe that, do you?"

"Nope."

19

Planetside, Earth

Day: 12

MARKUS AWOKE WITH A START.

HE CURSED at the light streaming into their camp as he realized he'd overslept. It wasn't the light that had startled him out of his slumber, though. It was the sounds of someone softly weeping. At the mouth of the alcove he could see Mias on his knees, head bowed in reverence, and his chest tightened. He recognized who was crying beside him and he also knew exactly what it meant.

"When?" he asked without looking over.

"Sometime last night." Miriam's voice broke when she said it. "It looks like she just stopped breathing."

Markus tried to grab onto that feeling in his chest, let it grow and consume him so he could mourn his friend. Instead, it receded and was replaced with a weary numbness and, to his great shame, a feeling of relief. Jelena had been mortally wounded by Nigel Vanbroke and, despite their best intentions, there was little they could have done to save her. He would have never abandoned her while she was alive, but her injuries hindered their daily progress, allowing those chasing them to remain close. Now, with the river crossing helping to erase their trail and Jelena not holding them up, perhaps they could shake them.

"Say something, Mark."

"There's not much to say at this point, is there?" He rolled over into a sitting position and looked at his dead friend for the first time. With her face in repose she looked serene, the pain and confusion that had etched her features the last few days gone. It wasn't hard for him to assuage his own guilt by thinking she had to be in a better place now. "Give me a moment to process this and then we'll … make arrangements. We'll need to get a move on fairly soon."

Miriam just nodded and climbed to her feet, fleeing out into the morning sun. Mias remained stock-still, his head still bowed as Markus rose on shaky legs and moved to lay Jelena down flat and position her hands over her heart. He planned on using the available rock on the bank to build a cairn over her body as they had neither the time nor the tools for a proper grave.

As he reached for her, however, something caught his eye. The front of her flightsuit had a wet spot on it under her chin. When he touched it he couldn't figure out what it might be. It had an almost oily feel and an odd smell to it. Whatever it was, it looked almost looked like it had dribbled out of her mouth.

There were also scratch marks in the dirt on either side of her body, and when he backed up and looked again he could see that the rocks by her feet had been disturbed, almost pushed away from her. When he grabbed her hand and turned it over, he saw that the fingernails were caked with fresh mud, black like the soil coating the rocks of the riverbank.

"What the hell?" he whispered, backing away again and looking at the scene. Had she had a seizure before passing? That wasn't unheard of, but her body hadn't moved from where he'd propped her up. Instead it just looked like she'd thrashed her arms and legs.

He sat back and really thought about it. There was nothing there that indicated this was anything but a death caused by an untreated, traumatic brain injury, but something just didn't feel right about the scene before him. Jelena had no defensive wounds or any marks on her neck or face … but was he really considering the possibility that Miriam had murdered Jelena in her sleep?

"Markus!"

"Mark-oos!"

He jumped to his feet, grabbed the pistol, and ran out into the daylight towards his screaming companions. When he emerged he saw Miriam standing behind Mias, who had his spear held in a defensive position. Both were looking towards a mountain of a man who was standing calmly twenty meters away, both arms held straight out in a non-threatening way. Had it not been for the fact his attire made it obvious he was with the group that had been chasing them Markus would have told his friends to calm down. Instead, he leveled his own weapon at the man and looked around, suspecting he was sent as a distraction while his buddies came in around them.

"E'tie aki po la keh mo! Nos i'mos despulo!" It was obvious the man was speaking the same language as Mias, but knowing that fact brought them no closer to understanding what the hell he was saying. Instead of answering verbally, Markus pointed at his ear and then shrugged while shaking his head. When he looked over at his friends, he could see that Mias was looking at him rather than the newcomer, his eyes full of fear.

"Mir! Mir!" the man shouted, pointing at the emblem on his leather vest and then at his upper left arm before pointing at Mias. Miriam walked around and looked at Mias's arm and then back at the emblem on the vest.

"Mark, he's been … branded … with the same emblem that's on that guy's chest," she said.

It took a moment for the significance of that to sink in, and when it did that realization was accompanied by a wave of revulsion. These assholes weren't chasing them … they were chasing after property. He gave Mias what he hoped was a reassuring nod before turning back to the hunter.

"You can't have him back!" he shouted. "Get the hell out of here before I pop you!" He gestured with his left hand, pointing for the man to leave and then sliding a finger across his throat in what he hoped conveyed “leave or I'll kill you.”

It might have been that he'd just been sitting with his dead friend, it could have been the fact these animals had harassed them for days because they wanted their slave back, but whatever the catalyst he could feel a dark rage building inside him and for the first time in his life he premeditated killing another human just because the world would be a better place without him.

"Pertazeco nadie!" Mias shouted defiantly. Once he realized Markus wasn't about to hand him over, his entire demeanor shifted again and he brought his spear up, knees bent in a stable stance. "Vito de pader et homin!"

Whatever Mias had said seemed to enrage the hunter. He raised his hands to his mouth to bellow something, probably to signal to his compatriots. Markus didn't hesitate and fired a single shot, catching the man right in the gut. When he went for a follow-up shot nothing happened; he looked down and saw that the next round hadn't loaded properly and was sticking up out of the ejection port. Fucking jammed!

"Matalos toda!" the hunter screamed out before sinking to his knees and then rolling onto his back, both bloody hands holding his stomach.

"Shit! Run!" Markus shouted. "Get to the crossing!"

He moved as fast as he could among the loose rocks, stopping by their camp to grab the bag containing the tablet and data cores but leaving the rest. His eyes moved over Jelena Burnette's body, still sitting as they'd found her that morning, and swallowed back the bitter regret of leaving her in such a state. He hoped she'd understand.

"Come on!" Miriam shouted from where she and Mias had already made it past the camp and were heading south towards the crossing. In the woods around them they could head branches breaking and people yelling as the rest of the hunting party scrambled to their leader's call. Markus ran after his friends, working the slide on his pistol to clear the malfunction and chamber another round. The irreplaceable cartridge that had jammed pinged off the rocks where it fell, but he didn't dare slow up to retrieve it. The weapon still had nine in it and the spare magazine in his pocket with fifteen more slapped his thigh as he ran.

They rounded the bend of the river just as the sounds of a dozen pair of feet on loose rock reached them. Hopefully they would stop and tend to their leader first, delaying the chase if they were inclined to still come after them. Unfortunately he'd just turned their property recovery excursion into a revenge hunt by leaving their boss gut-shot.

"Hopefully that dickhead tells them about being shot by your magic thunder hand and they decide discretion is the better part of valor," Miriam panted.

"I'm not counting on it, but yeah … I hope you're right too," Markus said. "Let's go ahead and slow up. We've got another kilometer and a half, maybe more, and then we cross this river. If our luck holds out a bit, we'll be at the lander by tomorrow evening … that means hot meals, showers, and a working long-range com."

"Tease."

NIGEL AND REBECCA walked in silence, the hostility hanging in the air like smoke. The previous evening he'd stayed awake as long as he could, convinced that she was going to kill him in his sleep … not the first time he'd had to do that since they'd set off from Daedalus. If she'd just ranted and screamed at him he would almost feel better, let her get it out of her system. It was the silence and blank expression that were terrifying.

They'd camped a few kilometers away from the edge of the escarpment they'd had to climb, the evening passing without incident. There had been two different wolfpacks that had been howling in the early evening, but they sounded like they were far off. He'd remarked that the one pursuing them had just fed so they might not be back on the hunt so soon. Nigel still wasn't sure what in the fuck had possessed him to say that, but he was certain it had almost cost him his life. Both times he'd awoken during the night after nodding off for a few moments he did so to the sight of Rebecca's eyes boring into him, the light of the fire reflected in her dark eyes.

"Do you hear that?" she asked, the sound of her voice making him flinch.

"Hear what?"

"It sounds like … rushing water?"

For the next twenty minutes the unmistakable sound of moving water grew louder until they arrived at another sharp drop-off, this one fifteen meters or so above a rushing river. The water crashed and swirled around submerged rocks in an angry torrent as the river entered the chokepoint created by the ledge they were standing on and its twin across from them. Nigel looked down at the water for a moment, making sure to keep Rebecca where he could see her, and leaned out to see if he could tell where the rapids tapered off.

"We can't cross here," he said. "The water’s too fast even if we could climb down."

"No shit." Rebecca's answer dripped with derision and he could swear he heard her eyes roll.

"We'll need to go south, I think," he charged on, ignoring her glare. "The water is probably too deep to the north of these rapids to cross, but the river probably widens and shallows downstream."

"And you know this because?"

"My brothers and I used to take whitewater rafting trips." Nigel's voice was almost wistful as he said it. "You can learn a lot about the mechanics of a river if you listen to what the guides say."

Rebecca just grunted and looked to the south. There was a bend in the river so they couldn't actually see if it widened out as Nigel predicted, but that direction appeared to be mostly downhill and they had to pick one or the other. Without another word or even backward glance to see if he was following, she set off along the edge of the riverbank, keeping back as far as the treeline would allow.

They walked single-file for the next three hours before they emerged from trees onto a wide field of smooth river rocks. The bars of sediment that snaked across the rocks told the story that the shallow area they now found themselves in regularly flooded when the river was up. The path was somewhat treacherous as the rocks slipped against each other and the wet soil didn't offer much in the way of traction. After stumbling along like that for another kilometer or so, Rebecca pulled up short and held a hand up, crouching down.

"What?" he whispered.

"There's something up ahead … it looks like a man."

"What's he doing?"

"Just lying there from what I could tell."

Nigel risked standing back up and moved to where Rebecca had been. Sure enough, it looked like one of the locals was lying on his back down near the river. He also looked to be naked.

"Another ambush?" she asked.

"If it is, they're certainly getting more creative with the bait," Nigel said. "Come on … we'll have to walk right by him anyway."

They moved on with caution, trying to make as little noise as possible while approaching the prostrate man. Once they were closer they could see the insects buzzing around the open mouth and came to the obvious conclusion that he was dead, but when they checked to see what might have killed him, they were in for a shock.

"This is a gunshot wound," Rebecca said with such confidence that Nigel almost didn't refute her.

"Bullshit."

"Look at the entry wound, here … and then look at that blood splatter behind him. This wasn't an arrow or a spear."

"That just looks like mud," Nigel insisted.

"Must you be so dense all the time? What does blood do when exposed to air? It turns brown, doesn't it? That's blood, take my word for it, and this is a bullet wound," she said, standing up and stepping back from the buzzing insects.

"So who on this planet has a gun?" Nigel asked.

"Again with the stupid," she sighed. "Mark shot this guy, dipshit. I have no idea where he's been hiding a gun, but my guess would be he had it stashed on the flightdeck the entire mission and we just happened to land in that part of the ship."

"Okay, so why did Mark strip him down?"

"Let's go ahead and assume this guy's friends did that and took the clothes with them," she said, walking in a straight line from where the body was in the exact opposite direction of the blood splatter on the rocks.

"Here! Two pairs of prints that came from modern shoes," she crowed. "They were right here and had an altercation with this guy and then it looks like they took off that way." She pointed to the south, the same direction they'd already been travelling.

Nigel looked at the prints, and even though neither of them could be considered a tracker, it was hard to miss the fact that hard-soled boots had made the footprints they were seeing. They continued on in the direction of the footprints before something caught his eye, something the wrong color back along where the bank was eroding.

He got Rebecca's attention by smacking her arm with the back of his hand and pointing to where a swath of blue—the same blue as their flightsuits—was just visible among the hanging roots and driftwood near where the riverbank ended. She squinted at the bit of color that didn't belong for a moment before nodding and walking slowly in that direction. Perhaps suspecting another ambush, she'd gotten closer to Nigel, almost brushing against him as they walked.

