Author: B.V. Larson
Date: 2014-11-06 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Fiction; Science Fiction Fantasy; Space
Description: Two ships launch, but only one can come home with the prize—and no one suspects what they’ll find when they get out there. On June 30, 1908 an object fell from the sky releasing more energy than a thousand Hiroshima bombs. A Siberian forest was flattened, but the strike left no significant crater. The anomaly came to be known as the Tunguska Event, and scientists have never agreed whether it was the largest meteor strike in recorded history—or something else. Alien Artifacts have been uncovered since the 1908 event, and a new star drive is discovered. When another, larger Artifact is detected
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services

STARFIRE
by

B. V. Larson
and Thomas LeMay

Copyright © 2014 by the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

SF Books by B. V. Larson:

The Undying Mercenaries Series:

Steel World

Dust World

Tech World

STAR FORCE SERIES:

(In chronological order)

Swarm

Extinction

Rebellion

Conquest

Army of One (Novella published in Planetary Assault)

Battle Station

Empire

Annihilation

Storm Assault

The Dead Sun

Outcast

Exile

OTHER SF BOOKS:

Element-X

Technomancer

The Bone Triangle

Z-World

Velocity

Visit BVLarson.com for more information.

Chapter 0

“Landing in sixty seconds,” said a dispassionate voice. “Initiate final harness checks.”

Lev’s eyes rolled up, and he stared through the only triangular window he could see. Vapors roiled outside. Troika was venting something.

“T-minus thirty seconds.”

The ship shook with uneven acceleration and rolled over, aiming its belly toward the alien world outside.

The shaking increased as the ship thrust hard to slow itself. Lev gripped the armrests of his chair.

“T-minus fifteen seconds… All systems green.”

Lev’s teeth were showing now. He knew that, but he couldn’t help it. His heart pounded and sweat crawled in his hair like insects.

“Ten…”

“Nine…”

Something touched his arm. It was Kira, reaching out to him. He twisted against his harness, and they looked at one another, their eyes only barely able to meet due to the curvature of their closed helmets.

“Six…”

“Five…”

He clasped Kira’s hand. She relaxed and lay back. He did the same.

“Three…”

“Two…”

“Ground contact…emergency—”

The ship heaved and a crashing roar struck them. Lev knew then, truly knew, that he was dead.

Kira gripped his hand with fingers like iron bands, and she didn’t let go.

“I do not know what I seem to the world, but to myself I appear to have been like a boy playing upon the seashore and diverting myself by now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay before me all undiscovered.”

—Sir Isaac Newton, 1727 (his last words)

Chapter 1

Aptos, California

Morning

Dr. Jacqueline Linscott—Jackie to her friends—answered her doorbell. Before she got there, the person who’d pushed the button had already left. Looking down, she discovered a package that was wrapped in brown paper and sealed with two plastic bands.

She knew at a glance that she’d have to cut those bands. They were the tough kind that resisted every effort to tear them apart or pull them off. Picking up the package, she turned to head back inside—but she stopped. Some part of her mind had read the address on the package. 1351 San Miguel.

That wasn’t right. That was her neighbor’s address, not hers. There was no name on the label to clarify the situation, either. The return address was equally obscure. Something about a “Care Center” in Oakland.

Jackie frowned. This had happened before, but not often. San Miguel Road was winding, narrow and steep down here near the sea. Her house sat at the foot of a cliff, nestled between the stony land and the Pacific Ocean’s waves, which were crashing rhythmically on the beach less than a hundred yards to her west. Jackie had often speculated that something about her remarkable location tended to rattle delivery people. She had plenty of experience with these matters, as she regularly ordered things online and had them delivered to her home.

Whatever the cause, delivery people definitely screwed up now and then when they came to her house. Maybe they felt the urge to crane their necks to look past the row of mid-twentieth century bungalows to see the crashing waves. Or maybe the hanging plants and twisted pines that grew here in profusion blocked their view of the house numbers.

Jackie’s home was the very last one on the road. After her place, there was nothing but the dead-end of the street, a weathered circle of asphalt to allow U-turns. The pavement there had more than its share of potholes, each of which had been filled in by sand blown up from the beach.

She was wearing her jogging outfit, the same one she wore every day to run along the beach. Navy polyester shorts—not too tight—a matching windbreaker for the September weather and a pair of running shoes.

She tucked the package under her arm and walked to the road itself. There was only one vehicle in sight at the far end of the street, a non-descript gray van that was already accelerating with the usual haste exhibited by all independent delivery drivers. As she watched, the van whipped around the bend and started the switchback route uphill to the top. She didn’t see any recognizable insignia that would give her a clue as to who she should call.

Jackie shrugged and walked to her closest neighbor’s house. It was Tom Mackle’s place, a big house with a big gruff man inside.

Mackle was a lawyer and a blowhard. Like most engineering people, Jackie didn’t get along well with lawyers. She couldn’t imagine Mackle going online to order plastic junk from China—but it wasn’t any of her business.

Reaching the door, Jackie paused. She didn’t like Mackle much. A few years back, there’d been an incident between them. A tree on the border between their properties had blown over and Mackle had sued her for the damages, despite the fact that the tree itself could’ve belonged to either of them.

Her first thought was to simply set the package down and leave. She rejected this as cowardly. Her second plan was to ring the bell and walk off, disappearing just as the delivery people themselves always did.

She almost did it—but then she spotted the camera. Round, white and ringed with sensors, it was aimed right at her. Of course Mackle would have security cameras. She wondered when he’d had them installed as she hadn’t noticed them before. They were small and discreet. There was a good chance the man had already spotted her on his monitor and was watching her with curiosity from the comfort of his kitchen. He had to be wondering what his chicken neighbor would do next.

Flushing with embarrassment, Jackie pushed the doorbell button. Nothing happened for a second, so she did it again.

Relief flooded her at the third try. Mackle wasn’t around. She put the package down and retreated. She’d almost made it back to her side of the property line when the door creaked open behind her.

“What’s this?” Mackle boomed.

Jackie turned and forced a smile. “It’s a package,” she said, “delivered to the wrong address.”

Mackle glared down at the box as if it offended him.

“I didn’t order anything.”

Jackie shrugged. “It has your address on it.”

Mackle eyed her for a long moment, then picked it up. “I hate these packing straps.”

Jackie nodded with mock sympathy and got moving again, heading toward her door. Mackle looked after her as if he was about to say something else.

Would he ask her inside? Would he offer some kind of apology for the lawsuit? They’d barely spoken for more than a year. She wondered if it was time to mend fences—literally—with Tom Mackle.

Seeming to come to a decision, he stopped looking at her and turned his attention to the package. He produced a penknife, but didn’t cut the straps. He waved at her as he vanished inside, and she waved back.

Jackie was both relieved and disappointed as she walked up to her door. Had she missed an opportunity? It was hard to be sure. She could’ve been friendlier, that was for certain. All throughout her long years of college and her professional life at various labs in Silicon Valley, she’d been hounded by countless people to be more inviting and approachable. Even though men found her attractive, she didn’t have a husband or even a steady boyfriend. Her mother worried about that constantly.

What happened next was beyond Jackie’s experience. Her ears rang painfully, registering a terrific sound. Simultaneously, it seemed as if a tree had fallen from the cliffs above and smashed into her back. She was knocked flat onto her face. A wave of light and heat followed the initial blow, rolling over her and searing her bare legs.

Gasping, she rolled onto her back and stared toward Mackle’s house. Her mind dully grasped the fact that an explosion had occurred. There was no other explanation.

Mackle’s house had been badly damaged. The windows had blown out, and she thought a few glass splinters had found her. She had bloody spots on her legs.

She got up unsteadily, watching in shock as the house flared into flame. Orange tongues soon licked from the lower floor’s windows up toward the second story. The house had been covered in decorative shingles of grayish-brown weathered wood. The fire greedily ate its way upward, climbing over the dry shingles that still clung to the building.

When she was on her feet and her mind was functioning again, she looked for Tom Mackle. Maybe he’d been thrown clear. Maybe he was lying in the doorway and she could drag him free, preventing a horrible death. She circled around his small yard but didn’t see anyone, just fire and broken glass. She couldn’t get in close without being burned.

Then a support gave way within the house. The second floor sagged down onto the first. She skipped backward into the road.

The shingled house collapsed upon itself transforming into a burning ruin. Tom Mackle was surely dead. She stared at the scene from the roadway for a moment in shock before finally racing to get the garden hose. She battled the flames hopelessly alongside her neighbors until the fire trucks came whooping down the narrow lane to help.

It all seemed like a dream, and throughout it all there was only one thought that kept ringing inside her head.

What if I had opened that package?

Chapter 2

Northern Polar Icecap

Day

The ice was seemingly endless in its expanse. Lieutenant Lev Burkov looked south toward the dim sun, which hung near the horizon as it had for weeks. It was late “summer” in the Arctic, a time filled with blinding white light and deep cold. The combination caused a man’s breath to leave a frosty trail with every puff.

Ice—there was nothing else to see. No trees, no rocks. There were different varieties of ice, of course. He’d learned to recognize them all and their significance.

There was older, denser ice which was an aqua-blue. You usually only saw that kind of ice when a pressure ridge rose up like a shark’s tooth to display it. Then, there was the thinner white ice that was semi-aerated and which encrusted the older ice. Lastly there was the crust, little more than hard-packed snow, a thick layer of which sugared everything else on the vast ice sheets.

Warily, Burkov continually scanned to the left and then to the right. His transport was supposed to be here already, but delays were nothing he wasn’t familiar with. Waiting was part of the Russian military—a big part. He’d waited in inhospitable spots for days before, patiently surviving until his transport had arrived. Today would be no exception.

Dressed all in white, which made him almost invisible on the ice, Burkov wore a coverall-type freezer-suit on top of layered undergarments. Except for having to draw breath through a frosty scarf, he was quite comfortable and would remain so until he had to piss again. That would be problematic because the wind was blowing now, and he was hoping he could hold it until his transport arrived.

He checked his GPS every twenty minutes or so, making sure he was at the correct spot. There was no error. He dropped to one knee and waited.

One more visual check. Right, left, then directly over the shoulder. Nothing. Nothing but white ice and snow. He cursed mildly and turned south again, toward the small bright point of warmth known as the Sun.

The first hint the situation had changed came about ten minutes later. He was daydreaming about St. Petersburg and wondering what Nika was up to back home. He’d spent a long time out on the ice, a long time away from home.

The ice cracked. It was loud, alarming. At first, he thought maybe someone was shooting at him. Standing up, he walked in a quick circle—then he saw it. A web-work of cracks at his feet.

Cursing, he stood up and began to run. He almost didn’t make it. The Akula-class attack sub broke through with shocking speed. A tower of groaning steel shot upward, a shower of crumbling white clumps falling from it. Burkov was struck by clods of ice which pelted his back and his head. He kept running, his footing uneven in his heavy boots and with the crusty snow crackling under him.

When he’d moved thirty strides away, the noise behind him stopped, and he turned. They’d been given his GPS coordinates, and they were supposed to come up a hundred meters to the south. They had chosen to zero in on his exact position instead. Lazy, incompetent or malicious? He didn’t know, but he planned to find out.

The hatch swung open, and a man came up, shrugging into a parka. Burkov didn’t move. Soon, the sub’s marines spotted him and shouted a challenge. He answered and was waved forward to approach.

His transport had finally arrived.

A few minutes later he was inside the submarine. It felt like entering a blast furnace compared to the crystalline surface world.

“Lieutenant,” nodded Captain Chendev. He was a short man with a huge nose and unpleasant teeth. “Welcome aboard Vepr.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

The two clasped hands and went below decks. Burkov had met the captain before, years back, but he was nothing like a friend. In fact, he didn’t like the man much.

When they were alone, Burkov waited for Chendev to apologize for making him wait fourteen extra hours on the ice, then almost killing him—but that didn’t happen.

“Our plans have changed,” Chendev said the moment they were alone. “We’re going down to the bottom. Now.”

Burkov’s hopes of seeing home within days faded away. He wondered if he would ever get back to see his girlfriend Nika in St. Petersburg. They weren’t married, and she was younger than him—how long could he expect such a woman to wait?

To him, any delay in returning home seemed unwarranted. He’d been out here doing surface reconnaissance for weeks and training before that for months. He’d grown tired of pretending to take measurements on ice thickness while he located and tampered with U. S. remote sensors. The Americans had placed hundreds of them on the ice over recent years to measure the effects of warming on the Arctic. The Americans had been curious as to why the northern icecap had melted so much more than the larger mass in the southern polar region.

Russia’s generals had taken a dim view of this supposedly benign curiosity by the west. It had been Lev’s task to locate each transmitter and replace the batteries with weaker, dying batteries of the exact same model. That way, they would not fail all at once. A manufacturing defect would be assumed, and since reaching the remote devices was problematic, it may well be years before the devices were visited and put back into operation again. It was not a permanent fix, but it was almost untraceable sabotage that would give the Russian science teams a few more months at least, maybe longer. Hopefully, they could complete their studies under the sea by the time the Americans penetrated their secrecy.

“Why do I have to accompany you down to the bottom?” Burkov asked, already having forgotten about his initial complaints. A near death and few extra hours on the ice was nothing compared to diving under the ice cap to the trenches beneath the Arctic Ocean.

“Because that’s where we’re going, and I have new orders for you as well. I apologize.”

“I accept your apology, but I—”

“Don’t,” Chendev said, suddenly cutting him off. “They told me you weren’t a complainer. Don’t disappoint me.”

Burkov’s face darkened, but he nodded, swallowing the insult and the compliment together as one. “Fine. We’re going down. Is it safe?”

Chendev laughed. This action revealed more of his teeth, which were indeed gray and damaged. Burkov was struck with a disturbing thought. Could this be an effect of the radiation—or whatever it was that plagued the site? He’d heard things…

“Is there anything else I need to know?” Burkov asked. “I must relieve myself.”

“Didn’t want to freeze your khui off out there, eh, Lev? Very wise of you. But a Spetsnaz man should be able to hold it indefinitely. Can you hold it for ten more minutes?”

Burkov shifted in his seat. “Of course.”

“Good. We have very little time, and I feel it’s necessary to brief you before we reach the underwater dock.”

“Proceed.”

“First of all, the protocol has changed. We’re not allowed to approach the Artifact without everyone aboard having been briefed, cleared and suited in radiation gear.”

Lev nodded uncomfortably. He wondered if the captain was taking perverse pleasure in his discomfort. Out on the ice, he’d held his urine easily, but here in a warm chamber with the full knowledge that the boat’s head was nearby, he found he could think of little else.

“The Artifact has changed its nature somewhat,” the captain continued. “It has begun to release more rads in pulses.”

Burkov frowned. “Is that generating heat? Melting the ice?”

Chendev made a dismissive gesture. “A little. It’s not as hot as the reactor core on this boat—not yet. But there are those who are concerned that it’s becoming unstable. That it will eventually become impossible to observe closely—even for robots.”

“I understand, but I don’t see why we have to divert this mission to investigate. What is the nature of this emergency?”

“There’s someone important at the base. We’re to pick them up and take them home. You, in particular, have been charged with the task of removing this person from the Artifact and escorting them back to Moscow. What with you and this person, I feel like a taxi driver.”

Burkov’s lips twisted together. He thought Chendev would look good with a humiliating little cap and a cabbie license.

“So, that’s it?” Burkov asked. “The thing is mysteriously heating up, and some scientist down there panicked?”

“The visitor isn’t a typical scientist—but yes, essentially.”

“Who then?”

Chendev stared at him for a long second. Then, coming to a decision, he leaned forward and spoke in a husky whisper. Burkov wondered who he thought might be listening in aboard his own boat.

“I hear that it’s the top science director herself,” he rasped. “She runs the Institute for Biomedical Studies. She reports directly to the Kremlin.”

“A director? Down here?”

Chendev shrugged and retreated. “That’s the word. We’ll find out soon enough. Now, let’s go over the procedures. Radiation suits must be worn within two kilometers of the core. No exceptions.”

“Fine.”

“And no weapons are allowed into the site, either.”

Burkov smiled. “That is always a good thing. I prefer it when those around me are not armed.”

Chendev waved and made a sniffing sound. Burkov was sure he’d gotten the point.

“Have you got all that?” the captain asked.

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Good. Now Lev, go to the head before you piss yourself!”

Lev stood stiffly and walked away, his face shifting into an angry mask. The captain’s unpleasant laugh followed him, ringing down the metal passageway.

Lev entertained fantasies of killing the man. He had the training and he knew it would be a simple thing. There were so many quick ways for a fool to die at the skilled hands of a Special Forces officer, it sometimes seemed like a wonder that so many annoying military people had survived as long as they had. To Burkov, men like Chendev were like proud chickens: they clucked and strutted around self-importantly in suits of fluffy white feathers until one day a real predator became hungry.

Before he could finish his long overdue piss, he felt the boat pitch forward. The dive klaxons sounded, and the lights went red. He had to throw a hand up to press against the forward bulkhead to support himself.

They were on their way down to the bottom.

Chapter 3

Santa Cruz, California

Midday

Cole was a big man. He wasn’t just fat—he was tall and strong, too. Today, he had work to do. It wasn’t the kind of work he liked, but he had done it before, and he’d do it again.

The target was an average-sized guy, much smaller than Cole. He was muscular and fit, but not buff. The only remarkable thing about him was his pale green eyes. Cole had never seen eyes that color on a Mexican dude. The unusual eyes stared at Cole as the bigger man approached, making the waterfront beach-house balcony creak with every step.

The staring part was normal. People often stared at Cole as he walked up to them—even if they weren’t in trouble. But this guy was different. His name was Perez, and there was no fear in his watery green eyes. Just frank appraisal and maybe…maybe a little curiosity.

Cole shook his head. The guy had to know what was coming. He had to know his number was up. This was real today. This was going down. This was happening.

Cole kept walking until he was close—closer than polite society allowed. Close enough to reach out and hug a girl or strangle a man.

Perez didn’t flinch. He just slouched there with his butt up against a weathered railing, watching Cole.

“You know why I’m here?” Cole asked in his best deep voice. Accentuating his deeper-than-normal voice often intimidated people, but it didn’t seem to have any special effect on this dude.

“I know why you’re here,” Perez answered. There was almost no accent and absolutely no fear in that voice.

“Well? Do you have it or do we get down to business?”

“I’m not paying.”

Cole rasped his teeth over his lower lip and shook his large head slowly. “I thought you had it from the look on your face.”

Perez shrugged disinterestedly.

Cole’s eyes ran over the target. If the dude had a weapon, he was hiding it well. The two of them stood on the cliff-top balcony for a moment, motionless. The balcony had one of those older, warped decks with creaky gray wood and peeling paint. There was a hundred foot drop beyond the thin, rickety railing Perez was leaning against. At the bottom, waves crashed on a rocky shoreline. After that the hazy blue waters of Monterey Bay stretched out as far as the eye could see.

Cole’s target was wearing nothing but a pair of baggy nylon swim trunks. No shirt, no shoes, nothing else. Cartoonish drawings of mermaids frolicked on the swim suit.

“You planning on going for a swim?” Cole asked with a snort and crossed his heavy arms. Seeing how thick his arms were always seemed to alarm people, but not this guy.

“Is that the plan?” asked Perez. “You’re throwing me over this rail?”

“No. It’s not time for that yet. No easy way out, if that’s what you were hoping for. You have to pay. And you’re going to pay today, one way or another. With cash or with pain.”

The dude nodded appreciatively—as if he was really frigging interested. “So, what are you supposed to do exactly?” he asked.

Cole felt an odd rage bubbling up. He couldn’t take it any longer. “What am I supposed to do? Here, try this.”

He punched the guy. That wasn’t in the script, but he didn’t like Perez’s attitude. His big fist sang through the air and landed a glancing blow on the man’s left cheek. He’d expected to really nail him, but the guy had flinched away at the last moment. Somehow, Cole’s knuckles slid off without connecting.

“Is that it?” Perez asked, unperturbed.

“No, that’s not it,” Cole said, reaching into his back pocket.

The target watched Cole carefully as the big man removed a pair of garden shears. “You see this?” Cole demanded. “This is what’s next.”

“I get it. Cutting off a finger, right?”

“No. Not a finger.” Cole indicated the man’s bare feet. “A toe. The little one today.”

“Left or right?”

Cole laughed. “What the hell difference does that make?”

“I just want to know the procedure.”

“The procedure? You want to know the frigging procedure? You’re certifiable, man!”

“Maybe. But why a toe? Why not a finger?”

Cole heaved a sigh. This had to be the weirdest shakedown of his career. “Just because, that’s why.”

“There has to be a reason. I’m curious. Come on, tell me. It’s my toe.”

“Because a man can’t hide a missing finger. A missing finger makes people ask questions. Maybe his wife calls the police before he gets the money together.”

“I get it. Makes good sense. A toe—a man could hide that. He could put a sock over it, then a shoe.”

“Exactly. Now, put your foot out here on this stool.”

Cole pulled a stool closer to the man, and then he watched as Perez sat down on a splintering chair like he didn’t have a care in the world. To Cole’s surprise, the dude actually put his foot out on the stool, just like he was going to get a pedicure.

The situation was beginning to make Cole nervous. He craned his neck to look around. Was he on camera? Was there a sniper waiting somewhere on the hilltop over the house, thinking about putting an extra ounce of pressure on his trigger? The entire situation didn’t feel right.

Cole had never been accused of being a genius, but he knew when something was wrong. He’d bolted before and escaped bad situations. Maybe this was one of those situations—a deal gone bad.

“Losing your nerve?” the man asked.

“No, dammit. Hold still.”

“I am holding still. How much does Tommy pay you for this kind of thing?”

“What?”

“I mean, does he pay you per job, or does he pay you every week to do whatever needs doing?”

“I’m not talking about that. What’s with you? Do you have a wire in your pants or something?”

The man shook his head. “It would have to be pretty small to fit inside my swim suit.”

Cole lifted the shears suddenly, grabbing the man’s foot and putting the open blades around his toe. He was gratified to see the guy flinch just a tiny bit. He grinned.

“This is a fresh pair of snips,” Cole said. “You don’t have to worry about infection.”

“I trust you. Tell me how much. Don’t you think my toe is worth a little information?”

“Whatever, man. He pays me by the week. Now shut up ‘cause it’s cutting time.”

“I’ll double it.”

Cole paused. His muscles had bunched up, and he was ready to do the cut. He’d only done this sort of thing a few times before and each time he’d had to psych himself up for the actual cut. Oddly, it was harder to snip off a toe than it was to just shoot a dude. Cutting was messy, and you could feel the bone come apart through the tool in your hand. He didn’t like it—and besides, this was by far the weirdest reaction he’d ever gotten from a target.

“You’ll double what?” he asked.

“Your weekly pay. I’ve been sizing you up. I could use a man like you.”

“You can’t even pay your gambling debts. You must be high if you think I’m going to work for a dude with no money.”

“I never said I didn’t have the money.”

“Why not just pay up then?”

“Ah, I get it,” Perez said.

“You get what?”

“You’re loyal to Tommy, huh? You’re sweet on him. Maybe he adopted you out of some ghetto years back. Is that it?”

Cole shook his head. “Hell no. He’s a piece of crap. But he pays me well every week, no bullshit.”

“If you won’t take double, then there must be a reason. Maybe you’re afraid of him. Is that it, Cole?”

“How’d you know my name?” Cole said, eyes suddenly narrowing.

“I don’t offer employment to people who I don’t know.”

Cole stared at him, troubled. “I don’t like this, and I don’t like you.”

“Do you like money?”

“Yeah. Yeah sure, I like money.”

The man reached behind him into a potted plant and pulled something up from under the dirt. Cole lifted a big hand up and grabbed at the package, expecting it to be a gun—but it wasn’t.

A clear plastic Ziploc full of money was placed into Cole’s hand. He looked at it wonderingly. He could see hundred dollar bills in there—lots of them.

“How much is this?” he asked.

“Ten thousand.”

Cole almost choked. “Ten thousand? Why not use this as a down payment on your debts?”

“Because I don’t want to pay Tommy. I want to steal from him.”

“Steal what?”

“You, for starters.”

Cole stared at the money, then at the man on the splintery chair. Perez’s foot had retreated from the stool and was now tucked low, out of sight. Cole realized his clippers were still in his hand, clean and unused.

“You’re offering me a bribe instead of paying up?” Cole asked. “You’re wasting your time.”

“Ten thousand,” the man repeated. “That’s double, isn’t it? Double what you get per week?”

Cole’s lips twitched, and he rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand as if he were thirsty. The truth was Tommy was a cheap prick. He only gave him a thousand a week.

“Yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “Ten thousand is double.”

“Keep it.”

“That’s not enough. Would you quit a job for two weeks’ pay?”

“Maybe, if it was my best offer. But that’s not all you’ll get. You’ll get more. That’s only good for one week. Are you with me?”

“What do you want from me, you crazy fuck? What are we going to do?”

For the very first time, Perez smiled. It was a slow thing, a victorious thing. “We’re going to rob someone,” he said.

“Who?”

“Tommy. Who else?”

“I can’t do that. He’s my man. He pays me to protect him and to shake down little squats like you.”

“Right, exactly—but now you work for me. He’s not protected any longer. You’ve been paid, and you’ll get a share of the big money when we take Tommy down. He hasn’t got an army—just you.”

Cole was troubled. “I don’t like it.”

The guy nudged the package of money in his hand. “You like that, don’t you? I’m giving you that and promising you much more. Even if we don’t find another ten K, I’ll make good for that much. What do you say? That’s twenty thousand in one day, guaranteed.”

Cole’s mouth twitched, and he rubbed his lips with the back of hand again. He needed a drink.

“All right,” he said at last.

His new boss slammed his hands together, making a popping sound. Perez then hopped to his feet and walked away across the creaking deck. Cole followed him uncertainly, wondering what he’d gotten himself into. He rubbed the Ziploc full of money with his thumbs, looking at it.

He hoped this would be worth it. If it wasn’t—well, then maybe he’d change sides again and nail this cocky dude when he wasn’t looking. Not even a man with lightning-fast reflexes could dodge a blow from behind.

Chapter 4

Beneath the North Polar Icecap

Darkness

Lieutenant Lev Burkov waited, leaning against the steel door of his tiny assigned cabin until the boat leveled off. The hull creaked ominously at this depth. He’d heard that Akula-class attack subs weren’t designed to take the kind of pressure that the sea exerted so far down. But this ship had been refurbished and rebuilt for this very purpose. All the Russian ships were Cold War relics, but they’d been given fat maintenance budgets once the Artifact had been found. After all, what good was a base on the bottom of the ocean if you couldn’t get to it?

There were cover stories to keep the place secret. Russia had made a very large deal out of broadly laying claim to Arctic mineral rights back in 2007. That had been a ruse, of course. Russia hadn’t really been after inaccessible oil fields at the bottom of a frozen sea—she’d been after the rights to exploit something far more important.

Lev didn’t know what the Artifact was. He’d heard rumors, naturally, but he’d dismissed them. Some said it was a natural cache of highly radioactive ore. Others said it was a crashed spaceship. Still others claimed it was a long-lost Nazi wonder-weapon, stuck in the ice directly below the North Pole itself.

All these theories sounded absurd to Lev. But he had to admit that there was something down there under the ice. Something had been melting the region and releasing increasing amounts of radioactivity in the local waters.

He shrugged as the boat made its final approach. It wasn’t his job to figure out what his government was hiding down here. It was his job to protect it and to guard its secrets.

“I see you’ve put on your rad suit,” Captain Chendev said as Lev came aboard the bridge and stood as unobtrusively as possible near the aft hatch.

“It pays to be prepared,” Lev answered.

Whatever he was, Captain Chendev wasn’t slow-witted. He watched his bridge like a hawk. His eyes roved over every crewman’s station. Even while he oversaw the docking operation, he spoke to Lev in an easy voice.

“Spoken like a survivor. I’ve heard that a Spetsnaz man is the hardest man on Earth to kill.”

“You’ve heard correctly.”

Chendev smiled, but his eyes stayed on the instruments. “You are to exit the boat through the lower hatch. You will find the director and escort her back here. She has been recalled to Moscow.”

That could mean any of a number of things. Lev didn’t care if the director was going to be fired, or shot, or given an award when he got her home. He would do his job regardless.

“I will escort her back to the boat,” he said.

Chendev glanced at him. “Not even the slightest curiosity as to why she’s being retrieved so suddenly?”

“None at all.”

The captain nodded thoughtfully. “Again, spoken like a survivor. But I’ll tell you anyway. To prove her prowess, she demanded she be allowed to come down here and oversee the project personally. The opposite has occurred. She screwed up down here. She’s shown no progress, and all her efforts have only caused setbacks.”

“I take it she doesn’t have a lot of friends in high places?”

“No. She’s done nothing but annoy the veteran scientists. She’s a bureaucrat looking to take credit for the work of others, and she’s become impatient with what she barely understands.”

Lev shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I will retrieve her.”

Chendev handed him signed orders from the Kremlin. Lev examined them briefly, skipping the language itself. The only item that concerned him was the signature. It was that of the President himself.

Lev’s eyebrows shot up. “The matter goes so high as this?”

“Evidently.”

The two ended their conversation and parted. Lev watched as Chendev glided his boat into position. The Artifact wasn’t just sitting on the bottom of a frozen sea. It was also ensconced in ancient bedrock. It squatted on the bottom in a natural dark cove, a dark blotch that shone blue with radiation when you got close enough.

“Visors closed,” Chendev ordered. “Shield the computers and take them off line. Make the final approach manually.”

Using optical instruments, external lights and soft pings, the crew guided the big ship into position. Burkov left the bridge and headed for the aft hatchway when the vessel shuddered to a stop and drifted.

Two sailors opened the hatch for him, and he climbed down into the underwater station. Water splashed over him and wet his suit as he made the transition from the sub into a permanent structure. The pressures weren’t perfectly equalized, but his suit should protect him from that. He hoped he could avoid the bends on this mission, but even if that painful reality was in his future he would not let the fact deter him.

A structure of struts and bulbous underwater modules had been built around a stone formation that resembled a starfish in its shape. The crew inside the station stared at Lev as he passed them by. They did not question him. They did not help him. They must have been tipped off.

“Where is the director?” he asked the first person in a lab coat who stood directly in his path.

Startled, the woman pointed to an open hatchway in the floor. “She’s in the core. She’s always in the core.”

Lev didn’t know the layout of the place, but he knew it wasn’t that large. It consisted of six modules, five spread out like the arms of a starfish, plus one central node that had been drilled down into the black rock of the Artifact and was thus buried inside its central mass.

He headed for the hatch and climbed down a ladder. He felt sweat tickling his brow. It was hot down here. He couldn’t fathom why, as they were in one of the coldest spots on the surface of the planet. But not down here. In this strange place it was always warm, despite the freezing depths that surrounded it.

“Madam?” he boomed when he saw a woman who wasn’t wearing a lab coat. She wore coveralls and a radiation suit instead. This concerned Lev slightly, as the interior of the Artifact wasn’t supposed to be radioactive. Only the water in the region was. The Artifact released radioactive water all the time, but the station had been built with heavy shielding. Had this woman taken chances? Had she altered protocols in some way as to allow radioactivity into the station itself? If so, it would go a long way toward explaining her recall.

The woman ignored him, engrossed in her instruments. Lev stepped up and put a heavy hand on her shoulder. He did not spin her around, but his touch was an undeniable reality.

“Madam? Are you Doctor Kira Norin? I’ve come with orders from the Kremlin. You’re to be recalled—immediately.”

“I’ve been expecting you,” she told Lev without even looking at him.

She turned toward her staff. “Gentlemen,” she said, speaking to the three who huddled in the cramped space. The small chamber was full of instruments Lev could not hope to understand. “It has been a pleasure. I will take my leave now.”

Lev led the way out, and the director followed him. They climbed through a maze of tunnels and ladders back to the docking point and boarded the submarine.

All in all, Lev felt the mission had gone surprisingly well. He could almost feel Nika’s touch again. With luck, he would reach his home in St. Petersburg within three days. Perhaps, in an odd way, this escort mission was a boon to him. He would get the best of air travel. No delays would plague him as they so often did when flying out of the Arctic.

It wasn’t until the submarine cast off and began moving away under power that his hopes faded.

“Radiation levels are spiking, sir!” the executive officer warned the Captain.

“Warn the crew. Accelerate at flank speed.”

They did as he asked, and all the while Lev watched the Geiger counters in concern. They were indeed climbing. Already, it was as if they stood together inside an x-ray machine.

“We’ll make it,” Lev told the director, meaning to calm her, despite the fact she seemed perfectly calm. “Water is a good insulator. We’ll reach a safe distance before we get a serious dose through our suits.”

The director met his eyes for the first time. She seemed troubled. “I don’t think so,” she said. “What must come, must come.”

The needles kept changing, moving into the yellow and dipping toward the red.

“Chyrot voz’mi!” the Captain cursed. “We’re doomed.”

He turned a baleful eye toward the director. “How could you have done this? Don’t you know you will fry with the rest of us?”

“I’ve done nothing,” she said stiffly. “Pilot your boat, commander.”

Chendev snarled at her and turned away, shouting more orders. Lev looked around. The crew was worried, grim-faced. The radiation levels continued to climb.

Lev bared his teeth. He looked at the director, who seemed like the only one on the boat who was calm. What did this person know? What had she done? Chendev seemed to believe she’d caused all this.

Things went from bad to worse, and the radiation levels were now intolerable. If they hadn’t been wearing suits, they’d be permanently damaged. Lev sensed it was only going to get worse. His mind raced, and he sensed he had little time to act if he was to change his fate.

With a sudden movement, he grabbed the director and dragged her from the bridge. She squawked in surprise, quite possibly never having been mistreated before in her life. None of the others on the bridge cared what he did. They fought their instruments and shouted information to one another, intent on survival.

He dragged her aft, below decks, to the reactor inside the engine room. She complained, but he paid her no heed. She bit him and cursed him, but his hands were like iron, and his gloves were thick. He barely heard her.

In his mind, he could see Nika’s face. She was younger than Lev, and she turned heads whenever they walked into a shop together. He wasn’t ready to let go of that memory or a thousand others.

Shoving a shocked-looking engineer out of the way, Lev climbed into the reactor with water sloshing around him. A bluish glow came from the hot steaming rods visible at his feet.

“So this is your plan?” the director demanded. “To burn me before the others? To cook me within this ship’s boiler before the rads outside can do the job? You’re insane, Lieutenant!”

“It is you who are insane! You released something as we left, didn’t you?”

“Of course. But it had to be done.”

“Why?”

“You would not understand. The signal will be sent. That’s all that matters.”

“A signal? Sent to where?”

“Out into space. Out to wherever this Artifact is truly from.”

The radiation spiked viciously at that moment. The boat’s engineers had gathered to look at them inside the reactor chamber. Their expressions were baffled. They thought they were seeing two mad people committing suicide—but it was they who died first.

A spike of gamma radiation burned through the ship. Despite the submarine’s shielding, every member of the crew was burned to death. Their bodies smoked as particles shot through them, killing them within seconds.

Only Lev and Director Norin survived. They were inside the most shielded portion of the nuclear powered sub. The lead-lined walls had been designed to keep radiation in, of course, rather than out, but they served the purpose equally well in reverse. This had been Lev’s plan, as it was the only way he could think of that would keep him and the director alive—at least for now.

When the spike died away and radiation levels returned to normal, the only two living souls on the boat were Lev and his startled companion.

Chapter 5

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California

Afternoon

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory had been in continuous operation since 1952. It had opened as an offshoot of the older lab in New Mexico—Los Alamos National Laboratory—and both labs were famous for essential research in the development of nuclear weapons. Lawrence Livermore was supposed to be the “new ideas” lab and had initially created advanced warhead designs for missile systems in the fifties and sixties.

In the nineteen seventies the lab’s mission shifted somewhat, becoming less focused on weapons research. Development of experimental computer systems became the goal, and many milestones were reached.

The lab was funded by the U. S. Dept. of Energy, but it was managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration. The atmosphere on site wasn’t quite what one would expect. The place looked like a university campus and had at one time been run by the University of California. Employees operated in a manner not unlike research professors at large universities. It was like being a government worker and a university academic, all rolled into one.

Dr. Yuki Tanaka was one such employee. She felt at home on the campus-like lab grounds, but it hadn’t always been that way. She’d interned at the labs as a graduate student from U. C. Berkeley. Like many students, she’d struggled with money issues and had pretty much “sold herself” to the labs to complete her master’s program. Finding that she liked the work, she signed on permanently and continued her studies, eventually earning a Ph. D. in robotics.

Yuki had been recruited by the lab to work on experimental robotic designs. The daughter of immigrant parents who had settled in Santa Clara, everyone in her family was involved in tech work. Yuki’s specialty had gone beyond the norm, however, as she wasn’t satisfied with programming apps for cellphones or video game consoles.

Initially, there hadn’t been a strong military focus to her work, and that comforted her somewhat. So many of the robotics people at the labs worked on aerial drones and the like.

Her work was different. In front of her, swimming in a thirty thousand gallon tank of saline, her proudest achievement was performing as designed. The B-6 was a snake-like robot with a segmented body. As she watched, it wormed its way over obstacles strewn upon the bottom of the tank. Yuki couldn’t help but smile as she watched it wriggle and pause to absorb input from its surroundings. Right now, it was linked to a larger land-based computer and was therefore significantly more intelligent. It could, however, perform in a more basic capacity when cut off from any external CPU power.

“How’s your sea-drone doing, Yuki?” asked a voice at her side.

She turned, startled. As was so often the case, the person beside her seemed to have materialized. She’d been unaware of his approach. She often became so absorbed in her work that daily routines, and even her surroundings, were forgotten or ignored.

“Oh, hello Shane. Didn’t see you there. The B-6 is doing fine. It will pass everything on the list within two months.”

Shane gave her a knowing little smile. “You might not have that long. The PI is calling for a budget justification session.”

Yuki blinked in confusion. “I wasn’t informed.”

Shane flashed her that smile again. “You sure? Is your phone on silent again?”

She dug in her purse and pulled it out. Three texts, two phone messages. The PI had made several attempts to contact her. She licked her lips.

“I must have had it on silent,” she lied. The truth was she’d been oblivious. She got that way while watching one of her creations in perfect motion.

“I figured. That’s why he sent me down here to find you.”

“When is the meeting?”

“Today. Now, in fact. You’re late.”

Yuki’s face felt flushed. “But…couldn’t they do the meeting without me? The whole team doesn’t have to—”

“Yuki, there is no ‘they’ in this case. As I understand it, no one else has been invited. Good luck.”

Shane reached out his hand and gave her upper arm a tiny squeeze. She allowed the contact, making no complaint. She wondered, not for the first time, if Shane had a crush on her. If he did, he hadn’t communicated his feelings very well. There was nothing unusual about that at the labs, however. Poor social skills were almost an occupational requirement for scientists.

Shane left her, and she turned back to the tank. Thinking fast, she stepped to the monitors and downloaded the last fifteen minutes of live video feed from the tank’s cameras. She needed ammo if this was a budget meeting. It might not help, but it couldn’t hurt. After initiating the transfer of the data to a flash drive, she tapped into the control system, disconnected her snake-like robot from the main server and set it free, forcing it to determine its own path without outside help.

The robot froze for several seconds, drifting to the bottom. It was trying to reestablish the link. The cameras were recording, and Yuki felt a tickle of sweat under her blouse.

Finally, the robot gave up and began thinking for itself. It wriggled its tail and swam upward again, getting off the bottom and beginning to survey its surroundings. Cut off, it moved more slowly, more deliberately. It didn’t have that perky intelligent look anymore. Instead, it was more ponderous and thoughtful. Approaching a cylinder that was on its mission path, a piece of concrete pipe that was two feet in diameter and twelve feet long, the robot paused.

Yuki stared and chewed her lower lip. This wasn’t part of today’s proposed testing, but she needed a win. In all engineering endeavors, recent measurable progress was the best defense against accountants looking for a program to cut.

The robot finally stopped screwing around and swam into the dark pipe. A period of perhaps thirty seconds passed, during which the segmented robot vanished entirely.

It was taking too long. Yuki sighed and almost reached out to cut the feed. She’d have to delete this portion and only show the previous footage. It wouldn’t show any advancement, but at least it wouldn’t be embarrassing.

But then, even as her hand slid forward to the control console, the robot’s flat, cobra-like head poked out of the far side of the pipe. That end had been buried in the muck at the bottom of the tank, purposefully blocking it to make the exit more difficult.

Yuki smiled as she watched her robot escape the trap unaided. It was no longer wriggling and swimming. Instead, it had dug into the bottom mud and used tiny shovel-like blades there to push itself forward. The head came through, then the sleek black body followed. Triumphantly, the bot arched up and swam away, mud drifting from its undercarriage in clumps.

She downloaded the final clip and hurried to the PI’s office.

TA-94’s Principal Investigator was Dr. Phillip Haas. He was a thin man with a slight German accent, and he wasn’t accustomed to waiting. When Yuki finally arrived, he gave her a sour glance.

“I think it would reflect well on all my staffers if we respected one another’s time, Dr. Tanaka.”

“Sorry,” she said, feeling herself flush. “I was completing a vital new step in my research. I’ve had a breakthrough. Would you like to see the results?”

Yuki held out her flash drive hopefully. Haas did not take it.

“There’s no point. The B-6—that is finished.”

Yuki’s heart sank. This was it. Her funding had been cut. She took in a breath, ready to argue, but Haas spoke first.

“I don’t know what they want. I don’t like it. I want you to think about refusing.”

Her expression shifted from defensive anger to confusion.

“What?” she asked.

“These black-ops people,” he said, shaking his head. “They think they’re the only ones that matter. They think they can come in here and order the rest of us around. It’s not like we’re at war or anything. The Mideast has been quiet for months, and Russia hasn’t invaded any of their satellite states for more than a year. The black-ops people talk about national security, but I think they just do that to get their way. You know, the way an ambulance driver might switch on his flashers and honk to get to lunch a little faster.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dr. Haas.”

He tossed her a printout and leaned back in his chair, sighing. She read the orders. They were from the Dept. of Energy. She’d been reassigned to a project code-named Seahorse. That was all there was on the page.

“Seahorse? What the hell is Seahorse?”

“It’s bullshit, that’s what it is,” Haas said with conviction. “They’ll probably have you flying drones over Yemen within a week, daring to call it research.”

Yuki didn’t know what to say or do. Her budget hadn’t been cut. Her work hadn’t been questioned. But she’d been kicked off the TA-94 team all the same. In effect, she was as good as fired from her job.

“They can’t do this,” she said. “I’ve been working on the B-6 for three years. They aren’t even giving you a reason?”

Haas laughed bitterly. “Sure, sure, sure, you regret the disruption. A reason? They never explain anything. The orders say they’re from the Department of Energy, but they’re probably from Langley or some other quiet spider-hole. Maybe they’re connected with those robot people up in Boston. Does it matter? No, of course not. They want you, and they’ve ordered me to hand you over.”

“Can’t we do anything? Can’t I do anything?”

“Sure you can. You can quit. You’re not in the army. Oh—but wait a moment. You went and signed papers, didn’t you? That doctorate wasn’t cheap, was it? Can you pay those loans back? Maybe you got rich on the stock market last year?”

Yuki sat back and sighed. “They own me. For two more years.”

“Right,” Haas said. “I’m sorry. Just go with it. Maybe it will be fun.”

“When is this transfer effective?”

“Read the bottom of the sheet. It says it is effective immediately.”

“Immediately? What does that mean? I have to have at least a month to wrap things up here. Anything less would be criminal. Who will continue my work?”

Haas flicked his fingers into the air. “Ask the Feds about that when they talk to you. I’m sure they’ll give you a pillow to cry on.”

Yuki was stunned. She stood up. There wasn’t any time to spare. “I’ll back everything up and write a summary report,” she said to Haas. “If you find someone to replace me, they can pick up where I left off.”

“Sure, sure, sure,” he said, reaching for his tablet. He was already tapping at it as she left his office.

Yuki walked unsteadily toward her office. She was already cataloging critical steps. She felt lost and confused. Years’ worth of work might be lost, and she couldn’t think of anything she could do other than wrap it all up into the neatest package she could manage.

She didn’t make it all the way to her office before a hand reached out to stop her gently.

“Dr. Tanaka?”

Yuki froze, glaring at the fingers on her arm. They were thick, brown and immeasurably strong.

“Yes?”

The hand withdrew quickly.

“I’ve been following you, calling your name. I’m sorry ma’am, but I didn’t know how else to stop you.”

Yuki looked up at the man. He was good-looking, well-groomed, and his skin was dark. He was Indian, if she had to guess. The man wore a suit and tie—not the norm in the halls of the labs. He was too tall and well-built to be a scientist. He didn’t belong here, that was obvious. Not unless he worked in the security department.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“You can call me Sandeep.”

“Are you security?”

“No, Dr. Tanaka. Not exactly. I’m your escort.”

Immediately, she thought. They had meant what they’d said.

“I need to gather my things from my office. I have to make a few calls, too.”

“You can have five minutes in your office. No calls are necessary. We’ve made arrangements.”

She shook her head. “What? I can’t just leave. I have a cat at home.”

“As I said, we’ve made arrangements.”

Yuki stared at those big dark eyes for a moment. The man knew about her cat. He knew she lived alone. He knew everything about her. It was unnerving.

“Where are we going, anyway?” she heard herself say.

“We’re going…north,” he replied.

“What’s this all about?” she demanded with sudden vehemence. “You have to tell me, Sandeep, or I’m not going any farther.”

“I can tell you, Dr. Tanaka, that you’re needed. You have special skills, and your government requires them.”

She swallowed hard. To her mind, she was an inventor of odd-looking swimming robots. What could be so important about that?

“Something underwater?” she asked. “Has a submarine gone down? Most of my designs aren’t rated for serious depths. Nothing more than five thousand feet.”

“It’s a matter of national security,” Sandeep said. “I can’t tell you more until we arrive at the base. Are you coming or not?”

At the base, she thought. What base? She wanted to ask more questions, but she didn’t bother. She knew he wouldn’t answer meaningfully. That was the way of things with blacked-out projects. She’d worked on secret projects before—much of what was done at the labs was secret—but she’d never worked on the serious stuff. She had the clearances, but this was the first time she’d dealt with anything that directly influenced national security.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Five minutes later, she found herself following a stranger out of the building and climbing into his waiting car. The nondescript government sedan was white and unadorned. He whisked her away to a helipad in the mountains above the lab, a helipad she’d never known existed. There, she boarded her first helicopter and flew away. It was amazingly quiet. She’d heard about quiet helicopters, but she’d never even seen a picture of one.

She tried to speak with her escort and the crew, but everyone aboard seemed deaf. They dodged or openly ignored her questions. By the time they landed at Travis Air Force base less than an hour later, she’d given up.

Sandeep hurriedly loaded her aboard a C-17 transport plane, but he did not board the plane with her. Even though he’d been akin to a kidnapper for her, she felt a sense of loss as they parted ways. Was this sensation something like a Stockholm-Syndrome effect, she wondered? She knew nothing about Sandeep, but at least she’d met him in a familiar environment.

As the massive plane thrummed into life, she was strapped into an uncomfortable jump-seat. She was given a parka and a thermal blanket, which she found alarming.

Sandeep had said they were traveling north—but how far north?

By the time the plane took off, she felt as if she was living in a dream—or maybe it was a nightmare.

Chapter 6

Aptos, California

Afternoon

Cole led his new boss to his old boss’ place. This weird guy, Perez, had taken the time to change into normal street clothes, but that was it. The guy seemed hell-bent on going straight to Tommy’s house today.

Although Cole didn’t like to admit it, he was feeling a little nervous. He kept reminding himself that there was no way Tommy could know they were coming—hell, he probably wasn’t even home.

Perez drove to the beach town of Aptos, following Cole’s directions. Cole guided him one turn at a time. Cole never gave him Tommy’s address, he just called out rights and lefts. Each turn brought them closer to the ocean.

“So,” Perez said, “what’s Tommy do—besides loan people money, that is.”

Cole shrugged. “The usual. He’s got a job and everything.”

Perez seemed surprised. He frowned harder as the two of them drove down San Miguel, winding closer and closer to the sea.

“He lives down here on the shoreline?” Perez asked.

“Yeah, what’d you think?”

“I didn’t realize…What’s his real name?”

“You ask way too many questions,” Cole complained. “What difference does it make?”

Perez snorted. “I paid you ten thousand bucks, and you won’t even tell me the mark’s name?”

Cole fidgeted in the passenger seat. “All right. His real name is Mackle.”

The car lurched and almost plowed into a tree. Perez stared at Cole. He seemed stunned. “Tom Mackle?”

“What? You know him?”

“No, not really. But isn’t he a lawyer or something?”

Cole eyed the smaller man. He nodded slowly. “You know him.” He grinned. “Everybody who’s been screwed over by the law knows Tommy Mackle.”

Perez nodded and kept frowning. He seemed more concerned about Tommy’s real identity than he had been about getting his toe chopped off. Cole thought that was weird, but it made him happy that he’d managed to upset the man at last.

When they got to the final hairpin turn, Perez hit the brakes. There were cop cars down here, plus three fire trucks. The entire roadway was choked with official vehicles. They were running their flashers like it was the 4th of July. The second to last house on the street was a smoking ruin.

“Let me guess,” Perez said, “somebody beat us to it.”

“Yeah,” Cole said, staring. “That’s his place up there. Holy shit, I think someone blew it up. I can’t believe it.”

Perez smashed his fist on the steering wheel. “Damn it.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Cole said. “Do a U-turn, man. Never stare at the cops.”

Perez didn’t answer. Instead, he revved the car and they rolled swiftly toward the scene.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Cole demanded. “Those are cops. They’re everywhere. Turn around!”

Perez shook his head. “Two months,” he said. “I can’t believe it. Two whole months wasted.”

“What’s wrong with you, man?”

Perez parked the car and got out. He motioned for Cole to do the same. Cole did so reluctantly.

The cops were eyeing them with suspicion by this time. There was a bomb truck present in Mackle’s driveway. It was black and shiny, like a UPS truck that had been turned into a hearse. The cops had set up yellow tape and cordoned off the end of the street, but Perez pushed all that aside and walked right up to them.

“Hey detective,” one of the uniforms called out, recognizing Perez. “Didn’t know you were working on this case. We had a bomb go off and take out a house. Is that crazy or what?”

“Two months,” Perez said, shaking his head. “Is Mackle alive?”

The cop laughed and gestured toward the blackened husk that had been the lawyer’s house. “What do you think? By the way, who’s your friend? He’s leaving in a hurry.”

Perez looked back toward Cole, who’d finally figured out that he was in a very bad spot. He was walking quickly up the road.

“He was Mackle’s strongman. Go get him, will you?

“What’s the charge?”

“He tried to cut off one of my toes.”

The cop gave Perez a strange look, but he hustled after the fleeing Cole. They made the collar, and Cole was brought back to stand in front of the ruined house.

“You think he did it?” a Sergeant asked, looking Cole over with stern eyes.

“Him? No way.”

Perez frisked Cole, taking away his cutters and the ten thousand dollars he had stuffed under his shirt.

“Is that even real money?” Cole demanded.

“Yeah, it is. Just in case you wanted to count it.”

“You did all this—bet money and lost it, waited for me to come, then got me to lead you to Mackle? Just to take down the guy at the top?”

“That’s right, Cole. You’ll be charged with assault, racketeering and extortion among other things. Too bad Mackle is gone. We could have cut you a deal to turn state’s evidence. Now, there’s no bigger fish to fry.”

Cole licked his lips. His eyes looked wild. “I know things,” he said suddenly. “I know lots of things.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“I bet I know who did this, for one thing.”

“Who?”

Cole’s hands were cuffed, so he used his head to gesture down the street. The cops followed his motion. There was one more house in the row, the last house before the beach took over. Standing in front of it was a woman in jogging shorts. Her face was pretty in that no-makeup way that was so common in Santa Cruz. She looked worried, and her arms were crossed.

“See that chick over there? She’s some kind of a scientist from someplace. She hates Mackle, and Mackle always joked about her killing him one day. There she is, standing in her yard watching his house burn down. I’ve seen them argue for years. I’m a witness to Mackle’s complaints about her.”

Perez looked at the woman then back to Cole. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got? Hell, half this town wanted Mackle dead. So what if she was part of that army?”

“You’re right,” Cole said. “Everyone hated Tommy. But how many of them are scientists? How many of them live next door? I bet she knows exactly how to make a bomb. Check it out, that’s all I’m saying. If you need a witness, I’m your man—in exchange for a deal, that is.”

Perez shrugged. “That’s pretty thin, but I’ll take you up on it. I have to admit, I can tell she doesn’t like us watching her. We’re making her nervous. She might know something.”

Cole grinned tightly as they pushed his over-sized head into the back of a squad car. The detective had screwed him, but he dared to hope he could wriggle free.

Chapter 7

Arctic Ocean Seabed

Darkness

After the radiation surge ended, Vepr ran aground. The submarine stopped with a jolt that threw Lev and Director Norin off their feet.

“Director Norin?” Lev asked, tapping at the fallen woman.

She didn’t respond.

“Kira? Can you stand?”

Nothing. Lev heaved himself onto his feet, swaying. How long had they been inside the reactor? He wasn’t sure. The boat was running on emergency battery power. The lights were red and dim. The reactor had shut down when the radiation surge was detected, retracting the rods to safety.

He checked the fallen figure of Director Norin carefully. She was face down in the water, but her suit was sealed and watertight. It had saved her.

He rolled her over and decided she was alive. He tried to haul her to her feet, but failed. He was tired, weak. He hoped it wasn’t the initial onset of a deadly radiation dose.

Acute radiation poisoning amounted to a set of serious health effects which materialized within twenty four hours of exposure to high amounts of ionizing radiation. The bombardment of human cellular structures was akin to puncturing each cell with many tiny pinholes. It was as if every cell in the body was shot by microscopically small bullets.

Molecular structures were damaged by any level of particle radiation, but in severe cases, the damage to DNA and other key structures within human cells prevented the cells from dividing normally. Symptoms arose within hours and could last for months. Vomiting, infections and bleeding were all on the list.

“Govno,” he said aloud. He stared down at the fallen form of the director. If ever he’d been faced with an opportunity to kill a deserving person, this was it. All he had to do was open her mask and let her drown in the steamy radioactive waters that surrounded them.

Instead, he hauled her up and carried her to the exit. She flopped over his back like a wet ragdoll. Reaching up to open the lock on the hatch, he hesitated. There was a porthole next to the hatch. He didn’t want to look through it, but he did so anyway.

Peering through fogged-over, lead-impregnated glass, he saw three of the engineers. They were all dead, lying in poses of agony on the floor. The radiation blast must have killed them. He was sure of that much. Was the radiation still hot out there? He couldn’t see a Geiger counter from his position. The dosimeter badges on the engineers were red, but that didn’t prove anything. Once they’d received a high dose, they were designed to turn red and stay that way.

He looked around the reactor thoughtfully. He couldn’t just sit in here. There was a fair amount of radiation hitting him right now, and his suit wouldn’t stop all of it. Every hour that passed was hazardous to one’s health. Already, he’d probably gotten enough of a dose to give him cancer in the future.

Lev slapped the release, climbed inside the airlock and cycled the air through it. All the while, he stared at the dead men, wondering if he’d just killed himself as well by coming out of the reactor chamber. Perhaps he’d join them in a few moments on that steel deck.

When the lights dinged green, he passed through and escaped the cloying heat of the reactor. He slammed the hatch shut behind him and adjusted the load on his shoulder. Director Norin still hadn’t awakened, and part of him hoped she never would.

With the stoicism that his people were known for, Lev climbed over a dozen bodies on his way to the bridge. The power was out on most systems. The boat was running on batteries, and it seemed that many of the computerized systems were dead. Was the entire sub dead? He didn’t know, but not knowing didn’t change anything, so he continued onward.

The only good news came from the few working Geiger counters. The harsh blast of radiation that had killed the crew had faded and was now down to a tolerable level of rads per hour.

Climbing the last ladder in the last shaft, he reached the bridge. The corpses were everywhere. Men were draped over their consoles, having died at their posts.

Captain Chendev was among them. He was open-eyed and snarling. His gray teeth were rimed in blood.

Lev let go of the director on his back, letting her slide into a heap on the floor. She gave a tiny groan, or could that have been his imagination? He almost kicked her but held back his foot.

He looked at Chendev. He wasn’t a friend. He’d been a bastard. But he’d been a loyal sailor, and he’d fought to save his ship and his crew until the very end. Lev could respect that. The man hadn’t deserved such a death.

Lev walked carefully around the bridge, checking bodies and systems. Everyone was dead. Most of the computers were dead, too. They couldn’t take high levels of radiation any more than humans could. Only the most basic systems were operating, those with the thickest wires and the simplest designs.

Lev smiled grimly. For once, old fashioned soviet design had come in handy. Russians had always tended to over-build their military hardware. It was tough, and most systems weren’t interdependent. A hodge-podge of systems, yes, but many were still operating.

The trouble was he wasn’t a sub-driver, he was a killer. His technical knowledge wasn’t up to the task of operating a boat like Vepr.

He found a jar of anti-radiation tablets. He chewed them mechanically, disliking the flavor of potassium iodine.

He turned back toward the director, who lay on the deck where he’d left her. Could she operate a drifting, mortally-wounded sub? She’d been down here long enough, so it was possible.

Maybe it was time for her to earn her high pay.

Chapter 8

Santa Cruz County Correctional Facility, California

Evening

Of all the things Dr. Jackie Linscott might have expected to happen to her today, getting arrested and hauled to jail wasn’t one of them. She knew intellectually that the detective was trying to scare her—but she also knew that it was working.

She sat across from Detective Perez with a small metal table between them. Her hands were clasped in front of her. At least they hadn’t handcuffed her, she wasn’t sure she could handle that.

While repetitive questions poured over her like warm goo she told herself over and over again that she didn’t have anything to worry about. She was innocent, and that would come out in the end.

“Let’s go over this again, shall we?” asked Detective Perez. His eyes were pale green, unblinking and thoughtful. “First, you found a package on your doorstep. Then you carried this package to Tom Mackle’s house, and you delivered the bomb personally into his hands.”

“That’s right,” she said as calmly as she could. “But I didn’t know it was a bomb at the time.”

She’d wanted to lie about her part in the bombing, but she’d decided to go with the truth right from the start. The temptation to lie was very strong, but she’d avoided it sternly. If they found out she was lying about having delivered the package, she knew they’d suspect her—even more than they did now—of having built the device.

Also in the back of her mind were Mackle’s security cameras. If his recording system had somehow survived the explosion, or if the video had been stored offsite, she would be implicated. The truth was the best policy—she hoped.

“Right,” Perez said, making a notation in a notebook she couldn’t see. “And this package was strapped up in strong, thick fibers. You didn’t cut them open when you found the package on your own doorstep. Instead, you noticed the box wasn’t addressed to you, so you delivered it to the correct address next door.”

“Yes, that’s what happened. Then the bomb went off before I could get home. I…I guess he must have cut the fibers. Maybe that was the trigger mechanism. I don’t know.”

Another note was made. Perez’s pale green eyes looked up at her. “Who do you think sent this bomb to you?”

“I have no idea.”

“And who did you say the delivery company was?”

“I didn’t. It was one of those private, contracted delivery people. You know, the type who drive a van, carrying around stuff that people order online. I didn’t see the driver’s face. I didn’t see any insignia on the van, either.”

“And the van was…”

“Gray—maybe silver.”

“Make? Model? License plate?”

She shrugged helplessly.

The detective leaned back, placing his pencil on the table and sighing. “You do realize that you’ve described nothing at all? That your details are so vague they’re useless?”

“I can’t help you there. I can only relate the truth. I can only tell you what happened.”

“A gray van? Really? Are you sure it wasn’t a blue van or a yellow one?”

She wondered if he was making fun of her. She flushed and squirmed in her chair. “It was a gray van.”

Jackie was a person who’d never trusted the government. Her father had instilled that in her from a young age, and even though she’d led her life to this point without having had trouble with people like Perez, she found she didn’t trust him now.

Detective Perez stared at her before speaking again. To her, his eyes seemed cold and unsympathetic. “Miss Linscott, you must understand that I’ve had a very trying day.”

“Doctor Linscott,” she corrected him, “and so have I.”

“Of course. Let’s go over this again.”

“I don’t see the point of that,” she snapped. “We’re wasting time. Why haven’t you tried to find the delivery man?”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Because there weren’t any deliveries scheduled for your house or Tom Mackle’s house today. We’ve checked with every possible organization.”

She blinked. “I…”

“No services,” he continued in a slightly louder voice. “No online orders. No deliveries.”

She wanted to lick her lips but managed to stop herself. She didn’t want to show how nervous she was.

“Then the deliveryman wasn’t a deliveryman,” she said. “He was in on it.”

Perez nodded sagely. “An interesting proposal. Let me give you another. You constructed a bomb in your house—or possibly elsewhere. The dogs didn’t find any explosive residue in your residence, but that may change with a second sweep.”

“Dogs? You let dogs into my house? How could you…?”

He tossed a packet of papers onto the desk. “You weren’t home. We executed the court order in your absence.”

She riffled through the papers angrily.

“Why would you be upset?” he asked mildly. “If you’re innocent, you should welcome this opportunity to clear your name.”

“I don’t like people going through my stuff. Some of it is very sensitive.”

“Ah yes, that brings us to your place of work. First of all, I must state my heartfelt condolences concerning your loss today.”

She froze, looking at him blankly. “My what?”

“Your loss. I regret the fate of your colleagues, your coworkers.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He stared at her. “They were bombed as well, Dr. Linscott. Haven’t you heard?”

Jackie’s tongue dried up in her mouth. “Bombed? Blue-Sky Labs was bombed?”

“Yes. There were a number of fatalities, but it could have been much worse. Unfortunately, the building itself was a total loss. An incendiary device did the job. Your place of work has been erased, just like your next-door neighbor.”

“But you can’t think that…” she sputtered. “You can’t think that I did this! I’d have to be crazy.”

Perez shuffled some papers. He didn’t look at her.

“Look,” she said, “I didn’t do anything.”

“You aren’t the first person who ever wanted to blow up their place of work—or a lawyer,” he said. “But you are unusually qualified for the task. You’re a scientist, are you not, Dr. Linscott?”

“Yes. But I don’t go around bombing people!”

“Haven’t you studied chemistry? What are bombs, anyway, other than chemistry?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course I’ve studied chemistry.”

“Did you ever hear of a man named Ted Kaczynski?”

“The Unabomber? Yes, I’ve heard of him.”

“He was a scientist too, wasn’t he?”

“No, he was a mathematician—and a lunatic.”

“I see. You know more about him than I do. Are you a fan of his work? Maybe he gave you some ideas.”

“Look, Detective Perez…”

“Call me Victor.”

“Detective,” she said firmly, “I’m not going to confess to anything, because I didn’t do anything. If you are charging me with something, I want to see my lawyer. You have to charge me or let me go.”

Detective Victor Perez smiled tightly at her. He tapped a pen on the metal table, making a ticking sound. She stared back defiantly.

“There’s no reason to get upset,” he said. “It’s my job to ferret out the truth. Some say I’m good at it.”

She cocked her head to one side. “You don’t think I did this, do you?”

“It’s my job to investigate crimes. I’m pondering several disturbing facts.”

“You have to charge me or release me,” she said firmly.

“Do you really want me to draw up charges? Forever afterward, you’ll have to answer ‘yes’ on employment forms when they ask if you’ve had a felony arrest. Conviction or no, this detail will go on your record.”

She felt a little shock go through her. Was this man threatening her? She didn’t like it. She knew she had rights. She knew that she was innocent, even if things looked bad. But she also knew that once a person was behind these walls and the police began doing their work with an idea firmly planted in their minds, justice wasn’t always served.

“What else can I tell you?” she asked. “I’ve given you everything I know.”

“You can start by describing your relationship with your neighbor. Were you on good terms?”

She stared for a second, thinking. She’d hated Mackle. Somehow, she understood that this detective knew that already. He wanted to catch her in a lie.

“No, we were not on good terms,” she said. “We didn’t get along. But today I thought maybe we had a chance to mend fences. That’s partly why I took the package to his door personally and rang the bell. I…I feel awful about what happened.”

Detective Perez looked thoughtful. She believed she might have given him an answer that he hadn’t expected. Perhaps he’d hoped she would lie and say they went caroling together every Christmas.

“When you say you weren’t on good terms, you were referring to this, I assume?” he asked, tossing another packet of papers at her. It was a copy of the lawsuit Mackle had filed against her two years ago.

“That’s right. We had a property dispute.”

“A dispute which you lost?”

“Yes. Listen, detective, I honestly think you’re wasting your time with me. If my place of work was bombed, then the bomber who came to my house today was probably after me, not Mackle.”

“That thought had occurred to me as well.”

“Well then, why are you questioning me instead of finding the real bomber?”

“Firstly, because you might still be that bomber,” Perez said, his tone of voice shifting slightly. “Secondly, because you’re providing me with information right now—whether you know it or not.”

“You’re a real Sherlock, aren’t you?” she asked, glaring.

He chuckled. “All right,” he said. “Let’s put our cards on the table. No, I don’t think you did this. Mackle sued you unfairly, and you paid the bill. Bombers don’t pay bills under duress. Moreover, antisocial behavior of this magnitude should have shown up by now in your history. You don’t even have any parking tickets.”

She stood up. His pale green eyes followed her.

“Then why are you wasting my time? Let me out of here.”

“Very well. But you should be careful. Whoever is doing this has already killed some people at your place of work. They’ve destroyed a lot of equipment, too. You might still be a target.”

A thrill of fear went through her as she realized he was right. She was asking to go home to an empty house at the end of a dark street with no one nearby. She’d smell the stink of her dead neighbor’s burnt out husk of a house all night long.

But there were things she had to get. Her computer for one. All her work from the lab was on it. If they’d suffered a catastrophic loss at the office, the least she could do was offer her backups.

“Could you possibly drive me home?” she asked.

The detective nodded. A few minutes later, they left the facility and drove back to Aptos.

Chapter 9

The Altstadt District, Munich

Midday

Brandt didn’t look nervous, but he was.

All around him, people were smiling. They had no idea what Brandt was going through—how could they?

The sun was bright in a blue sky. Not a cloud hung in sight, and the cobblestoned streets of Munich’s Altstadt—Old Town—looked as if they’d been laid last week rather than centuries ago.

Brandt stood with his daughter in his arms. He was smiling for her, mostly. She was having a rare moment of peace and happiness. The old clock tower known as Glockenspiel was about to perform its midday show, a tourist favorite. Mechanical dancers, including noblemen and fools alike, were about to dance for the onlookers gathered in the square below.

“Daddy? When is it going to start?”

“See the clock? It’s about to hit noon. They’ll start moving just before that.”

“How long do they move? Do they do anything special?”

“You’ll just have to see, Jenna.”

She turned back to the clock, craning her face up toward the pantheon of motionless figures. They were enclosed in a stage of stone and metal which was green with age.

Brandt stopped watching the crowd for a moment to look at his daughter. She was six, and she was all he had left in the world. Her golden curls tickled his chin as he dared to smile down at her.

“Captain?” asked a voice behind him. It was low but unmistakable.

Brandt heard the voice, but he didn’t react immediately—at least not outwardly.

At last, high above the square, the clock’s bells began to chime. The figures moved. Slowly, sedately—but they were moving.

Jenna giggled happily.

“Captain Brandt?” asked the voice again.

They weren’t going to give him a break. They’d spotted him, and there was no way to pretend he was someone else. Gently, Brandt put Jenna down and whispered into her ear. “Go find a nice lady, honey.”

She stiffened and looked up at him in fear. “Are you sure?”

He nodded.

Jenna trotted away, scanning the crowd. She knew the drill. She was to find a woman with a pleasant face and take her hand. Then she was to explain she was lost and that she needed help.

A figure stepped forward. The man was short of stature, but Brandt wasn’t fooled.

“Nice show,” he said. “Took a long time to find you again after you left Bali.”

Brandt didn’t say anything. His eyes were scanning, looking for support people. There were always support people.

When he spotted one, his heart sank. Jenna was talking to her. The telltale earpiece with the wire down the back of the collar—he should have taught her to spot that sort of thing.

“Now, Brandt. Let’s talk about how this is going to go down. You’re going to walk with me. Don’t worry about Jenna, one of our operatives has already picked her up.”

The man kept talking, but Brandt wasn’t listening. He wasn’t going back. He didn’t want that life again for himself, and he would rather die than force Jenna to replace him.

He turned and placed his strong hands on the man’s chest, feeling for the gun under his clothes.

“Get off me, Brandt,” the man said. “That’s an order.”

“I’m not in the service anymore.”

“You can’t quit. Your country needs you.”

“Sorry.”

The smaller man’s hands were up, silently struggling with Brandt. Around them, the crowd seemed oblivious. They were all watching the mechanical men going around their clock, ticking and chiming ancient bells.

Brandt made his move then. Knowing the operative was armed—that had been the first step. Now he felt justified to use force. He had no choice.

A finger snapped like a dry twig. The operative’s face changed to one of shock. His other hand reached for the gun, but Brandt’s grip around his wrist stopped him.

“That was your trigger finger,” Brandt told the operative. “I’m taking your gun, or I’m snapping your thumb next. That’s a discharge waiting for you. Is it worth it?”

The operative’s face was a mask of pain and rage, but he shook his head.

Brandt reached into his jacket and took the Glock-27 he found there. It was the smallest, lightest handgun the Austrian company made, perfect for concealment.

Brandt made the gun disappear into his pocket, then turned away. The operative was already speaking into his sleeve and holding his hand in pain.

“Yes, I’ve made contact. I need backup—”

Brandt walked away. He spotted the female operative, the one who had his daughter.

“Come here, Jenna,” he said gently.

The woman had a smile on her face. Her hair was short and tight, a European style. She had a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. When Jenna tried to pull away, the woman’s hand turned into a claw.

Jenna looked up in surprise, but the woman was watching Brandt now.

“This is the wrong place for this, Brandt,” she said with a slight accent. “Come with us, and we’ll talk.”

“You chose this ground, not me.”

Brandt scanned the crowd for the third operative. There were almost always three in a team, sometimes more. He doubted they’d have a sniper. Their mission was to bring him in alive at all costs. He was probably on camera but not in a rifle’s sights.

When Brandt reached the woman, he was surprised to see her pull a gun out. She pressed it into the small of Jenna’s back and stared at him. There was worry and anger in the woman’s eyes.

“I’m taking you two in,” she snarled.

Jenna squealed. For the first time, people around them seemed to take notice of the quiet drama. All eyes had been on the clock tower, but the show was almost over and a few of the more jaded of them were already bored.

“Threatening my daughter is a mistake,” Brandt told the woman.

“No closer,” she said warily. “No one has to get hurt.”

“All right,” Brandt said, but the moment she relaxed a fraction he shot the woman in the heart. He felt he had to. He couldn’t let someone put a gun muzzle against his little girl’s body.

The crowd around them had already been splitting apart, but now they ran, screaming. Brandt stepped forward, ripped off the dead woman’s headset and forced it into his ear even as he took Jenna’s hand and began walking quickly away with her. Jenna was crying, and he was sorry, but he was also determined.

The Altstadt was blocked off to all but foot traffic. A ring-like road system encircled the district, and transportation was readily available. He paused to work on the tangle of wires he’d lifted from the dead woman. After a bit of tweaking, he managed to get the headset working. He listened in on the enemy team’s conversation.

“He’s crazy,” said a voice. Brandt was pretty sure it was the guy whose finger he’d snapped. “My God, he killed Catia. Flat out killed her. We’ll have to put him down next time.”

“We can’t. We’ve got orders from the top on that. The lab people need him too much.”

“That’s bullshit. We can use the girl. We don’t need him.”

“We can’t be sure of that.”

There was a moment of quiet, then a fresh, angry outburst. “I’m telling you, if he pulls something like this again, I’m going to fire.”

“No, you’re not. You have your orders. Follow them.”

“What’s the new plan then? No one is going to talk him down.”

There was a hesitation, then: “Agreed. Next time, we grab hard. No soft-pedaling. Now, go find him.”

A team of three, Brandt thought. They hadn’t changed their playbook. He’d barely been listening to their chatter, he’d been counting voices. They still thought and moved the same way, and that had been his only advantage this time. Next time, they’d know he was committed, willing to kill if necessary—and that was bad.

Brandt disconnected the earpiece and crushed it with his hands. He tossed the wad of wires and the black plastic battery pack into the nearest trash receptacle. He’d heard enough. There’d been no talk of immediate pursuit. The headset might be useful, but it might be used to track him, too. He couldn’t take the risk.

He swept Jenna up in his arms and hugged her. She was sniffling, and her cheeks were streaked and wet.

“Sorry about that, honey.”

“It was my fault. I went to the wrong lady.”

“No, no. It wasn’t your fault. None of this is.”

She looked up at him with big blue eyes. “Is it grandpa’s fault?”

Brandt sighed. She was getting older and smarter. She’d been putting more things together lately.

“Not really,” he said.

Carrying his daughter again, he found a taxi a few blocks away. He climbed into the back of it and threw money at the driver. The man looked at him worriedly, frowning and rapidly flicking his gaze everywhere at once.

“American, yes?” asked the cabbie. “Where to?”

“Train station.”

“Which one?”

“The big one.”

The driver looked thoughtfully at Brandt, Jenna, and the money in his hand. He was a foreign fellow from the Mideast somewhere. He looked like he knew trouble when it climbed into his cab. Brandt could tell he wanted to throw them right back out of his cab. He hoped for everyone’s sake the driver didn’t try it.

Finally, the cabbie pulled out into traffic and sped away. He didn’t say another word, and he even turned his mirror away so he couldn’t see their faces. He didn’t want to be a witness to anything.

There were sirens going by now. It had taken them long enough. Brandt guessed the Germans were out of practice and slow to react to this kind of thing.

“Daddy?” Jenna asked.

“What is it, honey?”

“Can we go back someday and watch the mechanical men? I didn’t get to see the end of the show.”

“Sure, honey. We’ll do that when things are better.”

It broke Brandt’s heart to lie to her, but he didn’t know what else to do.

Chapter 10

Aptos, California

Night

Jackie and Detective Perez returned to San Miguel Lane. The Detective was supposed to drop her off, but when he stopped the car in front of her house, neither of them got out.

Jackie’s eyes were glued to the wreckage that had been Tom Mackle’s house. She didn’t even look at her own place until Detective Perez got out and spoke.

“There’s something wrong,” he said.

Her heart accelerated in her chest. She followed his gaze—then she saw it. Her door was hanging open. The interior of her house looked dark and perfectly still from the street.

“Did your dog-team leave it that way?” she asked.

“Very unlikely. Stay here.”

She sat in the car and watched him approach the house indirectly. He jogged along the street, disappearing between shadowy trees. The beach was gray in the cloud-filtered moonlight, and the lone streetlamp at the circular end of her road cast an inadequate glow. Her house was as black as a tomb, and Tom Mackle’s was destroyed.

Detective Perez reappeared, looking cautiously into her doorway. He had something—was that the metallic flash of a gun in his hand? The idea surprised her. She didn’t like this situation, and she felt a ripple of fear run through her.

For years, she’d run along these roads and down this lovely stretch of beach. She’d never eyed the landscape with fear before, but tonight was different.

A shadow moved close to the car, and she jumped in her seat. She turned and looked through the salt-streaked glass, expecting to see the detective’s calm face. This expectation didn’t make sense, as she’d just seen him creep into her house a moment earlier, but somehow she still expected to see him.

