Maybe Downy is right.
One of the two sleds we used for the big waves out near Cyclops was in the water alongside the center hull, and Turk was already on it. Downy nodded at me. I climbed aboard the sled and sat a body width away from Turk, holding onto the seat strap for dear life as we disembarked for Sunset Beach to the west of Allan’s little bar and home.
Turk said nothing, as usual, while we went straight in. I only felt him decelerate once when we neared the beach and almost crossed the top of a breaking swell. In the distance, I could see a man standing on the beach through my near-limited infrared neurals. I guessed it was Crawley long before Lily confirmed it. I jumped off the sled in waist-deep water and trudged toward shore. Turk raced back out to the trimaran behind me. Crawley stepped down the beach and stood just above the waterline. His face was an impassive mask.
Something is wrong.
Fresh, hot anger swelled up inside me enough to distract me from the frigid water penetrating my clothes and my boots. I stomped through the water, and redness crept into my vision. Every single thought I’d had turned to concern. I’d been lied to. Something was very wrong. A breaking wave hit me in the lower back and pitched me forward. Staggering onto my knees, I came up out of the water, and Crawley hauled me to my feet.
“Where is she?” I asked.
He sighed and clutched my upper arms. He leaned closer, his voice louder than the crashing surf behind me. “She’s dead, Kieran.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Berkeley is dead, son.” His face broke, and I knew it was true.
My knees gave out, and I crumpled to the sand. Crawley knelt beside me and tried to comfort me. Thousands of questions caught in my throat. My hands clenched at Crawley’s coat, I wanted to hug him tighter as much as I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat. None of it would have mattered, and Berkeley would not have wanted it that way. My sobs turned to shivers as the cold air took the warmth away from my skin.
Crawley said, “Let’s get you inside.”
He hoisted me to my feet and wrapped an arm around my back. Together, we lurched up the low hill toward Allan’s. My shivers turned to full-on spasms by the time we reached the midpoint of the hill, and while I tried to focus on walking or talking, my mind kept turning to Berkeley. Before I had left for Mars, she’d told me that we were both at risk. Even when we eventually made it to the Rim, we’d be at risk from the Terran Council and maybe even some in the services. I’d told her I would be careful, but she shook her head.
“I’ll be in danger, too, Kieran. That’s the nature of this business.”
Now she was gone. The door to Allan’s banged open, and my friend stepped out to meet us. I started to sob again at the sight of him. I had few memories of my own long-dead parents, but Allan was like a father. Once again, he was opening his establishment and his home to me—taking me in from out of the rain to comfort me and give me a place to call home. If I could not go home to Berkeley, this was the best place for me. I decided not to kill Crawley after all. The man always had an explanation, and I had to hear him out. If he was at fault, I’d sever our deal to send me off to war in a heartbeat. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t rest until that person was dead.
The bar had been closed for hours. When we pushed through the door, Allan met me with a strong embrace that crushed the air from me. I could see the hurt in his face, too. He yanked off my sweater while Crawley undid my boots. In seconds, I was naked and then wrapped in warmed blankets from head to toe. They pushed me into the corner booth, where we could all sit, and watched me as the spasms became shivers again and then faded. Once I was warm enough to eat and drink, Allan brought me fish tacos and a cup of coffee. I shook my head.
“I think I’m going to need something stronger.” My puffy face ached, and while I knew that I would find no peace in the bottom of a whiskey glass, it would be a good place to start.
Crawley agreed. “Definitely.”
With Allan rummaging above the coolers for his private bottle of scotch, I stared across the table at Crawley. His normally pleasant but serious face was haggard. Fatigue lined his eyes, and crow’s-feet spread from the edges. I’d never before seen him unshaven or his hair unkempt.
“You look terrible,” I said.
“I was dead for a few days.” He sighed. “So were you.”
My eyebrows rose. “You made sure to tell Downy I was dead again. Everybody knows it now.”
“Yeah.” Crawley snorted and rubbed the inside corner of his eyes and looked at me. “This whole thing almost came crashing down around us.”
I got the whole story in a matter of minutes. The chairman of the Terran Council had figured out that I was alive. They traced my footsteps and then destroyed the Integration Center, took out Sergeant Brooks at Mountain Home, and finally came after Crawley and Berkeley. Crawley had been able to strike back, but Berkeley hadn’t been so lucky.
“Berkeley didn’t go out without a fight, Kieran. She managed to save her work and most of the program’s assets before they killed her. She tried to alert Lily, but you were already punching out of your aircraft. I went out on a limb with some of our TDF assets to protect you on Mars and tried to figure out how much the council really knew. The chairman’s accidental death in Paris threatened to disclose the sleeper program. I went to see the prelate and pretty much confessed everything.”
I nodded. “Where’s Berkeley’s body?”
“Her family asked for it. Since you were officially listed as dead by the Terran Defense Force, I had no choice. If the prelate or the council had learned you were alive because you’d been saved by the Styrahi, all hell would have broken loose in our relations. My deal with the Styrahi Council was simple—to save you at all costs. You had to stay dead. I had to let them have her. I hope you understand, Kieran.”