"Oh, no … Jelena," she said, sounding genuinely regretful.

"Really? I thought you hated her."

"I hate you. She just got on my nerves," Rebecca lied. Now that she was looking at the woman's corpse most of her animosity towards Jelena evaporated in the breeze. "Mark and Miriam must've left in a hurry since most of their stuff is still here. There are also a lot of footprints that don't belong to them … they're too large to be Mark's feet and the type of shoe is different."

"Could it be the person who killed Jelly?"

"From what I'm seeing, you killed her … it just took this long for her to finish dying. She looks like she was in bad shape and I don't see any other injuries aside from where you damn near caved her head in." The clinical, dispassionate Rebecca was back, cataloging and analyzing the campsite while trying to figure out what might have happened. "Whoever this fourth person was, I don't think he was a hostile. The footprints are all around and intermixed with the others, not to mention the leftover fish from their meal."

"Why are the fish important?" Nigel asked as he poked through the bags that had been left, smiling as he found one that still had emergency rations and water in it.

"Did you see any fishing poles on Daedalus?" Rebecca asked. "Mark may have gone through survival school, but I have a hard time believing he'd be this good at spearing fish out of a river." She held up one of the sharpened branches that had obviously been used in the hunt. "There's enough fish here for six people."

"Lucky sons of bitches," Nigel muttered, his complaint punctuated by a loud growl from his stomach. "So he's got local help? How in the hell did he manage that?!"

"Useless speculation." She stood up and wiped her hands off on her thighs. "The point is that Mark and Miriam now have a guide and that gives them a significant advantage the rest of the way to the lander. They can take a quicker, safer route while we bumble along and try not to get shot with arrows or eaten by a damn tiger."

"Should we bury her?" Nigel gestured to Jelena, his tone of voice indicating he was saying it out of some sense of obligation, not because he actually wanted to dig a grave. Rebecca looked at her former crewmate for a long, uncomfortable moment before answering. Nigel stayed balanced up on the balls of his feet in case this was the final straw that made her come at him.

"We can't spare the time it will take," she said finally. "Let's consolidate everything useful they had in one bag and move on. Make sure to grab those metal poles, they're a damn sight better than the stick I've been carrying around to defend myself."

Nigel recognized the radome support spars from one of Daedalus's radar arrays and was impressed that Mark had thought to rip them out of the ship. The titanium alloy was ideal for a lightweight walking stick that could double as a weapon. He wished he'd thought of it himself as a damn near unbreakable staff would have come in handy when they were being attacked by ravenous wolves or running from a pack of wild humans that were intent on killing them.

He grabbed two of the spars and went outside, the sight of Jelena's lifeless body suddenly overwhelming him. Rebecca continued muttering to herself and pawing through the discarded packs, so he walked out along the water's edge and tried to come up with a plan that might let them overtake the other two. If Mark had a gun and a local expert—and how the hell was he even communicating with this person?—then they were really in deep shit.

Still lost in thought, he was startled when his foot kicked up a small object and he heard the unmistakable tink of something metallic bouncing on the rocks. He bent and looked around before he saw what it was: the shell casing of a 10mm pistol cartridge. Nigel picked up the incontrovertible proof that Mark was much better armed than they were and rolled it around in his hand. Being only passingly familiar with firearms, he knew that the aluminum-cased ammunition would have been difficult to smuggle up to the ship given all the chemical sniffers and security checks every gram of cargo went through.

One more look at the naked, dead local made Nigel reevaluate what he thought he knew about Markus Brentwood. The fact that the man had the foresight and gumption to sneak a gun onto an exploration vessel packed with nerds and science types was one thing, that he’d proved he had the will to use it was something else entirely. Before he would have never thought the man had the balls to do what was necessary and would roll over while blathering on about doing the “right thing.”

"You ready?" Rebecca asked from behind him. He turned and saw a strange look on her face and his flight or fight response kicked in hard. Had she found another weapon among the discarded packs?

"What?"

"Huh? Oh, it's nothing."

"Rebecca—"

"There was something … off … about Jelena," Rebecca said. Her posture was non-threatening, but Nigel knew better than to let his guard down around her. "Nothing so obvious as a rope tied around her neck, but there was some bruising on her face that makes me think she didn't just die from the hit to the head. She might have been smothered in her sleep; there were some other little details that back the theory up."

"You seriously think Mark had the stomach to off her because she was slowing them down?" Nigel asked. "That's a bit of a stretch for me."

"Not Mark … but Miriam might have a more refined survival instinct than we thought," she said. "Not to mention we know nothing about whoever it is they're traveling with."

"Shit … this isn't good," Nigel said. "We're not only behind them now, but we're going to have to follow the same trail they are assuming they found a place to cross further south."

"Come on," Rebecca said. "We've wasted too much time here."

The pair trudged on down the river bank, leaving the dead wild human as they'd found him as well as their crewmate's body. After what they'd done, betraying the others to try and get to the lander first, Nigel had a pinch of regret in his gut that they weren't at least laying Jelena to rest in a proper manner. Although if their consciousness or soul did travel on after death he doubted that she'd want him to be the one giving her corporeal remains their last rites.

MARKUS AND MIRIAM didn't speak, each deep in their own thoughts. They were camped on a shallow ledge Mias had found off the trail that had led up from the river, and while the climb had been a tough one at the end of the day, the views and security the spot afforded made it well worth it. The fight with the hopefully-dead hunter along with losing Jelena after she had fought so hard to make it to the lander had emotionally drained the two remaining Daedalus crew. Their travelling companion, picking up on their somber demeanor, had quietly retreated in search of their dinner, a critical task since they had left all their remaining food back at the last camp.

To keep his mind occupied while waiting for his friend to return with whatever he could forage, Markus pulled the radio out and scanned through the channels to see if the other group was within range and listening. If one of the radios detected the other it would alert him on the screen and switch to that channel automatically. While he didn't pick up the other three, he did get a ping on the device that surprised him: The Kepler lander was listening and responding.

Markus almost dropped the radio in his excitement, digging into the pack to get the tablet out and pair the two devices. He set the radio on a rock protrusion that was above his head, careful to keep the antenna oriented up to maximize his range. The tablet was a device that had been built specifically for the Polaris mission by the world's leading personal electronics company as part of a public relations gimmick, but he had to admit they'd done a hell of a job integrating the device's software into Daedalus's systems. Case in point: he was looking at a login screen for the lander that would allow him to access most of the small ship's systems over the radio's datalink.

"You have something?" Miriam asked when she saw his excited face illuminated by the soft glow of the screen.

"The lander's remote systems are still online and accepting radio commands," Markus said. "I'm going to try to log in and check the radio buffer. Before leaving the command section I set the lander up to listen for any transmissions from Mars and record them."

"Can Nigel do the same thing?"

"No." Mark shook his head. "I changed all the access codes before we left. He can attempt to do what I'm doing now if he still has his equipment, but he won't be able to do anything but try to guess a random ten-digit passcode."

She left him to his task and started breaking the sticks they'd piled up into smaller pieces in preparation to start a fire. As she was using the small torch from the survival kit to light the tinder, Mias walked back into camp. He looked relieved to see Markus and Miriam animated and busy, the former almost looking excited while the latter seemed to find solace in her menial task. Once again their friend had come through with four fat squirrels already prepped for cooking and a handful of tubers that Markus couldn't identify.

Mias dropped to his knees and helped Miriam with the fire while Markus tapped furiously at the tablet, anxious to see what word, if any, there was from Mars. He didn't have to wait long before the buffer contents were listed: five new messages, all on the frequency he'd programmed the lander to listen on. He tried to just download all five to the tablet and was given an error; the weak radio link didn't have near the bandwidth to transfer five large video files. He selected another dropdown menu and told the computers that he wanted all five messages transcribed into text. After two tries it accepted his commands and let him know that the text-only versions would be available within the next fifteen minutes.

Markus set the tablet aside to do its thing and scooted closer to the fire where Mias was trying to explain to Miriam the best way to cook the squirrels using only hand gestures and the few English words he'd picked up along the way. It was far from fluent, but each day it seemed it was getting easier to get at least basic ideas across to each other. It would have been fascinating to document these first interactions, humans separated by over eight hundred years, but he'd been far too busy trying to keep them all alive to indulge in such a purely academic pursuit.

There was a more practical matter to consider, however, and that was what would happen to Mias once they reached the lander and departed. He couldn't go with them and it was probably unwise to just leave the lander and its contents to him once they left … so what to do with him? Markus felt a keen sense of loyalty for the young man as he'd most certainly ensured their survival thus far, as well as feeling somewhat responsible since they'd apparently helped him escape from captivity. The small party would reach the lander tomorrow afternoon so whatever he came up with, he'd have to do it quickly.

"How do you like your squirrel?"

"I’m not sure I do," Markus joked, watching as Miriam turned the skewers with their dinner.

Once they'd eaten, they all leaned back against the rock wall, drowsy from the day's stress and exertion. Markus checked the tablet again and was dismayed that the computer was still transcribing the message audio to text. He added instructions for the device to download the text versions once they were available and then flicked the screen off. As excited as he'd been to read the messages, his drooping eyelids told him he'd be asleep before they were ready so he decided to just leave it till morning.

After confirming that Mias would take first watch and then wake him up to take second watch, Markus allowed the fog to descend over his fatigued mind, not focusing on anything more complicated than the fact the coals from the fire were keeping him warm and he had a full stomach.

20

Planetside, Earth

Day: 13

COMMANDER BRENTWOOD … I hope this message finds you before [unintelligible] and your crew has survived the challenges of Earth. As you can imagine, we were joyous to learn the data archives were still intact and in your procession.

AS PROMISED, our recovery ship has left Martian orbit and will be in Earth orbit seven Earth-days after you receive this message. However, there have been some necessary changes to the craft's flight profile that deviate from what I told you earlier. Due to the [unintelligible] forces of the necessary deceleration maneuver to get the ship there in time, it will be automated and without crew. The fuel load will allow the ship to remain in orbit for only two Earth-days before it will need to return to Mars.

Once the ship is within range it will begin broadcasting on this frequency and will recover anything in orbit doing the same. Please set your location beacons accordingly. The trip back will be nine days. Appropriate food and water have been loaded aboard and suitable quarters have been prepared so you can recover from your ordeal in comfort.

We cannot overstate how much we are looking forward to meeting you. Goodbye for now, Commander.

"That was the last message?" Miriam handed the tablet back to Markus after she read through the text twice.

"Yeah, and the only one of the five that had anything of substance to say," Markus said. "The timetable they've given us means that we'll need to be in the pod and pushing for orbit by late tomorrow to give ourselves a comfortable margin."

"And we're how far from the lander now?"

"About three, maybe four hours’ hike from here."

There was excitement and anticipation as they quickly broke down their camp and prepared to hit the trail again. For the first time since Daedalus had been struck in orbit, Markus believed there was better than even odds that they might make it off the planet alive. His exuberance was tempered, however, when he looked over and saw Mias gathering his own meager belongings. What would happen to him? Despite the language barriers and having only known him a few days, Markus felt a strong sense of kinship with him.

"Mark-oos … leave?"

The words startled Markus until he realized Mias was only talking about leaving the camp. As they'd walked along, with nothing better to do, they'd tried to erode the communication barrier by translating the simple concepts they could demonstrate with gestures into each other's respective language. Mias had proven keen of mind and more adept than Markus at picking up the new language. The phonetics Mias's language used were at least pronounceable for Markus, but he was someone who only spoke English and didn't have a talent for languages.