Instead, the face was that of an unfamiliar man with a dark complexion. She stopped breathing for a moment.

The stranger was well-dressed and well-groomed but that didn’t allay her fears. She’d seen too much today. He lifted a pistol to the glass and tapped with it, indicating she should lower her window by spinning a finger in the air.

Instead, she scooted across the car, screaming, and climbed out the driver’s side. The man circled the car, coming after her.

If there was one thing Jackie Linscott could do, it was run. She ran from the stranger, heading for the next house up the block. If she could get inside her neighbor’s place and make a call—

A shout and a booming shot sounded behind her. She winced and almost stumbled. Had she been hit? No—there wasn’t any pain.

She reached the curb and chanced a look over her shoulder.

There were two men in the street, fighting. One was Detective Perez, the other was her assailant.

The instinct to keep running was very strong in her. But a gun had fired. Perez could be hurt. She felt she had to help, as there he was out there, fighting alone in the street to defend her.

She trotted back, circling behind the stranger.

The fight was only dimly lit, but Jackie knew right away she was out of her league. Both men were fighting like they knew how to do it. They punched, blocked, kicked and blocked again like two professionals. Her college courses in self-defense seemed woefully inadequate.

Jackie ran to the cliff that loomed across the street from the row of houses and picked up a fallen rock at the base of it. Using both hands, she carried it back to the scene in the street. It seemed to her that the stranger was getting the worst of the fight, but she was still determined to do her part. If he were to put his back to her for just a moment—

The nature of the fight suddenly shifted. Both men threw themselves down on the ground and rolled, struggling and grunting. She wanted to hit the stranger, but couldn’t be sure of her aim. They were wrestling on the ground, trying to get to a fallen pistol.

The pistol! They were both crawling toward it. She hadn’t seen it before on the dark street. She dropped the rock and picked up the gun.

“Dr. Linscott,” the stranger said, “you have to run, I can’t hold him.” He had an accent, but it was only a slight one.

“How do you know my name?” she demanded, aiming the gun at him.

“Careful Jackie,” Detective Perez said. “That’s a Glock. There’s no separate safety. If you pull that trigger—”

“I know what I’m doing,” she lied. She’d had a few lessons from her father and an instructor, but she was far from an expert with firearms. “Both of you, stop fighting and start talking. Who are you?”

She directed this last question to the man whose gun she’d grabbed. He was staring at her, then Detective Perez in turn.

“You know this man?” the stranger asked her.

“Sort of,” she said. “He arrested me today. He’s a cop. Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Sandeep,” he said. “I work for the government. I’m afraid this situation is a vast misunderstanding. I’m here to protect you, Dr. Linscott.”

“Bullshit,” she said.

Perez got to his feet and dusted himself off. Sandeep stayed on his knees.

“Looks like it’s true,” Perez said to Jackie. He held up a wallet with a flipped open ID. “I pulled this out of his pocket while we were on the ground. He’s from Homeland Security. Let him up. And for God’s sake, point that gun away from us, will you?”

Jackie, breathing hard, lifted the barrel of the gun toward the sky. Both men visibly relaxed. Detective Perez helped Sandeep to stand. They displayed IDs and apologized for having beaten the hell out of one another. From the look of their faces, Jackie estimated that Sandeep had taken most of the blows. There was blood dripping from his jaw and one of his eyes was half-closed. Despite this, he showed no signs of discomfort or anger.

“You fight well, detective,” Sandeep said. “Who trained you?”

“A marine sergeant, years back. I was in a recon unit in Iran.”

Sandeep nodded respectfully. “The years have not weakened you.”

“Look,” Jackie said, feeling stressed. “What the hell is this all about?”

“It’s about you, Dr. Linscott,” Sandeep said. “I’ve been sent by the federal government to retrieve you.”

“Are you sure you haven’t been sent to blow me up?”

Sandeep chuckled and shook his head. “Hardly. But we do have opposition. If you don’t mind, I would prefer to explain on the way. Will you accompany me to the airport? My car is at the end of the street.”

“I’m not getting into your car without knowing more,” Jackie said.

“I can’t discuss details, not here. I can say that the situation is urgent, and it’s a matter of national security.”

“It always is with you guys,” Jackie said suspiciously. Few who grew up in Santa Cruz County had been raised to trust the government.

“May I have my weapon back?” Sandeep asked politely. “It’s something of an embarrassment to have been disarmed so easily.”

“You managed to knock my weapon down as well,” Detective Perez said.

“I must thank you for not shooting me out of hand, Detective. The situation was tense and unclear. I must apologize for that, the fault was mine.”

“If you two are done praising one another,” Jackie said, “I need to get my computer out of the house.”

They agreed, and she went inside, grabbing an overnight bag and a computer case. She put the strap over her head and followed the two men out into the street. She locked the door but wondered if there was any point. Her house had been broken into by two different branches of the government today alone.

Warily, the two of them followed Sandeep to his car.

“I’ll come with you,” the detective said. Jackie felt a surge of gratitude.

“That isn’t necessary,” Sandeep said, “but I understand. I’ll arrange for transport home for you after Dr. Linscott is safely on her way.”

“If I’m so important, why didn’t the feds send a helicopter down here to get me?”

“What? Should it land on the beach?” Sandeep asked, amused.

“Yeah, why not?”

“That is a movie thing, Dr. Linscott. Our helicopter fleet is stretched thin today.”

Jackie wasn’t quite sure how to take that. It could be good news that she wasn’t very important, or it could be bad news. This guy didn’t even seem to have a partner. Weren’t federal agents supposed to have partners? The truth was she had no idea how these things really worked.

They climbed into Sandeep’s car with Jackie in the back seat. At least the car had government license plates. She’d given up the gun, but she wished she had one of her own. Her survival instincts were singing, and she was as nervous as a cat.

“Allow me to explain what I can,” Sandeep said as he put the car into gear and rolled sedately away. “There has been a rash of attacks today, carried out by organizations that oppose mine. I wasn’t aware that Dr. Linscott was a target until they moved on her today. I apologize for taking so long to get here, but I’ve been escorting people all day long.”

“Escorting people where?” she demanded.

“There’s a problem up north. A confrontation is building between the United States and Russia.”

“Russia?”

“Yes.”

“Are you telling me that Russians blew up my neighbor and Blue-Sky Labs today?”

“Possibly, but unlikely. They’re working through intermediaries. Moles, paid criminals. Usually, such people gather intelligence and spread propaganda—but this year things have changed. Have you been watching the news of late?”

Jackie had been off-handedly keeping track of Russia’s military adventurism. But as a committed isolationist, she hadn’t been ready to support direct U. S. action. Like many, she knew her government had to do unpleasant things at times to keep her breathing—but she didn’t like to admit it.

“What’s Russia doing that would involve me?” she asked.

Sandeep glanced at Detective Perez, who was watching and listening carefully. Jackie could tell the detective was taking everything in, weighing every statement and making decisions about how to handle the situation. She liked his ability to keep quiet when others were handing out vital information. She also liked the way he’d come to her rescue in the street and come along for the ride to protect her. Sure, he’d arrested her and interrogated her, but she had to admit any reasonable cop would have done just that after the bombing. It was his job.

Sucking in a breath as if he was coming to a hard decision, Sandeep answered her question at last. “What is your company working on at your lab, doctor?”

“Lots of things. Propulsion, packet-transmissions, new long-range protocols and solar technology.”

Detective Perez looked impressed. “Really?” he asked. “So, you’re some kind of rocket scientist?”

“No, not exactly. Blue-Sky is a research company that contracts for aerospace giants. We mostly do satellite development. It sounds cooler than it is in practice. We build better satellites so your cellphone connection is clearer when you call Europe, that sort of thing. Lots of companies are involved.”

Detective Perez turned toward Sandeep again. “What makes her company special? What’s worth killing people and burning down buildings?”

“We aren’t entirely sure. As I said, she wasn’t on my target list until today. When I learned of the strikes against her facility, however, I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence. There have been other attacks around the globe, key people have been killed, facilities burned. Whatever you’ve been working on, Dr. Linscott, the enemy thinks it’s worth disrupting.”

The enemy. Russia was an enemy? Wasn’t the Cold War over? That was history, the stuff of the last century.

But in her heart, she knew better. The U. S. had plenty of enemies abroad. She wished it wasn’t true, but that didn’t change reality. She’d seen things today that had brought that home to her.

“Okay,” she said. “You’re here to protect me and take me somewhere safe. Can I ask you where? Is this going to be some kind of safe house or just a hotel? I’m not interested in abandoning my old life completely.”

“Are you interested in dying?” Sandeep asked in a voice that was almost cheery. “Because those that have moved against you today have failed, but that is only a temporary setback for them. They may not come again for a year or more. But they will not forget you. They will finish their mission.”

“Where are we going?” she asked more forcefully.

“To the airport, as I said. A private craft will take you on the first leg of your journey.”

“And where do I end up?”

Sandeep hesitated. “At a base,” he said. “Out to the east.”

“A base? A military base, you mean? Something up north like Travis Air Force Base?”

“Think farther east.”

“Nevada?”

Sandeep shrugged. They merged onto highway 1 and headed north, switching to highway 17 at the junction. She knew this mountainous road well. Although she generally used software to work from home, all staff members were required to come to the main office in Santa Clara a few days a week. When the physical trials finally began, they had to commute every day. Highway 17 was the primary route everyone took between the coastal cities around Santa Cruz and Silicon Valley. The road was heavy with traffic in the daytime, winding and treacherous at night.

Sandeep seemed oblivious to the roadway. His car had all-wheel drive and hugged the pavement, but each whipping turn made Jackie’s stomach churn. At least it wasn’t raining, and there was little traffic this late at night.

When they topped the mountain range and began the long way down again, everything went wrong.

A pickup came up beside them with its high beams on. It paused there, and they all looked at it. The driver didn’t return their glance. Instead, he sped up and pulled ahead. They were going downhill now, and Jackie felt a surge of relief. She’d had enough excitement for one day.

“Could you slow down?” she asked. “I didn’t like the way—”

That was all she got out. Twin bright lights glared as they rounded another turn, and for a second, everyone in the car was outlined in brilliant halogen high beams. Then the pickup hit them.

Afterward, Jackie could never be sure whether or not it was the same pickup that rammed them and pushed them off the road into the trees—but then, it really didn’t matter.

They slid and rolled once, completely flipping the car onto its back, then flipped again onto the wheels. Jackie thought she was screaming, but that could have been the two vehicles screeching and grinding against one another. Sparks flew, brilliant orange streaks in the night.

Jackie lost track of what was happening for a short time. That must have been after they hit a big tree head-on and came to a sudden halt. When she awakened, ribs aching, she saw white fabric air bags hanging from a half-dozen spots around the car. Each of them was limp and deflated.

She groggily moaned and reached out toward the front seat. Sandeep was slumped over the wheel. She clutched his shoulder, then slipped her hand to his neck. His pulse was measurable, but he was unconscious.

She reached next toward Detective Perez—but the passenger door was open, and he was gone.

“Detective?” she called weakly. She struggled with her door, finding that it was stuck.

Suddenly, a hand opened the door for her. She looked up and saw a gun.

There wasn’t time to fight, or to scream. She froze in shock for a split-second—then the gun went off.

She thought she was dead, but the bullet missed her, firing into the seat beside her. How could anyone have missed at this range? It was a strange thought, but then it was a strange moment for her as she was facing death.

The man who had pulled her car door open was silhouetted by a single glaring headlight from the truck that had hit them and followed them as they careened down the hill. The truck was tall, with huge tires and a roll bar. The second headlight had been knocked out and hung like a plucked eyeball from the grill.

She couldn’t make out the man’s face, the man who would surely kill her in the next moments. He was a dark shape in the midst of the glare.

A second shot popped loud, echoing from the road and the trees. A dark spray of blood and brains splashed over her, and the stranger slumped down onto her lap. She pushed the body away, giving little desperate shrieks as she did so.

Another figure stood behind the dead stranger. She recognized his shape. It was Detective Perez.

“Why didn’t he kill me?” she asked.

“Because he wasn’t aiming at you,” he said.

He pointed toward the seat next to her. She looked and saw her notebook computer.

There was a neat, round hole in the middle of it.

Chapter 11

Arctic Ocean Seabed

Darkness

Lieutenant Lev Burkov had never been a soft-hearted man, but then he’d never before faced the death of an entire crew at sea.

He felt moved to mourn them. Even as he dragged their bodies from the bridge and dumped them one at a time in the forward torpedo room, he noted each man’s name and told the corpseBog proshchayet—God forgives. It was something he’d once seen an orthodox priest do when dealing with a dead family as they were packed into a truck and hauled away. He’d been a child at the time, living under Soviet rule, and he’d never learned from the adults why the family had died. But it didn’t matter to the priest. He’d done what he could for them.

The only limp form left on the deck of the bridge when he was finished was that of the director. He ignored her as he worked to get the sub operating again. It had sunk down to the bottom, according to the instruments that still worked. That could mean the death of them, right there. The bottom of the Arctic Ocean was often treacherous.

The exact navigational position of the Artifact had never been made clear to Lev, and he hadn’t asked. In his business, one did not ask about secrets. You were told, or you weren’t.

As best he could tell from plastic charts he’d dragged out of storage and the last GPS coordinates in the logs, they were in the north of the East Siberian Sea. Probably somewhere near the edge of the Amundsen Basin. Judging by the depth, they had to be on top of the Lomonsov Ridge, a region of relatively shallow water between two deep basins. If they’d sunk all the way into the deeper regions on either side of the ridge, the sub would have been crushed by the fantastic pressure that would have been applied to the hull.

He made a mental note not to let the boat wander west, if he ever got her moving again. Amundsen Basin was the deepest part of the Arctic Ocean, and he was certain Vepr would not survive if he ventured there.

Taking stock of functional systems, his situation appeared to be grim. Sonar was out, as were all radio communications. Even the long-wave VLF systems were dead. He could not call on a secure channel for help—even if someone could have heard him through the icepack far above.

He had plenty of oxygen. The boat was designed to keep a large crew alive, and there were only two breathing souls left aboard. The fresh water and food supplies were equally generous.

The thought occurred to Lev that he could simply sit on the bottom for months if necessary. Eventually, someone would come looking for him. He could release transponders, greatly increasing his odds of being found and rescued, even under the ice.

But with typical Russian stubbornness, he refused to do so. This project was under the ultimate level of secrecy. Everything about this boat and the Artifact he’d just visited was to be kept from the western powers at all costs. They were not to know what his country was up to, regardless of the fact that Lev didn’t understand it himself. Finding a disabled sub here would bring vessels and scrutiny. They would help, but then they would investigate. Lev decided without a qualm that he would die before he gave away the position of the Artifact.

Three hours later, he discovered an emergency manual written in simple terms with diagrams. He walked the bridge, making the adjustments and working the back-up manual control systems. Overbuilt in the manner of most Russian military hardware, the boat could operate at a basic level without her computer systems, unlike some of her western counterparts.

Hours later, he finally felt ready. He moved to the bow-planes.

This was it. He’d direct the ship upward, blow the ballast tanks, and engage the motors to turn the aft screws. He didn’t dare attempt to use the nuclear boiler to power the ship. He was happy enough that the reactor hadn’t ruptured thus far. His knowledge of the heat-driven turbines was very limited, and he didn’t want to chance fooling with it—especially without the help of the computer systems. He would have to limp along on battery power as far as he could.

He took a deep breath and laid his hands on the controls. He would have to walk across the cramped bridge several times, moving from one operator’s station to another. With a hesitant hand, he made the first change to the settings.

The lights dimmed in reaction to his alterations, then they brightened again. The sub shivered, and there was a groaning, whining sound as motors worked to do his bidding.

“Are you insane?” asked a voice.

Startled, Lev turned to look at the woman he’d left on the steel decking near his feet. She was up on one elbow, looking at him.

“Some would say so,” he admitted.

She stared at him. “Why are we still alive?”

“I took you into the reactor chamber. Our radiation suits protected us from the reactor core, while the reactor’s shielding protected us from whatever it was that you released.”

She nodded slowly and sat up with painful movements. Her hand went to her head and rubbed there. Her fingers and hair were bloody and matted, but she was still an attractive woman, if past her prime.

Lev steeled himself against feeling any kind of sympathy for this saboteur. She deserved death, and the only reason he hadn’t yet killed her was that he hadn’t been given the order. He’d complete his mission by taking her home to Moscow—in a box if he had to.

“I didn’t do anything special,” she said. “It was going to happen anyway. I just sped up the process. The Artifact has been building up for a surge for months.”

Lev didn’t respond. He stared at her expressionlessly. He wondered if he should tie her up or lock her in a cabin somewhere.

“What is your name, soldier?” the woman asked. “I do assume you’re a soldier.”

“I am Lieutenant Lev Burkov,” he said. “You are my prisoner.”

“I’m a representative of the government. I can’t be arrested under these circumstances.”

This elicited a chuckle from Lev. It was not a pleasant sound. “You will be free to lodge a complaint with the bureaucrats in Moscow—assuming we survive long enough to reach home.”

She licked her lips and started to stand, then paused. “Can I get to my feet?”

Lev made a gesture, indicating she should rise and take a seat at the navigator’s station. She did so, watching him as one might watch a dangerous snake.

He’d already searched her, finding no weapons. She was helpless in his estimation. Nevertheless, he would keep a watchful eye on her. Looks could be deceiving. He reminded himself she’d managed to engineer the deaths of over a hundred people today alone.

“You said I must be crazy when you first awakened,” he said. “Why?”

“Because you were about to kill us.”

He twisted his lips and turned back to his instruments. “We’re sitting on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. The boat is crippled. I’m trying to get her moving again.”

She shook her head. “I’ve spent months in subs. Underwater research has been my strength since my first days at the university.”

Lev’s eyes ran over the controls. He couldn’t see anything he’d done wrong—but he had to admit he had no real idea what he was doing.

“You can’t just aim the sub upward and shoot to the surface,” she said.

“You’re talking about the icecap. I’m not an idiot. I planned to level off before we reached shallow depths.”

“The stresses on the ship would be too great anyway. We don’t know the condition of the vessel. Decompression, a damaged boat, no computer systems—we have no idea what’s outside the hull. We could ram into a rock. We could be sitting under a spike of ice. Without sonar—at least passive sonar—we’re blind.”

Lev shrugged. “What can be done about that?” he asked. “We cannot repair these systems. Radiation and possibly an EMP blast damaged the circuitry. We’re lucky the actuator motors aren’t burned out.”

“I’ll have to look around,” the director said, rising to her feet. “I’ll check the engine room and go over every advanced system to see what can be put back into service. Don’t touch anything until I return.”

She turned to go, but his hand clasped her wrist in an iron grip.

“I will come with you,” he said.

Looking into his eyes, she chose not to argue.

As they walked down the passages, passing many dead, the woman expressed anguish at the sight of them.

“You killed these men,” Lev pointed out. “Aren’t you happy to see their corpses?”

She tossed her head and looked back at him in sudden anger. “I’m not a monster. I did what I had to.”

Lev absorbed this statement and continued following her through the narrow, dim-lit passages. As they went, they shut down unneeded lights and beeping alarms. These systems could only serve to drain the batteries faster at this point.

“When we first met,” Lev said. “You appeared to be expecting death.”

“That’s true.”

“But now you appear to want to live. Why is that?”

She sighed. “I did not think of your tactic. I didn’t think there was any way to survive the signal.”

“What signal?”

“The radiation blast. I was certain we were all going to die. Now that the signal has been sent, and I’m still alive, I find that I want to keep living.”

He grabbed her arm and spun her around. His face was emotionless, but his words were not.

“You killed these men. It isn’t right that you should walk over their bodies like a queen while they stretch on the deck in death. They died in agony. How does that make you feel?”

“You’re hurting my arm,” she said.

“Why did you do it?”

“I doubt a man like you could understand.”

“Try to explain it to me.”

“Let go, and I will.”

He let go of her, and she backed away from him a step. He could tell she feared him even if she was putting up a brave front. Her actions had baffled him from the start. He decided that he would not move from this spot until he had some answers.

“Lev—you said your name was Lev, correct?” she asked.

He made no reply. His eyes bored into her.

“The signal was coming. I was not in control of it. All I did was cause it to be sent early. That might be a good thing, Lev. A good thing for all humanity. That’s why I did it.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“There’s so much you don’t know.”

“Then explain it to me. I will not ask you a third time.”

She stared at him for a moment. “This is about the Artifact. Do you know what it is?”

“No. Do you?”

“Not entirely. I do know that it was built by—by someone else.”

“Who? The Americans?”

“Hardly. I’m talking about non-humans.”

Lev snorted. “Aliens? You’re talking about aliens.”

“Maybe,” she said. “What difference does it make what we call them? Angels, devils, gods—aliens. They aren’t human.”

“How do you know this?”

“Carbon dating, for one thing. The Artifact is just over a hundred years old, and yet it took root at the bottom of our coldest sea. No human could have built such a structure that long ago.”

“What is the purpose of this thing?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know that. But it was built to sense us, and to change our world. I’m sure of that. When we came near it, the radiation built up. We studied it but never understood it. When at last we recognized it was reacting to radio signals and other radiation, the scientists dampened their own emissions. They tried to quiet the thing, to calm it.”

Lev glowered. He didn’t know what to believe, but the idea that the Artifact was of extraterrestrial origin could not be dismissed by anyone who had seen it firsthand. It was undeniably alien. There was an otherness about it that encroached upon the mind and raised the hackles on a man’s neck every minute one was inside it.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s say I believe you. The Artifact was of unknown origin, and it was placed in a secretive spot for an unknown purpose. Why did you think it would send a signal?”

“It was pulsing, building up for it. I recognized the behavior. Like an old analog system warming up and coming to life slowly. I…I knew what was coming. The rest of them knew it, too. Not all would admit it, but they all tried to sneak around in the base like mice. Instead of an air of excitement, there was always an air of dread for anyone visiting the place. They had the eyes of doomed men, all of them.”

“So, what did you do?” asked Lev.

“It was simple enough. After I arrived and figured out what we were dealing with, I ordered them to stimulate the Artifact.”

Lev’s eyes narrowed. “Stimulate it?”

“Yes. To do all the things they’d been avoiding. To disturb the dragon’s rest. You see, over many months they’d learned to be quiet. To creep within the guts of the monster and keep it asleep. But I would not allow that. I demanded that our presence be known. I beat on its ribs and screeched in its ear.”

Lev was fairly convinced the woman was mad, but he thought he might as well learn everything he could about her fantasies while she was willing to talk openly about them. There might even be a grain of truth buried in her story.

“But…why would you attempt to anger this sleeping god?” he asked.

She gave him an appraising glance, and he wondered disinterestedly if his mocking tone had offended her. After a moment, she answered him.

“So that it would send its signal, Lieutenant,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. What’s done is done.”

“What will a signal sent out into space tell us?”

“Where the Artifact came from. The signal was designed to be tightly focused.”

“Focused on what? Couldn’t you tell which way it was aiming, whether it transmitted or not?”

“The Earth spins, even up in the polar regions. The moment it chose to transmit determined the target. But we knew it was aiming out along the Plane of the Ecliptic—that’s the region of space in which Earth orbits the Sun. All the planets in the Solar System lie within the plane.”

“Yes, I took astronomy in school.”

“Well then you understand that we believed the signal was aimed somewhere within this star system.”

Lev twisted his lips. “Unlikely,” he said. “There’s nothing out there but lifeless rocks.”

“We thought the bottom of the Arctic Sea was lifeless a century ago.”

Lev dismissed her words as unimportant.

“Anyway,” he said, “did you manage to trigger this signal? Can it be traced?”

“I believe so. They know the truth by now back in Moscow. There are many remote monitoring stations. They know where that intense beam of radiation went. They know who was told that humanity has finally grown up and become a technological civilization.”

“But why do such a thing?” he demanded, exasperated. “It would be so dangerous. We have no idea who is listening for this signal, or who may act because of it.”

“That’s right,” she said. “But you don’t know the full story. I’m a director from the Ministry of Science, which governs our space programs. I felt the action was necessary.”

She turned away then, and he let her. They headed for the engine room without speaking further.

Lev didn’t know what to think. Could she be right? It seemed more likely that she was insane. Whatever the case, he decided it didn’t matter. He’d let the eggheads in Moscow decide what to do with the data she had provided at great loss of life. He’d let the politicians and judges decide if she should be imprisoned or shot. It was none of his concern.

He would follow this woman, repair this sub, and take them both home—or he would die trying.

Chapter 12

The Santa Cruz Mountains, California

Night

When Sandeep regained consciousness, he didn’t curse or shout. Instead, he waved to the two of them.

“Detective Perez,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m banged up a bit. You have get Dr. Linscott out of here. I’m not entirely sure why they want to kill her so badly, but the very fact that they’re trying this hard makes me want to keep her alive.”

“They might be after her computer instead,” the Detective said, showing Sandeep the damaged laptop.

“I see. Odd. Has the hard drive been damaged?”

“I don’t think so,” Jackie said.

“Then remove it, and take it with you. Leave the computer here as a decoy.”

She did as he asked, snapping out the small hard drive from the slot in the back after using a penknife to remove the locking screw.

There was a sudden commotion behind her. She turned to see Perez was lifting the body, examining the head area. The man’s eyes were still open, and Jackie winced in horror.

“He’s got a polyp,” Perez said, “in his neck. See this lump? That’s not a thyroid tumor.”

Sandeep stared at Perez, not the dead man’s neck. Jackie didn’t know what to think.

“How do you know about implants?” Sandeep asked, but then he answered his own question almost immediately. “Oh, you fought in Iran. Are you still hosting one?”

“No,” Perez said, “they took it out when I was discharged. Look, his eyes are open. He’s probably still recording us.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Jackie demanded.

“Dr. Linscott,” Perez said, turning toward her, “you might want to turn away for a minute. I’ve got to take this thing out of him.”

“Turn away? What are you going to do to the body?”

“That’s unnecessary,” Sandeep said quickly, “and possibly counterproductive. My people might be able to get something out of that. We—”

He broke off, because Perez wasn’t listening. He’d produced a small blade and quickly opened a two inch gash in the dead man’s neck. Jackie watched in horror as he reached into the slit with his fingers and dug out something red, wet and slippery.

It looked like a partially formed eyeball. She’d expected something metallic, maybe with a battery pack. But this looked organic, like a small bulbous organ.

Perez threw it down and stomped it flat. For a moment, Jackie thought she saw the thing wriggle—but that was impossible. She looked away, wishing she’d followed the detective’s advice.

“You guys are going to have to explain that thing to me!” she said, her voice cracking high in disgust and alarm. For her, watching the procedure had been as bad as watching the man die in the first place.

“Later,” Perez said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Detective,” Sandeep said. “Get her and the disk to Livermore. Take the back roads, avoid the highways.”

“All the way around San Jose?”

“Yes.”

Detective Perez looked over the car. It was a wreck. “I don’t think your machine is going to make the trip, Sandeep.”

Sandeep indicated the pickup that loomed near with a single headlight intact. “Take this gentleman’s truck. I don’t think he’ll be needing it anymore tonight.”

“All right. But we should take you to the hospital first.”

Sandeep shook his head. “Unnecessary. This vehicle is equipped with a GPS and a crash sensor. A silent alarm has already alerted agents. They’ll be coming here soon to retrieve me.”

Jackie looked uncertain. “You want us to just leave you?”

“I can’t help. I can only slow you down. You don’t want to go anywhere near a hospital tonight.”

“But I thought you just said help was on the way?”

“It is, but the enemy is most likely also on their way. I can’t be certain who will get here first.”

“We shouldn’t leave him,” Jackie said. She frowned worriedly at Sandeep.

“He’ll be all right,” the detective said. “We’ll take the truck.” He fished keys out of the dead man’s pocket and climbed into the cab.

Jackie hesitated. She didn’t know if running was the best option, but she’d decided she would rather be close to the detective tonight if people were coming to kill her. He’d already demonstrated more than once he was good to have around in a fight. Besides, Sandeep had assured them that this was the best option.

Sandeep smiled at her, blinking in the glare of the truck’s headlight. His teeth were outlined with blood. She gave his shoulder a squeeze, which made him wince.

“I’ll call this in,” she said. “My cell is working. People are already stopping up on the main road to see what’s happening down here.”

Sandeep’s smile faded. “Don’t call anyone. You must go. Now.”

Scared, she left him. She felt a pang, even though she’d just met him. He had his pistol out, and was checking it. Did he intend to have a gun battle with whoever came after them? She hoped not.

The second she was in the truck and had the door slammed shut, Detective Perez gunned the engine. They turned and began bouncing through the forest. The four-wheel drive was doing its work, maneuvering them downslope through the trees. Fortunately, the trunks were widely spaced.

“Where are we going?” Jackie asked, strapping herself in.

“There’s a backwoods road out here called Summit. We’ll find it and follow it to Mt. Madonna, then take more goat-tracks around the south end of San Jose. We’ll stay in the mountains as much as possible.”

“You know where you’re going?” she asked.

“Pretty much. I’ve hunted and camped in this area.”

“How long will this take?”

“I don’t know. It’s only fifty miles to Livermore from here on the highways, but going this way…? It will take three or four hours, I’d say. At least we’ve got plenty of gas.”

He surprised her then by switching off the lone headlight. With only glowing yellow parking lights on, he navigated the forest to a small country lane. This fed into a bigger road, then another. They passed small houses with lights twinkling in the trees. It all looked so peaceful and normal.

“You should turn your lights back on,” she said.

“Yeah.”

Finally he did so, and she relaxed a little. Maybe a cop would pull them over—but that might be a good thing. Perez was a cop, and they generally helped each other out.

She sat back in her seat and tried to rest, but her heart was pounding too much. She was hungry, too.

Digging in the glove compartment box, she found a registration and insurance card. The man had a foreign-sounding name. It didn’t seem Russian, but she was no expert. Who were these people? What kind of a person took a job to kill people they didn’t even know?

There was nothing to eat. She sat back and tried not to think about what was happening to her.

Every minute or two, she felt inside her pocket, her fingers closing around the small square shape of her laptop’s hard drive. Was that what they were really after? It seemed likely to her now.

And, with everything that was happening, she was beginning to suspect that she knew why.

Chapter 13

New York City

Day

Captain Brandt was tired, and little Jenna had passed out in his arms. They’d been traveling hard for days. Running was always stressful. Even if you’d lost your pursuers, you could never be one hundred percent sure.

This time he’d chosen to go back home—at least to his home country. Strangely, the U. S. had borders that were easier to cross than most borders in the world. He’d flown into Toronto on a fake passport. Jenna was young enough to travel on his papers.

After that, it had been a fairly simple matter to rent a car and drive it south to the border between Canada and the United States. He didn’t bother doing anything fancy, he just left the car along the road in the Maine woods and walked into his homeland, carrying Jenna most of the way.

When he found a small town on the other side, he met up with his only difficulties. New Englanders were vigilant—or at least nosy. They knew a man and a girl coming out of their woods without a car was an odd thing. Fortunately, he had money. He managed to rent a new car with a new ID and continue south.

Jenna never questioned events of this nature. She was used to it. Her father had been trained to slip in and out of countries, and she accepted this as a normal facet of life.

It bothered Brandt, however, every time he committed a crime with her in tow. Even a small thing was endangering her, he knew. If he was picked up and couldn’t worm his way out of a jail term, she’d be taken by CPS. Just finding her after that would be difficult, and retrieving her would be nearly impossible. But as usual, his pursuers hadn’t given him much choice.

Two days after they crossed the border, they reached New York City. Strangely enough, he thought of this city as an easy place to vanish into. You had to know where to go, of course. You had to know which streets had people who could give you a new identity for cash. You had to know who would trade what, and what a bartered deal was worth.

He headed for Brooklyn first, where he still had a few useful friends. People who wouldn’t turn him in. People who wouldn’t listen to lies from government agents about him turning traitor. People he needed desperately on a day like today.

Old Bill was one of these friends. He had a protruding nose under thick glasses and a shock of wild gray hair on top.

Bill was what they called a “printer.” In the past, he’d counterfeited his way into hard time in the federal pen. But these days he eked out a thinner living making fake papers. He had a scanner, a camera, excellent printers and pro-quality lamination equipment. He also had every kind of paper and ink known to man.

“You shouldn’t have come back to the city, Brandt,” Old Bill told him. “Things aren’t the same nowadays.”

“I know. I wouldn’t have if I’d had a choice.”

Bill flipped up his visor and pointed at Jenna, who was watching cartoons in the other room.

“What about her?” he demanded. “Are you even thinking about how this is going to end for her?”

Brandt sighed. Old Bill was a great guy, and he always kept his mouth shut when officials came around. Unfortunately, he did quite the opposite when talking to his clients.

“Yeah,” Brandt said. “I don’t think of much else these days.”

“Take her back.”

“What?”

“Take her back to her mama. A young girl like that—” Bill shook his head as he worked. “She should be with her mom.”

Brandt’s face tightened. “I agree.”

“Well then…why?”

Brandt caught the old man’s eye and shook his head slowly. Old Bill finally caught on. He looked pained and made tsking sounds.

“That’s terrible. She’s gone, is she? Does Jenna know?”

“No, but she might figure it out if you don’t keep your frigging voice down.”

“Sorry.”

Old Bill went back to work on the papers, giving no more advice. When they were finished, he handed them to Brandt to inspect.

“Perfect, as always. How much do I owe you?”

Old Bill shook his head. He put up a hand when Brandt began to insist.

“This one is on the house, Brandt,” he said. Then he leaned forward. “But make it the last one, okay? You’re too hot now. You understand, don’t you?”

Brandt felt a little wave of shock going through him. He’d lost another friend.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “No problem, Bill. We’ll be going.”

“Wait a second,” Old Bill said as he stood up.

“What?”

“I…I heard from your dad.”

Their eyes met. Brandt stared. “You’re kidding.”

“No. He’s alive.”

“How do you know?”

“He contacted me. He wants to know where you are.”

Brandt laughed bitterly. “That will never happen.”

“Why not, man? He’s a grandpa, after all. If I had a little granddaughter like that running around the country homeless, I’m sure I would be worried about her.”

“My dad is different,” Brandt said. He stopped, frowning with a new thought. “When did you hear from him?”

“A few days ago.”

“Phone call?”

“No, it was an email. Funny, it came to my old mailbox. The one I haven’t used for years.”

Brandt’s heart was beginning to accelerate in his chest. He didn’t like the sound of any of this. “Listen, Bill, if you hear anything else from my old man, don’t answer. Forget you know him.”

“All right, all right—” said Bill, impatiently.

“No,” Brandt said, reaching out and grabbing a handful of his shirt. “Listen to me.”

Old Bill’s eyes were wide and round—but not with fear. He was angry.

Brandt looked down. An old-fashioned Smith & Wesson was aiming at his chest. Brandt was impressed. He hadn’t even known the old man had a gun, and that spoke volumes. He’d been trained to spot such things and to know when someone was going to make a move on him.

“Don’t try any rough stuff with me, kid.”

Brandt smiled and slowly released Bill. “Sorry,” he said.

“You say that a lot,” Old Bill pointed out. The gun was still in his hand and aimed up at Brandt.

“Sorry—really. I’m just jumpy. Look, my father got me into this mess. He didn’t like his life, so he bailed out on it. He handed a big bag of shit down to me for safe keeping. I don’t want that life to fall down one more step to Jenna.”

Bill shook his head. “I don’t understand, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to understand. But let me tell you this—”

The old man was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass. Brandt lurched, turning toward the window—then he turned back toward Old Bill.

The man’s body had relaxed, and he’d fallen back into his chair, stone dead. There was a perfectly round hole in his forehead. Blood pumped out slowly, running over his face and down into his salt-and-pepper beard.

Brandt leapt into action. He snatched the Smith & Wesson out of Bill’s limp fingers and dashed for Jenna. He grabbed her and charged for the back door, checking the magazine. The gun was fully loaded.

“What’s wrong, Dad?” Jenna asked.

“Nothing, honey.”

She saw the gun in his hand, and her face screwed up into a mask of fear. It hurt him to see her like that. She was conditioned by now to know the signs.

“Listen, honey,” he said, staying away from all the windows. “I need you to crawl into Old Bill’s bedroom and hide. Stay on all fours like a kitty, all right? Find the best place to hide in this whole house. I know you can do it. Don’t come out for anything, not until this is over.”

“Do I have to, Daddy?”

“Yes.”

Jenna crawled away obediently, rapidly. She was good at crawling, and it made him sick when he thought about why.

The front door banged and rattled on its hinges. Men shouted and demanded entry. Brandt ignored them. In his mind, he was going over various possible trajectories for the bullets that were soon going to be flying around this old brick house. He didn’t want to stand where a sniper could see him—even though he didn’t think they would shoot him. They wanted him alive at all costs.

Besides worrying about windows, he was concerned about the angle of his own fire. He made sure Jenna wouldn’t be caught in any crossfire. That would end her life and his own, as far as he was concerned, in the same moment.

Old Bill’s front door held firm, despite the determined banging. There were enough locks on it to choke a pit bull, and they finally gave up and moved around the house to try the back.

Brandt helpfully unlocked the back door. The first man through was lucky. He took a chop to the throat and went down, wheezing and eyes bulging. He couldn’t breathe. Brandt took his gun, and combined with Old Bill’s Smith & Wesson, unloaded into the next guy.

The second man managed to pull a taser out. Brandt caught a tiny prong in the left thigh, but the other prong hit his cellphone which was in that pocket. The weapon buzzed ineffectually.

Brandt’s two guns barked, knocking the man off his feet. He rolled in pain, his flak jacket absorbing the rounds.

“Toss your weapon, or I take a headshot,” Brandt said, being careful to stand in the darkened doorway.

The man did as he was told, coughing pink phlegm.

Brandt slammed the door again. He checked the man on the floor, who was still sucking for air like a beached fish. He was turning blue. Brandt stripped off the man’s helmet and flak jacket. Putting them on, he threw open the door again and walked outside.

He waved the all clear toward the next building—toward the figure on the roof.

The sniper up there relaxed and lowered his rifle, thinking he had been signaled by his own man.

The moment the sniper’s guard was down, Brandt blazed with both his pistols. The range was short, but it was still a close thing. He had to fire seven rounds before the sniper on the neighboring roof took one in the face and toppled from his perch.

“That was for you, Bill,” Brandt said quietly, then he walked back inside.

He checked the man with the crushed windpipe on the floor, but the guy had asphyxiated.

It was time to move on. He searched the house for Jenna. She wasn’t where he’d sent her.

He really didn’t get it until he found the cellar. The tiny dark chamber at the bottom of the steps smelled like a musty tomb. Outdated printing equipment filled the place.

There were steps to the outside, and the double doors at the top were wide open.

Brandt rushed out, whirling around, calling her name—but he found nothing. Jenna was gone.

The neighborhood was quiet except for the distant wolf’s howl of sirens.

He knew immediately where he had to go. He knew he was going to have to return to the one place on this green Earth he’d sworn never to go again.

His face was stiff with pain and determination while he ransacked the house and the dead agents. By the time the sirens grew close, he was already driving a black SUV with government plates. The dead sniper had had the keys in his pocket.

There must have been a second vehicle, but it was long gone. Brandt knew these people. They were organized. He would never find his daughter before they managed to whisk her away onto a plane or a helicopter. If he stayed in the area too long to search for her, they would pick him up eventually—or kill him. He didn’t mind the idea of dying, but what would happen to Jenna after that? Imprisonment for life in Clark's dungeon? That was unacceptable.

Grimly, he clutched the SUV’s steering wheel as he drove. Now and then he had an outburst, hammering his fist on the dash or grabbing up wads of his own clothing and cursing.

Regaining control of himself, he forced his mind to think clearly. He had to, for Jenna’s sake. This time they must have sent more than three agents. One he hadn’t seen must have grabbed Jenna.

He felt sick. After he’d given them such a hard time in Europe, he should have expected more force. Hell, he was lucky they hadn’t sent a ten man team. Maybe they’d been uncertain he was in Brooklyn, or maybe they just hadn’t been able to pull together the assets they needed fast enough. Whatever the case, he’d managed to escape again—but not cleanly.

He’d known all along that Jenna was his weak point. Being forced to protect her endangered both of them. But the enemy had a weakness, too. They wanted to take them both alive. If they’d wanted Brandt and his daughter dead, he knew they’d have been cooling in a morgue long ago.

As the SUV carried him smoothly away from the scene, he tried not to speed too much. He’d have to ditch the vehicle and find another car before he hit the bridges.

After picking up new transport, he’d head north to cross the country on I80. The airlines would be faster, but they were out of the question. He’d have to slip away and hide among the tens of millions who traveled by car every day in the U. S., avoiding the net they must be drawing tighter even now.

As he drove, he looked over the items he’d lifted from the fallen agents. There were guns, IDs and two cellphones. He popped the batteries out of the cellphones to make sure they weren’t giving away his location. They might be useful later.

Looking at the faces on the IDs wasn’t easy. He steeled himself. Another man might have had sympathy for them but not Brandt. They should have known they couldn’t expect to take a man’s daughter from him and live—not if he could stop them.

Chapter 14

Aboard the International Space Station (ISS)

Starlight

Sergey was a little more than four hundred kilometers above the Indian Ocean, looking down. Outside a circular, lead-impregnated porthole, he could see a ship coming to dock with the ISS. It was a rare sight and never failed to intrigue those who’d spent a long time aboard the station.

The approaching spacecraft was a Russian Soyuz, an expendable rocket system that had reliably served since the nineteen sixties. After the Americans had ended their space shuttle program in 2011, the Soyuz was the primary means of reaching the ISS.

Sergey was a physician and a biochemist, working in space to study bone-density growth patterns. He was part of Mission 59, the currently active crew designation. The ISS had been built in 2000, and it had been in continuous operation ever since. It was a special source of pride for all Russian scientists that only they were able to keep the project going. The Americans had run out of gas in space, and while other countries had dabbled, only the Russians maintained a full-blown program. Russia’s Star City was still launching Soyuz rockets with regularity, and although others might scoff at their antiquated technologies, they could not argue with the tenacity of the Russian government’s support.

Outside, the portal jets of hot gas and plasma flared. The Soyuz was making its final approach.

“Why do you think it’s coming, Sergey?” asked the American at the window next to him. “There’s no change of schedule shown. There’s no reason for this visit out of the blue.”

Sergey turned toward the owner of the voice, a balding man with piercing eyes. Mark Swanson was one of the two Americans aboard. Technically, he was in command of this mission, but command was a vague term aboard the ISS. It did not mean that anyone was shouting orders at anyone else. Russians and Americans alternated command rank, and the title was for the most part, honorary.

“There’s been a change,” Sergey said. “I’m going home. This new man will replace me.”

Swanson nodded, still frowning. “I wasn’t informed.”

“Yes, I know. This is an internal matter.”

Swanson stared at him for a moment, then lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I guess I understand. You’re being replaced. Well, I’m glad to have served with you.”

Sergey shook Swanson’s offered hand. The two men fell silent. Things had been tense between their governments over the last two years. There were constant rumors that the ISS itself might be shut down. What had always been an open and friendly relationship between the scientists aboard—that had changed.

The general unspoken rule between Americans and Russians had been to avoid bringing up the obvious. To sidestep the reality of a new Cold War between their nations was the easiest expedient, despite the fact that evidence was mounting every day suggesting international tensions were rising.

Swanson cleared his throat. “I have to say something,” he said quietly. “You—it’s been an honor serving up here with you, Sergey. I’m sorry that things on the ground are changing, muddying the relationship we have up here in clean, open space.”

Sergey looked at him, surprised. “Mark, you’re correct. It is a shame. But men like us don’t make these decisions.”

“Do you think the program will stop? That we’ll end two decades of cooperation in space? It seems like such a tragedy.”

Sergey thought for a moment. The Soyuz outside touched their ship. Clamps clanged into place and gasses hissed. The docking was perfect.

“The moment had to come,” he said. “It was preordained when your government ended its manned missions. Times change. Political winds shift. How could this arrangement continue forever?”

“Well,” Mark said, “we do fund much of your program by paying for taxi service up here. The relationship has been mutually beneficial.”

“Money isn’t everything,” Sergey said. “Our ships still fly. Yours do not.”

Both men fell back into an uncomfortable silence as the airlock finished its job, pumping air until the two chambers were equalized.

Mark was watching the vessel closely. “That’s an old model,” he said. “I didn’t think you guys had any more of these in storage.”

Sergey shrugged. He’d been given private orders to leave the ISS today. He didn’t feel like explaining anything to the American—and in any case, he didn’t know why his masters on the planet below had sent one of their oldest ships to pick him up.

The seal cranked open, and the hatch swung freely. A helmeted man with his visor shut glided weightlessly toward them. They could not see his face through the helmet. It was darkened as if to stop direct sunlight.

“Welcome aboard the ISS,” Mark said. “I’m Swanson, in command of Mission 59. Can you tell me your name?”

The figure redirected itself, gliding toward Swanson. Both the scientists lifted their eyebrows in surprise. There were longstanding protocols of greeting when coming aboard the ISS for the first time. This man seemed to be aware of none of them.

The stranger’s hand came up. There was something in it.

Mark Swanson misinterpreted the gesture. He thought the new arrival was reaching to shake his hand. He tried to clasp the glove that came toward him, but the hand slid past his grasp and pressed a metal object under his chin.

There was an odd, popping sound. Mark’s face registered surprise, and his eyes froze in that wide-open position.

Sergey reached for Mark, his face sagging in disbelief. Even when he saw the dark blood pumping from under the American’s jaw, he could not believe it.

“You killed him?” he demanded in a raspy whisper. “Why? He would have done nothing. He was a good man.”

The dark visor finally opened. “Stop the cameras.”

“They’re already switched off. There have been no video transmissions to the ground for nearly an hour—as was ordered.”

Sergey’s heart was pounding. The flat stare of the man in the helmet did nothing to relieve his concerns. The man had the narrow eyes of a Siberian wolf. There was no mercy there. He faced a deadly predator, and he knew it.

“Good,” said the killer. “You’ve done well. Where are the others?”

“At the far end—in the living modules.”

The man worked his weapon. Sergey eyed it in fear. It looked like a staple gun.

“You brought a firearm aboard this ship?” Sergey asked. “That’s insane. The oxygen levels are high and the hull is thin. You’ll kill us all.”

This elicited a laugh from the killer. “Don’t worry, doctor. It’s very safe. There is no spark. The weapon fires a heavy slug into the brain—but the slug is designed not to exit the far side of the skull. The trick is that I have to put it under a man’s throat. The soft tissue there will allow penetration. Death is instantaneous and certain.”

“An executioner’s weapon? Designed specifically to kill in space?”

“A relic of the Cold War. It has become useful at last.”

Sergey watched him reload with growing apprehension. “You plan to kill the other American?”

“Yes.”

“But why? There’s no need.”

The killer looked down for a moment. “I did not know how you would react. I’m impressed so far. They told me that you would not shout, that you would not fight to save the others. I’m pleased to see you’re a patriot.”

Sergey licked his lips. “I accept your praise, but I ask again, as one patriot to another. Why must this be done?”

The assassin seemed to think it over, and he gripped a loop of vinyl strap that hung from the wall to steady himself.

“I think your request is a fair one,” he said. “I think that two men such as you and I, people willing to die or kill for our nation, we can bend a rule as long as the mission is completed.”

Sergey nodded, making a gesture indicating the other should proceed.

“This station houses our enemies,” the killer said. “It gives them eyes and instruments in the sky. It cannot be allowed to operate today.”

“Do you know why not?”

“No. I only know that today is the last day the ISS will function. It’s also imperative that the enemy does not learn what happened here. They must believe there was an accident.”

Sergey was finally beginning to understand. For some reason, certainty about his fate brought calm.

“Do we have a moment to talk?”

The killer checked a timer on his arm.

“Yes. What do you want to talk about?”

“Can I show you something? My life’s work?”

The killer eyed him but then nodded slowly. All the while Sergey led the man to the lower modules, where his bone-growth experiments were happily multiplying cells in structures impossible on Earth, he wondered if the man would just reach out and pop open his skull as he had Swanson’s.

But he didn’t. He followed politely into the module and listened for nine minutes as Sergey explained his experiments. The time passed quickly, as Sergey was excited, and he knew that his discoveries concerning the various striations and growth patterns would shortly be lost forever.

The old, decrepit Soyuz that had been fired off to rendezvous with the ISS was loaded with plastic explosives. The ship blossomed into silent brilliance as the tenth minute after docking began, eating up the oxygen inside the capsule and blasting the hull open. Hurled with terrific force, chunks of thick steel tore through the thinner hull of the ISS. It was as if shrapnel from a grenade ripped through tissue paper. A dozen burning holes appeared, revealing the glory of space and the blue jewel of Earth, which stretched in a gentle arc below.

Sergey and the killer died together in the lower modules, asphyxiating rapidly. Neither had bothered to close his helmet. There was no point. There could be no rescue.

Sergey’s dying thoughts were positive. At least one man had learned of his achievements in experimental bone growth.

Chapter 15

Barrow, Alaska

Day

On the north slope of Alaska exists a “beach town” that is among the northernmost communities in the world. The barren landscape is a place of extremes. Months of sunlight in summer, months of darkness in winter, polar bear tours, muddy roads and ice-covered seas. These were a few of the unusual facts of life in Barrow that made it stand out among all the places to live on the planet.

Dr. Yuki Tanaka hadn’t been aware of the town’s existence until she flew over the Brooks Range and down to the edge of the Arctic Ocean to land on what passed for the local airstrip. As a lifelong resident of the state of California, where beaches boasted white sands and colorful bathing suits, she found Barrow dismal and foreboding.

Each leg of her long journey northward had been an increasing trial. The planes had grown smaller, but conversely the number of special passengers had grown larger.

By the time she reached Alaska, they were from all over, but there were common themes. Most were military or government workers. They were people with clearances, scientific knowledge, and contracts that made them beholden to one U. S. Federal Department or another. The Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of the Interior—all were represented aboard the final turboprop that wavered and bucked over the mountains. They came down like a falling leaf on the far side, kicking up stones and mud in a rough landing. The airstrip stretched beside a town that looked as if it was waiting to die along the edge of a frozen sea.

There was no grass. There were no trees. There was only mud, and stones, and drifts of snow in patches. Digging into the frosty ground was impossible here without power tools most of the year.

“Barrow,” said a man sitting next to Yuki, looking out the tiny oval window at his side. He wore a parka that had been slopping over his armrests into what Yuki considered her territory with regularity throughout the flight from Anchorage. This was the first time that he’d spoken to her.

“You’ve got to love it or hate it, right?” he asked with a western accent.

“I’ve never been here before,” she said.

He eyed her with new curiosity. “Makes sense. I know almost every contractor that gets shipped up to this nowhere. You’re new. Where do you hail from?”

“Lawrence Livermore.”

“Ah, one of the big labs. There’s nothing like that up here. You’ll be lucky to get hot coffee.”

The man seemed to think this was extremely funny, and he laughed with abandon.

“Are you an Alaskan native?” she asked him cautiously.

“No ma’am,” he said, pushing his glasses higher on his protruding nose. “I like to see my bears behind the bars. And I like to wear skis when I head up to heavy snow. I’m from Idaho.”

“I see.”

“I’m Edwin,” he said, thrusting a paw at her.

She shook his big fingers with her hand and forced a smile. “Dr. Yuki Tanaka.”

“Good to meet you.”

“Did you mention bears, Edwin?”

“Sure did. The meanest in the world, if you ask me or anyone else in Barrow. They’ll chase you down as soon as look at you. No fear. No hesitation. Everything and everyone that moves around on the ice up here—that’s food in their eyes. That’s all they care about.”

Yuki shifted in her seat. The plane had rolled to a tiny terminal that looked like an honest-to-God Quonset hut from World War II. The tires spit gravel and the wind was up, keeping banners whipping hard overhead.

“You’re talking about polar bears, right?” she asked.

“Nothing else up here. Maybe a few seals and whales. Oh, and don’t go into the bars at night, Yuki. They aren’t any place for a woman that doesn’t know her way around a town like this.”

Yuki was becoming increasingly alarmed. What had she gotten herself into? What had they gotten her into? How long was this assignment going to last? More and more, her new position was taking on aspects of a prison term.

“You talk as if you know where I’m going,” she said.

“Of course I know. There’s only two reasons to come to Barrow. Either you’re a thrill-seeking tourist, or you work at Lab 126. I’m betting on the latter in your case, ‘cause you don’t look like you want to be here.”

“You’re right. Could you tell me anything about this lab?”

“Oceanographic studies. That’s what they do out here. Used to be a run-of-the-mill global-warming, grant-churning institute. But they do a lot more than just that these days. They study the seabed looking for resources. They built a sub dock out here last year with an underground lock and everything. Works year around. What do you do, by the way?”

Yuki hesitated. Her work was classified, but not terribly sensitive in nature. Still, she didn’t know this man, and she was a woman who followed the rules.

“I can’t talk about that,” she said evenly.

Edwin nodded as if this confirmed his suspicions. “I’ve been hearing a lot of that over the last few months. Things are heating up—even if that seems impossible!”

Another guffaw burst out of Edwin, ending with a messy coughing fit.

When the plane landed, Yuki was relieved to climb out of her seat and squeeze down the cramped aisle. The plane was so small it reminded her of the school buses she’d been on as a kid.

Her relief fled when she felt the first sharp blast of the arctic wind that blew outside. It cut right into her relatively thin coat and made her shiver. The air stung her face, and her first gasp burned her lungs.

A sign hung near the frost-crusted doorway as she followed the huddled line of passengers into a cinder-block terminal. Welcome to Barrow, the Edge of the Earth, it read.

There were cheery images of crossed whalebones, igloos and polar bears painted around the sign. The polar bears were smiling, but she didn’t find herself cheered.

The passengers were separated into two groups by a man in a uniform. His wide-brimmed hat reminded her of one worn by park rangers, and the big gun on his hip rattled when he moved.

“People headed for the lab over here, please,” he said.

Almost everyone moved to his left, where he’d indicated they should line up. Two natives shuffled off in the other direction and met relatives.

After sorting out their luggage, which was brought in by hand and thrown onto a stack against the far wall, the uniformed man led the larger group of perhaps twelve people out the far door.

There was a gravel street of sorts, and a vehicle that looked like a cross between a snow plow and a tractor. “Okay,” the security man said. “I can’t take you all at once. This is a big cat, but it will only hold six people tops, including me. The rest of you will have to wait for the next cat. I’ve got a list here…”

He dug out a scrap of paper and called out names. Yuki was surprised that her name was on the list.

“You people have priority,” said the man. “Let’s go.”

“I’m nobody,” Edwin said in her ear.

Startled, she turned to find him looming over her.

“You must be important,” he said.

“Yes—well, no. I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’m doing here, actually. I was just assigned here.”

Edwin gave her an odd look. “An afterthought then,” he said. “Lower priority than I thought. Doesn’t matter.”

“Exactly who are you, Edwin?” she asked.

He smiled. “Just a country doctor. Nobody important. I screen people for places like the labs. Medical screening, that is.”

Yuki nodded, but she was surprised. He wasn’t anything like the typical M.D. she was used to.

Edwin moved off to talk to others, and she frowned after him. What had all that been about?

She boarded the snow cat when her name was called. She didn’t have much luggage, for which the driver professed his heartfelt thanks. As it was, they had to put most of the bags on the roof rack. People clutched smaller items to their chests as they climbed into the odd machine and tried to make themselves comfortable.

The cat made a huge racket as it lurched into gear and the driver immediately left town, heading along the shoreline eastward.

Yuki looked out at the bleak landscape and wondered how the twists and turns of her life had brought her to this strange moment. She’d been happy back at Livermore, tinkering with her bots and making them swim. They were like her children, in a way, and she felt a pang of loss because she’d left them behind.

Her cat, Newt, had been abandoned as well. The strange agent, Sandeep, had assured her that arrangements would be made for the animal, but she didn’t trust him. Instead, she’d texted a friend who had a key and asked her to watch over the cat.

Lost in her own thoughts with her eyes directed out the cloudy window, she barely noticed when the snow cat left the well-worn set of tracks it had been following and set off into an open field. One of the others aboard, an elderly man with a leathery face and sharp eyes, spoke up.

“Hey there, driver? Why are we heading north? There’s nothing up there but the sea, man.”

“New route for security reasons,” the driver said briskly.

“I haven’t heard anything about that,” the hawkish man said. “Look there! That’s the shore dead ahead. Are you crazy?”

“Sorry sir,” said the driver. “What was your name?”

“I’m Belish. The new security supervisor. Your new supervisor.”

This seemed to get the driver’s attention at last. “Right,” he said. He stopped the snow cat, letting the engine idle. Heaving a sigh, he turned around and looked unhappy.

“What are you doing?” Belish demanded. “What’s your badge number?”

The driver seemed to come to a decision. He drew his pistol and shot Belish in the forehead.

For a split-second, everyone was too stunned to react other than to shout and gasp. The cab filled with the stink of gunpowder. The sound of the shot rang in their ears painfully.

All at once, the stunned passengers scrambled for the exits. The person in the passenger seat next to the security man grabbed for the gun, but was easily overpowered and elbowed away.

Another booming shot rang out before Yuki could get her door unlatched. She half-fell out of the cab and into the snow. Tripping over the treads in her haste, she pitched forward onto her face. She climbed to her feet again and tried to run.

Two more shots rang out behind her. Sobbing raggedly, she looked for an escape. Her eyes swung wildly over the landscape. It was nearly blank, but there was a hump of snow to her right. She headed that way.

Maybe this madman hadn’t seen her get out. Maybe he’d forget about her, or lose count somehow—it was a slim hope, but it was all she had.

Her shoes had been exchanged for boots along the way, but they weren’t made for this kind of terrain. They threatened to be sucked from her feet with each pumping step she took in the foot-deep snow.

Another shot cracked. There had only been four people in the cab besides herself and the driver. Had he gotten them all?

She heard the driver’s door swing open behind her. It squeaked and rasped with crunching frost.

“Stop!” the driver shouted.

Yuki didn’t stop. The gun boomed a fifth time.

She felt a sting in her left shoulder and she spun around as she fell. She lay in the snow, gasping.

Should she get up? No, she thought. I’m playing dead.

Silence reigned on the snow banks. Only the rumbling engine of the snow cat broke the perfect, tuneless whisper of the arctic winds.

For perhaps a dozen seconds, Yuki waited to die. Her hearing was excruciatingly enhanced. She expected any moment to hear the crunch of the man’s boots as he stepped up to her to finish the job.

Instead, she heard the snow cat rev up, and she dared to hope. Was he driving away? The urge to look was almost overwhelming, as was the urge to staunch the blood that trickled over her blouse and caked on her bra strap. But she didn’t move a muscle.

The sound of the snow cat died away. She kept playing opossum, unable to believe her luck.

Her joy was short-lived. Crunching footsteps approached.

“I suspected you were still alive,” said the driver. “I could see your breath. You warm-weather types wouldn’t think of that, would you?”

Yuki opened her eyes. She stared up at the gun muzzle in her face. “What do you want?” she asked.

The man shrugged. “Money, mostly. You wouldn’t believe how much money you eggheads are worth. You’re like solid gold, each and every one of you.”

Yuki glared at the man, becoming angry in her final moments. “You’re a traitor to your country. You’re helping Russia win the next war. Do you even know that?”

The man looked suspicious. “Bullshit. You guys are studying the water. Global warming crap.”

“Who do you think pays you so much to kill us?”

“I don’t know, actually. It’s been appearing in a safety deposit box for months. After this move, it’s all over for me at the lab. But I don’t care. I’ve got enough banked to check out.”

“You can’t hope to get away with this. They’ll find you within hours.”

“Nah. I’ll show you.”

He hauled her to her feet. She cried out in pain and gritted her teeth. He pointed, and she looked toward the sea.

The snow cat was just bumping along, driving by itself. The bodies were all in there, with their luggage. She could make out slumped shapes. As she watched, the cat tipped over the end of the land and fell into the sea.

“Let’s go for a little walk,” the man said, smiling. He dragged her along and she staggered at his side.

His plan was clear. He was going to walk her up to that cliff, shoot her and let her fall into the ocean. The polar bears would do the rest.

The snow was so cold that her feet were already becoming numb. Or was that the effect of blood loss? She didn’t know.

“There’s nothing waiting for you in that safety deposit box,” she told the man who dragged her toward the sea.

He chuckled. “What do you know about it?”

“You think I’m a loose end, right?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what you are.”

“Well? What do you think you are to them?”

The man stopped and looked at her, his face troubled. This made Yuki feel a spark of vengeful pleasure. He might be about to kill her, but he would spend the rest of the day worried. It was the best she could do.

“What’s your name?” she asked him.

“Roy,” he said.

“I’m Yuki Tanaka,” she said, deliberately leaving off any reference to being a doctor. She had him talking. Maybe, that would make this harder for him. She had to keep him talking.

“Nice to meet you,” he said with a snort. “Come on.”

He tugged on her shoulder. Fortunately, it wasn’t the one with the bullet in it. His grip was like a vice. She was dragged along like a child. She hated that feeling.

“You don’t seem like a psychotic killer, Roy,” she said.

“I’m not. I’m a man without options.”

“That’s why they picked you, right?”

He stopped and turned toward her. His demeanor had suddenly changed. Instead of amused, his face was red with barely controlled anger. “Shut up!” he shouted, giving her a shake.

Yuki realized he had to be a psychotic killer or at least unbalanced. She was quiet for a few more stumbling steps but didn’t stay that way for long. Talking was her only hope.

“Do you take meds, Roy?” she asked.

That was it for Roy. He pistol-whipped her with his free arm. She went down on her back. He loomed over her, lifting the gun. She tried to get up and run, but her arms weren’t obeying her right now. She felt woozy.

A gun cracked distantly. Roy gave a little jump, and staggered.

She stared up at him, bewildered. He hadn’t fired his weapon.

Another crack. Someone was shooting at them. She couldn’t believe her luck.

Rolling onto her stomach and forcing her arms to push her up into a crawling position, she inched away from Roy.

Crunching footsteps sounded behind her. Panting breath, too.

“Dr. Tanaka? I had to fire. I saw him with a gun on you. I had to fire. You’re a witness, right?”

She looked over her shoulder at the man, eyes bulging. She registered surprise and confusion. It wasn’t Roy looming over her. It was that annoying bar-fly from the plane. He had a rifle in his hands.

“Edwin?” she asked.

“What the hell happened out here?” he asked, scanning the horizon with the rifle at his shoulder.

“Help me up, Edwin.”

He got her to her feet and she stood, swaying. She took in gulps of cold air.

“You’re shot,” he said in surprise, touching her shoulder. I’ve got to get pressure on that. Wait a second—I didn’t do that, did it? I’m so sorry—”

“No Edwin,” she said. “No. Roy shot me.”

“Did he go crazy?”

“Sort of.”

“Where are the rest of them? Where’s the cat?”

Yuki explained, and Edwin looked around. He followed the tracks to where the cat went over a low cliff. There was no sign of it in the frosty ocean. It had sunk to the bottom.

“This is insane,” he said. “They’re all dead? Are you sure? My boss was on that cat.”

“Let me guess, his name was Belish, right?”

“Yes. He’s the new security manager.”

“I thought you said you were a doctor working a contract.”

Edwin shrugged. “I am, sort of. Contract security. I screen people for medical. I was an army doc, so I have a list of clearances.”

She looked at him. “You don’t look like a mercenary.”

“I’m not. This is a real job. Besides, what are mercenaries supposed to look like?”

She shook her head. She felt dizzy. “Can you hold me up, Edwin? Please?”

“Sure.”

Together, they made their way back toward the main route.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get out here,” he said. “I took the second cat, and I saw the first one’s tracks left the road. The driver didn’t want to, but I got him to stop and let me off. I thought you might need help. Up north, you’ve got to look out for each other, you know?”

“Edwin, you don’t ever have to apologize to me again,” she said. “Not as long as you live. Okay?”

“That’s a pretty good deal from a lady,” he said. “I’ll take you up on that.”

They kept walking, and Yuki had a sudden thought.

“What the hell am I doing? I’ve got a cellphone.”

She got it out and pulled off one glove with her teeth. She began tapping at it—but there was no signal.

Edwin watched her and gave her a shake of his head. “Roy took us outside the range of the local towers. There’s no service in most of this state, anyway.”

“Oh—right.” She let her hands drop, defeated. She wasn’t used to the wilds. She’d never liked camping, not even as a kid.

“Put your glove back on,” he told her. “We’ve got to walk a ways.”

“How far?”

“I don’t know. Five miles? We might get a signal from the lab repeater by then.”

She felt sick. She leaned on him more heavily, but he didn’t seem to mind. Whatever Edwin was, he wasn’t weak.

Edwin stopped her and dug out a small first aid kit from his massive parka. Without even asking, he pushed back her jacket and went to work on her shoulder, patching it with a bandage. At least the blood had stopped flowing.

“Don’t worry,” he said as he worked. “I’d say you’ve lost a pint, but you won’t bleed out. I watched men walk a hundred miles with a wound like this when I served in Iran.”

Yuki felt almost embarrassed she’d written him off when they’d first met. She’d found him odd and annoying. Now, he was life itself. It was funny how a few bullets could change one’s perspective.

Chapter 16

U. S. Highway 101, California

Dawn

Dr. Jackie Linscott actually managed to fall asleep for a few moments as they bounced along quiet, lonely roads. But then they came to larger roads near the town of Morgan Hill and had to make the dash across 101. Even in the middle of the night, there was traffic. Highway 101 was the major artery between Monterey and San Jose.

“If we can get into the trees again we’ll be good,” Detective Perez said.

“Can we stop in this town somewhere?” Jackie asked. “I need to go.”

He looked at her. “Normally, I’d say ‘of course’. But you look pretty banged up—someone might notice. We’ll have to bypass the town and stick to the woods.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

He sighed. “Look, it’s you and that hard drive in your pocket they’re after. If you want to chance it, I guess I’ll go along.”

She thought about that, and shook her head. “Just keep following these winding little roads. How much longer?”

“A few hours.”

“Great. That gives you time to explain that bloody worm-like thing you dug out of that guy after the crash.”

He glanced at her, then looked away. “It’s secret tech. I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

“Come on,” she said. “You’re out of the service. This information might help me to survive. I’m more important than secrecy right now.”

“All right,” Perez said thoughtfully. “Just don’t tell anyone where you heard about it. Implants are in a lot of people these days, mostly agents from major powers.”

“So that means the guy was a Russian?”

“Maybe, maybe not. We have them too.”

Jackie was disgusted. “Okay, what the hell do they do?”

Perez shrugged. “They work like black boxes in aircraft. They live inside your body—”

“It was organic then. I thought it was.”

“Right. An implant sits inside the body, usually somewhere near the brain. They’re specially grown with tissues the body won’t reject. By tapping into the nervous system, it can read and record audio and visual input. They’re living flesh, so they don’t show up easily on scans.”

Jackie’s eyes were squinting and her lips had curled from her teeth in disgust. “Are you telling me these things can record whatever your eyes and ears sense?”

“Exactly. When an agent dies or is incapacitated, the implant can be retrieved and the data reviewed.”

“How is that possible?”

“You’re the doctor, not me.”

“I’m not an M. D,” she said, but already her mind was racing with possibilities. The human body read data from the outside world and transmitted it using nerves, after all. This process was similar to the way computers transmitted signals over a wire. Biological technology had been improving lately. She could conceive of such an advancement—but it still seemed creepy.

“Did you say something about the implant still recording after death?” she asked.

“Yeah. That’s one of its most useful features. The nerves are still there, even if the brain has died. As long as part of the host is still functioning, the implant can stimulate the nerves and get the input. Sometimes they continue recording for ten minutes or more after death.”

“That is so wrong,” she said. “Why haven’t I heard about these implants?”

Perez shrugged. “There are lots of things that remain secret. Originally, radar, computers and even jet aircraft were all highly classified government projects. Over time, injectable implant seeds will probably become available for purchase at your local pharmacy.”

Jackie shuddered at the thought and let the topic drop.

They drove onward. From the mountains she could see the cities far below, bright lights that threw an orange glow up onto low hanging clouds overhead. They reached the labs just before dawn. The guards at the gates had their rifles cradled in their arms. Their faces were grim when they came to inspect the damaged pickup.

After identifying themselves, they spent another twenty minutes trying in vain to talk their way in.

At long last, a familiar face met them at the gate. A car had rolled up, and when the passenger window slid down Jackie recognized Sandeep in the driver’s seat. He greeted them tiredly. He had a few fresh bandages on his face, and he walked with a limp, but Jackie thought he didn’t look much worse than they did.

“You sent us on a wild trip but took a shortcut yourself?” Jackie demanded.

“I thought you would be glad to see I’d survived,” Sandeep said, with a hurt expression Jackie wasn’t entirely certain was contrived.

“I am glad. Have you got any food?”

“Yes, come with me.”

They climbed into his government-issued car, leaving the truck with the guards at the gate.

“We will fingerprint it,” Sandeep said, “but the trail will lead nowhere. The enemy is using fools—dupes paid highly for a single task. They throw them at us like jackals, paying with dead-drops and online deposits. Very difficult to trace—and really, we don’t have time for interrogations in any case.”

“Why not?” Detective Perez asked. “What’s the hurry? The law always has time on its side. We often don’t solve big cases for years, but we win in the end.”

Sandeep looked at him. “That’s true in domestic criminal cases. But we’re dealing with a low-level war today. A war of spies and assassins.”

“What are they after?” Jackie asked him.

“You, or whatever information you have on your laptop.”

“But why?”

Sandeep looked at her. “They must suspect you have the hard drive. Do you?”

“Yes,” she said, handing it over to him.

“Good,” he said. He carefully wrapped it in a gray, plastic anti-static bag before slipping it into his pocket. “I’ve been going over your projects at Blue-Sky Labs, Dr. Linscott. One of them stood out to me.”

Jackie nodded thoughtfully. “The new propulsion system. It has to be that.”

“Yes,” Sandeep said. “I’m glad you aren’t trying to hide things.”

“I wouldn’t do that, not now. People are dying.”

“You’d be surprised how many citizens turn into amnesiacs when danger threatens.”

Detective Perez had been watching the two of them closely. “I’m in the dark. You have some kind of secret rocket? For satellites?”

Jackie looked concerned. “It’s a defense contract. We can’t—”

“It’s all right, Dr. Linscott,” Sandeep said. “Since I first became aware of the two of you and your involvement, I’ve run every clearance check. You both had low-level clearances before this entire episode began.”

Jackie didn’t consider her secret clearances to be “low-level”, but she didn’t say anything. In matters of national security, clearances were complex. One didn’t simply get a score, such as “secret” or “top secret”. A given worker was normally cleared on a per-project basis. Everything was need-to-know. Just because you were cleared to work on nuclear weapons, for example, didn’t automatically mean you were given a list of U. S. agents on foreign soil. Quite the opposite, in fact.

What did surprise her was the idea that Detective Perez had a clearance at all. She looked at him, frowning.

“What kind of work have you done, detective, to get yourself onto the Homeland Security lists?” she asked.

The detective smiled. “I’m ex-military, remember?”

“He’s being modest,” Sandeep said. “He’s done a lot of field work under hazardous conditions. And he’s been in combat many times, most recently in the Iran campaign. Anyway, let me just say before the next step that you both have had your clearances upgraded, and you’ve been cleared to work on the current project. It was necessary just to debrief you properly.”

Jackie and the detective exchanged glances. “What’s this project about?” she asked.

Sandeep shook his head. “The briefing itself isn’t my job. I locate and retrieve. I make arrangements to get the right people into the right spots where they’re needed. Think of me as a concierge.”

Jackie laughed tiredly. “A briefing? Now? I’m so tired I’m sick.”

“Yes—the human factor. Our bodies must be attended to. A shame, when one thinks about it. When we most need our faculties at their sharpest, we’re drooping and out of fuel.”

Detective Perez shook his head. Jackie could tell he was as bemused by the man’s way of looking at things as she was. “Look,” he said. “Did you just say we’re getting to rest or not?”

“Sorry for the imprecision. The truth is Secretary Clayworth will decide the matter. I’ll relay the request.”

“Secretary?” Perez asked.

“Yes—do you vote, detective?”

“Ah,” Perez said, catching on, “you’re talking about the Homeland Security Secretary? A member of the President’s Cabinet is here?”

“Yes, she’s in from D.C. to supervise personally. She’s my boss, by the way, so I’d appreciate an attitude of cooperation and respect.”

“I’ve got your back, Sandeep. It’s the least I could do after clobbering you on the street in Aptos.”

“Right... Perhaps we could leave that detail out of the discussion?”

Perez laughed.

Sandeep stopped the car in a parking lot outside a large, fenced building and began tapping on his phone. Jackie felt herself falling asleep. She let her head nod back and closed her eyes.

There had been so much going on, and she’d been running all night on nervous energy. She realized that she felt safe now, in a government car, in a government facility, surrounded by fences and armed guards. Under normal circumstances, she’d have been nervous inside such a place. But after the events of the last twenty four hours, she was comforted.

Jackie’s car door opened. She blinked in the pink light of dawn. Detective Perez had opened her door, and he smiled at her as she reached a hand out to take his. She found herself trusting him above all the others—even Sandeep.

Moving painfully, Sandeep led them to a set of glass doors. Beyond was a building surrounded by a chain link fence. Rather than a simple gate, a guardhouse had been built as the only entrance through the fence. The construction looked new to her. Even the chain-link had the bright silvery hue of new metal.

They walked up a short flight of concrete stairs and stepped inside the guardhouse. Grim-faced guards stood behind thick glass. Wire ran through the glass in a pattern of diamonds, and she could see guns on the wall behind the men inside. Automatic weapons, shotguns—it was quite intimidating.

“This is TA-112,” Sandeep explained, “that’s Technical Area 112. The lab is broken up into facilities like this one, but most have much lower levels of security. Could you step forward to the metal detector?”

A setup that looked just like an airport screening station waited for them. Armed people who resembled TSA guards watched them approach. No one was smiling. They seemed to be on high alert. She could imagine why.

They were asked to empty their pockets onto trays that went through an x-ray machine. When Detective Perez drew his gun, he did so very carefully. The guards tensed and watched him with unblinking eyes. He placed the weapon in a tray, but the conveyor belt stopped before it went inside.

“I’m sorry,” Sandeep said.  “I didn’t explain. You can’t be armed here. You were barely cleared overnight to enter this place.”

“Right. Can you check it for me?”

A guard took the gun, holding it pinched with gloved hands as if it were evidence of a crime—or a dead fish—and placed it into a plastic case. He snapped the case shut and locked it.

“It will be here when you leave,” the guard said.

Once they passed security, they reached an open area beyond the layered chain-link fences. Detective Perez eyed the fencing critically.

“That’s electrified, isn’t it?”

“Not the chain-link, but the wires in between, yes,” said Sandeep.

Jackie squinted at the fences. Between them, she could see what looked like a barbed wire fence without the barbs. There were insulating connection points, keeping the wires suspended and away from any grounding. She realized that if a person were to get over the first chain-link fence—which she now noted was topped by razor wire—they would be greeted with electricity, and then another fence.

“This is pretty heavy security. What is this place?”

“As I said, it’s TA-112.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

Sandeep shrugged. “It is not supposed to be descriptive. You’ll learn more as soon as you’re briefed. To tell you the truth, I don’t know all the details. It’s not my place to know everything.”

“Need to know only,” Detective Perez said.

“Exactly.”