I did, but I did not want to go to California to face her parents. They knew next to nothing about me, and for as much as Berkeley would have wanted me to tell them, I wasn’t sure the danger had passed. Or if it ever would.
“You said they were agents of the Terran Council? How many more are out there that I’ll have to worry about killing me on a random Thursday?” Anger rose again, and I closed my eyes and pushed it away. There was too much I still didn’t understand, so I sipped at the whiskey instead.
Crawley shook his head. “None. I have the full list of agents who fell under Neige’s program. More than six thousand agents are being reassigned to the jobs they should have had in the first place. Irrigation specialists and that sort of thing. When you get to the Rim, you won’t have to worry about them. There’s a copy of the file in the archive Berkeley hid behind Downy’s refrigerator.”
I met his eyes. “Why should I go to the Rim? Alone?” The whole premise behind Crawley’s original offer had been that Berkeley and I would be together. The mission would probably be the same, but I wouldn’t have her. Going off to my command would be easy. Returning home without having someone removed from the situation to vent to would be awful.
“The situation has changed, Kieran. For the better. The prelate has directed the formation of the first composite reaction squadron. A full four-section complement of exocraft, two separate lift aircraft, and two close-air support craft are being pulled from the Fleet right now and deployed to Pluto-Charon. The TDF are contributing a force made up of armor and infantry, with maintenance, ordnance, and engineer support attached. The TDF troops will be intermixed with Styrahi. First time we’ve ever attempted that. Both the Commanding General and General Faraa are pleased. Since they’ll be coming from all over the galaxy, it will take time. We expect them in place within one hundred eighty days at P-C. That’s where you come in.”
“Didn’t you say I’m dead?” Sarcasm wasn’t going to help, but it needed to be said.
“You were,” Crawley said. “We released the information regarding the bombing of the Integr
ation Center and Berkeley’s death while you reentered an hour ago—your protocol can get that data if you want it. That’s what I went to the prelate with. The results have been good, despite the cost.”
My stomach clenched again, but I held back the tears with a careful sip of scotch. I took a breath and shook my head. “I lose my wife, you lose the rest of the sleeper program, but we can take the reaction squadron to the Rim. We call that a Pyrrhic victory.”
“A victory at a great cost, yeah. But I didn’t say I lost the sleeper program, Kieran.” Crawley sighed. “I figured they would go after me but not that they’d get to her before I could get her out, okay? I’m sorry.”
I regarded him for a long moment. There would be a time when I could accept his apology, and I knew his guilt and sorrow were honest. Berkeley was gone, and try as I might, I couldn’t grasp that. I finally asked, “What about the others?”
“I moved the program. Garrett, Aldin, and the rest of the subjects are at an undisclosed location. Make no mistake—we lost six good people when the center was destroyed. They stayed behind to keep systems running and plant genetic material around the building. There was no other way, and they understood that. They knew the risks. We’re continuing the program and widening the approach. We have viable samples from Russia, England, Australia, and Japan. I doubt we’ll reach five hundred subjects in total, but it’s a good start.” Crawley drank from his beer bottle, and my mind reeled.
Unless I was wrong, Berkeley’s death hurt him as much as it did me, but he showed no indication of that emotion. He’d had more time to compartmentalize her death than I had. Anger flared in my gut. “A good start.” I harrumphed.
From his tired face, his eyes searched mine. “You know that even Berkeley’s death doesn’t change things, right?”
“What if I don’t want to go anymore, General? What if I really have had it with secrets and everything else? What then?”
Crawley gazed past me for a long moment. “You’re not going to stay here, Kieran. A couple of years, five at best, and then you’ll be wandering the world and trying to drink Berkeley’s memory away. You love her, and that won’t ever change, nor will you. The problem with that is that deep down, you know what needs to be done. Whether it’s here on Earth or on some shitty little planet eighty light years from here, you know that soldiers are going to die without the right leadership. Try as you might, you won’t be able to forget that.”
I had to admit he was right. I’d come back from the dead, again, and would take an idea three hundred years old and create something very different. If I didn’t, I would hate myself for the rest of my life. Leadership was natural to me, and we both knew it. As much as I wanted to quietly surf for the rest of my life, there was no way I’d stay on Earth. I could go see the world, but the truth was that I’d seen what I needed to see, and there were soldiers out there who needed better leaders than what they had. “I suppose I need something to do for the next few years, right?”
Crawley held up the silver oak leaf of a commander. “And the reaction squadron needs a commander. I think you’re the right guy for the job.”