Miriam, a bilinguist thanks to her Mexican-American heritage, had picked up on the words much more easily and swore that she could detect a trace of familiarity within the native language. The obvious answer was that Mias was speaking an evolutionary hybrid of Spanish and English, a safe assumption given the makeup of North America when they'd left as well as the amount of time that had passed, but that hadn't helped her have any significant breakthrough when it came to understanding him.

"I wish we'd met Mias back when we had the resources of Daedalus's command section still fully functional," Markus remarked. "We had our own advanced translation algorithms, at least advanced for the time, and there's a decent chance that Ellek would be able to recognize the language used here if we could have transmitted him a recording."

"What's bringing this on?" Miriam asked.

"I'm worried about what happens to our friend here when we leave," he said. The reaction was not what he expected. It started with a snort, then a chuckle, and then soon a full-throated laugh that he assumed was at his expense. "What?"

"Mark, what makes you think he needs our help?" she asked, wiping her eyes. "He escaped what were obviously his captors, has led us safely through hostile territory, has been feeding us with his considerable skill … he's been keeping us alive, not the other way around. He'll do just fine once we're no longer burdening him."

Markus was mildly insulted at first, but had to concede that she had a point. Earth was Mias's world now, not theirs. The best thing they could do for him was get the hell out of the way so he could stop wasting time following them around making sure they were safe and fed. After a few moments of consideration, however, he did feel enormously better than he had last night when he was nearly overcome with guilt thinking that Mias would be lost without them.

The walk through the dense forest, which before had seemed like a forced march, had taken on the feeling of a pleasure hike. By the time they were approaching where the lander had set down, he'd almost allowed himself to be lulled into a state of complacency … a few hundred more meters, climb in and lock the hatch, and they were home free. Right?

That was before he heard the chanting. It began as a strange background noise that he couldn't quite place, but the closer they got the more clear it became: hundreds of human voices raised in rhythmic unison and coming from right where they needed to go. Given the trouble they'd seen around the command section after it had first landed, they were pretty sure what they would find up ahead.

"Shit … another group saw the lander come down," Miriam whispered.

"This isn't good," Markus said. "It sounds like there are a lot of them and we need to be on that ship by tomorrow morning to give ourselves a safety margin."

"Suggestions?"

He didn't answer and instead pulled the tablet back out and brought up the map of the area, waving a hand to get Mias's attention. After pointing to where they currently were, or at least his best guess, and where they wanted to go, he was able to demonstrate that he wanted to see if there was an approach that let them get close without being spotted. Mias took the tablet and stared intently at the map, then at the woods ahead, his eyes narrowed speculatively. He'd come to understand what the top-down satellite image on the screen represented but he still struggled to correlate distances on the map to the real world.

It took Mias another ten seconds before he nodded confidently to himself and handed the tablet back to Markus. He gestured off to his right and began to climb back up the natural trail that had been created by constant water washing away new growth and depositing fresh soil in the ravine. The climb up was difficult but manageable as the two Daedalus crew followed behind the one wild human as he picked his way carefully among the loose dirt and rocks.

During their end-around maneuver that took them further north and up above the depression that Daedalus's avionics assured them was where the Kepler lander was, they could hear the rise and fall of the chanting. By midday they were able to pick out two distinct chants, one much louder than the other. Two different groups? If so, were they working together or were they in competition?

"Acab pas est arbols," Mias said softly, pointing to where the scrubby trees that grew among the rocks ended.

"What'd he say?" Miriam asked from behind Markus.

"He said it's right up past those trees," he said over his shoulder. "Right?"

"Derko." Mias nodded, looking quite pleased with himself.

Markus nodded in return and patted him on the shoulder before crouching down and moving up to the edge of the treeline and peering out. Past the trees there was another three meters of hard-packed soil with nothing growing in it before a sharp drop-off. He guessed they were up on another ridgeline or escarpment judging by the view beyond and how far they'd climbed during the day. What he was really interested in was that just at the edge of what he could see below, maybe two or three hundred meters away, were the tips of the Kepler lander's vertical stabilizers. He turned and gave his friends a huge smile and a thumbs up before lying flat and crawling forward.

"There you are," he whispered once he was far enough out on the ledge that he could see the lander in its entirety. "Looking good."

For being a PR-fueled add-on to the Polaris mission, the Kepler lander was simply enormous. Markus didn't remember the bastard being that big when they'd hauled it up to orbit in three flights, two for the fuselage and a third for the wings. It was easily four times the length of the Daedalus command section, which made sense given that it had living quarters and work spaces for up to ten crewmembers as well as six ascension pods. The ten-person crew would only need five pods, but the designers had included a sixth as a redundant spare.

The monocular he carried offered enough detail at that distance that he could make out the trees that had been sheared off and smashed flat when the massive lander came down. It had landed in a northeasterly direction so he was looking at the starboard side of the ship and could see it was leaning quite severely in that direction; the landing gear likely had crumpled when it hit the uneven ground. The scorch marks from the retro thrusters was still apparent and it looked like the locals had pulled down the parachutes that had deployed during the landing and had made canopies out of them.

"How's it look?"

"Intact." He handed over his monocular so Miriam could take a look. "I don't see any damage that would explain why four of the pods are reading as offline, but we can't see the belly from this angle. At least the damn thing is sitting upright."

"So what's your plan to deal with our worshippers?"

"Worshippers?"

"Look for yourself." She handed the optic back to him and pointed down to the south behind where the parachutes had been arranged.

Sure enough, at least two hundred people divided into four different groups were kneeling on the ground facing the lander and were obviously in the middle of some sort of religious observance. Each group had at least two garishly dressed individuals that were leading their chants and movements and they appeared to be in competition with each other; one group would begin swaying and wailing loudly and the others would try to beat that display until the last group just looked like they were all having some sort of seizure.

"Tontals," Mias sniffed with disdain, rolling his eyes at what he saw. Markus realized that, in addition to apparently thinking the revelers were fools, his friend had to have extraordinarily sharp vision to make out any sort of detail from that distance.

"Indeed," Markus said, continuing to observe the group while thinking of a way around them. He could see smoke rising from the other side of the ship, so he had to assume the lander was surrounded and they couldn't simply walk around and enter from the other side. Judging by the zeal of the newly minted religious leaders below, they weren't likely to just let them walk up and hop in, nor was Markus willing to murder them all even if he had enough ammunition to shoot his way through.

"This doesn't seem like we're—" Miriam trailed off as first one group, then the next one over stood and began screaming, clearly agitated about something happening in the opposite direction of the lander. "What the …?"

At the shouted commands of their leader, the first group broke into a run towards whatever the hell had them so worked up. Markus risked exposing himself by leaning out but couldn't see what was happening because of the way the break in the land curved back behind them. Before he could ask Miriam if she thought there was a way to take advantage of the momentary distraction, a loud screech ripped through the afternoon air followed by a sharp crack. It was unmistakably a flare and Markus knew immediately what it was that had the people below screaming like banshees.

"Shit," he muttered. "The other group just got here."

NIGEL RAN AHEAD, his sprint fueled by adrenaline and pure panic as all thoughts of waiting for Rebecca were gone. He could hear her crashing along behind him, but he could also hear a few dozen wild humans whooping and giving chase behind her. There was no way he was going to be able to stay ahead of them indefinitely and he wasn't sure he could use the same strategy with Rebecca that he'd used with Xavier: Humans weren't wolves, and if she fell the others would just continue on.

Feeling his heartbeat race in his temples, he turned and pulled out the one advantage he felt he still had. Rebecca saw him aiming the flare gun right at her and dove off the side of the trail just as he yanked the trigger. The flare zipped parallel to the ground with just a bit of an arc to keep it aloft before it slammed into the chest of one of their pursuers. The man screamed and dropped to the ground while the small munition expended the rest of its propellant and the fuse detonated the signal charge. The concussion almost certainly killed the man, but the red streams of fire from the flare's small amount of aluminum oxide and strontium nitrate landed on those around him.

The burning effect of the flare's signal section was brief but intense beyond all measure for people not accustomed to anything burning hotter than wood. Screams of agony from anyone touched by the burning metal did a fine job of stopping the headlong rush of the others dead. They stared at Nigel in stunned silence, some dropping to their knees, some shouting at him angrily, and others still just seemed confused by what they saw and were unsure how to react.

"You could have hit me, you stupid bastard!"

"I wasn't trying to," Nigel said. "What the hell do we do?"

"Reload and keep running!" Rebecca sprinted past him and continued up the ravine.

"This is the last one," Nigel huffed, struggling to keep up while also loading the flare gun with their last pyrotechnic shell.

"This way!" Rebecca leapt off the trail and began climbing up the southern face that was at a much friendlier angle than its steep northern counterpart. They scrabbled up the hillside, the going getting tough enough that Nigel had to pocket the flare gun to use both hands for traction.

Once to the top, they wasted little time moving quickly into the woods, desperate to put some distance between them and that howling pack of lunatics before they were able to reorganize and continue after them. They'd been so focused on the fact that they needed to catch Markus and Miriam before they were able to get inside the lander that they'd run from the ravine into the valley without a thought given to caution, stunned when they saw what looked like an indie rock festival spread out before the Kepler.

What they didn't see was any sign of Markus or Miriam and that worried him. They'd been ahead of them all the way to the lander and, given the level of surprise when he and Rebecca had walked out, it was obvious that two identically dressed people hadn't passed through that way. Did their local guide find them a better way? Were they already on the damn lander and just waiting to deploy an ascension pod and launch?

"Where are we running to?"

"Away." Rebecca didn't look back.

"Just stop for a damn minute! We need a better plan than away."

"What the hell do you—"

"Mark and Miriam weren't back there, but they aren't behind us either." Nigel grabbed her by the shoulders to physically stop her from continuing on. "Running off blindly into the woods isn't going to help us. Listen! They aren't coming after us right now, so we need to stop and think … where are the other two and what can we do to make sure they don't beat us to the lander?"

Rebecca shook herself free of his grip. The look she gave him reminded him that she was not his friend and to be careful around her. She wasn't stupid. She'd figured out he'd done something to make sure Xavier hadn't been tied off so they could pull him up and away from that wolfpack. Given the first opportunity she would kill him, of that he had no doubt.

"You have the radio still? Give it to me." Nigel wordlessly handed over the device and showed her how to get it to scan for used frequencies. They quickly found one that belonged to the lander, but that proved to be useless, no doubt locked down tight by Mark before the batteries on Daedalus ran out. The next one that appeared on the small display was labeled as “EMERGENCY 4,” one of the radios from the survival kits.

"Hello, Mark … are you out there?"

"REBECCA? So you were able to get away from the locals, I see," Markus said after a long moment. He'd almost dropped the radio over the ledge when it hissed and his ex-wife's voice started coming from it. For a moment he considered not answering, but Miriam had insisted that they needed to know what the three of them had planned.

"Yes … Nigel and I were able to evade the wild humans when they freaked out over a stupid signal flare," Rebecca's voice came through. The screen on the radio showed that the signal strength was strong, so they had to be close.

"Reading between the lines, am I to assume Xavier wasn't as quick on his feet?"

"Xavier is dead. Eaten by wolves about a day before we found where you just left Jelena's carcass by the river. Tell me, Mark, just how did you sneak a firearm up to Daedalus?"

"What's the point of this call, Rebecca?" Markus asked. "Yes, Jelly died from where Nigel bashed her head in with a hammer … do you really expect me to think you care? Or that I'm going to offer any sympathy for Xavier West, of all people?"