Jackie was the last to walk through the next set of doors, entering a much friendlier atmosphere. There weren’t many people around as it was very early in the morning, but a receptionist was on duty. He nodded to them and had them sign in on a tablet. Their fingerprints were taken—again—and they were finally ushered to a room full of medical equipment. There were beds, curtains and cupboards full of supplies.

“We aren’t a hotel, unfortunately,” Sandeep apologized. “But if you would like to rest here, this is an infirmary. There aren’t usually many personnel on duty until eight, but—ah, there you are Dr. Walker!”

A nicely dressed man appeared and smiled at them. He had an accent—it wasn’t British, but Jackie thought it was something like that, maybe Australian. Sandeep made introductions and explained that Dr. Walker was the physician who would be treating their injuries.

The thought of a medical bed sounded pretty good to Jackie right then. She climbed up onto the nearest of them and asked for water. A nurse appeared a few moments later with a drink and a plate of cafeteria food. After Jackie devoured the tasteless stuff, she dozed until it was time for her examination.

Dr. Walker pulled the curtain shut and performed what she thought was an overly thorough exam. She realized he was looking for more than bumps and scrapes.

“What do you think might have happened to me?” she asked.

“Sorry?”

“I’m asking why you’re checking everything.”

Walker’s face tightened. “There have been subtle efforts,” he said. “Poisonings, tricks.”

“Like what?”

“Bullets laced with radioactive substances or liquid metal cores. You weren’t hit, fortunately?”

“No…” she said, alarmed. “They’re poisoning their bullets? They really want to make sure, don’t they?”

“I believe so. After your blood-work gets back, we’ll have a better idea. You didn’t imbibe any substances that were offered to you by an assassin, did you?”

“No, not that I’m aware of.”

“I see from the reports that you were close to an explosion. Was it a clean one?”

“Yes. I mean—I’m really not sure. No one told me there was anything special about it.”

He smiled thinly. “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

When he left, she found she couldn’t sleep. The man had worried her all over again. She’d assumed she was safe. That here, in this place, nothing could reach her. But what if she was already dying and didn’t even know it?

She fretted about these things over the next hour, while the facility slowly came to life. She heard increasing foot traffic out in the hallways and the rising babble of indistinct voices. Now and then a PA system announced something she found incomprehensible.

Finally, in the second hour she fell asleep, exhausted.

* * *

Jackie woke up to a gentle touch. She opened her eyes and saw Detective Perez standing over her. His hand retreated from hers.

“You feel better?” he asked.

“I need a shower.”

“Agreed. Already had mine. Just ask the nurse, she’ll show you the way. Don’t get hung up on the weird plumbing.”

Frowning and uncertain what he meant, she did as he suggested. Once she stood in the shower room, she understood.

The room was meant to handle burn victims—or perhaps chemical decontamination. There were stainless steel sinks and spritzers everywhere. Some were cupped and close together, meant to wash out a person’s eyes. Others were large-headed in enclosed chambers. The nurse directed her into one of the latter units.

Enclosed in an air-tight capsule with metal all around and a half-circular sliding door, she could feel the change in pressure when it closed over her. The nurse watched her bathe while pretending to do something else. This was creepy enough, but Jackie also suspected that she couldn’t get out of the shower by herself. She tried experimentally as she finished up.

Pressing a button that looked like a release, she found it only caused a buzzing sound. The nurse came to the call and opened the capsule, handing her a towel.

Jackie eyed her suspiciously. “What’s this unit for? Decontamination?”

“Yes,” the nurse said unapologetically. “We rarely have to use them for their intended purpose.”

“I felt negative air pressure inside. It’s being ventilated and sucking the air out to the roof?”

The nurse nodded vaguely. “I think so.”

Jackie had some experience with nuclear materials. “This place handles plutonium, doesn’t it? Can you lock someone in this thing if you want to?”

The nurse shrugged, but her smile tightened. “You’ll get your briefing soon. Can I help you get ready? We don’t want to keep Secretary Clayworth waiting.”

“We don’t, no,” Jackie said. She told herself to stop being bitchy. She was tired and shaken up, but that was no reason to take it out on a nurse. “Sorry,” she said. “Long night.”

“We’ve all had a lot of those lately. Come to my desk when you’re ready.”

She left then, and Jackie did her best to make herself presentable. Her hair did nothing to cooperate. The “shampoo” the nurse had provided was probably something akin to borax. She didn’t have a hairdryer or any makeup in her purse.

Tying her hair back tightly, she did what she could. At least she was clean and awake.

The nurse led her to a meeting room. A red placard on the door read: Uncleared Visitors Present.

Jackie joined the meeting, which already seemed to be in progress. Detective Perez was there. His hair looked the same as before, and she felt slightly jealous. She took a seat, and Secretary Clayworth stopped speaking. Clayworth came around to her and clasped her hands around Jackie's.

Jackie stood up again, surprised. “Nice to meet you, Madam Secretary.”

The woman stared for an overly long moment into Jackie's eyes, as if she were analyzing her speech. After two full seconds had passed, she smiled and nodded. She had blonde hair—real blonde, the wispy kind that leaves a face pink and freckled. Her blue eyes were dark and piercing.

“You are the person I really wanted to meet today,” Secretary Clayworth said. “Please, sit down.”

The woman let go of Jackie’s hands and moved back to her side of a large, steel desk.

“I’m familiar with your work,” Clayworth said.

“You are?”

“Well, only your most recent efforts. Tell me, if you will, about the EM-drive?”

Jackie froze. This woman certainly did get straight to the point. She felt a little uncomfortable. Detective Perez and Clayworth were both staring at her as if she were a particularly interesting bug on a plate.

“Uh, there are certain non-disclosure agreements that I’m reluctant to break,” she said at last. “I brought the disk since it's evidence in a criminal case. That’s a loophole in the agreement.”

“You like to follow the letter of the law, don’t you?” Clayworth asked.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Good. We like that here as well,” Clayworth said. She nodded and turned her attention to a tablet on her desk. She tapped at it in silence for a few seconds. Jackie watched her, confused.

“Here we are,” Dr. Clayworth said. She pushed the tablet across to Jackie, who picked it up, still confused.

“What’s this?”

“It’s an immunity agreement. You’ve agreed to break your non-disclosure for the purpose of aiding national security. You cannot be prosecuted criminally, nor sued civilly, for this action.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“Well, as soon as you sign your name in the electronic signature box and type in your social, the matter will be taken care of. See there, at the bottom? You can use your finger. No pen is required.”

Jackie paged through the document, frowning. She didn’t trust her government. She didn’t like the way they did whatever they wanted to whomever they wanted, but then pursued to the letter of the law anyone who displeased them. That said, she considered herself to be an upstanding citizen.

“I…I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know if I can sign this.”

“I’m disappointed. Why did you come here? Just for refuge?”

“Yes, that. And I thought you could get what you wanted from the hard drive.”

“We don’t have enough time for that. We have smart people in this building, Jackie. Perhaps a few who are even as smart as you are. But what we don’t have is time.”

Jackie sighed. “Okay, what do you want, exactly? What do you need from me?”

“You want money?” Clayworth asked suddenly. “Is that the crux of the issue? I’m sorry I skipped that part. Here, look at this page.”

Clayworth took the tablet from Jackie and ran her finger over it. She returned it to Jackie’s hands.

There was an amount on the screen, and Jackie recognized her bank account number beside it. A transfer could be made with a few more taps, she had no doubt. The amount was the part she couldn’t take her eyes away from. She could pay off her house. As Blue-Sky Labs was no more, she needed something. This would last for many years.

“That’s very generous.”

“I don’t spend taxpayer dollars lightly,” Secretary Clayworth said. “Please understand that this is a stipend, an annual contractor’s fee to be paid pro-rata until the term is over.”

“What term?”

“Until the project is concluded, or you are no longer needed.”

Detective Perez leaned forward, inserting himself into the conversation. He’d been quiet up until now.

“If it influences your decision, I’ve already signed,” he said. “At a much lower rate, I might add.”

Jackie looked at him, and he shrugged.

“What did you sign for? What kind of job, I mean?”

Clayworth answered her question. “Detective Perez is a new hire in our security division. He’s rather good at it, don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

Jackie stared at the tablet for a few minutes before putting it back on the table.

“It’s not just about money,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of my government confiscating intellectual property. The company I worked for labored hard to develop the EM-Drive. Do you know that Blue-Sky applied for dozens of government grants and got nothing? There was no money to be had from you then unless they were willing to hand everything over to the feds at the end.”

“Those decisions weren’t made by me.”

“I understand,” Jackie said. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m difficult to offend,” said the director with a hint of a smile.

“There’s something else,” Jackie said. “I don’t like getting involved with something I don’t understand. You’re doing some kind of nuclear science here. Something to do with radiation—right? But what exactly is it about?”

The director nudged the tablet closer to Jackie and smiled indulgently. “That can be made clear within a matter of minutes.”

Jackie shook her head and sat back. “I don’t want to work on a weapons system.”

Clayworth looked slightly annoyed. “This is not about weapons development.”

“But it is about the EM-Drive. A technology everyone is suddenly interested in. Something my government shunned for years until NASA finally tested it and found that it worked. Now, plenty of companies are trying to build a functioning prototype. Someone figured out that we were getting close and decided to take out my lab. I’m grateful for the help you’ve provided today, but I owe the stockholders of Blue-Sky more than I owe you.”

Clayworth pursed her lips. “It’s more complex than that. Much more.”

Jackie sat back and crossed her arms. “All right, then explain it to me.”

“Dr. Linscott, no one is trying to steal your technology. You have to believe that.”

“But I don’t believe it.”

Secretary Clayworth was still smiling, but her smile looked strained now. “Let me try again. This time, I will appeal to your scientific, logical side. The only reason why Homeland would attempt to take your technology at this point would be to gain it without paying for it. Otherwise, we would simply wait until you’d finished the development, and buy it from you.”

“Okay, fine. Just do that then.”

“There are two problems with that approach,” Clayworth said. “First of all, we're running out of time. Secondly, Blue-Sky Labs, for all realistic intents and purposes, no longer exists.”

“I’ve given you the disk,” Jackie said. “What more do you want?”

“We need you to explain it to us. I would happily pay for that service. Will you let us make use of the work you’ve spent years developing? Or will you let the people who ordered your organization to be erased win this round?”

Jackie looked troubled. She glanced at Detective Perez. He watched her quietly, frankly. She appreciated his neutrality. She could tell from the look in his eye that he was not judging her. It didn’t seem that he wanted her to choose one path or the other. He was waiting to see what she would do. She liked that about him. He was an excellent listener and observer. She was sure he had his own opinions, but he seemed not to let them get in the way of ferreting out the truth.

“Okay,” she said at last, “I guess I can believe that you’re not simply trying to steal the technology. Because as you say, the lab would have been more than happy to license it to you when they were finished. So, please tell me what the big hurry is about? Why is this such an emergency? Why would anyone, the Russians, or anyone else, be willing to kill for a propulsion system that can place a satellite in a high orbit more cheaply?”

“Because,” Clayworth said, “we want to power something much bigger than a satellite.”

Jackie stared at her for several long seconds. Clayworth's piercing blue eyes stared back.

“Bigger? How much bigger?”

Clayworth’s smile returned. She nudged the tablet with the signature box still open and waiting.

Jackie stared at it, sighed, and finally signed the damned thing with her finger.

Chapter 17

Barrow, Alaska

Twilight

Dr. Tanaka and Edwin had been trudging through the snow for what seemed like hours. The sky was perpetually gray. Wind gusts blew snow in small eddies around Yuki’s feet. Edwin had stripped off his parka, given her two layered garments from underneath it and put the parka back on. She thought this might have saved her life.

“The sky looks the same,” she said. “I would’ve thought by now that it would’ve turned dark.”

Edwin chuckled. She marveled that he still had a sense of humor after all that they'd been through. “I think you're a little confused,” he said. “It’s closer to morning than it is to evening. We’re pretty far up in latitude. Well up into the Arctic Circle. That means in the warmer months the sun doesn’t go down at all. It just sort of skims along the horizon, shrouded by clouds. That gives the daylight a muted gray effect all night long. They call it the white nights up here.”

“Oh,” she said, “I guess that’s a good thing. Otherwise, we might have frozen to death by now.”

“Maybe,” he admitted.

“How much further?” she asked. “I can’t go on forever.”

“Not far,” he said. “But don’t worry about it. You’re on the small side. I can carry you if I have to.”

Yuki glanced up at him appraisingly. He was at least a foot taller than she was. Although he didn’t seem to be a weightlifter, quite the opposite in fact, there was a certain toughness and competence about him. He probably could carry her for quite a while if it came down to that. It was the glasses that had thrown her off, she figured. As institutions like government labs tended to be full of nothing but nerds, she’d assumed that Edwin was one too.

But he didn’t fit that classification. Edwin was unusually physical as nerds went. He’d shot Roy at a significant distance, and the experience hadn’t seemed to traumatize him. He hadn’t even expressed any regret about the fact he had killed the man. She had to wonder about his history. What made a man turn out like this?

“Edwin?” she asked. “What’s your full name?”

“Dr. Edwin Goody.”

She looked at him for a moment. He had an odd sense of humor, and she wasn’t always sure when he was being funny. “Seriously?”

“My name’s earned me that same look from girls ever since junior high,” he said.

“It’s a fine name,” she said, quickly thinking of a way to change the topic. “You said you were from medical security? Does that mean that when we get to the labs, you’ll be a guard and a medic at the same time?”

He smiled. “Not exactly. I do clearances on new people. The military paid for my schooling, and along the way I was trained to investigate people and give them clearances. Defense contractors, government labs and other organizations that want to do business on sensitive projects for the federal government have to have someone like me on staff when they bring in new employees. They wanted an educated person to clear top-level scientists. Someone who could tell if applicants were for real or not.”

“I see. Do you like that kind of work?”

“The good side of my work is that it’s always in demand and pays better than running my practice did back in Idaho. The bad part is that since I’m expensive, as soon as a given organization has staffed up, they no longer need me. So they let me go. Then, I’m off to a new contract, a new job.”

“That must be hard on your family.”

“Nope. No trouble there. My wife got sick of it a decade ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Yuki said, feeling a rush of embarrassment.

“Don’t be. How about you?”

It took Yuki a few seconds to realize what he meant. “I’m not married. Never have been. I guess you could say that I’ve been married to my work.”

“So what do you do, exactly?”

“I probably shouldn’t say. I mean, isn’t that the kind of loose talk a man like you is supposed to be preventing?”

He glanced at her and saw she was smiling. He smiled back. “You’re right.”

“Just kidding,” she said. “I’m a robot designer.”

Edwin raised his eyebrows. “That’s a new one. Very interesting.”

The conversation was helping to keep Yuki’s mind off the searing pain in her shoulder but that couldn’t last forever. The bitter cold stung her face with every gust of wind, and she wondered how long they might have to keep walking. Maybe that was Edwin’s real purpose in getting her to speak freely. She knew that shock was a very serious possibility under the circumstances, and Edwin clearly knew it too.

Before she could ask him about that, she heard a sound from behind them. It was not a sound that she was familiar with, but it made the skin on the back of her neck crawl.

They turned together and looked along the tracks of the snow cat they had been following. There was a shape, a dirty gray animal moving behind them. It gamboled over the snow, walking as easily as if it were on flat, open ground. She saw the black expressionless eyes then, and she knew the bear was hunting. It was hunting them.

Edwin whirled around and unslung his rifle. Without thinking about it, Yuki moved to stand behind him.

The polar bear seemed to know what was coming next. Maybe hunters had shot at it in the past. Whatever the case, it turned from its path and ran.

Edwin shouldered his rifle, targeted the bear, and took a shot. The gun cracked, and the sound echoed strangely over the snow. It had almost muffled sound.

“You missed,” Yuki said.

“Nah,” he said. “I just wanted to scare her off. After all, she’s just hungry. A bear has to eat, same as the rest of us.”

Yuki watched the bear gallop off and found herself wishing Edwin had killed it.

Edwin knelt and examined the snow around the tracks where they’d been walking.

“See this? Those drops are fresh blood. You must be bleeding again. The scent attracted the bear.”

Yuki checked her injury with concern. It was true, the wound had reopened and was splattering the white snow with occasional bright red drops.

Together, they worked to seal the wound again. When it no longer dribbled, they continued walking.

What came next was, for Yuki, a bigger challenge than the bear itself had been. It was a rise in the land. The rocky hill went up and up. When they finally reached the top, she was gasping for breath. The land sloped down again, and she was grateful for that.

“That’s got to be it. Those buildings down there. Tell me that’s the lab, Edwin.”

“Yeah,” he said, “that’s it.”

She looked at him, feeling both happy and concerned. Happy because they’d reached their destination, and concerned because Edwin was unslinging his rifle again.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Something’s not right. I’ve been checking my cell every half-mile, and there’s never been any service. But that’s a cell tower right there on top of the main building. Check your phone.”

Yuki did, and she shook her head. “I’m getting nothing. Zero bars. What do you think is wrong?”

Edwin shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

Chapter 18

Deep in the Arctic Ocean

Darkness

Burkov was not the kind of man who was going to let a little ice get him down. To his mind, his body was like a machine—something to be used to achieve a purpose.

He felt pain, but not the way that other people felt it. He perceived pain as an obstacle. It was something he needed to push through. Most people thought of pain as a danger sign, as a warning to proceed no further. When they felt the sensation, they changed their behavior.

But not Burkov. His mind was focused solely on his current goal. If there was pain in between him and his goal, it was to be forgotten, conquered—or simply endured.

And so, when near-freezing water began to fill up the submarine’s lower decks, and he needed to wade into those dark, cold places, Burkov ignored the pain.

Cold water, beyond a certain point, burns those who come into contact with it. The sensation is more or less indistinguishable from that of touching a source of heat. Burkov experienced this unpleasantness stoically. He didn’t cry out. He didn’t lament. He grimaced and soldiered on.

“We’re not moving, Lev,” Director Norin said, a disembodied voice in his headset. “Did you get to the actuators yet?”

It took a moment for Lev to answer. When he keyed his microphone, his breath blew over it in gasps.

“We have a problem. We have a leak in the bow. We’re listing more every minute. We might invert if we don’t break free soon.”

“I’m not blowing the ballast tanks without knowing what’s around us.”

“That’s not your decision,” Lev said. “I’m in command here. Technically, you’re still my prisoner.”

“Absurd,” she complained.

“Blow the tanks.”

“That’s not a wise move.”

“I’m freezing and losing patience. I can’t get the wrench to grab. I—we’re going to lose the sub, Director Norin. Blow the tanks.”

“Come up here, and we’ll talk about it.”

Burkov was good at ignoring pain, but he had a harder time quelling his rising anger. “If I come up there, Kira, I will chain you to a pipe and stuff a dead man’s sock into your mouth. You will remain that way until we reach the docks at Vladivostok!”

There was a quiet moment, then Burkov thought he heard a grinding sound. He turned and waded to the door, which was closing behind him. He placed his wrench in the gap, stopping it.

The bitch had decided to drown him. He felt a fresh fury growing within.

“I’m coming up,” he said, squeezing through the door.

“Wait,” the Director said.

Her voice had shifted in tone. Could she suspect her plans had failed?

“Have you blocked the door? I have to secure the lower bulkheads to blow all the ballast from here.”

He paused, panting. “Do it anyway.”

The boat groaned and shifted. The weight of the water and the changing pressures inside were causing the deck to move under his feet.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I’ve—I’ve got the door closed,” he said after he’d pried his tool loose and shut the door. He spun a wheel and panted. It was relatively dry and warm in this chamber.

She didn’t bother to speak further. She’d finally done as he asked.

A gushing blast of air roared outside the hull, and a thumping sound rang through the boat. They were dropping ballast and forcing water out of exterior tanks to provide more lift.

The sub shifted again, dramatically so. Like a dying fish, it wallowed from side to side. Burkov had to grab onto handholds to keep on his feet. The forward wall became the floor for a moment—the stern was going up, but not the bow.

“We’re stuck on something!” he shouted.

“I told you that!”

“Can we turn the screws? Back us out.”

“I can hardly move.”

“Just do it.”

He heard her grunting. She had to be crawling over the bridge equipment to reach the engine controls. Finally, he saw the lights dim as the batteries spun the aft screws. The power level they had left wasn’t much, but it was enough. The boat backed up and floated free.

With a sickening heave the bow came up, and he was almost thrown onto the deck. He had the sensation of rising quickly—too quickly.

“Taking on ballast, slowly,” Kira said. “I need another pair of hands up here, Lev.”

Straining, he used all four limbs to make it back to the bridge. When he reached it at last, he followed her directions, although he thought she barely knew more about what she was doing than he did. This was no bathysphere. This was a warship, and they were at a deadly depth.

After rising a few hundred meters at too fast a rate, they managed to control the sub and level her out. They were soon moving slowly, limping along on a southerly course.

Despite everything, Lev smiled at Director Norin.

“We did it,” he said.

“So far, so good. But we’re far from home. There’s an ice cap above and a ridge below. We could slam aground again at any time. We’re still blind.”

“Do you know how to listen for obstacles?” asked Lev. “If we can get the hydrophone working, we should get some warning at least.”

She shook her head. “I’m not that good on a hydrophone. I could tell you if a whale starts singing within a hundred miles. I might even be able to identify the species—but that’s it.”

He nodded. “We’ll have to play it as best we can. We’ll chart our position every minute and go slowly. We know our heading, and we know our speed. Using the old charts we can estimate our position with a fair level of accuracy.”

She scoffed. “We’ll be risking our lives every kilometer.”

“Do you have a better plan?”

“No,” she admitted.

They worked to set up a makeshift system of navigating the sub. It took hours, but they had time. When they were done, the first threads of exhaustion crept up on Lev. He looked at Director Norin, knowing he would have to trust her in order to sleep. They couldn’t afford to stop the boat for a rest. The batteries were low as it was.

“Director,” he said, “may I ask you an uncomfortable question?”

“Yes, if I may do the same.”

He nodded. “Very well. Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance while I was below decks?”

“Why would I do such a thing?”

“I can think of many reasons.”

She bit her lower lip. “I did close the doors.” She looked uncomfortable even as she said this.

“Yes, but you could have flooded the lower chambers. You could have sealed doors amidships where I couldn’t reach. But you didn’t do that. I’m asking why?”

“Maybe I didn’t think of it.”

He laughed.

“All right then,” she said. “I did consider it. But I can’t drive this sub alone, Lev.”

He stared at her, then nodded. “That I believe. Self-preservation overcame your anger.”

She seemed irritated. “One would think you’d be happier.”

“Yes, I’m happy to be alive. I’m also happy to continue my mission. I will see it through to its conclusion.”

She turned away and drank a cup of cooling coffee. Lev did the same. He’d changed his wet clothes by this time. The boat was full of unclaimed clothing. But he could still feel the burn of the ice in his bones.

Drowning down there in ice water, trapped within the belly of this dying sub—that would have been a bad way to die.

Chapter 19

Lawrence Livermore Labs, California

Evening

They’d taken care to hide the helipad in a grove of oak trees. Cut into the side of a hill carpeted in black-barked oak trees and yellow foxtails, the small landing circle was only visible from the air. A short series of cut-stone steps led up to it.

Sandeep and Secretary Clayworth stood on the helipad, seeing off Dr. Linscott and Detective Perez. It had taken a few phone calls to convince the Santa Cruz police department that their best detective was actually quitting and moving on, but they’d come to an understanding in time.

Sandeep eyed Clayworth as she waved at the couple in the helicopter. She looked like a mother well-wishing a daughter on an exciting trip. There was no guilt in her face—none at all. What had they called that behavior back in college? Could it be that Clayworth was a sociopath?

Up in the rising helicopter, Dr. Linscott waved back at them. Her eyes were wide, and she was smiling. To Sandeep, she looked like a kid on a carnival ride, regardless of how many technical degrees she might have.

He felt a pang to watch these two go. They weren’t like any of the others. Usually, he’d been able to gather and guide his targets to their destination without violent incidents. But Linscott, Perez and he—they’d all been nearly killed. They’d connected because of this, he knew. He felt an urge to protect them in return.

When the helicopter had risen beyond the trees and turned away toward the east, Sandeep was able to speak to the woman who stood next to him.

“I wish to lodge a formal complaint, Madam Secretary.”

Her cool, pale eyes looked at him blankly. She studied him thoughtfully for a moment before speaking.

“A complaint about what?”

“The way this entire affair was handled. The wreck in particular. That was unnecessary. Lewis drove by us and looked frightening enough. There was no need for him to ram into my car and send us rolling down a hill.”

Clayworth turned away almost disinterestedly, shading her eyes to watch the helicopter fade into the distance.

“They believed in the drama—and why shouldn’t they?” she asked. “Assassins have been coming out of the woodwork for a week or more.”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s not a question of believability. It’s a question of tactics toward a tangible goal—”

“It was my call to make,” she said cutting him off. “You read her profile, the same as I did. She was determined not to end up in public service. She had to be convinced that her only refuge was in the folding arms of her government. How can you forget so quickly that she almost didn’t join us, even after all our arrangements?”

“The situation was out of control,” he insisted. “They disappeared for half a day. It could have been a disaster, and I maintain that it could have been done much less dangerously.”

“I disagree,” Clayworth said firmly. “The crash engaged Perez’s defensive instincts. He added the perfect bit of theater to the situation. The dashing detective kills an assassin to protect his prospective woman. Now they’ve bonded. They’ll be sleeping together by the end of the week.”

Sandeep shook his head. “Heavy-handed and unnecessary.”

“This isn’t like you, Sandeep.”She gave him a long, sour once-over with her eyes before finally turning back to watch the helicopter, which was now only a black dot in the sky. The dying sunlight glinted from the whirling blades.

Sandeep felt the urge to speak further. He held onto it for a few moments but finally opened his mouth again despite her unspoken threat.

“Lewis was killed,” he said. “He didn’t deserve that, but he nearly killed me when he rammed our vehicle with his truck. That was insane enough. But then to order him to approach armed men and threaten us with a weapon—”

“Ah, the death. I understand. Some elements of the encounter were unfortunate, yes. Lewis took chances I didn’t specifically condone. His loss is a blow to our unit, and he will be sorely missed.”

Sandeep didn’t say anything, but he was of the opinion that Clayworth didn’t give a rat’s hindquarters about losing Lewis. She was ruthless on a level he was unaccustomed to, and she’d become worse lately.

“Madam,” he said. “I know I’m only an agency chief, but I’ve been working with you for a long time. Why are we taking this risk? Why send amateurs to work on our most sensitive projects?”

“Times have changed, Sandeep,” Clayworth said. “We’re not in the same world we lived in just a decade ago. We must move faster, and thus with less caution.”

“I assume by changes, you’re referring to the new ops by the Russians? They’ve always opposed us. And they will always do so, as long as we both remain the strongest dogs on the street. It’s the way of things.”

“That’s true,” she said. “But the stakes are higher today. After the Cold War ended and our obsession with nuclear weapons faded with it, we enjoyed an era of sleepy self-indulgence. That time has passed. We’re on the verge of discoveries as profound as those made in the first half of the last century.”

He looked at her with narrowed eyes, trying to imagine what she was talking about.

“You mean a new weapon?” he asked. “Something more powerful than a nuclear bomb?”

“Your imagination fails you,” she said. “Think about the last century, Sandeep. A man born on the first day of the year 1900 would exist in an alien world, one that we’d find overwhelmingly primitive. Electric power was a novelty back then. He’d probably grow up without running water in his home. Imagine living in a cold shack lit only by flame—no showers, no toilets, probably no carpets and only distorted plate glass to look through into an unpaved street full of horses and dust.”

Sandeep didn’t feel like mentioning that many people from his parents’ home country still lived like that.But even so, he thought he was beginning to grasp her point. A person born at the start of the last century would have come from a very primitive world. Technology did matter.

“Fast forward a century,” she went on, “a long lifetime for a lucky man. By the end of the first half, we’d split the atom. We’d built millions of cars and planes. Medicine had cured a thousand diseases that killed and maimed before. Electric lights, cars, telephones, simple computers, TV, radio—a thousand things had transformed from luxuries into commonplace necessities.”

Sandeep listened politely. He had no idea where she was going with this line of talk, but she often took her time to get around to the point. He wondered if anyone who’d ever earned a doctorate could speak plainly.

“In the second half of that miraculous century,” she went on, “we slowed down in our advances. Or at least they became far less dramatic in their impact. What did we do after 1950? We developed better medicine, better computers, the Internet. Mobile phones. A few other things—but most of them were improvements upon the old. It was the first half of the last century that was the explosion.”

Sandeep fidgeted. “You never answered my original question—about what they’re going to see.”

“Hmm?” she said, looking at him mildly. She smiled at his baffled, mistrusting expression. “You’re wrong, Sandeep. I did answer you. They’re going to see the beginning of the next stage. The catalyst that will propel us into a new golden age of technology.”

“Technology? All right, let’s assume you’re in earnest and correct in your assumptions. What is this conflict about? What is the point of it? Technology always spreads. In half a century, as you’ve just pointed out, the world will be sharing all of these new discoveries, whatever they are.”

“No, not all. Some yes, but not all. Recall that only a handful of Earth’s nations have nuclear bombs even today. That achievement was first reached seventy-five years ago. What’s more important is who gains the new technology first and thus becomes the chief exploiter. The first nation to grab control of this cornucopia will build a new empire with it.”

“And that’s worth all of this killing and skulking around?”

She shrugged. “The Russians seem to think it is. I, for one, tend to agree with them.”

Sandeep was troubled. The helicopter was invisible now. There was no sight or sound of it in the sky. He’d sent off a dozen like it, loaded with scientists and engineers. Each group had vanished toward Travis Air Force Base in the east. Some had gone on to Alaska, to a lab at the top of the world. Others had been taken east, to desolate places where secret work had been done for decades.

A cornucopia of new tech… The idea was seductive. The technological world had become lethargic of late. Everything he’d seen invented in the last decade did seem stale. What was a computer tablet other than a rehash of things that had all been done before?

What might Clayworth be talking about specifically?He didn’t bother to ask. He knew she wouldn’t answer meaningfully.

A cure for cancer? Flying cars? Teleportation or mental communication? Something dramatic like that—those were the kinds of things he suspected were involved.

He had to admit, thinking of such advances was exciting. He resolved to look forward to the good, rather than to dwell upon the unchangeable past. It was part of his personal philosophy to do so, and that mindset had always served him well in his role as a government agent.

A hand tapped his shoulder suddenly, and he turned around, startled.

Clayworth’s blue eyes met his. They searched his face for a second.

“Daydreaming, Sandeep?” she asked. “Or are you soul-searching? Neither is in character.”

Flustered, he didn’t answer her. He noticed there was a satellite phone in her hand.

“Never mind,” she said. “Come, we have a situation.”

“A situation? Is it local? We’ve gotten every target onto transport safely—at least all those that survived, and—”

“It’s Barrow,” she said. “Lab 126 has gone dark. No one knows why, but it’s safe to assume something has gone wrong up there.”

He followed her, taking the cut stone steps two at a time. The helipad was left behind in its quiet grove of trees.

Chapter 20

Lab 126, Alaska’s North Slope

Twilight

Edwin and Dr. Tanaka had expected solace and a warm greeting when they reached the facility. Instead, they found a very different reality.

The guards at the gate were lying sprawled in the snow. The chain-link fence was down, flattened by something of great weight.

“A snow cat,” Edwin said, kneeling to check the guards. “Had to be.”

Yuki stood near him, and her legs were shaking. This was somehow more frightening than the polar bear had been. To be hunted by an animal was one thing—you knew you had a chance. But only men were capable of an attack like this. They’d come from the snowy landscape, broken past security and killed the guards. They had to be inside, killing scientists.

“I don’t feel good,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “Take this.”

He handed her a .45 pistol he’d taken from a dead guard. He put the second gun into his pocket along with all the extra ammo he could find.

“Do you know how to use that?” he asked her.

She was looking at the gun as if she had a rat in her hand. Her mind felt like it was floating.

“It’s heavy,” she said.

“Here, I’ll snap the slide back for you—and don’t shoot my foot off, please.”

“Sorry. I’ll only aim at the ground.”

“You have seven shots,” he told her. “I’m not going to give you more because I’d have to teach you how to load it, and that might not work out. Try to make them count. Don’t shoot at anyone who’s more than about twenty feet away. Better yet, wait until they’re within ten feet.”

“Okay,” she said weakly. “Do I have to shoot anyone?”

“Hopefully not,” he said. “But I’d rather give you a chance. Run away if I’m hit. Hide. When they come up close, shoot them by surprise.”

She stared at him. “Can’t we just go back to town?”

He shook his head. “They took down the cell tower. We’re tired and cold now. You’re hurt. If we try to walk—it must be ten miles. Do you think you can make that? With bears?”

Yuki shook her head. She knew she couldn’t make it all the way back to Barrow. She almost sobbed, but she held it back. She didn’t want to do this, but she didn’t think there was any way out of it.

She followed him past the twisted wreckage of the gates. Her shoulder was no longer numb, instead it throbbed and ached. She didn’t even want to think about what the recoil of a heavy pistol would be like on her injured side.

Edwin didn’t creep into the compound. He walked quickly from one spot of half-cover to the next, peeking over trash bins and snowdrifts toward the main complex.

Lab 126 wasn’t anywhere near as grand in scope as Lawrence Livermore or Los Alamos. Rather than a campus of dozens of large buildings spread over hundreds of acres, it consisted of a cluster of what looked like six hunting lodges to her. Every roof was blue composite, every wall was a terracotta orangey-brown. The buildings were all above the ground on stilts and connected together with ramps that were also high off the ground. She knew that was to keep them traversable even in the depths of the winter snows when this land was cast into unending darkness.

She could smell the sea as she followed Edwin. It was only a faint salty tang here, but it was noticeable. Although there were no seabirds, she thought she heard the barking of distant seals.

“Edwin,” she said, “if we get out of this alive, I want to go on a date with you.”

He glanced back at her. His expression was one of bewilderment. “Uh, great,” he said. “Do you see any bodies out there?”

“No, nothing alive or dead.”

“That’s good, I guess. You serious about a date?”

“Yes.”

“Great,” he said, giving his head a little shake and taking in a deep breath. “I bet you jinxed me, though.”

“What?”

“I was going to ask you out later. I figured I was out of my mind, what with you being a babe and younger than me and all—but I thought I would give it a shot. Then you had to go and read my mind and ask me first. I’m dead for sure, by God.”

She gave him a little kiss and squeezed his gloved hand with hers. When her lips touched his cheek, she realized his face was almost as cold as the snow itself.

“It’s good luck, not bad,” she said. “Just like when you hopped off that snow cat and came to check on me. What do you think happened to that second cat, anyway?”

He pointed back toward the gate. “I think someone ambushed it. I think that’s what was used to knock down the gates.”

Yuki shuddered. She knew he was probably right—and that meant everyone who’d come in on this flight to the Lab was dead. Everyone but Edwin and her.

Edwin turned away and edged forward. He crept around the lab, moving up to a high vantage point. Yuki crept along after him. They soon crouched on a snowy ridge over the lab. He had his rifle out and the strap wrapped up tightly in his left hand.

“Aren’t we going down there?” she whispered.

“No. Not unless it looks clear for a looong time.”

“Do you see anyone?”

“No. But they have to be waiting for the second cat to arrive. Isn’t that what you’d do?”

“You mean—you mean if I wanted to kill everyone here?”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I mean.”

She licked her lips. She didn’t even like thinking about it. But she nodded.

After about ten minutes, they both heard a door slam. At first they ducked, but then they slowly nosed up to look around. They didn’t see anyone, but they still didn’t move—they waited.

Finally, they heard an engine rev. Yuki knew that sound. It was a snow cat.

The unseen driver pulled the snow cat out into view. It had been inside a long, low building near the gate.

“He’s given up waiting for Roy,” Edwin said. “What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“What should I do?” he asked again.

Yuki realized he wasn’t really asking her. He was talking to himself. He was keyed up, breathing hard and thinking fast. His eyes darted from side to side.

Suddenly, Edwin stood up and assumed a shooting stance. His rifle was at his shoulder. He aimed down at the passing snow cat. Whoever was inside couldn’t be clearly seen.

“You can’t just shoot the driver!” Yuki hissed.

“He’ll get away. He’ll drive back to Barrow and disappear into the town. How will we know who did this?”

“You don’t know for sure that’s the shooter,” she said. “It could be a scientist making a run for it.”

“Right. Damn it! Right.”

He lowered the rifle, then brought it up again. He aimed at the snow cat, and he fired a single shot. The glass on a rear window of the cab turned white and a hole appeared.

Yuki sucked air through her teeth.

The snow cat swerved, but then sped up. Edwin popped off another shot, destroying another window, then another.

Finally, the driver had had enough. He swerved into the gatehouse and crashed. A figure fell out and rolled away.

“Did you hit him?” she asked in a whisper.

“No—at least I hope not. I was aiming at the back windows.”

“Good, I thought—”

She got no further. The snow near them jumped. There was no cracking sound of a gun, but the evidence of a bullet striking nearby was undeniable.

They ducked down and huddled in the snow.

“He’s got a silencer, or something,” Edwin said. “That must be it.”

“Shhh,” she said, getting her gun out. She took off one glove so that she could get her finger onto the trigger. She’d fired a few guns in her life, but only for fun. This wasn’t fun at all.

Her hand felt the sharp cold immediately. She knew that her fingers would be numb in twenty minutes. But by then, this would probably be over with one way or another.

Edwin stood suddenly and popped off several shots in rapid succession.

“Do you see him?”

“No,” he said, aiming at the guardhouse.

Yuki saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Someone was coming up behind them, moving up the ridge.

A figure loomed, a white plume of breath coming out of his face. He had a black beard and a hat that was folded and covered in fur. He aimed his gun at Edwin’s back.

Yuki didn’t follow Edwin’s instructions—not exactly. She fired off all seven of her bullets in rapid succession. He’d told her to take it easy, squeezing off one at a time. Instead, she sprayed at the intruder.

She got lucky. One of the rounds—she thought later it was the third one—hit the man’s beard. The jaw behind that beard was destroyed, and he went down. Yuki kept firing, out of panic or rage, she couldn’t be sure. But when she was done, he was dead in the snow.

Before he fell, the assassin had gotten off a shot of his own. Breathing so hard she was gasping, she turned back to Edwin.

“Are you hit?” she asked. She felt her own body. “I don’t think I am.”

Then they both noticed the puff of feathers floating around Edwin. It dawned on her that he was wearing a down parka. He had a shocked look on his face.

She rushed to him, knees pumping in the thick snow. She ran her hands over him and finally, together, they found the bullet hole.

Edwin grinned, putting his finger through it. There was a matching hole nearby in the fabric, but no blood.

“He shot my coat,” he said, and laughed.

She slapped him in relief, then collapsed back onto the snow bank beside the assassin’s corpse. She was shaking and in pain, but she was also grinning and unbelievably glad to be alive.

Chapter 21

Lab 126, Alaska’s North Slope

Twilight

Yuki and Edwin climbed down the snow bank and crept into the facility. There were security doors on every building, but Edwin found a pass-card.

Inside, they encountered a mess. There were bodies in every major room, perhaps twenty in all.

“What are we going to do, Edwin?” she whispered. “This is crazy. Who would kill all these innocent people?”

“We’ve got to report in,” he said. “Then we have to set up to survive for about ten hours.”

“Survive?” she asked. Her mind was full of terrors like polar bears, assassins and the like.

“Yes. The heat and power have been shut off. I’m afraid the generators might have been damaged. The temperature is going to drop steadily.”

She looked around, imagining a slick coating of frost covering everything. It was easy to do.

“You need medical attention first,” he said. “Come on, I’ve got some skill with sutures.”

She followed him to an emergency locker. They broke out supplies, drank water and ate rations. Setting up a propane heater, Edwin had her pull her shoulder out into the open air. Her clothes pulled at her scabbed flesh, and she winced.

“The fabric is in the wound,” he said. “Fortunately, the bullet seems to have gone right through you. I think it might have chipped a bone, but I doubt it’s shattered.”

“What bone?” she asked, feeling a little sick.

“Your clavicle.”

“Why don’t you think it’s broken up? It hurts like hell.”

“With that kind of injury your shoulder would sag down. I’m not seeing that.”

She made a hissing sound as she visualized this. He worked on her wound, prodding it and pulling out strips of cloth. It began bleeding again, and he sprinkled powder over it and patched it with a large bandage.

“You’ll live,” he announced, “at least until we can get real medical help.”

“Thanks,” she said, putting her hand on his. “For everything.”

“You saved my life as surely as I did yours, little lady.”

She blinked at being called a “little lady” but took no offense. Edwin was just being friendly, and currently, she had more pressing problems.

After they’d taken care of the basics, Yuki considered sleeping. Although she was exhausted, she was just too wound up on adrenaline to relax now. She followed Edwin around the various lab buildings, looking for survivors and clues as to what had happened.

They found a surprise in the building closest to the docks. As they approached, thumping footsteps rang out ahead of them.

“Someone's inside,” Edwin said, raising his rifle.

Yuki removed her right glove and wrapped her fingers around her pistol. Edwin had seen fit to reload it for her, as she’d made good use of it already today. The grip was freezing in her hand, almost painfully so, but there was no way she could fire it in a thick, arctic-rated glove.

They opened the door to the building and poked their noses inside, staying low. There were desks in the dimly lit room, and they crouched behind the first one they found. Nothing stirred.

“I’m armed,” Edwin said. “Identify yourself.”

Nothing.

Edwin and Yuki exchanged glances. “Identify yourself first,” she whispered to Edwin.

“Right. Dr. Edwin Goody here,” he shouted. “Lab 126 security. Is there anyone here I can talk to?”

There was a rustling sound, and a hissing release of breath. “Go away. We’re armed,” came a response at last. To Yuki, the voice sounded male and frightened.

“Okay,” Edwin said. “I’m going to have to ask you all to exit out onto the dock, one at a time.”

“What? So you can shoot us and drop us into the ocean? We know you’re lying, killer. Get out of here or we’ll burn you.”

“Lying about what?”

“There isn’t anyone on security named Edwin.”

“I’ve been here several times doing contract clearances, but I’ve been permanently assigned now on site. I landed in Barrow today. A man named Belish was supposed to be my supervisor.”

There were some whispers. Yuki wondered if they really did have weapons of some kind. She figured they might have, as they’d certainly had time to gather them.

“Where’s Belish then?” asked the frightened voice.

“Dead. They got his snow cat coming out to the lab. They got both of the cats. Me and Dr. Tanaka here are the only survivors.”

More rustling and whispers. Finally, someone stood up and came forward. He looked at both of them.

He was middle-aged and wore thick glasses. He extended a trembling hand toward Edwin and Yuki.

“Good to meet you Edwin—at least I hope it is. I’m Dr. Samuels, oceanography.”

Edwin slowly stood up and gripped the man's hand in return. The two smiled like old friends.

“Sorry I took so long to get out here on the job,” Edwin said.

“I’m just glad you made it through at all. What’s our situation?”

Edwin shook his head. “Not good if more assailants are on their way. We’ve got two pistols and my rifle. Who’s in charge?”

Two other soft-looking science types came up slowly. Yuki saw they had made Molotov cocktails. They’d been serious about burning intruders. They smelled of gasoline and their eyes were glassy with fear.

Everyone looked at one another. “The lab director is dead,” Dr. Samuels said. “You say Belish didn’t make it—well since this is a security situation, I’m guessing you are in charge, Edwin. At least for now.”

Edwin nodded. “Great,” he said. “Maybe I’ll get a raise.”

Chapter 22

Area 51, Gamma Level

Underground

Dr. Linscott had heard of Area 51—who hadn’t? In scientific circles the story had always been that it was a long misunderstood place. It was a known government installation located out in the desert of central Nevada. Secretive yes, but magical no. Dedicated to working on experimental aircraft, the base had been operating since the Cold War. People who’d learned about it had naturally let their fantasies about the place get the better of them.

That was the story behind the story, and she’d always believed it because she was a person of science. Her kind demanded hard evidence before they were willing to let their minds take leaps. She didn’t trust her government—she didn’t trust anyone’s government—but that didn’t mean every conspiracy theorist was right.

But now here she was, deep under the ground after having endured security such as she’d never seen. Deemed a security risk, she’d functionally become a prisoner at Area 51 for several days.

Unsmiling agents had begun a seemingly endless interrogation four days earlier. They’d taken her to Travis AFB, followed by a two hour flight eastward on a transport. After arriving at Area 51, she’d been led underground and locked in a “visitor’s facility”—in other words, a jail cell.

Outside her door was a corridor. She knew that much, as she could see it through wired glass. Sometimes, even that tiny porthole was electronically turned opaque. Except for glimpses she was allowed to gain through it, she had no idea what was going on in this place.

Each day, several times a day, the armed “attendant” gently pushed her back into her “room” after providing her with food and various other necessities. The guard was a well-built black man who had no name patch on his uniform, and who gave her nothing more than a smile when she demanded to know who he was. She consistently called him “guard” to which he took mild offense.

She’d asked to be released, of course, and that her phone be returned. She asked to be allowed to talk to Detective Perez and many other things. On the second day, her requests had transformed into demands, but it didn’t matter. Everything she asked for was politely refused.

“Guard, you can’t hold me like this,” she said, arms crossed as he came to deliver a meal to her.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Linscott. You aren’t being held. You’re employed here.”

Her lips became tight lines on her face. “This is bullshit. All I did was wiggle my finger over a tablet, for Christ’s sake! That’s not an excuse to lock me into an underground cell!”

As usual, the guard looked pained. “Your situation is unusual,” he said. “You have to understand, you’ve been a suspect all this time. We have to make sure we know exactly who we’re dealing with.”

Jackie’s mind was racing. The guard had never before provided her with such detailed information. During previous encounters, he’d dodged everything she threw at him. His manner of speech had changed as well, she realized. He no longer sounded like a standard soldier.

“Something’s changed,” she said. “They gave you approval to speak. That’s it, isn’t it?”

He looked momentarily conflicted. “Yes,” he said. “You’ve passed all our preliminary investigations. Your case has moved to the next step.”

“What next step?”

“You’re to be debriefed. It’s now been deemed safe to allow you to mingle among the general population. You can meet your teammates today, if you like.”

“Teammates? Don’t you mean fellow inmates?”

“Your bitter attitude has not helped your case, Dr. Linscott. You must understand that each of these discussions has been recorded, reviewed and carefully evaluated. Your combative behavior has delayed your induction process by two full days.”

Her jaw sagged. The gall of these people!

“You mean that by complaining I’ve kept myself in purgatory longer?”

“Exactly.”

She narrowed her eyes and glared him. His demeanor had undeniably shifted. His speech was more sophisticated than it had been before…suddenly, she thought she had the answer.

“You’ve been evaluating me, haven’t you? Who are you? What are you? Some kind of shrink?”

The man smiled. “I’m a psychiatrist, among other things, yes.”

He reached up to his blue uniform and pulled away a strip of tape. His name was revealed underneath, stenciled into the cloth. It read: Major William Clark. She eyed it thoughtfully, mind racing.

“A major, huh? You had me pissing myself, Major Clark. Did you know that?”

His eyes sparkled with amusement. “My apologies. That was never my intent.”

“What was your intent?”

“I’m responsible for team balance. You have to understand, there were several difficulties with your case. You came in from a situation that had been characterized as ‘uncontrolled’.”

“Yeah,” she said, thinking of the bombings and the car wreck. “I didn’t come here after an interview in a coffee shop. What I don’t get is why you guys are so terribly interested in dragging me here in the first place. Even stranger, after you actually managed to get me out here, you locked me up.”

Major Clark shrugged helplessly and gave his head a slow, apologetic shake. “I’m sorry. The situation outside the facility has intensified. We had to know you weren’t a mole of some kind.”

“What finally convinced you?”

“Would you like to take a little walk with me?” he asked.

She hesitated for less than a second. “You mean, out of this damned room?”

“Precisely.”

She took a deep breath and stepped forward. “Damned right I want out of here. I’ve been going crazy in this cell. No phone, no internet. My folks are probably putting out an all-points-bulletin on me.”

“We took care of all that. They know you’re involved in a new project and unable to respond to personal communications.”

Jackie didn’t like that. She knew her parents well. Her dad—especially her dad—wouldn’t take well to the news she was working for the government in any capacity. He’d been in anti-war riots in his youth, and he didn’t trust a government man farther than he could throw one. Not even half that far.

“This way, please,” Major Clark said.

She followed him and chided herself for eyeing the gun on his hip. She doubted she could get it away from him, much less use it effectively to escape this place. She’d have to cooperate for now.

Clark led her down a long, echoing corridor. Bright recessed lights lit up white walls. The place looked like the inside of the science department in any modern university. The biggest difference was the heavily layered security.

There were cameras in the ceiling behind tinted domes. Every door had a thick round porthole in it with a computer pad embedded in the wall on the left side. The portholes were all opaque, silvered over as if electronically altered. There were no door handles, either. She could only imagine what it took to open one of these thick doors. Thumbprints, voice ID—maybe even retinal scans. These doors only opened for people who were supposed to open them, and biometrics were used to make sure the right person walked through.

They came at last to the door at the far end of the hallway. This door was larger, and there were even more elaborate security systems in evidence guarding it. In fact, if she hadn't known better, she would have thought the twin nozzles that aimed at her from the two corner ceiling points on either side above the door might be there to expel something. What might that be? Water? Gas? Maybe even a gush of flame? The idea made her shudder.

When her eyes returned to Major Clark, she found he was watching her carefully. She flushed. She had the impression he was reading her mind as confused thoughts glided over it.

“What’s behind this door?” she asked. “It must be something pretty serious. This security is extreme.”

“You’re right,” Clark said. Then he fell silent again, watching her.

“Well, are you going to open it?”

“Yes—if you want me to.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “What? Are there consequences?”

“Yes, there definitely are. Once you step through this door, Dr. Linscott, your life will change forever. The details of the agreement you signed will go into effect, permanently and irrevocably.”

“What if I don’t want to see any secrets?”

“Then you will be—fired. You’ll be expelled from the program. Your new clearances and status will be revoked.”

A slow smile came over her face at his words. Major Clark lifted his hand in supplication. “Please, don’t take that option. We need you.”

She thought about that. “All this is about my work on the EM-Drive, isn’t it? Why? Have you got something better than a working prototype? If so, you don’t need me. All this security can only mean that you’ve already done more with the drive than I have. I don’t see how I can help you.”

“Let me assure you, you’re essential to this project. That’s all I can say without your go-ahead. This is the last chance you have to exit the program cleanly. I urge you not to do so.”

Jackie eyed the door. “Come on,” she said. “Tell me a few things.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she put up a hand. “Not about what’s behind this door. You don’t have to tell me that. I want to know what this door can do. If I tried to open it, what would happen?”

“At this point, it wouldn’t recognize you. You would fail to open it.”

“Right. But what if I tried to force it? What if the people on the inside wanted to stop me?”

“Then you would be stopped.”

“Physically?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me how.”

“I fail to see—”

She put up her hand again. “Indulge me.”

He pointed to the floor first. “Do you see the surface you’re standing on? The last floor panel between the door and the rest of the corridor?”

She looked down, frowning. She tapped at it experimentally with her foot. The sound—yes, it was different. As she’d come down to this point along the corridor, she’d been so busy looking at the door itself she hadn’t consciously considered the floor under her feet.

“It’s metal,” she said. “The rest—back there ten feet—that’s composite.”

He nodded.

“A metal floor…What? Does it open up and drop you into a pit of alligators?”

“Hardly.”

“Well then…do you mean it electrocutes you? Touching the door itself…that could complete a circuit. But it would only work if the subject’s shoes weren’t a heavy insulator. I’m wearing rubber soles. It seems like an iffy trap.”

Major Clark bent his knees and squatted. He touched the floor with a single finger.

“Do you see these holes?”

She did. They were small holes. They were all over the place. About the size a nail might make if hammered through it.

She straightening up again, looking worried. “Spikes? Are you telling me that the floor fires spikes up into your foot and you’re electrocuted? That’s insane!”

“I’ve told you nothing, Dr. Linscott. I’ve only pointed out a few curious details at your request.”

Jackie nodded. She got it. He wasn’t supposed to be discussing security with a non-committed “employee”.

She wondered then what would really happen if she refused to join up and tried to walk out right now. Maybe she knew too much already. What she was clear on was that they had a firm grip on her—probably legally as well as physically.

Every instinct told her to run, to escape this place—to do or say anything that might allow her to go back home tonight and jog along the beach behind her house again.

But part of her could not help but remember that she had no job at home to go back to. And these people, crazy or not, had offered her more money per month than she usually made in a year.

“I’ve got one last question for you, Major Clark,” she said.

“What is it?”

“What choice did Detective Perez make when you gave him this little speech?”

He smiled. “He reached this point far earlier than you did. He’s joined the program, and he now stands watching you from the far side of that door. He’s committed.”

She nodded, eyeing the man and noting for the first time that no one had ever opened one of those many doors along the corridor behind her. The others were either all empty, or they were watching, waiting for her to make her decision.

“All right,” she said. “I’m in. Open the door.”

Major Clark smiled. “You’re certain?”

“I said so. Open it before someone leans on the flame-thrower button by mistake and burns us to a crisp.”

Clark chuckled. “What made you decide to do it in the end?”

She looked at him. He was all psychiatrist. He wanted to study her, she could feel it. She empathized with the hundreds of lab rats that had perished after being relentlessly poked and prodded by this man’s hands in college.

“Honestly, you have my curiosity burning,” she admitted. “How could I come so far and not know why you wanted me this badly? The possibilities, the implications—that’s why I’m signing up. Everyone wants to be part of something big.”

“Well, in that case, I think I can assure you that your hopes will be met, and probably exceeded.”

“Good. But you never answered one of my questions, Clark. What made you decide to let me out of my room? Why today?”

“Because I judged that you were ready, Dr. Linscott.”

It galled her, but she realized that he had judged correctly. Was this all part of some kind of manipulative Stockholm Syndrome effect? She hated the idea that she’d been maneuvered into something she didn’t want to do.

But she also wanted to know what this was all about. She’d come so far, and at this point she realized she had to know the truth.

Major Clark worked the door’s security system. Mechanisms shunted and clicked. Her heart thudded in her chest.

When the door finally swung open with a smooth whirring sound, Jackie couldn’t believe what she saw inside the vast chamber beyond.

Chapter 23

The Bering Sea

Day

Working together for days, Burkov and Director Norin had managed to drive the sub toward Russia. They hadn’t dared to surface north of Siberia. There were a few ports up there, but there were too many icebergs this time of year. Navigating as carefully as they could using what instruments they had working, they were able to take the boat through the Bering Strait and down into the Gulf of Anadyr. There, they dared to surface.

Cringing and feeling the back of his neck tingle, Burkov studied the metal roof of the sub overhead. They could hit anything on the way up—but they had to surface. The sub journey had taken too long, and the boat had been in bad shape to begin with. The carbon scrubbers weren’t working up to par, and even with just two people aboard, the air was becoming stale and soon would turn toxic. In addition, their batteries were running low.

They surfaced at last with a sickening lurch, but no crash of metal against ice. Burkov smiled in relief. Donning parkas, they rushed the ladder. They climbed up to the hatch and cranked it open. A freezing spray lashed their uplifted faces. The fresh air that followed was glorious.

They climbed up into the conning tower, enjoying the icy air and the gray skies. A light sprinkling of hailstones hit their heads, and it made them happy.

“Lev?” Director Norin said from behind him. “Thanks for all your help getting here. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“The next step is to get the communications gear working. We must call for a rescue.”

“Unfortunately, I can do that part by myself.”

Lev’s smile faded. He turned slowly away from the open sea to face her. She had a gun aimed at his belly.

They stood there together inside the conning tower for a quiet moment. Norin smiled, and Lev smiled back.

“How’d you get the gun?”

“I stashed it at the beginning. I thought you would cooperate more fully if you believed you were in control of the situation.”

“Well played,” Lev said, nodding to her. “You almost did it right.”

Her face faltered slightly. She took a firm grip on her gun.

“This is where we must part ways, faithful Lev,” she said. “The authorities will want a story. I’ll make sure you play the part of a hero in mine.”

Lev shook his head slowly. “No, that is not how things will go. You have made a fatal error.”

“Turn around,” she said, beginning to lift her pistol toward his face.

“Stop. Do not lift the gun any higher, or I’ll be forced to move immediately.”

She froze, staring. “What do you mean? Are you mad?”

“You’re two feet from me. I will probably take a bullet in the belly, but I can still throw you off this ship before you get a second shot at me. It would most likely result in a bad ending for both of us. Probably, I will die, yes. But as you clearly intend to kill me, that means nothing. I must take my chance. You have forced my hand.”

He thought she might be shaking slightly, but she was still in control of her face. She twisted her lips into thin lines. “Turn around.”

“No. Here’s how this is going to happen,” he said calmly. “You will listen to me Kira, if you want to live for at least another minute. You will allow me to take that gun. If you would rather die than go to prison—well, all right. I can understand that. Shoot me now, in the belly. It will be your last act, but it will be a brave one.”

Now her hand was trembling. Events were not proceeding the way she’d planned. He was certain of that.

“It will be your choice,” he said. “I’m pulling my hand out of my pocket, and I’m going to reach out slowly for the gun. Make your decision, Kira.”

With exaggerated care, Lev reached out with his hand until it closed over the barrel of her pistol. He felt her tense—but she didn’t do it.

He gently removed the gun from her hand, released the magazine, and threw both into the sea. She watched him, aghast.

“Help me get the communications system operating,” he said.

“I’m not going to help you do anything.”

Lev shook his head again. “Untrue. Stop wasting our time. You want to live. You’ve made that very clear. I’m tired of this boat, despite your gracious company.”

Grumbling, she followed him to the lockers, and they broke out tools. The antennae was damaged, but it hadn’t snapped off entirely. They spent long cold hours laboring on it, but before darkness fell over the cold sea, they were able to get a signal relayed to Moscow. An answer to their pleas for help came back swiftly through the encoding system.

Your position has been pinpointed. Maintain your position. Do not submerge, or depth charges will be dropped.

Lev looked at Kira and snorted as he read the message. “Not the warm greeting we were hoping for, eh?”

“There is little warmth in the Kremlin these days,” she said. There was a distinct hint of bitterness in her voice.

Chapter 24

Lab 126, Alaska’s North Slope

Day

By the next “morning,” which was marked by slightly lighter gray skies outside, Dr. Tanaka and Edwin had sorted things out with the surviving scientists. They no longer doubted one another’s intentions. Better yet, local law enforcement had made a belated appearance. They’d managed to restore power, and federal forces were closing in.

The helicopters buzzed overhead, but Yuki barely had the presence of mind to recognize the sound. Her vision was blurred, and she’d begun to run a fever.

The others took care of her, with Edwin directing the effort. They plied her with what antibiotics and fresh bandages they had—but they knew it wouldn’t be enough.

“We’ll have to get her out of here,” Edwin said insistently.

The others shook their heads in concern. “The Homeland Security people will never allow it,” the bespectacled older man said. He was Dr. Hollander, an oceanographer. “They’ve become absolutely paranoid of late—and I must admit I now understand why.”

Edwin seemed agitated. Yuki watched him blearily. She knew he would do his best to get her through this. She was so thirsty. She signaled this to the others, who gave her icy water through a straw.

She couldn’t quite understand how all her strength had gone out of her once she’d realized she was no longer in danger. The adrenaline that had kept her going for so long, so many miles and injuries, abandoned her all at once. Now, she was exhausted and sick.

“We could take her back to Barrow,” Edwin said. “She might still need surgery and there’s only emergency power here. I need better equipment.”

“They’re sending more medical people out here.”

Edwin fretted and grumbled. He checked her wounds, peering at them every few minutes. She put a hand out to touch his. He leaned close.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m feeling a little better already. That Demerol shot you gave me must be kicking in.”

He eyed her with suspicious worry. She forced a smile and opened her eyes more widely. The world swam and spun a little, but she ignored this.

Edwin appeared to be relieved. “You hang on, Yuki. We’ll get you out of this.”

After another grim hour of waiting, aircraft began arriving in a swarm. It was odd, hearing them roar overhead. Where had they come from? There couldn’t have been an Air Force Base this far north, could there?

The aircraft were helicopters for the most part. They glided in over the frosty ocean and landed on the flat snow banks nearby.

Armed men came rushing along the raised walkways between the buildings. They disarmed Edwin and took the Molotov cocktails the others still hoarded. They declared the lab secure and took up defensive positions around the base.

An unsmiling captain came in to speak with them. Yuki had to force herself to sit upright.

“Captain?” Edwin asked. “I’m the sole survivor from the lab’s security force. Can you tell me if we have medical aid coming?”

“Yes. They’ll be here shortly. I’ve given the all-clear. You have to understand, we had to lock down the lab first.”

“Of course. Any idea who attacked us? Or why?”

“That’s not my job. I’m assuming some very confused terrorists did this—I mean, very few people even know this lab exists. Attacking it isn’t much of a statement.”

Edwin frowned at him, not liking the answer.

“Excuse me, Captain,” Yuki managed to get out of her dry throat. It seemed that no matter how much she drank, her throat remained parched. “Where did you come from?”

“Ladd Army Airfield, ma’am,” he said. “We’re the closest facility, and we were ordered to respond once the matter was deemed to be a threat to national security.”

“Who, exactly, made that determination?”

He looked at her for a moment. “I’m not sure—you’re Dr. Tanaka?”

“Yes,” she said, surprised he knew her name.

“Glad to see you made it. I just follow orders, doctor. I don’t question them much.”

She nodded and lay back down on a makeshift bed they’d constructed on the floor out of folded parkas. She didn’t like to think that the previous owners of those coats were dead—but they probably were.

They moved her shortly after that to the lab’s commissary. It wasn’t much, but the medical equipment was adequate. She had time to reflect on the unfairness of life in general. She’d been safely playing with her underwater robots a few days earlier. Now, her life was in turmoil and constant danger at the top of the world.

A rush of support people came in after the army had set up camp. There were doctors, nurses and engineers. They repaired the fences, removed the bodies, aided the injured and repaired equipment. Meanwhile, the combat troops set up circles of plastic containers on the neighboring ridges.

The next day, after a transfusion and a number of superior drugs, Yuki was able to walk again. She commented on the fortifications to Edwin. “Are those machine guns up there?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Fifty caliber, one of the nice new M-2s. You can change out those barrels in a jiffy. They aren’t screwing around.”

“What are those big plastic containers?” she asked.

“They haul them up there with the helicopters, then fill them with rocks and dirt. They form instant walls, tiny firebases. With a few men and a heavy gun in each, we’re well-protected. A group of assassins hitting us now would be committing suicide. I only wish the army had been here a few days ago.”

Yuki touched her sore shoulder and winced in pain. “I don’t get it. Why would anyone come all the way up here to attack us? What’s so important about this place?”

“Good questions,” Edwin said. “I’m still trying to figure out the answers. My job is to defend the people who work here.”

She nodded, admiring his clear mindedness and dedication. “I have to admit, you’re pretty good at your job, too,” she said.

He smiled, and they walked back toward the main building. “The kick-start briefing begins in fifteen minutes,” he said. “I’m surprised I’m invited at all.”

“I’m not,” she said. “After all, you’re one of the most senior people left. I think they trust you after you stopped this from being a total disaster.”

With Edwin's help, they walked into the auditorium that doubled as a movie theater and a cafeteria. Right now, it was configured with rows of chairs facing the front. Several military people were milling around, but before the briefing began, the new lab director ushered them out.

Edwin was asked to stay. Yuki could tell he was proud of that fact.

“Hello everyone,” said the speaker. He was a white-haired man with sallow skin and a sharp gaze. He reminded Yuki of the more militant college professors she’d had back in college. The kind that enjoyed flunking students for any minor infraction.

“I’m Dr. Evans,” he said, putting his hands behind his back and standing straight. “I’d like to give my thanks to those of you who have just arrived, and doubly so to those of you who survived the events of the last few days. I know this has been a trying time, and—”

“Why haven’t we shut the lab down?” demanded a woman in the front row. She had a shock of short thin hair and a pair of bulging eyes. Yuki recognized her as one of the few survivors.

Dr. Evans cleared his throat and addressed the woman. “Because we can’t spare the time. Because doing so would give the enemy exactly what they wanted. The attack on this lab was designed to shut it down. We’re not going to allow that to happen at this crucial moment.”

There was a murmuring amongst the crowd. The mood was ugly. Yuki knew crowds like this. Scientists could be either very organized and civil, or they could be impossible to deal with. They weren’t as easy to cow as many people thought they were. Overall, they tended to be a self-important, feisty bunch when you got right down to it. They were the kind of people who knew the rules, and who regularly demanded that they be followed.

“There are disaster protocols,” the woman continued, undeterred. “They have not been followed. Not at all. We should have all been evacuated down to Fairbanks as of yesterday. For all we know, those lunatics planted a bomb on the lab grounds. It's probably ticking away as we speak. Let the officials—”

“Dr. Goreki,” the new director interrupted. “I understand and appreciate your concerns. But the base is secure now, and we must proceed with our mission goals.”

Goreki swiveled her head, looking at her neighbors. They gave her sympathetic nods of support.

“Are you mad?” she demanded. “Thirty-nine are dead! Mission goals? We’re studying global warming trends in the Arctic! I think, under the circumstances, that noble mission can be set aside until the situation has stabilized.”

The director stared at her coldly. “I’m in charge here now. We are involved in matters much larger than climate change. Lab 126, in fact, always was.”

Yuki raised her hand then. Reluctantly, the director called on her. He looked like a man whose carefully laid-out briefing was disintegrating into a free-for-all.

“Director,” she said, “where did you and these other scientists come from so suddenly?”

“I’m from Sandia Labs. You’re from Lawrence Livermore. Most of the others here are from one national lab or another.”

Goreki spoke up again, as if she couldn’t contain herself after a valiant effort to do so. “Director? What is our mission? What’s so important that every protocol must be ignored—and that our lives must be endangered?”

“It’s a matter of national security. We’ll brief everyone on details on a need-to-know basis. What I need from all of you is a report on the functionality of your research equipment. Can you get your drones, probes and mini-subs into the sea today? Tomorrow? Report back to me on readiness by five o’clock tonight. That’s all for now.”

He left the building, striding purposefully and angrily. The scientists growled and gestured excitedly among themselves.

Yuki stood. She almost swayed on her feet, but Edwin steadied her with a hand.

“I’m going after him,” she said.

“You sure you’re up to that?”

“I’m fine,” she said, and followed the director out onto the walkways. She was so angry, she didn't care about her physical pain right now.

“Director Evans?” she called.

He hesitated, then turned to face her. She came up to him, walking painfully. His face softened.

“Still in pain, are you?”

“Yes, the bullet left a hole, you see.”

He stared for a second, then chuckled. She smiled.

“Sorry about my colleagues back there,” she said.

“Yes, well, I handled it poorly.”

“They weren’t in the best mood.”

“No, understandably not. It’s all this secrecy, you understand. It stresses people to know they’re in danger, especially if they don’t know why they should put up with it.”

She thought about that. “There is a reason, right? I mean, we aren’t all stuck up here just because no one wants to admit to the press what happened?”

“For once, it’s not political. The reasons are real. This is very serious.”

“Director, could you give me a hint? I took a bullet here. That woman—Dr. Goreki—when I first met her she had a bottle full of gasoline in her hands. If I could take something back to the scientists, something they could sink their teeth into, it would lower tensions around here a great deal.”

“They trust you, don’t they? You’re new, but you were here in the middle of it. All right, tell them this: We’re running a deep mission at dawn with everything we can get working. We’ve even brought your probe up from Livermore. That wasn’t in the original plan, I gather, but now they’ve stepped things up. Homeland wants answers.”

“Answers to what?”

“To what’s sitting on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean in a particular spot.”

She turned to stare out to sea. There was ice out there. White, floating ice a mile or so off the coast. She could see broken chunks of it everywhere.

“Something at the bottom of the Arctic?” she asked aloud. She turned back when she got no answer and found Director Evans was striding away from her.

She hurried back to the others to share what she’d learned. It wasn’t much, but even a hint was better than nothing when people were scared and angry.

Chapter 25

Gulf of Anadyr

Night

The first helicopter arrived from the mainland six hours after they made initial contact. By that time, Lev and Kira were down inside the boat, wanting to keep warm. A howling wind had come up, and it had begun to snow up on the deck. Every surface was soon sugared white.

They kept the hatch that led up into the conning tower open, watching and listening for any plane or ship. When the droning sounds of approaching aircraft finally did cut through the singing wind, they looked at one another.

Dr. Norin looked worried. Lev smiled with half his mouth. “They’re here. That’s an Mi-8—I know the sound like I know the whisper of breath in my own lungs.”

Dr. Norin stared at him silently.

“No last words?” he asked. “No special messages for me? I doubt we’ll be in contact much longer.”

“What do you want me to say? I can see you’re insufferably proud of yourself.”

He shrugged. She was right, he was prideful. His mission had been accomplished. Lev took pride in completed missions. Thus far in his career, he’d never failed to do whatever his commanders demanded of him.

“What will happen to me?” she asked.

“You’ll be processed in Vladivostok. After that—I don’t know.”

“You’re a robot,” Dr. Norin said with sudden vehemence. “You have no perspective. I did what I did because I felt I had to. I changed the world that day, whether you understand it or not. Nothing you’ve accomplished in your entire life—nothing you ever will accomplish—matters in the least in comparison to what I did out there under the ice.”

Lev folded down the corners of his mouth and nodded as if he were impressed by her words—but he was not. She was full of bluster. All criminals were when it came down to the end. She was no different.

Still, he was mildly curious. She had done something strange down there, inside that unnatural Artifact. The people in the Kremlin had cared enough about it to send him. How could he not wonder if there were any grains of truth in her hints and ravings?

“This is your chance,” he said. “Your last one. If you want to tell me why you came here, what you’ve been doing, now is the time.”

Outside, the droning faded, then grew again, stronger than before. There were two helicopters now. They were circling, perhaps setting up to drop men aboard the sub. They had to be careful and take their time. If a man fell into this frozen sea at night—even a Spetsnaz man—he might freeze to death before they could reel him back up.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“Why did you kill your own people and destroy a research facility? That would seem counterproductive even for a bureaucrat such as yourself.”

She glared at him. There was hatred in her eyes, but it did not bother him in the slightest. To Lev, she was a criminal. A killer of the worst kind. She had betrayed her own people. He suspected she’d done it for some kind of personal gain, no matter what kind of noble horseshit she was about to claim as her motivation.

“You came to the ice, and you dug me out of the sea like a dog hunting a rabbit,” Kira said, nodding thoughtfully. She stared at the deck and the glowing instruments that surrounded them, limning the two of them in a soft red glow. “I guess for this, I can reward you with as much truth as you can comprehend.”

Lev made a hurry-up gesture with his gloved fingers.

“In 1908,” she began, “a meteor struck ground in Siberia.” As she spoke, she looked at the wall behind him, as if seeing another time and place. “You might have heard of that—the Tunguska Event.”

Lev shrugged. “Yes, I remember something of it. A rock knocked down a forest, as I recall.”

“That was just part of the debris,” she said. “Three parts came down—three parts that we know of today, anyway. The largest piece landed in the Siberian forests and was destroyed. Nothing was left but molten metal and rock. But two other smaller chunks came down as well that same day.”

Lev nodded, eyebrows raised high. He was already becoming bored.

“The second piece crashed into the Arctic, punching through the ice cap and sinking. That is what we call the ‘Artifact’ today. It survived with less damage due to landing in water.”

Lev was beginning to see what she was talking about. She was saying the Artifact under the polar icecap wasn’t from Earth—that it had fallen from the skies above.

“Why are you so deeply involved?” Lev asked. “Besides being present during the discovery?”

“I have a certain affinity for the Artifact. It allows me to manipulate it in ways others cannot.”

He squinted at her, absorbing this information. “I’ve always assumed the Artifact was something built long ago by a primitive society. A mystery like the pyramids. How can one have an affinity for such an object?”

“It isn’t an object. It is a piece of a larger structure. A structure built by someone else.”

“Someone…” he laughed suddenly. “Aliens? You’re going there, am I right? I must admit, you had me interested for a moment.”

“That’s exactly the response you’ve been carefully programmed to produce,” she said with quiet bitterness. “Nearly a century of laughter and the discrediting of reports backs you up. You’re in good company as a skeptic. But Lev, you saw it. You were down there in the sea, in the very core. You had to have felt the alien nature of that wreck that sits beneath coldest water on Earth. Don’t try to deny it.”

Lev paused, thoughtful. “All right,” he said. “I agree there was something odd about the structure. But there’s something odd about Stonehenge, too. Did aliens build that as well?”

“I doubt it,” she said. “But if it was capable of generating a massive pulse of radiation, I’d at least have to consider the idea.”

Lev nodded, conceding the point. “Go on,” he said. “We’ll hear boots on the deck soon.”

“There is a third piece. This section didn’t break off and crash. We don’t know why. Instead, it landed under power.”

“Where?”

“In the United States. In the center of a vast, empty desert. Flat, dry land—we think it was seeking a safe landing spot.”

Lev huffed uncertainly. “The Americans have it then?”

“Yes. They found it long ago.”

“Are you saying they’ve got alien technology? It certainly hasn’t shown up much.”

“Hasn’t it? What nation first split the atom in that same desert? Do you know where the light bulb, the automobile, the first powered aircraft, the radio, the television, the electronic computer—a thousand other discoveries were first made?”

Lev’s humor had faded. He frowned down at the deck thoughtfully. “You’re saying the Americans had help? Can you prove any of this?”

“No, not really,” she admitted. “But these realities do form an amazing sequence of technological coincidences, don’t they? What’s wrong with the rest of humanity? Is ninety-nine percent of the planet’s population mentally stunted? Why have the Americans been so far ahead for so very long, doling out one discovery after another for—coincidentally—the last century?”

“Let me pretend to take your claims seriously for a moment. I must caution you that they sound like the deluded ravings of envy and paranoia—but I’ll go along for argument’s sake. If all this is true, why did you go to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and burn your people with radiation?”

“That was unfortunate,” she said. “I tried to engineer it so that no one would die. But then you came along, and I ran out of time. I knew what your mission was. Word of my theories and my efforts to awaken the beacon at the bottom of the sea had reached the Kremlin, and I was to be forcibly expelled. So, I took radical action. I initiated the signal. The results are yet to be seen.”

Lev felt a chill, and it wasn’t just due to the icy winds coming through the circular opening in the hull above them. Somehow, he found himself believing her. At the very least, he believed that she was telling the truth from her perspective. That meant she was either mad or more daring than almost anyone he’d ever met. This last option seemed possible, as she’d shown herself to be resourceful and even dangerous when cornered.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s say I believe in your version of events. Why would you want to awaken this—this alien Artifact? It would seem to be the height of madness to me.”

She smiled without humor. “If the aliens do come back to investigate, where do you think they’ll investigate first? A crater in a forest? A half-dead, damaged module sunken in the frozen sea? Or wouldn’t they more likely seek their landing craft, which we suspect is relatively intact?”

He stared at her. “You’re doing this out of revenge? To strike back at the Americans?”

“I have other reasons. But the Americans sowed the seeds of their own destruction long ago,” she said confidently. “All I’ve done is help nurture and mature those seeds. I’ve sped up the inevitable.”

Lev was no longer amused by the woman. He wasn’t frightened, but he was apprehensive.

He opened his mouth to ask another question, but then boots thumped on the deck above them. Voices shouted, whipped away into unintelligibility by the sharp wind.

Lev raised his hands and put them on his head, fingers intertwined. Slowly, Kira did the same.

A moment later, the black muzzle of an AK-12 poked down through the hatch.