Three months later, I stepped off the command frigate Cygnus onto a shuttle bound for the gold-and-brown surface of Pluto. From the edge of the solar system, the sun was still surprisingly bright, but so very far away. Everything I’d known and loved was much closer to that pinprick of light than I could ever imagine. Fortunately, I had my friends with me. Berkeley had left me hours of video from Downy’s surfing expeditions, her own quiet hikes in the bush, and our time together. Watching them helped me adjust to life alone. Crawley had known all along that I’d take this assignment, and Berkeley would have understood. In the chest pocket of my uniform, I carried a paper copy of the letter I’d never hope to read. Feeling the reassuring packet near my heart and the cool platinum of my wedding band on my finger was enough for me. When I came back to Earth, I might be able to say goodbye. My journey, the real one I’d been brought back to take, had begun. Soon, Sol would be just another star in the deep sky.
The reaction squadron would deploy to Ashland for further training before pushing out into the far reaches of the Rim. There were issues with piracy on the frontier that we’d address upon arrival, but we needed to get accustomed to each other and learn how we would fight as a team. We’d spend two more weeks on Pluto-Charon before deploying to the Outer Rim on a Styrahi frigate. We’d be in foldspace for two months before arriving at Ashland. There wasn’t going to be a lot of downtime between now and then.
The shuttle detached from the Cygnus and fell slowly toward Pluto’s night side. It had officially been a planet again for two hundred years. Clusters of lights dotted the landscape. Wide icy plains were strewn with mountains and even canyons.
How many people are on Pluto, Lily?
<
Everything is underground?
<
What about Charon?
<
The idea of being underground didn’t really bother me. I leaned back and watched the mountains and wide valley plains of Pluto falling behind as we picked up speed. Our destination was an auxiliary maintenance area where TDF and Fleet assets were routinely stored. Crawley called it inconspicuous, but I called it hiding in plain sight. Even with better attitudes prevailing between the council and the TDF-Fleet establishments, people would be watching carefully. There was no better way to go.
Onboard speakers clicked to life. “Please ensure you are seated with your restraint belts tightened. There will be some mild turbulence from ground effect as we land.”
The shuttle bucked like a wild horse. Lily was saying that they used ground effect to slow down in the thin atmosphere, but I wasn’t listening. Eyes closed, I was trying to fly the shuttle better than the pilots up front. The bucking stopped, and the shuttle glided to a hover over a wide, octagonal pad. Several people walked around outside in hard suits, but there was no evidence of a passenger bridge or anything of the sort. I stayed in my seat, fortunately. The entire pad thumped once and then sank into the terrain. The elevator dropped the pad nearly thirty meters into the surface before it stopped. Flashing red lights outside wound up.
“The landing pad is pressurizing. Please stand by,” the speakers announced.
At once, the red lights stopped spinning, and I could see two hatches open. A bevy of personnel bounced out onto the platform with a variety of hoses and equipment. A coordinated dance took place as maintainers and crew members worked side by side across the hangar deck. It felt good to see officers getting their hands dirty just as I would. After two minutes, the shuttle’s hatch clanged open, and I made my way down the stairs.
As I stepped out of the shuttle, I could see the entirety of the shaft above. The great doors above were just in the process of closing. Whatever field was in place and allowed for pressurization was something I hadn’t seen before. The shuttle rested on a circular platform that had been centered in the shaft but was now swinging silently toward the curved wall. Over the lip, I could see other platforms below filled with equipment of varying types, including Falcons, Skyhawks, delta-winged Styrahi fighters, and a menagerie of impressive armored vehicles.
It felt like home.
Shouldering one of my bags, I caught sight of a tall Asian woman walking toward me. Her black hair was cut short, fram
ing her pretty face. A slow smile appeared as our eyes met, followed by a bit of color in her cheeks. Her appearance and mannerisms told me she was confident and competent, and it gave me great relief. A pace away, she stopped, and I noted the gold leaves of a lieutenant commander on the shoulders of her flight suit.
She came to attention and saluted. “Welcome to Pluto, sir.”
“Thank you, Commander.” I returned the salute and extended a hand.
She shook it for a moment. Her eyes dropped to our hands together and then came back up to me. “I’m Ayumi Nakamura, sir. Your executive officer and the air-group commander.”
“Kieran Roark,” I said. She smiled as our hands separated. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ayumi. I have a request.”
“Sir?” Her entire face was a question.
“As my XO, you and I will spend a lot of time together. When it’s just us, or when the ground commanders are with us, please call me Kieran. It’s much easier that way.”
Her eyes glittered as she smiled wider. “I will, Kieran. I will.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Half a galaxy away, Qent’chilu stood and met his supreme intelligence officer at the circular door of the king’s residence. He’d waited for news that Terran intelligence networks had been hacked and controlled by his team in Paris for months. There had been nothing, and his efforts to gain an advantage over the burgeoning Styrahi-Earth alliance had fallen into disfavor with his subjects. Until Ethi Prime, he believed revolution was imminent. Yet the Greys, his elusive sometime-allies, had indeed taken the nexus at Ethi Prime and disrupted relations and support routes between Styrah and Earth. With them on his side, the human threat could be eliminated. Their planet’s rich aquatic resources would be his, and his species would possess them for eternity. It was time for a coalition. All he had to do was to let the Greys feed. They would not burn the planet, and his people could leave their small, overpopulated planet once and for all.
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