"It didn't look like Jelena had passed peacefully in her sleep, but I'm sure you know nothing about that, do you? The point of this conversation is that we have a mutual problem … if none of us can get to the lander, none of us can leave. Nigel tells me that it's likely two pods are fully functional. That's enough room for all four of us." Rebecca didn't ask outright, but the implication was clear.

"Not a fucking chance," Markus laughed. "You think I'd trust you to work with us after what you pulled? I'm not stupid, Rebecca … you need me because you can't get into the ship without the codes I set and you can't sneak by the locals without my help. I'm holding all the aces here, sweetheart, so why would I risk our lives to help out a couple of murdering mutineers?"

"Mutineers? You think this is the fucking military, you—" There was the sound of a scuffle over the radio and some sharp words before a new voice came on.

"Hey, Mark," Nigel said, Rebecca's voice muffled in the background. "Look … I'm truly sorry about Jelly. I really liked her and I wasn't trying to kill her, honest … but nobody on this crew has clean hands right now, do they? The bruising on Jelly's face looks like someone may have smothered her, and Rebecca here already admitted to killing Jordan and when she gets the chance she's probably going to try and kill me.

"Why don't we call a truce, deal with the problem at hand, and then sort it all out after we've had a decent meal and a change of clothes aboard the lander? There's no point in all of us dying out here in the mud over this … we've all done what we had to do to survive. Yeah?"

"No," Markus said after another long pause. "No, Nigel, I don't think we'll be doing that. We could have made our way here, as a crew, and then worked together to see what could be done to make sure we all left together. For fuck’s sake, the other four pods may have just tripped some circuit breakers! You didn't even give us a chance to fix it! You three decided to kill, maim, and leave the rest stranded so you could save yourselves. I'm not giving you the chance to finish the job on us now just because it all went tits up on you. Good luck, asshole."

He terminated the channel and turned the radio completely off so they wouldn't be able to home in on their location with the same trick Nigel had used for the lander's beacon. Even when not transmitting, the radio emitted RF energy from its receive circuitry that could possibly be tracked.

"What do you think their next move will be?" Miriam asked. Her face was ashen and there was a tremble in her voice that made Markus pause before answering.

"They'll try to get to the lander first," he said. "Nigel will be somewhat familiar with the machine, so he'll possibly know of a way to sneak aboard and disable my lockouts, but it can't be something easy or quick or they wouldn't have bothered reaching out to us." He looked at his watch and the countdown timer he'd started after calculating how much time they had left before they had to be in orbit: thirty-three hours and that was including the time to prep the pods and climb out of the atmosphere.

"And what are we going to do?"

"We've got a good vantage here," he said. "For now we'll just watch and wait to see if we find any opportunities before we resort to anything more desperate."

The evening passed into night without much happening aside from the religious observances down below starting back up. Markus was dismayed to see that it showed levels of organization in how food was being delivered and distributed that indicated they had no plans for leaving any time soon. Mias had performed his self-appointed duty and had gathered a dinner of grubs, some type of tuber that was stringy and starchy raw, and a heap of leafy greens he set down in a communal pile.

At first Miriam made it clear that she would not be eating any of the grubs even as their guide cleaned them off with a little bit of their fresh water. Mias then took a couple of the small critters, rolled them up in one of the green leaves, and popped it into his mouth with a wide smile before he started grinding the root vegetable with his molars, extracting the nutrients. Markus shrugged and grabbed a few of the wriggling little bastards and a leaf and mimicked what Mias had done.

"When in Rome," he said before tossing it into his mouth and biting down. He knew from survival school that the grubs would have little flavor, just a very, very gross texture, but whatever the greens were turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It was sweet and watery at first bite with just a little hint of a peppery kick on the back of the tongue when you swallowed. Best of all, it completely dominated the pallet so that if you tried really hard not to think about it you almost forgot you were eating grubs. Eventually Miriam's hunger overcame her revulsion to eating larvae.

"What the hell … I'd hate to be telling this story to my kids someday and not be able to tell them what a disgusting grub lettuce wrap tastes like."

"That's the spirit," Markus said. She'd been somber and silent since the conversation with the other “team,” as he'd come to think of them, and he was glad to see her perk up a bit. They were forced to eat a raw meal since they had to keep the lander in sight and didn't dare risk a fire that would be easily seen by the people below. Besides, the raw meal wasn't nearly as bad as he'd feared it might be and by tomorrow they could be back to enjoying the freeze-dried bounty of good ol’ twentieth century technology.

After they'd eaten, Mias settled down by a tree facing the way they'd come and dozed off while Markus slid back up to the ledge so he could continue his intel gathering. He tried to be careful to present a minimal profile and not move around too much, since it was likely Nigel and Rebecca were doing the same somewhere else in the hills surrounding the lander.

It was difficult to accept the level of ruthlessness displayed in the people he thought he knew so well. Had Rebecca actually killed Jordan Korpal? It did put a lot of pieces together, but why had Nigel said that she was going to kill him at first chance? Maybe the engineer had somehow been responsible, directly or indirectly, for Xavier being killed. Being torn apart by a pack of wolves still didn't make him a more sympathetic figure to Markus. He'd not liked the man from his first interview with the Polaris team and had come to despise him by the time they'd reached Earth orbit. The fact Xavier had been having fun with his ex-wife most of the mission just gave him a convenient excuse for his otherwise irrational disgust of the man.

"Nighttime. They'll wait for nighttime to make their move," Miriam whispered from beside him.

"How can you be sure of that?"

"Look down there." She nodded towards where the fires were dying down and the revelers were becoming less active. "They'll probably post a few guards, but most of those people are going to sleep and it will be the only time they have to get to the lander without them, or us, seeing them."

"Then they're in for a nasty surprise." Markus smiled and waved the optic he carried that had two types of low-light modes. "Of course, seeing them isn't the same as stopping them, and my pistol won't do anything at this range other than give our location away."

"How much of the lander's command and control is accessible through that tablet?" she asked.

"Well … at this range I don't need to go through the handheld radio's datalink, so I would assume we have full-function capability. It should work just like the CommandNet aboard Daedalus but it's not something I ever tested. Why? Being able to command certain systems while not aboard doesn't do us any good up here." Markus frowned, trying to work out why she was interested in the lander's C&C level functions.

"Doesn't the lander have a much better external surveillance system than the command section?"

"Ah!" he smiled. "Very good. Let's move back a bit and see if the external sensors are online and working."

She gave him a watery smile and followed him back from the ledge as he went through the process of logging into the Kepler's system remotely. They were just at the edge of the network's range, but he still had a strong enough signal that it didn't kick him off. Thankfully the lander had external local network antennas as well as internal since it was designed to support explorers that might venture out onto the surface of an alien planet. In many ways, the lander that was never actually meant to be used was much more advanced and well-thought-out than the nuclear-powered behemoth that took them to another planet in the first place.

"THERE ARE access panels in the main landing gear bays that can be used to gain access to the ship's interior."

"Seems like an obvious design flaw," Rebecca said. "Why would we care about access codes when you can just slip in through a side door?"

"When it lands normally and on an appropriate surface, it lowers itself all the way down so that the rear-loading ramp can be used for people on foot or the small rover that's aboard," Nigel said. "From what I saw before we had to run for our lives, it's still sitting up on its gear, so those panels will be exposed."

She just looked at him skeptically but couldn't seem to think of an alternative plan. They couldn't afford to wait any longer and it looked like the idiots around the ship were tiring out from their celebration earlier. It definitely had the feel of a now-or-never moment.

"Mark's going to be watching."

"So? What can he do? He won't be close enough for his pistol to make any difference, and he has the same problem we do of trying to remain hidden." Nigel was becoming exasperated at her constant questioning. If they didn't get aboard that ship, shut down the security sub-system so they could keep the hatches locked, and do it while they had the cover of darkness, they might as well walk out into the open and let the locals butcher them.

"Fine, let's get to it then." Rebecca sounded resigned to a plan she didn't agree with, but with only two people left in the group it was almost impossible to veto the idea. At least before Xavier had died he could be counted on to side with her and Nigel would always back down when it was two on one. Now that it was just them he was becoming more bold and willing to lean on her to get his way.

Having won the argument, Nigel smiled at her and began to lead the way back down the hill to the ravine. They'd not been able to see an alternative route down to the lander, so they had to chance walking back up the same way they did earlier when the locals had spotted them. They used their remaining working flashlight for the descent, the logic being that the risk of their light being seen was less than the risk of falling and injuring themselves and being heard.

The ravine floor was smooth rocks buried in hard-packed dirt, but the trail was clean of debris. Rebecca idly thought that the area must have had heavy rains recently given how clean the runoffs were and remembering the heavily eroded river bank from earlier. They picked their way carefully, straining to hear the slightest sound that would indicate that the people ahead had left a lookout at the mouth of the ravine.

"There it is," Nigel whispered so softly that Rebecca couldn't actually be sure he'd spoken. She walked up and crouched down next to where he was scanning the area with his monocular. The first quarter moon provided some light thanks to clear skies, but it was still difficult to make out any detail thanks to how deeply in the shadows the lander sat. All she could make out were a few razor-sharp angles that obviously weren't natural jutting up in silhouette. "Something is off."

"What? What's wrong?"

"Maybe nothing … but it looks like the lander has some activity aboard it. I can see a faint glow of instrument lights coming from the flightdeck canopy," Nigel said. "But we've never seen it at night. This may be normal."

"Do you think they—"

"No, I don't think anybody is aboard right now. But I keep seeing something reflecting moonlight that doesn't look right."

After another five minutes of silent observation, Nigel rose to a half-crouch and began sneaking forward again. Rebecca waited and then began to follow him once he was a few meters ahead. It wasn't long before they could see the individual camps of the people that, presumably, had been worshipping the Kepler lander. A few people were walking around, but mostly it was just burned-down fires and the sounds of snoring. After a moment of seeing shadows walking around, she realized that they were far more conspicuous skulking about crouched over than if they just walked through as if they belonged there.

She stood up straight and moved up to slap Nigel on the shoulder and began walking straight for the lander as if she owned the place. The confidence she exuded only went so far as her gait. Inside her guts were churning and her heart thudded against her chest like a trip-hammer. She imagined this was what it must feel like to walk into a badger den after being dipped in honey.

"Wait, wait!!"

"What?" she hissed back.

"The external camera turrets are deployed."

"So?"

"They weren't earlier."

As if the ship had been waiting for them to notice, it was at that moment the entire area was bathed in harsh, artificial light from a dozen powerful floodlights that ringed the lander. Accompanying the light was a piercing alarm that echoed through the hills and sent Rebecca's panic response into the stratosphere. The lights on the vertical stabilizers began to sweep about and soon stopped on her and Nigel, exposing them completely. The camps erupted in screams of fear and anger and people flooded out from under the parachute canopies and gawked at the lander.

IT WAS COMPLETE FUCKING CHAOS.

SOME OF THE locals slammed their heads to the ground and took up their chanting again, others began fighting with the different groups, others yet decided they'd seen enough and fled into the night as quickly as their feet could carry them. Nigel was completely frozen, eyes wide and cheeks puffing with panicked breaths as he couldn't decide what to do. Rebecca gave him a shove towards the lander, wanting to take advantage of the pandemonium to at least get up inside the starboard wheel well and get to work on the access panels.

ZIP! Smack!

A GEYSER of dirt kicked up in front of them and she knew immediately what it was from: Mark was up above them somewhere and had taken a shot at them. He'd taken a shot at her! That son of a bitch! She leaned forward, about to break into a sprint, when another round hit about ten meters in front of them.