Their conversation was at an end.

Chapter 26

Lab 126, Alaska

Day

Yuki’s sea drone was swimming freely at last. Like a dolphin raised in captivity, it seemed to know it was in a bigger body of water than it ever had experienced in its sheltered existence.

Already, elements of her design that had never been tested were coming into play. The stabilizers took to the currents well. The tiny craft didn’t flip over or turn off course. Instead, it swam with deliberate, focused movements. Deeper and deeper it went, following the contours of a cliff under the sea.

What was most amazing to Yuki was that the drone wasn’t anywhere close to her. It was hundreds of miles offcruising ever deeper into theAmundsen Basin. When she’d first learned that her drone had been brought up to the Arctic with her, she’d assumed it would have been physically handed to her at Lab 126. She’d imagined herself checking every system carefully and possibly even sliding it through a hole in the ice, watching it wriggle away on its maiden voyage.

That wasn’t how things had gone. Instead, the B-6 had been delivered to a sub out on the fringe of the icecap. She was controlling it remotely from the labs. Handed off and released at depth, the drone had never been in her possession—not even for a moment. The thought was depressing, but exhilarating as well.

Other robotic scouts had been sent into the icy water, but so far her creation was the star of the show. During the initial hours, a bathysphere and two regular deep sea subs had been charted alongside the drone, but they’d already turned back. No one had directly said why, but scientists are poor whisperers.

“Radiation.”

She’d heard that word several times. There were no specifics given, but she had to assume that since it was dangerous, it had to be ionizing radiation. Particles that could punch through the flesh of a person and do them irreparable harm.

A tiny surge of pride ran through her when she calculated that her drone would be able to reach the bottom if necessary. It had none of the compression problems many deep water drones had. Even with the equivalent of four hundred atmospheres pressing down on it, the tiny craft kept swimming and thinking independently in the cold dark sea.

Communications were a huge problem underwater, another reason her drone was so important for missions like this one. Radio couldn’t be used to transmit messages from a submarine to a drone that was running deep. The water created too much interference. That left sonar, but the trouble with that was any noises generated would automatically register as a blip to anyone who might be listening.

Her drone was designed to operate without instructions from a human operator. This capacity meant it could effectively play the part of an underwater spy. It was programmed to record everything it learned along the way to be replayed by its masters on its return.

Originally, Yuki’s design had been funded to spy on warships in harbors. By sneaking the tiny vessel into hostile ports, the B-6 could wriggle around taking pictures and measurements. It could spy where no other device dared venture without being detected. It moved in a natural animalistic fashion, had few metal parts, and was no bigger than a seal or a sea otter.

She’d never asked exactly where the funding had come from for her drone. She’d always figured it was from the Pentagon, something earmarked by the Navy for intel on opposing fleets. When she’d been asked to build it robustly so it could take great depths in stride, she’d been baffled, but compliant. Perhaps there was something down there the Navy was interested in. Maybe they wanted to find a lost Spanish Galleon. What business was it of hers?

Today, however, she felt very much involved. She was on-site, using her prototype design to plumb the depths of the Arctic in secret.

After they lost contact with the B-6, it swam independently for miles. At least, that’s what she hoped it was doing. She’d programmed it to keep going until it ran out of power or found something interesting.

The wait was a long one. Following the sea bottom, it would look for large artificial structures. When it found one, it would investigate discretely and then return to base.

She’d fallen asleep by the time contact was reestablished. There was something about the operating center that was hypnotic. The lights were low, the screens throbbed and glowed.

“We’ve got a contact,” Dr. Evans said, touching her shoulder. “It’s your baby—she’s back.”

Smiling and blinking, Yuki nodded. She sat up and stretched, yawning and sipping coffee. “It’s almost dawn. That was a long run.”

Evans nodded. “Near the limits of your drone’s endurance, by our estimates.”

Yuki felt a pang at the idea of losing the B-6. She’d put so much of her life into it, it would be a personal tragedy to know it had died alone in the dark.

But here it was, swimming home to them.

Ten minutes passed while she relieved herself and ate a donut. She didn’t have time to take a shower. That would have to wait.

The control room was quiet but still manned. Four or five other scientists had gathered around, watching intently. They only murmured encouragement, as this was Yuki’s show.

“There’s another contact,” the director said, frowning.

“One of yours?”

He shook his head.

“A sub?” Yuki asked. “Or a lost whale?”

“I doubt it. Shut the probe down.”

She turned to her screens. “What? Why?”

“Do it. Let it drift.”

She ran her hands over the controls and swiftly complied. A single pulse of encoded sound from the surface ship was relayed to the listening drone. Less than a minute later, the contact that represented all her recent accomplishments winked out.

“What’s happening?” Yuki asked. “What’s that thing closing in on our position?”

“Maybe nothing,” Director Evans said. “Maybe everything. We’ll wait.”

Five minutes passed. They expected the new contact to shift away. Any natural predator, having detected the drone and mistaken it for food, would have done so. This intruder did not. It continued to make a direct line across the screens toward Yuki’s drone.

Evans had his arms crossed, and his right hand massaged his chin. Finally, when the two contacts were less than a kilometer apart, he shook his head and released a disgusted sigh.

“Wake it up,” he said. “Have it transmit everything it can now. Prioritize the data on ranked value, and keep transmitting as long as you can.”

Yuki was alarmed. “But…but if this thing is some kind of hunter, it will zero in on my drone when I start uploading data. Shouldn’t we wait to see what happens?”

Evans shook his white-frosted head. “Think it through. If the contact isn’t a threat, the drone will simply deliver its report early. If it is a threat, on the other hand, at least we’ll get some of the data.”

She didn’t like the implications, but she tapped in the commands and sent them. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her stomach had twisted up into a knot by the time her drone responded to the new command. She hated the idea of her baby being hunted down and torn apart.

“What if the hunter is unsure where the drone is? We’re just pinpointing our position.”

“Watch,” director Evans said, extending a skinny finger toward the unfolding scene.

Less than a minute passed before the two contacts merged. Shortly thereafter, the transmissions from Yuki’s drone halted. She knew in her heart its first spying mission had been its last.

Director Evans placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Your device served well. We got at least a third of the data. All the basic readings, plus a fair amount of sound and imagery. There will be no video, but we can do a lot without it. Would you like to move into the analysis module to go over the upload?”

She looked up at him unhappily, but she nodded after a short hesitation. She wanted to see what her creation had dredged up. She hoped it was something good, as bringing the B-6 to Lab 126 had cost the probe its existence.

“Let’s go,” he said, and she followed him out.

The brighter light of dawn was just lighting up the sky. Nights were dimmer, days were brighter, but the light never ceased. Every window had black-out shades just so that people could sleep. All across Alaska, people had to darken their windows to simulate the nighttime hours at this time of year.

“You did quite well,” Director Evans told her.

She glanced at him. She was still upset at the loss of her drone. “Do you think it’s really gone?” she asked.

He turned to her with a gentle smile. “Yes, I’m afraid so. We’ve never gotten so close before, actually. I would guess your probe completed its mission. It swam to the point of interest, investigated for hours and wasn’t detected until the return journey.”

“What might have caught up to it? What was that?”

“We’ve seen them before. Sharks, we call them. But I doubt they have teeth. They’re much less sophisticated than your vessel. Hunter-killer drones that don’t have to worry about sneaking around or taking measurements. They detect, home in, and kill. That’s all. The region is full of them.”

“Who made them?”

“The Russians. Who else?”

Yuki shook her head. “It’s like we’re in the middle of a Cold War all over again. What brought this on?”

“We don’t know. But I personally think one of the answers lies out at the bottom of that basin. Let’s hope your probe bought us some critical intelligence.”

Together, they entered the analysis lab. Yuki had never ventured into this building before. The security here was tighter than anywhere else on the lab grounds.

The state of the place was alarming. Every table had been overturned, except for a few in the middle of the room. The power outlets appeared to have been damaged. Blackened walls surrounded each.

“Lightning?” she guessed.

“No, the ‘terrorists’ did this. They shorted out the power after bypassing the breakers. It must have been on their mission list.”

“The computers were damaged, then?”

“Yes, taken out. All of them. The servers have been replaced, but their drives are blank. Fortunately for us, everything of interest this lab ever produced was beamed up via satellite to Washington.”

Yuki felt herself becoming angry as she viewed the damage. “How can they get away with this?” she demanded. “Why aren’t we hearing about it on the news? In the old days, Kennedy or someone would have threatened war over attacks like this. Now, it’s as if it’s not even happening!”

Evans shrugged, stirring a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “National security and politics have always mixed together in odd ways. The events the government wants you to hear about, you hear about. The events they want buried often stay that way. The press is more compliant than it used to be in that regard—that’s probably the biggest change.”

Fuming, she logged into a machine and began reviewing the uploaded files. “Doesn’t look like we got any of the imagery. Not even infrared stills. But we did get readings, plenty of charts and numbers.”

When transmitting binary data from one computer to another, there was always an ordering of data sizes. Numbers and records of data took the least amount of space, which translated to less time required to transmit it. Sound and images took more. Videos were always the last to be transmitted because they were the largest files.

The numerical data consisted of temperatures, radiations levels, salinization levels and a dozen other readings. These were taken many times a second by the probe, and together they provided a good idea of what it had encountered.

“The target object appears to be resting on the bottom,” she said after studying the data for half an hour or so. “It's irregularly shaped—somewhat like a starfish in configuration. About a hundred meters wide at the narrow point and triple that at the fullest extension of these broad arms.”

“What’s it made of?”

“Organic sediment, mostly,” she said. “But that’s not accurate. All it means is that the object has been buried over years by debris.”

“How long has it been there, judging by the depth of the mud and growths?”

“Adjusting for Arctic norms, I’d say it’s at least a century old.”

Evans brought fresh coffee for both of them. Along with that, he gave her a plate of bacon and eggs. She didn’t really like that kind of heavy breakfast, but she was hungry and dug in with gusto.

“When did you leave and get this?” she asked, tapping her fork on the paper plate loaded with food.

Evans smiled. “You’ve been very focused on your work. I slipped out twenty minutes ago. You needed fuel, I could tell. The cold burns your calories faster.”

She nodded. She’d already sensed the effect. It seemed to her that she was losing weight up here just from shivering a lot.

“Is the object natural, do you think, or artificial?” Evans asked.

Yuki shook her head. “Hard to say. It’s coated in natural growth, which hides its composition. The drone did get in close and make contact, trying to chip away a sample at the end of its mission. It was unsuccessful. The underlying material must be quite dense.”

Evans nodded thoughtfully and sat back, massaging his chin. “No evidence of an oil find?”

“No. This isn’t some secret underwater drilling rig, if that’s what you were thinking. There’s quite a bit of residual radiation, however. Everything down there is glowing with it.”

“We know about that. A surge of radiation pinpointed the site for us. We’ve hunted in the region before, but we’ve never found anything. This appears to be a significant find, but it’s baffling.”

“Yeah,” Yuki said. “I don’t get it either. They aren’t drilling or mining, not that I can tell. What else would someone want down here?”

“You don’t think they’ve found a rich vein of plutonium, do you? What kind of radiation are we talking about?”

“It’s not a single mineral, as far as I can tell. The rocks and minerals in the water have been transformed into radioactive sources themselves by exposure to radiation. That’s odd in and of itself, but what I’m finding even stranger is the lack of a clear source. Something lit up this area, and it should have left a signature.”

“Let’s review,” Director Evans said. “We have a large, oddly shaped object that’s been down there for a century. Whatever it is, the Russians seem to think it’s worth killing over. Frankly, I’m bewildered.”

“Me too,” she said. “We’ll have to forward this up the chain. Maybe they’ll think of some answers.”

He gave her a wan smile. “That’s already been done. We relayed it all via satellite in real time as you worked.”

She smiled tightly. “Thanks for not telling me. I would have been nervous if I’d realized it was a live show.”

Chapter 27

Homeland Security Offices, Washington D. C.

Day

Secretary Clayworth rustled papers on her desk and tapped through a flood of emails on her tablet. She showed her teeth.

“What the fuck is going on?” she demanded.

Sandeep was startled. The woman was usually a paragon of calm and detachment.

“What happened?” he asked. “Did they hit us somewhere new?”

She looked up, and he saw the mask of calm descending over her face again. She even managed a vague smile.

“The International Space Station,” she said, “apparently, that wasn’t an accident.”

Sandeep’s brow furrowed. “You’re kidding! Are you telling me they blew up their own station? They run that thing. They practically own it. They killed their own men?”

She nodded. “That’s the word from analysis. I believe it. Something’s got them in a mood I’ve never seen before. We have to step up our plans. They might know what’s coming.”

“What is coming?” Sandeep asked.

“Nothing dramatic. Just another leap forward. That’s all.”

“In propulsion this time?”

“Yes. We’ve gotten the go-ahead.”

“They’ll figure it out. They already suspect. They have to.”

She stared at him for a moment. “It doesn’t matter. And besides, the decision is not ours to make. We’ll roll out our new discovery.”

“Who will make it this time? Blue-Sky Labs has been blown sky-high.”

“I’m very aware of that. We’re giving it to one of the Aerospace giants this time. Or maybe to that crazy Branson fellow.”

Sandeep shrugged. That choice broke with the usual protocol. The way these things had been done for years was to source a technological breakthrough using a small organization. They were much less closely watched by the media and other interested parties. When microchips had been “sourced” they’d given them to a little-known start up named Intel, for example. Polymers that allowed for the creation of soft contact lenses had been funneled to Bausch and Lomb through Lawrence Livermore labs directly, crediting the labs.

“All right,” Sandeep said. “They’ll be thrilled, I’m sure. Who wouldn’t be? But bigger companies always mean more brains and mouths. The secret might get out.”

Clayworth shook her head. “It doesn’t matter at this point. The Russians appear to know, and they’re taking matters into their own hands more and more directly. They’re openly attacking us. We can’t keep a lid on this for long. There have been too many disasters in too short a time. Once the media connects the dots and starts asking questions, someone in Washington will spill the story. It’s in their DNA.”

Sandeep nodded worriedly. The labs had always been full of science people, souls dedicated to their work and National Security. They’d had their share of leaks over the years, but compared to Washington they were monks with vows of silence.

“I’ll take care of delivering the EM-drive,” he said, standing and putting his cellphone back into his pocket.

“No,” she said. “I need you to do something else for me.”

Sandeep waited.

“Go to the desert,” she said. “Find out what they’re doing out there.”

“Don’t you mean you want to know if there’s a leak?”

“That would be helpful.”

Sandeep left. By the time he was in his car and driving, there was a ticket waiting for a flight out of Oakland. The flight itself would only take an hour and a half. The drive up into the desert would take much longer.

He could have tried to book a military flight, but that would have caused further delays and given them more warning. He’d learned long ago that visits of this nature were best performed by surprise.

The flight was relatively uneventful, and he took the time to catch up on the news broadcasts on the net. The image that the news reports formed was grim. The press was beginning to connect the dots. Even if they were doing so only for the purpose of selling more content and ratings—they were still getting closer to the truth.

The attacks in Silicon Valley and elsewhere were connected. The ISS implosion—now the lead news story—was apparently not an accident. That one still baffled Sandeep. The Russians had put so much money into that station over the years.

There were other reports surfacing as well. The news from Alaska spoke of an industrial accident up around Barrow. He doubted if they could keep the mass killings there secret for much longer.

Then there was the radiation burst in the Arctic. Sandeep didn’t follow everything Clayworth had her fingernails into, but he knew she was at least interested in that scientific anomaly. There had always been odd magnetic storms and the like in the far north. That was nothing new. What was new was the direction of the outburst, and its strength. A blast of radiation had come up from beneath the icecap, temporarily melting a hole in it, if the reports were to be believed.

Radiation bursts were supposed to come from space and hit the Earth, not the other way around. And this outburst had been brief, but extremely strong.

So strange. He could only suspect the Russians had done it. They were always playing around up there since Putin declared the mineral resources of the undersea far north to be the property of his state.

What had the Russians unleashed? And just as importantly, why had they done it?

Chapter 28

Area 51, Gamma Level

Underground

When the doors finally swung open, Dr. Linscott thought she was ready for anything. She was wrong.

There was a stony hulk in the middle of a vast chamber. Leading up to the hulk from a half-dozen directions were stainless steel walkways. Encircling it was an array of raised platforms. Computers, test equipment and power tools lay everywhere around that circle on tables that were just as surgically clean as the walkways themselves.

Jackie couldn’t stop staring. “This is what you call the Artifact?”

“Yes,” said Clark.

“What is it?”

“A treasure trove. A source of technologies that we’ve mined here for decades.”

She looked at him. He seemed to be in earnest.

“What technologies?”

“Have you heard of the microchip? Of liquid crystal displays, lithium batteries—nuclear power?”

She went back to staring at the strange oblong object. It looked like an asteroid brought down to Earth and placed in a cavernous hole to her. “Unbelievable. Where does it come from?”

“People have spent lifetimes down here trying to figure that out. Every once in a while she gives us a secret—but never the whole story.”

Jackie noticed there were people moving about. She thought she recognized one of them.

“Victor? Detective Perez?”

He paused and turned his head. A faint smile appeared, and he shifted course, coming to greet her. He was wearing a blue uniform that was more or less identical to Clark’s.

“How did you beat me into this place?” she asked him.

“Easy,” he said, giving Major Clark a nod. “I just figured out who was in charge, and I told him whatever he wanted to hear.”

Major Clark looked slightly uncomfortable. It was the first time Jackie had ever seen anything other than pleasant self-control on Clark's face. Right away, she was glad to hear Perez had figured Clark out. The detective might not have a Ph. D. in anything, but he knew people. He had perfected the art just as Clark had.

“It’s a pleasure to reunite you two,” Clark said. “Would you like to accompany us on our tour, Victor?”

Perez shook his head. “I’ve seen it all. I’ll be in the commissary. It’s lunch time—at least, that’s what my gut is telling me.”

He walked off, and Jackie stared after him for a moment. It did her a lot of good to see a friendly face in this strange environment. She made a mental note to compare observations with him later.

Clark led her to the first of the six ramps. Walking along its length, Jackie felt an uncomfortable chill. The closer they came to the rocky hulk, the colder the room was. She shivered.

“This thing is cold,” she said.

“Yes. The surface is about a hundred degrees below zero.”

She looked at him in shock. “That’s more than frozen. That's dangerous. Weren’t you going to warn me not to touch it?”

Clark eyed the looming wall of rough mottled stone that rose before them. “No one touches it. I think it’s built right into our most primitive layers—the reptilian layer, under the mammalian and the cortex. We know not to touch things like this. Animals won’t even come into this room. They go berserk.”

Jackie hoped he wasn't serious. “What is it? An asteroid? It looks like a giant hunk of icy metallic ore.”

“Close enough. The surface is a rough mass of ice and a nickel-iron composite.”

“The surface?” she asked looking at him. “Is there an interior?”

“Yes. But you won’t be seeing that for quite some time.”

Jackie felt a chill that wasn’t entirely due to the freezing mass of stone and ice that towered in front of her. Clark seemed to believe he was in complete control of her activities—and he was right.

“You said something about meeting the rest of my colleagues,” she said. “Where are they?”

“Most are in the training chambers now. But I’ll introduce you to whoever is in the cafeteria.”

She followed him away from the rock, feeling warmth again. She now realized that the chamber was quite warm as long as you weren’t near the rock. Could they be keeping it frozen on purpose? If they were, they seemed to be blasting with heaters farther away. She could feel the forced air, hot in her face, as she retreated down the walkway.

“Why freeze the thing?” she asked Clark.

He looked amused. “We’re not sure. We have theories, of course.”

She shook her head. “No, I mean why are we freezing it?”

“We’re not. It does that by itself.”

Jackie wasn’t sure what to think of that.

They walked around the circular chamber to a side exit. Beyond airtight doors was a small cafeteria. There were several people in lab coats. Others wore uniforms such as Clark and Perez.

Jackie was introduced to the group. A few stood and shook her hand. Most gave her a polite smile and a wave. She was grateful for the fact most wore nametags. She’d never been good at memorizing a dozen new names and faces at a party.

When she sat down with a fresh tray of food, Major Clark quietly joined her. So did Perez.

“Detective,” she began, then stopped herself. “I’m sorry. You have a new job now, don’t you? What’s your new title?”

Perez smiled. “Security consultant.”

She nodded. “Okay. Tell me everything.”

Perez glanced at Clark. “Why not ask him?”

“Because I know that you’ve figured out way more than you’re supposed to know about this place by now. Clark will give me the party line. I want the truth.”

Clark heard all this, of course. She wanted him to. He was still smiling, but it was a strained smile now. She could tell.

Clark didn’t say anything. He just looked at Perez expectantly.

“I’m not authorized to brief you,” Perez said.

“I’m changing that, effective immediately,” Major Clark said. “You brief her.”

Clark stood up and left calmly. Jackie watched him until he joined another conversation at a different table. She leaned across her lunch tray toward Perez.

“Well?” she demanded. “Are these people crazy or what? This rock is fantastic. It can’t be from Earth.”

“It’s not a rock, not exactly,” Perez said. “It’s a ship.”

She stared at him. “What kind of a ship is buried in a pile of icy stone?”

“As far as they know, the ship coated itself in a composite mass of material about four feet thick. If you pick away part of the exterior, it draws more similar materials to itself and freezes them back into place.”

“Why the hell would it do that?”

“Think about it. I managed to reason this through before they told me.”

She stared at him. She’d made a significant study of spacecraft—only terrestrial models, of course. She’d been an experimental engine designer until very recently. She knew all about the construction, launch and orbital placement of satellites.

An alien ship. That’s what they were saying this was, and the evidence was very near at hand. It was so fantastic, she was overwhelmed. The evidence supported the theory as far as she could see, however, so she didn’t have any objections.

“Why would these proposed aliens cover a ship with ice and rocks?” she asked after she’d gotten over her initial shock. “Could it be camouflaging itself as an asteroid or a comet?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“But why would it want to do that?”

“In nature, predators often disguise themselves to avoid detection.”

Jackie narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying whoever built this thing was probably a predator?”

“Definitely.”

“Are we sure it wasn’t just the Russians doing something weird?”

“I don’t know who built it. That’s not my job. Maybe you can figure that out.”

“If predators built it, it could be dangerous.”

Perez nodded. “The people here seem to be oblivious to any danger. It’s been here so long, dormant, that I think they’re used to it. I brought up the subject, but they aren’t interested in the concerns of someone who isn’t a science guy.”

Right then, Jackie wondered why they’d brought Perez in here at all. She liked the man, and she owed him. In fact, it gave her a great deal of satisfaction to be sitting here talking to him. If he hadn't been here, she’d have been nervous, but with Victor Perez across the table with his well-muscled arms and intelligent eyes…

She reminded herself where she was and what a fantastic discovery she was now privy to. Whether or not the Artifact was truly some kind of alien craft—something she very much doubted—it should be surrounded by people with a scientific background. She could understand having a few security people in the mix, that was part of maintaining secrecy and safety.

But why ex-Detective Perez? It didn’t really make sense to her. He had no serious credentials, other than…

She quickly reached the most obvious conclusion. It was startling and irritating at the same time. She narrowed her eyes and stared at Victor for a moment.

“You look as if you’ve had a disturbing thought,” Perez said.

“Yeah. I have.”

He looked down, then back up again. “It’s about me, isn’t it? The big question: Why the hell did they bring me here and make me a part of all this? I’m the proverbial turd in the punch bowl.”

“Damn, you’re good. I was actually envisioning a punch bowl. Are you sure you don’t read minds?”

He smiled. “That’s been my job for years now, in a way. Usually all I have to go on is a little physical evidence and a few conversations with nervous people. These science types—they think they’re different. In some ways, they are. They’re more preoccupied with abstractions. But they’re pretty weak when it comes to deception.”

She nodded. He had figured it out. She felt embarrassed. She looked down at her hands, not wanting to say what they’d both figured out aloud.

“You’re wondering if they brought me here just to make you happy. Just to get you to join up.”

“Yes,” she admitted. “I’m thinking exactly that.”

He nodded slowly and sat back in his chair. The plastic squeaked, and he crossed his legs. She admired how relaxed he always seemed to be. He was a man of action—killing that guy in the woods had proved that. But he was never tense. Intense yes, but not tense.

“That thought occurred to me when we flew out of Livermore on a helicopter together. The reality is undeniable now that I’ve seen this place. I don’t belong in an underground bunker built around some kind of spaceship.”

Jackie made an apologetic gesture with her hands. She couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t insult him.

“What’s more interesting,” he continued, “is the next thought you’re about to have.”

She stared at him. If such a statement had come from anyone else, she would have laughed, but when Victor Perez told her what her next thought was going to be, it wasn’t funny at all.

“Tell me.”

“The conclusion one must draw from this scenario is that you’re critical to this project’s success. They’ve gone to fantastic lengths to get you here, even to the point of hiring you a prospective boyfriend.”

She licked her lips quickly, feeling a hot urge to deny what he was saying. But she didn’t. She wanted to know what was really going on here as much as he did.

“You’re right,” she said. “I’ve been wondering about that all along.”

“Let’s go over it, shall we?” he asked in his perpetually mild voice. “Someone tried to kill you back in Aptos. They bombed your neighbor by mistake.”

Jackie winced at the memory but gestured for him to go on.

“They might have been trying to wreck your house and destroy your data—that part is unclear right now. But I think we can conclude that you and your data were the targets, not Mackle’s place.”

She nodded.

“Next, we find out your place of work has been attacked. Some guy shows up supposedly from Homeland Security to ‘gather’ you and bring you here. At that point, we had two groups who were very interested in you. Next, the assassins try again in the woods, shooting your computer rather than you when they have the chance.”

“Right,” she said. “That part wasn’t very flattering.”

Perez chuckled.

“That move still puzzles me,” he said. “No pro would have chosen that play. Even if he wanted to destroy your computer, he should have shot you first. That way, there would have been no way the data could escape him. He could have completed his mission at his leisure. Once you were out of the way, he could have verified your computer had the data, destroyed it—whatever he wanted.”

“Maybe he wasn’t a pro. Or maybe he wasn’t really a killer.”

Perez shrugged. “These people, whoever they are, haven’t been squeamish about killing so far.”

She had to admit he was right about that.

“Let’s continue our string of suppositions,” Perez continued. “They went to great lengths to recruit you to work here. They went as far as threats, expensive contract options—they even brought me here on the hunch that it would make you more likely to sign their contract.”

Jackie squirmed but said nothing. She’d made these conclusions as well. As Perez laid them out, they seemed increasingly obvious.

“That leaves us with two questions,” he said. “First, what makes you so damned important?”

“It must have something to do with my work on propulsion. The EM-Drive is a big advance.”

“Explain it to me.”

“All right. It’s not classified or anything, and people have been working on it for years. The EM-Drive design was first proposed as a propulsion system by Shawyer and published in 2006. Essentially, the drive uses a magnetron to produce microwaves. This energy is directed into a metallic, enclosed cone with a tapered high-Q resonant cavity with a greater area at—”

Perez’s hand went up and waved for mercy. “Perhaps I should make my requests more clear around physicists. What’s the significance of this discovery?”

“Well,” she said, smiling, “it pushes spaceships without requiring much in the way of fuel. Most drive systems essentially work by throwing stuff overboard very quickly—like chemical rocketry—and the ship is thrust forward based upon how hard and fast you push stuff out the other end.”

“The flaming tail of a rocket. Okay, go on.”

“The EM-Drive is different. It generates thrust without having to carry fuel—not very much thrust, but it is continual. Most of a rocket’s weight is fuel, you see.”

“What’s this mean in practical terms?”

“It’s dramatic when you start crunching numbers. We could reach Mars in weeks, even days, rather than taking more than a year.”

Perez nodded thoughtfully. “Is this technology proven?”

“Barely. The Chinese claimed to have duplicated it, and NASA as well. But a few prototypes that prove a concept is a far cry from a large-scale working engine.”

Perez turned his head slowly to look toward the mass of rocks and ice that sat in the middle of the chamber with them.

“I’d be willing to bet that the EM-Drive is a significant component necessary to power this thing,” he said. “That would make some sense of all this.”

Her eyes followed his. “Yes, I guess it would. The concept is simple enough. These people could figure out how to work an EM-Drive if the ship had one—if that thing is a ship.”

“Jackie,” he said, sitting back and relaxing again. “I find that truths are usually plain to see if you just reason them through. Once you know the truth, proving it is only a matter of assembling the evidence that must be there. That’s why I’ve spent so much of my time figuring out what’s actually going on. Really, it’s a lazy man’s way of getting to the bottom of things.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Now, let’s carry this forward. These government types have gone to great lengths to recruit you. We must assume, therefore, that you are crucial to their goals. Further, we must assume they’ll do just about anything to keep you here.”

Her heart was thudding in her chest. This was exactly the kind of talk her father would have given her about the government. She felt a new weight pressing upon her, and she didn’t welcome it.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Lies. Murders. Anything. The ends justify the means if people are desperate enough.”

She followed Perez’s eyes again. He was staring at Clark from a distance. The psychiatrist was tapping at a cellphone. Clark’s lunch was finished, and he sat back, seemingly engrossed.

“Victor, why are you staring at Clark now?”

“You see that phone? Phones don’t work down here.”

She glanced at Clark again. “Maybe they do for staff.”

He shook his head. “I stole one, tested it out, and slipped it back in the woman’s purse. Nothing. No bars. No wi-fi. Nothing at all.”

“Maybe he’s playing Candy Crush,” she said, smiling.

He smiled back but his eyes were serious. “I think he’s waiting for us to finish this little talk. Then he’ll begin dogging your steps again.”

“All right,” she said, sighing. “I’m crucial to this project for some reason. I can believe that with all that’s been happening. What can we do about it?”

“We can watch. We can wait,” he said. “Just the way Clark does.”

After they finished their meals, Jackie had a sudden, very disturbing thought. She shot out her hand to grab Perez’s. She leaned close and whispered in his ear.

“Victor? Are you saying all the scares we had that got us here might have been a sham? Do you think the people who blew up Mackle's house did it just to scare me? Could Sandeep possibly be involved?

“Maybe.”

“What about that guy in the woods? Did he skip shooting me because he was supposed to be herding me into working here instead of killing me?”

“Maybe.”

She let go of him and tried to control her breathing. When she turned back around to study Clark, she noticed he was watching her. His eyes were focused on her hand, which was touching Perez’s.

She almost snatched her hand away but controlled the impulse. Clark seemed to be happy about the way the two of them were interacting, and she didn’t want to make him think his plans had gone awry.

On impulse, she turned back to Victor, gave him a smile and a peck on the cheek. Then she hurried away.

Behind her, she was certain Major Clark must be watching. Perhaps still smiling. She was really beginning to hate the guy.

Chapter 29

Primorsky Scientific Center, Russia

Night

Lev Burkov and Director Norin were escorted into an underground facility. The elaborate structure above the facility was unfamiliar to Lev, but it was impressive. It seemed to be some kind of giant artificial habitat—like a terrarium of insane proportions.

The men surrounding Lev and Kira were armed. He wasn’t overly worried, however. His role in this story should shortly come to a close. He wanted, in fact, nothing more than to be free of Kira and her treachery. Rather than taking her all the way to Moscow on a plane, the authorities were welcome to have her right here, right now.

A man met them in an office surrounded by large aquariums. The aquariums were built into the walls, and they were cold. Lev could feel the cold sucking the heat from the room.

“Hello,” said the man. “I’m Dr. Statnik. If you two would please be seated.”

He indicated a pair of chairs in front of a large, stainless steel desk. Lev took a chair immediately. Kira did so more diffidently, as her hands were handcuffed behind her back.

“Thank you,” Statnik said. He eyed them both. “I’m going to need statements from both of you, but before we start with that, I thought it might help if you knew a little more about this place.”

Kira leaned forward insolently. “I know all about you and your spider’s nest, Statnik,” she said. “Let’s get on with it.”

Statnik’s eyes flashed angrily. “I’m trying to be civil, Kira. You brought all this onto yourself—and you involved the rest of the world as well! The least you can do is let me speak.”

Kira rolled her eyes and gazed at the fish. Lev said nothing. The more Kira pissed off the authorities the better, as far as he was concerned. With luck, they would assign no blame to him for the disastrous loss of their undersea facility.

“Lieutenant Burkov,” Statnik said, turning toward him. “The Russian Academy of Sciences was established in 1724, as you may know. In modern times, it has grown to encompass over five hundred institutions and fifty-five thousand scientists.”

The man said this with considerable pride, so Lev endeavored to look impressed. To his mind, the government’s money had been overly allocated to science and space since the Cold War. But he saw no reason to antagonize this man.

“I had no idea the academy was so extensive, sir,” he said politely.

“Indeed, it is. The Primorsky Scientific Center in Vladivostok is one of the most impressive institutions in the Far East Division, if I do say so myself. As the director, I’m very proud of our achievements. We were a major participant in the Mars-500 project, simulating a manned journey into space in 2011. Vladivostok now boasts, among other things, the Primorsky Oceanarium, which is the largest such facility in the world.”

Lev crossed his arms, and he felt moved to ask a question. “What exactly is an Oceanarium, sir?”

Dr. Statnik smiled indulgently. “The Oceanarium is what sits directly above this office. It’s an amazing enclosure that presents ocean habitats in a myriad of forms. It’s a giant ecosystem—or rather a grouping of different ecosystems—under one roof. It functions as both a tourist attraction and a research facility.”

“Ah, I see,” Lev said, sitting back again. He eyed the ceiling reflexively, hoping not to see any cracks or leaks.

“Yes, there is an artificial body of water above us even now,” Dr. Statnik explained. “We’re underneath the structure itself. Here, our most serious work is done. When we discovered the Artifact at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, a research facility was needed on the continent to anchor scientific efforts and exploit what was learned. The excavations here have been deep and rapid, but at last the facility is beginning to bear fruit.”

Suddenly, Statnik turned a dark eye toward Kira. “That was, up until someone saw fit to alter all our schedules and destroy three years of painstaking work!”

Kira sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “Nothing was happening up there, Statnik. You should be thanking me. Perhaps, in the near future, you will.”

Statnik turned back to Lev again. His face shifted back into that of the kindly professor. Lev was beginning to wonder if the man was schizophrenic

“I’m sorry, where was I? Yes, the Oceanarium. We’ve been taking in the data learned in the Arctic and applying it here. We’ve learned about molecular compression and physical models we can’t observe directly on Earth—not without the Artifact.”

“A waste of time,” Kira snapped. “A sick waste of time. Is the ship done yet or not?”

Statnik stared at her with an expression of mixed anger and concern. “That is a classified matter, Dr. Norin. Surely you haven’t discussed this matter with—”

“With Lev? I most certainly have. We’ve been stuck together underwater for days.”

Lev became concerned. He leaned forward and attempted a flickering smile. “Dr. Statnik, I urge you not to listen to anything this woman says about me. She’s treacherous, irrational and a consummate liar. I have no idea what ‘ship’ you two are talking about—nor do I want to learn anything about it.”

“Hmm, yes,” Statnik said. “Unfortunately, you may have to learn more about it, under the circumstances.”

Lev stared at him, unclear where he stood.

Statnik flicked his eyes up to the two guards who had quietly moved into the room to stand behind them. He nodded toward the door, and they left.

Lev could not help but consider his next move. He had choices now, should he decide to exercise extreme options. He could kill Statnik and Norin within seconds. In fact, the idea was somewhat appealing. He’d had about as much as he could stand from scientists of any stripe over the last few weeks.

He gave his head a shake to clear it of mad thoughts and sighed. “Please go on, sir,” he said. “But I would like to point out that I’m perfectly happy to leave right now. I was ordered to transport Dr. Norin to Moscow. I could leave her in your custody instead. Actually, I would think it would be an efficient move for the Kremlin, since from this location we’re conveniently close to certain Siberian prison facilities. I could name them for you.”

Statnik found this humorous, and his grin grew into a chuckle. “I like the way you think, Lieutenant. But let me finish, please.”

Resigned to the idea he wasn’t getting out of here immediately, Burkov sat back again with as much civility as he could muster.

“The ship,” Statnik said, “is a terrific advancement in science. We’re launching it very soon. We had not planned to, of course, but all our plans have been accelerated due to recent, unsanctioned actions taken by Dr. Norin.”

“And that concerns me how?” Lev asked.

“Because I plan to place you aboard the ship, Lieutenant.”

Lev stared at him. After a moment, he laughed. “Why? I’m not a cosmonaut.”

“No, but you are extremely resourceful. You survived an undersea disaster. You managed to contain Dr. Norin in the process and force her to help you escape in a submarine you weren’t qualified to pilot.”

“Yes, but—” began Lev, feeling alarmed. Was he never going to get back to Nika in St. Petersburg?

“The matter has already been decided,” Statnik said. “I’ve contacted your superiors in Moscow and made all the arrangements. You’ll be going with us.”

“With us?” Lev asked, frowning in astonishment. “Who are we talking about?”

“There are a significant number of people going. Our weight limits are quite generous due to the new propulsion systems. I’m going, and so is Dr. Norin.”

Lev looked at Kira in shock. She laughed aloud, enjoying his discomfort and surprise.

“But why?” Lev demanded. “Why am I going anywhere?”

“You can handle the cold, you can handle machines, and you can handle Dr. Norin. I would call her a mixture of both, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, but…”

“Lieutenant,” Statnik said gently. “I know this all must come as something of a shock to you. Believe me, my staff and I have been shocked since we learned of the accelerated plans. You have only yourself to blame, Dr. Norin.”

“I’m glad to be of service to the Empire,” Kira said bitterly.

Statnik and Burkov winced at her inflammatory use of the term “Empire” but said nothing.

“But I still don’t understand,” Lev said. “What kind of ship are you talking about? Where are we going?”

“We’re going into space,” Statnik said with an almost apologetic tone. “We must follow the beam the Artifact transmitted into the void. And unfortunately, we must leave immediately.”

“But…” Lev said, at a loss. “I know about the beam. The radiation was intense, and Dr. Norin said it was a signal of some kind. Why must we rush into following it? Hasn’t the Artifact been sitting down there for more than a century?”

“Indeed it has. But Dr. Norin activated it, and the signal has been noticed by our rivals. They too, know where the transmission went. We can’t take the chance they’ll beat us to our destination.”

“Our rivals? You mean the Americans?”

“Of course.”

Lev was stunned. Of all the things he might have expected to fall on his head today, a trip into space was not even on the list.

“I still—why her? Why is she going into space instead of prison?”

“Let me answer that one,” Kira said. “There’s something I never explained to you, Lev. I’m one of a very few people who can activate the Artifact. That’s why they sent me down there in the first place. That’s why I was able to get it to respond the way I did. I would suspect they’ve stolen some of the technology utilized in this ship from the Artifact.”

“All right,” Lev said, still trying to find a way out. “But why involve me? I’ve been punished enough on this mission. I’ve completed it, even though it was seemingly impossible to do so. My reward for a heroic effort is to be shot up into space?”

“Lieutenant,” Kira said in an admonishing tone. “You kidnapped a woman and surfaced a sub. Let’s not call that heroism.”

Lev ignored her. He focused on Statnik, who seemed to be making the decisions here.

“Sir, I implore you. I don’t want to spend years in space. And I don’t see how I could help you.”

“Lieutenant Burkov, I understand your confusion. If you wish to talk to your superiors in Moscow—”

“Nyet!” Lev roared. The other two froze for a moment. They sensed their danger—and they were correct in their assumptions.

Lev fought to control himself.

“I’m talking to you, sir,” he said. “Not to Moscow. You have the power to change this.”

“Lev,” Statnik said in a low voice, “my team is made up entirely of scientists. We aren’t fighters or jailors. We must take Dr. Norin with us, and she doesn’t want to go. You will serve as her keeper.”

Lev stared at the woman. “I should have snapped your neck when I had the chance,” he said, and he meant it.

Alarmed, Statnik picked up his phone. He tapped at it, then handed it to Lev, who took it reluctantly. Lev was all too familiar with the stern voice on the other end who commanded him to complete this new mission.

By the end of the meeting, he’d accepted his fate. He was a soldier, and he knew how to follow orders. He thought about killing everyone in the room, naturally, even the guards who had quietly returned to stand behind him.

But he would not do so. Not today.

Instead, he would leave the Earth and fly to God knew where while holding the leash of a madwoman he couldn’t stand.

Chapter 30

Area 51, Outer Gates

Day

Scorched brown rocks surrounded by white sand. That’s all there was out there. It was a region of outright desolation. A place with little life. Even the flies avoided it. The skies, however, were as blue as could be.

Sandeep rolled up to metal gates and presented his credentials.

“Sir?” the guard said. “You’re not on our roster for entry today.”

“No, I’m not on the published list.”

“I’ll have to call this in. You understand, I’m sure.”

“Yes, of course.” Sandeep handed the man an additional card. The card bore the name of Major Clark.

“What’s this?”

“Call the extension printed on this card, would you?”

The guard frowned, looking at it. “Yes sir.”

The armed man walked back to the booth where two others had watched the entire exchange closely.

Security had tightened over recent years as international tensions had worsened between Russia and the United States. Sandeep swiveled his head, spotting the snipers atop guard posts strung along the fence. They all looked the same, these troops. They had caps, sunglasses, and were armed with rifles. They rarely smiled, not even at one another.

After a few minutes, the guard came back and handed Sandeep a clipboard to sign. He did so and drove into the compound.

The turmoil that news of his visit had just undoubtedly ignited amused him. The people within the base who were afraid of Clayworth would be scrambling now.

He wasn’t like her, he assured himself. He was far less ruthless. He was a government man who got his work done, certainly. But he did so for national security and an archaic sense of duty. He had been born in Kashmir, India, and had immigrated with his parents to California to avoid the constant unrest in their homeland. They’d seen the United States as a rare bastion of civility and hope in a world full of neither.

Like many people from India, they’d always maintained a favorable impression of America. That was rare in the world at large these days, but not on the subcontinent. His family liked a place where a hardworking man could make a good living.

When Sandeep had grown up, he’d decided to help keep it that way. He’d seen the events of September 11th, 2001, taking them in as a warning from his own family’s past. Could the U. S. become another struggling democracy? He’d dedicated his life to making sure that didn’t happen. First, he’d joined the military and served in the Mideast. Later, he’d joined Homeland Security and climbed his way through the agent ranks to become one of Clayworth’s trusted lieutenants.

Today, however, he was less certain that his efforts were helping. After all, when working for a woman like Clayworth, who thought of nothing other than accomplishing her mission in her own way, regardless of any consequences to the society she was supposedly defending—well, it bothered him.

Clark met him in a hangar as Sandeep had known he would. It was neutral ground, part of the airbase, but also part of the elevator system that connected the upper world to the lower.

“Sandeep!” Major Clark said, throwing out a hand to clasp.

“Major Clark, it’s been too long. I can see the desert clime agrees with your disposition.”

Sandeep took the offered hand and shook it warmly. Sandeep was not fooled, but he played along. Clark had to be furious that he’d come directly to the base with no warning.

Between the various black ops facilities across the country, a rivalry had always existed. There was rarely any agreement over matters such as the allocation of resources, budgets, personnel and especially the chain of command. Unlike military organizations, where a general was a general, the field of scientific research was a battleground of ideas. Gaining and holding the attention of government officials was difficult. No one liked a government official from a new presidential administration, or a manager from another lab, telling them how to prioritize—or God forbid cancel a pet project.

Area 51 was a particularly problematic institution. The people here were top-notch, but they had a well-deserved reputation as mavericks. They operated in a gray zone between the military and the national labs. They served both entities—or neither—depending on who you talked to.

“Is there something in particular I can do for you, Sandeep?” Clark asked.

“I’m here to offer you my services. I don’t want to be in the way. If you could just show me around the Gamma level, I’ll be able to report back on your progress to the Secretary. If—”

“We send daily reports. Video reports, actually.”

Sandeep’s smile never wavered. Neither did Clark’s. “I know that. Let me be the first to apologize, Major. This is an official visit, and I’ve been charged with formulating an independent report on the Gamma Project.”

Major Clark looked strained. “I see. I haven’t received any negative remarks from Clayworth. Is there something I should know about?”

“Well…there have been certain security breaches.”

“Silicon Valley? Lab 126? I know what was in the briefing.”

Sandeep nodded seriously. “One thing we have to make sure of is that nothing like that could happen here.”

Clark laughed. It was a short, strained affair. Sandeep could not recall ever having heard the sound come out of this man before. He was always smiling warmly—but he never laughed.

“Absurdity,” Clark said. “Look at our perimeter. We’re not an outpost in the wilds to be broken into by local thugs. This encampment has defenses that could hold off a military incursion.”

“Right, well…right…” Sandeep said. “I believe Clayworth is worried about indirect threats.”

Clark’s smile slid off his face. “Terrorism? Treachery?”

“Something like that.”

“That’s my field, Sandeep. You’re saying I’m not doing my job.”

“No, no, no! Nothing like it, Major! Look, if this is an inconvenient time, if you’re not ready—”

“There’s no such time,” Clark said. “Of course I’m ready. Follow me, please.”

All pretense of friendliness had vanished from Clark’s demeanor. Sandeep was sorry to see the change, but he understood it. There was little he could do. Clark was excellent at discovering true intentions—that was why he held the post he did. Major Clark was Gamma Project’s leader, and he took his job very seriously.

Sandeep congratulated himself as he followed Clark through security. The man was a ferret—but he’d missed the scent this time. Clayworth didn’t want to know if Area 51 was secure or not. She wanted to know if the project could be advanced ahead of schedule. They had to beat the Russians into the final stages of this game.

The two passed heavy layers of security and then rode down a system of elevators in relative silence. Finally, Clark seemed to relax.

“We do have something new,” he said. “Something you could take back to Clayworth.”

“By all means, I’d love to see it!”

The elevator looked normal enough, but instead of carrying them up into a building, it had transported them deep beneath the desert. The doors opened, and a long corridor stretched out ahead of them. Odd doors with intense security systems lined the corridor. At its end was another, larger set of doors.

Sandeep approached these with trepidation. He knew the region around the doors could kill him in a dozen unique ways.

The doors opened and let them into the main chamber with the Artifact. Immediately, Sandeep could tell that today was unusual. There was a crowd near the ramps, and a group of scientists were pressing close to the ice-laden rock in the center.

“Is that safe?”

“Normally no,” Major Clark admitted. “But today, we have a surprise. I told them to step up their plans. Please follow me.”

Major Clark walked around the central pit with Sandeep in tow. He reached a set of doors that rarely opened. Applying his hand to the lock, it opened after scanning him.

Behind the door was a scared looking young girl. She had blonde hair and her small hands were wrapped up in her blouse.

“Jenna!” Major Clark said, dropping to his knees. “Are you ready? Are you ready to see the inside of a giant rock?”

Jenna eyed Clark and Sandeep. “Who’s that?” she asked, pointing at Sandeep.

“He’s a friend,” Clark said. “Now, if you could—”

“I want my daddy. Take me back to my daddy. I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

Clark’s face never faltered. He shook his head and sighed. “I’m sorry, my dear, but there’s only one way you can see your daddy again. You have to open a path for us. Come now, it will only take a minute. If you can do it, I’ll give you ice cream.”

The girl licked her lips, and looked around uncertainly. “What flavor?”

Major Clark’s smile widened. “Anything you want, my dear. We have them all.”

“I want strawberry. With chocolate syrup.”

Clark chuckled. “Then you shall have it! Come on now, help us out.”

The girl walked hesitantly down the metal ramps. A dozen people in white lab coats watched her quietly.

Throughout this display, Sandeep had remained quiet, but inwardly he’d been ashamed. He knew who this girl must be. Jenna Brandt.

He touched Clark’s arm as he went by. Clark’s face darkened.

“What is it?”

“Clark…this is the first time she’s made an attempt, isn’t it?”

Clark shrugged. He followed the girl down the ramp, and Sandeep followed him.

“There’s no guarantee that she can do it,” Sandeep pressed. “What if the ship kills her?”

“What can be done?”

“We can wait until she’s an adult. We can test her as we tested her father.”

“There’s no time for that. Your inspection proves this. The project is to be stepped up, isn’t it?”

Clark looked into Sandeep's face, and Sandeep knew that he couldn’t hide the truth from this man.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Then observe, inspector! We shall see if this project can be sped up, and then you can run back to Washington with your report written for you.”

The girl reached the end of the ramp.

“It’s big,” she said. “And very cold. Are you sure I can touch it?”

“That’s right,” Major Clark said, “it is very, very cold. As cold as space itself. And do you know what we keep inside it?”

The girl looked back at him with big blue eyes. She shook her head.

“Ice cream, of course!”

She smiled and even giggled briefly. Sandeep, watching the exchange, felt a little sick inside. Around him, the scientists looked troubled as well, but their eyes were hungry. They hadn’t been able to get access to the interior for months. Not since Captain Brandt had escaped.

Finally, the girl reached out her hand and touched the crust of ice, dust and stone—only her hand touched nothing. The camouflaging material spread away from her, revealing a dull metal layer behind.

The girl looked back toward Clark, confused. “Is that it?”

“You can do it,” Clark said. “You’ve proven it now. Just a little more. Touch that metal wall. The hull will open for you as the rock did.”

She reached out, and the metal dissolved. Sandeep, for all his doubts and worries, stood in awe. The metal was intelligent, of course. He knew that. The hull of the ship had been conditioned to open for the first person who touched it. That had been Lieutenant Colonel Harry Brandt, a man who had long since passed away. He was Brandt’s grandfather, and Jenna’s great-grandfather.

As far as they knew, the Brandt family were the only people on Earth who could open this ship’s metal walls and reveal the cool interior.

Everyone was smiling now, edging closer with excitement. Even Jenna squealed with delight as she watched the metal bubble melt away at her touch.

What she didn’t know is how many had failed in the past. To touch the icy exterior of the ship meant frostbite and permanent nerve damage. One might as well dip an appendage into liquid nitrogen. Only the fact that the ice had melted away before she touched it had saved her.

The interior metal surface, however—that was worse. While the exterior could freeze a man, he could survive that. But the metal hull was charged with electrical power. The resulting shock could instantly kill any living being that dared to make the attempt—and many had over the years.

But Jenna Brandt had the magic touch. The metal melted away before her as it had for her father and grandfather. It read her DNA and identified her as a being it trusted.

The hole in the hull widened into a crack, then spread open, transforming into a ragged doorway that resembled a shark’s mouth. The group crept forward. Major Clark didn’t go in, however, and neither did the girl. He took her hand and led her back up the ramp, against the press of excited scientists.

“Where are we going?” Jenna asked.

“I’ve just remembered, our ice cream is back in the commissary. I’m taking you to go get it.”

“Silly man,” Jenna said.

Clark smiled and patted her on the head.

Sandeep followed the two, feeling disturbed. He felt he needed to make sure Jenna was going to be safe.

Chapter 31

Area 51, Gamma Level

Underground

Jackie Linscott was worn out. She’d spent the entire day and night investigating what apparently was a spaceship.

That was shocking enough, but what had her mind reeling was the undeniable reality that the ship was not something that had been built by human hands. She’d spent much of her adult life studying terrestrial spacecraft, and she knew this was something different. The technology was too advanced—by an order of magnitude, if she had to quantify it. There were a dozen elements inside that ship she knew that no one on Earth could completely explain, much less duplicate.

She hadn’t been allowed to watch the opening ceremony. That had been restricted to fully vetted scientists. Instead, she’d been brought in after the hull was yawning wide.

She’d asked about how this had been accomplished, and the scene had been described to her. She didn’t like the sound of it. She’d seen the girl—a small, frightened little thing. Had Clark really brought the girl down the ramp to the icy wall? Was he insane? The briefest contact with something that cold—it could freeze-burn her flesh instantly, at the very least.

Jackie was surprised that no one had tried to stop them. Perhaps it was conditioning, or distraction. A similar case might be the gassing of a patient. The body knows the gas is poison. It knows it’s being put to sleep—or perhaps to death. But if the doctor speaks calmly, and a nurse is there helping you count backwards, you let it happen.

Why was that? Why had these people trusted major Clark, who she was now certain was an evil man? She herself had been manipulated into joining this project through his cunning mixture of calm reason, threat, and promised reward. It had worked on her, she realized now, the same way it had worked on little Jenna Brandt.

She had to ask herself as she stumbled around inside the low-ceilinged chambers of the ship if the day would ever come when Major Clark would talk her into risking her life. Would she do it willingly? For something equally as trivial as a snack, perhaps?

In time, the wonders within the ship helped dissolve the unease in her heart. She had to admit, it was a treasure trove. There had probably never been an Artifact more valuable, or more frightening.

“What are we doing with this thing?” she asked Clark when she came out hours later. She’d been in the lower of the two decks, in what she discovered was the propulsion section. She’d been drawn there, naturally.

“Did you enjoy your visit to wonderland?” he asked.

“Yes, intensely. But I’m as upset by it as I am filled with joy. Who built it? Why?”

“We don’t know. We have a team on that—but they’ve learned little. I can’t tell you everything we do know. You’re too new a member of our club.”

Jackie stared at him for a moment. “You’ve been leading this project for years, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Clark admitted.

She nodded slowly. “How long has this gone on? How many years have we had this thing down here?”

“I guess I can tell you that much. It was discovered after World War II. At first, no one knew what to make of it. The ship killed most of the initial investigators—except for one man. He was Jenna’s great-grandfather.”

“And he—he opened the ship? The way the girl did today?”

“Exactly. He touched it first, and we think it imprinted upon him. Everyone else who tries to touch it now is frostbitten or shocked to death. There have been horrible experiments with animals and corpses—nothing ever worked. We’re stuck with the family who found it first. Fortunately, the first two generations were willing accomplices. Unfortunately, our technology was so much less advanced then. We’ve been studying this thing for years, and we’ve learned so much—but there always seems to be more to discover.”

“But, the girl—you said there are other generations. Why her?”

Clark made a dismissive wave of his hand. “Old men die. Others decide they don’t want to spend their lives down here. Right now, we’re lucky to have her. Without her, we’d be shut out. Can you imagine such a tragedy? It would be like owning a lovely car, but having no keys to drive it.”

Jackie looked at him suddenly. “Keys,” she said as if in a dream. “Can we fly it?”

Clark’s smile grew. He leaned closer. “That’s up to you. That’s why you’re here. We think we can control the navigation systems. We think we can get the generators operating. But to make the drive work—we’ve only just realized how it operates.”

“An EM-Drive,” Jackie said quietly. “An EM-Drive of the kind we might be able to build ourselves in a thousand years.”

Clark shook his head. “No. Not a thousand. Less than a hundred—a decade, if we’re lucky. If you can figure it out for us.”

Jackie sat back, overwhelmed. She stared at Clark, seeing him in a new light. He was a devil, that was certain. But he was a devil with a purpose. He wanted humanity to advance ahead of itself. To learn secrets now that should take thousands of years to figure out.

“Who are they, Clark?” she asked again. “The aliens. Who are they, and where are they? Do you have them here somewhere, in a cage?”

“I wish we did,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “They fell to Earth here over a century ago. We didn’t even locate the site until forty years later. There were no aliens to be found.”

She almost believed him, but she wasn’t sure. She now knew he was the best liar she’d ever met in her life.

“But really,” he said, gazing back at her, “it doesn’t matter who they are or what they look like. They have tech that makes us look primitive. Doesn’t that worry you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Of course it does.”

“It worries me as well. That’s why we must dissect this ship. Already, she’s given us a dozen hints that have turned into things the world would never have seen without it. You have a computer in your pocket called a smart phone. Much of the magic that makes that wonderful technology operate we owe to this ship.”

Jackie nodded, thinking hard. She could see it—like a ribbon of history laid out before her. The find had accelerated the last century. After the Industrial Revolution, where technology had largely focused upon England and Europe, advancements had shifted to the United States.

Why? Because we had the ship, of course.

The revelation was staggering. Could it be true? Could America have been cheating on her homework all these long decades?

More important was the question of the aliens themselves. They’d come here once, and that meant they could do it again. Any day, any hour. America had to be ready. We had to learn, and we had to learn fast.

“We’re like some kind of aboriginal species,” she said. “A native form of primitive life. We’ll be at their mercy if they come in strength.”

“That presupposes many unknowns,” Clark cautioned her. “They might not be warlike, after all. They might be peaceful. Or, with luck, they might have all died out on their own world. We simply don’t know.”

“No,” she agreed. “But we can’t take chances with all of humanity.”

He nodded his head slowly, gravely. “That’s right. Now, perhaps, you understand me as few do. You can see the big picture, can’t you? I’m impressed. The stakes are so high that we must do things we might find questionable in order to survive as a species.”

Internally, Jackie was torn. She’d never believed in big government. She’d never liked government at all. But this was different. This was a real threat. Her natural philosophy was at war within her against the forces of pragmatism.

She looked at Clark sharply. He was watching her, saying nothing. How many of her internal thoughts were known to this cagey man? Maybe everything. She couldn’t be the first one who’d been seeded with these thoughts, who’d been led down this path. It made her uncomfortable, but she couldn’t find a way to escape Clark’s logic.

“Does might make right, Clark? In a case like this, I mean?”

Clark leaned forward and cocked his head. “I have another, infinitely more valid question for you, Dr. Linscott. Do you want to be alive, or dead? Do you want to enjoy freedom? Or would you prefer the servile station of a creature on a factory farm?”

Jackie leaned back and sighed. She couldn’t answer him.

But the next day, she went back into the ship when the little girl opened it. While Jenna Brandt ate her ice cream—chocolate today, with sprinkles—Dr. Linscott labored all day long inside the alien ship, searching for a way to control the engine embedded in the belly of it.

Chapter 32

Nevada Desert

Afternoon

Brandt hadn’t had an easy time of it. Crossing the nation, avoiding capture and gathering the equipment he needed had taken over a week. But today, standing in the shade of a rocky cliff face in camo gear, he thought he was finally ready to make his play.

He didn’t want to go in, and not only because it would be difficult and possibly deadly. He didn’t want to go in because there was a very definite chance he’d be captured.

That’s what they wanted. He knew that. Why kidnap the daughter and not even bother to taunt him? Why not offer him a deal or present him with threats?

Clark had seen fit to do neither. He’d ignored Brandt’s attempts to communicate through both the web and the agent cellphones that Brandt had obtained. There’d been no dialog, nothing. Just dead air.

Clark held all the cards, and he knew it. He had Brandt’s kid. She wouldn’t be as good at opening up the ship’s guts to them, but she’d probably be able to at least get the main hatch to yawn and stretch. That would be good enough for now.

If Brandt never came in—well, they’d just keep his daughter for good. Maybe that would be okay with Clark. After all, that’s what Brandt’s father had done long ago, buying his partial freedom at the cost of imprisoning his son.

Brandt couldn’t do that to Jenna. He knew she’d have food and shelter, but no real freedom. And she probably wouldn’t rebel against the arrangement until she hit about sixteen. Ten years of velvet imprisonment. After that, they’d keep her in chains if they had to.

Clark would have said it was for a good cause. That sometimes, bad things happened to good people. That the greater good was served by the sacrifices of the few.

It was nice talk, but Brandt didn’t buy it. Jenna hadn’t signed any papers. Hell, his whole family hadn’t agreed to this when they’d first investigated the damned crash site.

That left Brandt out in the desert, hiding from the drones, the infrared sensors and the scopes. He only investigated the site in the day so his heat signature wouldn’t stand out against the hot rocks. At night, he’d be easier for the sentry machines to spot.

He waited an hour, then another. During that time, he barely moved. He watched the comings and goings of rare ground traffic and the occasional aircraft. He was waiting for something he could use.

At around six in the evening, about when he knew he had to quit and retreat, he finally saw what he was looking for: a familiar face.

Compressing his scope and slipping backwards away from the cliff, he spider-climbed to an alcove among the cliffs. A stolen pickup waited there for him. It had no license plates and not much paint on it, either. But it had served him well.

Slamming the driver’s door, he punched the big motor and made it roar. Bouncing on huge tires, the 4x4 picked up speed, following a dried-up streambed. He had to make good time. This was it—possibly his only chance for weeks.

When he reached the highway, he left the truck and raced out onto the road. This was a tricky moment. If there had been a lot of other cars around, he’d be in trouble. Someone might have stopped to see what was happening, thereby blowing his plan.

He checked the trap, seeing it was still ready. Retreating from the road, he waited.

Six cars passed before his quarry showed up. He’d begun to despair by then. He’d wondered if he'd come too late.

But no, there it was. A silver rental car, as inconspicuous as they came. Brandt popped the trap, and the target vehicle’s tires popped a moment later.

The car swerved, screeching. It went off into the gravel, throwing up a whirling cloud of dust and rocks.

“Don’t flip it,” Brandt said aloud, running after the car.

The driver wasn’t a complete idiot. He managed to control the vehicle and bring it to a dusty stop. Brandt ran up to the window just as the driver was climbing out.

The driver drew his gun, but he never got it in line with Brandt’s body. One kick sent it flying. Coughing, the driver threw a few game punches, but Brandt put him down pretty easily.

“You’re slacking, Sandeep,” Brandt said, looming over the fallen man and pressing his pistol into his chest. “Are you hurt?”

“You knocked the wind out of me,” Sandeep said. “This is my second wreck this week.”

“Surprised to see me?”

“Not really. I’ve had the worst of luck with vagabonds and automobiles lately.”

Brandt laughed, despite his bitterness. He’d always liked Sandeep.

But, business was business and family was family. In this situation, he was more than willing to kill an old friend.

“We’ve got work to do, my man,” Brandt said. “Up and at ‘em.”

Sandeep struggled to his feet under Brandt’s careful supervision. The two men were soon hard at work jacking up the rental car and patching tires. Darkness fell over them, turning the desert first into a purple alien landscape and then into a pitch black hole at the bottom of the proverbial well.

“What’s the plan, Brandt?”

“I’m going in for Jenna. You’re going to help me.”

Sandeep shrugged. “You can get her out any day you wish. All you have to do is trade places with her.”

Brandt shook his head. “I don’t buy it. Clark would never let her go. He’d tell me he did. He’d tell you he did too—but he’d be lying.”

Sandeep didn’t reply. There was no point, as both men knew that Brandt was probably right.

“Okay, the tires are on. What—”

Suddenly Brandt grabbed Sandeep and pushed him down.

“Drone!” he yelled.

Both men hugged the sand until the buzzing passed them by. It was high up, fortunately. It didn’t seem to be searching for them or investigating them. Whoever was piloting it was interested in something else.

Sandeep sat up, coughing. “You’ve ruined this suit. And that sand is still bloody hot. You’re as rude as they come—did you know that?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Let’s go. You’re driving.”

“You can’t get back through the gates now. It’s after dark. They’ll search the car.”

“I know that. Drive.”

Sandeep looked surprised when Brandt climbed into the passenger seat and aimed a gun at him.

“Not even bothering with the trunk? Wasn’t that your plan?”

“No. Shut up and drive toward Vegas.”

Sandeep furrowed his brow, but he obeyed. After a few miles, he became furtive.

“You’re going to kill me, is that it?” he asked suddenly. “I can’t believe the ingratitude. Did you know I signed two recommendations for you to serve abroad? Despite everything, they let you do it.”

“That was before my father wanted out. It was a stupid waste of time, anyway. Every site out there in the desert, every potential Artifact—they were all fakes, local legends. None of that crap interacted with me. I wasted my whole youth.”

“Yes, but that’s not conclusive,” Sandeep pointed out. “Your family has attuned to the lander. That didn’t guarantee you could activate random material from other sites.”

Brandt shrugged. “I’m done with all that, anyway.”

“Right—can we get back to the part about you killing me?”

Brandt snorted. “I’m not killing you. Not unless you screw me. We’re going online and doing a little bit of editing. Early tomorrow, we’ll drive back to the gates and try again.”

“Even if they let you in, they won’t let you carry a weapon.”

“I don’t need a weapon.”

Sandeep finally shut up, which was fine with Brandt. He needed to think.

Chapter 33

Lab 126, Alaska

Day

Yuki Tanaka hadn’t been able to grasp it fully at first, but now she realized that her drone was lost forever. It had been days since there’d been any contact.

The data it had returned before it died was supposedly invaluable, however. At least that was what her colleagues at the lab thought.

She wasn’t so sure. Yes, the drone had found something at the bottom of the ocean. Yes, it was irregularly shaped and there was background radiation everywhere. The obvious explanation for the anomaly was a meteorite. Sure, it was very large, and the depth of growth on the surface indicated that it had hit the Earth within the last century or two, but that wasn’t altogether shocking. The Arctic had barely been explored at that time—there probably wouldn’t have been anyone up here so close to the pole to see it fall. A rocky meteor could have fallen, struck the ice, and broken through, vanishing without a trace. If that had been the case, there wouldn’t be a crater visible today. The ice would have simply frozen over again, completely erasing the point of impact.

It was a significant find, certainly, but she couldn’t see why the others were whispering so intently about it. Nor could she fathom why the Russians were willing to create an international incident over such a thing. As far as she was concerned, a sunken space rock wasn’t even worth the loss of her beloved drone, much less killing people.

But she had to admit that someone had attacked the lab.

“Dr. Tanaka?” Director Evans asked her.

She turned her face away from her work. He had a very serious look in his eye.

This was it, she thought. She’d been expecting this, and she wasn’t upset about it. In fact, she was frankly relieved. She hadn’t enjoyed her stay up here at the top of the world. Her shoulder hadn’t healed yet, her drone was gone, and she had trouble sleeping. All she could think of was gunmen lurking outside her window.

“You’re kicking me out, right?” she asked. “I can’t say that I blame you. We’ve done all the analysis, and my drone is gone, so—”

The director laughed quietly and shook his head. “We’re giving you a nice change of climate, that’s all.”

He sat down next to her and spoke in an earnest whisper. “There’s another project, you see. You’ve been selected for participation.”

No questions. No sales pitch. No choice. Yuki knew the drill.

“Great,” she said. “I never should have done my grad work for the government. Where to now? Tibet? The Sahara?”

He made an apologetic gesture with his hands. “You’re close.”

The following morning, Yuki packed her bags and flew to Las Vegas. She was told there would be someone there to meet her and take her to her final destination.

The entire affair was upsetting to her. She couldn’t understand why an aquatic drone-building oceanographer was being dragged out into a desert. Punishment? Maybe. Bureaucratic foolishness? Almost certainly.

She stopped at an airport bar on the way down to baggage claim, ordering a shot of Glen Livet. The first one burned, but it didn’t change her mood, so she had a second. That did the trick.

Smiling, she headed down the escalator to baggage claim. She hardly cared if her bags had been stolen or lost in the meantime. In fact, the way her luck was going, she expected it.

But there was an even bigger surprise waiting for her. A familiar lumpy man stood among the rolling belts and luggage.

It was Edwin. He was next to the conveyor with a stack of her suitcases. He had already placed them on a cart.

Her mouth opened and hung there. “Edwin? What—?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, looking ashamed. “Darn. I did it wrong, didn’t I? I always blow it with the ladies.”

“Ah, well…what are you doing here?”

“I’m not stalking you or anything. Don’t get that idea. I hate when people think that. I was transferred down here, same as you. Several people are coming down from Alaska. The place was pretty much wrecked, you saw.”

“Why do they want us down here?”

“You mean why do they want me, don’t you?” Edwin asked, still sounding a little defensive and hurt.

Yuki’s mind was a little foggy from the alcohol and the surprise, but she was beginning to catch on. Edwin was taking everything she said the wrong way. He was worried he’d blown it somehow. She found this endearing. She was no expert with people—far from it—but she knew Edwin was possibly even less socially adept than she was.

She reached out a hand and touched his. “Edwin, stop worrying. I’m delighted to see you. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“Oh. Okay. So you aren’t mad I’m here with your stuff?”

“No, not at all. It’s good to see a familiar face in a new town.”

His expression transformed. “That’s a relief. Okay then, I’ll drive you to your hotel.”

“Um, okay,” she said. “But can you tell me what you’re doing here?”

“Oh, like I said, I was reassigned, same as you. I asked the travel people if I could pick you up. That wasn’t a bad move, was it? I should have asked you, too—but I wanted it to be a surprise.”

She smiled. She strongly suspected he’d been worried she’d have said “no” or put him off. Surprises allowed no rebuttals.

Forcing herself to relax, she followed him out of the building. “Where’s the hotel, exactly?”

“They’ve got us a nice place here in town—the Lucky Seven. We don’t have to go out to the facility until morning. We can even play the slots if you want.”

As they walked and talked, Yuki thought about all they’d been through together. He was trying so hard to be charming and totally failing at it. The whole thing was cute.

On the way out to the rental car, she made a decision. Edwin, she thought, you’re getting lucky tonight.

After all, it had been a hell of a long time for her, too.

Chapter 34

Vladivostok, Russia

Day

The launch went as planned, but it was hours late. The ship—if one could even call it that—indeed contained alien technology. Lev couldn’t even understand how anyone thought it would fly.

But it did fly. He’d never felt such terrific G-forces. When it lifted off, there was no flame, just the roar of the passing wind. There was a humming too, and a bluish nimbus of light beneath the vehicle. But nothing like the roaring rocket-ride he’d been expecting.

“Eight seconds…” said a voice from a speaker.

The force of the engine was undeniable. His lips slid back, revealing his teeth. He couldn’t seem to control them. His heart felt as if it might burst in his chest.

He turned his head to the left, straining with the effort. Others sat in rows nearby. They didn’t look like they were enjoying the terrific forces being applied to their bodies any more than he was.

“Seven seconds…”

Lev felt sick. He knew he was going to vomit. But he held back. If these bookish science-types could do this, so could he.

“Six seconds…atmosphere breached.”

What were they counting down toward? He could barely remember. Was he losing consciousness? The Gs—it was too much.

“Three seconds…”

What had happened to five and four? Had they been skipped, or had he missed them somehow?

He tried to suck in a breath, but he couldn’t. He realized, in fact, that most of the air in his lungs had been forced out. Could they collapse? If enough force was applied, could it kill a man? What level of force was deadly? It already felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest.

“Two seconds…”

There. A little better. He could almost breathe. The force—it had weakened by half. Were they slowing down?

“One second…”

He blinked, opened his eyes again—and then it was over.

“Engine disengaged. Escape velocity attained. Emergency medical aid required in row two, seat five. Repeat…”

Lev slid his numb hand up to his belt buckle. He unsnapped it, and almost fell out of his chair to the floor.

The drop to the floor took a long, long time. He couldn’t understand it at first. Then he realized they must already be in space. Every second, they were becoming lighter as the gravity left their bodies.

The sounds of vomit met him. Gases flowed. People choked and coughed. A few wheezed.

“My ribs are broken. Can someone help?”

Lev pushed past them all. He moved to Kira’s chair. She was out cold. He ignored the rest. They were someone else’s problem. The Kremlin had charged him with keeping this woman alive.

He hated her, but he had to keep her breathing. It was a typical irony for him—typical for Russians in general, in his opinion. He understood it, and did not question it. He would follow his orders to the best of his ability.

He tapped at her face repeatedly and took her pulse. It was thready, but smoothed out quickly. Her eyes fluttered open after a short time. She looked at him in confusion for a moment, then smiled.

“Lev, dear,” she said. “I didn’t know you cared so deeply.”

He turned away and went back to his seat. Before he could do more than stretch out upon it, the captain ordered him to help with the injured.

“Lieutenant Burkov, the Gs were greater than expected. We miscalculated.”

“Really?” He couldn’t keep the slight edge of sarcasm out of his voice.

“Go up to row two—I think we’ve had a fatality.”

“Well then, you hardly need my help.”

The captain glared at him. He came close and put his face into Lev’s.

This was a mistake, as far as Lev was concerned. Proximity to another hostile male made his mind race, envisioning ways to remove the man from his presence. All of these ideas involved quick violence.

“I can see why they send you off into the ice, or the deserts. But I have a ship to run, Lieutenant,” the captain said. His breath smelled of coffee and plastic. “I need your help. Are you going to help, or are you going to be as great a pain in the ass as they told me you would?”f

Lev nodded. “I will help, if it will make this journey end faster.”

The captain seemed amused. “I can’t guarantee that. But I’d like to end my first hour without any more deaths.”

Lev grunted and climbed out of his seat again. He applied his hands to those who’d been overcome by the rough takeoff. Mostly, these were the older people. Their thin bones were too brittle. Their hearts could not pump blood to their vitals under such a tremendous downward pull.

In time, the crew was all floating in the passenger cabin, and everyone who had survived was awake. A few were still in pain and coughing blood. These were taken to the tiny medical facility below decks.

Dr. Norin worked hard to save the elderly scientists. This surprised Lev, but he didn’t remark upon it. He touched her arm when she took a break to get some water.

“You might as well tell me now,” he said. “We’re already in space.”

“Tell you what?”

“Where are we headed? Are we going to another star?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “We aren’t going fast enough. We reached escape velocity, and we’re still accelerating lightly. But we’re unlikely to travel light years at this speed. If they fire up the engine again for a long time—then we’re in trouble. But at this speed, the destination almost has to be within the Solar System.”

“What then?” Lev demanded. “The Moon?”

“No, probably not. We wouldn’t be continuing to accelerate. I’m guessing somewhere among the outer planets. Saturn, maybe. Or it could be Mars. I don’t know.”

“I thought they would have told you—or that you would have known.”

“Not me,” she said. “I’m the hated bitch that kicked them in the ass, remember? I’m the one that made this all a necessity. They sensed the signal, and now they’re following it. But as far as I know, they haven’t told anyone other than the flight crew where we’re headed.”

Lev was annoyed. He turned away from her.

“Lev? Why do you care so much where we’re going?”

“I don’t, really. I wanted to have some idea how long this trip was going to take, that’s all.”

She nodded. “Someone waiting for you back home?”

“I doubt it now—it’s been too long.”

“If she won’t wait for you, she’s not worth it anyway.”

Lev shook his head. “You and I do not think the same way.”

She smiled. “I would be the first to admit that.”

Lev left her there. He could feel her eyes staring at his back. What was her problem? Why did she treat him civilly now? He’d made his wishes very clear. She was a murderess who should have been left under the ice forever.

But somehow, even as he thought this, he felt a tiny pang of regret. He’d grown accustomed to her companionship even if she was a mad woman.

He sighed. That was his lot in life. He’d never had a relationship with a normal, nice girl. They’d all been mean and wild.

Looking at it from that perspective, Dr. Norin fit right in.

Chapter 35

Area 51, Gamma Level

Underground

Major Clark was having a hectic day even before Secretary Clayworth called him. Outwardly, few people could have detected his inner state of turmoil. He looked calm and unconcerned. His voice was slow, melodic and thoughtful—as always.

He prided himself on maintaining complete control over the visible and audible cues that most people left to chance or emotion. Rather than scowling when he was angry, he faintly smiled. He did this in place of expressing frustration as well.

His body-language only changed when he wanted to emit positive signals. This way, people tended to respond to him with a similar, positive outlook. It worked particularly well on children and scientists. Both were often infantile in regard to their emotional states, allowing themselves to be revealed in every manner possible. If they were upset, they growled and gestured wildly. If they were happy, they grinned and cooed. There were some among the scientists who never seemed happy—but these sour individuals were still sucked in by a gentle word and a prodding insistence.

There was one woman in particular, however, who’d never responded to Major Clark’s carefully orchestrated persona in the manner he hoped. Her name was Secretary Clayworth. Unfortunately, she was an important person, and she was on the phone haranguing him at this very moment.

“I have dire news,” she said. “Our satellites in a critical sector have gone dark. Not all of them, but most of them—all the ones that matter.”

“Military satellites?” Clark asked mildly.

“Yes, of course. Those hanging over Asia or which are scheduled to pass over the continent soon.”

Despite the fact she couldn’t see him, Clark maintained his mild smile as he spoke to her.

“How did they do it?” he asked.

“Unknown.”

Clark knew that she might not truly mean “unknown.” The method was probably known to someone, but they weren’t interested in relaying that information to him. He understood this and didn’t press the matter.

“The loss of satellites,” he said carefully, “when combined with the loss of the space station—it would seem to be a matter of grave concern.”

“Do you think so, Clark?” Clayworth chuckled unpleasantly. “Tell me, does this crisis excite you, or fill you with terror?”

“Neither.”

“Well then, you’re a fool. We’re blind. They could hit us at any moment.”

“No, not entirely blind,” he said calmly. “We have assets on the ground in Russia. If their ICBMs fire, we’ll know, even if we don’t have a single radar station operating.”

Clayworth hesitated. Clark knew that she had a big problem with the Russians. He suspected her mind was still locked in the first Cold War. That might not be a bad thing however, considering how today’s events were unfolding.

“That’s what the military told me,” Clayworth admitted. “But why would the Russians do such a thing if they aren’t going to attack us?”

“Let’s review the facts,” Clark suggested. “Given the nature of the attack and recent events, we can surmise the Russians are behind it—”

“Oh really?”

Clark ignored the interruption and continued in and even tone. “They wanted to blind us, and they did. There must be a purpose, but I’m at a loss to explain it.”

Clayworth sighed. “I have more information, and I think now’s the time to share it. It’s out of your clearance zone, but I’m making an executive decision in that regard. Are you willing to accept that responsibility?”

Clark felt his forehead doing something strange. It was cinching up. He found the sensation unpleasant and rubbed there, forcing it to relax again.

“I accept the elevation and the new responsibility,” he said.

“We’re not completely without eyes,” she said. “We have assets in the sky that apparently even they didn’t know about. There are a few deep probes—well, it doesn’t matter. What’s significant is that they’re reporting back with some very interesting telemetry.”

“Tell me.”

“They’ve launched, Clark.”

He froze, making no reaction outwardly, but his heart was beating faster. He couldn’t slow it, even though he tried to do so.

“They’ve launched what?” he asked, his voice still measured.

“Something big. Something unprecedented. It burst through the sound barrier in seconds. It exited the atmosphere shortly afterward. It will pass by the Moon within hours.”

Clark hesitated. He’d suspected something like this—but he’d dared to hope it wasn’t true. His mind raced with calculations. The speeds she was hinting at…they couldn’t be using conventional technology. She wasn’t talking about a chemical rocket.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“We have to follow them.”

“With what?”

“Your ship.”

He smiled in amusement. A hint of that came through in his voice, despite his best efforts. “That can’t happen. We aren’t ready. We won’t be for years—if ever.”

“Clark, we don’t have years. Are you even listening to me? The Russians have leap-frogged us. They gambled everything, stimulating that rock they found under the ice cap and goading it into shining a beacon into space. All these years we’ve been underestimating them, and they’ve stoically built up for this day, this leap to victory.”

“I don’t see how it’s possible. There must be another explanation.”

“We took the slow road—your road—but they refused to do the same. They took a chance while we played it safe. We’ve failed our country.”

Clark was silent for a few long seconds. He lowered his head and massaged his temples. He knew this was the conclusion that Clayworth wanted to reach, and so he was automatically suspicious of it. But given the evidence, he couldn’t come up with another valid scenario.

“With that data, that speed…” he said, “well, the data does tend to support your version of events.”

“I need that big brain farm of yours,” Clayworth said. “We've been storing all those sharp minds out there in the desert like bottles of fine wine in a cellar. I need all of them right now. The Russians obviously have their own ship. How they did it doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe the rock in Siberia had a core we didn’t know about. Or maybe they pulled a working propulsion system out of the other rock under the ice cap before transmitting that signal. Who cares? The time for investigation has passed. We must respond immediately.”

“Madam Secretary, I can’t argue with what you’re saying, but I’m certain that if we try to fly this ship right now, we’ll abort every project we have in motion. Decades of work—”

“Are already undone. Don’t you get it, man? They’re flying already! They’re leaving us in the dust! They’re following the signal they initiated. They’ll reach the receiver first, and they’ll capture another trove of technology. When they find another ship, or base, or ruin, or whatever the fuck is out there, they’ll use it to jump ahead of us again. It is our very cowardice—”

Despite his natural aplomb, Clark was feeling ill. He was beginning to think she was right. He was beginning to see the big picture she was seeing. It wasn’t all paranoia on her part—it couldn’t be.

“We couldn’t have known this would happen,” he said. “None of us foresaw it.”

“Yes, well, now we do know. Now is the time to change our approach. We must bravely—no, that’s wrong. The brave go first. We’re behind, so we’re desperate, not brave. We must beat them out there, Clark, and your ship is the only vehicle that can possibly do it.”

Clark heaved a huge sigh. “All right. I’ll do my best, sir.”

“Not good enough. You’ll fly. You’ll achieve. There is no best, there is no near-miss. There is only victory or defeat.”

“Can I at least ask, madam—where are we going?”

“Europa.”

“Europa…of course. I’ve got to make preparations now.”

“Godspeed, Clark. You’re going to need it.”

The line went dead.

Chapter 36

Area 51, Gamma Level

Underground

Dr. Linscott was still upset about Jenna’s role in this scientific research, but she was at a loss as to what to do about it. The way Clark was manipulating the young girl—it was slimy. When he brought her out to open the ship in the morning, she felt like she was watching a predator luring a child in a park.

So far, she’d done nothing about it. That was the worst part. She’d just let it happen.

Partly, she felt that it was because she was new. Everyone else was going along, and that made it harder to act. Then there was the ship. What a distraction! Her mind had been blanked with astonishment the first time she’d stepped inside. She’d wandered the scientific treasure trove as stunned and awed as a child herself.

It wasn’t until the following day that her regrets come creeping back into her mind. She’d dreamt of the girl and looked for her at eating times. She must not have been among the general population, because she was nowhere to be seen unless it was time for her to do her trick.

Instead of Jenna, Clark appeared at lunchtime. He seated himself across from Jackie. He had no tray, no papers or computer tablet. His fingers were laced together and his smile was fixed upon his face. He rarely blinked his eyes, but they weren’t probing and staring. They were, in fact, almost distant and glassy.

“Major Clark,” she said, “would you like to join me?”

“I believe I already have. My apologies.”

“No problem.”

“You seem troubled,” Clark said after a moment. “What’s on your mind?”

“I’m wondering what part Jenna Brandt has to play in all this.”

Clark seemed mildly surprised. “I see. She’s a critical element. A gifted girl who has an affinity with the ship.”

“But why her?”

“It runs in her family. The ship knows her and opens at her touch.”

“That’s weird. Do her parents know she’s here?”

“Yes. They definitely do.”

Jackie frowned at him for a moment. He gently smiled back. She had the feeling he wasn’t being one hundred percent truthful with her, but she couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

Major Clark restarted the stalled conversation. “What did you think of yesterday’s exploration?” he asked.

“The ship was amazing. I’ve heard rumors all my life, of course. Everyone has. But I never truly believed we had an alien ship down here. Not even when I saw the thing. My mind wouldn’t accept it until I stepped inside.”

“A natural enough response,” Clark said. “Your reaction was carefully orchestrated over the years by dedicated people.”

“What do you mean?”

His hands unclasped and slowly spread themselves out in a gesture that was almost apologetic, then he clasped them again.

“I mean that we…fabricated a cover story. When doing so, it’s best to stick as closely as possible to the truth. That way when the truth squirms and slips out of one’s grasp, you can point to the near-truth. Everyone is thereby satisfied they’ve heard a wild story, a version of reality that’s been exaggerated.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I see. The experimental aircraft. Stealth bombers, things like that.”

“Yes. All real projects. All real leaks. When a wilder story came out, it was quickly dismissed.”

“Again, I thank you for the opportunity to work on this project. I assume you want my assessment of the ship’s engines?”

Clark put up a cautioning hand. “First, let us discuss something else. You mentioned Jenna. Did you witness her opening the ship?”

Jackie froze for a moment, then looked down at her food, stabbing a bite of canned peaches. “Not the first time. She seemed cute. She also seemed to be enjoying herself. I thought the cold was too dangerous, however. I still can’t believe you let her get so close alone.”

“The ship would not harm her. What else did you notice?”

Jackie was tired of beating around the bush. “I saw you badger her, manipulate her, and work her like a puppet on a string.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“Disgusted,” she said, not quite sure why she was telling him the truth. “I felt bad. I thought the others should have intervened. If I’d been here when she approached that ship for the first time—I probably would have.”

“That’s why you weren’t here at that moment,” Clark explained. “The group suppressed their protective instincts, in part because they were in a group. They went along with something they didn’t like because the crowd allowed it. If I’d placed the girl in danger with just you and I alone, I’m sure you would have spoken up.”

She blinked and frowned, wondering if he was right. She suspected he was, and that bothered her further.

“You’re really a bastard, aren’t you?” she asked him, leaning forward over the table. “You planned all of this out.”

Clark’s smile never wavered. His clasped hands stayed closed and calm. It was almost eerie to Jackie, who’d come from a family that openly expressed their emotions when the mood took them.

“I’m a man with a great deal of responsibility, Dr. Linscott. I—”

“Are you human, Clark?” she asked suddenly. “Or are you one of the aliens off that ship? Don’t answer that, I know your type. You’re just one more weirdo who went into psychology to figure out his own problems.”

For perhaps the first time since she’d met him, Clark seemed surprised. He gave a short bark of laughter. “Two interesting theories. Sadly, no. I’m stuck here in reality with you and everyone else, Dr. Linscott. As I was saying, I have a grave responsibility to serve this nation, and I do so without reservation or apology.”

She shook her head and sat back. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I can take this place for long.”

Clark leaned forward. “You may have a chance to change your fate. If you don’t like it here, you can escape. We all can—if you are as talented as we hope you are.”

“Escape? How?”

Clark nodded toward the ship. “Make her fly, Dr. Linscott. Make her fly, and we’ll all leave this hole in the desert behind us.”

Her jaw sagged, and she stared first at Clark, then at the ship. “If that thing can fly, why haven’t you done it already?”

“Because the drive doesn’t work. The containment field—it won’t get into phase. It resonates and vibrates dangerously. We think that when it crashed, it was damaged in some way.”

Jackie’s eyes left Clark. They went to the ship and stayed there. It was magical. To her, it was a siren singing an endless song of alluring power. She’d been thinking of it all night and all morning. In the afternoon they were scheduled to enter it again. She couldn’t wait for that. Even as she’d fretted about the child and Clark and getting out of this crazy place, she’d felt thrills in her stomach at the prospect of spending another afternoon inside that cold ship.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” Clark asked.

“What makes you think I’m as easily lured and distracted as a child?”

“We all are, Dr. Linscott. One only has to know what flavor of ice cream is most effective.”

She stared at the ship. Clark was irritating and creepy, but she had to admit he had her number. Feeling self-conscious, she pointedly looked back at her plate and took a bite of her ham sandwich. She shrugged.

“What makes you think I want to fly in that deathtrap, even if I could get the engines going?”

Clark’s smile widened. She wondered if it was a real one this time. He did seem amused.

“What kind of a person blazes through school to the top of the physics department, studying every form of propulsion with an insatiable appetite? What kind of person follows up this passion with one of the few jobs in the world that continues in the same vein?”

“I don’t know. Maybe an obsessive autistic or something. I’ve been called worse.”

He shook his head slowly. “No. You aren’t into this for the joy of envisioning abstractions. You are into this for very practical reasons. You see the way of things—the way to the stars.”

She glanced at him, then back at the ship again before she could stop herself.

“We’ve had spaceflight for decades,” Clark continued, “but we’ve been stuck in a rut. Our ships don’t fly any faster than they did in the sixties. That won’t do—not for real exploration. The key to escaping this world is, and always has been, a new, faster drive.”

“What you say is self-evident. But that doesn’t mean I’ll do anything unethical to achieve my lofty goals.”

He looked her over thoughtfully. “I believe you,” he said, “and because you leave me no alternative, I’m elevating your security status.”

“Again? Why?”

“Because you need to understand what’s at stake. Because I can’t do what I have to do without your help. Frankly, I’m out of time to attempt anything subtle.”

It was uncommonly open talk from a man like Clark, and it got her attention.

He began to explain, and she listened. He told her of a new Space Race, and the more she heard of it, the more alarmed she became.

When he was finished at last, he sincerely asked for her help.

“Will you, Dr. Linscott, see this mission to the end? Will you repair my ship and get her to fly again?”

She sucked in a deep breath and let it out.

“Yeah,” she said at last. “I’ll do it. I was going to try to walk out of here, Clark. I was going to make conditions if you didn’t let me. But now—okay. I’ll help you. This is your lucky day.”

Clark’s old smile was back. “Why’s that?” he asked.

“Because I think I already know how to fix the engines.”

Clark’s smile broadened into a grin. This time the expression was a real one. Jackie was certain of it.

Chapter 37

Area 51, Main Gates

Day

Sandeep was sweating. The steering wheel under his hands was sticky and he kept shifting them to find a new dry spot.

Brandt sat next to him. The man seemed to be made of stone. He didn’t smile or banter. He didn’t scowl, threaten or rage. Somehow, his total confidence made him more unnerving. His reputation had preceded him, and he knew he was in control of the situation.

“The plan is simple,” Brandt said. “You roll up to the gate. Tell them it’s surprise-inspection time—I know you love to do that.”

Sandeep took a breath then let it out. He wasn’t sure for a moment how to play this. He could keep quiet and go along with Brandt’s scheme, but he strongly doubted it would work. They’d be stopped and details would be expected. There had never been two surprise visits back-to-back. The guards would relay their suspicions, and Clark would lock everything down. Whatever fake ID Brandt had in his possession wouldn’t check out…and then the fireworks would start.

The guards at the government facilities out here in the desert weren’t joking around. They had orders to shoot through the body of a hostage to kill the target. They would not hesitate unless someone in charge told them to, and out at the gates there were only armed troops.

On the other hand, if he refused to go along with Brandt’s flawed plan, that could also result in a dead Sandeep.

Going over it in his mind as the road ran out and the guard post came into sight, other thoughts came to Sandeep. He didn’t like Brandt’s situation. He didn’t like that his daughter was being held and used like a human tool.

“Brandt,” he said, “I’m going to level with you. This won’t work.”

“What do you mean, it won't work?”

“Because I came here yesterday. I already did this. They won’t take the story of two ‘surprise inspections’ in a row.”

Brandt nodded. “I’m glad you told me.”

“What are friends for? What are you going to do now? I would suggest retreating and rethinking the approach—”

“You misunderstand,” Brandt said. “I’m glad you told me about yesterday, but I already knew that. Here’s plan B.”

Sandeep listened, but he didn’t enjoy it.

“Why…why did you get me to tell you something you already knew?” Sandeep asked.

“I wanted to know where you stood. Cheer up, your odds of surviving this have just increased. Now, roll down that window and smile like you mean it.”

Sandeep played the part. He told the guards he’d been contacted by higher authorities and sent back to oversee a critical step in the project. He asked to talk to Clark again. Reluctantly, the guards went into the booth, staring at the two men in the car with obvious suspicion.

“You could have at least given them a smile,” Sandeep said.

“I’m in a bad mood.”

“Sir?” asked the guard, tapping on the roof of the car. “Major Clark would like to talk to you.”

Sandeep took the offered phone. “Clark?”

“Sandeep? What are you doing back here so soon?”

“There’s been a change in the plan. Clayworth asked me to come back—” he lied.

“I know about the change. She doesn’t need to watchdog my every step—you being that watchdog, Sandeep.”

Sandeep froze. He’d had no communication with Clayworth. That was a fabrication. Now there seemed to be some substance in this plan. Could Brandt have known about it? Or was it a coincidence?

He turned to glance at Brandt. The guard watched them both closely, his face almost inside the car with them.

Sandeep ignored the nosy guard and put his hand over the phone. “He’s talked to Clayworth,” he told Brandt, trying to stay calm.

“Good. Tell him we’ll be right there.”

Sandeep turned back to the phone. “I’m aware of the change in the situation. I have an assistant with me from Homeland.”

“You’re overstepping the authority of your office, Sandeep,” Clark said. “Give the phone back to the guard.”

Sandeep was amazed at Clark’s attitude. He seemed mildly annoyed, which coming from Clark was akin to a homicidal frenzy.

Sandeep returned the phone to the guard, and tried to look calm. He knew Brandt’s gun was out of sight, but ready to fire just in case they asked for an inspection.

The guard took their IDs, ran them through and handed them back. Sandeep was surprised that Brandt’s ID as a Homeland agent had passed the database. He must have an excellent man making him fake papers and fake online records. If he survived the day, he’d have to look into the security breach personally.

“Sorry about the delay, sir,” the guard said. “You’re all clear. Head on in.”

Sandeep let his foot off the brake and rolled into the compound serenely.

“Told you it would work,” Brandt said.

“You’ll never get past the interior security lines. They use iris scans, thumbprints—you can’t fool these things.”

Brandt’s face was stone. “Let me worry about that.”

“They’ll disarm you at the gate.”

“I don’t need a gun. I don’t need to make a fuss here, either. I just want my daughter back. You can understand that, can’t you?”

Sandeep looked at him, frowning, then heaved another sigh. He could understand Brandt, which was yet another problem nagging at him. The man was on a suicide mission, and Sandeep was involved now.

At this point, he wasn’t entirely sure how he wanted this to end.

Chapter 38

Area 51, Gamma Level

Underground

Brandt left his gun in the car and followed Sandeep into the hangar at a leisurely pace.

Brandt knew this place, and he hated it. He’d spent much of his childhood here. His father had bargained to get him out—but then changed his mind later. That’s when Brandt had begun to get orders to come back here and gone AWOL.

He’d known the score from the start. His father had changed his mind—that was his only explanation. Maybe he’d gotten old and wanted to retire. Whatever. Brandt had Jenna to take care of, and he had never wanted to chance coming near this place again. He’d dropped off the grid to become invisible to these people.

Recently, they’d been coming after him non-stop. Small teams of agents that were smiling and cajoling at first. When he’d rejected their offered bribes and refused to talk to his father on the phone, they’d become more aggressive. Brandt had done his best to vanish, but somehow, they kept finding him.

Now they’d grabbed Jenna, and he was walking right into their lair. There was a good chance he’d been recognized by the AI behind the cameras already. But it didn’t matter. This whole thing was coming to a conclusion today—one way or another.

The elevator opened. Unexpectedly, Clark himself greeted them. His eyes shifted from Sandeep to Brandt and back again.

“Welcome gentlemen,” he said. “If you would follow me, I’ll escort you down.”

Sandeep froze. His eyes slid to watch Brandt. He looked as if he expected all hell to break loose.

Brandt smiled tightly. “Don’t worry, Sandeep. I’m not going to do anything crazy. I’m glad you came to see us in person, Clark. Someone obviously recognized me.”

Clark nodded.

“No guards?” Brandt asked. “Have I lost my mystique?”

“Far from it,” Clark said. “This way, please.”

Clark stepped into the elevator first. Brandt followed. The two men looked expectantly at Sandeep.

“Well, if you two have this matter in hand—” the agent began turning away.

“Come along, Sandeep,” Clark said in an uncompromising tone.

Regretfully, Sandeep followed them into the elevator, and the three of them rode down into the earth.

The moment the elevator was in motion, Brandt put Sandeep down first. It was almost too easy—an elbow to the face, a cracking blow to the temple. Sandeep sagged against the elevator wall and slid to the floor. For the first time in a long while, Brandt felt a pang of regret. The man would recover, but he knew that he’d just attacked the only ally he’d had since Old Bill had been shot.

“Was that display entirely necessary?” Clark asked in a flat voice.

Brandt turned, knees bent and arms raised in an aggressive stance. “I didn’t want him to make a move on me. I want this to stay one-on-one.”

“You broke his nose, if I’m not mistaken,” Clark chided.

“You’re the coldest fish in the sea, Clark. Always in control. But you’re not in control today. I want to talk to you.”

“By all means.”

The elevator doors dinged and slid open. Neither of them stepped off. Brandt looked down the long corridor. Gamma level. He hadn’t been here in years. They knew he was coming, that was obvious. There wasn’t a soul in sight, just those damned roving cameras.

“I’m here to make a deal,” Brandt said. “My life for my daughter’s.”

“Is that all? You could have done that with a phone call.”

“I’ve found that deals are best done by surprise, not while I wait in some public place twiddling my thumbs.”

“Do you really think you’re in control of this situation?”

“I could kill you right now. Before anyone else can move.”

Even as he said this, Brandt noticed that the elevator doors leading into the long corridor remained open. The elevator wasn’t closing again. There were no sounds of habitation down here. Nothing at all.

Clark shook his head. “I can’t do it, Brandt,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean you can’t do it? You held my father here for years—you still have him for all I know.”

“No, he’s escaped us.”

Brandt was stunned. “Escaped? What about all those phone calls asking for my return?”

“I’ll explain that in time. Let’s get through the crisis of the moment, shall we?”

“If you’re refusing my deal, I’m going to have to kill you. Do you get that Clark?”

Brandt grabbed Clark in one swift move. He half-expected a sniper’s bullet to pierce his flesh—but nothing happened.

“Yes,” Clark said, “I get it. Death was a risk I was willing to take when I stepped out of this elevator to greet you. Aren’t you curious as to why?”

Brandt shook the smaller man and growled in frustration.

“I have to be more useful to you than a six year old girl! I’m fully attuned. I can open that ship, every level of it. Just let her go!”

“What you say is true. If you’ll let me explain the situation, I’ll try to help you understand my actions.”

“I don’t want to understand shit,” Brandt said. “I want my daughter!”

Clark’s smile had faded slightly during the shaking and growling, but now it returned.

“That much I can do for you.”

Clark’s hand reached out of the elevator and made a beckoning gesture. The big door at the far end of the hall opened. It was the door, with all the booby traps and cameras on it.

Brandt’s heart fluttered when he saw Jenna rush forward, her hair streaming behind her.

“Daddy!”

For a horrible moment, he thought maybe they’d set off the traps. He feared they might kill her right in front of him, even if it made no sense to do so.

She ran thunderously down the long hallway to Brandt, who felt a rush of conflicting emotions.

Jenna reached the elevator and slowed down, her eyes widening. She looked down at Sandeep and then up at her father reproachfully. His fist was still wound up with a wad of Clark’s shirt.

“Why do you always have to do that, Daddy?” she scolded, sounding like her mother. She pointed at Sandeep. “Is that man dead? He was nice to me.”

“No, he’s fine. He’s sleeping.”

Brandt waved for her to approach, and she did, hesitating only slightly. That hesitation made him feel a guilty pang in his gut. He reached out and touched Jenna, almost unable to believe he had her.

Once Clark had exposed himself, none of Brandt's planning had gone the way he’d thought it would. He’d thought he would be met with guards. Overpowered, they’d provide his weaponry. Maybe with a few hostages—

But no. Clark had come into reach on his own, and that had somehow changed the game. Clark—the man was so damned manipulative. He’d purposefully brought Jenna into this mess. He’d known how the girl would react, and how Brandt would react in turn. He never did anything that wasn’t carefully planned and plotted.

“Let her go, Clark,” Brandt said. “I’ll wake up Sandeep and put him into his car. He can take Jenna to Vegas—”

“No, Daddy! I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“Don’t worry, Jenna,” Major Clark said soothingly. “Your daddy isn’t going anywhere.”

Brandt mashed buttons, but the elevator didn’t budge.

“I could kill you right now,” Brandt repeated. “You know that, don’t you?”

“What would be the point?”

“I’d never have to look at that insufferable smile, at the very least.”

Clark shook his head sadly. “I would let you leave. Really I would, but I can’t. Come, let’s talk about it. If you give me half an hour, I think you’ll understand.”

Brandt was breathing through his teeth now like a trapped animal. He looked down the long corridor. There, at the far end, were faces peeping out at him. Nerds in lab coats. Behind them sat the ship, misted with ice as always.

“Let me talk to my father,” he said. “He’s got to be here.”

“If you’ll only accompany me, we’ll sort that out.”

He let go of Clark’s shirt. Not killing him was difficult. Maybe one of the hardest things he’d ever done. But to beat him to death while his daughter stood at his feet, watching—she wouldn’t understand. Killing strangers with guns she comprehended, but Clark was Jenna’s friend in her eyes. Clark had had plenty of time to work his magic. By this time, she probably thought he was her best friend in the world.

Taking Jenna’s hand, he walked out of the elevator and took several steps into the corridor. His eyes crawled over the walls, looking for a way out. He didn’t see one.

“I don’t understand why you need all three of us,” Brandt said, breathing hard. “You’re a psychologist. You must understand your hold is stronger if one or two of us remain free. With luck, I’ll make a new kid for you at some point.”

Clark chuckled. “The odds of that have been factored in. But we just can’t take the chance. You’re so aggressive and difficult to track. It gives our operators fits, you know.”

“I’m so sorry for them.”

Brandt stopped walking when they got to the floor with the holes in it. “I’m not going in there, Clark. Not willingly. You’ve got my father, he can open—”

Clark sighed and shook his head. He stood on the holes—the steel holes that looked like a cheese grater to Brandt. They were deadly, and there had to be some security hack somewhere watching with trembling fingers, looking for an excuse to activate the defense systems. Clark had to know that, but he looked like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“We don’t have your father, Brandt,” Major Clark said.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s dead, Brandt.”

“What?” wailed Jenna. “Are you talking about Grandpa?”

“I’m so sorry,” Clark said to her. “I hadn’t meant to bring you this devastating news in such a callous manner.”

Brandt let go of Jenna and grabbed hold of Clark again. He squeezed the man’s throat, making him cough.

“That’s it, isn’t it? He wouldn’t do something, so you killed him? Or maybe you pushed too hard, went down into the lower compartments, forced him to—”

“No, he died of natural causes. He was in his sixties. It happens.”

“Well, you look like you’re in your fifties, so how about I kill you right here, right now?”

“I can’t stop you, but it would be a pointless act. You and Jenna can’t leave here. Not even if you kill everyone else on Gamma level.”

At these words, the gaggle of scientists who’d been gathered around gasped and backed away. All except for two of them.

One of those who stood her ground was a woman in a lab coat. She had that natural beauty that was simple yet alluring. She stepped forward and put her arms around Jenna.

“Can I take her off the grate at least?” she asked Brandt.

Brandt, somewhat at a loss, nodded. The woman gently guided Jenna back down the corridor instead of into the chamber with the ship.

Brandt didn’t trust her fully, but something in her eyes told him she was only thinking of Jenna.

Another man stepped forward, staring at him. He looked capable and relaxed.

“Don’t do anything, man,” Brandt told him.

“Wouldn’t think of it,” the man said. He gestured, making a circular motion with his forefinger as if suggesting Brandt should get on with the show.

Brandt smiled at Clark. “You’re not as loved around here as you thought.”

Clark tossed a reproachful look at the new man, who still hovered near. “Apparently not. I’m going to have to report your lack of dedication to Clayworth, Mr. Perez.”

“Oh, right,” Perez said. “I’m supposed to be security around here, aren’t I?”

Brandt sized him up. He didn’t look like much, but he also seemed extremely confident. There were other guards around, men with guns and uniforms. But Clark had waved them back, letting Brandt move freely.

“Tell me how my father died,” Brandt asked Clark.

“Of natural causes, as I said.”

“I don’t believe you. He called me several times recently. He’s—”

“No,” Clark said, “he didn’t call. That was…well, we call it an anagram.”

“Are you saying an AI called me? That a computer tried to talk me into coming back?”

“Yes. Your father has been gone for months. That’s why we had to get you back—at least one of you.”

“Can you prove this?”

“Yes. He wore an implant. We recorded everything.”

Brandt felt sickened. “A polyp? In his neck? You sick bastards. I tore mine out years ago. I can’t believe—”

“He wore it willingly. He knew his country was depending on him.”

“A death-cam, hmm?” Perez said as if talking about a cool new gadget. “Seems like everyone in this outfit has one of those.”

Brandt glanced at him again, frowning, then turned his attention back to Clark.

He wanted to kill Clark. That would have made him feel good. But Clark was right—if Clark was willing to die, it was pointless. Killing him wouldn’t help himself or Jenna. They weren’t going to get out that way.

He let go of the man at last.

Clark made no show of shaking himself or glaring. He didn’t even rub at his reddened neck. “I’m sorry for your loss, Brandt,” he said.

“Save it. Just tell me the story. And you,” he said to the woman in the white lab coat. “Could you bring Jenna along?”

The woman nodded.

“The scary part is all over honey,” he said to Jenna. “For now.”

“Let me introduce you,” Clark said. “This is Dr. Jackie Linscott. She’s new here.”

“So I gathered. She’s not one of your robots—not yet.”

“Dr. Linscott specializes in propulsion. If any further violent urges overtake you, please don’t indulge yourself upon her person. I need her more than anyone else on this project, with the exception of you and your daughter.”

“That’s right,” Perez said, falling into step behind them as Clark led the way to his offices. “Take your rages out on me, big guy. I’m expendable.”

Brandt turned an uncertain eye back toward Perez. “I may take you up on that someday.”

Dr. Linscott sighed loudly. “All three of you are upsetting Jenna and having a pointless pissing contest. Here’s the score as I understand it, Brandt. That’s your name, right?”

Brandt nodded, bemused.

“The situation is fairly clear to me. I’m new, so I might get a few things wrong, but Clark can fill in the blanks. You, your father and your daughter all have the power to open up the hatches in that ship. Presumably, this is because it imprinted on your family DNA years ago when your grandfather helped find it.”

Brandt didn’t look happy, but he nodded again.

“Things have changed with the Russians,” Dr. Linscott said. “They took out all our eyes in the sky—even the ISS is gone. They did it so we wouldn’t see them launching a ship. That ship is flying with technology they had to have gotten from a wreck like this one—”

“If I may interrupt, Dr. Linscott,” Clark said.

They all looked at him.

“First, I’m alarmed that you would discuss this with uncleared persons. That’s an explicit violation of your contract and federal law—”

“Come on, Clark. Do you want him to pull out your spleen, or do you want him to cooperate? All your manipulative games only go so far.”

Clark considered, then nodded, indicating she should proceed.

“You’ll never get out of here, anyway,” she said, looking at Brandt and Jenna. “I don’t agree with anything that’s happened to you, but I can see it from the government’s point of view. They were crazy to ever let any of you leave this facility. Now that the stakes are so much higher, they can’t risk losing either of you. After all, your father is already gone. They’d never get into the ship again, and it’s their only hope.”

“Only hope for what?” Brandt asked.

“To beat the Russians,” she said.

Brandt blinked. “Are you crazy? This thing doesn’t fly. The engine is broken or something. It has been since my father was a young man.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Dr. Linscott said. “But I think we can change that.”

Clark stayed quiet for once. Brandt eyed him coldly. He could tell the smug prick was pleased at the transformation that had overcome Brandt as he absorbed this new information.

“That’s what you meant, isn’t it?” Brandt asked him. “That’s how we’re going to escape this place? By flying out of here in a century-old wreck? You’re all crazy.”

Jenna spoke up then. “I like the ship. I think it wants to fly again, and I want to fly with it.”

Brandt wasn’t happy to hear this. He wasn’t happy at all.

“Dr. Linscott?” he asked. “Can you hold onto Jenna for me for a few minutes? I’d like a private word with Clark.”

“Sure,” she said, nodding uncertainly. She put an arm around the girl.

“Let’s have a chat, Major,” Brandt said.

Clark led the way to his office in the back.

Brandt watched Clark sidelong. Was that a tremor along his lower jawline? He hoped it was. He wanted to see the guy sweat.

Just once.

Chapter 39

Area 51, Gamma Level

Underground

Clark ushered Brandt into his office and shut the door. Somehow, Perez had snuck in as well. Brandt frowned at him, and Perez stared back blankly.

“You’re guarding him, aren’t you?” Brandt asked. “I hadn’t even figured it out until now. You’ve got to be the lowest-key, weirdest security guy I’ve ever met.”

Brandt and Clark were across the desk from one another, but Perez sat down in the farthest chair. He leaned back and crossed his legs. It was a bad position to start from, if something were to happen, but it did serve to lower tensions and make one forget he was there. Brandt shook his head and turned back to Clark who was wearing typically his insipid smile.

“All right,” Brandt said. “You got me in here. You won. But I still want my daughter out of this.”

“I can’t do it, as I said,” Clark explained. “You and your daughter are essential natural resources. Critical to national defense—even to worldwide security. I’d rather have everyone in this installation die right now than let you leave.”

Brandt huffed in frustration. He didn’t want to kill everyone—not that he thought he couldn't pull it off. It would be nice to kill Clark, at least. That would bring him some level of satisfaction. Maybe he could ask for that, as the price for his cooperation…

“I see unpleasant thoughts in your mind,” Clark said. “Let me demonstrate that I’ve dealt truthfully and openly with you.”

Clark manipulated a computer embedded into his desk. He tapped and slid his fingers over it like a pianist playing a complex piece.

A video began to play. Clark deftly spun it around so it aimed at Brandt, who looked at it suspiciously.

The video showed someone walking down a corridor. The camera was one of those point-of-view jobs—as if you were looking out of the cameraman’s eyes. A hand reached forward—an aged hand—and opened a door. The chamber and the ship were revealed.

“What kind of a—”

“All shall become clear soon,” Clark said soothingly.

Brandt kept watching. He was already beginning to suspect what this was. He didn't want to see anymore, but he couldn’t turn away, either.

The point of view was close to the head—so close. As if the camera were worn on a headband. The man faltered, made a croaking sound. The eyes blinked—

They blinked. He was looking through another man’s eyes. He knew instantly who it had to be. He couldn’t believe it.

There was a sound, someone was calling out. Hands reached out and grabbed the stricken man.

A voice spoke, a voice that Brandt knew so well. His father sounded weak. He was on the walkway leading up to the ship. People were around him, supporting him. Major Clark was among them.

The view spun around sickeningly as his father fell onto his back, staring upward. After a while, the blinking stopped. The dead eyes stared up at a frantic group of people who worked to revive him. Slowly, as the brain died and the retina stopped transmitting, everything went dark.

Brandt’s father’s last moments had been recorded and documented. This was disturbing to him. He hadn’t been close to the old man for a long time, but still—it was his father.

He tried to push all that aside and think clearly. This wasn’t the time for emotion and grief. That could come later. He had to think about Jenna. He had to care for the living.

Brandt looked at Clark. “You were there. You eased him down onto the catwalk. What happened?”

“An undetected pulmonary embolism. It went to his brain, and he didn’t make it. Sudden, painless. A tragedy for the nation.”

“Why was he trying to get to the ship?”

“We can only speculate. Perhaps he wanted to open it one last time. Maybe he thought he could get help from those working there, as it’s always a well-trafficked area.”

“I saw the look on your face, Clark. You were concerned. That’s not like you.”

Clark shrugged. “Who can watch a friend die impassively?”

“You could,” Brandt said with certainty. “My dad was your last key to the ship. Without him, your project was dead. That’s when you started searching for Jenna and me, wasn’t it? You needed us desperately. I thought that if I evaded long enough, you’d give up and back off. But you never did.”

“We couldn’t,” Clark said apologetically. “We were left with no options.”

“The voice,” Brandt said quietly. “How did you do the voice that called me on the phone after he was already dead? He must have called me a dozen times after this—more than that.”

“We have equipment. The implant had been recording for years, and we stored it all. It wasn't long before it recorded a perfect facsimile of your father's voice. Part of our research involved trying to duplicate your father’s magic touch. We thought that if we could simulate him in other ways, we could enter the ship. Alas, we failed in that endeavor, but our AI had built a profile of your father’s speech patterns, and we wrote a script for it to read to you when we left messages. During conversations, there was a live operator adlibbing the script.”

Brandt wanted to be furious, but he found his anger had burned itself out. His father’s death had changed everything. He could see that now. He wasn’t going to get out of here. The government had them, he and his daughter. They’d never let them go. They couldn’t let them go. Unless…

Brandt heaved a sigh and leaned back in his chair. “I can see the situation more clearly now. You should have come clean with me from the start, Clark. You should have told me my dad was gone and that you needed my help.”

“Would you have offered it?”

“I don't know, but I’d have been much more receptive. Some of your agents and some of my friends might still be breathing. You screwed up.”

Clark steepled his fingers. “Let me make sure I understand what you’re saying. Are you willing to work with us now? Are you willing to see this project through to the end?”

Brandt leaned forward. “All right, here’s the deal: Immunity for me. Drop all criminal charges. Make my record vanish, including with Interpol.”

“Consider it done.”

“All right. Now, let’s assume you do manage to get this rock flying. I’ll go with you, because I have to. But Jenna stays on Earth. Under no circumstances am I taking her with us.”

Clark’s smile had been edging upward for the past minute. Now, he looked quite pleased with himself.

“Done,” he said. “I would never endanger both of you in spaceflight in any case.”

Brandt actually believed him.

Clark stood up and left the room quickly, saying he had arrangements to make that could not be postponed.

Brandt watched him go. He turned to address Perez, who’d been quietly sitting and listening the whole time. “He’s telling all the guards, snipers and automated guns to stand down, I bet.”

“Probably,” Perez said. “By the way, that was well-played.”

“What do you mean?”

“Agreeing to cooperate. That was your only way to stay free.”

Brandt sneered at Perez. “What do you know about it?”

“I know about their cells. They’re pretty hard to get out of as they’re surrounded by solid rock. They’d have put you into one of them and kept using Jenna. You’d be an even better lure than ice cream, I bet. ‘Open the ship one more time, honey, and you can see your Daddy tonight.’”

Brandt glowered down the hallway after Clark. “That’s probably how it would have gone,” he admitted. “I thought seriously about killing him—you know, for the good of humanity. Do you think you could have stopped me?”

Perez shrugged. “Maybe. That is why I’m here.”

Brandt snorted and left the office. Perez followed him quietly.

Chapter 40

Las Vegas

Day

Edwin and Yuki checked out of the hotel room late. They were slightly hung-over. They’d slept in after blacking out the windows and putting into service every do-not-disturb sign and door lock they could find.

Yuki had enjoyed herself more than she’d expected. Edwin was a nerd—but he was part jock too, and he was definitely a man to be taken seriously in bed.

Edwin’s state of mind was clear for all to behold. He was smiling and whistling and joking with the hotel staff as they packed up and checked out. Yuki found it almost embarrassing. She smiled. God knew how long it had been since the poor man had been properly laid. It had been a while for her, too. She'd been so engrossed in her work that over the last couple of years, she'd hardly had time to think about dating.

After a brief lunch, they took their rental car out into the desert following 95 northward. The change in the landscape was dramatic as they drove up the highway. Las Vegas was an anomaly out here. The city was a bizarre growth of steel, light and asphalt in the midst of what was really a bleak moonscape.

They passed through Indian Springs after about an hour. Edwin pointed a finger at a sign that said “Amargosa Valley.”

“That’s where you turn off onto 373. Death Valley is just an hour away once you get there. Head south on 373, and you’ll hit the California side real quick.”

“Death Valley,” Yuki said. “I believe it. This place is a blast furnace.”

“Death Valley is the hottest spot on the planet. Regularly hits a hundred and thirty in the summer. You’re right here on Hell’s borderland, with a front row seat.”

Yuki shuddered slightly. She was from the coast. She’d never lived more than fifty miles from the ocean.

“We’ve gone from the coldest spot to the warmest,” she said. “Why can’t you and I find a nice cool forest or ocean to visit?”

Edwin chuckled and shook his head. “That’s not the way of things when you work black ops contracts for the government. They like to hide what they do in places like this, where no one will bother to look.”

“Edwin, about last night,” Yuki said after the conversation lulled.

Edwin’s hand rose up to stop her. “Don’t need to say it. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That’s the law out here.”

“No, that’s not exactly what I was going to say,” she said, frowning. “I mean—well, I don’t know what kind of relationship I want to get into right now. We might be reassigned any day to separate locations.”

Edwin didn’t look at her. “Would you prefer it that way? Apart, I mean? I might be able to arrange it.”

“No, not at all!” she said quickly. “Look, Edwin, have some confidence. We had a great time last night, and it might happen again. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t expect us to get married or anything right off.”

“Darn. Now what am I going to do with this ring?” He fished in his pocket while Yuki watched in horror.

At last, he pulled out an empty hand and chuckled.

“Gotcha!”

She slapped his shoulder and rolled her eyes.

Sometime later they pulled up to an exit with a lot of warning signs about unauthorized persons and imminent prosecutions. They took the exit, passing through gates manned by unsmiling guards, and drove on into the desert.

They traveled over an odd landscape. There was a mostly deserted town named Mercury, then a lot of craters where the government had originally set off nuclear tests.

“Plenty of radiation left over out here.” Edwin said. “They call it safe, but I’m closing the vents and speeding up if you don’t mind.”

“Be my guest.”

They left the testing area behind and traveled into near-nothingness. The land was rugged, full of rocks, hills and sand.

“Most of Nevada is federal land,” Edwin said. “Over eighty percent of it, actually. They do what they want out here. For the last few decades they’ve done a whole lot of nothing. But the old bases have been reopening and getting more active lately. Area 51 is said to be pretty much hopping with newly hired contractors.”

“Makes me wonder what’s going on.”

“Me too.”

After a long drive, they reached the base and were allowed through after even more intense scrutiny.

“Man, these guys are serious,” Edwin said.

They were hustled out of the car, separated and searched. The guards ran mirrors under the car, circled it with dogs several times and demanded fingerprints from both of them.

“Are they always like this?” Yuki asked in a whisper.

Edwin finished signing yet another statement swearing to his harmless state of body and mind, then turned to her. “I haven’t worked this site before, but when I told one of the guards we were down from Barrow, he told me they had an ‘incident’ of their own here earlier today.”

Yuki’s heart began to race. She felt a little sick. It was just nerves, she told herself. How could terrorists, or whatever they were, get all the way down here?

“Is the country under some kind of attack?” she asked Edwin.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s either that, or we’re a pair of the unluckiest sad-sacks ever born.”

Inside the hangar, they were met by a strange man who introduced himself as Major Clark. Yuki noticed that he was a pretentious man with a precise manner of speaking.

On the way down to what he called Gamma level, he apologized to them for any inconveniences they may have suffered getting to this place.

Clark ushered them into a pair of separate rooms. The doors clicked shut, and Yuki knew right away that something was wrong.

She couldn’t hear the outside world anymore. It was as if Clark and Edwin were a thousand miles away. She knew instantly that if she couldn’t hear them, they couldn’t hear her.

She rushed to the door, finding it locked. She hammered on it, howling for Edwin, but he couldn’t hear her. That friendly lump had missed this one. She could see him through the portal-like window. He was walking away, chatting in his folksy way with Clark. She watched his lips move, but couldn’t hear a word. He didn’t look back.

She watched as he was walked into his own cell on the opposite side of the long corridor and ushered inside by that phony, Clark. The door shut, and it didn’t open again.

Clark turned away and walked toward the big doors at the end of the corridor calmly, as if this was all part of his daily routine.

Breathing hard, Yuki stared with wide eyes. Her breath fogged up the window. Maybe locking people in here was part of Major Clark’s routine.

What the hell had she gotten herself into now?

Chapter 41

Area 51, Gamma Level

Underground

Jackie was stressing. The rest of the team had already knocked off for the night—but not her. Until recently, she’d been a scientist working in industry, which wasn’t an easy, low-stress job to begin with, but this was different. This was worse.

This project wasn’t a simple matter of risked profits or getting fired. Her company wasn’t going to go broke, instead her country was going to be leapfrogged by the Russians, of all people.

Throughout her professional career, the Russians had been a joke. They’d always had nukes, sure. They had an effective military, but their economy had been in shambles before the fall of Communism, and afterward it hadn’t been all that much better. They were too full of corruption and lacked the kind of unity of purpose and sense of fair play the Americans had enjoyed. That was the reason America had excelled.

At least, that’s what she’d always believed. Looking back, she saw a slightly different reality. The United States, apparently, had been cheating a little. They’d mined out advances from this ship, secrets in processing and materials that had been discovered and quietly passed on. They’d doled out these technical triumphs for decades.

Putting aside any philosophical or ethical concerns, the situation had changed drastically for her country. They could lose their spot to a hungry wolf. To a nation long spurned and left behind technologically.

The Russians were not an easy-going lot. She knew that. She’d worked with eastern euro types in her science endeavors. They were everywhere in universities across the U. S., and in technical companies. They didn’t smile when you made a mistake. At best, they stared. At worst, they sneered.

By comparison, American scientists were often boisterous and jovial. They played pranks and enjoyed their lives. They seemed, in retrospect, to be the frat-boys of science when compared to Asians and Europeans.

Jackie heaved a sigh. The free ride had apparently come to an abrupt end. Her kind had always danced rings around the grim-faced foreign engineers who did uncounted bitter hours of homework every night. But now these legions of unhappy technical people were about to rise up and take the crown from her nation.

Preventing this disaster was all up to her. The Brandts were more critical, but only because they couldn’t be replaced. The work part—that was all on her head. This ship’s engines had to function. The ship had to fly as soon as possible.

While working inside the ship, she wore a full body-suit. These suits were uncomfortable. They were heavy with insulation and lead. The ship was slightly radioactive. She got the feeling that whoever had built it didn’t mind these conditions. They must have come from a place where radiation and cold were a constant factor. That would give them an advantage in space travel, she knew. Space wasn’t much more than a cold void full of deadly flying particles.

The ship was broken down into two levels, or decks. The top deck had the control systems, such as they were, and chambers dedicated to living space. The upper chambers were roomy, perhaps ten thousand feet of open area, but the sloping walls made it difficult or even impossible to stand erect in many areas. Maybe the aliens were short, or built low to the ground.

The lower deck was different, more unpleasant. That’s where Jackie found herself stationed for long hours. Here the cold was less intense due to the equipment she found everywhere. Most of it was earthly, but there were large enclosures of metal alloy that housed the machinery to drive the vessel. The enclosures looked like dome-shaped bubbles of dull gunmetal. The metal was covered in a dimpling of perforations. These puzzled Jackie.

“What are these things?” she asked one of the techs. “What purpose is there to layering metal with dimples and perforations?”

“It has a hardening effect,” answered the tech in a voice that was rather high-pitched for a male. “You may have read about it, Dr. Linscott. They call it super bainite.”

Jackie thought back over her subscription to Scientific American and the countless technical websites she regularly perused for fun.

“Yes, I think I’ve read about it,” she said. “What properties does it have? How does it work?”

“Metallurgy,” the tech said. “We’ve learned a lot on that topic from this ship over the years. This perforated alloy is fantastically strong. Essentially, it’s steel, but it’s gone through a process of countless low-temperature heatings. The result is steel that is strong without becoming brittle. The carbon crystals are much smaller, you see.”

Jackie nodded. She knew quite a bit about metallurgical processes, being an engine designer. She’d usually focused on ceramic material, but metals were always involved.

“How strong?” she asked.

The tech shrugged. “Well, it can support something like five billion pascals—double our best efforts to copy it. We can’t duplicate it, not even today.”

She ran her hands over one of the domed surfaces. The dimpling felt rough to her touch. “So it’s less than a centimeter thick, but it’s as armored as a tank.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“You ever feel bad about lifting things like this from the ship, then passing them on to industry?”

“Hell no,” said the tech. “Listen, if the Japanese or the Germans or any of the rest of them out there had this ship, they’d do the same thing. But maybe they would build an unstoppable military instead, and use it to lord it over our planet. Better us than them, I say.”

It occurred to Jackie that some might argue the U. S. had done exactly what the tech was suggesting for the last fifty-odd years, but she held her tongue.

The tech moved on, and Jackie went back to work. She didn’t want to become distracted by the wonders this ship held. She had a job to do, and she was becoming steadily more determined to do it.

Why? She had to ask herself that. It wasn’t in her nature to throw herself into a government project. These people were everything she’d always feared government might become. Clark was a manipulative force of nature, and the scientists were robotic in their focus to obey him.

Jackie knew why she wanted to make the ship fly, even before she’d asked herself the question. She had to know what was out there. From an early time in her life, she’d been fascinated by the stars and the planets which astronomers now knew swung around them in silent circles. Who lived on those planets? Who was out there, waiting to greet them?

She’d dedicated her life to working on propulsion systems. But that was only a means to an end, a way to get out there and find what was lurking. Who was living in the next star system? What unknown neighbors did humanity have?

That’s what kept her nursing coffee and working on algorithms and control units. That’s what kept her going until she couldn’t hold her eyes open. They had to figure this out.

She had to figure it out.

Chapter 42

Interplanetary space, Aboard Troika

Starlight

Lev was getting tired of the routine. He’d been aboard this ship for days—what was it, a week now? He felt like he’d rather be back wandering around on the polar icecap.

His mood improved only in the evenings, when the vodka ration was released. This was the best time of each twenty-four hour cycle of monotony. He never failed to take his entire ration and make instant use of it. Afterward, he harangued the various scientists until they gave him their rations as well.

Only after he’d consumed three full rations did he feel good again. After that, he’d sleep until awakening in a foul mood to be bored until the next “evening” began.

The scientists did little to alleviate his tedium. They were all happy enough. They were like pigs playing in mud and shit. They had measurements to take and an engine to care for. They stared at the pinpricks of light outside and marveled at their swift motion—but to Lev, they seemed to crawl by. He’d as soon watch the hands of a clock.

Everyone aboard the ship was happy—except possibly for Dr. Norin and Lev himself. He went to talk to her after having avoided her for days. He didn’t know why—the woman was a crazy bitch who might still find a way to kill them all.

“Dr. Norin,” he said one evening, after having consumed two and a half rations of alcohol. The last one he usually got off a man named Pokhis had been half-gone by the time he got his hands on it. The man had possessed the temerity to guzzle some of his ration and not hand it over to Lev. Pokhis had survived the encounter, but only because Lev was already in a pretty good mood.

“Ah, if it isn’t my drunken watchdog,” she replied without looking at him. “Sorry, I poured my ration into the toilet. Bit of a blow, I imagine.”

Lev’s good mood evaporated. This woman could always do that to him. She’d proven it on a dozen occasions. “Damn you.”

She snorted and shook her head. “You should dedicate yourself to higher pursuits, Lev,” she said.

“Such as?”

“This is a fantastic journey. Even I am engaged. Aren’t you curious what we’ll find out there under the ice?”

“Ice? What ice?”

“Europa is covered in ice, Lev. It’s rather like our polar icecap, in fact. An ocean of liquid water exists under the crust.”

“Why should there be something under the ice?”

“Well, the beam went out this way for a reason, there has to be a base or something out here. The surface would be too dangerous for anything to live on it, so most of us are assuming there will be something like our fallen starfish—a base of sorts under the ice.”

Lev frowned. He wasn’t in full command of his faculties, but he could hold his liquor. His mind could reason fairly well even when under the powerful influence of an overdose.

“Dangerous, you say? What kind of dangers? Animals or something?”

Dr. Norin laughed. He hated when she did that.

“No,” she said. “Animals—absurd! There is no air for them to breathe. And the radiation from Jupiter is intense. Anyone living on the surface would get about five hundred forty rem per day.”

“Oh,” he said. That was an intense blasting of radiation. Even he knew that five hundred rem was a fatal dose. “A man wouldn’t last more than a day out there. That explains the heavy suits.”

“Yes. Lead-lined, insulated.”

“What was that surface temperature like again?” Lev asked, taking a seat he had not been offered.

Dr. Norin frowned at him briefly but didn’t say anything about his presumption. “About negative one hundred seventy degrees centigrade.”

“Hmm, a garden spot.” The polar icecap, which Lev was far too familiar with, rarely went below negative eighty. He put his head back against the wall of the room and closed his eyes. “What’s it look like, this planet?”

“It’s not really a planet, it’s a moon,” she answered. “The fourth largest moon circling the biggest planet in the Solar System. There are sixty-six other moons around Jupiter, you know. It’s quite a busy place.”

“Didn’t know that. Jupiter is just one bright dot in the sky on Earth, when you can see it at all.”

“Lev,” she said suddenly. “Do you mind if I join you?”

His eyes snapped open. She was standing now—standing rather close to him. She lifted her squeeze-bottle ration of vodka and waggled it to show what she meant.

“I thought you’d dumped it.”

She shrugged.

He snorted.  “By all means, then!”

She drank her serving, and to his surprise, produced another bottle. He frowned at her.

“Where did that come from?” he asked suspiciously.

“Some of us drink our rations every night. A select unlucky few are talked into giving up their rations to you. I opted to save mine.”

“What? Every night? Do you mean you have…?”

She nodded, and pressed the drink into his hand.

He smiled despite himself. He knew he shouldn’t, but he drank it. He drank it all. That felt good. He’d been getting teased by a shot or three, but now he was feeling it—and it was good.

Dr. Norin sat close to him.

He looked her over appraisingly. He considered shoving her away—but didn’t. She wasn’t a bad looking woman. She was a raving bitch, of course. She’d tried to freeze him aboard the sub, and she’d callously slaughtered her own people under the ice for some incomprehensible reason. But she reasonably attractive, and he was full of good drink.

“How long is this trip going to take?” he asked her.

“Don’t you listen to any of the briefings?”

“No. There’s nothing for me to do on this ship. They dragged me along to watch you, that’s it. If my mission isn’t covered by a briefing, I sleep through it.”

“Ten weeks. Maybe eleven, as slowing down and getting into orbit might be tricky with the new engine.”

“Ten weeks? What?”

She laughed. “You already forgot what you asked me?”

“Oh—yes right. Ten weeks? Fuck. That’s a long time. I’ll be a wretch by the time we get there.”

“Ten weeks is gloriously fast, Lev,” she said. “You don’t understand. This trip should take years. The new propulsion—”

“If it had taken years, we wouldn’t have bothered to come out here at all. That would have been better. Space people—you’re all mad.”

Dr. Norin didn’t say anything. Instead, she popped open another plastic bottle. She nursed it and told him in a soft voice more than he wanted to know about their destination, Europa.

For years, the people of Earth had carefully considered Europa, a cold lonely outpost in space. The key to their fascination lay under the surface. It was the only place in the Solar System, other than Earth, which had liquid oceans. The oceans were like those under Earth’s northern pole, buried forever under thick ice which never melted. There had been endless speculation that this world could support life under the ice despite the bitter cold and the radiation. Water, liquid water—that was the major essential for life to exist.

“But,” Lev asked her, “what keeps the water warm? Why isn’t it a solid block of ice? Are there volcanoes or something down there?”

“Very thoughtful, despite your state of mind,” she said. “After a fashion, yes, there are volcanoes. Jupiter is a huge world, you see. It generates the heat that warms the heart of Europa.”

Lev frowned, taking another bottle from her hand without even thinking about it. He was still managing to focus, though it was a struggle.

“Jupiter? What? Does it function like the Sun?”

“Jupiter is thirteen hundred times the size of Earth—but no, that’s not how it works. Think about the Earth. The Moon circles our world and causes the oceans to shift, forming tides. Well, on Europa, Jupiter does the same thing. But these tides are vicious and powerful. They tear the world to the very core because Jupiter’s pull is a thousand times stronger than that of our Moon. The ground itself moves and that creates heat through friction.”

“Huh,” he said, thinking about it. “One more reason this place sounds like the cold version of Hell. What did the Vikings call it? Their Hell?”

She smiled. “They called it ‘Hel’.”

He laughed, and took in a deep breath. The simple act of breathing stung, and he knew that meant he should stop drinking. He knew this from long experience. He closed his eyes for a moment—then he felt movement, and he snapped them open again.

Kira was on top of him, straddling him. He grabbed her wrists reflexively, squeezing hard. She yelped.

His lips, moments earlier wearing a pleasant smile, curled into a snarl.

“You’ll have to work harder than that to sneak up on a Spetsnaz man,” he told her.

“Fool,” she said. “I was going to kiss you.”

He examined each of her hands for weapons, but found nothing. Unconvinced, he searched her. She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms as he ran his hands over her body, checking every pocket.

Nothing.

By this time she’d begun to get up and leave.

“Uh,” he said, releasing her. “Sorry. I didn’t expect this.”

“I can see that.”

“Are you still in the mood?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Lev reviewed his options. It had been a long, long time. He’d probably never see Nika again, even if he did live long enough to get back to Moscow by some wild chance.

“Have you got any more vodka?” he asked her.

She glared at him. “Is that all you want? Another drink?”

“I was thinking you could drink it.”

Her mouth got very small. Finally, she burst out laughing. He could not recall having heard that sound from her more than once or twice. It was rather pleasant.

“Budem zdorovy,” she said, and she produced two more plastic bottles of booze.

Lev set his aside. “You first,” he said.

“Still suspicious?”

“I would suspect my own grandmother on Christmas morning.”

She drank, and when she was done, they kissed. Soon, things progressed. Lev tried to hold back, to remain aloof, but it had been too long, and he’d consumed too much bad vodka.

They made wild, desperate love on an uncomfortable bunk. The act was further complicated by the fact they were both floating, making leverage difficult. They had to wrap their feet and hands around handholds, rather than one another.

But they managed it, and they enjoyed it, and afterward Lev knew he’d never be able to look at this she-devil in quite the manner she deserved.

Chapter 43

Area 51, Gamma Level

Underground

Brandt made his play on a Thursday in broad daylight.

He’d been planning it for two weeks. He didn’t know if it would work or not, but he thought he’d give it a shot anyway. After all, the security people all had orders by now not to kill him. They’d have to subdue him the old-fashioned way—and he wasn’t going to make that easy on them.

One of the keys to his plan was the suits they had to wear while working inside the ship. He’d insisted on opening it up every day for Jackie Linscott. She was a nice enough sort, even if she was working for his enemies.

Opening up the lower deck required a suit. Anti-radiation, anti-cold, and made of incredibly tough fabric. It was better than Kevlar—he’d tested it. One more trick these people had gleaned from the ship over the years.

“Brandt, you could open this compartment?” Jackie asked him.

His eyes were roving, watching the external cameras. They had a wireless connection that operated when the ship was open, transmitting vid data in and out. There were guards out there, but this was the shift change. The new men were due to come in over the next fifteen minutes. Four men, four targets. He watched them almost hungrily.

“Brandt?”

He looked at Jackie.

“Sorry, Dr. Linscott. What did you need?”

“Could you touch this cowl, please? I need it slid back so I can try a new fitting. I’m very hopeful about this one.”

He made an impatient gesture and walked over to her, placing his bare hand on the cowl for a moment. A dimpled surface like a giant half-egg slid back, exposing tubes and mist-producing hardware. Everything these aliens built was cold. Whoever they were, he was sure he wouldn’t like them.

“Thanks,” she said.

He mumbled a response and went back to watching the external cameras. The guards were moving slowly, and two of them were chatting on the circle that ran around the ship. Damn, why did they have to gossip today?

He’d wasted enough of his life in this chamber, studying this ship. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been an egghead like everyone else. But he wasn’t. He was a man of action. A man who’d as soon go camping as tinker with a computer. He liked hunting and fishing—he couldn’t stand labs and artificial chemical stinks.

“What are you going to try, Brandt?” Jackie asked him in a quiet voice.

His head snapped around, and he stared at her. She continued working on her alien apparatus without even looking at him.

“You don’t have to do anything drastic,” she said. “I’m pretty sure we’ll go to trials next week. Can you hold on that long?”

He bared his teeth at her. “All you want is to use me like the rest of them,” he said. “I’ve known your kind all my life. Soft voices, concerned smiles—but in the end, all you want is for me to massage some organ of this devil’s ship until it does what you want.”

Jackie licked her lips, but she didn’t look at him. “That’s not true. I want you to get out of here. But I want you to do it in a sane, reasonable fashion. Look, can you at least wait until I do this next test? It should work—really. It could all be over within a few days.”

Brandt laughed, shaking his head. “You don’t really believe that, do you? They’re not going to let you out of here. Clark, Clayworth—they own us. You’ll fly with this ship, and either do or die. Then what? Let’s say there’s another ship out there. A bigger one. One that’s newer and full of fresh tricks. What then? You think they’ll let you go back to your house on the beach? Forget it.”

Jackie eyed him now in concern. “Why would they—”

“Because no one leaves this place. Not really. Not forever. How do you think they’ve kept this a secret all these years? That requires ruthless dedication. It’s been that way since the Cold War. No one gets out completely. No one squeals to the press. If they do, they vanish.”

“How did you know about my house on the beach?” she asked in a small voice.

Brandt shrugged. “I looked you up. I had to know who I’m dealing with. I know everyone’s dossier in this pit.”

He went back to watching the cameras. The two guards who’d been chatting separated. It was almost time to move.

“Would you take me with you if I asked?”

Brandt glanced at her, hesitating. He liked her, he really did. “I would take you if I could—but I can’t. Besides, you don’t want to leave. I’ve seen your eyes. You like it down here. You belong here.”

“What about Jenna?”

“I’m getting her out.”

“How?”

Brandt got up and walked toward her with purpose. Her eyes grew wide, and she froze in place. He knew what he should do—what he had to do—but he couldn’t for some reason.

He sighed. “Can you do me a solid? Can you keep quiet for about ten minutes?”

“Yes,” she said, almost in a whisper.

“All right then,” he said, and he stalked away. “Just give me my ten. I’ll owe you one.”

“All right.”

Brandt touched the ship, he touched it low. He opened a way out that none of them knew about.

They’d been lulled, over the years, into thinking that there were only certain hatches, all on the upper level. But Brandt had spent time feeling along the walls long ago, searching every crevice to find a service hatch. It led out of the ship, underneath the belly.

He slid out and closed the hatch behind himself. It was cold here, down in the pit. There was mist everywhere, condensation caused by the ship drawing moisture from the air. They had to steam-blast the surface now and then, or the whole thing would ice over into a solid lump.

Three fast paces, and he was under a ramp. The cold was so bad down here, it hurt his face, and he could even feel it through his suit. He moved quickly, almost silently. He clambered in the undercarriage of the ramp. Speed was of the essence. Jackie could change her mind at any moment, or someone might glance down into the misty pit and spot him, sounding the alarm.

The shift change was in mid-motion when he vaulted over the ramp and caught two guards changing places at the entrance.

One pumping fist put down the man walking in—the new man. The other had his back to him, and wheeled. This guy was on the ball.

Brandt could only imagine what he saw. A wild-man in a silver suit that was laced with ice crystals and shedding white vapor.

The guard did something he wasn’t supposed to do. He fired his weapon. A ripple of automatic fire stitched across Brandt’s chest, knocking him aside.

Only the suit saved him. Shocked he realized the guard probably hadn’t recognized him. Thinking fast, Brandt went down on his face and lay still.

“Oh shit, that’s Brandt. You okay, Stevens? I think I killed Brandt. Shit.”

A hand rested on Brandt’s shoulder. He was sore, but he was still game. He reached, grabbed and twisted before the guard had time to think.

It was a crazy move to play on an armed, trained man. Brandt never would have dared it if the guy hadn’t just stated he knew who he was, and that he knew he wasn’t supposed to kill this particular madman.

Brandt struggled with the man, trading blows for perhaps eight seconds. The man’s gun got in the way, as he wasn’t supposed to use it. He tried to pistol whip Brandt with the barrel, but instead Brandt caught the strap, wound it around the man’s neck and tapped him out.

He did something then he had hoped wouldn’t be necessary. It was quick, and the man wouldn’t feel it until later. He cut off the tip of his thumb and ran with it in his pocket.

By this time, two other guards were coming, fast. Brandt squirted a burst at each man, making them duck and curse. He was armed, he could fire, and they couldn’t.

He made it to the main doors before they locked them down, and rushed through. Sirens whooped and yellow lights spun. He buttoned up his facemask, and again his suit saved him. There was gas hissing out of the holes in the floor beyond the door. They hadn’t turned on all the fireworks, but they were trying to render him unconscious with gas.

The two guards behind him folded like toys that someone had shut off. They fell onto the grate, and lay there motionless.

Brandt ran on. He touched the guard’s bloody thumb to the last cell door on the right. Jenna was inside. She ran out and hugged him.

“I knew you’d come, Dad,” she said.

“Let’s move.”

They made it as far as the elevator. Clark had something waiting for them there, something Brandt hadn’t known about.

A wire sprang up, tripping them both. The floor contacted Jenna’s flesh and Brandt’s metallic suit. A moment later thousands of volts hit each of them, and they were tazed.

Brandt struggled to rise. Jenna was out cold.

“Brandt?” called a voice behind him. A calm voice that he knew too well. “It’s time to stop this now. You’ve endangered a lot of good people today. Not the least of which are yourself and Jenna.”

Brandt turned and lifted the gun. Clark ducked away. Brandt fired a burst, which popped and sparked on the nose of the distant ship.

“You can’t get out, man,” Clark called. “We’ve disabled the guard’s biometric ID on the elevator lock. There’s no way up to the surface.”

Brandt was breathing hard. He wanted to kill someone—and Clark was topping his list right now. He picked his daughter up and stroked her head. She was coming around.

“Sorry honey,” he said gently.

“Brandt,” Clark called down the corridor. “This sort of thing has to stop. I’m not going to stand for it any longer.”

“Yeah? What are you going to do about it?”

“Imprison you. Lock you up and throw away the key.”

Brandt thought about that. He understood what it really meant. “Jenna won’t forget about me, Clark. She’ll fight you just as hard as I do.”

“Perhaps. Would you like to drop the weapon now? Come back in here, and we’ll talk about it like civilized people.”

Coldly, Brandt made a hard choice. He gently took his daughter back into her cell and laid her there. She was conscious, but woozy. He kissed her and told her to take a nap.

Then he went back into the corridor. He walked the length of it, shedding the gun as he went. It clattered on the floor.

Clark appeared at the entrance, on cue. He was smiling, the bastard.

Brandt did his best to keep his mood off his face, but he doubted he could manage it with the Major, so he looked down at the floor as he walked. Stepping into the chamber, he saw two nervous guards, Clark, and that spooky guy named Perez. Everyone else had gone into the catacombs around the ship and hidden themselves from view.

He waited until he was within reach of Clark, then offered his hand. Clark looked at it, but didn’t try to shake hands.

“I’m sensing you’re not completely—” that was as far as Clark managed to get.

Brandt snapped out a vicious hand and brought him down. He swept his foot back for a kick to the ribs—

Something hit him in the back. An odd explosion of numbness came up from his kidney area. A pressure point had been probed. His suit had saved him, but when he turned around he found Perez there in a fighting stance.

A foot came up at his face incredibly fast. Brandt took it in the cheek, rocking his head back. He was stunned but not out. He didn’t go for the foot, which was already snapping back. Instead, he lunged close, throwing his arms around the smaller man’s waist.

Blows rained on Brandt’s head, but he was still wearing a hood of tough fabric. He felt blood trickle down his back—his blood, he was pretty sure.

Brandt was in bad shape from that surprise hit and from the electricity that had jolted him earlier. He had to play for time. The one thing he didn’t want to do was let this little dynamo get out of his grasp. He had to bulldog him to the ground with sheer weight and force.

They went down and struggled there. Slowly, Brandt’s superior strength began to win the battle. He was squeezing now, crushing ribs together, making it impossible for the other man to draw in a breath.

“Stop, or I’ll have to get mean,” wheezed Perez.

Brandt knew what that meant. He lowered his head and shoved his face into the other man’s belly. He didn’t want his eyes gouged out.

Hands grabbed the two of them and hauled them up, but not apart. The guards were on them, trying to separate them. That turned out to be a mistake.

Lashing out with his heels, Brandt brought one man to the floor. The other smashed him with the butt of his rifle, but Brandt remained standing, bleeding and roaring.

“Stop it!” shouted a shrill voice. “Damn, you two are both out of your minds! This fight is pointless. Look, damn you, just turn your head for one second and look. It’s flying!”

The fingers that were digging, probing into Brandt’s hood, stopped.

“She’s right,” gasped Perez. “I give. Look.”

Brandt dared to lift up his head and throw a punch at Perez. He caught him a grazing blow on the chin.

Grinning in triumph, he raised his hand higher, ready for the knockout punch. Perez was on his back, almost out of breath, and his hands—his hands were pointing to one side.

Brandt flicked his eyes that way, just for a split second—but then they lingered. He let go of Perez and stood up, amazed.

The ship was flying. It was only about a foot off the ground, but it was actually flying.

Jackie Linscott stood beside the main hatch, pointing and waving wildly for his attention.

“You don’t have to kill each other,” she said. “I’ve got it working!”

Brandt stared. Never in his life had he believed—but there it was, floating. Undeniable proof met his eyes, and it calmed him as nothing else could have.

He turned and looked down at Clark. His neck didn't look straight. Two people were already at his side, checking him over.

“I think I heard a few of his vertebrae crack,” said Perez.

Brandt frowned, but said nothing.

Chapter 44

Area 51, Gamma Level

Underground

“How did you do it?” croaked Major Clark from the floor. He was sprawled in an awkward position. He wasn’t moving.

Jackie walked down the ramp and around the outer ring catwalk that circled the chamber. She became increasingly concerned and winced visibly at Clark’s state.

A few emergency people were working on him. She wasn’t a medical person—but it didn’t look good.

For his part, Clark was straining his eyes, staring at the ship. He seemed to be oblivious to his injuries.

Most of the rest of the crowd was equally stricken. The hovering ship—which had never before moved to the best of their knowledge, certainly not since before any of them had been born—had them all transfixed. Even Brandt and Perez were looking at it.

“Clark…” Jackie said. “Are you—are you paralyzed?”

“I’m taking great care not to move, if that’s what you mean. I’m not completely without feeling in my lower extremities, but I’m certain there’s been spinal damage. I thank you for your concern.”

Calm to the last, she thought. She looked at Brandt. She’d kind of liked his virile, tough exterior from the start, but had he gone too far? His daughter wasn’t here to see it, fortunately. Jackie had the feeling that poor little girl had seen her daddy do a lot of bad things for good causes.

“It’s really flying,” Brandt said. “I can’t believe it. I spent my whole youth waiting for this. My father gave his life for it.”

“I told you I was close.”

“I thought you were trying to slow me down. Sorry for the lack of faith, Dr. Linscott.”

Jackie knelt beside Clark. She didn’t know what to think of the man. In his view, he’d been acting patriotically. Hell, if the Russians did get a lot of advanced tech and the national economy went down hard here in the U. S., a lot of people might come to wish he’d succeeded in his quixotic quest.

EMTs scooted a board under Clark with gentle motions. They strapped him to it and immobilized his head and neck. He still wore that smile, but there were signs of pain. Droplets of perspiration ran down his forehead.

Security people who’d been summoned from the surface arrived in twos and threes. They encircled Brandt, but Clark kept cautioning them to do nothing violent. Jackie could see their eyes. They wanted to throw him down, chain him up and maybe shoot him a few times. She could hardly blame them.

What a pair these two were, she thought. Both were in the right, in their own way. Clark was a monster, but he was working for the greater good. Brandt was trying to regain his freedom, to have as normal a life as was possible for himself and his daughter.

When did the needs of the many outweigh the rights of a single family? All her life, Jackie had been someone who’d distrusted the government and believed in people like Brandt. But he was the violent one in the end. No one else in this chamber had paralyzed anyone else.

“I can see you’re conflicted, Dr. Linscott,” Clark said.

“We have to get you to the infirmary, sir,” one of the EMTs said. “It could be critical to your recovery.”

“A moment longer, please,” he insisted, and they obeyed him. Crippled or not, he was still in charge of this installation.

Jackie had only recently come to the realization that Clark was the big boss at this installation. She’d thought at first that Clark was an orderly, or a guard. Then, it became clear to her he was the base psychologist. But now, faced with the way that everyone associated with the installation deferred to him, she’d come to the inescapable conclusion that he was in charge of everything.

“How did you do it, Jackie?” he asked, his voice straining but still mild in tone. “I must know.”

“It was all about the containment field,” she explained. “The EM-Drive is a harmonic reaction, essentially, but it lacks brute power. Our experimental engines only produced enough steady thrust to be useful when out in space.”

“Yes, less than a kilogram of lateral force was the best measurable output you achieved at Blue-Sky.”

Her face clouded for a moment. She didn’t like to know how closely she’d been watched. She didn’t like to think what that meant.

“Right,” she went on quickly. “The reaction was impressive and good enough to deploy a satellite into high orbit, or even cut months out of an interstellar journey if a spacecraft could be equipped with it. But it never was in our design plans to provide lift and control like this.”

She gestured toward the drifting spaceship. Now that it was hovering, it seemed to be growing even colder. Mists roiled under it, and there was a distinct chill in the chamber now.

“I didn’t actually know it was going to do this,” she said, staring at her own handiwork. “But it makes sense. How else could the ship travel if it relied on an EM-Drive for its primary thrust?”

“How indeed,” Clark said, “but you still haven’t told me exactly how—”

“Yes, sorry. The containment field. You see, a great deal of violent energy has to be released to get the harmonic reaction going at this kind of rate. That means a massive amount of radiation. Anyway, the key is to get a shield up around the core plasma chamber to contain the radiation. The trouble is, the reaction has to power the shield itself—it was the chicken and the egg problem, you see.”

“I would nod my head if I could.”

She frowned sympathetically. “Right—that’s so awful. For you to see a dream realized just as you were injured.”

“Never mind about me. Tell me more.”

For the first time, Jackie realized she was being surrounded by quiet people in lab coats. They were recording her voice and jotting down notes. She shrugged. That’s why she was here, after all. Maybe they’d send her home after they’d gotten what they wanted.

“The answer was simple enough. I didn’t just switch the system on. Instead, I ramped it up in power very gently. I think the drive controls had a function like that built into the system all along, but maybe it was burned out or damaged. Once I controlled the power, very carefully monitoring the process and ramping up the power to the containment field even as I increased the input—well, it worked. I wouldn’t suggest anyone turn it off again, however. I was lucky.”

“How’d you keep it from becoming unstable?” asked a tall, spare man in glasses.

“I didn’t have a way to manage that. I just kept torqueing it up slowly, making adjustments. It’s kind of like building a fire up from twigs. If you just dump all the wood on at once, it kills it.”

“Or burns the house down,” commented a large, sour-faced woman. “You were rash, and you got lucky. You could have fried us all.”

Jackie was about to say something defensive when Clark intervened.

“She did what none of you have had the guts to do. She lit the fire—and controlled it.”

“She could have blown us all up,” huffed the woman.

“But she didn’t. As Mark Twain was fond of saying, ‘necessity is the mother of taking chances.’”

Jackie smiled, and she knew Clark was right. They all were. She’d taken a big risk without consent or approval. The other scientists weren’t terribly happy to have her bathe in glory, a newcomer showing them up. But that didn’t matter. They’d study her technique and perfect it in time.

What did matter was that they now had a working star drive. A system that could lift a heavy mass into space, exerting a level of steady force no engine in mankind’s history had ever gotten close to. And she, Jackie Linscott, was the one who’d done it.

“I have a proposal,” Clark said, watching her. “We’re going to call this process of ramping up the drive the Linscott Process.”

There were a few shaking heads, but no one openly objected.

“Can we get you out of here now, sir?” an EMT begged. “You might need surgery.”

“Yes, by all means.”

They lifted him as gently as they could and carried him around to the back of the chamber where the infirmary waited. It had an operating room and medical people on staff. They were usually bored—but not today.

Jackie turned toward Brandt who was now surrounded by guards, Perez among them. He didn’t seem to care much. He was still staring at the floating spaceship.

“I didn’t think it would really fly,” he said.

Jackie got the impression he’d said this more than once.