"Those were warning shots, Rebecca … don't push it." Markus's calm baritone boomed from external PA speakers like the voice of God echoing across the land.

"He's bluffing," she said.

"No, he's not! Let's get the fuck out of here before those crazy bastards over there see us!" Nigel grabbed her and gave her a shove in the opposite direction of the lander.

She fought back for a moment and was about to make another break for it, but she realized their moment was gone. The wild humans around the craft had stopped everything they were doing when Markus's voice had drowned out their own chanting and fighting; now they were approaching the lander with their hands out and looks of awe on their faces. They couldn't make it to the landing gear bay before they were caught.

"He's still up in the hills; there's still time," Nigel hissed. "Let's GO!"

Rebecca allowed him to lead her back into the darkness and away from the approaching crowd so they could circle around and head back up into the ravine. Part of her wanted to cave Nigel's skull in for freezing up like a damn rabbit and losing their momentum, but she had to admit that there was little they could have done. Markus had simply out-played them this time, but he was no closer to getting on the lander than they were and now he'd just made sure the locals weren't going anywhere anytime soon. In the end his little stunt may have screwed them all.

"GOOD JOB with the warning shots!"

"I was actually trying to hit Nigel," Markus said. "I'm an okay shot at the range, but a couple hundred meters away, downhill, at night? I'm lucky I didn't shoot a hole in the lander."

"Better lucky than good?" Miriam asked. She had an almost manic demeanor after the rush of catching the other two trying to sneak up to the ship and pulling the rug out from under them.

"I suppose," he said.

It hadn't taken him long to figure out that the lander had a much more robust remote link than Daedalus did, likely as a function of supporting a small crew that might be away from the ship often. He'd been able to activate the external surveillance systems, including auditory, and had picked up on Nigel and Rebecca walking out from the mouth of the ravine almost immediately. When he saw them walking so brazenly towards the ship he assumed Nigel must have some other way aboard that he wasn't aware of, so he activated one of the non-lethal deterrents that were designed to keep wildlife away if needed. The results hadn't been exactly as he'd hoped.

When he hit the sirens he thought it would send the locals screaming into the woods, and a few had, but now most were surrounding the ship and renewing their chants. When that happened Mias actually smirked at him, as if amused by his obvious misstep. It was interesting that his friend didn't seem at all intimidated or in awe of their technology, but the others down near the lander were clearly overwhelmed by the huge metallic object that had slammed down into their midst a couple of weeks ago.

The incongruity didn't stop there, he realized, looking through his optic at the crowd with renewed interest. Mias wore well-crafted, fitted clothing, had weapons from worked metal, and was well-groomed. The people below were dressed in crude animal skins and had a wild, unkempt look about them. If only he could talk to Mias more directly and get the answers to his questions.

"So what do we do now?" Miriam asked.

"Try to get some rest," Markus sighed. "I think I may have outsmarted myself … they didn't get to the lander, but now neither are we. Either way, nothing is happening for the rest of tonight. We'll come at the problem fresh tomorrow and see what we come up with."

He watched as she tried to find a place to get comfortable. After her breathing fell into a steady rhythm, he went back to observing the crowd below in the pale moonlight. Even Mias seemed content that they were safe for the time being and soon his soft snores could be heard over the insects of the night. He supposed with all the noise from flares, gunshots, and the lander itself there wasn't much threat from wild animals for a while.

Markus eventually tired of watching the people below do nothing of interest but prostrate themselves in front of the lander, so he turned off his monocular and slipped it into a cargo pocket, pushing back from the ledge and lying down so he could stare up at the stars. They needed to get on that lander before midday tomorrow. Stealth was out, so was brute force … so what the hell was left besides that?

21

Planetside, Earth

Day: 14

MARKUS WAS ALREADY up with the sun.

HIS DISTRACTED MIND only let him get a few hours the previous night. He was still mulling over a few different ideas he'd come up with and was about to access the lander's message buffer to see if anything had come in from Mars when he heard a soft hitching sound coming from behind him. It didn't sound like any animal he'd ever heard, and by the time he'd turned halfway around he realized what it was. Miriam. She was lying on her side, facing away from him, her body shaking from sobs as she tried to hold them in.

Without a word he rose and went to sit down next to her. She choked back her crying with some effort and then sat up, facing him. Markus braced himself, knowing he was about to hear something he didn't want to, but something that he'd suspected all along.

"M-Mark … I … I can't go with you," she stammered. "I've … I—"

"I already know what happened, Miriam," Markus said quietly. "I—just tell me your side of it … I just want to hear it from you. I’m not going to judge or get angry, we're too far past that." It took her a moment more to compose herself and then she peered intently into Markus's eyes as if to find out if he meant what he said or if he wanted her to confess so he could throw her off the ledge.

"I'd been on my watch shift about two hours. You had fallen asleep almost immediately, so there was nothing to do but watch out across the river and listen for any noises on the rocks," she began. "It was actually a bit spooky with the three of you asleep and just me awake.

"I heard moaning from Jelly and thought maybe she was having a bad dream, but when I turned back she was in the beginnings of a seizure. Her eyes were rolled completely back and she was hitting her head against a large rock, right on the same spot where Nigel had hit her. I got over to her and pulled her back up on the log you'd leaned her against, but I couldn't get her to snap out of it." Miriam paused, looking like she was about to break down again. Markus made no move to comfort her, just sat still, unreadable.

"The seizure just got worse and worse and then her nose started running and running … I thought it was just blood but the viscosity was wrong and I realized it was probably cerebrospinal fluid. It was one of the things she told me to watch for when she'd first been injured and suspected her brain might swell. I was so scared, Mark … I'd understood what she was talking about at the time, but I'm not a medical doctor. I didn't know what to do.

"I panicked and actually pinched her nose shut, as if that would keep the fluid around her brain in place. When I did, her thrashing got worse and I realized I was suffocating her because my palm was on her mouth too … but I didn't let go. Oh, God! I didn't let go!" Her shoulders shook with violent sobs as she relived that night all over again. This time, Markus did reach out and take her hands in his.

"She died, Mark … drowned in her own fluids because I was scared and deep down I thought it would be better for everyone if she just passed in her sleep. I'm so sorry! I know you and her were … close."

It was a lot to take in. Markus sat for a long moment, still gently holding Miriam's hands while trying to put himself in her place. It was an impossible, no-win situation. Jelena would have likely succumbed to her injuries before they could get her to the lander, and even if she didn't there was no reason to believe irreparable damage hadn't already been done. Could he condemn Miriam for something that, in the darkest parts of his soul, he'd considered as well?

"I … I don't know what to say, Miriam," he started, tilting his head up to see the desperate, pleading look in her eyes. "Do I think you murdered Jelena in cold blood? No, of course not. I have killed two people in cold blood since this started, so for me to try and pass judgement on what sounds like a tragic mishap would be a tad hypocritical.

"To be honest, it doesn't matter what I think. You're going to have to decide if you can forgive yourself or not. In the meantime, we've still got to try and get off this planet so you have the time to do so."

"Okay … yeah, I know," she sniffed. "I just … thought you should know the truth before whatever we're going to do today starts."

"I appreciate it," Markus said, even though he actually didn't. He had enough on his mind without her burdening him with a truth that he didn't need at the moment. Was she so selfish that—

He slammed the door shut on that train of thought. Miriam had done and experienced something terrible and it had been eating at her guts ever since. The least he could do was allow her to confess and try to scrub that blight off her soul since they both knew odds were even that today was their last.

"Let's wait for Mias to get back with breakfast—at least that's what I assume he's doing—and then we can throw our options on the table and see which one looks the most survivable."

"Sounds terrible," Miriam agreed, some of her normal humor peeking through the anguish.

"THE SHOTS definitely came from above us," Nigel said. "He also had to be in front of us since he couldn't shoot from behind … it has to be that ridgeline right over there."

He and Rebecca had spent the last two hours scanning the hills, trying to figure out where Mark and Miriam were holed up. They'd hoped the pair would have been foolish enough to light a fire last night, but no luck. After they'd retreated back to their own hideout, the night had been dead silent. Now that he knew what he was looking for, Nigel watched the lander's camera turrets scanning and hoped that Mark wouldn't be able to determine which thermal signatures belonged to them as opposed to just another couple of locals.

"How does that help us? He still has all the cameras from the lander at his disposal and—oh, yeah!—he has a fucking gun!" Rebecca had been enraged after the altercation that night, unable to come to grips with the fact Mark had shot at her. In the passing hours her temper had reduced to a low smolder, still enough that Nigel had avoided talking to her unless absolutely necessary.

"All of that is true, but it doesn't change the fact that we need to get to that ship today before they do," he said. "If we know where they are, we can possibly set up an ambush and take Mark out before he has a chance to shoot one of us."

"What sort of trap?"

"Anything from a tiger pit to hiding behind a tree to bash him with a stick when he walks by," Nigel said. "But anything we decide on will require us to get close, and to do that, we need to know where they are."

They watched the hill as the sun continued to burn off the morning fog. Below them the religious leaders were organizing their charges and before long the chanting and yelling started up again. Nigel ignored them. If needs be he would use his last flare to clear a path so he and Rebecca could get to the lander and force their way inside … or just him. He had no doubt that if she had even a glimmer of a chance of operating the lander on her own she'd have already cut his throat in his sleep.

To avoid fatigue, they took shifts using the monocular, each of them taking a turn lying on the ground to steady themselves and scanning the area they thought the shots had come from. As a researcher, Rebecca had both the eye for detail and the patience to stare at the same spot and wait for even a small sign that someone was there: a branch moving in the wind differently from the others, birds suddenly taking flight … anything that would let her narrow her search. Nigel was an engineer and a man of little patience. He'd rather be doing something, anything, other than just sitting around and hoping they'd catch a break. The fact that what they were doing was his idea in the first place did nothing to calm his nerves. He felt like every second they waited Markus was one step closer to executing his own plan and beating them to the lander.

"Got 'em."

"What?! Really?"

"The tallest point of the ridge to the northeast," Rebecca said. "Where the trees thin out." She handed Nigel the monocular and pointed to where she was talking about.

"Which one did you see?" he asked.

"It had to be their wild human guide."

"You mean you didn't actually see—"

"He was drinking out of a plastic water bottle and had a monocular just like ours, watching the crowd below," she snapped. "Don't treat me like I'm an idiot."

Nigel was about to point out that the wild human could have killed the other two and taken the bottle and optic, but one look at Rebecca's face and he thought better of it. They had ample proof that Markus had managed to get at least one local to help them get to the lander, so it wasn't a stretch to think that was who she'd seen.

He looked at where they were camped, at the surrounding terrain, and realized that they were likely using the same ravine he and Rebecca were to get to the lander. This was not only because they had tracked Mark and Miriam up that way from the river, but because of the way the land broke in the opposite direction from where they were. The sharp drop-off he was seeing to the north meant they wouldn't be able to circle around and avoid coming back towards the ravine the other way.

"They'll have to come down the same way to get to the lander," he said. "We can probably get down there and pick up their trail and set an ambush from there."

"What about them?" Rebecca gestured to the people still crowded around the ship after Mark's idiotic stunt with the lights and external speakers.

"I've got one flare left." Nigel hefted the titanium rod he'd taken from one of Mark's previous campsites. "We use the element of surprise. First, we kill or maim those two assholes across the way, then we use the flare to at least disburse the locals and let us get to that access panel."

"Not a very specific plan."

"You get too locked into details. We need to stay flexible here, be able to react to any surprise moves your ex pulls."