“Brandt,” she said, “you helped make this happen, you know.”

“How?”

“I went for broke when you left. I knew you might be killed—or Clark. Someone was going to be injured, I could see it in your eyes. So I took a risk. I figured that if the ship flew, it might diffuse all of this.”

He looked at her oddly. “But—what if it had blown up or something?”

“Then we might have all died,” Jackie said. “Certainly, I would have.”

Brandt suddenly smiled. “I like that,” he said. “You’ve got balls, Linscott. I have to give you that. Guts, the real deal. Go for it, roll the dice, win or lose.”

Jackie’s answering smile was flickering and uncertain. She didn’t like this description, especially since it was true in some ways. She had taken a crazy risk. Inside, she knew this wasn’t just because she’d wanted to help Brandt and Jenna. She’d wanted to figure out the answer. She’d rolled the dice, as he said, and they’d all gotten lucky.

After making sure his daughter was safe, Brandt stepped toward the ramp. A dozen gun barrels, shock-sticks and unsmiling men rose up to meet him.

“I thought you wanted me in on this,” Brandt said.

“You’re not going anywhere, Brandt,” said the guard captain. “You’re out of here. We’ve suffered your bullshit for a week now, but we don’t have to any longer. Clark is going under anesthesia, and that leaves me in charge.”

Brandt’s face darkened, and Jackie thought he might try something again. He was as bullheaded as they came. She’d never met a man more willing to get into a fight. It was both admirable and irritating.

“Look, Brandt,” she said in a reasonable tone, “how about you let them take you wherever they want, and I’ll get Jenna?”

“What? Why?”

“Don’t you think she’d like to see the ship flying? After all she’s been through today, that might get her mind back onto pleasant things.”

Brandt calmed down. He nodded. “Okay. Put me in a cell, boys, if that’s what you want. I’ll allow it. Just make sure Jackie takes good care of Jenna.”

They scoffed and marched Brandt back down the corridor toward the nearest cell. Jackie noted that despite their cavalier attitude, they treated him with great respect and never touched him. Once they had the lion in the cell, they were visibly relieved.

She went to Jenna’s cell and coaxed her out. Like a hand-fed park squirrel, the girl finally came out when she was told the ship was floating in the chamber under its own power.

Jenna squealed aloud at the sight. She rushed to the ship, which hovered just within her reach. She opened the main hatch with a touch. That was necessary quite often. The ship closed itself automatically, every ten minutes or so, as if timing out If someone wasn’t present who could open the hatch—well, anyone caught inside might starve to death. Likewise, anyone on the outside was never getting in.

A press of flapping lab coats followed Jenna and Dr. Linscott aboard. They asked the girl softly if she could trouble herself to open the lower hatch. When she did so, they rushed down to measure, prod and photograph every detail of Jackie’s containment field.

The cowl she’d pulled back was still open. Under it was a shimmering egg of opalescence about the size of a park bench. A thousand colors twisted and chased one another over the milky surface like an oily film.

“It’s fully exposed,” said the large woman who’d been the most skeptical of the bunch. “We’ve got to be taking in a lethal dose of rads right now!”

The rest looked worried, but Jackie pointed out the Geiger counters. They were barely pinging above normal background levels.

“It’s safe, as far as I can tell,” she said. “In fact, the number of rems of exposure we’re getting inside the ship has decreased since I brought up the shielding. I think the drive is meant to operate with the shield on all the time, even when the ship is idling.”

“Pure speculation,” said the tall, spare man. But they all moved in a more relaxed fashion nonetheless.

Jackie had faced professional jealousy before. She was accustomed to it. When a new member joined a high-pressured technical team, they were often welcomed—but only superficially. It took years to become friends with these people. They eventually would warm up—most of them, anyway. They just weren’t people-oriented.

Diffidently, they closed the cowl over the luminescent field. Inside, incredible powers were being released in a steady stream. Jackie seriously hoped no one ever disrupted that field while they were in flight. The results may well turn out to be catastrophic.

In flight, she thought. Now, where had that thought come from? She was going home, wasn’t she? That’s what she really wanted. To run on the beach again. To live her quiet little life in relative obscurity.

Wasn’t that what she wanted?

Chapter 45

Nevada Desert

Day

Sandeep arrived two days after the ship first lifted off and began floating. News of the success had spread across the black ops community. Even those who didn’t know precisely what was going on out there in the scorching desert knew that a significant breakthrough had been made.

Clayworth had dispatched him immediately. He’d grimaced at the idea, but taken the assignment with his traditional aplomb.

“Excellent, Dr. Clayworth. Yes, of course. I’d be glad to.”

He heard himself saying these things into his cellphone, and he regretted the words even as they slid out of his throat. When he’d awakened in the base infirmary—the one that was above ground—he’d sworn to himself he was going to quit. Brandt was crazy, and Clark was crazier. Clayworth could have them both. He’d almost been killed on a technicality, and that was just too much for anyone to bear.

But he hadn’t quit. Instead, he’d left the base and headed back to Washington, taking his time to convalesce. His left clavicle was broken, and he had plenty of contusions and a badly swollen eye.

Clayworth hadn’t complained about his leave of absence. Instead, she’d praised him. She was fond of calling him a “trooper”, and he supposed she was thinking of times like this when she said that. He sometimes became angry and resolute in his work, but always, always, he found himself crawling back to serve his masters. In a quiet, private way, he hated himself for this weakness.

Was he a cretin, he asked himself as he packed his bags and left his empty home once again. Or perhaps it was worse—could he merely be a creature of habit? He wasn’t sure, but he did know he didn’t like to change things about his life. Not even if they were clearly in need of changing.

And so he flew back out into that godforsaken desert and drove up from Vegas to Area 51. The men at the gates weren’t amused by his jokes about their previous encounter, and they did everything but strip-search him this time. They even dug into the spare tire compartment and opened his bags. A gusting wind plucked at his luggage, causing a single blue and red striped tie of his to blow away. The guards didn’t go after it, and Sandeep would be damned if he would. The last he saw of it, mumbling curses as he drove through the gates toward the main complex, it was a flapping strip of cloth on the razor-wire fencing.

The first hint he had that things had changed in this remote outpost came as he reached the big hangar. Major Clark didn’t come out to meet him. This both surprised and concerned Sandeep. He’d understood that the man had been injured, but how badly?

“Agent Grewal,” said the uniformed man who greeted him, thrusting out a hand.

“Just call me Sandeep, Colonel,” Sandeep said. “Everyone does.”

The big man nodded and they shook hands. “Well sir—Sandeep—I’m the base commander. I’m in charge of everything you see topside.” He made a sweeping gesture, indicating the white sands, the blowing wind, the numerous buildings and fences. “But you’re not interested in me, I understand. You’re going below.”

“That’s right.”

The colonel nodded and led the way into the gloom of the hangar behind him. It was the only building on the base that stood empty.

“I can’t go down there myself,” the base commander said. “Not cleared for it. A funny thing, isn’t it? A man not being cleared for part of his own base?”

“We all have our crosses to bear.”

The colonel gave him an odd look, then went on in a pleasant tone. “The people down there know you, so I’m sending you down alone. Frankly, I’m happy to have someone new in charge at last. Clark always did give off a strange vibe.”

Sandeep appeared to be startled. “What? What did you say about me being in charge?”

The colonel shrugged. “That’s how I understand it. I’m running the test facility up here, and you’re running the freaky stuff down below. The base has always had two commanders, you know about that, right? Did you really think they’d give you command of the entire base? This is an air force post, man. You’re an agent.”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant, I…” Sandeep trailed off, his mind whirling. Clayworth had ordered him out here to render aid to Major Clark. He’d been injured somehow, that was all she’d said. Sandeep was supposed to help keep the group working in an orderly fashion to finish the project. He’d never been told he was going to run this damned place.

By the time he was stepping off the elevator alone on Gamma Level, he was almost sick with worry. This place—it was a black hole for scientists. People came, but they rarely left. Not until their careers ended or they were packed off to parts unknown.

He traversed the long corridor and crossed the no-man’s land of gas-emitting holes. The final door slid open, letting him inside the cavern beyond.

He was greeted there by no one but an unsmiling guardsman who demanded to see his identification, even though the man knew him fairly well.

Sandeep put up with this indignity stoically, but when it was done, he was in for a surprise. The man thrust out his hand.

Sandeep shook it absently.

“Good to have you aboard, sir,” the man said. “Really, I mean that. We’re all glad to see someone new taking up the reins down here. The previous management—well sir, I don’t need to tell you—”

“No,” Sandeep interrupted, “you don’t.”

The man shut up with a curt nod, but didn’t seem upset. Sandeep moved to pass him, but froze in mid-step.

“Sergeant?” he asked softly.

“Yes sir?”

“Is that ship—is it floating?”

“Yes sir. Absolutely. They did it, those crazy eggheads. I thought for sure they’d killed us all. But hot damn—there it is! Flying. Doesn’t do anything else, sir. Not yet, anyway. It just floats there about a foot off the ground all day long. And it’s colder in here now, you feel that? I thought it was cold and weird before, but I didn’t know anything.”

Sandeep waved to the guard and walked slowly toward the back offices. He was in shock. Clark down and out? The ship flying under its own power? Special Agent Sandeep Grewal, declared the new project leader? Clayworth rarely bothered to brief him on nonessentials, but really, this was too much.

He spoke to a few bureaucrats, where his worst fears were realized. He was indeed in charge of this place as of today. Major Clark had operated it for a decade, but he was disabled now—possibly permanently.

“May I see him?” Sandeep asked.

The medical people exchanged furtive glances. Sandeep frowned, knowing they were withholding details from him. As the new director, he was annoyed.

“If there’s something that you need to tell me—”

“No sir,” said the closest bureaucrat, a prim woman with glasses like goggles and a tiny, tight mouth. “There’s nothing we can say publicly. But it would be best that you don’t visit with Major Clark at this time.”

“Are his injuries that severe?”

“They were life-threatening, sir.”

“My God. How did it happen? Did the ship lift off and injure him in a release of energy?”

Another furtive exchange of glances occurred. Internally, Sandeep sighed. These people were so accustomed to keeping secrets they seemed to fail to understand he was now their commander.

“Agent Grewal,” said the one with the thick glasses. He thought about correcting her, but decided against it. “Sir, you need to address the project staff. They’ve become unruly without Clark’s leadership.”

Suddenly, Sandeep thought he understood the situation. This woman was loyal to Clark. She didn’t like her new boss. He would have to win her over.

He gave her his brightest smile, letting teeth show. “An excellent suggestion. Would you accompany me? We’ll gather the team leaders together immediately.”

She was flustered but did as he asked.

Sandeep rubbed his hands together as he met them all in the newly set up null-G training facility. Suits and wire harnesses were everywhere, lining the walls. The scientists were poking at them uncertainly.

In the classic fashion of managers that don’t quite know what they’re managing yet, Sandeep started by having everyone introduce themselves. The only stranger was a security man, Dr. Edwin Goody. Sandeep shook hands with him as warmly as he could and would have moved on, but Edwin touched his elbow.

“A quick word, sir?”

“Certainly,” Sandeep said. “What is it, Edwin?”

Edwin lowered his voice, but his words were still startling. “This place is grade A bullshit, sir,” he said, gathering stares from those around him. “If you don’t mind my saying.”

“Uh…”

“Agent Grewal? Commander?” Dr. Tanaka asked, intervening. “You have to understand, we’ve been through a lot. We were up at Lab 126 when it was attacked.”

“Indeed? That is impressive. I understand there were—casualties.”

“The lab was all but wiped out,” Dr. Tanaka assured him. “Edwin here took out the killers, both of them.”

Sandeep glanced at Edwin. He didn’t look dangerous, but things like that could be deceiving. He made a note of the report, as he found Edwin interesting. His file had listed him as a medical doctor, former military and a security specialist. A rare combination. He nodded to Tanaka. “Please, continue.”

“Well, when we got here after all that, this madman named Clark locked us into cells. Can you believe that?”

Sandeep cleared his throat. He was aware of Clark’s habits. The upper management hadn’t always agreed with his tactics to enforce loyalty and order among his staff members, but they’d gone along with it due to the undeniable results. People who came to this base rarely left, and they worked long, diligent hours. Sandeep thought it was all due to Clark’s carefully planned manipulations.

“I see,” he said. “That’s part of the standard operating procedure, but you should have been let out much faster. As soon as you were cleared. You see, Clark suffered an accident.”

“Wasn’t any accident,” Edwin huffed. “Not how I hear it.”

Sandeep cleared his throat again. “Well, be that as it may, I’m glad you’re here, and I can assure you we’re not locking you into any more closets from now on.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” said another man who’d been listening in.

Sandeep turned and jumped a little in recognition. “Captain Brandt? I…I didn’t know you’d joined us down here.”

“It wasn’t exactly a social call when I broke in here.”

“What did you mean about locking people in closets?” Sandeep asked, becoming desperate to change the subject. This was a new leader’s nightmare, being faced with the inexplicable behavior of the absent man he was replacing.

Brandt gestured toward the ship. “That thing. He wants us all to fly in that deathtrap. Crazy-sure that we’ll find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

“What rainbow, Captain?”

“The signal,” Brandt said. “Don’t they brief you on anything? You’re supposed to be commanding this mission now. We’re taking this ship and following the polar Artifact’s last transmission out into space.”

Sandeep stared at the ship fixedly. His mood had taken a turn for the worse. He felt a trifle ill.

“And where, pray tell, did the last transmission go?”

“To Europa, an iceball orbiting Jupiter. God only knows what’s waiting for us out there.” Brandt stepped closer and laughed at Sandeep’s obvious consternation. “They didn’t tell you any of this, did they?” he asked. “Well, that’s rich.”

Sandeep didn’t bother lying. The truth was plain for all of them to see. He hoped there would be some level of cooperation after this embarrassing moment.

“You’re flying with us, you know,” Brandt said, enjoying himself. “Clark wimped out and ditched everybody.”

“He was seriously injured,” Sandeep said. “By you, as I understand it.”

“That was a misunderstanding, nothing more.”

Sandeep snorted, but he let it go.

Chapter 46

The vast gulf of space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, Aboard Troika

Starlight

The radiation storm was in its third day. Lev was beyond sick of it. In the old movies he’d watched as a youth, it was always meteorites that got you when you traveled in space. He could hardly remember a movie that didn’t have a scene with rocks flying by the ship, battering it.

Now that he’d been traveling in space for nearly a month, he knew the truth: It wasn’t the meteorites that got you—although they quite possibly could. It was a matter of odds, really. A chip of stone, even here in what was known at the asteroid belt, was relatively rare. Radiation, however, was not.

Almost certainly, if the ship was unlucky enough to run into something solid, even something as insignificant as a cloud of sand particles, none of those aboard could survive it. The velocities they were traveling at were amazing, and if they met so much as a pebble at this speed it would hit them like cannon shell, driving a neat hole through vessel from bow to stern.

Lev would have almost welcomed a quick, catastrophic end to this trip. Instead, he’d been forced with all the others to huddle within the most thickly shielded module, what amounted to a polyhedron about ten meters across. This module had a centimeter of lead around it, and everything they required to survive could be found inside.

There were two critical elements, however, that Lev found missing. One was privacy. Even while squatting on the annoying null-grav toilet, others were only inches away beyond a partition of material like a shower curtain. There was no way for him to enjoy the company of Dr. Norin, who he’d struck up an odd relationship with, or anyone else.

Worse—infinitely worse—was the total lack of alcohol. Whoever had built the radiation-proof sanctuary had neglected an essential need of the bored Russian fighting man: vodka. The still was below decks, and unreachable during bad storms.

As a result of these oversights, Lev had become surly and unapproachable. He hung out high in the chamber, near the ventilation intake. No one from the regular crew dared approach him.

Throughout the journey, there had been radiation alerts. Klaxons had sounded periodically, and everyone had scrambled for the module they all hid within now. But this alert was different. It was longer—seemingly endless, in fact.

“Lev?” Kira asked softly.

He turned her a baleful eye.

“You shouldn’t stare at everyone like that. These people are learned, bookish types. They’re beginning to feel insecure.”

Lev eyed her for a moment. “Since when do you care?”

“I do care,” she said, floating closer to him. They were at the peak of the module, relatively speaking. There was no true up or down on this ship, but the designers had built it as if there were for times when it was under the effect of a localized source of gravity. Therefore, the scene below Lev resembled the curved floor of a crowded living room. There were seats, equipment, hammock-like beds and people—lots of people.

“Why is that, Kira? Why should you care now about this mission, or their feelings?”

“The two are one and the same,” she said. “The crew must be in top condition to succeed. Literally anything could happen when we arrive.”

Lev rolled over in the air, and cocked his head, frowning at her. “But why the change?”

“I’ve realized a few things,” she said, eyeing those below her. “These people and I—we all share the same dream, really. We all want to find out what’s out there. Tell me, Lev, what will you do if we find people on Europa?”

“People?” he snorted. “You mean people like us?”

“No,” she said. “Probably not. Someone different, I’d expect. Their habitat is too alien for them to be anything like us.”

Lev shrugged. “In that case, there are only two options.”

She looked at him expectantly.

“If they are hostile, I will kill them. If they are friendly, I’ll scare them—so they won’t try anything hostile.”

Kira heaved a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I shouldn’t have expected anything more, I suppose.”

“More? What more is there? Did you hope to have a meeting of cultures? A dance in their icy village square, perhaps?”

Kira shook her head but looked wistful.

“Kira,” he said. “Be realistic. Should we meet these ‘people’ they’ll not be our long lost cousins. They’ll be another alpha species. The history of such meetings has never been encouraging. One must dominate, the other must submit or die out. There is little in nature that points to a third possibility.”

Kira’s lips twitched. “I’m disappointed,” she said.

“How so?”

“By your argument, and by my inability to refute it. But this trip isn’t over yet, Lev. We might find that third option.”

Lev smiled at her. “You’re right. You and I did find the third path: we attempted to interbreed.”

Kira gave him a caustic glance then floated away from him as he reached for her hand. “We have eyes upon us,” she said.

“So you believe it’s still a secret?” he asked, laughing. “This ship is no more than three hundred meters long, and everyone knows everyone else’s business. Especially the juicy business.”

She looked down, and it was undeniable. Eyes and heads frequently turned up to stare at them. Few laughed and no one pointed, but that was only because they were afraid of Lev’s unpredictable reaction.

“Kira,” he said, “if we do find something out there, it won’t be like the meeting of man and woman. It will probably resemble the meeting of lion and hyena. A bloodbath, if one can catch the other.”

“I hope not for our sakes,” she said. “They’re more advanced. You’ve got to know that’s true.”

“This ship is more advanced than what we could build a few years ago. But now, we’ve made our own using their technology. We’ll overcome and steal whatever we don’t understand, making it our own in time.”

“And if we fail?”

Lev shrugged. “Then we fail. Life will go on elsewhere in the cosmos, I’m sure.”

Kira frowned at him. “My past fatalism is nothing compared to yours.”

He pointed a finger at her and smiled. “Now, finally, you begin to understand your Spetsnaz man.”

When Kira began to let herself drift downward to rejoin the group, he called after her. “How long until this endless voyage ends?”

“A month,” she said. “We’re making excellent time.”

Lev growled.

Chapter 47

Nevada, Area 51

Dusk

The flight crew of three individuals arrived from NASA just after sunset. They landed on the sand-blown tarmac in an apache gunship and breezed through security. These were personnel the guards understood. They were all Air Force, NASA trained. They had the highest clearances and serious demeanors.

Sandeep watched the landing and the way they were greeted from the shadow of the hangar doors. He wasn’t surprised by the way they were treated. Military people and government science-types were two different breeds. Each understood, trusted and preferred their own kind. They worked together toward the same goals—but only out of necessity.

Sandeep himself was of the third flavor, the one that no one trusted. Sandeep was a spook, a shadow that moved outside the circle of either of the other two groups. He didn’t like to be ostracized, but he had long ago made his peace with it.

He waited until the flight crew marched toward the open doors of the hangar to step out into the dying red glow of the Sun, which still drew a brilliantly gleaming arc over the rugged mountains to the west.

“Gentlemen—and lady,” he said, greeting them with a polite smile. “I’m Special Agent Sandeep Grewal. I’ll be escorting you down to Gamma-level.”

The NASA team stared at him. The woman spoke first.

“You’re a spook, aren’t you? CIA? NSA?”

“Homeland,” he said holding onto his smile firmly.

She nodded as if confirming a grim suspicion. “The vaguest of them all.”

“Nice to meet you as well, Colonel Dyson,” he said to the woman. He regretted this comment, as he’d meant to ignore any display of poor manners. “Welcome to project Black Ice.”

“I’m sure we’ll all get along fine,” she said, sounding unconvinced.

The three introduced themselves and shook hands all around. Sandeep barely listened as he’d already read their dossiers. All of them had been in space. Two of them had commanded shuttle missions. The female colonel was to be the pilot. The other two were designated as copilot and navigator.

This had been planned out years in advance, if the ship had ever become operational and was needed to fly. No one had actually suspected that it would happen today, but at least they’d laid out the groundwork. Every year, NASA rotated a team they had prepped for the mission—without knowing exactly what that team was supposed to do.

The instructions from Homeland, which now ran this black op, were maddeningly vague. The team was to be prepared to go into space at a moment’s notice, flying a ship of unusual configuration. An experimental and possibly dangerous spacecraft.

There had been objections from NASA, naturally. They had long harbored suspicions, but they had no real idea what was squatting in a cavern beneath this lonely stretch of desert. Homeland and the Pentagon had never given them details, as NASA was too public and outside the circle of secrecy the U. S. government had built up around this project in the Cold War.

And so when Sandeep escorted the trio down into the depths to Gamma Level, and they walked down the long corridor with its daunting security, he stopped at the final door.

“Now,” he said, “before I walk you through this door, I must ask you to realize something. You’ll never be able to live a completely normal life after this moment. You’ll be committed. One of the small circle that—”

“Let’s get on with it, Agent,” Dyson said. “We’re all cleared, and we signed with Uncle Sam a long, long time ago.”

The other two chuckled. Sandeep looked from one to the next.

“This is different,” he said. “We always give new people a chance to turn back at this point. Your lives are about to change. The secrecy here is such that you cannot leak what you see beyond these doors.”

One of the two men, the navigator, began to worm his lips around thoughtfully.

“Major?” Sandeep asked. “Do you wish to speak? If so, this is the moment.”

He shook his head.

Colonel Dyson frowned and eyed the door’s defensives.

“Gas nozzles?” she said questioningly. “A metal floor? Could this be electrified?”

“Possibly—in an emergency.”

“Do you have lot of those? Emergencies, I mean?”

Sandeep smiled and shook his head. “Fortunately, no.”

“I heard something happened out here—something about your former commander being injured or killed? I bet this mantrap was involved.”

Sandeep winced. This was exactly the kind of thing that wasn’t supposed to get out. How could one maintain total secrecy if people talked to one another like birds on a wire?

“I’m not aware of any such incident,” he said smoothly.

“Then why are you here giving us the nickel tour?” Dyson demanded. “If your boss is fine, why isn’t he doing it?”

“He is otherwise detained,” Sandeep said. “But if you want to know more, all you have to do is confirm your commitment to me now. I’m asking this of each of you, as an individual. I want to emphasize that you’re under no orders at this moment. No prior contracts or commitments apply. If you want to change your mind, this is your last chance.”

The navigator cast a longing glance back toward the elevator, but in the end, all three of them gave their word. They were committed.

Sandeep opened the door.

To say the flight crew was surprised was an understatement. Roiling gases, a floating hulk of rock and ice—whatever they’d been expecting, this wasn’t it. They stepped closer, walking up to the rail, with wide, sparkling eyes.

“This is amazing,” Dyson said. “How did you build something like this? And why the hell is it covered in ice and rocks?”

“That is one of the mysteries,” Sandeep said. “To be honest, the ship seems to enjoy coating itself like that.”

The three turned their faces toward him.

“It likes it?” Dyson asked. “And what do you mean by ‘one of the mysteries?’ How can your own experimental aircraft be mysterious?”

Sandeep explained the facts of gamma-level in gentle tones. It was not an aircraft, it was a spacecraft. It hadn’t been built here, but in fact had fallen to earth here and buried itself in the ground over a century ago.

The three took this in, but they had trouble believing it. Not out of skepticism, as the ship was right in front of them, but out of shock.

“It appears to be floating?” Dyson asked. “Is that some kind of gravity manipulation?”

Sandeep was happy, because he could answer that one. “One of our people, Dr. Linscott, has worked on this puzzle. She believes it’s a side effect generated by the field that contains the engines. In other words, it has more to do with an electromagnetic polarity repelling effect, rather than gravity reversal.”

Dyson looked alarmed. “We’re wearing ferrous metal,” she said. “A magnet that powerful might tear people apart.”

“Yes, well, this effect is limited to the area beneath the ship and localized there. Very odd, I know. I have to admit, I’m not fully versed on the science.”

Dyson shook her head, craning her neck to look over the side of the railing at the region under the ship. “It’s humming and there are gases venting.”

“They have theories, but…” Sandeep shrugged helplessly. He was out of his depth, and he knew it.

“I bet you’re not the only one who’s clueless,” Dyson said. “I can see there’s a lot here that scientists could study for years.”

Sandeep escorted them around the encircling walkways and up the ramp to the open hatch as he spoke.

There, just outside the ship, a young girl was playing with a computer tablet. She sat in a chair at the top of the ramp, a few feet from the opening. Frost sent waves of cool air toward them as they approached.

“Sandeep?” Jenna called. “I’m bored. Can I take a break?”

“Of course, my dear,” he said. “Touch the ship one more time, will you, before retiring?”

Jenna did as he asked and trotted away down the ramp. The three flight crew members stared after her and exchanged bewildered glances.

“The ship likes her,” Sandeep tried to explain. “It won’t open for just anyone, you see.”

He stepped aboard, ducking his head through the low, circular hatchway. The flight crew balked.

“Um, Agent Grewal?” Dyson asked.

“What is it, Colonel?”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You expect us to fly an alien ship? How the hell are we supposed to guide it? How can we even see what’s outside? Does that little girl have to touch a wall every time we want to adjust our speed and course?”

Sandeep’s smile hardened. “We have answers for all your questions. After all, we’ve been working on this for quite some time.”

“Why don’t you have your own flight crew then?”

“To be honest, we never expected to fly it anywhere until recent events occurred. We’ve been forced into a radically new path, making changes to our operation on the fly. There will be a briefing at dinner, where you can meet the science team. In the meantime, would you like to continue the tour?”

They followed him inside, ducking their heads and making sure they didn’t touch anything.

The ship didn’t have a bridge, but it did have a cockpit. This had been outfitted with instrumentation that resembled what one would find inside a shuttlecraft.

The team immediately sat in their spots and began going over the instrumentation.

“This is very familiar,” Dyson admitted. “You did a good job here. But are these gauges hooked up? Some of these controls are unfamiliar, and a lot of them are missing.”

“Yes, well, we’re not actually flying a shuttle. It was calculated that a familiar interface would work best. The control system is quite a bit like a shuttle’s but there are differences. Note that there are no flap controls, because there are no flaps. Overall, the ship should be easier to fly than a shuttle.”

The crew immediately set to work going over every control and system. Sandeep provided them with a tech who could answer their questions. They had suggestions and demands. He offered to consider these after the briefing at dinner, then quietly slipped away.

Chapter 48

Nevada, Area 51

Day

A few days after the flight crew had arrived and begun to settle in, pressures grew to launch the mission immediately. Sandeep found this very upsetting, as they were far from ready for such drastic action.

Sandeep personally contacted Clayworth, but before he could stipulate his complaints, she gave him startling news. Major Clark wasn’t recovering from his injuries fast enough. He had to be replaced. The obvious choice had been made. No, she would not reconsider her options.

“Sandeep, every ship needs a captain. You’re my man on the spot. I don’t trust Dyson, she’s a Pentagon mole as far as I’m concerned. I need one of my own on the bridge, calling the shots.”

“You mean you want Homeland to get the credit—not the Air Force.”

“Crudely put. But the fact remains that with Clark out of the picture—well, it’s got to be you.”

Sandeep was stunned. He knew what this was really all about: control. Homeland had gained control of Area 51 and all its secrets, and Clayworth didn’t want to give up one iota of her turf—especially not to the military. NASA didn’t own it either, as the find and the base predated NASA’s creation. The base and the Artifact underneath it were Cold War relics, blacked out projects of the most secret nature.

“But Clark is military,” he pointed out. “The Air Force has always had—”

“No, not really,” Clayworth corrected him. “Clark had a uniform and a rank, but that was window dressing. In fact, he retired from the military and joined Homeland years ago. I insisted on it.”

“I see,” he said, his mind whirling. That sort of thing happened with CIA and other secretive institutions all the time. Many of their personnel were ex-military. “Still, I cannot recommend this action, Madam Secretary.”

“Are you refusing the appointment?”

He hesitated. He knew that if he did refuse, his life would be easier, but he’d lose favor. Hopes of advancement within Homeland would evaporate forever. Besides, she’d just find another crony to replace him.

“I accept the appointment, Madam Secretary,” he said with a heavy heart.

He ended the call and stared in shock at his phone. He could not fathom his misfortune. He’d been given the job of leading a mission into space—guiding a flight crew and a team of twitchy scientists on a project he barely understood.

How could this have happened to him? Yes, he’d been involved with the project for a long time. He’d run other operations for this Secretary, and her predecessors, issuing commands to agents under a variety of circumstances. But this assignment was on an entirely new order of magnitude.

Sandeep headed to the vacuum suit training facility they’d set up in one of the larger storage areas. The senior scientists were all there, performing exercises clumsily with bulky suits and their own out-of-shape bodies. They were less than enthusiastic.

They weren’t all that thrilled with the news of his advancement, either. They’d found Clark disturbing, but at least he was a known animal and a medical doctor. Sandeep was neither of these things, and they immediately resented him.

“Let me make a few things clear,” he told the assembled group, who fumbled to open their visors and turn off their hissing oxygen recyclers. “I’m not an astronaut. I’m not a scientist—”

“But yet they made you the ship’s captain, anyway?” demanded an elderly staffer.

“This isn’t a military mission,” Sandeep said, raising his voice a fraction. “This is a scientific expedition. Colonel Dyson, the NASA team leader, is going to fly the ship. She’ll be the flight commander. Her team will navigate and pilot the vessel. She’s flown shuttles and trained for space flight for years in simulators.”

“What’s your role then, Sandeep?” Dr. Linscott asked.

He looked at her. “I’m to be your mission manager. That job can’t be done from the ground, as we’ll be too far away for immediate communications. A radioed query and response from Earth would take nearly an hour to complete. This mission has to be autonomous, at least to some degree.”

“I take it your name is definitely on the roster, then?” Dr. Linscott asked.

“Yes, definitely.”

“I’m surprised by all this,” she said. “I didn’t think you were the space-exploration type.”

Sandeep smiled. “I can be surprising.” Inwardly, he agreed with her. He didn’t feel at all comfortable with this job. He was acutely aware that his appointment was purely political. He hadn’t wanted any of this. He’d stepped in here for Clark, and he’d hoped that once the mission launched, his responsibilities would come to an end. Things hadn’t worked out that way.

“Let me get this straight,” Jackie said, “you’re in charge of which names are going onto the mission roster? Who goes and who stays?”

“Yes.”

The group muttered and moved restlessly.

“Listen,” he said, sensing he was losing them, “this change in leadership comes as a surprise to me as well as to you. But Major Clark has blessed the move, so—”

“It was Clayworth’s idea, wasn’t it?” Perez asked suddenly. This was his first shout-out, and it startled everyone. The man was usually quiet.

“Does it matter?” Sandeep demanded, beginning to sweat. His new status was indeed Clayworth’s idea. She’d told him that Clark was behind it as well, but Sandeep had never met with the Major since his injury and had no idea if that was true or not. For all he knew, the man was dead.

“If you’re in charge of the roster, cross me off,” Edwin said suddenly. “I’m security, anyway. Why would you need security on Jupiter?”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Goody,” Sandeep said quickly. “You’re most definitely on my list. Your cross-section of skills checks off too many mission-critical boxes.”

“Crap. And I suppose you clowns have already exercised the hazardous deployment option in my contract?”

Sandeep smiled. “Naturally.”

“I knew that would get me in trouble someday.”

Sandeep raised both hands high to stop a flood of statements as several others declared themselves on or off the roster. He sensed he was losing control—if he’d ever had it. He decided to make things personal.

“Listen to me,” he said plaintively, “I’m in charge now, but I’d expected that would be seen as a good thing. I’m not Major Clark. I won’t second-guess your pet project, as I have no way to measure its relative worth.” He smiled at them, and his quip got a few of them to chuckle. He went on in this vein, sensing that using humor and emphasizing his unobtrusive management style was working. “Imagine: there will be no denials based on budget. I don’t have a budget!”

After another ten minutes of grumbling and objections, Sandeep managed to win most of them over. Major Clark had been a manipulative micro-manager. In comparison, Sandeep was easy-going and as pleasant as a summer breeze. By the end of the session he was shaking hands.

The last person who came up to greet him was Dr. Linscott.

“Well done,” she said. “It’s hard to believe I had you pegged as some kind of a spy when I first met you.”

“I’m very glad you’re supporting my new role, Dr. Linscott. Now, if you would excuse me—”

“Hold on,” she said, putting up her hand. “I’ve seen the roster you posted online. Am I correct in assuming I’m supposed to go on this mission with the rest of the team?”

“Absolutely. You’ll be our chief engineer in charge of propulsion. How else will we get the engine going again if it decides to quit on us?”

She gave him a thoughtful look. “I see. I was under the impression my role would be finished once I got the ship off the ground. But I can see now that you need me. You need me badly.”

Sandeep didn’t like where her line of reasoning was going.

“Sandeep, I have two conditions,” she said, standing taller.

Sandeep let his breath out slowly. It was akin to a sigh, but he did it almost silently. Everyone wanted something special. “Please go on, Dr. Linscott.”

“First, I want Perez here put on the roster.”

Sandeep flicked his eyes to the watchful Perez, who stood just behind the woman. Perez met his gaze expressionlessly.

“You must understand,” Sandeep began, “there’s only so much room aboard. The ship is spacious, and we have about a thousand square meters of flat decking, but we also have a lot of supplies and equipment to carry. May I ask why Perez is mission-critical?”

“Because he’s good in a crisis. You know that. But it’s more than that—he might be able to contain that animal Brandt if he loses it again.”

Sandeep thought that one over. He doubted if Perez could do more than slow Brandt down. “I’ll think about it,” he said.

“Think hard,” she said. “My second demand is for a few honest answers. I have concerns about our past history. I want to talk about it. I want some closure.”

“Closure?”

“Yes. Can we go somewhere private to talk?”

“By all means.” Sandeep led them to his office. It had been Clark’s, and there were pictures of wide open horizons and pink dawn landscapes on every wall. Sandeep could only imagine that Clark believed these images relieved some of the burden of spending most of one’s time deep underground. But the effect they had on Sandeep was to make him more wistful than ever to leave this place and never return.

Dr. Linscott sat across the desk from Sandeep, while Perez relaxed in a chair as far away as he could get.

“What seems to be the nature of this ‘closure’ you’re seeking?” Sandeep asked. “I truly wish Clark was here, as he’d know better than I how to council you upon any personal problems.”

Jackie shook her head. “No. Not Clark. He’d try to sidetrack us with some kind of verbal judo. I’m glad it’s you I’m talking with. I think you might be more honest with me.”

“Well then?”

“It’s about my house. About the package that came to my door and nearly blew me up. Did you ever discover who sent it?”

Sandeep fidgeted. “That’s not entirely clear. The investigation—”

“Is nonexistent,” Perez interrupted. “I checked. I still have connections with the local cops, and emails done right can still get past the censor. My former colleagues are wondering about it, too. Why have your people buried this event, Sandeep?”

“Well, you have to understand that we’ve been rather busy saving the country. We don’t have the resources to—”

“You had the resources to order my former colleagues to cease and desist,” Perez said. “Mackle’s house—the one that blew up—is still wrapped in yellow tape.”

Sandeep had thought his problems were over when the group of surly scientists had come around and accepted him as an unlikely but harmless leader. Now, he was beginning to wonder if there would ever be an end to matters like this. Little messes left behind by Clark and Clayworth. Messes he had the singular joy of covering up.

He felt a surge of anger in this instance. He thought it over, and decided to take a rare form of action. He wouldn’t hold the party line. He wouldn’t dodge and smile until the questioner gave up and wandered off in frustration. Today, he’d give truth a try.

“All right,” he said, leaning back in his chair until it creaked. “If knowing the truth will help you achieve this mission, I’ll explain what happened.”

They looked both startled and expectant.

“We sent the bomb. Not me personally, but my department. Someone ordered it, and in the end, you have to admit it was quite effective.”

They stared at him. Perez slowly nodded and relaxed again. Linscott, however, was beside herself.

“You tried to blow me up?” she demanded. “Why would that make me want to fly this ship for you? I should never—”

“No, no,” Sandeep said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, you misunderstand. You were never in any danger. The package went to your house, and you naturally took it over to the correct address next door. Then—well, an unpleasant person was removed from the world, and you were recruited in the same moment.”

Perez shook his head incredulously. “That’s crazy. You guys take the prize. Everything points to that answer, but I just didn’t think you would go so far.”

“We’re in a new era,” Sandeep said. “The stakes are unbelievably high. Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis have we come closer to direct conflict with Russia. This is a new Cold War. We’re not going to see an easy end to this one, either. America must have her technology, we’re all addicted to it. If the ship outside this office had crashed in another country, imagine how different the world would be today. Can you?”

Sandeep was speaking from the heart, but he was embarrassed by his organization's actions in this instance. Homeland Security had been assembled hastily in the aftermath of a crisis, and since that time, its power and influence had grown. Old boundaries had been erased.

“You killed my neighbor?” Dr. Linscott said in a shocked tone. “On purpose?”

“I did not kill him,” Sandeep said. “Nor did I order him killed. I’ll admit that they may have gone too far in your case, but if this mission is a success, I’ll guarantee you that the people of this nation will not question it. They want their affluence, and they don’t mind paying such prices.”

“Government assassinations?” she asked.

“When drones fall from the sky in distant countries, what do you call that? The people no longer bat an eye about these things. They only want them done. Historically, it’s always this way. We had concentration camps in World War II, for example.”

“But that doesn’t make it right,” she insisted.

“No,” Sandeep admitted. “I don’t suppose it does. You wanted me to answer you honestly. I’ve done so. Perhaps I made a mistake.”

Dr. Linscott looked seriously upset. Sandeep knew he was in over his head. Clark would have known just what to say. He felt like he was standing in the man’s shadow—and failing.

“Let me see if I understand,” she said, staring at the desk between them. “Homeland Security blew up my neighbor to scare me. To make me think I was in danger, and to get the police to suspect me. Then, you ride in to the rescue, and I fall into your arms.”

“Something like that,” Sandeep said.

“What about the rest of my coworkers at Blue-Sky Labs? You blew them up too, didn’t you? Why?”

“What?” asked Sandeep in alarm. “No, no. That’s not right. They were attacked by Russian agents, just as I said. The bomb ploy with you was a follow-up to that. You see, it was far more believable since the rest of your coworkers had suffered a similar fate. You never suspected it.”

“Diabolical,” Perez said appreciatively. “Not even I thought the web was this insanely woven.”

Sandeep was sure Perez’s statement didn’t help his case, so he focused on Dr. Linscott. “Let me be the first—probably the only—person from Homeland to apologize for scaring you.”

“You did more than that. You killed a man.”

“Two men,” said Perez suddenly. “That guy in the woods, the one that rammed us up on highway 17. He was yours, wasn’t he?”

Sandeep looked troubled. “He wasn’t supposed to do anything other than to nudge you on your way. He became too overzealous and—and you intervened.”

Perez and Sandeep met eyes.

“You made me kill one of our own. I’ve never done that, you know. I’ve killed men before, but never anyone who was supposed to be on my side.”

“Yes, it was a tragedy all around.”

“That’s why he shot my computer,” Jackie said suddenly. “I never did figure that out. I had that disk all this time—and he didn’t care about it. He just wanted to scare me.”

“Yes,” Sandeep said. “As I said, he played it badly. Way too direct. I would never have ordered such an action.”

“You knew about it though, didn’t you?” Perez said, leaning forward. Sandeep could tell he was putting all the pieces together. The man was actually a good detective. Quiet, perceptive and coldly logical.

“I…I recognized the agent.” replied Sandeep.

Perez nodded, remembering. “You did your best to send us off on our way. You put us in his truck, too. Let me guess, it had a GPS?”

Sandeep sighed. “Of course.”

“You knew you weren’t in any kind of danger—for that matter, neither were we.”

“We didn’t know that. Your labs had been bombed. We had to bring you in.”

“Why not just come to my door, tap politely, and ask?” Jackie demanded.

“Your profile—they didn’t think you would help your government. Your past, well, it wasn’t encouraging.”

“You’re just as bad as my father always said you were. I used to think his stories about the last century were half made-up.”

“Dr. Linscott,” Sandeep said, “your anger is understandable. I beseech you to think of the seriousness of this matter, and to help your country achieve what must be done.”

She chewed her lower lip. “All right,” she said. “I’ll play engineer on your ship. I’ll keep it flying, too, if I’m able. You were honest with me, as painful as it must have been. I can’t see any reason why you would make up a story like that—it certainly doesn’t put you or Homeland in the best light.”

Sandeep stayed quiet, fingers knitted together. He dared to hope.

“Okay, I’ll fly when this ship lifts off. But I’ll let you in on a little secret of my own, Sandeep.”

“What is it, Dr. Linscott?”

She smiled grimly. “I would have flown even if you’d refused to answer my questions. Even if you’d refused to tell me this story that Perez and I were suspecting was true.”

“Really? What then, if I may ask, is your core motivation?”

“I want to see the stars for myself. I want to see what’s out there.” She stood up as if to go but turned back. “So now you know what will make me do crazy things.”

Sandeep nodded and watched them walk out. He closed his eyes and massaged them. Sandeep was proud of his diplomatic skills. He had to wonder if Clark himself could have pulled that one off.

Chapter 49

Area 51, Gamma Level

Underground

Preparations had proceeded at a desperate pace. The team had planned for contingencies for decades, but planning to fly an alien ship and doing it were two different things.

They had to prep the interior of the ship itself first. It had been filled with scientific equipment, devices to measure and test responses of the control systems and to remove samples and take careful recordings of design and form. They’d treated the entire ship with almost sacred respect for years, the way a science team might handle an archeological find of fantastic importance and antiquity. Everything was touched with sterile gloves, fine brushes and sample bags for the tiniest particles of material. It’d been done that way since the beginning, as whatever they didn’t comprehend today they knew they might well have a better grasp of tomorrow. Preservation had been the watch word from the start.

But now, all that was out the window. The ship was no longer akin to an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb. It was a vehicle, and it had to fly within days.

They ripped out all the festooning measurement and recording equipment first. What they needed, they packed away for later. In the newly uncovered decking they placed rows of seats, facilities such as toilets and medical equipment. The lower deck was packed with water tanks, oxygen tanks, food and a waste-processing plant.

“How many people can we get out there and back in this thing, Dr. Goody?” Sandeep asked.

“Alive or dead?” Edwin asked in return, grinning. “I’m just asking, ‘cause you can stack them a lot higher when they’re dead.”

Sandeep eyed him. He’d never gotten this man’s odd sense of humor, nor his entirely off sense of timing when it came to applying humor to a situation.

“Doctor,” he said, “you’re my chief medical person aboard this ship. I need a more coherent reply.”

“I didn’t exactly volunteer for this job.”

A commotion outside the main hatch caught Sandeep’s attention. He walked through it, ducking. Standing on the ramp, he was surprised by the scene outside. Edwin came up to stand next to him.

“Quite an excited crowd,” he said. “You don’t suppose that Brandt fellow clocked someone again, do you?”

Sandeep gave him a sour glance and hurried up the ramp. In the main meeting area, a clump of people had gathered.

It was the center of their attention that stunned him. None other than Major Clark himself was there, in a wheelchair.

He rolled forward, being pushed by a nurse. His hands weren’t moving, and his head lolled slightly to one side. Could he be a quadriplegic? The very thought made Sandeep feel a little sick inside. The man was a bastard, but who would wish this upon another human being?

“Hello,” Clark said, smiling at everyone. He couldn’t turn his neck in its stiff brace. “I’m not supposed to be out of bed, but I wanted to see you all off.”

The crowd, who’d been greeting him with a mix of faux well-wishes and sounds of sympathy, quieted. Sandeep pushed his way to the front.

“Major?” he asked. “Did you say, see us off?”

“That’s right. You’re all about to fly. The word has come in. The flight crew—that was the final piece of the puzzle. Sandeep, you’ll have to trim the herd a little. You can’t put thirty people onboard. I’d say no more than a dozen.”

Sandeep had been focused on the man’s condition, but now he was listening intently to the words as well.

“Sir—we’re just not ready.”

“I know. That’s how it’s always been when a new, intrepid set of adventurers launch on a history-making mission. Do you think that Columbus felt ready? That Cook, Magellan or even Armstrong didn’t have a little hesitancy in those final moments?”

“That’s not exactly what I mean. The provisions are in place now, and we’re pressurizing the cabin. But the flight crew hasn’t been able to train on the system for more than a few days.”

“Caution. Always caution. That’s your watchword, isn’t it, Sandeep?

Sandeep narrowed his eyes in annoyance. “I don’t want to blow up on takeoff, if that’s what you mean. We have to have a flight trial, at the very least.”

“Request denied. It was denied a month ago, if that makes you feel better. The military absolutely refuses to consider it. Your test flight will be the real deal.”

Sandeep was floored. All his planning was predicated on fully loading the vehicle, with supplies, not crewmembers—then allowing the flight crew and a few essential personnel to hover around the base for a few days, getting the hang of the new systems.

“But sir, they’ve never flown something like this before. No one has.”

“Of course not. That’s the beauty of it. But, don’t let the pilots fool you. The controls have been precisely built to mimic the shuttle layout as best we could.”

“This craft has a thousand times the power and—”

“Sandeep,” Clark said, locking eyes with him. “We’re out of time, and we can’t afford to reveal this ship before we launch. You do recall that our satellites were knocked out mysteriously?”

“Yes, of course—oh, I see.” He got what the Major was hinting at. If the Russians had found and destroyed so many of their orbitals, they might well be tracking this ship, waiting for it to launch. Who could say if they could intercept it and put it down? It would be an act of war, certainly. But these days all bets seemed to be off in that area.

The political will wasn’t there to face down old rivals. Even the news reports of the attacks had been slanted toward blaming anyone other than the obvious enemy. It was strange to Sandeep, who’d come from a nation that didn’t mind naming its enemies and working directly to defeat them. People here preferred to think of everyone on Earth as a friend, and they seemed to believe that by being friendly, they could engage the best behavior in others. It was foolishness at best, in his opinion.

Unnamed terrorists had attacked Lab 126, and Blue-Sky had been a “workplace incident”. Everyone was assured that an investigation was underway. Both events had already faded from the news cycle on television.

“I understand, sir,” he heard himself saying to the injured man. “Tell me of your own condition. Will you fully recover?”

“Naturally,” Clark said, his smile twitching upward a fraction higher.

Sandeep almost believed him.

It was then, studying Clark's face, that he noticed an odd jumping under the skin beneath his jaw. Sandeep tried not to stare, but he couldn’t help himself. It had to be Clark’s implant. As Clark’s neck was unnaturally angled and tightly wrapped in the brace, the implant had shifted upward.

Sandeep knew the implant was recording his face right now, tracking the input of nerves from Clark’s eyes. He wondered how close the implant had come to recording Clark’s moment of death when Brandt had struck him. It seemed it had been a close thing indeed.

“I have another action item for your team,” Clark rasped. “We need an official name for this ship now that she’s going to fly. Instruct your team to make the selection. They’ve earned the privilege.”

“Thank you, sir,” Sandeep said, and he meant it. Major Clark always seemed to know how other people thought, even if he didn’t agree with it. Sandeep was beginning to understand his wily, manipulative ways.

Sandeep briefed the group, focusing on the name of the ship. Rather than panicking about having to fly an alien deathtrap, they enjoyed themselves coming up with interesting names. Likewise, seeing Clark in the flesh had seemingly pulled them all together. Brandt himself came to Sandeep and spoke to him privately while the rest focused on the name and the accelerated schedule.

“Sandeep?” Brandt asked. “You got a second?”

“Certainly, Captain Brandt.”

“Everyone’s looking at me funny—after seeing Clark, I mean.”

Sandeep nodded, unsurprised.

“Do you think I should be in a jail cell for what I did?”

“Effectively, you already are.”

“Yeah,” Brandt said, frowning intensely at the ground. “You know, I hate that guy, wheelchair or not. I always will. I would have gladly killed him to get my daughter out of here. I’d have killed you too, even if you didn’t deserve it.”

“Good to know.”

Brandt made a sweeping gesture, as if erasing words from the air. Sandeep tried not to flinch at the sudden movement and almost succeeded.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Brandt said. “I’ve changed my mind. This mission—it’s changed everything. This is real. What I feared most was being trapped down here with Jenna for decades, but that’s not going to happen now. We’ll all be dead or flying in a few days.”

“You’ve had a change of heart then?”

Brandt looked pained. “You have to understand, I’ve spent years down here already. I was down here as a kid before you knew this place existed. And my father was a prisoner here as well, and his father before that.”

“Your ancestors were willing participants,” Sandeep argued. “Your father did his duty, and he accepted his fate in his final years.”

“I know. That was how we were different. I fought against it. I couldn’t do to Jenna what he did to me. I had to let her taste the real world.”

Sandeep nodded. He decided it was best not to say too much. He was happy to let Brandt talk. If this admission was real and not another of this man’s clever ruses to escape, it was a good sign. Having him aboard as a willing crewmember was infinitely preferable to having a dangerous unknown in their midst. Originally, the plan had been to put Brandt in wrist and ankle chains just before takeoff. Sandeep was reconsidering that idea now.

“You’ve helped me come around too, Sandeep,” Brandt continued. “I know you didn’t choose these events. You’d rather be anywhere else than squatting in this hole, planning an insane flight in an alien ship that will probably kill us all. It’s plain on your face every day, every meeting.”

Sandeep tried not to react. He didn’t nod or shake his head in denial. They both knew Brandt spoke the truth, but Sandeep couldn’t afford to say it aloud.

“Well brother,” Brandt said, “that’s all I had to say. Welcome to my version of Hell. We’re all in for quite a ride, I bet.”

Sandeep watched him walk away. He didn’t know what to think, but he turned back to the naming committee. They’d held a vote and come up with a name.

“Starfire,” Dr. Tanaka said, “that’s the new name. We hope this ship will take us to the stars.”

“Starfire it is,” Sandeep said. “Excellent.”

Chapter 50

Nevada Desert

Day

The ground shook. Something big puffed up into the sky.

Old-timers around the base and even out on highway 395 looked at the horizon and saw the plume rise up and up. They hadn’t seen anything like this since the nuclear tests of the distant past.

Inside the ship, Jackie was wrapped up in webbing. She felt an exertion of force upon her body such as she’d never experienced before. It was a shock. She could hardly breathe.

She couldn’t believe they’d leapt into motion so quickly. She couldn’t believe they were doing so with untested alien technology. But most of all, she couldn’t believe she’d personally engaged the EM-Drive and launched them all into space.

Even the NASA people, the supposed professionals, were as shell-shocked and overwhelmed as the rest of the crew. Their preparations had been minimal on every front. They’d needed more time for everything—but in order to have a chance to beat the Russians, they’d taken off as quickly as they could.

There should have been a long period of careful planning and training—months at least— preferably years. In retrospect, even the composition of the final roster now looked absurd to Jackie. Dr. Jackie Linscott serving as the chief engineer on a spaceship? Impossible. Granted, she was something of an expert on engine design, but that didn’t mean she should be exploring the heavens. She’d never even broken the sound barrier before.

That all changed within the first ten seconds of the journey. The hangar above Gamma Level had always been empty, or nearly empty. The hangar had been camouflage, constructed for a day like today.

Except for the crew aboard Starfire, the great chamber had been evacuated hours before the launch. When it was go-time, the pit transformed into a blast-pan. The earth above the great chamber was porous and designed to melt away, sliding to the sides and collapsing into cisterns between the various sub-chambers that scientists such as herself had occupied for years.

The ceiling had collapsed as designed, and the hangar had yawned open like a massive clam shell, spreading its jaws skyward. From this pit, the ship had risen like its namesake, a fiery star burning in the atmosphere with an almost uncontrollable velocity right from the start.

Her first task had been to engage the engines and apply thrust. The flight crew had been given the power of steering and course adjustment.

Unfortunately, the lowest power setting on her board had proven to be too much. She’d applied more thrust than four Saturn V rockets could produce and shot the heavy ship into the sky with alarming speed. Screens from ground control showed the scene they’d left behind. Some parts of the hangar had been damaged, and the rocky exterior of the ship was gouged with claw-marks.

Despite the mishaps, they’d all survived the initial launch. Shaking with a combination of fear and vibration from the power under her, Jackie reached for the boards to tone it down, to relieve the crushing force, but she couldn’t lift a finger.

“Engineering!” shouted Colonel Dyson in a strained voice. “Cut the engines, we’re out of control.”

“I can’t reach the boards, commander,” Jackie replied through gritted teeth.

“You have to ease off, engineer. I don’t know if the ship can take this much stress. We could blow up.”

“Roger that,” Jackie said. “I’ll do what I can.”

Jackie unbuckled herself. She forced one hand to worm its way across her midsection. Grabbing her right wrist with her left hand, she was able to reach the console.

“Asking for confirmation,” she said. “If I cut this engine, I’m not sure I can get it going again. The core will be unshielded, and the reaction will dissipate.”

“Are you saying we’ll blow up if we slow down?”

“I honestly don’t know. But we’ll lose power. We could fall back to Earth.”

There was a moment of static. Jackie could faintly hear others on various channels, some were shouting. A few chanted data from one group to another. She gathered there were injuries, but she couldn’t do anything about that now. All her attention had to stay riveted on the engines, or she could kill them all.

“I don’t think there’s any danger of falling back to Earth,” Dyson said. “We’re already hitting the mesosphere. My God, I don’t believe it. Only that outer shield of rock and ice is keeping us from burning up. Maybe that’s why they built up the ship’s hull into a cold rock in the first place.”

“Commander,” Jackie said, “Do you want me to cut power or not?”

“Will the G forces ease off on their own?”

“As Earth’s pull lessens, we’ll just speed up. The vibration should cut out when we leave the atmosphere behind, but the acceleration will remain constant. That’s the whole beauty of the EM-Drive.”

“I’m not feeling the love here, engineer. Your specs are way off. We can’t function long term at anything like three Gs. When we’re out of the atmosphere, cut back. If we have to restart, we’ll restart.”

Jackie let her arms slide back down to her sides in relief. They already ached. The vibration subsided over the next few minutes as did the roaring sound. They were in space and powering right out of Earth’s reach, having exceeded escape velocity in less than ten minutes.

Someone crawled close to Jackie. The squatting figure moved in a crouch. She levered her head to one side and saw Perez. She forced her slack lips to smile.

“It’s hard to breathe,” she told him. “I should be working on the software to ease the thrust, but I can’t type on the console.”

“I thought we would be weightless in space,” Perez said from his crouched position.

She marveled at how he’d adapted to being twice his normal weight so quickly. He kept his head low so the blood didn’t pool up. She realized how strong he had to be. In comparison, she had a hard time getting out of her chair.

“That’s a mistake,” Perez said, looking up at her. “Don’t stand and walk. Just scuttle around like a crab. It’s easier. Think about it this way, you just put a hundred and twenty pound weight on your back. That’s tiring. Worse, the blood pumping to your brain—”

“Don’t talk about that,” she said, letting herself down onto the floor as gently as she could. “You’re making me dizzy just thinking about it.”

She followed his lead despite the stares from others strapped in their chairs. Those who were moving around were going from one hand-hold to the next. Heavier built people had the hardest time of it. They were crippled by the centrifugal force.

“Engineer?” Dyson asked in her headset.

“Linscott here,” she answered. She was sitting at a second console now, a programming station. She had several windows open and was trying to concentrate.

“Have you got that power-down worked out yet? Give me about half this level of acceleration, and we’ll be making great time without being crippled.”

“I’m working on it.”

There was a silence. Jackie thought Colonel Dyson was annoyed.

“How long can it take?” she demanded. “I can hardly hang onto the guidance controls. Don’t you have to get in there and divide a number by two or something?”

“It’s more complex than that,” Jackie explained. “The control unit has a nonlinear control algorithm. Dampening the engine’s output dampens the field strength. I have to adjust with a polynomial—”

“All right, all right. Whatever. Get it done. Dyson out.”

Jackie shook her head. She’d known right off that Dyson was going to be a hard one to get along with all the way out to Jupiter, and the woman had done nothing to change her opinion.

“Is the commander riding your butt?” Perez asked.

She nodded. “She doesn’t like being out of control, I think. This isn’t a Boeing jet or a shuttlecraft. I didn’t really even know what would happen when we lit this thing up. There wasn’t any time for trials and tests.”

“Did you think we might blow up?”

She looked at him. “The thought crossed my mind.”

“Mine too.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Perez smiled.

She spent several hours working formulas, and was finally able to come up with a controlled slow-down. She’d only been able to model the procedure while on the ground. Now, with real data as to the thrust the engines could provide and how the ship responded in actual space, she was able to come up with solutions that she’d only guessed at before.

As soon as she was able, she employed her thrust-reduction scheme and the ship eased on down. The thrumming of the engines reduced to a murmur, and her guts felt better immediately. She was able to stand up and walk around again.

Soon thereafter her helmet squawked again, and she put up her gloved hand to answer the call. “Linscott here.”

“Engineering?” asked a familiar voice.

“Sandeep? What is it?”

“We’re down below one-G acceleration. Is there a problem? Are the engines failing?”

“No sir. I reduced our speed.”

“That action is not authorized. I’ve checked with ground control. We need to beat our rivals to the target. Even with our current acceleration curve, we might not make it.”

Might not? she thought. Who was doing the math? There shouldn’t be a “might” involved when it came to a set of equations.

“Sandeep, have the navigator do the numbers for a one-G burn half way, then a turn-around and one-G deceleration to the finish.”

“Those numbers have already been run,” Sandeep explained. “Even at our current velocity, we won’t beat them out there at this pace. They’ll have a whole week on the surface ahead of us.”

Jackie sighed. “Sir, I have to ask, who exactly is in overall command of this mission? Who makes flight-control decisions?”

She already knew the answer, of course. She was just trying to make a point. The flight crew made flight decisions—that had been established before they left. At least, that’s what the answer was supposed to be.

“I’m surprised you aren’t accepting my authority,” he said after a moment’s hesitation.

“I’m not bucking you, Sandeep. I’m a civilian, but even I know a ship needs to have a clear chain of command.”

“Mission parameters are set by ground control and relayed to the crew by me. Flight decisions are limited to how best to achieve those mission goals.”

“Have you told Dyson about this?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“All right, all right. What will it take to match the Russians?”

Sandeep was quiet for a moment, working on his computer and talking to others. “A little faster than one G will do it. But that’s not good enough.”

“Not good enough?”

“No. We have to beat them. It isn’t at all satisfactory to meet them head on. We’re asking for an average of one-point-seven gravities all the way out, accelerating and decelerating.”

“Great. Linscott out.”

She closed up her console and took a deep breath. Perez had gotten to his feet and was stretching while he quietly watched her.

“What did he say?” he asked.

“He wants us to maintain a killing pace. He wants us to feel like bugs under a man’s heel.”

Perez nodded as if unsurprised. “He’s become a classic middle manager in a very short time.”

“I have to talk to Edwin. I’m not sure we’re built to withstand this kind of force for weeks.”

“Weeks? Wonderful.”

Jackie contacted Edwin, who cleared his throat in her earpiece before she could speak.

“Medical here,” he said.

“Dr. Goody—”

“Please call me Edwin, Dr. Linscott.”

“Okay Edwin,” she said. She’d called him Edwin ever since she’d met him, but now that they were officially in flight, well, part of her wanted everyone to have a title. “I need input. Can this crew take about two Gs of acceleration for a prolonged period?”

“How do you define prolonged?”

“Figure on two weeks.”

Edwin cursed colorfully. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Why wasn’t I informed of this earlier?”

“Would it have helped?”

“Probably not. How about this? How about we push hard for a few hours, then ease off to normal one G for several hours. Give everyone a chance to rest. Then we get back on our couches and fight to breathe for the next few hours at two-point-five Gs? I’m using round numbers here.”

“Would that be better for overall health?”

“Yes. Especially for sleep schedules. I’m afraid of sleep apnea if we apply so much weight to everyone’s chest all night. Not all of us are in our twenties, Doctor.”

She thought about that in alarm. Sleeping under heavy Gs? That sounded horrid. It would be like sleeping with lead weights resting on your chest and throat.

“All right. We’ll work on a schedule. Out.”

Together with the navigator she worked out the math. She talked to Dyson about it, but there wasn’t any mercy to be found there. Apparently, the flight crew had known all along that pulling prolonged Gs was going to be necessary. As they were in top physical condition, they’d never worried about it after the initial launch, which had been brutal.

The ship would have to push hard for several hours a day while everyone rested on couches. During sleeping periods, they could coast with almost normal gravity levels. For short periods during the day, they’d also ease off the accelerator to allow people to move around, eliminate and eat safely.

This trip was beginning to feel like a grueling endurance contest to her. She’d known that space travel could be harsh and unforgiving, but knowing it intellectually and living it were two different things.

Unfortunately, she had a feeling that life might not become easier once they reached their destination.

Chapter 51

Approaching Jupiter, Aboard Troika

Starlight

Whenever he could, Lev spent hours watching Jupiter gliding swiftly nearer. Now that they were so close, he wasn’t sure he wanted to arrive at all.

Seen from less than twenty million miles away, Jupiter was like a small pale sun. Relatively tiny objects swung around it. The planetary system swarmed with its own moons. The largest of them were now visible to the naked eye.

Things changed as the ship went into deceleration and slowed down to land. Troika was moving so fast that the deceleration process took many days.

The radiation alerts became increasingly disruptive. Jupiter was like a torch in the Solar System, outdone only by the fury of the Sun itself. They couldn’t all stay in the radiation-shielded module all the time, however. In order to operate the ship, the crew moved around in bulky spacesuits which were thicker and heavier than those used in Earth orbit. The suits were built to protect the cosmonauts from a steady blast of radiation once they reached Europa.

Spending all his time in the shielded module made him claustrophobic. Lev soon figured out that he could have privacy by braving the radiation during sleep periods. He drifted around the ship at night, searching for interesting items. Sometimes Dr. Norin joined him on these jaunts.

He was acutely aware of the tiny, invisible particles bombarding him during these forays, but he did it anyway. Thinking about it made his skin crawl, so he tried not to.

During one of the many radiation blackouts, Lev finally managed to enjoy a blackout of his own. Dr. Norin had helped, locating a stash of vodka another passenger had hoarded. Lev had guzzled four ration bottles without hesitation, giving Kira the fifth. Then, he’d stretched out on his victim’s bunk and fallen asleep.

He awakened alone. The ship was quiet, and the lights had been dimmed for sleeping. He heaved himself out of the bunk, wishing he could rub his face—but he could not. The radiation was still hitting the ship like a steady storm. Why had the designers not seen fit to shield the entire vessel? Certainly, it would have been a serious weight issue, but he would have gladly flown for two more weeks to enjoy the additional comforts.

Groaning, he made his way out into the passages. He decided after looking back into the floating debris field he’d left behind in someone else’s cabin that he was glad the radiation alert signs were still blinking red. He’d worried that he’d be found on the bunk. He didn’t need any more enemies.

He’d made it perhaps ten meters down the passageway when it occurred to him that Kira had left him snoring. Why was that?

The matter did not anger him. Perhaps she’d decided to let him sleep—but he was curious as to what she was doing. It was his job to watch her, after all. They hadn’t been able to enjoy sex very often lately, due to the communal nature of the radiation-shielded module. He found that this made him wish to locate her even more. He didn’t like the idea that perhaps she’d lost interest.

He could have simply contacted her with suit-to-suit radio—but he didn’t. He found that people were usually at their most honest when you came upon them by surprise.

Lev floated quietly through the ship, passing the bridge, where two suited pilots watched the controls. He passed the shielded “safe” module, finding it full of sleeping crewmembers, but she wasn’t among them.

Curious, he levered himself down to the end of the central passage. This long, twisting tube connected most of the ship, stringing together the modules like grapes on a vine. In the very last module he found a light—a blue-white light that moved.

He watched quietly. Kira was here, in the engine compartment. What was she doing? He couldn’t fathom it. She had tools, and her headlamp was turned up to full power.

He floated near her, looming over her shoulder.

“What are you doing?” he asked conversationally.

She startled, spinning around. “Oh, Lev! You gave me a heart attack.”

“Did you think I was one of your aliens?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why be afraid?”

Kira was quiet for a moment. She turned back to her work and began putting away her tools. “It’s only natural,” she said. “I’m alone in a quiet spot. You startled me.”

“You never told me what you’re doing here.”

“Nothing,” she said, “other than my job. Have you ever wondered why they brought me along out here? And why, as a result of this, you were brought along too?”

Lev had wondered about that, but since he had no way of altering events in the past he hadn’t pursued the details.

“Tell me,” he said.

She pointed at the engine. “There is alien technology here. I have an affinity for it. That’s why they wanted me. That’s why you were told not to harm me, and to help me escape the Artifact in the Arctic Ocean alive.”

“I don’t understand. They brought you here so you could work on the new drive system? You’re no engineer.”

“No, I—it doesn’t matter. Let’s go back—”

She’d packed up her tools and begun to pass him, heading for the passage. He blocked her progress with a firm hand.

“It does matter,” he said. “Please continue. Explain to me why you left our bed, left me snoring, and came down here to do this vital work.”

Kira glared at him. He could see her unhappy expression through her visor.

“You’re still a brute, aren’t you?” she demanded angrily.

“I simply want you to answer the question.”

“After all we’ve been through together there isn’t a tiny amount of trust?”

“No,” he said firmly. “None at all. It is not part of my nature. If you want to experience trust, go back to Earth and buy a puppy. Not a cat, mind you, because they won’t trust you either.”

Kira took in a deep breath and let it out again, blowing loudly over the microphone in her helmet and causing her visor to fog briefly.

“All right,” she said. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway.”

Lev waited. Often, people said more when he said nothing.

“They brought me on the mission because this ship’s engine is stolen. It was salvaged from the wreckage in Siberia. I never worked on that project, but I was among the first to find the Artifact under the icecap. I was, in fact, the first person to touch it without protection.”

“What possessed you to touch it?”

She shrugged. “We were on a deep-sea mission, driving a bathysphere. We were searching for minerals, of course, surveying the seafloor. I was only a graduate student at the time; I didn’t yet have my doctoral degree. Anyway, I was young, and when we found the Artifact and managed to get inside the dripping, cold interior, I took off my glove and touched the walls.”

Lev shrugged. “So what? You touched it, so now you’re sabotaging this mission? How does this make sense?”

“No, of course not. I imprinted on the Artifact—or it imprinted on me. I don’t know. I think the Artifact was down there at the bottom of the sea so long that it reset itself. I think that the locks on it lost their memory of whomever or whatever had mastered them before. Now, whenever I touch alien equipment, it operates for me. It will not do so for anyone else.”

Lev stared, trying to understand what she was saying and what it meant. “You mean this ship won’t fly without you?”

“No, I don’t mean that. I was important to its construction, however. I was able to move the engine to Troika from the Artifact and connect them properly. Now that the engine are no longer part of the Artifact they can operate under the harness of earth-built controls.”

Lev nodded. “So, why are you so critical, then?”

She gave him an irritated glance. “Because they hope to repeat the trick. They hope that by bringing me along, they’ll be able to unlock more technological wonders on Europa.”

“I had no idea you were so important to this mission. The concept is alarming. After all, you’re a recent saboteur and murderess.”

“That’s no way to talk about your lover,” she said. “Besides, I didn’t mean to kill everyone down there. I meant only to send a signal.”

Lev was thinking fast. It wasn’t something he was accustomed to, but this woman’s companionship required it. If she was so critical to this space mission, it explained the way that Kira had risen up in the ranks of the Science Academy so quickly, and it explained why she hadn’t yet gone to prison or been quietly shot for her role in what had happened in the Arctic.

“So what are you doing here with the engine at this moment?” he asked. “The engine is working perfectly. Your dubious services aren’t needed.”

“I—I’m sending another signal.”

“What? Are you mad, woman? Will you kill us all?”

“Don’t worry, Lev,” she said. “The signal has already been sent, and no one has died.”

His eyes narrowed. “These radiation alerts, have some of them been your doing?”

“Yes.”

“Why Kira? Why? Are you insane?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Tell me, then, why in God’s name you would send another signal?” he demanded. “And where did you send it?”

“To Europa, of course. We’re close now. They can’t possibly miss it.”

“They?”

“Yes. I believe there are aliens on the small, frozen world ahead. I believe they’re the people who sent a ship to Earth a century ago.”

“Why would you want to signal them, if they’re there?”

“Because of the plan. They’re going to do it, Lev. They’re going to drop the hammer.”

“What are you talking about now?”

“It’s an old idea. It’s called the Hammer of Thor. Our military—the Americans too—they’ve both experimented with the idea of dropping objects from space onto Earth. A five kilo object—just a ball of steel wrapped in ceramic—that’s enough to destroy a town if it moves fast enough.”

“I don’t understand.”

She turned around and looked into his face. He could tell she was serious. Whatever she was, she wasn’t a liar.

“Listen. The kinetic energy of a moving object grows as its velocity increases. That’s why a ball thrown hard enough hurts your hands. If you throw a ball of metal at a planet—well, if you throw it fast enough it will strike like a meteor and create a crater at the impact point.”

Lev was beginning to catch on. “Are you saying we’re doing this? That we’re launching cannonballs at Europa? Why?”

“Yes. We fired several ahead of us when we were at maximum velocity. We’ve been slowing down, but the missiles have not. They will smash into Europa in a chain, creating a large crater. That’s why I’m warning the aliens.”

Lev didn’t know what to say. The idea seemed so strange.

“Why would they do that? Why would Dr. Statnik order such a thing? We might destroy the very technology that we’ve come to investigate.”

“They’re willing to take the chance. The ice on Europa is over a kilometer thick, and the Americans will follow us as soon as they can. How do you drill through so much ice on a hostile world and get down there quickly? This is their way to speed up the process. Half the digging will be done before we even reach Jupiter.”

Lev nodded thoughtfully. It sounded like a Russian solution. Very direct and forceful. It was also an ecologist’s nightmare. The Russian President must have been proud.

“Okay, okay,” he said after he’d absorbed her ideas. “Let’s say I believe you. Let’s say it’s even true. Why would you seek to warn the aliens?”

“Because I think they’re peaceful, Lev. If they weren’t, they would have come and destroyed us long ago. But they didn’t. They left us alone. Now here we are, flying out to their cold world. They might have no idea we’re coming. Someday, we’ll send more ships. Someday, Earth will try to conquer them. It’s in our nature.”

Lev stared at her, disbelieving of her naiveté. “But, Kira,” he said. “You don’t know they’re friendly.”

“There’s no danger. I don’t think they’re like us. I don’t think they’re violent and cruel like humans. Maybe they didn’t evolve from a predatory species. They would have made an aggressive move by now if they were going to.”

“You’ve endangered us all on the basis of an unsubstantiated belief!”

“No, I’ve sent a message to warn an innocent people! They’ll be able to tell where the signal is coming from with the most basic science. They’ve been forewarned. It’s the least I could do.”

Lev shook his head. He didn’t know quite what to think.

Chapter 52

Beyond Mars Orbit, Aboard Starfire

Sleeping period

The voyage claimed its first victim during the night as the American ship approached the asteroid belt. The killer wasn’t a grain of sand punching like a bullet through the hull and blasting into the sleeping woman’s skull, however. Instead, it was the extreme acceleration.

They were still hurtling toward their destination. The flight crew was already decelerating, having reversed at the half-way point between Earth and Jupiter to reduce their deadly speed. This change manifested itself aboard the ship as simply more heavy G forces, pressing them all against the deck. Their bodies were moving toward Jupiter at a startling rate, and they had to be slowed down to match the moon they were going to rendezvous with in a matter of days.

Dr. Sally Carranza died in her sleep during the tenth rest period of the journey.

After discovering the death, Dr. Goody insisted on a disruption of the schedule.

“We have to investigate the death,” he insisted. “If we all die, the mission is a failure. That would be worse than landing late.”

Reluctantly, Sandeep and Colonel Dyson went along with him.

“Do it,” Sandeep said. “But please, Edwin, work fast.”

Edwin made a rattling sound of disgust in his throat. The flight crew eased the ship’s deceleration down to one-point-two-five Gs, and Edwin did his best to work under difficult conditions.

“The autopsy was rapid and bloody,” he said less than half an hour later. “I’ve never worked on such a fresh corpse before. She hadn’t even cooled. It was like being in medical school all over again.”

“Please, what are the results?” Sandeep asked.

“She suffered a blood clot and a stroke that killed her in her sleep, that’s my best guess. She wasn’t the oldest crewmember, but she was past fifty and overweight.”

Sandeep nodded, taking it in. “So, what killed her was a weakness in her circulatory system. The rest of us are not in danger.”

He turned to go, but Edwin caught his arm. Sandeep felt the man’s strong hand, and looked down to see that his sleeve had been stained by shiny blood.

“We all have that weakness,” Edwin said. “She went first, but we can’t take this forever. I recommend, as your medical officer, that you stand down on the acceleration. No more pushing up to above two Gs. Give us one G at night, with periodic rests.”

“It can’t be done.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve talked to the navigator. We’re moving too fast to change our plans now. Choices about our maximal velocity have already been made. We must slow down, or we’ll slam into Jupiter or shoot past it. Once you’re going a hundred miles an hour in a car, Edwin, worrying about how dangerous braking might be is a waste of time. We’re committed.”

Edwin frowned. “In that case, I predict we’ll lose another one soon.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. They’re all exhausted, stressed. I’m surprised by the blood clot. I would have thought simply choking or having a heart attack would have come first.”

Sandeep eyed him in concern. He hated this part of his new job. How had he gotten himself into this position? He wasn’t qualified, and he lacked Clark’s fire.

“I’ll contact Clark,” he said. “You’ll have my answer in two hours.”

Edwin’s hand gripped him more firmly. “No,” he said. “You make the call. You’re the mission commander out here, remember? Clark is a hundred million miles away. That’s why you’re in charge. It’s your call.”

Sandeep considered that. Edwin and he both knew what Clark would have said. He’d have sweetly ordered them to charge on at full speed even if it meant more deaths.

“I’ll see what can be done,” he said at last.

Sandeep’s next meeting was with Dyson, and it wasn’t pleasant. She wasn’t the easiest going member of the crew under the best of circumstances. In fact, Sandeep calculated she was probably the biggest bitch in space at this moment.

“You’re out of your mind,” she said. “I’m barely in control of this thing. It’s like flying a shopping cart with a rocket booster strapped on it, pushing my ass toward a brick wall. Numbers are numbers, Sandeep. We have to apply thrust to slow down.”

“We’ll lose people. That’s what my medical officer is telling me.”

“Yeah? That bumpkin? He probably hasn’t set a bone since he was an intern.”

“He served in Iran. Three tours.”