"Creative thinking isn't one of Mark's strong points," she said with a humorless laugh. "He's a man of predictable patterns and doesn't normally deviate from a plan or checklist once it's been established."

"And you think he'll use that same trail? Even after he knows without a doubt that we've tracked him here and are nearby?" Nigel asked.

Rebecca didn't look as confident as she had a moment ago and bit her lower lip, looking away. "Yes. He's armed and that will make him overconfident that he can get past us and to the lander," she said finally.

Nigel wasn't convinced. Unfortunately, he also didn't have any alternative ideas that were any better than staking out a trail the other two had been known to use. "Let's get moving then," he said. "We'll want to get down there and be set up before they come by."

"YOU'RE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND?" Markus asked Mias, miming along with his hands on the diagram he'd drawn in the dirt.

"Yes," Mias said confidently. "Mias eeya, Meer-am ve'aqui … Mark-oos ve'alli espar." While he talked, Mias repeated Markus's motions over the map and pointed at each of them in turn to indicate who was supposed to be where.

It had taken them nearly all morning to get the more abstract parts of the plan through the language barrier, and thankfully their charge was willing to sit and work until they had it ironed out. But with a mix of visual aids, the budding common language between them, and a lot of patience by all involved, Markus felt they were as ready as they'd ever be.

"I know this plan seems a bit convoluted, but I think it maximizes our chance of success," Markus said to Miriam. "You certain that you're okay with your part in this? You're essentially going to have to trust Mias completely once we separate … if we can't force them into exposing themselves—"

"If we have to trust anybody on this planet besides each other, I'd prefer it to be him," Miriam said. "This seems like the best way to make sure Nigel or Rebecca doesn't get the drop on the both of us. Neither are armed so I'm confident I'll be okay."

"That's the wildcard in this whole thing." Markus frowned and rubbed his chin. "I have no doubt that they retreated to somewhere nearby, likely that rise on the opposite side of the ravine, but I can only guess at what they might be planning next to try and get to the lander. Will they concentrate on stopping us, or just getting there first themselves? If it's the first thing our plan might work; if it’s the second we'll be out of position and unable to stop them."

The uncomfortable conversation they'd had the previous night led to the incontrovertible conclusion that they had to eliminate Nigel before boarding the lander. If they couldn't kill or maim him he would still have ample opportunity to force his way aboard or sabotage things from the outside before they could launch. Rebecca was less of a threat given her lack of technical prowess, so they decided to leave her alone if possible. Markus reflected on the fact that they'd agreed upon premeditated murder—even if it could tangentially be considered self-defense—and neither of them seemed to even consider the moral implications. They were engineers and researchers, not killers, but that was changing quickly the longer they stayed on Earth.

"I think we should assume Nigel is pushing to stop us," Miriam said. "He'll know better than to leave us in the wind while he's trying to override all the security lockouts and access the ascension pod launch systems."

"Okay then … let's get to it," he said. He embraced Miriam, surprised when she kissed him again on the lips, and then handed his radio to Mias. The two men shook hands and exchanged a solemn nod, each knowing that should they be successful they'd never see each other again.

Markus was knew he'd be reluctant to leave his new friend, but he wasn't prepared for how strong those feelings were. He had no doubt the capable young man would find his own, new path once they departed, so it wasn't that he was worried for Mias's safety. It had more to do with the bonds of friendship that form from necessity, and the strength of those bonds as they'd saved each other's lives during their brief time together. He almost asked Mias to come with them if he could verify the second pod was functional, but that was an absurd idea. Earth was where he belonged. Markus felt a pang of regret at that thought as he realized the reciprocal was no longer true; despite being born here, Earth was no longer his home.

He embraced Miriam one more time before she and Mias set off in the direction of the ravine. Markus watched the forest swallow them up before he turned and began his own way down. Mias had scouted about the area extensively while looking for food and he'd found a well-hidden, if slightly treacherous path that would get him from the ridgeline down to the valley floor below far more quickly than walking all the way back to the ravine and coming up that way.

Before beginning his descent, he pulled out the tablet and logged in, wanting to check all of the settings one more time in case he had a mishap on his way down. Satisfied that all the timers were set to execute the proper command scripts at the right time, he shoved the tablet back into his bag and started down the narrow path. The beautiful part about the way Mias had found was that it put him on the other side of the ship from where Nigel and Rebecca were likely looking for them. The downside was that there was a sizable group of zealots still there chanting and dancing … and they were right in front of the hatch he needed to get to.

It was too bad his trick with the lights and external speakers hadn't scared them off. If they weren't right in the way he could have just come down this path with Miriam and snuck aboard the ship before the other two even laid eyes on them. He'd feel a lot better about his plan if he knew what the hell the other two were going to try in order to stop him.

REBECCA'S right leg felt like it was about to cramp up again so she stretched it out in front of her, careful to be as quiet as possible. She'd crept through the underbrush, dragging that stupid spear Nigel had given her, until she was in a position near the mouth of the ravine to keep an eye on the ship, the hill they thought Mark and Miriam were on, and anybody who might be walking up the trail behind them.

It hadn't taken them long to find the trail the other two had used, a well-defined heel print from a boot giving them confirmation. Nigel had gone up the hill a bit and off the path to set up his ambush. The plan was that he'd take Mark out first, eliminating the threat of the gun, and then turn on Miriam if she was foolish enough to stay and fight. If she bolted then Rebecca would intercept her before she could get to the ship.

Nigel had argued in favor of taking Mark alive and coercing him to relinquish control of the lander, but she'd thought that far too risky. The odds were slim that Nigel would be able to subdue Mark and the resulting fight would either take out Nigel, which left her stranded, or take them both out, which also left her stranded. At this point she was counting on Nigel being able to do what he said and get the lander's systems working again after bypassing the security lockouts, otherwise none of them were going to make it off Earth.

The squirrels had been making such a racket as they ran around on the forest floor that Rebecca missed the soft sounds of deliberate footsteps until the person was almost upon her. Her peripheral vision first caught the movement, and before she could turn her head to look, a young wild human man loomed over her, triggering her panic response and locking up her muscles. She waited for him to reach down and grab her, but as the seconds dragged on and nothing happened she forced her eyes up to see what he was waiting for.

The man wasn't even looking at her, nor was he near as close as she'd thought. He was standing a few meters away and staring out at the gathering in the valley intently. Her analytic mind cataloged details even as her subconscious continued to whimper in fear. The differences between this man and the revelers by the ship were stark; he was healthy, well—almost overly—muscled, and wore fitted clothes that looked far superior to the rags and skins draped over the others. He had a nasty-looking brand on his left arm that appeared to be fairly recent as well. The last thing she noticed was the object he held in his right hand: a radio identical to the one Nigel had.

Shit! It was the local helping Mark and Miriam!

Rebecca didn't know what to do. The metal rod in her left hand gave her no confidence. She was a researcher and hadn't been very active in the best of times; now she was terrified, malnourished, and painfully aware of how quickly the physical specimen standing nearby could kill her if she tried anything. It was obvious he was somehow part of Mark's plan, but why was he down here by himself?

Before she could work up the courage to try something foolish, the man walked off. He strode confidently out onto the trampled grass of the valley, walking as if he owned the place. Once he was far enough away to not see or hear her, she crept from her hiding spot to get a better view of what he was about to do. She didn't have to wait long. He raised the radio up to his mouth, and when he spoke, his voice thundered from the lander's external speaker and the ship's lights began flashing.

"Damnit," Rebecca whispered. "He's a diversion. Where the hell are you, Mark?"

"TA DIOS HAVINID! Inclina antama!"

Nigel sat stunned as the voice echoed across the valley. It came from the lander, but the voice and language weren't Mark's. Did he get captured and the wild humans now had the ship? What the hell was happening?! Before he could decide what he should do about this new development, Rebecca came crashing up the trail.

"It's their guide!" she gasped. "He had the handheld radio and he's out there talking through the lander's speakers!"

"Where are Mark and—"

"They're not here! This has to be a diversion to get the other locals away from the ship."

Nigel leapt from his hiding place and raced down the trail. Rebecca yelped as he rushed by before turning and following. He irrationally wanted to hit her, angry that he'd listened to her when she said Mark would follow a predictable pattern and would be easy to subdue. The wild human was still down there, bellowing through the speakers to the crowd, and Nigel had no idea where it all could be leading, but he knew that time was now critical.

The pair ran up the ravine, heedless of any danger that might be ahead, and emerged from the opening in time to see about two-thirds of the crowd now bowing to the man he'd seen on the ridgeline the previous day. The man was still shouting and gesticulating wildly with his left arm, the right still holding the radio as he spoke into it. All the lights on the ship were flashing wildly this time, including the colored marker lights on the wingtips and stabilizers. Nigel couldn't begin to understand what the man was saying, but the gist of it was obvious: "I am the one who controls this thing you worship! Bow down to me."

"What the hell do we do now?" Rebecca's voice was pitched up an octave and she was clearly panicked by the sudden unexpected turn things had taken.

"We can't get to—wait, look!" Nigel pointed excitedly. Rebecca craned her neck and saw that Miriam was to the north along the perimeter of the valley, trying to stay hidden in the scrub and watching the man's performance intently. As far as he could tell, she hadn't seen them yet. What the hell was she doing just squatting there like an idiot? "Let's go … carefully."

The pair crouched down and ran along the edge of the valley, the natural rise of the land keeping them hidden from the raving lunatics by the ship. They'd made it to within fifty meters of Miriam when she looked over and spotted them, the look on her face making it clear that being spotted wasn't a part of their master plan. She froze for a moment as did Nigel and Rebecca, eyeing each other across the short distance.

Nigel made the first move, a hesitant step in her direction that broke the tense standoff. Miriam turned and sprinted out into the field towards the ship, not looking back to see if they pursued her. "Shit!" Without worrying about what the crowd by the ship was doing, he and Rebecca took off after her. Miriam wasn't in the best condition, but the other two had been surviving on less than five hundred calories on a good day for the better part of a week; they quickly started to lose steam and Nigel realized they weren't going to be able to catch her.

He pulled up and turned to Rebecca to suggest a different course of action, but before he could open his mouth he heard a spiteful buzzing sound and it felt like a hornet stung him on the back of his right shoulder. When he looked questioningly to Rebecca again, her mouth was open in horror and he saw that she'd been splattered with blood. His blood.

Nigel's vision swam and he fell to his knees, pain lancing through his shoulder as he tried to lean forward onto his arms. If there had been anything in his stomach, he'd have vomited it up into the grass. "Go!" he said. "Don't let her get to the hatch!" Rebecca looked up, then back at him one more time before taking off again in pursuit. He rolled over onto his uninjured side just in time to see Mark running towards him, that damn gun of his still raised and aimed his direction.

MARKUS WAS ELATED when he saw that Mias was able to not only keep the crowd from attacking him, but he had also managed to draw over the groups that had been on the left side of the ship. With them gone, he was able to jog lazily up to the lander and hide from view behind it. He saw that the nose gear had crumpled on impact and that the port hatch was partially buried in the soft soil, so he'd have no choice but to go around and enter from the starboard side. He verified that all the external hatches were unlocked per his scripted commands just in case they had to make a hasty retreat from the crowd if Mias lost their attention.

When he came around the lander's crushed nosecone he had to do a double-take at the chaotic scene unfolding before him. Mias had most of the crowd actually bowing to him as he shouted to them, which was a relief since Markus had thought there were even odds that they'd turn and attack him on sight. Although that was fascinating, the more immediate problem he had was that Miriam was sprinting across the field, chased by Nigel and Rebecca. He noted that they were carrying the titanium spars he'd been forced to leave behind so there was some risk if they were able to get too close.