Dyson’s face shifted. “Okay. So he’s been around. All right. How the hell do you want me to do this?”

“There’s only one way. I talked to your navigator, and he ran the numbers. We’ll overshoot Jupiter, then turn around and come back.”

“That will take days!”

“Three days—maybe four. But you could shave that.”

“How?”

“You could take a more direct path. Angle back down into the plane of the ecliptic.”

She stared at him. “You mean directly through the Asteroid Belt? That’s not safe, either!”

“I’ve talked to Linscott about it. She says the outer hull of this ship is thick enough to stop small sand grains and the like. Dust is no problem.”

“What if we hit something bigger? Like a rock the size of a bullet, or a baseball?”

“I don’t know.”

“At this speed, Einstein, we’re dead,” Dyson said, crossing her arms. “I’m not going to do it. It’s not worth it, Sandeep. You’re talking about risking the entire ship to save a few days. That’s crazy.”

Sandeep was thoughtful. He was out of his depth, and he knew it. He was a weak captain. He should never have gotten this job. If this had been a purely scientific exploratory trip where safety came first, he’d do a fine job—but it wasn’t. They were in a race, hell-bent to beat the Russians. That required a kind of decision-making, a cold measuring of lives versus gain, that he wasn’t prepared to do.

He heaved a sigh. “All right. We shoot past. We arrive late. Try to shave off some hours if you can.”

Dyson nodded. “Will do, skipper,” she said.

Had there been a mocking tone in her voice? Yes, he believed so.

Chapter 53

Jupiter Orbit, Aboard Troika

Starlight

Lev was exhilarated. He hadn’t expected to feel the emotion of the others, but he wasn’t made of stone.

Outside their ship, a massive planet loomed. It filled their vision, like a solid wall of orangey-brown with cream-colored stripes. It didn’t look quite the way he’d expected it to look. It was much less colorful than his imagination, but it was amazing nonetheless.

“Where’s Europa?” he asked, staring.

Kira tapped the frosted glass down low. They had to shift and look from the top of the glass to see it. A white sphere hung nearby. It was directly ahead of their oddly shaped craft. It had reddish stripes running across it.

“What are those red lines? Cracks in the ice?”

“Yes.”

“Why are they the color of fresh rust? They look like the veins on a drunk’s eyeball.”

Kira glanced at him. “Then you should feel right at home.”

“I haven’t had a drink in two days!”

“Only because the machine stopped producing it.”

She was right, so he kept quiet. He’d dried out, and his body had taken that hard. He suspected that the vodka-still had been disabled by the crew, but he couldn’t prove it. Every minute was a pounding headache for him. He wanted to get out of this ship and do something—anything.

“What will it be like down there?” he asked.

“You haven’t listened to any of the briefings, have you?”

“I’ve forgotten the details.”

She made a disgusted sound, then sighed. “It will be cold. About one-hundred sixty degrees C below zero. The gravity will be low, lower than that on our moon. We’ll have to shuffle along so as not to take accidental leaps.”

“Ha! That’s good news at least. I’m tired of the weight of this suit and heavy G forces. I’ve been feeling heavy for weeks as we decelerate.”

“There are hazards, as you’ve been briefed.”

“Pretend I need a refresher course.”

Another sidelong glance. “It will be like the icecap on Earth, but more treacherous. Bigger crevasses. Sudden venting is possible.”

“Venting?”

“The warm water below comes out now and then, ejected as blasts of water vapor which turns quickly into ice crystals. These geysers can shoot up with such force they reach orbit over the moon itself.”

“Hmm. Sounds dangerous.”

“It will be. We might land only to be crushed by the shifting ice an hour later. Remember the spheres we fired at Europa? They’ve dug a crater at our landing spot. A rough surface is guaranteed at this spot. Fresh ice and snow. Hopefully, there won’t be any deadly chasms.”

He looked at her while she stared out the window. “You sound as if you want us all to die on this snowball.”

“That might be for the best,” she admitted, “in the end.”

“You’re beyond suicidal. You yearn for our extinction.”

Their relationship had cooled over the last week of the journey. They were no longer having sex, which Lev missed. He wasn’t sure if her new attitude was natural or planned. Had she slept with him earlier only to gain his confidence?

He shrugged. These things were one and the same to him.

“Where will we land?”

She glanced at him, then looked back into space. “We won’t. Not right away. We’ll swing around several times, studying the surface first. You should hope that our crew chooses wisely.”

“What is that red stuff?” he asked.

“An impurity. Saltwater seas under the ice push up and cover the surface with spray, as I said. We suspect sulfurous compounds stain the ice.”

“A sea full of sulfur? I hope you’re wrong.”

“Why?”

“It will stink.”

She laughed. It was the first time he’d heard her laugh since they’d run out of booze.

“You won’t ever smell it,” she said. “If you took off your helmet for a second you would die.”

He wagged a finger at her. “I know what I’m talking about. Have you worked in an industrial city? In the factories? No, of course you haven’t. Sulfur in your drinking water is unpleasant. It tastes and smells like farts all the time. Trust me, I know.”

“Why would we drink it?”

“How long will we be here? Longer than you think, I bet. I know these crewmen. They’re Russians. In no time at all, they’ll have us drinking the water and breathing the air they process from that water. They’re counting on it, I’m certain.”

She shook her head and went back to gazing out the window.

A few hours later, they were in orbit over Europa. The radiation alarms were blinking all the time now due to Jupiter’s looming presence. The huge gas giant was like a blowtorch of particles.

Lev was impressed by the rate at which Europa scooted around its master. Every three and a half days it made a full revolution, and as the hours passed, he could see that Jupiter was spinning too.

They made the determination to land without Lev’s input. That was as he expected. What was unexpected was the roughness of the descent.

The ship rocked and vibrated as it fell, tail-first, toward the moon’s bizarre surface. Lev entertained a thousand scenarios, all of which involved a quick death for everyone aboard.

They might melt the ice and fall through—despite the insistence by the science types this couldn’t happen, that the ice was too thick. Lev had been on icecaps many times, and none of them could have easily supported a blazing spaceship landing upon them.

If it didn’t break straight through, it might melt at a thin spot. According to Kira, such thin spots caused vapor to release. Maybe the ice would shift, and if it didn’t capsize them outright, it might drop them into a chasm and crush them.

Barring that, a geyser of steam, freezing the moment it reached the surface, could boil up with extreme pressure and flip them over, or—

“Landing in sixty seconds,” said a dispassionate voice. “Initiate final harness checks.”

Lev’s eyes rolled up, and he stared through the only triangular window he could see. Vapors roiled outside. Troika was venting something.

“T-minus thirty seconds.”

The ship shook with uneven acceleration and rolled over, aiming its belly toward the alien world outside.

The shaking increased as the ship thrust hard to slow itself. Lev gripped the armrests of his chair.

“T-minus fifteen seconds… All systems green.”

Lev’s teeth were showing now. He knew that, but he couldn’t help it. His heart pounded and sweat crawled in his hair like insects.

“Ten…”

“Nine…”

Something touched his arm. It was Kira, reaching out to him. He twisted against his harness, and they looked at one another, their eyes only barely able to meet due to the curvature of their closed helmets.

“Six…”

“Five…”

He clasped Kira’s hand. She relaxed and lay back. He did the same.

“Three…”

“Two…”

“Ground contact—emergency—”

The ship heaved and a crashing roar struck them. Lev knew then, truly knew, that he was dead.

Kira gripped his hand with fingers like iron bands, and she didn’t let go.

Chapter 54

Jupiter Far Orbit, Aboard Starfire

Starlight

Dr. Tanaka was having a hard time of it in the tiny cybernetics lab. Since the loss of her beloved drone she’d been tasked with building a new one. The new drone, B-7, would be smaller, more efficient and built to operate independently in an environment that was even more hostile than the Arctic Ocean.

Cold—that was her greatest enemy. The drone might have to bore through ice. That put the B-7 into a different category than anything she’d built before. Independent navigation was one thing, but drilling too? She didn’t know if she could do it, not in the time she had been allotted.

She’d been working on this new drone for weeks before liftoff, but it hadn’t even been ready to replace the old unit before they left Earth. These people expected miracles. Soldering and programming were difficult enough tasks, even with several techs to aid her. Doing these jobs under the force of constant acceleration was torment.

“Yuki?” Edwin asked.

She didn’t even turn toward the hatchway. “Just a second, Edwin. I’m doing something delicate, here.”

“I understand completely. I’ll come back later.”

She caught the disappointment in his voice, and turned around.

“Edwin? Please come back.”

He reappeared quickly, his bulk filling the entrance.

“You look like a kid who’s been turned down for a date,” she said. “Why the long face?”

“Well, I was thinking…”

She knew what he was thinking about. They’d had a wonderful night back in Vegas. Since then, it had been an on-again, off-again series of hook-ups that occurred at random intervals every week or two. She frankly didn’t know what kind of a relationship she had with Dr. Goody. She’d been too busy flying to another planet to worry about his feelings or much of anything else.

“When this is all over,” she told him, “I want to go back to Vegas with you. Do you think we could get the same room at Lucky Seven? With the view of the mountains?”

Edwin smiled. “Yes, I bet we could.”

“Okay then,” she said, “it’s a date.”

He left happily enough. She knew that hadn’t been what he was hoping for, but it was the best she could do at the moment. The actuator on the damned robot’s lower manipulating arm stopped operating every time she closed the case. It was becoming disconnected somehow, and that was driving her nuts.

Her communicator beeped, and she tapped at it irritably. What now?

“Yes?” she demanded in a tight voice.

“Yuki? It’s Jackie.”

“What’s up?” Yuki said, putting on her happy voice. She wanted to curse and disconnect, but she managed to control her baser instincts. She liked Jackie, and she counted her as a budding friend.

“There’s something weird going on—I’m talking about the sensor data from Europa.”

Yuki finally looked up from her drone. She frowned. There was something in Jackie’s voice…

“I’m coming to your module,” she said.

A few minutes later, they were poring over incoming optical data. They had feeds from external telescopic cameras on the outer hull of Starfire. These devices were wonders of technology, and they were all focused on Europa.

“See this?” Jackie said, spreading her fingers to expand an image to a startling degree. The photos were very high resolution, the details improved with each touch of her hand.

“See what?” Yuki asked.

“This dark patch of ice—right here,” Jackie said. “Watch that spot as I flip this series of photos taken over several minutes.”

Frowning, Yuki leaned on the table. Glowing halos appeared where her hair and elbows touched its surface. The entire table was really an interactive touch-screen, but the operating system was sophisticated enough not to overreact to extraneous contact.

A series of boring surface shots of Europa appeared. They were zoomed in so tightly there was nothing but a field of ice to see. The small alien world was white with rust-red lines splashed all over it.

“This moon looks like one of Edwin’s eyeballs the morning after,” Yuki remarked.

“Shush, just watch,” Jackie said.

Yuki glanced at her, then back at the screen. Jackie was so intense. Yuki supposed she, herself, was probably guilty of the same thing when she was working, but only when she was tinkering with her drone.

When the third shot appeared, Yuki frowned. She cocked her head.

“It looks different. There’s something wrong. It’s all white now.”

“That’s right. Watch.”

Yuki was riveted. A moment later, the fourth shot appeared. The affected area was wider. If anything, it looked even more uniform than before. The red lines were gone. There was nothing but a white, rising dome.

“What do you think about that?” Jackie asked.

“I…I think it’s an explosion,” Yuki said.

“Right. That’s what it is. The region directly over that dark patch of ice has ruptured.”

Yuki straightened. “I have to admit, that’s a pretty cool shot. To capture a natural event—what are the odds? It could be a meteor strike, or a release of gas. There are geysers all over Europa.”

“Everything you say is true,” Jackie admitted. “But there’s more. I’ll fast forward about an hour. Check this out.”

The ice was back to normal again, if a bit more gray-white than before. But as the photos flashed up—it went white again.

“What?” Yuki said, standing and staring. “Are you saying that the exact same spot was hit?”

“Yes.”

“An hour later?”

“Exactly one hour later.”

Jackie and Yuki stared at one another. “That’s impossible. Unless you’ve found some kind of equivalent to old faithful on Europa.”

Jackie sat back, sighing. “I went through it over and over before I called you down here. The strikes—they can’t be geysers from below, the pattern is wrong—the strikes are rhythmic and precisely on target. Six times over six hours the moon was hit with…something.”

“What does it mean?” Yuki asked, but already her mind was racing. She was thinking of Edwin’s aliens. “Could there be someone—or something—hitting that spot on purpose?”

“Yes,” Jackie said seriously. “That’s the only answer.”

Yuki laughed and shook her head. “You’re trying to freak me out.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re trying to prove to me that aliens are down there, setting off charges or something.”

Jackie laughed then. “No, no, no. That’s not the answer—not my answer, anyway. As I said, the strikes are coming from above the planet. They’re meteor hits. Something like that.”

Yuki squinted at the screen, backing it up and playing the photos over and over. “Have you told Sandeep about this yet?” she asked.

“No, not yet. I want to have a prepared answer first. That’s why I called you down here.”

Yuki crossed her arms and shrugged. “What’s your theory?”

“I respect your mind, Yuki. I want you to pretend you’re a prof back in school who hates me. You have to prove me wrong.”

“All right, I’ve seen enough of those guys. I’m ready. Hit me with your best thesis.”

“The Russians did it. They launched a series of strikes somehow—probably kinetic guided missiles. That’s the theory. I’ll list the supporting evidence.”

Yuki listened carefully. She tried to wrap her mind around it. The data seemed thin to support such a fantastic conclusion, but she had to admit something odd was going on down there.

“I’ve ruled out aliens,” Jackie said, “because of the timing. If there were aliens involved, don’t you think they’d use intervals other than a precise earthly hour?”

“Maybe. I have to admit, the alien idea seems less likely. We know there’s a Russian ship out here—hell, we’re chasing them. We don’t know if there are any aliens or where they would be.”

“Right. There are two other supporting items. First, there’s the math. The Russian ship, if our launch characteristics are correct, would have been in about the right position to launch kinetic torpedoes like this. They could have done it way back around the time they passed through the asteroid belt, when they were at maximum velocity. Then they must have turned around and began slowing down their ship—they had to, or they’d crash into Europa. Measuring out their probable speed with a maximum and minimum likely velocity, then calculating when the strike would land—well, here are my figures. Confirm them, please.”

Yuki pored over the calculus for a few minutes. Finally, she nodded. “They could have done it.”

“Right,” Jackie said. “Let’s review. Hour-long intervals—that indicates a human source to me.”

“Check.”

“The math says they could have done it as far as range and distance goes.”

“Agreed. But you said there was a third item on the list.”

“Yes. That dark spot—as far as I can tell, although Sandeep hasn’t given me our exact navigational data—that’s our target.”

Yuki stared at Jackie. “We have to talk to Sandeep.”

“You support my hypothesis?”

“It matches the data we have. Sandeep might know more.”

They called Sandeep to the table, and after twenty minutes he showed up. They walked him through the photos and their analysis. Yuki was impressed with Jackie’s maneuvering. The argument seemed much stronger coming from two convinced scientists.

Sandeep was a little lost with the math, but he followed the concepts.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “The Russians launched a series of missiles at Europa? Weeks ago?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

“Why?”

Yuki and Jackie exchanged glances. This was the area they weren’t certain of as yet.

“We can only theorize,” Jackie said. “Odds are, they wanted to crack the ice at this spot.”

“Did they manage it?”

She shook her head. “No. Not yet, anyway. These six strikes made a large crater—maybe half a kilometer deep, and five wide.”

“God, that’s huge.”

“The only answer,” Yuki interjected, “is that they want to get under the ice. And they want to do it fast. They don’t plan to sit around drilling ice-cores for months. They want to punch through to the liquid ocean at this spot, and they’re softening up the moon for that purpose.”

Sandeep massaged his own neck. “Right. I see that. Right. Where does this leave us? Will they bomb us if we try to land? We aren’t prepared to fight a battle out here.”

The two women exchanged glances. “We don’t think they can use this approach to attack us when we reach the target. They launched these long ago. They can’t launch more while sitting on the surface.”

“Good.”

“Well…” Jackie said. “The next part is Yuki's idea.”

“Sandeep, I think they know we’re coming.”

Sandeep stared at her. His eyes were motionless orbs. He looked at the screen, then closed his eyes and kept them closed. At last, he nodded.

“Yes, that could be it. They want to get to the Artifact—or whatever it is—fast.”

“There’s something else you can do to help us confirm all this,” Jackie said. She and Yuki exchanged glances again.

Yuki gave her a nod. They’d agreed before they’d brought in Sandeep that they should wait until the end to hit him with this point.

“What is it?”

“What is our precise landing target? You’ve given the flight crew those coordinates, presumably, but not us.”

Sandeep shrugged. “There’s no point at further secrecy,” he said. “We’re far past all that need-to-know stuff now.” He reached out a finger and tapped the image of the freshly dug crater on the screen. “That’s the correct region of the surface. We couldn’t be precise, but the plan from control back home was to scan about ten percent of the ice, starting right there. I checked the coordinates while you were giving me that excellent explanation. As far as I’m concerned, your thesis is confirmed and actionable, ladies.”

The two scientists exchanged tight smiles.

“Unfortunately,” Sandeep said, “I’m not sure what action we can take.”

“We can land right there—and land first,” Yuki suggested.

“That would be a true demonstration of our determination,” Sandeep said.

Yuki touched his elbow and smiled. “Guts, Sandeep. The word I think you’re looking for is guts.”

Sandeep nodded, but to Yuki, he didn’t look like he was too excited about the coming “demonstration”.

Chapter 55

Surface of Europa

Starlight

The landing was rough but not deadly as Lev had feared. They’d hit something as they drifted down the last few meters, a projection reaching up from the surface of what had appeared to be flat ground from the sky. The flight crew had been unable to adjust in time, and the ship had nearly flipped over.

Fortunately, powerful braking jets had burned brightly in response, melting a flatter area at the last moment. They’d landed at last with only minor damage, but the ship was canted twenty degrees off center.

Gravity had them in its grip again, but it was a very weak gravity, no more than one eighth that of Earth. Lev felt odd, as if he were a human balloon bouncing around the place.

Like the rest of the crew, he went to work on his primary mission once the emergency had passed. His activities were different than the others, who were unlimbering equipment, checking systems and looking for damage. His job was to watch over Dr. Norin, and as she didn’t appear to be in any danger, he headed to the window to look for possible future threats.

The landscape was bleak and dark. He was reminded of the worst parts of Siberia in the worst months. There were no mountains or trees, however. Just an endless expanse of ice with pressure ridges, thrusting spires and discolored areas. The Sun, tiny but bright, was on the other side of the moon for now. Only a scrim of Jupiter’s face was visible, a curved sliver of a vast disk which hung low on the horizon.

He turned his attention to the area immediately around the ship. For the first ten minutes, he saw nothing unusual. Wisps of vapor roiled up now and then with decreasing frequency from below the landing gear. The vapors frosted his window, making him move to another.

He’d almost given up his visual inspection of the surface, coming to believe that this was going to be as dull an existence as the journey out from Earth had been—when he spotted something of interest.

“There’s something moving out there. Something out on the ice!”

An engineer named Gavril who was drifting through the compartment paused near him.

“Of course there is,” Gavril said in what Lev considered to be an almost prim voice. “Most likely, it’s a trick of the eye. There are many light sources and thousands of reflective surfaces to cause a glitter or a shimmer—”

Lev grabbed a crinkling wad of the man’s suit and heaved him around, shoving his face toward the window. They had opened their visors after the bridge crew had announced the air pressure was good.

“No,” Lev said near the engineer’s ear. “I’m a Spetsnaz man. I know when I see something moving on the horizon.”

“It’s possible you saw actual movement,” Gavril said nervously. “There’s a thin atmosphere—with lots of swirling dust and ice mixed together, something might move. It even snows here, from time to time. The temperature variations alone are enough to cause the ice to shift and vent gasses as well.”

“I know ice. I’ve lived for days in climates not much better than this one.”

“But this ice, Lieutenant—it’s different. This is not Earth. The composition is different, as is the temperature. We really don’t know what’s normal here yet.”

Lev released him and shoved his own face back to the triangular window. He peered outside, frowning fiercely.

The engineer straightened himself and watched Lev carefully. Lev could see the other man’s reflection in the porthole, despite the fact he was trying to block all interior light with his cupped hand. It was too dark outside to see clearly.

“Lieutenant?” Gavril said diffidently. “I believe we’ll get the vodka machine working again soon. Now that we’ve landed, I’m sure it will become a priority.”

Lev almost chuckled, but he stopped himself. The more he thought about the man’s statement, the more it angered him rather than amused him. Was this how low he’d fallen in the eyes of the crew? Was he nothing more than an embarrassment, a dangerous dog that must be fed and drugged lest it bite the weak master’s hand?

“That’s fine,” Lev snapped, “but I’m done with drinking. The long voyage is over, and now I have work to do. I’m going out there. I’m going to see what’s moving on the ice.”

Gavril hesitated. “There’s a locker full of oxygen on level six. If you want, I’ll lead you there and help you suit up.”

This made Lev smile. He straightened and regarded the engineer.

“All right,” he said. “I’ve been cooped up in here too long. Is your suit ready for walking outside?”

Gavril looked alarmed. “Why?”

“You’re an excellent candidate to be my assistant. I contacted the captain before you came down here. I asked to examine the exterior of the ship for visible damage, and he agreed. Lead the way.” Lev instructed the engineer.

Looking sick, Gavril led him to the lowest deck. Together, they checked their suits and mounted fresh oxygen bottles. They took their old ones and placed them into a recharger.

After checking his suit’s integrity carefully, Lev slung a short-barreled carbine rifle onto his back.

“You can’t be serious,” Gavril said, his eyes wide.

“I’m almost always serious.”

“I didn’t know anyone brought weapons on this voyage. Will that thing even fire out there?” the man asked.

“Gunpowder contains its own oxidizing agent.”

“Yes, of course, but it’s too cold. The barrel will be brittle—all the metal components will be brittle. If you fire that weapon, the heat may crack the gun.”

“It’s not a normal gun. I’ve been told such things were taken into account in its design. The most important new element is the compensator on the muzzle. This will allow escaping gases to shoot out in multiple directions. Otherwise, it could knock a man off his feet in low gravity. Also, some of the propellant gas is ejected from the rear of the weapon. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes—well, it means it won’t knock you down or send you flying into the air.”

“More importantly, it means you shouldn’t stand directly behind me when I shoot at something. It will blast you in the face.”

“Right, I see... Will you be shooting much?”

“Only if necessary. Let’s go.”

Gavril carried a large spotlight that worked in multiple spectrums, including ultraviolet. If liquids were leaking from the vehicle, they would be easier to spot with this tool.

Lev carried nothing other than his gun and his suit. He found the suit highly constraining. By the time he was out of the airlock and doing his first sweep, the hairs on the back of his neck were already standing stiffly. He felt as if anything could sneak up on him, and he’d be unable to detect it.

To Lev, the sounds were the oddest thing about the surface of Europa. He couldn’t hear any normal noises at all. There was no wind to speak of. There were no voices, other than those picked up by his helmet radio.

The sounds he did hear were alien. The hiss of oxygen bleeding into his suit. The soft ticking of Geiger counters turned down to their lowest volume setting. Proximity detectors beeped when he came close to bumping into things, even his fellow crewman. The rustling of his thick, lead-lined suit was unnerving, a constant reminder that he was stuck in this alien environment rather than at home. The only familiar sound was the crunch of his boots on the crusty snow and ice.

The visual environment wasn’t reassuring, either. The ship was a dark hulk behind him, sagging to the port side where the landing gear had broken through and sunk five meters into soft ice. Here and there around the ship spikes of ice thrust up like stalagmites. Some reached up as high as thirty feet. One of these had helped tip the landing ship, throwing it to one side and causing the other side to sink into the snow.

“Why did these foolish pilots pick this field of spikes to land on?” Lev demanded.

“This is where the signal struck the surface, as closely as we could determine. And then, of course, there’s the shadow.”

“Shadow? What shadow?”

Gavril hesitated. “I guess there’s no harm in discussing it now. The matter has been considered a secret over the last week as we studied Europa during our approach. We saw a dark stain here. We’ve landed directly in the middle of it, hoping it was significant.”

Lev stopped and turned toward Gavril. “A stain? What do you mean? Like one of those rust spots that dot the surface?”

“No. This is different. The discoloration is grayish-black and appears to be under the ice.”

“You’re telling me there’s something under us? Right now? And these fools landed on top of it?”

“Well, that’s their hope. They were quite excited. It’s like the Artifact we found under the ice on Earth, but much, much larger. With luck, we’ll reach it and find something that will make this trip worthwhile.”

Lev nodded, thinking hard. He unslung his rifle and walked with greater caution. As they circled the ship, he no longer looked at it. Instead, he watched the open landscape. Gavril puttered about, shining his light on the hull and taking video which he sent to the ship’s server. He conversed with the crew. Lev gathered that the damage was significant, but not devastating.

“We’re going to have to repair these tanks before we can lift off again,” Gavril said. “We’ll have to get a welder out here to patch it. The tank will rupture if we try to fly home like this.”

“What’s in that tank?” Lev asked without looking at him.

“Fresh water, sewage. It’s a reprocesser, I believe. I’d have to check the plan—”

“Don’t bother. Just fix it.”

“They’re sending a team soon. Is there something wrong?”

“Yes, there’s something wrong...I don’t like it out here.”

Chapter 56

Europa far orbit, Aboard Starfire

Starlight

Colonel Dyson had called for a lockdown as the ship made its approach to Europa. Everyone was in their seats and strapped in, even though the engines themselves were idling.

Chief Engineer Linscott was nervous but trying not to let the others around her in on the fact.

“What’s wrong?” Perez asked her in a soft voice.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, I know you better than that.”

She heaved a sigh. “Dyson made me shut the engines down to an idling state—the way they were before we left Earth.”

“Why would she do that?”

She glanced over at him. He always could get her to talk about anything. She supposed that’s what had made him a good detective back home.

“They didn’t want the Russians to detect us. I’m sure that’s it.”

“They? You mean Sandeep and Dyson?”

“Yes, and whoever is calling the shots back on Earth. Maybe Clayworth and her team. They’re afraid that the Russians will detect our approaching energy output. Even though this ship doesn’t emit exhaust due to the EM-Drive, the ship still heats up and radiates more energy when the drive is active.”

“So, we’re sneaking up on them, is that it?”

“Yes, supposedly.”

“And you’re worried you won’t be able to get the reaction going again steadily?”

“Yes. But it’s silly, in a way. That’s why I didn’t object. In order to land on Europa, we have to bring the ship to a standstill. We might as well try it out here in space first. It puts me on the spot, though.”

Perez nodded thoughtfully. “I’m glad I’m not the engineer. All a detective has to do is figure out what someone did wrong last week. You have to figure everything out in advance—and you have to be right.”

She nodded. He did seem to grasp the nature of her anxiety. If they all died on this trip, the odds were good that it would be due to a failure on her part.

A ticking sound began about an hour later and increased in frequency until everyone was looking around in alarm. Red lights flickered, then stayed on. Alarms sounded, and an automated voice urged them all to seek safety.

“Radiation storm?” Perez asked.

“Yes,” Jackie said, “but worse than the usual. We have to get into the safety pod. Our suits won’t be enough to stop it.”

All over the ship, people unbuckled their harnesses and hurried toward the lead-lined pods. During flight, they’d rarely been used. The outer shell of the ship was thick enough to withstand the worst bombardment Jupiter should be able to put out.

“Sandeep,” Dyson said as she arrived. “We have to keep someone at the helm. I’ll put on the thickest radiation suit I find and take the first watch.”

Sandeep stared at her for a second. Jackie watched his face. Did he want to approve of Dyson's sacrifice? If the radiation became too extreme, even with a lead-lined suit, she would be getting a dose. The ship was being hit with gusts of up to a thousand rads.

“No,” Sandeep said. “You and I will watch the instrumentation from here. If there’s a failure, I’ll send the co-pilot.”

Dyson’s lips were a firm line, but she nodded her head. Jackie could tell she understood a good decision when she heard it, even if she didn’t like it. If someone had to be sent to permanently damage their own cellular structure, that person should be the more expendable of the two pilots.

The co-pilot said nothing, but Jackie thought he looked a little pale.

“Sir?” Jackie said, getting the attention of both Sandeep and Dyson. The radiation pod was cramped with people, as it always was. The only good thing about these dangerous conditions was the destruction of diseases all around the ship. Bacteria were dying outside the pod, baking in the radioactive storm.

“What is it, engineer?” Dyson asked, again usurping Sandeep’s authority.

Jackie looked from one face to the other but finally settled on Sandeep’s. “Something’s wrong. This radiation storm is stronger than usual, and its source is all wrong.”

“Explain, please,” Sandeep requested.

“Look,” she said, working with a diagram she laid out on the big touch-table in the center of the pod. An image of Jupiter, Europa, and about ten of the other major moons in the system all appeared. She tapped Jupiter, which utterly dwarfed the rest, looking like a basketball being circled by pebbles.

As Jackie worked, the system image changed. A curved bag appeared around Jupiter, looping out to encompass various moons.

“This is Jupiter’s magnetosphere,” she explained. “Earth has one too, but it’s not so big and powerful. This is where our ship is now, coming close to Jupiter. We’re inside the magnetosphere, which serves to protect the innermost moons from the harshest radiation. Europa is outside that zone.”

“I’m not getting the significance of all this, Linscott,” Dyson said.

Jackie blinked at her rudeness. The woman hadn’t even let her finish. “The point is this: we shouldn’t be getting hit by this level of radiation. This is more than Europa gets, more charged ionized particles than any of these bodies get under normal circumstances.”

Sandeep tapped Europa. The image zoomed in. “How long until we arrive?”

“Just over ten hours,” Jackie said. “We’re gliding in under inertia, angled just right to be captured by the moon’s gravity. We’ll slide into orbit without having to engage the drive again.”

“Where did the Russians land?”

“We’re not sure. But the logical spot is here, near this crater. But sir, let’s get back to the radiation anomaly.”

“Why? Is the anomaly a danger to the ship or the crew?”

“No, I don’t think so. Not at present levels. But it shouldn't be hitting us at all. Not such a steady level of it, anyway.”

“Wait a minute,” Dyson said. “Are you telling me the Russians are doing it?”

Jackie looked at her, startled. “That’s very unlikely. I don’t see any evidence—”

“You just said it’s off the chart. That Jupiter’s magnetosphere should be protecting us—but it isn’t.”

“That’s true.”

Dyson straightened and crossed her arms. “All right then, what’s your theory for what’s causing it?”

“Well, it could be a solar flare.”

“This far out from the Sun? Earth would have been fried by such an ejection, and none of our reports from NASA mentioned it.”

“All right, a Jupiter-flare then. The Jupiter system is rather similar to the Solar System, just on a smaller scale. The—”

“It’s the Russians,” Dyson said, turning toward Sandeep, who was watching the two women closely. “It’s got to be. They sent a massive radiation signal up from the Arctic, remember? How did they generate that?”

“The Artifact did it, not the Russians.”

“Ah, but who is using the Artifact? The Russians. Let’s admit to ourselves that they have tech at least equivalent to our own. Who knows what else they might have discovered? Maybe they can see this ship as easily as we see a prop plane on airport radar.”

Jackie frowned. She didn’t know what to think. Dyson was being emphatic, but she had a point.

“The radiation is probably too steady to be a natural flare,” she admitted. “Every minute that passes decreases the odds of a natural fluctuation being the source. It would be uneven in power, waxing and waning. This is too steady and does appear to be artificially generated.”

Dyson nodded. “We have to take action.”

“What do you suggest?” Sandeep asked.

“Let’s turn the drive back on. Let’s dodge and weave. Space is too big for this to be an accident. They’ve probably spotted us. Maybe they’re lining us up for a killer strike.”

“If we do that, we’ll become instantly identifiable,” Jackie said. “We’ll give the Russians our exact position and confirm that we’re a ship under power, not a rock. This ship was built for stealthy approaches to planets, that much is clear. We look like a floating chunk of ice and stone right now, just like a billion other lumps of matter in this star system. If we fire up the drive again—well, it would be like lighting up a beacon. A big ‘I’m here’ sign.”

Sandeep looked from one woman to the other, uncertain. “Let’s wait,” he said. “Maybe they’re lighting us up just to check us out, to find out what we are. What if they noticed us and are trying to ascertain what’s approaching the planet? If we turn the drive back on now, we’ll give ourselves away.”

Dyson made a sound of disgust. Jackie frowned in concentration. She really didn’t know what to think.

A fourth person, who’d been listening in all along, stepped forward. It was Dr. Goody. He looked worried, as worried as any of them.

“There’s another possibility,” he said. “If I may speak, Captain?”

Sandeep nodded.

“What if this signal isn’t from the Russians at all? What if it isn’t natural? Then there can only be one logical source.”

They looked at Edwin blankly.

“The builders of this ship,” he said in a quiet voice. “The creatures who constructed this vessel—they have to be somewhere. Perhaps they’re calling out to it. Perhaps they’re querying us, pinging us—whatever.”

They all stared at him for a second. Finally, Dyson smiled. “You’ve got to be kidding, right? ET is pinging us after more than a century of lying on ice, dormant? Let me explain what really happened, good Doctor Goody. There were aliens involved—at least some think so, I think the ship could have been automated—but in any regard it came here from another star system over a century back. They haven’t been sitting on their claws for all these years out here on this ice-ball, hoping we’ll drive their ship back to them like some kind of interstellar salvage crew.”

Edwin shrugged and retreated from the group. “I still maintain there are three possibilities. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Regardless of the source of this radiation,” Sandeep said, “we’re going to Europa. That is our mission. Maintain course, speed and silence. Let’s glide in a like a rock and see what happens when we get closer.”

Chapter 57

Europa Ice Cap

Starlight

To Lev, it seemed to take forever for the welders to get their kit outside and haul it around to their position. Twice during that long interval the ground shifted under them.

“This whole planet is unstable,” he complained. “Was that an earthquake?”

“No, not exactly,” Gavril said. “Look there, on the horizon where Jupiter just went down.”

Lev peered into the deepening darkness. At this point, there was little other than starlight to see by. The starlight was brilliant in comparison to Earth, because the atmosphere was quite thin, but it was still difficult to see.

“Looks like a geyser.”

“It’s water vapor. Steam plumes are continuously erupting around the planet and can shoot all the way up into space if they have enough pressure.”

“That’s what’s making the ice shift under our feet.”

“Maybe. But more likely it’s a natural tidal shift. Jupiter is like a giant gravity well. It exerts a thousand times the force that our moon exerts upon our oceans. The ice is always heaving up and cracking, venting.”

“Wonderful. We could be sucked down and engulfed at any moment.”

Gavril shrugged. “That is a possibility. Does it frighten you?”

Lev turned to face the smaller man. “It worries me, as it would mean I failed my mission.”

“I see.”

At last, the welders showed up. There were three of them, and their cart came on a sled. They pulled it like dogs, but it slid over the ice easily due to the low gravity.

A few minutes later, they had their masks on and brilliant blue-white light bathed Lev’s back. They’d offered to turn up the opacity of his visor, but he’d declined. Instead, he stood staring out at the open ice with his rifle clenched in both his hands.

He knew the others were amused by him. He was a paranoid kook to them. A humorously misplaced soldier in the middle of a scientific mission. He didn’t care what they thought. He didn’t care that they were certain he’d seen nothing. He watched the horizon closely, eyes darting ceaselessly.

There! There it was again! A flicker of gray on the blue-black ice. A hint of a reflection. An unnatural rolling motion no man or beast he’d ever encountered could make.

He positioned the rifle, remembering to set the end of it on his shoulder, with the curved stock hooking under his arm. He swung his weapon—but the movement was gone.

“What are you doing?” Gavril asked.

“Shut up and work your tools,” Lev replied. “I think the light is attracting attention.”

A slight, scoffing laugh came up from the group. Gavril stood curiously nearby, watching.

Lev gritted his teeth, calculating. He’d been a fine hunter in his youth in the Urals. He’d learned then to lead elusive prey. To target the spot where it was about to emerge, rather than the spot where it had just vanished.

He squeezed the trigger until it was a hair from firing.

“I don’t see anything—” began Gavril.

“Shut up.”

“You’re aiming at a mound of crusted ice. There’s no way that—”

The gun went off. The back-blast was greater than Lev had expected. A white flash and a puff of smoke gushed toward the welding team.

The team cursed him, but Lev fired three more times. Each round punched into the mound of ice.

“There’s nothing there, man!” Gavril said.

Lev trotted forward, his boots crunching on ice. He thought he’d done it. He felt fairly certain he’d scored a hit.

Gavril followed him, and when the two rounded the mound of ice, they found nothing but a ridge of ice with holes punched through it.

“See?” Gavril said. “Nothing.”

“Turn on that light of yours. Switch to ultraviolet.”

Grumbling, the engineer did as he asked. The moment he shined the bluish glow over the area—splatters of glimmering yellow-green appeared.

“What’s that?” Gavril demanded.

“You’re the nerd. You tell me.”

The man knelt and fingered a sample. “It’s warmer than the surrounding ice. I’d say it’s ammonia, something like that. Frozen now, but recently so.”

“Take a sample and give it to the biologists.”

Gavril passed the sample on, and then he stood, facing Lev.

“Do you think you hit something?” he asked Lev.

“What do you think?”

“I…I think it’s possible.”

“Then take the sample inside. Report it and confirm it.”

“What will you do?”

“I will look for the thing that bled here. If it is badly wounded, I might find the body.”

Gavril nodded. “I was wrong,” he said, looking at the blood—if that’s what it was. “I didn’t want to believe.”

“It’s all right,” Lev told him. “No one wants to believe the unbelievable.”

Gavril handed his light over to Lev. “Here,” he said, “take this. You can track the blood with it.” Then he bounced away in an odd gait.

Left alone on the ice, somehow Lev was less confident. He’d thought the welders and Gavril were annoying. They scoffed and considered him half-mad. But now that he was alone in the cold dark, he found that he missed their companionship.

There were no tracks—not exactly. What he found were marks, curved half-circular marks that laced the snow here and there. It took him a few minutes to realize what they were.

“Of course,” he said aloud to himself. The creature wouldn’t leave tracks in the snow as might a wolf on Earth. It could leap ten meters or more. Each track would be found far from the last.

With this in mind, he cast about more widely. He found what he was looking for. The creature—if it was a creature—had been hit. It then ran across the ice in great bounds. It hadn’t left more than a dozen prints over a hundred meter span.

The tracks stopped then, and Lev was at a loss until he found a dark circular region. He was one step from walking right into it.

A puff of vapor alerted him. A release of gas misted over his faceplate, then crystallized white until he rubbed it away.

He staggered back a few paces. It was a hole. A hole in the ice.

He tried to contact Kira, but there was only static. Much of the radiation on Europa came in the form of radio waves, so there was interference on every channel.

He trudged back toward the ship, wondering about what he’d found. He felt fairly certain something had come up from that hole in the ice. Something that had investigated their ship with interest.

Wondering how many rounds it had taken, and how tough it might be if it could live after being shot, Lev only looked up at the ship again as he came close.

He almost dropped his rifle into the dark snow. The ship had tipped over onto its side.

Lev began a skittering run over the ice toward the ship. When he was close enough for his radio to work, he heard an emergency tone.

“Kira?” he called. “Can you hear me?”

“Lev? Something’s happened. Come help me.”

He’d forgotten his primary duty in the excitement of the hunt. He cursed himself for getting distracted.

Chapter 58

Europa far orbit, Aboard Starfire

Starlight

The crew of Starfire let their ship glide into orbit over Europa. They carefully took passive readings of the moon during the approach. They continued scanning everything they could get from outside sensors as the ship swung around the frozen moon. Their orbit was highly elliptical, but they did nothing to correct it as this might demonstrate they were capable of powered flight.

“We’ve found them—I’m sure of it,” Dr. Tanaka exclaimed over the broadcast channel. “The Russian ship is right in the middle of a large crater in the ice. The region is discolored and darker than usual, and it corresponds to where the projectiles struck the moon earlier.”

“Are they transmitting anything?” Sandeep asked immediately.

“Yes, telemetry back to Earth,” Yuki said excitedly. She was glad she had discovered the ship first. She’d done precious little on this trip other than tinker with her drone.

“What are they reporting?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s in code. I can’t get anything out of it.”

“Right. Good work anyway. Let’s meet in the planning chamber and decide how we’re going to proceed.”

Yuki felt a surge of pride. She’d been omitted from planning meetings up until now. She’d only been invited to meetings that were really briefings, informing the crew what had already been decided. She hurried to the chamber and made it there first.

“We’ve got them pinpointed,” Tanaka announced as the other two arrived. “The ice here is unusually dark. Maybe that’s why they chose this spot.”

Sandeep and Linscott leaned on the planning table, their palms making parts of the huge touchscreen glow, ready for gestured commands. They stared intently at the new data, which Yuki distributed by flicking files at them with her fingers.

“That dark area—what is it?”

Sandeep and Linscott looked at Yuki. After all, she was the expert on the topic of ice and seas.

She felt a little flustered, but she zoomed in to show them what she had so far.

“See this? A curl of dark ice? I’ll draw a line from there, to here.”

She worked with her fingers, stretching and conjoining with over-image tools that were meant to highlight portions of a projected report. The software was limited, but it served the purpose well enough.

“See this? These two curls are mirrors of one another. That matches up with something else I’ve seen.”

They looked at her. She smiled. They didn’t know. They hadn’t been given the reports from Barrow. This was to be her moment.

“I was up at Lab 126 when it was hit. Up at Barrow.”

“We know that, Dr. Tanaka, could we get to—” Sandeep began.

“Just listen for a second. What you may not know is that I stayed on after the strike on the lab. I worked my drone underwater, and I found the Russian Artifact that emitted that signal.”

She had their attention now. “I’m not supposed to talk about national security issues,” she said, “but right now that seems pretty silly out here.”

“I agree,” Sandeep said. “I’ll officially take any heat that derives from your breach.”

Jackie Linscott smiled. “I second the motion. What happened?”

“We found it. We found the Russian Artifact, lying at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. But it was defended, and I lost my drone.”

“I see—” began Sandeep again, sighing.

“But,” she said insistently, “before it died it sent in data. Data which showed an Artifact quite different in composition and shape from this ship. Here, let me display what I kept on my drive.”

She brought up another file, and overlaid one image over the other. She expanded it by a factor of twelve, spun it around with her fingers, and the others made appreciative noises.

“I see it,” Jackie said. “That’s the same shape. At least, the two arms match up closely.”

Sandeep was frowning. “All right,” he said. “It’s vague, but I’m willing to go along with your theory.”

“Vague?” Yuki demanded. “It’s a match! Look at the arcs. Two starfish shapes on different worlds. Both under ice. One is many times the size of the other, but—”

“We can only see a vague outline under layers of ice,” Sandeep said. “There’s no proof that isn’t a naturally occurring phenomena.”

“If so, why did the Russians land here?” Yuki demanded.

“They were following the signal,” Dr. Linscott said, putting her hand to her face thoughtfully. Yuki felt grateful for the support. “They had to be tracking exactly where it went. They caught it better than we did and marked the destination with greater precision. After all, they were the ones that caused it and were expecting it. We had to dig it out of background noise and interpret its meaning.”

Sandeep nodded. “All right. We have a theory as to why the Russians landed here. Let’s assume we’re correct. Let’s assume that another Artifact like the one they found under our own polar icecap is right here, and they’re here to investigate it. What’s our next move? We’re still late to this party.”

“I don’t know,” Yuki said. “I guess we land, and we start digging into the ice right next to them. They can give us dirty looks if they want to. No one owns Europa.”

Sandeep twisted his lips. “That’s an overly simplistic view,” he said. “Recent events suggest we might be met with hostility. Is the region large enough for us to work nearby but not right in their faces?”

“You really think they’d attack us?”

“What did they do at Barrow?” he asked.

Yuki nodded. “We have to assume you’re right. We’ve got Brandt, Edwin and a few others that could fight. But we don’t know how many of the Russians might be armed. We don't know what their mission is and what they have orders to do if we show up and crash their site.”

“It is unfortunate that we didn’t bring weapons and armament. Clayworth and Clark ordered us not to do so. It was assumed Europa was a large enough world for two ships to share. No one expected we would come into direct conflict with the Russians. We were supposed to beat them out here, in fact.”

“You guys really think we’re going to have a fight out here?” Jackie asked incredulously. “On Europa? These people might be Russians, but they’re scientists like us. We’ve always gotten along well in research stations in places like the Antarctic.”

“Things have changed recently, Jackie,” Yuki said. “You and I have both been assaulted by Russian agents.”

“Maybe,” Jackie admitted, glancing at Sandeep meaningfully.

Sandeep avoided her gaze, and Yuki wondered what that was all about.

She hardly had time to open her mouth to ask, however, before the ship lurched, throwing them all off their feet.

“What the hell?” Jackie said, clawing her way back to the table.

“Dyson!” Sandeep shouted into his headset. “What are you doing? I didn’t approve any orders to change course.”

There was a crackling moment of quiet, then Dyson spoke.

“I don’t know, sir. I didn’t do it. Something happened. I think it’s the engines. They’ve fired up, and they’re pushing us.”

“Pushing us where?”

“Toward the surface of Europa, as far as I can tell.”

The deck heaved under their feet again, and Jackie headed for the exit. She was using every handhold she could reach, even crawling.

“I have to get to engineering!” she said. “Help me.”

Sandeep and Yuki joined together and did their best to propel her down the lurching passages toward the hatch that led to the lower deck.

When she got there, she found Brandt was already there, touching the engine cowling.

“It’s no use,” he said. “The ship won’t respond.”

“What did you do?” demanded Jackie.

Brandt shook his head. “I didn’t do anything. When I heard the ship was changing course, that the engines had engaged themselves, I came down here to open the cowling. I figured that you would need to take a look at least.”

“Thanks Brandt,” Jackie said. “I do need to lower that field. If we can dampen it by fifty percent or so, I should be able to ease the engines back into idle mode. I don’t know how they got into gear by themselves, but I’m fairly certain that—”

Brandt was shaking his head. “You aren’t listening.” He held out his hands, palms upward. “I can’t do it. I can’t open this. Starfire isn’t responding to me anymore. It’s doing whatever it wants to do.”

Yuki and Sandeep had joined them by this time. They all stared at Brandt and then one another.

Yuki realized, in a single, sick moment, that they were aboard a ship they barely understood, and that it was flying itself.

The next two hours were nerve-wracking. Starfire circled Europa erratically, fluttering like a leaf in a breeze at times. Eventually they gave up trying to regain control. Nothing responded to their goading or pleas.

Sandeep ordered them into their harnesses. There had been several injuries already.

Europa loomed huge under them, all blue-white with stains of rust-red. They were coming down, and they could not stop the ship. It was going to land.

Chapter 59

Europa Ice Cap

Starlight

Lev rushed back toward the ship. He put the gun up to his shoulder, and aimed it everywhere he looked. His breath came in puffs. His training had kicked in, and although he couldn’t maintain a natural pace, he shuffled rapidly over the snow as quickly as he was able.

He’d known this would happen. He’d known they were in hostile territory. It didn’t matter what all these hairless technicians thought about this place—it was dangerous. Something had reconned their position, learned they were weak, and decided to attack.

The ship was listing now, much worse than before. He moved first toward the spot where he’d left the welding crew.

There was no sign of them. The welding cart was gone as well—but no, there was the cord. He followed it around the ship and hissed.

The black cord on the white ice led under the ship itself. The ship had settled and crushed them.

He lowered his weapon for a moment, attempting to open a channel with the bridge.

“Lieutenant Burkov reporting,” he said.

The radio crackled for a moment. He thought perhaps the external antenna had been damaged. He tried again, and again, switching channels. Finally, a voice whispered in his ear. It was a female voice he knew well. She sounded frightened.

“Lev?” Kira asked in a whisper. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, Kira. What’s going on?”

“There’s something in here, Lev. I don’t know what it is. It’s covered in some kind of bubble. I think it’s a field, a field that works like a spacesuit for these creatures. That’s so advanced—quite superior to our bulky suits. Imagine, we could live on any world with such a wearable device providing air and heat.”

His blood had chilled the moment he’d heard her say something was in the ship with her. He’d barely listened to the rest. He spun around, aiming his weapon behind him. For a second—but no, there was nothing there.

“I’m coming,” he said.

Kira didn’t respond. He thought perhaps she was trying to be quiet. Maybe she was hiding. He didn’t want to give her away, so he shut up and got moving.

The first airlock he came to was now impossible to open. It was under the crusty ice and he couldn’t reach the handle. He didn’t have time or the tools needed to dig it out.

He kept moving, climbing up over the ship. There were more airlocks. He found a hatch about ten meters up.

Hauling himself over the surface of the ship wasn’t difficult, even with only one hand and two feet. He kept his rifle in the other hand. The low gravity on this world made him feel powerful. The ship was at a slanting angle now, and there were frequent handholds. Exhaust ports, equipment and ribbed plates were all he needed to climb upward. Even with all his gear, he calculated his body couldn’t have weighed more than twenty kilos.

Reaching the hatch, he attempted to spin the wheel—but found he couldn’t. He strained for a moment until he realized that the wheel had already been spun open as far as it would go.

Frowning, he heaved and the door flew wide. He climbed inside, trying to keep his weapon aimed ahead of him.

He wondered about the open hatch. Could it be that someone had escaped through it before he returned? If so, where had they gone?

The answer seemed obvious when coupled with the fact no one had answered him from the bridge. Something—perhaps an army of them—had gotten aboard. The ship hadn’t been built to repel invaders. It was built for safety. If someone wanted in, they had only to try. If anything, the doors would aid them in their efforts in case they were injured or weak.

Silent powered hinges swung the outer hatch closed behind him, and air began to pump into the tiny chamber. He could soon hear the hiss of it, and then, when the inner door slid open, he heard other sounds as well. Someone was shouting and banging metal on metal.

The ship was dark inside. That was acceptable. He searched the nearest compartments, sighting on everything as he went. He did not rush in headlong. As far as he knew, he was the only armed man on this ship, and he wasn’t about to be taken out by one of these creatures.

The first thing he encountered was a body. At first, he thought it might be an empty space suit—but it was occupied. Sticking out of the faceplate was the bright stainless steel handle of a wrench. The other end had been thrust into the dead man’s skull.

He burst through the next open doorway and swung his weapon, side to side, then up.

There it was. Something clung to the roof of the compartment, hiding among the festooned equipment. It had five appendages like a starfish, a spiral of limbs circling a central knot of leathery flesh. The limbs were thinner than a man’s legs, but thicker than a man’s arms. In Lev’s instant of appraisal, he calculated they were either boneless or multi-jointed. What he didn’t understand about it was the shimmer that seemed to run over its body. It was almost as if it was englobed in a soap-bubble. A transparent coating that ran over its body. That must be what Kira had called their equivalent of a spacesuit.

Then the thing moved, and Lev released a burst of fire. It was torn apart at close range by a half-dozen rounds. It fell to his feet, writhing. He resisted the temptation to put a few more into the monster. He didn’t have an endless supply of ammo.

He was tempted to examine the dead alien thing, and the soap-bubble effect surrounding it, but he resisted the urge. There were others on the ship, and they needed his help.

He didn’t know why, but he made his way toward engineering. That’s where Kira would be, he felt sure. When he levered his body out of the central passage and into the crowded lower compartment, he found he was right.

“Lev?” she whispered. She stood up slowly from behind the cowled engine.

“Where are the others?”

“I don’t know. I came down here, and the rest were in the living quarters or on the bridge. There’s been some kind of fight. I heard gunfire.”

Lev hefted his weapon. “I know.”

Kira came forward, aghast. “You had this with you? You brought it all the way from Earth?”

“It’s a special design. Meant to fire in low-gravity, without air, under freezing conditions.”

“A gun designed for Europa. I’m disgusted but unsurprised.”

“Disgusted?” Lev scoffed. “If we live for another hour, this weapon will be the only reason we manage it. Now, we have to move. We have to find the others.”

“Let me go first, Lev,” Kira said.

“No.”

She sighed and followed him. This did not stop her from talking, however.

“We have to try to make contact,” she said. “This could all be a huge misunderstanding. They might be peaceful.”

“They already sunk the ship into the ice, crushing the repair crew.”

“That could have been an accident.”

He told her of the tech with the wrench sticking out of his face, but she was still unconvinced. He decided to save his energy for the enemy.

Going compartment to compartment, they found two dead humans and another dead alien. Someone had run it through with a knife. Two of the limbs were torn loose and discarded on the floor as well.

“At least this man put up a fight,” Lev said, recognizing Gavril’s corpse.

“We could be making a giant mistake,” Kira said. “We can’t afford to start a war!”

“In that case, you shouldn’t have sent that signal. You helped make all this happen, Dr. Norin.”

She stared coldly at him for a moment before getting to work. She took samples and photographs hastily. “Get me to the communications pod. I’ll try to upload this data to Moscow.”

“They can’t help us,” he said, but he realized they needed to warn Earth. Things weren’t going well during this first-contact situation.

In the communication pod, they sent their files, and Lev made a short report. Kira added her input and they sent the data. The ship dutifully transmitted a burst of packets toward the distant Earth.

“What do we call these things?” she asked him.

“They have arms like ropes and climb like apes. How about rope-apes?”

She transmitted the information, and the two of them moved on toward the bridge. As they approached, they saw movement and shadows, but heard no speech, no human sound. The lights were out, and most of the LEDs they’d found along the way had been disconnected or broken.

“They don’t like light,” Lev whispered. “I’ve got a flash grenade. I’ll toss it in there, then rush them. Hang back.”

“We might be able to reason with them,” Kira whispered. “Let me have ten seconds. That’s all I ask.”

He looked at her, shaking his head. “Haven’t you done enough?”

“Lev, I thought the Americans were bad, but we’ve been worse. We attacked these people from the very start. We fired projectiles at them from space. Then you shot the first one you saw out on the ice. They attacked us after that. Give me a chance, at least, to talk to them. Peace with a new species—that’s worth more than any single life.”

“I’m to get you out of here alive,” Lev said. “Those are my orders.”

“I know, I know, and you always follow orders. But they don’t mean anything anymore. This ship is a wreck. I doubt we’re getting home. This is bigger than us now. This is about the entire human race.”

Lev was conflicted. He saw the logic of what she was saying, but it didn’t match with his mission parameters. He had to agree, they’d already lost most, if not all, of the crew. There were aliens crawling all over the ship and he couldn’t shoot them all. The odds they would fly this thing home together were low.

“All right,” he said. “But come back in one piece. We’ll get home again, the two of us, just as we did aboard the sub, if we have to.”

She smiled at him, touched her helmet to his, and then edged forward into the bridge compartment.

Kira had her hands outstretched. She began making gestures that between any two humans might indicate she was no threat, that she wanted to talk.

Unfortunately, the three spidery figures inside didn’t want to talk. They all had silvery outlines, as if coated in a single soap-bubble. They fell upon Kira and ripped at her suit. Gas escaped and hissed. Blood appeared at her shoulders and her ankle, as their multi-limbed forms touched vibrating blades to her joints. They pulled her body apart with surprising strength.

Long before they finished the task, Lev emerged and popped several rounds into each of the three. They shivered and died on the deck.

Lev rushed forward and began applying pressure to Kira’s wounds. She cursed and howled in pain.

“They attacked me!” she cried. “Did you see that? They didn’t even give me a chance!”

“I was an idiot,” Lev said, cursing rapidly. “I’ll kill them first from now on. Every one that I see.”

“We’ll never have peace that way.”

“Kira, everyone wants peace, but most don’t go about it the right way. Peace is maintained by fear.”

“That’s madness,” she said, her voice quieter.

Lev noticed she was no longer moving much. He’d stanched her shoulder wound and moved down to her ankle. That’s where the reality of the situation really struck him. Her foot—it was hanging loose. Blood flowed freely over the deck. They’d severed it.

“You’re going into shock,” he said. “Keep talking to me.”

“I don’t feel much of anything.”

“Keep talking.”

“I’m cold.”

He cursed. “What else?”

“You should really give peace a chance, Lev. It might surprise you one day.”

“The trouble with peace between two distrustful groups is it takes everyone to maintain it and only one man to break it.”

She chuckled and coughed. “And in this instance, you were that man.”

He did his best with his limited equipment and training. But despite everything, Kira bled out on the floor of the bridge.

Lev felt his eyes sting. He was angry and uncertain. Was she right? Had he caused all this?

He decided after a minute or so that the truth didn’t matter at this point. His mission had shifted to one of search and destroy. He would finish them, or they would finish him. Perhaps there were a million of these things under the ice and the task was hopeless. Perhaps there were only a dozen. He would kill them until they were all dead, or he was.

Before he left her, he removed her implant and pocketed it. The slimy thing wriggled and died quickly, but he knew that its recorded memories of her final experiences could provide his country with valuable intelligence on the enemy.

He stood up and left the bridge, aiming his weapon ahead of him as he moved through the dark, silent ship.

Chapter 60

Final approach to Europa, Aboard Starfire

Starlight

After riding down toward Europa inside Starfire, the American science crew was stunned and quiet. Jackie had tried everything she could think of. She’d used Brandt, having him touch and attempt to operate any instrument of alien origin she could think of. None of the devices responded to his touch any longer.

“They sucked us in,” Brandt said. “What clever bastards. They let us think we were in control when really we were nothing more than guinea pigs.”

Jackie tried to shield the engine, to interrupt the signal that was coming up from the moon and grabbing control of their ship. All these efforts failed.

“Cut the control lines,” Brandt suggested.

“I can’t do that!” she said. “We won't be able to fly it either.”

“You can’t control it now. Cut the control lines, so they can’t do what they want with us.”

“We’d be cast adrift. Locked on our current course, we’d either hit Europa or sail on out of the Solar System.”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “But that’s better than being captured by some ET.”

Jackie shook her head. “Get Sandeep to issue the order, and I’ll consider it.”

Brandt walked off, and Jackie moved to her acceleration couch for safety reasons. She couldn’t do any more engineering, so she was just one more passenger now. She tuned into the command channel to see what the flight crew was doing.

She listened to the astronauts with admiration. They were the professionals, the only members of the crew who truly belonged up here in space. They never gave up. Colonel Dyson and her people went through every routine, every possible route to regain control. They did this with rigid repetition, even as the others gave up and fell into fearful silence.

“Switches four through nine, down and locked,” she ordered.

“Switches four through nine, down and locked, confirmed,” answered the copilot, sounding as calm as a pilot of an airliner might during a routine landing.

“Give me a pressure reading on the guidance jets.”

“We’re down to sixty-four percent.”

Listening in, Jackie grasped their new plan. It wasn’t just sheer repetition. They couldn’t control the main engines—no one could turn them off or alter their thrust, not even Brandt. But they could work with the attitude jets, which adjusted spacecraft through nudges, rather than brute force. In space, a small change in course was significant as the miles whirled past.

“What are they doing?” Victor Perez asked her from a neighboring acceleration couch.

“I think they’re going to push hard with the attitude jets—it’s all they’ve got.”

“You mean altitude jets?”

Jackie’s face twitched, and she might have smiled if she hadn’t been so worried they were all about to die.

“No, that’s a common mistake. Attitude jets are vernier thrusters—essentially small chemical rocket engines. They can’t lift the ship, but they can be used to maneuver in space. They’re most commonly used during docking operations. We installed six of them outside the ship, just like the old shuttlecraft used to have, to provide backup control.”

“This seems like an appropriate time to use them,” Perez said.

“Let’s just hope they don’t crash us into something.”

Perez frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

“We’re coming in toward Europa’s atmosphere at an oblique angle. I think Dyson means to make the angle even shallower and bounce us off of the atmosphere. If she succeeds, we’ll get another orbit to figure out our next move.”

“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. “Do you think this is going to work? Maybe you should go up there and talk to them.”

Jackie shook her head. “No. This is their moment. They know far better than I do what they’re doing now. My only purpose on this mission is to keep the EM-Drive working—and it’s frozen up on me. I’ve never piloted a vehicle like this through space. I’m going to let the experts do it.”

Victor looked less than convinced, which Jackie took as a compliment. He must think she was pretty competent to put her up against three NASA specialists.

The ship continued its descent. They were able to read data input from outside, even though the ship’s main drive was out of their control. On their screens they watched Europa, an orange-and-white snowball, loom bigger with each passing moment.

“All right, let’s do it,” Dyson said. “Half-burn, ten seconds. Let’s see what happens when we nudge the ship off course.”

“Roger, fifty-percent burn…mark.”

The ship shivered and there was a hissing sound as fuel was pumped to the exterior jets. Jackie tried to relax, but her hands gripped her chair tightly.

“Anything?” asked Victor.

“Yes…I think we’re drifting away. Recalculating course—we’re still going to hit the atmosphere. It’s thin, but the hull temperature won’t rise high enough to reach dangerous levels. I think we’re good.”

“What do you mean by good?”

“We won’t land next to the Russian ship. Hard to be precise, but I’d place us forty miles off.”

Perez looked at Jackie. “That’s good?”

She shrugged her shoulders helplessly.

“Listen,” he told her. “I think they’re wasting whatever resources we have. At this point, I’d welcome another human ship.”

She looked at him uncertainly.

“They’re trying to exert control over the ship just for the sake of doing it. They don’t like being out of control. They’re control freaks, if you ask me.”

“All astronauts are,” Jackie admitted. “They’re pretty much OCD. They have to be.”

Perez stared at her. “Well? Are you going to do anything about it?”

“Dyson is the pilot. I’m the engineer. It’s not the same thing.”

Perez turned away. She could tell he was agitated. The situation had gotten through the former detective’s cool exterior.

“Let’s do another burn—a full burn this time,” Dyson said. “What have we got left?”

“Forty-one percent.”

“Roger that, let’s—”

Perez was staring flatly at Jackie, who checked her instruments and finally spoke up.

“Colonel Dyson?” she asked.

“What is it, engineering? Have you got that drive working again?”

“Negative. I was just going to suggest we conserve our fuel for the final approach.”

“We’ve made a difference already, Linscott, and with a full burn this time—”

“Excuse me, sir,” Dr. Linscott said, “check your navigational boards again. The EM-Drive is countering.”

There were a few moments of silence.

“Damn,” Dyson said. “Even a full burn may not be enough.”

“Colonel,” Jackie said, “you can’t out push the EM with a few pounds of chemical rocketry. I recommend you stand down.”

“What good is it then?” Dyson demanded.

Jackie could tell Dyson was frustrated but trying to maintain a professional demeanor.

“Colonel, we might need those final nudges when we land. There are irregularities on the surface. If we have enough power to miss a spike of ice, for example—”

“You’re right,” Dyson said suddenly. “Thank you, engineering. Standing down. We’ll ride this thing their way.”

Jackie looked over at Victor, who gave her a ghostly smile and nodded.

“Who knows?” he asked. “Maybe you just saved the ship.”

“Sure,” she said, but internally she was thinking saved it for what?

The rest of the descent went by with relative smoothness. At the end Dyson did fire the jets twice, trying to make sure they landed in an open area free of chasms and spikes.

Landing with a crunch on the icecap brought none of them any joy, however. There were no whoops or high-fives. The crew was white-faced.

The ship they were riding in was no longer their friend. Jackie realized she’d become familiar with Starfire, regarding it with an almost caring concern. But that was gone now. She feared the ship, it was a servant of the unknown.

The ship’s true masters had finally shown themselves. What fools the humans had been all these years to think they were in control. She wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the only reason the ship had suddenly started operating back on Earth was due to a signal from Europa, rather than anything she’d done.

Sandeep’s voice came into every helmet over the ship-wide channel. “All right,” he said. “We’re down. This is what we came for, people. Let’s get outside and see what’s happening.”

Brandt was the first one out of the airlock and discovered a grim truth. He signaled the group he wanted to make an announcement. With some trepidation, Jackie opened the channel.

“I can’t get back in,” Brandt said flatly. “That’s the acid test. The ship has booted me. If you don’t want to leave the ship, stay inside. I can’t open it back up for you once the airlock closes automatically.”

“We’re left with a hard choice then,” Sandeep said. “Whoever controls the hatches controls this ship. I still say we leave the ship. We can’t just sit here forever. Anyone that gets out can’t get back in.”

A voice answered him—it wasn’t one of the expected people. It was Perez. “What if the ship just lifts off and maroons us here?”

There was a resounding silence in reply.

“Well,” Sandeep said finally. “I would ask a complementary question. Are you volunteering to stay here inside this vessel, while the rest of us leave and investigate?”

Jackie, listening in, didn’t know what he meant at first, but then it dawned on her. Maybe the Russians could help. As long as the crew was inside Starfire, they weren’t in control of their own destinies.

“Stay inside Starfire?” Perez asked. “I’m not volunteering for that duty.”

“Good. Everyone out of their seats. Suit up, take extra oxygen and any essentials you might have. We’ll head for the Russian ship.”

They piled outside. Fortunately, the hatches still allowed them to exit. Jackie wasn’t sure if the exit-only doors were an oversight or something done by design. Either way, the entire crew was soon trudging on ice.

No one stayed behind. Jackie thought they probably feared being entombed within the ship as much as they feared walking on the surface of this unknown world.

They began a long walk. There was an air of doom over the group, but there was hope as well. The Russian ship was relatively close, no more than a few kilometers. It sat just beyond a yawning dark chasm and a hill of frozen methane.

As they walked, Jackie thought it felt like more than two kilometers in the crystalline darkness. She was reminded of a group of New World explorers she’d once read about. They’d been searching the Arctic for a Northwest Passage that simply didn’t exist. Some expeditions had become locked in ice and struggled for years to survive, only to finally all die out. They must have felt hopeful and full of purpose, just as the people around her did now.

Many of the scientists in particular were excited. They spoke of discoveries, toyed with their instruments and gasped at the views. She was hard pressed to enjoy the natural beauty of the place. It was all surreal to her, and the closure of the ship behind them felt as if the lid of her tomb had slammed down.

As the group topped a blue-white mound of slippery frozen methane, Jackie felt absurdly exposed. She was a tiny spot of warm flesh on a giant radioactive ice-ball. She found herself walking close to Perez. She’d looked around for Brandt, but soon after they’d begun the march, he’d shuffled off among the piles of ice and vanished.

Most members of the crew pulled sleds of supplies after them. There were oxygen bottles, rebreathers and tools everywhere. They even had water and food leaching systems.

Her relaxation was short-lived however. As soon as they came within direct visual range of the hulking Russian ship, she knew all was lost.

The ship was listing, almost lying on its side. Had it crashed? Had it somehow been forced to land just as they had?

Hushed moans and sighs went through the group. The Russian ship had been their unspoken salvation. Secretly, they’d all been pinning their hopes upon it.

“There it is,” Sandeep said. “We’ll sort this out shortly. I want everyone to be on their best behavior now. Turn on all your suit lights so they can see us coming. We don’t want to surprise anyone.”

People began to comply, but the flight crew did not. The astronauts had their own ideas.

“The Russian ship is dark and half sunk into the ice,” Dyson pointed out. “Company, halt.”

The group instinctively followed her orders. They weren’t on the ship anymore, and everyone knew that Sandeep had no more idea what he was doing out here than the rest of them. Probably less.

Dyson waved her two flight crew members forward. They followed her. The group waited, peering.

Jackie couldn’t see any light at all coming from the Russian ship. Could it truly be dead?

Then, as she watched, she saw a flash of light. A yellow, flowering light. There was someone out there on the Russian side. Someone who had clearly spotted them. Could they be signaling?

The first of the flight crew to go down was the co-pilot. Dyson’s navigator dropped a second later. After that, the colonel had the presence of mind to throw herself on the ground and roll behind a covering mass of ice.

Jackie stood with her mouth hanging open as far as her helmet would allow. Her chin rested upon the cold inner glass.

She couldn’t believe it, but someone was shooting at them. There was no cracking sound, but the flashes of a gunpowder weapon were unmistakable.

Chapter 61

Europa Ice Cap

Starlight

Brandt hadn’t brought a weapon out onto the ice. He couldn’t believe it. He, of all people, should have known this could have happened. When had he become a trusting soul? Would Jenna live out her life yearning to know what had happened to her father?

He didn’t want her to believe her father had ended his existence as a permanent ice sculpture on an alien world. He had to do something.

There wasn't a single gunpowder weapon aboard Starfire—an absurd restriction. Clark and Sandeep must have thought it was for the best, probably to prevent him from getting ahold of one. Fools.

He couldn’t blame them entirely, however. He should have at least brought a shovel or an ice saw. He looked around, crouching while the others sought cover, scattering like rabbits.

He spotted Dr. Tanaka with her robot on a sled. He thought it might be armed, but it was built to swim under the ice and burrow into it not to fire weapons. Most of the crew were dragging a drilling rig, basic supplies—useless stuff in a fight.

With a growl he rushed off toward a crusty ridge of ice. He could not hear the bullets striking, but he saw snow jump off to his left. He’d attracted attention, but he kept running. He had to get to the back of the methane ridge and circle around. Hugging the ice now wouldn’t save him, the gunman only had to get to high ground and pick him off.

When he’d reached safety—at least from the gunman he knew about—he glanced back. The rest of the crew were pinned, crawling on their bellies in craters or behind mounds of ice.

He found that the low-gravity threw him off balance. He pitched headlong into the crusty stuff more than once. Finally, he switched to moving almost on all fours, shoving off with his arms now and then as he bounded over the landscape in a wide arc to flank the enemy.

There was only one source of effective weaponry he knew about—and the Russians had it. Therefore, he had to take it from them.

As he completed his maneuver, he noticed that the firing had stopped. He had no idea where the Russians were now. He could only estimate their position from where he’d marked them earlier. The Russians had run out of targets. They might be lying there, waiting for someone to show themselves. Or, they could have retreated to their ship. The third possibility was the most chilling. They could be advancing toward the cowering line of American scientists, moving in to finish the job.

Whatever strategy the enemy had chosen, Brandt knew he couldn’t wait around to see what it was. There was only so much air in his tanks and so much blood in the veins of those trapped out on the ice.

Galloping and crawling, Brandt finished his flanking maneuver and came up on the enemy firing position.

What he saw there shocked him. Two men battled on the ice. One was suited as Brandt was—but the other was an oddly shaped dark figure. He appeared to be wearing nothing other than a wetsuit. At least, that was his initial impression.

Brandt rushed in. This was his chance, no matter whose side this interloper was on. He came up behind the Russian, who had a rifle in his hands and was struggling with several of his opponent’s limbs gripping the same weapon—

Brandt froze for a split second. His mind was unable to fully comprehend what he was seeing playing out in the frosty half-light that permanently illuminated Europa.

But there was no mistaking it. The thing fighting the Russian, the thing he’d been certain was another man, had at least three limbs on that rifle. The limbs were all wrong as well. They seemed to have more joints than a man’s arm should. They were dark and sleek and although he could see musculature bulging underneath, he couldn’t fathom how it could take the cold. Clearly, it wasn’t wearing a thick suit like the humans were.

And clearly, it wasn’t human.

His hesitation ended as his mind made an instant decision. Both these beings were his enemy, and the only thing that mattered was that gun.

Brandt came in with a heavy kick, striking the creature in the side. It rolled off, forming a ball with its limbs. Very quickly, the limbs sprang out again, and the thing was in a stable crouch.

The Russian didn’t let the thing attack again. He dropped his rifle and rushed in. There was a glittering length of steel in his hand.

Brandt snatched up the rifle, but he found the design unfamiliar. It took him two precious seconds to get the oddly curved stock up to his shoulder. A tube stuck out over his back, and he figured this weapon must fire with quite a bit of backwash.

During this interval, the Russian managed to get his knife into the alien—Brandt was now sure that’s what it was. Brandt could tell the man knew how to handle himself, and he watched him warily as he turned around and the two faced one another.

The Russian advanced with his knife in his hand.

“Are you crazy?” Brandt asked, but of course, the man couldn’t hear him. He may not even know English. “Don’t make me shoot you, fool.”

He gestured for the Russian to put it down, but the Russian kept advancing. The Russian was limping or perhaps exhausted. His air might even be running out. He carried his blade low and ready for a gut-thrust. Brandt knew with cold certainty he was going to have to kill him.

He wanted to kill this man anyway. This man had a gun, and a gun had killed his crewmates. He was sure this was the sniper. But lingering doubts stayed his hand. The gun was odd—maybe the alien had held it rather than the Russian. He doubted that, but it was a possibility. Equally important, he needed information. A few facts about the current situation in the dark Russian ship could save all their lives. This man clearly knew more than Brandt did.

But the Russian didn’t stop shuffling closer. Brandt knew he couldn’t let him get close. A single slash in his suit would likely be fatal.

He began to squeeze the trigger when another figure appeared. It was a small man with an American flag patch on his suit’s shoulder. Brandt was relieved. It could have been another Russian. He chided himself for having waited so long. He should have shot the Russian without hesitation. Somehow, that was difficult to do in the face of an alien menace. At this point, the real enemy was the thing on the ice at their feet. It was a dead tangle of limbs and rubbery flesh, but he still feared it.

The Russian followed Brandt’s gaze and straightened. The third man approached confidently, and Brandt recognized it was Perez. Brandt turned back toward the Russian and assumed a fighting stance. He had an ice axe in his hands. More figured appeared on the nearby hilltop as well.

The Russian looked around and saw he was surrounded. He dropped his knife and put his hands up on top of his helmet.

Warily, Brandt walked up and pressed the barrel of the odd rifle into the Russian’s belly. Then Brandt touched his helmet to the other man’s faceplate so that he could hear him. Their faces were inches apart.

“Why didn’t you drop your knife immediately?” Brandt demanded. “I almost shot you—I should have shot you!”

“The gun…” the other man said tiredly in bad English, “…she is empty.”

The gun was still up against the Russian’s gut. Brandt laughed and pulled the trigger.

The rotary drum spun and rattled in his hands drily. The Russian hadn’t lied. The magazine was indeed empty. It was an odd automatic, with a powered feeding system. It had probably been specifically designed to operate in this harsh environment. Brandt was impressed with the technology.

Brandt was also gratified by the look of surprise on the Russian’s face.

Good, he thought. Now we understand one another.

Chapter 62

Europa Ice Cap

Starlight

Sandeep nervously led the charge to the scuffle atop the snowy ridge. He was relieved to see Brandt and Perez had won the day, and no more humans had died.

There was an odd dark patch of tangled limbs that stained the snow. He knew right away what it had to be. Sandeep tore his eyes from the dead creature. He was more concerned with the living humans, and how he was going to keep them breathing in this hostile environment.

The Russian was surly and unrepentant as they encircled him and demanded an explanation. They’d managed to get him under control, and everyone had switched their radio headsets to a shared channel.

“We should kill him,” Yuki said. “This is the same kind of shit the Russians pulled at Lab 126 in Alaska.”

Sandeep could see his crew was in an ugly mood, and he decided he had to intervene.

“We can’t simply kill him out here on the ice,” he said firmly. “We need him. We need all the Russians.”

Most of the group looked at Sandeep with confused glares, but they cleared a path so he could step up to the Russian.

“Now sir,” Sandeep said, “can you tell us what went wrong out here? Why are humans killing humans in the face of an alien enemy who clearly wants to kill us all?”

“My name is Lieutenant Lev Burkov,” the Russian said. “I’m a member of the Russian military. I’m to be treated as a prisoner of war according to the—”

“—Geneva Conventions, yes, wonderful,” Sandeep said. “You will not be harmed, but you must cooperate. The survival of everyone on this ice-ball depends on it.”

“You threaten us?” demanded Lieutenant Burkov. “You don’t even have weapons!”