It was a longer shot than he was comfortable with, but he didn't see as he had much choice. He leaned over the composite nosecone and steadied himself, holding the pistol with both hands and slowing his breathing. He gauged the distance as best he could, held the sights above and in front of Nigel, and squeezed the trigger. The pistol barked a split second after Nigel stuttered to a stop and turned, but Markus had been committed and wasn't able to adjust.

Luck was on his side and his shot smacked into the back of his former chief engineer's right shoulder. If he had continued running full-tilt, the bullet would have passed behind him, missing completely. Nigel was hurt, but not out. Markus could see him rolling around in the grass and yelling something at Rebecca, who in turn took off again after Miriam.

"The hatch is unlocked!" he shouted to Miriam as he ran towards Nigel. He couldn't understand her reply as he ran, but she had a good head start on Rebecca and had ample time to work the latches and close it behind her. He glanced at Mias and saw he was losing his grip on the crowd, but they were beginning to back away from the drama rather than try to approach any closer.

By the time he was standing over Nigel, he was panting from the exertion of sprinting over sixty meters while trying to keep an eye on everything at once. When he got close enough, he could see that the fight had been taken out of the man, but he still kept himself out of range of the rod Nigel held.

"Look … let's talk this out, Mark," he said, grimacing as tears rolled down his filthy cheeks. "If we just—" The boom of the pistol surprised even Markus as he hadn't been consciously aware of squeezing the trigger. Bright red, arterial blood spread quickly across the tattered flightsuit and flowed onto the grass. Nigel's expression was one of both surprise and pain, a look that remained even after he took his last rattling breath.

A piercing scream ripped his attention away from the now-dead Nigel Vanbroke and he saw that he'd made a horrible mistake: Miriam hadn't been able to get into the lander and lock herself in before Rebecca caught her. His ex-wife now stood over the woman he'd harbored feelings for over the last dozen years, still holding onto the titanium rod that she'd driven into Miriam's midsection.

"Now you listen to me, Mark!" Rebecca shouted. "You drop the gun, walk over here and unlock this ship, or I'll finish her off! Better think fast … she's bleeding pretty badly."

"The ship has been unlocked for the last three hours, Rebecca," Markus said, his voice far calmer than he felt. Miriam was gripping the rod that had pierced her stomach, trying in vain to pull it out. "But what good will that do you? You don't know how to operate the launch systems and you'll need to be in orbit within"—he looked at the countdown timer on his watch—"seven hours. That's not a lot of time."

"Then … then you're going to launch me into orbit," Rebecca said.

"What good would that do me? If you're going to leave us both down here to die anyway, what help is holding Miriam hostage?" While he talked, Markus kept taking small, shuffling steps forward.

"If you help me up to orbit I … I'll leave you with all the supplies aboard the lander here," Rebecca said. "That should be more than enough to—I said don't come closer!!"

"You told me to walk over and unlock the ship."

"That was before you—Mark! Stop!!"

Markus did stop this time. He was within twenty meters or so of her and that was as close as she'd allow him to get. Movement to his left caught his eye and he saw Mias, his worshippers now all gone, sneaking along underneath the wing of the ship. Markus looked at him and shook his head slightly, waving him off. He wouldn't be able to approach any closer without being spotted.

"Rebecca … it's over," he said wearily. "Nigel is dead. Xavier is dead. You've killed Jelena and Jordan and now you're killing Miriam … you have to realize I'm not letting you just waltz in there and leave me here to die as well."

Rebecca stared at him across the short distance as if trying to determine how much steel there was behind his words. From the tension in her shoulders and the dangerous look in her eyes, Markus knew she wasn't about to give up and let him win.

"Then I guess we'll all stay and die together," she hissed. Rebecca yanked the rod out so violently that Miriam arched her back and screamed. Markus brought the gun up just as Rebecca held the rod over her head, intent on driving it back down into Miriam.

"Don't! Don't make me do this!" Markus's shout made her pause for an instant, but then she wound up to follow through with her threat. Markus fired twice. The first round missed completely, but the second hit Rebecca on her right side. She looked up at her ex-husband in astonishment, as if unable to believe that he'd actually shot her to defend Miriam. With a look of genuine hatred, she made to try and swing the rod down yet again and this time Markus fired until the magazine was empty and the slide locked back.

The spar slipped from Rebecca's hands and she slumped down to her knees before falling over, dead.

MARKUS RAN TO MIRIAM, kneeling beside her and tossing the now-useless weapon into the grass next to Rebecca's body.

"It looks a lot worse than it is," Miriam grunted, trying to smile.

"Really?"

"How the hell would I know? I'm not a medical doctor as I've reminded you before."

Markus pulled her hands away from where she had been keeping direct pressure on the wound and inspected it himself. The wound was only oozing blood, so he was hopeful that nothing major had been hit, certainly no major arteries. He looked around for something clean to use as an emergency bandage, finally gave up, and pressed her hands back over the wound and told her to keep them there.

He gestured for Mias to keep watch over her and then walked to the Kepler lander, popping the latches and shoving the hatch open. This was a docking hatch and not a full airlock, so he was able to walk directly onto the small ship's main deck. He absently noted that the lander was better appointed than Daedalus had been as he turned on all the interior lighting and made his way back to the infirmary.

He paused and ran a hand over the automated surgical system that would be able to scan and likely treat Miriam … lamenting that there was no time to use it. After looking at his watch, he realized just how long they'd been trying to get to the lander. The Martian ship would have already achieved orbit and they barely had enough time to get to a high-enough altitude to be recovered before it began its return trip.

"We have good news and bad news." Markus dropped a pile of first aid supplies in the grass and began cutting away the midsection of Miriam's flightsuit.

"Good news first."

"The lander is fully stocked with food, water, medical supplies, and even has a comfortable lounge area."

"Do I even want to know the bad?" Miriam grunted as he shifted her to pull the fabric of her suit free.

"We have no time to enjoy any of it," he said. "We need to get you patched up, into a pressure suit, and then start the recovery launch sequence. I read through the procedure a few times last night so I should be able to get us airborne without too much issue."

"That's not very confidence-inspiring."

Markus smiled at her comment and went to work cleaning the wound. It looked like Rebecca hadn't been able to get much penetration with the rod thanks to her lack of strength and the relatively blunt end. After holding Miriam down and hitting the puncture with antiseptic, he sprayed on the foaming clotting agent and gently applied a sterile bandage. Ten minutes later and he had it taped on securely enough that he felt confident in helping her up onto her feet.

He and Mias walked her into the ship as quickly as they could without causing her too much pain. While the wound wasn't deep, it had done significant damage to the abdominal muscles. You never realize how much you use your core muscle groups to do something as simple as stand or walk until you injure one.

Markus led them over to a soft chair in the lounge area and gently lowered Miriam down. "Get some rest," he said. "I'll be back with the gear to start getting your pressure suit on."

"Take your time." She grimaced in pain. "Although I wouldn't mind a pain killer or two when you get the chance."

Before he could answer, Mias tugged on his sleeve and gestured for Markus to follow him back outside.

Mias had been looking around the interior of the ship with a look of curiosity, but not one of awe. It caused Markus to think that perhaps the level of technological advancement across the various groups of humans wasn't universal. The people who had been around the lander when they'd arrived seemed far less advanced than Mias's people, but they appeared to speak the same language. Curious.

"Mias leave." The words were accompanied by a gesture roughly to the south of where they were now. Markus felt a lump in his throat as he reached out his hand. Mias shook it with the same solemn expression. After letting go, the young man tried to hand the radio back.

"Keep it," Markus said on impulse. "And take this too … please." He handed Mias the advanced optic that he'd shown him how to use while observing the lander. Markus knew he couldn't give his friend too much or all that would happen was someone would kill him for it.

"Cuida, Mark-oos," Mias said with a short bow of his head and a wide, genuine smile. "Ya gratia."

"Goodbye, friend," Markus said, returning the gesture and pointing at the radio and then to Mias's ear. "Listen for me on that."

Markus had recorded some of their language sessions with his tablet and was intent on trying to build a translation program once they were on Mars. He had Mias keep the radio with the pipe dream of talking to him via the relay on the Kepler lander. It was unlikely, but possible assuming Mias didn't venture too far away in his travels and the lander remained intact.

After watching his friend walk south, swinging one of the titanium rods experimentally, he turned and collected the pistol from where he'd tossed it and jogged over to where he'd hidden his pack near the edge of the valley. He verified the tablet and data cores were still in the bag before running back to the lander, feeling anxious about the time slipping by.

Once back, he locked all the external hatches and made his way up to the flightdeck above to start the auto-launch sequence for the remaining functional ascension pod. It would take the system a couple hours before it was ready for them to board, so he'd have time to go and assist Miriam into her pressure suit and load her into the pod.

Out of curiosity, after confirming that Pod Three was warming up, he accessed the other five and tried a soft reset on the system. His heart broke as he watched all but one pod reset and report back as fully functional and ready. They all could have left the whole time … but now it would just be two of them.

"What a waste," he muttered, climbing out of the seat and walking down the steps to the main deck. They had time for at least one decent meal and who knew how long they'd be in orbit before the Martian ship grabbed them.

"YOU READY FOR THIS?"

"Nope."

Markus laughed, the sound uncomfortably loud in the sealed helmet. He'd managed to get Miriam loaded into the pod with less trouble than it took to help her into the unwieldy pressure suit, but the real challenge had been getting himself into his seat and strapped in. After the third failure, he was almost tempted to see if Mias was listening on the radio to get him to come back and help.

Once he was in and the seat rotated and locked forward, he was able to confirm that their own beacon was broadcasting on the correct frequency. He'd been able to talk to the ship above, although it seemed the responses were all pre-recorded in Ellek's voice. At the ten-minute mark, the hatches on the top of the lander opened and the ascension pod swung up into a vertical position while blast vents opened on the bottom. Their angle wasn't optimal with the crushed landing gear, but the computer assured them that it was within limits.

"Stand by for first stage booster ignition … ten seconds," the computer's voice intoned. "5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1."

There was a jolt as the small jets on the tower attached to the top of the pod fired, almost gently lifting it up and out of the launch cradle, correcting its attitude, and gaining a bit of altitude to clear the lander.

"Main booster ignition … now."

This time they felt a tremendous shove as the four rocket engines the pod was sitting atop fired, flinging the tiny ship upward. Their acceleration maxed out at five g's and then began to let off as the rockets expended their fuel. There were no windows or external cameras on the pod, so they could only watch the telemetry stream for confirmation that they were on course for their orbital vector.

"Final ascent stage ignition … now."

There was a mild bump against their backs when the smaller, final stage ignited to push them the rest of the way to their final altitude. Even before they reached it, however, the communication panel lit up with a text-only message letting them know that the Martian ship had located them and was maneuvering for intercept. After even such a short time on Earth, living as his ancestors must have, being back inside a spaceship was almost surreal.

Seven hours later they received another message just before a metal-on-metal clang shook them in their seats and they felt their tiny craft being maneuvered around in the microgravity. After one last thud, a final message lit up on the screen telling them that the chamber the pod was in would be pumped full of atmosphere and they'd be able to open the hatch within the next ten minutes.

"We made it," Markus said, leaning back in the seat. "I can't believe we made it."

The only sound from Miriam was a soft, steady weeping.

22

Martian Recovery Ship

Day: 7

MARKUS AND MIRIAM had been shocked to find that the entire ship was automated.

HE'D THOUGHT that this ship would have a full crew and only the recovery lander would have been automated. Luckily, there was a video explanation of everything once they'd emerged from the ascension pod, Ellek's face looking even odder on the full-wall monitor. Apparently the heavy acceleration and braking the ship would perform to shave days off the trip would have been too much for a native Martian crew to handle. The mining ship had been practically fully automated to begin with so the refit for an Earth mission was a simple task for their engineers.

A full quarantine module had been set up so that the Martian scientists could remotely monitor the two of them, sampling the air they breathed and pretty much anything else they secreted. They were subjected to a series of immunizations that left them feeling weak and sick and were fed bland meals that made them long for grubs and leaves. Thankfully they had also provided the Daedalus crew with an impressively complete medical kit that allowed Markus to continue treating Miriam's wound.

And they were alive. Against all odds, they were alive.

The closer they got to Mars the more practical real-time communication became, and the pair of them talked extensively with Ellek and his colleagues, trying to get a feel for what type of life they were flying towards. Were they to be given a task or simply be mere intellectual curiosities? Ellek assured them that they were to be given full citizenship and that they would have more than a few options to choose from once they arrived and settled in.

Throughout the talks, Markus got an odd vibe about the political structure of the individual colonies on the planet, but it was nothing specific he could put a finger on. He also was having an increasingly difficult time believing that they didn't realize there had still been humans living, and thriving, on Earth. Eight hundred years was a long time to not bother checking in on your closest planetary neighbor and ascertain what was happening.

So if he didn't fully believe that they were ignorant of Mias and his fellow humans on the planet, did he believe the story of a viral outbreak wiping out most of the population? He tried not to pollute his mind with questions he couldn't get the answers to, and even if he could, there was nothing he could do about it now that he was a passenger on his way to Mars. It was too bad he couldn't discuss these things openly with Miriam, but he was fairly certain they were under close observation and anything he said would be reported back and parsed, at least that's what he would do were the roles reversed. There was little point in antagonizing his rescuers before he even met them.

"You can really start to make out detail from this distance," Miriam said.

He'd floated up the narrow passage and joined her in the cramped observation bubble that was just under the bridge, something that was off-limits to them. There were no rotating habitats on the utilitarian ship, so they were free to float about in zero gravity for the nine-day trip back to Mars.

"How's the stab wound?" he asked.

"Healing," she said simply.

Once they were aboard the recovery ship, she almost refused to speak about what happened on the surface. He'd assumed that it was because of the fear of being overheard as his had been, but the longer it went on the more he was concerned she was shutting down.

"I've had some thoughts on where we might do the most good." Markus tried a different tactic to keep her engaged, keep her thinking about the future rather than the horrific recent past. "It'll probably be a long shot to convince these people to let us do it, but I can't think of a job we'd be more qualified for right now."

Over the course of the next three hours, he laid out what his idea was. At first she was as skeptical as he was that they'd be given the resources for such a task, but by the end of his sales pitch she was as enthusiastic about trying as he was. What was the worst they could do? Say no?

23

Mars Orbit

Martian Recovery Ship

Day: 5

"I WANT off this damn ship."

AFTER FIVE DAYS in Mars’s orbit the ship was given clearance to dock with Lumina, the orbital colony that had put the recovery mission together in the first place. Markus and Miriam stood by the airlock hatch, holding hands to steady both their orientation in zero gravity and the butterflies they both felt in their gut. They'd been having conversations with government representatives via Ellek and his colleagues about their proposal since the ship had been captured by Mars's gravity and entered orbit. Today was the day they'd get their answer.

"Welcome home, travelers!" Ellek's smile was wide and genuine as he expertly floated across the gap once the hatch opened and clasped hands with both of them. "This is so overwhelming for all of us here, I can only imagine what it must be like for you. The reports you've sent of your ordeal on our mother world were quite harrowing … my sincere condolences that the rest of your crew could not be here to enjoy this moment."

"Thank you, Ellek," Markus said. "For everything." They'd kept the gory details of how most of the crew died to themselves. Ellek knew of Nigel's group setting off on their own, but he and Miriam decided that they didn't need to know that they were the only two survivors in what had ended up being a seven-person death match.

"And you have it?" Ellek's fingers were twitching with anticipation.

"It's right here," Markus patted the case strapped to his chest. "The entire digital archive of Earth in the year 2067."

"I understand your … request … is in exchange for the data?"

"I will turn this over to you regardless … it's the least I can do given what you've done for us so far," Markus said. "In exchange, however, I only request that you give my proposal serious consideration."

Ellek turned to another Martian floating just behind him and entered into a rapid-fire exchange in their native language. Unlike with Mias, there was no familiarity with this one that Markus could detect.

"I think that would be an exceedingly fair trade, Commander," Ellek said, once again smiling. "Your discovery of humans still on Earth and the proposals you've submitted have caused quite a stir here aboard Lumina. Unfortunately I can promise you nothing … the administrators do not confide in me so I'm not sure what they may decide."

"We understand."

"THIS IS NOT an insignificant thing you're asking for." Ellek was no longer smiling. He looked exhausted after spending the last hour translating back and forth as Markus argued his proposal to the deputy administrator of Lumina. Despite the detailed plan he'd sent ahead while on the ship he had been forced to start from the beginning of what he wanted. She was the highest-ranking individual who would agree to sit and hear him out, but her seeming disinterest in both Markus and his ideas concerned him.

"But it's the only thing that would make much sense for us," Markus insisted. "We'll never fit in here. You're as alien to us as we must seem to you, even though we're still the same species … but there are other humans back on Earth that are like us that need your help. Miriam and I could bridge the gap between you and them."

"It's really a win-win," Miriam said, then had to correct herself when Ellek looked confused. "Mutually advantageous. Within a few generations it could be possible for the humans on Earth to industrialize again and avoid all the missteps from the last time. Within a relatively short span, you would have a new trading partner and Earth would gain a patron to guide them in reclaiming everything they've lost."

"It is intriguing," Ellek said. He looked like he wanted to speak further, but the deputy administrator tapped the table to get his attention and spoke to him in a long exchange that sounded like she was listing things off, either reasons to reject their proposal or conditions to accept it. Ellek argued back and forth with her on a few points but for the most part remained silent.

"Well?" Markus demanded after the conversation had ended and the deputy administrator and her small staff exited the room. The only Martians remaining were Ellek and one other they assumed was security.

"I am … stunned," Ellek admitted. "She has granted you a provisional approval on part of your proposal … you will need to prove this plan's worth to the tribunals on both Lumina and Caelestis before you're given the resources and personnel to implement it any further. I must admit that while I, as an academic, was intrigued by what you suggested, I fully expected an administrator to deny it out of hand on cost alone."

"So where exactly does this leave us?" Miriam asked. "That sounds like a bureaucratic runaround."

"Once you have assisted our engineers in accessing the data you have brought us and you agree to provide any contextual or cultural reference clarifications we may need—something I warn you could take some time—then you will officially be made ambassadors to Earth and we can begin to move forward with a plan to offer assistance to the descendants of the plague survivors that remain on our former homeworld."

"We?" Markus asked.

"Yes, well … I hope I was not being too forward, but I have volunteered myself to be liaison between you and the governments of Lumina and Caelestis," Ellek said sheepishly. "I do hope that you'll accept my offer and—"

"Ellek, out of everyone we know on Mars … you're the only one," Markus said. Miriam dutifully chuckled while Ellek just looked confused. "We're happy to accept your offer."

"Oh! I understand now … very clever," Ellek said, sounding relieved. "If you're ready to depart, we can leave for Caelestis Colony within the hour. I have arranged quarters for you there and I'm sure you'd like to settle in."

"Can we just have a moment alone real quick?" Markus asked. "Then we can be on our way."

"Of course." Ellek rose and walked from the room, motioning the silent guard to follow him. "I'll just prepare our transportation and we'll be on our way."

"So we're serious about this?" Markus asked once the door had closed again. "We could end up doing more harm than good."

"How so?" Miriam asked. "Humanity was a technologically advanced species when we left, I feel like we'd just be helping restore that."

"True, but what about all the bad stuff that goes with that? Who's to say they're not better off as they are now?"

"You mean to say that we might just be giving them the tools to build bigger, better weapons to kill each other with?"

"I'm just playing devil's advocate." Markus shrugged. "This was my idea and I stand behind it … but I want to make sure we've both really thought out the risks versus rewards."

Miriam didn't answer right away. She looked out the large window as Mars slid by, moving slowly out of sight as the colony's habitat ring rotated to provide ninety percent—or Mars-normal—gravity.

"You know what's funny? I trained to be an astronaut, flew hundreds of lightyears on a mission to see a planet that orbits a star other than the Sun, and this is the first time I've seen Mars in person," Miriam said before turning back to him. "I think we owe it to the people on Earth to at least try. It's a job that certainly won't be accomplished in our lifetimes and maybe it won't work at all … but is there anything else you really want to do with the time we have left?"

Now it was Markus's turn to remain silent, contemplating the strange path in front of them.

"No … I can't think of anything I'd rather do with my life," he said finally. She smiled and reached out for his hand and they sat like that in silence, watching as Mars drifted by again. In the confusion of the crash and the mad scramble to try and be one of the people rescued, all of them seemed to overlook one thing: Did they even need to be rescued? Now that they were here, secure and cared for, all they could think about was getting back home.

Thank you for reading Blueshift,

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AFTERWORD

For those that have read either of my other series before picking this book up you might be scratching your head as this a bit of a departure from what I normally write. This is a story that's been hanging around in one form or another for the last ten years or so and after the Expansion Wars Trilogy wrapped up in late 2017 I pulled it back out, blew the dust off, and committed to completing and publishing it.

WHEN I BEGAN to break this story down from the first, broad outline I found that my original vision for the ship and crew was far too sterile. By that I mean the ship was too clean and the crew too polished, too professional. As I worked with the developmental editor, Clark Chamberlain, we agreed that the crew should be less of the sanitized Star Trek variety and more like John Carpenter's Dark Star minus the satirical slant. I have to assume that by the end of such a long mission the people aboard would be ready to snap and so by throwing them into a situation like a depopulated Earth, we get to see them at their very worst.

WORKING SO much on the crew dynamic before I even started writing made me realize that the story was the crew dynamic. These seven people who simultaneously wanted to kill each other but had to rely on each other for survival were far more interesting than the tech of the ship or the physics of traveling to an imaginary star. With that in mind, I chopped out most of dry technical details—reluctantly so considering how much research went into it—and produced a Daedalus that serves its function within the story rather than being an unneeded distraction. When the story was distilled down to the parts that mattered I was left with the scenes on the planet's surface so that's where I tried to go as quickly as possible and the reason you don't learn much about the journey or the planet they explored: in my mind those were inconsequential.

THERE WERE a few loose ends by the end of this book: the mysteries surrounding the Martian colonies, the suspicions about the origin of the virus that almost wiped out humanity, and the differences in technological advancement among tribes on Earth living in relative close proximity. I didn't leave these in as intentional cliffhangers, I had fully intended to leave this book alone with no plans to develop it into a series. That being said, there is a very tentative idea for a companion book titled Redshift that would explain these threads, however I'm still on the fence about writing it. In my mind, Blueshift is a complete story on its own. If a follow up to this book is something you'd want to read I encourage you to reach out to me on social media and let me know. If the demand is large enough I certainly wouldn't ignore it.

THANKS to my regular readers who picked up this book even knowing it wasn't a part of either series you may be following. For those that haven't read anything else of mine, thanks for taking a chance on a new author.

CHEERS!

JOSH

Table of Contents

Blueshift

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Also by Joshua Dalzele

Afterword