Sandeep frowned, and it took him a second to realize that Burkov had taken the comment about their survival as a threat. Had the man been drinking? There was a slur in his speech that indicated he had been.

“Are you drunk, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“Sadly, no. I could not find enough of the little plastic bottles.”

“Just tell me, please, what has happened out here? What’s happened to your ship? Why did you fire on us?”

“You ask for information, but you offer nothing. This is therefore an interrogation, and I don’t have to answer you.”

Sandeep sighed. “Lieutenant—”

“I’ll make him talk!” Brandt shouted suddenly, stepping up and grabbing the man.

With a surprising blur of speed, the Russian twisted and Brandt went flying. Brandt’s hands were wrapped up in the other man’s crinkling space suit however, and the American managed to drag the Russian with him. They flew together in the low gravity, tumbling over one another. Sandeep, Perez and Edwin scrambled after them, cursing.

“They’ve got their hands on each other’s air hoses!” Edwin warned.

The three men managed to separate the two on the ground after a struggle.

“Listen!” Sandeep shouted. “We’re all going to run out of air in about six hours. Fighting in suits is pointless.”

Edwin’s strong hands were clamped on Brandt. “Listen man, is this how you want to go out? Fighting in the snow? Your daughter will never see you again.”

“Major Clark would like that,” Perez added.

This last remark seemed to get through to Brandt. He backed off and shook himself. “Talk to this crazy Cossack, then. Maybe he’ll lead you to a nest of those starfish-like ape-things.”

“I could do that,” Lev said. "I know where they live."

“Where are they?” Sandeep asked, sensing an opportunity now that the man had finally started talking. Just answering one question—that was how many people began to unravel. Informants rarely spilled it all at once. They had to get started small, then it became a conversation, and eventually resistance broke down completely.

Lev pointed toward the ship. “There are several creatures in the ship, but they’re dead. The rest are under the ice. They come up from tunnels—I don’t know how they made them. I don’t think there’s an army of them down there, though. That’s the only good news. If there were thousands, they would have attacked with more force.”

“They creatures are in your ship?” Sandeep asked, disappointed. “What about your crew?”

“My crew is dead. They’re all dead.”

“Is the ship damaged?”

“Ha!” shouted Lev suddenly. “I understand everything now. You want our ship! You came here to get it. You don’t care about the aliens, or the black object under the ice where the creatures live. You want our technology. Whatever gadgets these rope-apes possess will not satisfy you.”

“We don’t want to steal your tech,” Dr. Linscott said, stepping forward. “What we need most is an air supply. We’ll run out within hours.”

“Why would you need my ship in that case? You have your own ship. It looks like a rock, but it seems to fly.”

“That’s not our ship,” Sandeep said. “Not anymore. The aliens took it over, we think. They flew it down here against our wishes. They hacked it or something. It flew like a drone.”

Lev looked at him through slitted eyes. “You can’t even control your own ship? If the aliens are that sophisticated, then we’re all doomed. They must be laughing at us. Perhaps this is a grand experiment. I bet they’re poking us with sticks to see what we’ll do next.”

Brandt grabbed up the alien body, which had frozen stiff by now. He walked toward Lev with it and shook it in his face. “We killed this one. If they keep coming, we’ll kill them all. I’m getting off this rock.”

Lev smiled. “I like this man,” he said, pointing a finger at Brandt. “I want to kill him, yes—but I understand him, and I like him.”

“Yes, yes, excellent,” Sandeep said. “We’ve reached a rudimentary state of rapport. Now, if you would lead the way, Lieutenant, we’d like a tour of your fine ship. Perhaps we could find some more alcohol.”

“Not so fast,” Colonel Dyson said, coming forward to block their path. Her face was red with anger. “This man is a murderer. He shot my navigator and my co-pilot.”

“Who are you?” the Russian asked.

“Colonel Dyson, NASA. I’m the pilot. My flight crew was standing right next to me, and you shot them down.”

“My apologies,” the Russian said. “My aim must have been off.”

“Damn you!” Dyson snarled at him. “At least tell me why you did it!”

Lev shrugged. “Everyone aboard Troika was dead. I killed the enemy I managed to find. Then I had a few drinks and went outside. I was hunting for more aliens. What I found instead was an alien ship, a mass of rocks and ice. It opened, and beings came out. You looked like men, but I wasn’t sure at first.”

“So you shot at us?”

“No. I let you come in close, watching you. It was then I realized that you were Americans and that you must be working with these creatures. I thought perhaps you Americans made them or bred them. Maybe the starfish-things were cyborgs or artificial life. You see, I know all about the technology you’ve carefully stolen and revealed over the last century.”

“You really believed we were working with these aliens?” Dyson asked.

“What else made sense? You flew directly here in what had to be an alien ship. You came here, out of all the cosmos, to exactly where my ship had been wrecked. I thought the aliens were your servants. Part of me wonders about it still. You marched toward my ship with equipment—clearly planning to steal whatever minor technological advances we’ve managed on our own.”

Sandeep stepped forward again, putting a hand on both of their shoulders. “What’s done is done. The Lieutenant was distraught and shot friendlies by accident. There is always confusion in battle. We must let it pass and pull together to win this war.”

They both looked at him with suspicion.

“What war?” Dyson asked.

Sandeep pointed toward the dark hulk of the Russian ship. “These aliens invaded your ship, Lieutenant. And they took control of ours. Both our nations are effectively at war with them. How can you deny it?”

They all seemed to think this over for a moment.

Brandt spoke first. “I think you’re right, Sandeep. We’ve got to pull together. Russian, American—it doesn’t matter. I bet these apes don’t kill one another because one variety has six arms and the next guy has only five. They must think we’re ridiculous. Idiots.”

“You’re right,” Lev said. “If what you say is true, and they brought your ship here by force—yes, they are playing us both. Come.”

He strode off across the ice. The group gathered their belongings and trudged after him.

“Are you taking us to the ship now?” Sandeep asked hopefully.

“No. We don’t have time for that. We must do the unexpected. We must go on the offense. I’m taking you to their tunnel in the ice.”

“What? Forget that,” Brandt complained. “We’re going to the ship.”

“You won’t be able to get in. Not without damaging the hull severely. There are codes—locks.”

Brandt cursed and followed Lev. They all did.

Chapter 63

Europa Ice Cap

Jupiter rising

Dr. Tanaka was the first of the group to notice the brilliant face of Jupiter rising overhead. The surface of Europa had been dimly lit by the busy sky of the Jupiter system up until now. There were a number of bright moons in sight, and the stars were brighter here than they’d ever been on Earth. This was due to the thin atmosphere. There was no cloud cover and very little haze to interrupt the cold light of other distant suns.

But when Jupiter rose, the landscape changed dramatically. What had been a place of grays, deep blues and purple shadows changed utterly. The surface of Europa transformed into a vast, glittering plane of blue-white crystalline beauty. The rust-colored patches were brown, like frozen coffee. The shadows were umber pools of ink.

More lovely than all of this was Jupiter itself. The massive planet was a brilliant disk composed of brown and white swirls and streaks. It reminded Yuki of hot chocolate streaked with cream. Patches of dirty red could be seen here and there, making think of an old barn with peeling paint. The largest of these, she knew, was the centuries-old storm known as the Red Spot.

“Look,” she said to the rest suddenly, pointing aloft. “Jupiter is rising, and she’s more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen.”

A few of the others looked, and they stood transfixed. Even the Russian seemed moved when he bothered to see what the fuss was about.

“That’s unbelievable,” Edwin said, coming to stand next to Yuki. “It’s going to fill a quarter of the sky when it’s fully above the horizon.”

“Jupiter really is a like a sun,” Dr. Linscott said.

“At least it will be easier to spot the enemy,” Lieutenant Burkov added, turning back to the march.

He led them around the ship, giving it a wide berth. When they got to the far side, he halted.

Yuki had been talking to Edwin. She was excited about her drone and the prospects of sending it down a shaft into the planet’s interior. If it could actually breach the ice so easily, she’d be overjoyed. It would be the culmination of her life’s work, and she hungered for the knowledge she’d gain through this unique exploration.

Lev approached her. Everyone else tensed, ready to attack him if he tried anything.

“Dr. Tanaka? Is that your name?”

“Yes. I’m the drone-specialist on the team.”

“So I gathered. What do you intend to do with that worm-like metal thing you’re dragging behind you?”

“The B-7? I’m going to deploy it. I’m going to send it right down the shaft you described and find out what’s down there.”

“Doctor,” Lev said, “you’ve studied this world. What would you estimate the thickness of this ice sheet to be?”

“No more than a mile,” she said. “Probably less here in this crater.”

“A mile? That’s far more than a kilometer,” he said thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen ice so thick.”

“Lieutenant,” Sandeep said gently. “We’re all consuming our oxygen at a prodigious rate. If you would be so kind—”

Lev’s hand came up to silence Sandeep. “Indulge me, shipless captain.” He turned back to Yuki and frowned at her. “It can’t be so thick. We can see a shadow through the ice. And besides, I don’t see how their tunnel isn’t freezing closed if it leads so far down to water. It should be blocked.”

“You’re right,” Yuki said warily. She was unable to keep the excitement out of her voice. “What you’re describing are the very mysteries I want—”

Lev turned away dismissively. “This isn’t going to work,” he said. “I’m not leading you any further. Find the tunnel by yourselves.”

Brandt reached for him as he turned to walk away, but Sandeep slapped Brandt’s gloved hands down and hurried after Lev.

“Lieutenant? Sir? Please explain your change of heart to us. Perhaps we can come to an accommodation.”

“We’re wasting time,” Brandt called after Sandeep. “Let him go freeze to death somewhere on the surface.”

“Give me my knife, and you can go,” Lev told Sandeep. “You can take my ship if you like. I don’t care. I don’t intend to leave.”

This statement caused a stir. “Why do you want a knife?” Sandeep asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Lev asked. “I intend to find more of these aliens and make them pay for their crimes. They manipulate you with hope of escape—but not me. I have accepted my fate, and I only want to eradicate as many of them as possible until I can no longer draw breath.”

The group shuffled uncertainly. Yuki stepped forward. She didn’t quite understand this half-crazy Russian, but she did know he’d suffered a great loss and was only interested in revenge.

“Lieutenant,” she said, “my drone can kill aliens if it finds them.”

He looked at her suspiciously.

“Let me show you,” she said. She led him to crouch by the B-7 and explained its armament, both defensive and offensive.

“You brought a war machine all this way? Why?”

“I lost my last drone—the B-6—and so I modified this one. It can defend itself. You wanted to go down that tunnel and fight these creatures, didn’t you? Face to face?”

“That’s what I envisioned.”

“Let me help you then. Let me send in my baby.”

She patted the segmented back of the thing, and Lev smiled at her.

“All right. You have the eyes of a killer. Let’s go.”

“We’re low on time,” Sandeep said. “I insist that you tell us the codes to enter Troika.”

Lev laughed. “I lied. There are no codes, fools. Spin the wheel and enter. If you’re lucky, there will be more live aliens to greet you there by now.”

Sandeep sighed. “All right. Edwin, you and Yuki go with him and try the drone.”

“We should just abandon that whole part of the project and focus on our survival,” Edwin said, frowning. “What’s the point now if we're all gonna die anyway?”

“Intel on this enemy,” Sandeep said. “We took all this trouble to come out here, but I would say that they’ve learned more about us than we have about them. We can still help our nation and our planet by transmitting back whatever we can.”

“We have a dead alien. We can learn a lot from that.”

“Yes, well, get me some readings on their base. Learn more about that tunnel and where they are and how they live.”

Yuki was excited but worried at the same time. She was worried about Lev, but she was almost as worried that she wasn’t going to get to deploy her baby under the ice if they kept arguing about it.

“Edwin, I need you,” she said. Then she turned toward Brandt and Perez. “Could one of you two come along too?”

They both volunteered, and everyone there knew they were offering to help keep a leash on Lev. But Sandeep overruled them.

“There may be, ah, surprises on the ship. Brandt, could you accompany my team?”

“Yes. Good idea.”

The two groups separated. Perez, Edwin, Yuki and Lieutenant Burkov went to find the tunnel while the rest trudged toward the ship.

“This is it,” Lev said a few minutes later. He pointed to a dark circular hole in the side of a pressure ridge that resembled a cave mouth.

“We were only a hundred yards away when you stopped us!” Edwin complained.

Lev shrugged. “Do you want to send that mechanical beast down there or not?”

“Help me, Edwin,” Yuki called.

They knelt in the snow, attaching the guide cable and activating the unit. The drone stiffened and reared up. Yuki enjoyed the reaction of the Russian, who took a step back. Perez was cool as always and just stood still.

She opened the control box and synched up. This process took a while, and the others complained and looked around warily in the meantime.

The tunnel mouth was like a blue-black pit. The entire area seemed dangerous to her. One slip near the entrance…who knew how far she would tumble before she could get a grip on those slick walls?

She activated the drone and it snaked forward. The men around the tunnel mouth skipped back. Like a fifteen-foot long eel, it wriggled into the hole and vanished quickly.

Cable reeled out at an alarming rate.

“One hundred meters down already,” she said. “I’ve got video.”

Edwin came to look at her screen, but the other two men watched the tunnel mouth and the surrounding ridges of ice. Infrared cameras on the drone transmitted what the B-7 saw up the wire. They provided a flickering, green-black image as the drone descended.

“The walls of the tunnel are too even to be natural,” Edwin said.

“Agreed,” Yuki said. She was brimming with excitement. “See this ribbing? That’s white-hot on the infrared. They must be warming artificial rings in the ice somehow. Two hundred meters—hold on, we’ve hit water.”

“I told you it wasn’t a mile deep,” Lev said.

Yuki ignored him. Her drone splashed into a sea that was barely warm enough not to freeze. “We’ve got confirmation. This is liquid water—and I think it’s natural. Europa could very well support life.”

Lieutenant Burkov laughed. “I could have told you that!”

Yuki glanced at him, frowning. “I mean naturally evolved life. These aliens—I doubt they’re from here originally.”

“Really?” Lev asked. “Then where do they come from?”

“Some other star system. We don’t know.”

“Have you found one down there yet? I want to see your robot kill it.”

Lev moved to loom behind Yuki, which made her nervous.

“Not yet,” she said. “I’m sending the drone deeper. There’s a metallic contact. Something big is down there. I’m recording everything for later analysis.”

“You turned on active sensors?” Edwin asked.

She looked at him. “We haven’t got much time. I can’t just nose around under the ice for hours. This is it, Edwin, my one and only shot.”

“You’re the drone pilot,” he said, shrugging.

“You’re pinging down there?” Lev asked. “You must want to see blood as much as I do.”

Thirty seconds passed during which little happened—then her screen suddenly went blank.

“What—?” Edwin demanded.

“The cable,” Yuki said. “It must have snapped.”

“Or it was cut,” Lev added.

They all looked toward the tunnel mouth. Yuki had never liked the look of it, but she found herself fearing it for the very first time. Something must have cut the cable, the Russian was right. The drone hadn’t crossed any metal surfaces that could have abraded the cable on the way down. More upsetting was the lack of any warning from her systems. Something had snapped the cable very quickly—perhaps even deliberately.

“What will your drone do now?” Lev asked. “Assuming it hasn’t been swallowed.”

“It’s programmed to return to us,” she said.

“What do you suggest we do in the meantime?”

She shrugged. “Wait. It will be back in ten minutes, hopefully.”

Lev looked at Perez. “Give me back my knife.”

Perez eyed him. “You’re a security risk.”

“Only to aliens.”

Perez hesitated, then produced a bright length of steel. He flicked it, and it landed point-first between the Russian’s boots. When the man stooped to grasp it, Perez produced his own knife and held it low and ready.

Yuki didn’t ask why the men were arming themselves. They all knew why.

The four of them watched the tunnel mouth fixedly.

Chapter 64

Europa Ice Cap

Starlight

The winch slowly reeled in the broken cable. The process took a long time. Yuki suddenly wanted to be far away from this spot.

“Maybe we should head for the ship,” she said, looking at the three grim-faced men.

“You’re probably right,” Edwin said.

“You cowards can go,” Lev said. “I will make my stand here.”

The others shifted uncomfortably.

“I admire your courage,” Perez said. “I’ll stay too. Edwin, I suggest you take Dr. Tanaka back to safety.”

“Thanks guys,” Edwin said, putting a hand on Yuki’s elbow to help her to her feet.

She shook his hand off and began gathering up her control box. She packed equipment on the sled. “I can at least get this intel back to Earth. Who knows what they’ll be able to glean from the data?”

Edwin helped her, and she sensed an urgency in his movements that matched her own. Just when they’d managed to secure the B-7’s control box on the sled and took their first steps toward the ship—the tunnel mouth belched.

Steam roiled up out of it, quickly dissipating into an icy fog. Their faceplates were obscured with frost.

They backed away, rubbing rapidly at their helmets with their gauntlets to clear them.

“Let’s go, Yuki!” Edwin said, half-dragging her over the snow.

She tripped but held onto the tether of her sled. Edwin dragged her and the sled, his boots breaking through the crusty snow with every step. Even with the low gravity, he was pulling a lot of mass along behind him.

She got to her feet and turned back. The other two men had arranged themselves on either side of the tunnel mouth. Could this really be happening? Was a living thing about to emerge from that hole like a lion charging out of its den? She hadn’t seen the original alien before it was dead. She wanted to see one of them now, despite the thrilling sense of danger in her chest.

When the first one appeared, she gasped in fear. The creature wasn’t pleasant to behold in any way. It was terrifying.

In the broad light of Jupiter’s disk overhead, it didn’t resemble an ape or a starfish—not in her eyes. It was something else. Something bizarre and unnatural.

There were limbs, six of them. Every limb terminated in a small claw. To Yuki, it looked like a spreading fan of furry cat tails, each with a clacking pincer at the end of it.

What shocked her most was the way the thing moved. It had intellect—anyone could see that. It had something in its claws, too. A thread of silver light with a frayed end.

The guide-wire. That had to be it. The thing had cut the cable and followed it to the surface, searching for whomever had dared send the drone down into its private retreat.

Perez and the Russian Lieutenant fell on the creature from either side. She could hear their accelerated breath and their straining over the radio chat-channel.

Snapping claws reached for their air hoses—the alien had learned of human weakness. But both men were too well-trained in combat, too fast. They slashed away the limbs that tried to asphyxiate them and then moved on to the grim work of butchering the creature. They stabbed it a dozen times each before it relaxed and deflated at their feet like a punctured balloon.

“That was very satisfying,” Lieutenant Burkov said.

“Look out,” Perez yelled. “They aren’t done!”

Another puff of steam came out of the tunnel mouth and froze into crystals as before. The men cleared their faceplates and readied themselves.

Yuki noticed that Edwin was no longer dragging her. She looked at him askance.

“It’s too far,” he said. “It’s too late. I have to help contain the creatures here. If these things win, they’ll run us down on the ice—unless you’re willing to let go of that damned sled.”

She thought about it for a second, then shook her head.

Edwin looked pained. She’d put him in a terrible spot. She put her small hand on his elbow. “You go back to the ship. Tell them we need help out here.”

“I’m not leaving you,” he said.

She didn’t argue any further. She could have left the sled and run with Edwin—it was the sane thing to do. But she wanted to get her recorded data back to the ship.

In her heart of hearts, there was another reason she’d opted to stay. She didn’t want to see what was going on inside the Russian ship. She was worried about what they might find when they got there. For now, she could hold on to a little scrim of hope. No one had contacted them for quite some time from that direction. It could have been the radiation from Jupiter’s shining face, or it could have been that they were extremely busy or worse—she didn’t want to learn the truth, not yet.

The next thing to come out of the tunnel was a surprise.

“Get away from it!” Yuki shrieked. “Get away, or it will defend itself!”

The two men hopped back just in time. The B-7 emerged, wriggling and crawling. It extended its lower appendages and climbed the ice with surprising alacrity. Yuki frowned. It was more than surprising. She knew what her drone was capable of, and it could not have climbed that slick, curved surface so quickly. There had to be some kind of a transportation system at work. It should have taken several more minutes for the drone to laboriously climb its way out. Could those hot rings that kept the ice tunnel open also be somehow propelling things upward? A hot breath of steam had preceded the first alien and now the drone. The tunnel itself was intriguing.

The B-7 had two blades like ripsaws on either side of it. These were kept internally until needed—but apparently the drone had decided to deploy them. The drone also had a row of explosive-tipped spines. The spines were essentially shotgun shells attached to stalks. These were often used by scuba divers to kill attacking sharks underwater. Yuki had attached them as an afterthought, but she could only imagine what a single touch would do to a man in a space suit.

The drone inched forward like a beached manta ray. It halted when it reached the exact spot where it had been activated. Its programming had come to an end.

Yuki breathed a sigh of relief. Edwin laughed. “That looked bad for a second,” he said. “We’ll be off now—”

Before he could finish his thought, the tunnel puffed again. This time, however, it fired a much larger plume of steam. An ice dragon’s breath swamped them all.

“That can only be—” Edwin began. “Run!”

Yuki reopened her control box instead. She knelt and began mashing buttons.

Edwin grabbed her, but she fought to get away from him.

“I’m reactivating the drone and putting it into defense mode!” she radioed the group. “Get away from it!”

Perez and Burkov had already stepped back from the tunnel mouth to prevent the releasing vapors from obscuring their vision. After hearing her words they stepped back farther still. Edwin stopped tugging at her, and she was able to upload a new script.

She whirled just in time to see the B-7 begin the rebooting process.

Three aliens stepped out of the tunnel mouth and stalked forward, passing right over the limp, blinking drone. Three more arrived a second later. It was as if they’d been transported up from the depths aboard an elevator—or perhaps it was more like one of those old-fashioned air-driven message systems that carried papers inside capsules around offices using a system of pipes and suction.

The aliens got their bearings and formed a circle facing outward toward the humans. Their intent was clear, and they had weaponry this time. There were cutting tools and weapons that looked like spear guns in their pincers.

The drone lurched into motion at their feet, surprising them. In a split-second, the B-7 recognized the danger and went to work.

Two aliens were struck by kill-sticks. They popped like balloons of paint. The release of gas from the shells in the low-pressure atmosphere blew their bodies apart. A third had one of its limbs shaved off by a flashing ripsaw.

The aliens wheeled on their attacker and stabbed at it. Their weapons released charges, sparking and rasping on the drone’s hull. They seemed to be shocking it somehow. The drone stopped moving.

Yuki took less than a second to reach into the control box and rip loose a memory stick. It wasn’t everything the drone had gathered, but it was all she had time to recover.

“Run!” she shouted, getting to her feet and charging toward the Russian ship.

“We can take them,” the Russian Lieutenant said to Perez.

“No we can’t. The tube is activating again.”

Soon, all four of them were running toward the ship. “We should have made a stand there,” the Russian complained. “That was a choke point. We could have killed a hundred.”

“You’re welcome to try!” Edwin shouted.

The Russian made no further comment. They all saved their breath for the bounding, low-gravity sprint over the ice.

Chapter 65

Europa Ice Cap

Starlight

Lev led the fleeing group back to Troika. They clambered up the hull after him and reached the sole working hatch. The Americans crammed themselves into the airlock behind him and huddled there, breathing hard.

Lev was embarrassed. Why had he decided to preserve his life at this unlikely moment? The odds were against him, and it looked like cowardice.

Even as his breathing slowed, he realized what had changed his thinking. It was the woman—Dr. Tanaka. He saw in her a wisdom that went beyond the moment. He and the other men had only been concerned with defeating an enemy by pressing a tactical advantage.

But she had been smarter than that. She was not risking her life to fight the aliens directly, but to screw them permanently. To take data home to Earth and use it to defeat these creatures on a larger scale. It was this impressive goal that had jolted him out of his defeatist mindset.

Certainly, the odds were that they’d never leave this frozen rock. They were doomed, in all likelihood. But that didn’t matter, because there was a chance they could win through and damage the enemy in a very real and permanent way. He’d liked that idea, so he’d run with the rest of them.

He would help them get back into space and get home somehow. He’d done it before with Kira in the submarine. He’d survive again—but if he ever did get back to Moscow, he swore he’d refuse to fly off into space with the next ship full of fools.

“We’re locked in,” Lev said, spinning the wheel until the hatch was sealed. The automatic system had broken upon landing. “Where’s the rest of your crew?”

“Sandeep?” Edwin called. “This is Dr. Goody. Respond please.”

There was nothing but crackling static.

“Sandeep?”

Perez waved for Edwin to be quiet. “Brandt?” he called.

There was a moment of silence, then Brandt’s rough voice broke into their channel.

“What are you guys doing on this channel?” he asked. “It barely works. Scan over to fourteen. Everyone’s chatting there.”

The group breathed a collective sigh of relief. They worked the communication systems in their suits, and soon they heard a flood of chatter. People were here, working on the lower decks to get the ship flying again.

“I thought we were the last ones alive,” Edwin said to the group.

“I thought we were dead, too,” Yuki admitted.

Perez waved for quiet again. “Brandt? We have trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“We made contact with more of the enemy. Hostiles are inbound. I repeat, hostiles are inbound.”

“Perez?” another voice broke in. “This is Sandeep. Have you got everyone with you?”

“Yes, we’re in that high airlock, upper deck. We’re alive, but the enemy chased us back to the ship.”

“More aliens? How many?”

“Unknown. Several at least.”

“All right Perez,” Sandeep said. “Brandt? Could you get up there and take over coordinating a defensive effort? Dr. Linscott is working on the engine, and I’m assisting her. We could use our Russian friend down here, too.”

“I’d be useless,” Lev said. “I’m a soldier, not an engineer. I’ll help with the defense of the ship to give you more time.”

“Fine. Good luck, everyone. Sandeep out.”

Brandt arrived moments later. He surveyed the situation. “We could meet them outside.”

“No,” Lev said. “I think there are too many.”

The others backed him up.

“This is crazy,” Edwin said, breathing hard. “We’re fighting these beings—but we’ve never tried to talk to them. We didn’t bring any translators or linguists—”

“This rock wasn’t supposed to be full of intelligent aliens,” Lev pointed out. “Our crew included a few astrobiologists, but they only expected to find an odd species of underwater lichen or something. Not creatures like this.”

“Why not?” Edwin demanded. “Why didn’t anyone foresee something like this? Someone had to build those ships!”

Yuki put a calming hand on Edwin's arm. “Explorers often don’t foresee something outside their experience. Remember Columbus? Until his death, he believed he’d found India, rather than a new continent.”

“We should try to talk to them,” Edwin insisted. “We haven’t even tried.” He pointed at Lev and Perez. “You two ambushed them and killed them as they came up. No wonder they’re hostile.”

Lev laughed. “You want to talk? Be my guest!” he said. “One of my shipmates tried to talk to them. Dr. Kira Norin. She was my friend, and they butchered her right in front of me.”

“Is that when you decided to kill them all?” Perez asked.

“Yes. I don’t think you can reason with these brutes anyway. They must be put down. They’re too different. Too violent.”

Edwin sighed.

“What’s the plan then?” Brandt asked in annoyance. “Lock the doors and hope they can’t get in?”

“They will get in eventually,” Lev said. “This ship wasn’t built to be locked. It was built to be accessible. What we want to do is let them come in here and kill them as they enter. The best we can do is channel their attack into a good killing zone.”

“Will you just listen to yourselves?” Edwin demanded. “A killing zone?”

“Look,” Brandt said. “We’re either going to kill them, surrender to them and hope we live, or try to talk to them. I say we kill them. That’s the only path that doesn’t leave the outcome up to the aliens.”

“What if there are too many?” Edwin asked. “What if we fail?”

“Then we’re doomed. But we don’t know that.”

“Let’s have a bloodbath then,” Edwin said bitterly. “Open the airlock, and invite them inside. Let’s get this over with.”

Brandt nodded his head. “All right. Be my guest. Who’s going to open it?”

No one moved. Brandt looked around for a moment, then smiled. “All talk,” he said. He edged forward and put his hands on the hatch.

“I’ll help,” Lev said.

The two men positioned themselves on either side of the door and spun the wheel until it creaked open. The seal hissed, and the bluish light of the surface swept into the compartment.

An alarming series of events followed. Several sets of claws reached in, plucking at Brandt’s suit. They had something new in their manipulative hooked claws, devices that resembled an oval of metal. These implements turned out to be weapons. They sparked when they made contact with anything.

“What are those things?” Brandt asked. “Some kind of shock-stick?”

“They’re trying to touch us with them,” Lev said. “Don’t let them.”

The two men fought the alien claws and the strange weapons with knifes and fists—but the struggle was uneven.

The Earthmen were stronger, but their space suits were a critical weakness. Not only were they cumbersome, they were easy to breach. Air was venting from Brandt’s suit within seconds, and he was soon gasping. He had to retreat. His arm was limp at his side.

“I can’t move my arm. They got one of those shock-devices into my suit. I—my side is paralyzed.”

Perez stepped up, taking Brandt’s spot.

“This isn’t working!” Lev shouted. “Let’s close the door again. Everyone push!”

Edwin, Lev and Perez all heaved and pressed against the half-open hatch. Their earthly muscles were powerful on this tiny world. The enemy was tough and built like wiry balls of rubber, but they were pressed back. The hatch closed again.

Yuki worked to patch Brandt’s suit. The seal was poor, but serviceable. When Brandt could breathe freely again, he looked at the others with bloodshot eyes.

“What I don’t get,” he said in a faint voice, “is why they don’t just blow us up. Or shoot holes in the hull. They have to be capable of developing sophisticated weaponry. Why would they be using their claws at this point?”

No one answered him right away. Lev suspected no one really knew.

“Lev?” Yuki asked, getting the Russian’s attention.

“What is it, Dr. Tanaka?”

“Have you done a count? How many crewmen did you lose?”

Lev chuckled. “All of them.”

“Yes. But did you account for their bodies?”

Lev frowned at that. He looked around the compartment. “There were two right here,” he said. “I’m pretty sure of that. Did Sandeep and his crew clear out the dead?”

“No,” Brandt said. “I came in with the initial group. There were no bodies in here. Blood and torn suits—but no dead.”

“None at all? Not even below decks?”

“No,” Brandt said definitely.

“This is odd then,” Lev said. “Clearly, the aliens took the bodies. But why?”

“They’re testing us,” Yuki said, “just as we might test a newly encountered species.”

The group looked at her in alarm.

Lev nodded. “Again, you are wise. You must be correct. They are sampling our dead—testing us. They don’t want our bodies blown up or burned. I think this last attack on you, Brandt, was with some kind of paralyzer. They wanted to take you alive. But they’re paying a heavy price for this information.”

“As individuals,” Yuki said, “they don’t seem to be as worried about dying as we would be. I guess they might place a different value on life.”

“What do you mean a different value?” Lev asked. “Are you saying they don’t care if they die?”

“Ants, bees—there are thousands of species that will die to save their hive, their queen. Even some mammals operate that way.”

“Okay,” Lev said, respecting Dr. Tanaka’s mind more every minute. “Let’s say they are like a swarm of bees. Why wouldn’t they have killed us when they had the chance? When we first arrived—that would have been the moment to attack. Why did they hold back until now?”

“Let’s consider their behavior. Let's assume they brought our ship down here on remote control. They let us land and didn’t attack immediately. They observed and recorded, I’m sure of that. How much can you learn from a corpse? Better to study the live specimen.”

“Makes sense. You think that’s why they haven’t broken up this ship yet? Haven’t killed us all? Because they’re making careful notes on our behavior?”

“It’s as good an explanation as any,” Yuki said. “They aren’t human, but they are smart, in their own way. They took our dead in order to dissect them. I bet the aliens are down there right now, under the ice, working on the bodies.”

Lev didn’t like to think that Kira was undergoing such a violation even now. She was dead, certainly—but cutting up her body was wrong. “They want to know what we can do, so they play with us as a cat plays with a struggling mouse. Maybe it brings them pleasure to do this. What will they do next, Doctor?” he asked Yuki.

“I think we’re already seeing the next phase. They brought us down to this spot, and we’ve provided them with dead specimens to dissect. Now—I think they want a live human to work on. That’s what I would want.”

“Maybe…” Perez said, “…maybe they’ve been looking for a way to capture one of us alive and failing at the task. They tried to grab Brandt just now, but their claws opened up his suit, and he began to die. Afterward, it seemed like they lost some of their fervor.”

Brandt was on his feet again. The effects of the paralyzing device had been temporary. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “My suit is patched, and I’m back in this. What we’ve got to do is find out what they’re going to try next. If they get into the ship down below, they could grab Dr. Linscott. Instantly, we’d all be stuck here. We need to see what they’re up to.”

They worked together with Lev leading. They soon managed to find windows and cameras that could be used to examine the ice outside.

What they saw beyond Troika’s hull was alarming. There were perhaps a hundred of the creatures out there now. They crawled over the exterior of the ship and prowled the ice in every direction.

Worse still, they spotted a new variety of alien among their number. A much larger sort that walked hunched over, using five limbs as legs rather than the usual two or three.

“What the hell are those things?” Edwin asked in horror.

“Maybe Dr. Tanaka was right,” Perez said. “Maybe they are a hive-race. Because those look like the soldier-variety of starfish to me.”

Chapter 66

Europa Ice Cap

Starlight

Jackie Linscott worked faster and harder than she ever had in her life. The Russian ship was so confusing. She’d thought figuring out how to control an alien drive had been difficult, but this—this was worse.

The trouble was the Russians had hybridized their technology. Their systems weren’t alien, nor were they earthly. They’d taken a mix of both worlds and thrown in a little something extra that didn’t make any sense to her at all.

It had to be about the containment fields. That was the central sore point in all these EM-Drive systems. Once the reaction started, how did you keep it from eating the ship?

The shielding system, unfortunately, didn’t look anything like her design. The simple answer would have been to build her own, but of course she didn’t have the time or the resources to recreate her own version as she’d done back on Earth. Instead, she had to translate the work of foreign scientists and reverse-engineer their solutions.

Colonel Dyson tried to help, but she was worse than useless. At least Sandeep had the good sense to know when he was out of his depth and to stay quiet.

“Maybe you should just hook it up and switch it on,” Dyson suggested. “If it doesn’t work, fine, we’ll go back to making it complicated.”

Jackie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “It is complicated, Colonel. The containment field has to be brought up bit by bit in tandem with the drive that generates it. You can’t just switch it on, because there’s no field to switch on until the drive is operating. Do you want to forget about the shielding?”

“Of course not,” Dyson snapped. “When the drive starts operating, it will spill out thousands of rads into this compartment—probably with a lot of heat, too.”

“Yes, exactly. Do you still want to just flip it on?”

The two women glared at one another for a moment.

Sandeep approached. His hands were up in a gesture that urged peace.

“This is a naturally tense moment,” he said. “Let’s back off and take a break. Maybe we can think of another way.”

“I’ve got another way,” Jackie said. “You can start by kicking her out of the engine room so I can think.”

Sandeep released a nervous laugh. “I’m sure that’s unnecessary.”

“It might just be necessary to our collective survival,” Jackie insisted.

She knew she’d lost it but she didn’t care. According to Brandt and the rest of the troops upstairs, the enemy had encircled the ship and were probing it for weakness. She’d seen the vids of the exterior, at least a few clips. The aliens looked like a SWAT team that had encircled a bank full of thieves. They were clearly planning the best way to break inside and take everyone down without a loss. She found it hard to think under these circumstances.

Colonel Dyson set her mouth in a small tight line and left the chamber. Sighing in relief, Jackie went back to tinkering with the engine and puzzling out the controls.

“You know, Jackie,” Sandeep said. “Dyson is right about one thing. We can’t just sit in this ship forever. They’re going to dig us out of here. We don’t have much time.”

Jackie nodded and waved for him to leave. He finally did, but the moment he exited the engine room into the main passageway, everything changed.

“This is Sandeep,” he said over the ship-wide channel. “We have a breach, repeat, we have a breach down in engineering.”

Jackie rushed to the hatch and looked out into the passageway. It was shadowy, but after a moment she realized what he was staring at. Colonel Dyson lay on the deck, eyes open. She was dead. Her suit had been cut open from the back and both the air hoses were slashed. The inside of her faceplate was covered in blood. Something had gutted her.

“But,” Jackie said, backing up slowly into the engine room again. “She only left here a minute ago.”

Sandeep retreated with her and closed the hatchway slowly.

“They’re in here?” Jackie heard herself saying.

Sandeep nodded, putting a finger to his lips. For the next minute or so, the only sound was the hissing of their air hoses and their own rapid breathing.

The wheel began spinning open again slowly after a minute had passed.

Sandeep put his hands on the wheel, stopping it. “Brandt?” he called. “Is that you?”

“Negative, Sandeep. We’re having trouble at the entrance. We’ll be down to you as quickly as we can.”

“Hurry, I think one is trying to get into the engine room.”

Jackie admired his calm. She could see his hand on the wheel—it was trembling. He held it tightly, with both his gloved hands. For several moments, it didn’t move.

“Are they trying to open it?” she asked in a whisper.

“No. They tried, but now—” he stopped talking and gasped in surprise. The wheel in his hands began inching its way open once again.

Jackie gave a little shriek and lunged forward, gripping it with Sandeep. Together, they hung on for dear life.

Now that she had her hands intertwined with Sandeep’s, she could feel the tension of both sides, exerting their muscles to open the hatch. After several seconds, she felt the thing on the far side let go. They spun the wheel all the way back to center again, and leaned against it, panting.

Sandeep dared to smile at her. “One vote for Earth-trained muscles, eh?”

His relief was short-lived, however, as a moment later the wheel began spinning open again. They resisted it as desperately as they could, but Jackie could tell it was useless. Had the enemy put something on the far side that could force the issue? Had they somehow applied a lever or a tool to do the spinning for them?

It didn’t matter, because they were losing. She let go, and the spinning accelerated. Sandeep looked at her in wide-eyed panic.

She grabbed a wrench and jammed it into the wheel, getting under it and pushing upward. She used this as a lever and the movement finally halted.

It was perhaps a minute later that they heard the transmitted sounds of a struggle in their helmets. When this ended, someone began to open the door.

“Let me in, Sandeep.”

“Brandt?” he asked, opening the door with trepidation.

Brandt was in the hallway alone. At his feet was something large and shaggy. It looked like one of the aliens—but bigger.

“I came up behind it while it scratched at the door,” Brandt said, between breaths. “It looked like the biggest, weirdest wolf you’ve ever seen. The thin atmosphere in here helped. It didn’t hear me coming until the last minute. I stuck my blade into its back and then, well, I lived.”

Jackie looked at him. She’d always considered Brandt a dangerous hothead. But today she was glad he was what he was.

“We’re losing this,” Brandt said. “We had to retreat from the upper deck. This one got past us—I’m sorry about that. We welded a few doors shut, but they’ll dismantle the entire ship if they have to. They’re being gentle so far. I think they want to capture some of us alive, rather than tear us all apart.”

Jackie nodded. “Makes sense, unfortunately.”

“I’ve got to go up and review the situation,” Sandeep said, hurrying to the ladder and out of sight.

Jackie watched him go, then she turned back to Brandt. She was glad he was there, protecting her. “Any suggestions?”

“Yes,” he said. “We need to get this ship into the sky right now.”

She shook her head. “The containment field—I don’t know if it will hold. I don’t know how to bring it up gently.”

“Then just switch the damned thing on,” Brandt suggested.

“I can’t do that,” she said. “It might blow up the ship. At the very least, the radiation will kill everything down here.”

Brandt gave her an odd look. “You know my daughter, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“She liked you. She told me I should try to marry you. Did you know that?”

Despite everything, Jackie flushed. “This is hardly the time, Brandt—”

“I know,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you that—because, you know, I’m probably not going to get another chance.”

“I feel the same way,” she said suddenly. “Like I wish we had more time.”

Jackie blinked after that. She’d surprised herself. Had she really had feelings for Brandt all along? He was so unlike the cerebral type of man she usually dated.

“Good,” he said, smiling at her. He then began gently shoving her out of the engine compartment.

“What are you doing?”

“Take care of Jenna for me,” he said, “if you do get home someday.”

The door slammed, and the wheel spun.

Jackie was stunned. She stared at the door, and her first urge was to grab the wheel again and open it.

But then it dawned on her what Brandt was going to do.

She knew she couldn’t stop him. All she could do was reach what might be a safe distance. She turned and ran. She threw herself at the ladder and hand-over-handed it to the top, then grabbed the next one. When she got to the top of that, she slammed down the hatch that sealed the lower two decks. She began to spin that closed when suddenly—

The ship lurched. It rolled over, then went into a slow tumble.

“Sandeep!” she screamed. “Brandt’s activated the drive! Get the helm under control or we’ll crash!”

Chapter 67

Jupiter Orbit, Aboard Troika

Starlight

Troika wasn’t in good condition. The ignition of the engine in the lower decks without a fully shielded power source caused a radiation surge. The effect was similar to turning on an extremely powerful microwave with no door—or walls. Brandt died in seconds. Many vulnerable surfaces melted or even burst into flame inside the lower compartments. Insulation curled to reveal hot wire. Tubes disconnected from ducts and gases flowed freely. A secondary explosion in the coolant room caused heat to roil up the passageways even after the coils had finally kicked in and sealed the core with a buzzing, flickering shield of weak electromagnetic force.

“Have we lifted off?” screamed Jackie over the com system, rushing from one bulkhead to another, sealing every hatch that hadn’t automatically sealed itself.

“Are you hurt?” asked a voice that sounded like Edwin.

“I might be dead in a week from radiation exposure,” she said, “but forget about that. We have to seal the lower decks and vent them into space to kill the fire.”

“I don’t think we’re even off the ground yet,” Edwin shouted. “I’m looking out the window—we’re still on the surface. The drive is firing without direction, melting the ice and even boiling it, but we’re going nowhere from what I can see.”

“What’s going on?” Sandeep demanded. “Who’s flying this thing?”

Despite the desperate nature of their situation, Jackie felt a fresh surge of fear. “Dyson is dead. No one is flying the ship!” She realized then that they were doomed. They had no pilot. The ship was out of control. “Who can pilot this thing?” she demanded. “Someone has to get to the cockpit.”

“Relax,” said another voice. Impossibly, he did sound relaxed.

“Perez?”

“Yes. I flew helicopters for years. How different can Troika be?”

There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice. In all the time she'd known him, she had never seen Perez get bent out of shape. Not even under these circumstances. She gave up sealing bulkheads and moved to the cockpit. The ship was still shaking, vibrating like a motorcycle revving up and down the scale.

Unlike a traditional rocket, Troika wasn’t built with a defined cone of exhaust and a propellant to be hurled in a single direction. The ship had several energy-release points, and they were all operating, but without coherent direction.

“Lev,” she said, “get to the cockpit. We need you to translate.”

Breathing in gasps, her heart fluttering in her chest, she met Lev and Perez in the small cockpit. It was designed for two, a pilot and a co-pilot. But she squeezed in with them anyway.

“The ship is idling at high power,” she said. “The last configuration of the thrusters would have been for landing. That means they splayed the angle of the thrusters to slow down the ship, to let her down those final feet almost not moving at all. We’ve got them idling again, but they're directed at the wrong angles for takeoff, and we’re not standing flat on our tail to begin with.”

“Look. That's got to be our attitude indicator,” Perez said. “We’re a good thirty degrees off center.”

“Right,” she said. “Is that one airspeed?”

“In kilometers, yes. We’re not moving.”

Perez tentatively adjusted the controls, and the ship bucked under them.

“Lev?” he asked. “I’m not seeing a gyro here. Something to indicate our course.”

“What will it look like?” he asked.

“Like an airplane with a compass around it.”

Jackie fought to control a rising sense of panic. She had to control her mind enough to think clearly.

“It might not look like that,” she said, running her eyes over the instruments. “This whole thing looks like the inside of a Soyuz.”

“Makes sense,” Perez said. “We based ours on the shuttlecraft.”

The ship lurched again, and Jackie had to grab the back of the seats to stay standing.

“Are we moving?” asked Lev. “Here, this button says ‘external view’ in Russian. Shall I push it?”

She nodded worriedly.

There were no real windows in the cockpit, just screens. Projected on the screen of the forward walls of the compartment, the outside world appeared. Jupiter loomed overhead. The white walls of the crater formed a near horizon. Around them, much closer, was a smaller crater they were digging with their flaring thrusters.

“Maybe we should turn it off,” Perez said. “I think this will kill the engine.”

Jackie’s hand flew to land on his. “Don’t,” she said. “I don’t know if we can get the reaction running again. We have to fly this thing now.”

“If this was a helicopter,” Victor said, “I’d power up the main rotor and control it with the tail rotor, using flaps in midflight. But with this thing—I don’t know.”

“You don’t have that kind of control,” Jackie explained, talking in short, breathless bursts. “You have to find a way to tilt the exhaust ports. They all have to angle downward—toward the surface.”

“There are thrust levers here, and a joystick. You want me to try it?”

“Yes,” she said, biting her lip. “That stick might only control the attitude jets—but we have to try.”

Jackie braced herself as Perez pulled back on the joystick and simultaneously slid the thruster levers forward a few millimeters.

The ship vibrated harder, and the nose seemed to be lifting.

“Something’s holding us back,” Perez said. “I…I can feel it.”

“More tilt, more thrust,” Lev suggested. “You’re working the right controls.”

Perez’s calm had finally broken. He showed his teeth in a grimace, like a man who was about to do something very unpleasant. He applied more thrust and pulled harder on the stick.

Jackie looked around for something to hold onto—there was a jump seat folded up against a wall. She unfolded it and was in the middle of getting the straps around her body when the ship vaulted into the sky.

The ship broke free with shocking speed. Europa’s surface vanished under them, then the disk of Jupiter loomed—and slid away again.

“Ease off! Ease off!” Jackie shouted, clinging to the straps. “We’re in a spin!”

Perez reduced thrust and the vibration lessened. “I think we’re idling again. The Russian control system seems to be more refined than ours.”

“That’s because we didn’t simply steal it from the aliens,” Lev commented.

Jackie took in a deep breath. They were in a slow spin, but most of their momentum was carrying them upward. They were headed off-world in a hurry. Europa’s gravity was light, and the atmosphere was thin. It was relatively easy to get into orbit.

Sandeep came down a ladder to join them. He couldn’t fit into the cockpit so he stood in the doorway.

“Good job, new flight crew,” he said. “I’m glad someone with some knowledge of rocketry survived this long.”

He sounded depressed and bitter. Jackie realized he had every reason to be. By anyone’s standards, this entire trip had been a disaster for both the Americans and the Russians.

“We did pretty badly,” she said. “This was never a race for technology. We were in a first-contact situation, and we didn’t even know it.”

“What do you mean?” Lev asked.

“I’m talking about the aliens,” Jackie said. “We made contact with a new species, and we blew it. Earth blew it.”

Lev shrugged. “They attacked us. What could we do?”

“You’re going to blame this all on them?” she demanded. “Really? What did you do the first time saw one of them?”

Lev shrugged. “I shot at it.”

“Right. And before that, what did Troika do? Your ship bombarded this spot on the ice from space. You cracked the crust with projectiles of some kind.”

Lev smiled. “You knew about that?”

“We analyzed photos of the surface. It took us a while, but we figured out what you were doing. You burrowed halfway through the icy crust at this location.”

“It was much faster that way. The ice was too thick.”

“But think of how that must have seemed to the aliens. It was an attack.”

Lev sucked in a breath of air and moved in his seat. “You sound like Kira. She believed they were harmless fellows as well. She wanted to warn them we were coming.”

“Who’s Kira?” Sandeep asked.

“She’s a dead woman. A friend of mine.”

Jackie looked at him thoughtfully. They’d all lost friends on this trip. They were all exhausted and stressed. She hadn’t expected this journey to be so traumatic.

They spent the next hour stabilizing the ship’s flight path into a uniform orbit and killing all the fires by depressurizing the lower decks. Once they’d done that, they were able to seal the ship again and head down to the engine room.

The cowl was completely off the engine, and Jackie stopped anyone from going in or even looking inside, directly. She used a mirror attached to a pole to look.

“We can’t go in there. The core is stable, but see that bluish nimbus? It will melt down anyone in its direct path. These walls are lead-lined, but no one can take direct exposure.”

They backed away and retreated to the upper decks. Sandeep called a conference of the surviving six humans aboard. Everyone other than Sandeep, Jackie, Lev, Edwin, Yuki and Perez had perished at one point or another.

“Crew,” he said, “this voyage has been far from a stellar success. But we did survive. We have a great deal of critical information to relay to Earth. So far, our transmitter isn’t operating, but maybe we will get it working again. We have plenty of time to repair it as we limp home to our planet.”

“Doesn’t work, eh?” Lev questioned. “Are you sure? Or are you just unhappy because it will only transmit to Moscow?”

Sandeep looked at him coldly. “That is most certainly not what I meant.”

“There is another critical point,” Lev said. “Who made you captain? I’m the only member of this group who should be aboard this ship at all. You are not captain—I am captain. You are all guests aboard my ship.”

“Lev,” Jackie said. “We’re all in this together. We’re all just trying to survive and get home.”

“Do you want to kick us off your ship, Lev?” Perez asked. “You don’t even have a qualified pilot. I'm pretty sure you can't fly this thing.”

The Lieutenant eyed each of them disdainfully, then grumbled something in Russian. “All right. We have to form a complete crew. That will take all of us. I will translate and work on the communications systems. Linscott and Tanaka, we need you the most. You can go over the ship and repair whatever you can find. The doctor can play doctor, Perez can pilot. And you,” he said, turning to Sandeep. “You can be the cook. We need a cook.”

Sandeep showed his teeth. Jackie could not recall having seen anything like a snarl on Sandeep’s face before.

“I’m not cooking anything for—”

“Guys,” Yuki said, “we have to pull our shit together. Can’t you see what you’re doing? You’re kick-starting the Cold War all over again. The second we’re not being eaten by aliens, you’re ready to fight among yourselves. The aliens are our enemy now, not Americans or Russians.”

“Maybe,” Lev said, crossing his arms. “Let’s talk about where we’re landing this ship.”

They all squirmed uncomfortably. Jackie could tell all her crewmates wanted to go straight home—but that hardly seemed fair. This was a Russian ship, and Lev was right, he was the only person who belonged aboard her.

“We’ll land in Russia,” she said. “Star City, if you like.”

He looked at her and nodded appreciatively. “I more than like that suggestion—I insist upon it.”

“All right,” Sandeep said. “Let’s do it that way. We’ll repair the communications system and beam all our findings to Earth—to both governments. Then we’ll land this ship in Russia, wherever they tell us to. Can we agree on that much?”

Everyone nodded, and even Lev seemed mollified. Everyone that was, except for Dr. Tanaka.

“Yuki?” Jackie said, prodding her. Tanaka was working a tablet and looking very focused. “What do you think?”

Yuki looked up, blinking. “I think we have a problem.”

“What?”

“The aliens—I think they’re beaming something into space. I’m reading a huge, focused surge of radiation.”

Worry swept through the group.

“Is it directed at this ship?” Lev demanded.

“Dr. Tanaka,” said Sandeep, “please tell me they can’t take over our engine and bring us back down again against our will.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think they can. The Russian engine is alien-made, but it’s not part of a coherent control system built by aliens. They can’t control this ship remotely, because the computers are all earth-designed.”

“Well then, what do we care if they beam a signal somewhere?” asked Lev.

Yuki looked at Jackie, who read the worry in her eyes. She understood quickly.

“They did this before,” Jackie said. “They beamed a signal from Earth to Europa.”

“Yes,” Lev said. “I know all about that. I was under the ice on Earth when the signal went out. Are we talking about a signal of that magnitude?”

“It’s stronger,” Yuki said. “The sensors on this ship aren’t very precise, but they’re picking this up without a problem. We also have other sources of data which I’m getting. Coded communications. The communications system can’t transmit, but we can still receive data.”

Lev looked at her with narrowed eyes. “You’re talking about spy satellites. So, Moscow didn’t blind you completely?”

“We’re all on the same side, remember, Lieutenant?” Sandeep said, leaning forward.

“Yes, of course,” Lev said, retreating with a smirk.

“Anyway,” Dr. Tanaka said, “we’re reading a massive signal. It’s heading out into deep space.”

“What’s out there?”

The group was silent for a second. Jackie looked at Lev.

“Other star systems,” she said. “We wanted to contact home—well, they beat us to it. They’re reporting in, informing their masters. They’re telling their homeworld everything they know about us. Just as we plan to do at the earliest opportunity.”

Chapter 68

Europa Ice Cap

Starlight

When they had Troika in a high orbit and the engine was idling unevenly, they held another conference.

The conference table was a basic piece of furniture, just a sheer surface of composite with cup holders embedded in it. Sandeep rather enjoyed the simplicity of the furniture aboard the ship. It brought back memories of his youth. Everything was gray or green polymers mixed with dented steel. Every chair was heavily built and made with durability in mind. Aboard the American craft, most of the details had been plastic. Everything had been intelligent and it had responded to touch. More sophisticated, lighter—but delicate. He doubted an American craft would have continued to operate after the beating this ship had taken.

“Crew,” he said, “we have a decision to make.”

They looked at him worriedly.

“I’m not going back down to Europa,” Dr. Linscott said suddenly. “Not for anything. You can forget that.”

Sandeep blinked at her. He laughed. “No, no. Don’t worry. That wasn’t what I was thinking of. We have to decide how we’re going to respond to their signal.”

“Have we deciphered it?” Edwin asked in confusion.

“Unfortunately, no,” Sandeep said. “But our computer expert, Dr. Tanaka, has come up with some facts. Doctor?”

“Yes,” Yuki said. She tried to scoot her chair closer to the table, but found it was bolted down. She moved her body instead, perching on the edge of the seat. There was enough gravity from the thrusters to sit normally. “Here’s what we do know: they’re sending a signal—a packet message of considerable length and detail.”

“How do we know this?” Lev asked.

“The signature of the signal doesn’t tell us what they’re saying, but it does tell us how they’re saying it,” she said. “The transmission pattern contains sharp transitions from one state to another, indicating digital modulation is in use. It’s a regular, pulsing signal, and that’s what worries me the most.”

“Why?” Lev asked.

“Because I think they’re uploading files. It’s going slowly—we can tell because the transitions aren’t occurring rapidly—but the signal is non-stop. They’re definitely transmitting a lot of data.”

“I don’t understand,” Edwin said, looking at Yuki. “If we can’t talk to them, what difference does this make? We can head home and try to get experts to break their code—but that’s about all, right?”

“No,” Sandeep said. “We have…options.”

“Like what?”

Lev laughed suddenly and slammed his open hand on the table. “I get it. You are going to blow them up!”

They looked at him, startled. Only Sandeep and Yuki appeared to know what he was talking about. They looked slightly guilty.

Edwin stood up suddenly. “I won’t be a party to another attack against these people,” he said firmly. “If there’s to be a vote, I vote no.”

“Edwin?” Yuki called after him, but he left in a huff.

Sandeep touched her shoulder. “He has his point of view,” he said, “and I respect that. But we must consider all the details.”

“You’ll use the hammers, won’t you?” Lev demanded. He seemed amused. “I’m surprised you figured out how to operate them already. I must say, I’m impressed. Russians are always quick to strike—but Americans are even quicker!”

Sandeep didn’t meet his eyes. “Here are the facts. Dr. Tanaka has convinced me that the aliens on Europa are transmitting a long, detailed file of data into deep space—presumably to another star system. They’re doing, in effect, exactly what we would do in their place. Reporting in after this first-contact situation.”

“And for that, you want to bomb them?” Perez asked.

“Yes, I do. I want to stop that signal. How can the report be positive? We’ve already had hostile interactions with these beings. If they tried peaceful communication at some point, then I must have missed it. We did pretty badly on our own, bombing and shooting at them from the beginning. We must assume, therefore, that they consider us to be dangerous enemies.”

Perez nodded thoughtfully. “That stands to reason. How could they think otherwise?”

“We must assume as well, they’re not native to this moon or this star system. We’ve seen no evidence of a technological planet-wide society on Europa. This black patch under the ice was some kind of an outpost, an advance base. Maybe they’ve been watching us for a century or so. Do you think it's a coincidence that they arrived shortly after the Industrial Revolution? The telegraph was invented in the early 1800s, steam engines as well. Maybe these beings took notice of us back then and by the early 1900s sent an expedition to study us.”

“Now this is paranoia,” Lev said loudly. “Any Russian would be proud to call you a brother, Sandeep!”

Sandeep gave him an acid glance and continued making his case. “In any event, we’ve started a conflict by coming here. Possibly, we did so by accident. History is full of such events. Wars and confusion break out whenever explorers come to visit a new land. In our case, the odds were even higher, as we’re two very different kinds of beings.”

“Why not give peace a chance then?” Jackie asked. “I mean, this decision is too great for us to make.”

Sandeep looked at her. “I would love not to have been placed in this position. But I am here—we are here. We cannot communicate with Earth for instruction. There’s no one else who can act, in any case. We’ve already committed numerous hostile acts against these beings. Can one more act of hostility really alter the diplomatic disaster that’s already in motion?”

He looked around at each of them. They frowned in worry, all except for Lev. He appeared to be grandly amused.

“I’ll answer my own question,” Sandeep said. “No, nothing we do at this point will make the situation worse than it already is. And we can’t fix it, either. That would take an entirely new mission with diplomats, translators—experts we don’t have. What we do have is the ability to silence this one transmission. It’s slow and likely to go on for quite a while, mainly due to the distance, as I understand it.”

“That’s right,” Yuki said. “The aliens are using a very powerful transmitter, but the transmission is taking place slowly. I suspect that in order to be readable at interstellar distances, a signal has to be powerful and clear. Hell, a home wi-fi system only reaches a hundred meters. We’re talking about light-years, here.”

“We, therefore, have time to act,” Sandeep said. “If we strike early and hard, this signal will probably be disrupted and—”

Jackie stood up. “I’ve heard enough,” she said. “I vote no. Edwin was right. We can’t cold-bloodedly bomb them. The first time was an accident, but this… We don’t even know what they’re saying! What if they’re begging their homeworld for medical supplies? What if they’re all dying under the ice and need help?”

Yuki looked uncomfortable. “That’s just it, Jackie, we don’t know. These people could be harmless, but they don’t seem like it. They’re just as likely calling for a fleet of invading ships to come to their aid. If that’s the case, we’d best destroy them quickly and thoroughly. You’re talking about the possibility of saving a few aliens. We’re talking about the possibility of saving the entire human species.”

Jackie and Yuki engaged in a short stare-down.

“I understand your point of view Dr. Tanaka,” Jackie said stiffly, “but I have to vote no with Edwin. I’m out of this.”

She left the room. The remaining four looked at one another.

Lev spoke up first. “Anyone else?” he asked. “If one more walks out, we’ll have three against three. That’s perfect. Who breaks ties?”

“There’s no need,” Perez said. “I vote yes, and I already know how the rest of you are voting. Let’s stop wasting time and do this now. The enemy is transmitting more data every second.”

Several minutes later, Troika began spitting out high-speed projectiles. She had a lot of them, as it turned out. By diverting the power of the engine to the task, they were able to launch nearly a hundred depleted uranium spheres at terrific speeds.

“This is historic,” Lev said, watching the screens as Perez and Dr. Tanaka worked the firing system. “Don’t you see that? I’m witnessing the first space battle humanity has ever engaged in. The sweet part is that we’re the aggressors, and we’re bombing a seemingly helpless group of starfish.”

“Shut up,” Yuki said.

For once, he did.

Less than an hour after the fateful conference adjourned, the projectiles began slamming into Europa. The crater they’d first created was widened and deepened. At last, the ice cracked entirely, and a black shape like a rotten tooth was exposed. The transmission stopped at once.

But the spheres kept falling, as they’d been fired long ago and could not be retrieved. They flashed down from the skies and destroyed everything in their path.

The signal beaming toward the cold, distant stars had been cut off.

Chapter 69

Earth Orbit

Starlight

Jackie found the return journey to Earth to be long and difficult. Troika was badly damaged, and the lower decks seethed with radiation. They were forced to spend all their time in the limited space of the upper portion of the ship. They slept, ate and used the few facilities they had in shifts.

Quietly, determinedly, the ship glided toward Earth. Jackie decided the best approach to managing the damaged engine was to never shut down the reaction until they landed. She opted to use the lowest level of thrust to slowly build up velocity. At the half-way point, they flipped the ship around and turned their thrusters toward Earth to slow the ship down.

The ship took them home, but they never did get the transmitter working. Lev did, however, get the vodka distillation system to operate.

The most frightening moments came during the landing. They knew they were approaching Star City without giving Earth any warning of their condition.

“Lev,” Jackie asked, “you know your people. Will they shoot us down?”

Lev shrugged. “That depends on how much vodka the anti-air operators have had while on duty tonight.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. She’d learned over the last five weeks he was rarely much help. Except for killing things and surviving any kind of adversity, he seemed to be an almost useless human being. There was definitely something attractive about that—but he wasn't her type.

This reality hadn’t stopped him from trying to get her in the sack, however.

“Come now, Jackie,” he said, misinterpreting her stare. “It has been such a long journey. Soon, you and I might be in a prison cell in the Gulag. Shouldn’t we take part in the joys of life before it’s too late?”

“No,” she said firmly, for what had to be the fiftieth time. “What you’re going to do is go down to engineering and give me a visual on the core. Let me know if it’s still stable enough to land.”

He sighed. “I don’t want to go down there again. I bet by now I’m sterile—is that your concern? Have you no form of birth control? If that’s the problem then I can—”

“No,” she said again. “Go down and give me a visual, please. Use the mirror.”

He shook his head and left. She relaxed the moment he was out of the room.

Yuki came in, smiling. “Lev means lion in Russian—did you know that?” she asked. “Lions mate about twenty times a day when the female is in heat. For him, it’s just nature.”

“How come he doesn’t hit on you as often?” Jackie demanded.

“I don’t know. Maybe he likes more athletic girls. Or maybe he thinks I'm taken. He knows about Edwin and me. Even though we're kind of on the outs right now.”

Jackie nodded. She couldn’t find it in her heart to feel much sympathy for Yuki. The woman had sided with the others against her and Edwin. They’d outvoted her and started a war. In her opinion, Edwin’s stand against dating Yuki was a principled one.

She didn’t bring it up, however. After five weeks of debate, the crew was weary of the topic. None of them had had a change of heart. They were all sick of arguing about it. What was done was done. Their main focus had turned to landing the ship safely on Earth.

So far, Troika had been pinged by multiple radar stations. That could be good, or bad. The Russians at least knew they were coming. But what would they do when this silent vessel returned from the sky without answering any of their demands for information? The ground controllers had to be pulling their hair out.

“They might blow us up on the landing pad, you know,” Jackie said.

“Would that make you feel better? Less guilty, perhaps?” replied Yuki.

Jackie shot a venomous glance toward her.

“Sorry, that was a shitty thing to say. What I mean is I bet they’ll let us land and then quarantine us.”

Jackie nodded. “That’s what NASA would do. But judging by Lev, these people at Star City are likely to be a little more intense.”

“I’ve got an answer for that,” Yuki said, fishing in her pockets. She placed a Korean-made cellphone on the table. “I found this phone among the belongings of the crewmen.”

Jackie looked at it. “What good is that? They only have a range of about two miles, and the engine will drown out the signal anyway.”

“The interference will stop when we shut the engine off. If Lev can call someone, he might manage to calm them down after we land.”

Jackie looked at it then shrugged. “It's all we have. It’s worth a try.”

The ship’s thrusters angled to slow their rate of descent. After practicing for weeks, Perez did a pretty good job. They dropped the final few meters and jounced to a stop.

“At least you didn’t tip it over and ram us into the ground,” Lev told Perez, clapping him on the back.

Yuki noticed that Perez had actually been tense. It seemed only flying a spacecraft could do that to him. He relaxed visibly and nodded, accepting Lev’s praise.

They used the cellphone when the engine cut out. Lev wasn’t able to get anyone on the line who could help them, however.

Outside, they watched as military people surrounded the ship warily.

Lev stood up, heaving a deep breath. “This is where I come in,” he said. “I’ll go to the airlock and meet them. Hide in here. If you show up before I explain—well, things might go badly.”

They eyed one another and nodded. Finally, Lev left them.

“Do you think we can trust him?” Edwin asked.

“No, not really,” Yuki said. “Jackie, you should have slept with him.”

Jackie gave her another scathing look.

“In Lev’s case,” Edwin observed, “it might not have made any difference.”

They all agreed. Nervous and a little glum, but glad to be back on Earth, they waited for the officials to get to them.

Six military police wearing hazmat suits burst onto the ship within five minutes. They marched them out under arrest.

This is going to take some careful explaining, Jackie thought to herself.

Chapter 70

Star City, Russia

Night

The Russian space agency officials weren’t happy with the loss of all but one of their crewmen. They tried to accuse the Americans and even Lev himself of a dozen crimes.

The Americans came to realize that Lev’s survival had been both a curse and a miracle. They might not have made it home without him, but if they’d been able to land at home in America everything would have been so much simpler.

It took eleven days for the order to come from the Kremlin to release the Americans and send them home. What made it happen in the end were their recorded interactions with the aliens. They had video, alien corpses and thousands of measurements.

After the order from the Kremlin arrived, Sandeep, as the U. S. mission commander, was brought in front of the Russian Minister of Science.

“Sandeep Grewal? That’s your actual name?”

Sandeep forced a smile. “Yes, sir.”

“How did such a person gain control of an American attack ship? I expected a military man—or at least a true man of science. You’re a bureaucrat.”

“I’m told I have excellent people-skills,” Sandeep replied with some pride. “And sir, for the record, ours was a peaceful scientific expedition.”

The minister snorted and tossed a file onto his desk. “All right then. We’re going to send you home. We’ve asked you every question we could think of over the last week, Sandeep. Now is your chance to ask us something in return.”

Sandeep looked at the minister seriously. “I thank you for the opportunity, sir,” he said. “All I can think to ask is this: do you believe your government is taking this threat seriously?”

The minister appeared thoughtful. “Undetermined. We’re in disarray, certainly. We went out there under the same preconceptions that you did, apparently. We wanted to grab a fresh source of technology before you could do it. This isn’t a secret any longer, and I don’t mind admitting it.”

“I will admit the same ambitions existed on the part of my government. They still do, I would imagine.”

“Yes. Our governments will be hard to turn from the path they know so well. They’re like two bulls, thinking only of butting heads. In short, to answer your question, I recognize the threat and the need for cooperation. I can’t guarantee the same from the rest of my colleagues.”

“It’s the shock,” Sandeep said.

“Excuse me?”

“Cultural shock. In history, whenever two very different peoples encounter one another for the first time, neither deals well with experience. They may become aggressive, or deny the realities of the situation. I’m hoping humanity doesn’t take the approach of the Incas when they first met the Spanish. Doom lies down that path.”

“So, you think a military approach is warranted?”

“We’ve already engaged in hostilities with these aliens. Like it or not, we’re in a de facto state of war. That isn’t to say we can’t attempt to reach a peaceful accord with them in the future.”

The minister leaned back. “You speak as if they comprised a large, organized force. For all their technology—which didn’t seem to be too far ahead of ours, by the way—there could only have been a small number of them on Europa. After your, ah, actions, they may well have been wiped out entirely.”

Sandeep squirmed. He wasn’t proud of what he’d done. He’d only done it because he’d seen it as a necessity.

“The aliens on Europa may or may not have survived,” Sandeep said, “but it is a practical certainty that their race exists elsewhere. They must have a home planet. Perhaps they have colony worlds—any number of them.”

The minister nodded. “We must assume as much. The only encouraging detail is that it’s been a long time since their last visit to Earth. A century, in fact. That indicates they won’t be back next week with an Armada.”

Sandeep wasn’t entirely sure of that, but he didn’t want to argue. “Let’s hope not, Minister.”

The minister eyed him coldly for a moment. “I know who holds your leash, Sandeep,” he said. “I’ve spoken with Secretary Clayworth directly. She’s most of the reason you’re getting out of here at all. We might even share some of the data you brought home with your government. She can be a very persuasive person.”

Sandeep nodded and manufactured a smile. “When do we go home, if I may ask, sir?”

“You’ll be released tonight,” the minister said, leaning forward and signing a document. He handed it over to Sandeep. “Here is the final order. Try not to commandeer any of our ships in the future, hmm?”

“Thank you, sir!”

Sandeep was quickly escorted out of the building, and he was the first in line at the American consulate the following morning. A group of marines met him and ushered him to a waiting helicopter, then a plane. He was beyond the borders of Russia three hours later.

For him, it was the best flight of his life.

Chapter 71

Washington D. C.

Midday

Secretary Clayworth had an even more impressive desk in Washington than the one she’d used at Livermore Labs. There, she met with Sandeep and the other survivors personally.

Sandeep was nervous. This woman was unpredictable and implacable. Today, there wasn’t a hint of humor or pleasantness on her face, despite all her soft words of greeting.

“Please, be seated,” she said.

There were five chairs in front of her desk. Sandeep and the others took them. Perez was the last man to sit down; clearly he would have preferred to be somewhere else.

Clayworth manufactured a smile that moved nothing other than her lips.

“Let me first say how proud your government is of all of you. Your sacrifice in space shall never be forgotten.”

Sandeep resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Madam Secretary—” he began.

She lifted a single index finger, and he fell silent.

“One moment, please,” she said. “Before you speak, Sandeep, let me go over the results of this mission.”

On a screen behind her, a computer displayed data. It listed the name of every lost crewman. It also listed Starfire and Troika as losses. There were dollar figures, too—staggering numbers each with a row of zeroes at the end. The amounts were hard to grasp. Many elements of the itemized list had price tags listed as question marks. They were, apparently, priceless.

Sandeep felt a red heat roll up his neck. They’d lost so much. They’d left behind the only alien ship they had. Most of the crew had died, and all of their hard won data was in the hands of the Russians.

Worst of all, Sandeep had been in command of this disaster. He could see his career folding into a dust-pile right in front of him.

“I have your reports here,” she said, rattling a dry pile of folders. They were reasonably thick, but there were no photos, no hard data. They had only words and judgments to go by. “Is this it?”

Jackie Linscott leaned forward, lifting a hand with timid fingers waggling slowly. “Um, no,” she said.

Clayworth fixed her with a deadly gaze. “Could you elaborate? What have we missed?”

Jackie turned her head, swallowed, and pressed her finger on a lump that appeared there when she moved in such a fashion.

“This,” she said, “the polyps. We all have them.”

Clayworth shook her head. “They’re too young, dear. And besides, they only record a few hours of data.”

“Not true,” Yuki said. “These are new. The one in Sandeep—that will have long since run out of capacity and recorded over his sensory data from Europa. But the new people—Perez’s polyp, Dr. Goody’s, Jackie’s and mine—they’ll store information for months. They were developed recently and have a new organic compression system.”

Clayworth’s turned toward Sandeep. “Is this true?”

“I…I don’t know. How is it that you know so much about these things, ladies?” he asked, turning toward Dr. Tanaka and Dr. Linscott.

Jackie smiled at him. “We didn’t have much to do on the return trip. We experimented and managed to read the data fractionally.”

Clayworth stood up suddenly, hammering a button on her desk. A rush of flunkies came in response.

“Get these people to the surgical center under the Pentagon, immediately.”

“I don’t see why—” Sandeep said as the rest of his former crew were hustled away.

“You don’t? Really? Didn’t you hear what she said? The polyps record months’ worth of data. Well, what if she’s mistaken? What if the limit is fifty days? That could mean the storage system is writing over itself even as we speak. We have to rip those things out of their throats and view the recordings.”

She pushed past him, taking an elevator deep into the earth. Sandeep followed her, rubbing at his throat and swallowing.

For once in his life, he was glad to have been implanted with out-of-date bioware.

Chapter 72

Moscow, Russia

Evening

Lieutenant Lev Burkov’s reception was hardly that of a returning hero, but the fact he’d managed to return Troika, several alien corpses and a few of their technological devices brought him some leverage. The science teams were particularly fascinated by the advanced field-based spacesuits, which created a warm, oxygenated bubble over the wearer. Each of the aliens had worn a device that projected this field, which fit like a harness around their knotted body-cores. The neural-paralyzers, devices they’d used at the end in an attempt to capture humans alive, were also of interest. These had largely been foiled by the thick spacesuits of the humans, but they were still worthy of study.

Lev barely cared about these trinkets, but they did get him an audience with the Minister of Science. He used the opportunity to reveal the life-recording he’d hidden carefully until this moment.

Unlike the Americans, Lev didn’t have an implant that lasted for months. His was only capable of recording the most recent few hours of his senses. What he did have, however, was the recording of Kira Norin’s last moments. He’d taken her polyp shortly after her death, and he turned it in when they asked him if he had any specialized data he hadn’t shared with the Americans.

“Of course I do,” he said. “I have the best piece that exists. Dr. Norin and I encountered these aliens one-on-one. We attempted peaceful communication with them. As far as I know, this was the only such attempt made by either side.”

“You did?” the Russian Minister of Science said, his voice revealing a hungry excitement. “Share it with us Lieutenant—please.”

“Here it is,” Lev said, carefully depositing a frosty capsule on the minster’s desk. “It’s frozen of course. I didn’t want it to deteriorate on the return journey.”

A team of scientists and a half-dozen technicians worked on the prize. They restored it, warmed it, and connected it to a reader.

The final results that played back were remarkably clear. There was a little static and occasional glitches in the auditory track, but otherwise everyone present was able to experience the final moments of Dr. Norin’s life.

Lev watched grimly. He’d given them no warning. They didn’t deserve one, in his opinion.

When the final moments came and Kira was torn apart by vicious clawed starfish-aliens, after she’d clearly given them a peace offering, Lev stared at the audience, rather than the screens.

They gasped and recoiled in horror. They covered their eyes, but stared through their laced fingers. The gasps and cries of pain—they went on longer than Lev had remembered.

How could they look so shocked? They’d known what had happened to the crew. The ship had come back empty. It didn’t take a genius to calculate what kind of events must have transpired.

When it was finally over, they got a final treat: Lev himself, seen through Kira’s dead eyes as he cut the polyp from her.

Lev slammed his hands together, making a series of popping reports. It wasn’t exactly applause, but rather a mocking clap.

“And there you have it,” he said. “A first-contact report in full. I’m sure you’ll analyze her technique and tell us where she went wrong. Next time, I would recommend all of you head out into space personally to greet these aliens. They can be quite accommodating!”

The scientists and techs looked at one another in alarm. This did Lev’s heart good. They’d railroaded him into this trip. It warmed his soul to see they were now considering their own fates. If their skins had been on the line out there on Europa—

“Lieutenant,” the minister said harshly. “There’s no need for sarcasm. Let us adjourn.”

The science people filed out. The last of them had to be stared at by the minister before they got the hint and left.

“You suffered greatly on this journey,” the minister said when they were alone. “I appreciate that.”

“That’s not why I wanted everyone to see this, sir,” Lev said. “I wanted to communicate to you the true nature of the situation. These creatures pose a grave threat to Earth. I’m not a strategist or a politician—but this single thing I’m certain of.”

The minister nodded thoughtfully and steepled his fingers. “What would you have us do?”

“Prepare, of course.”

“Prepare for what?”

“For whatever happens next. The aliens could come here any day with their own ‘mission.’ Perhaps it won’t be exploratory in nature.”

The minister frowned. “Your friend, Sandeep Grewal, he said much the same thing to me.”

“I’m not surprised. Truth is a light that reaches beyond national borders.”

The minister sighed aloud. “None of this is what we were hoping for. You brought back a few trinkets, but nothing like the treasure trove of technology we’d anticipated. We’ve expended a great deal of budget and have nothing to take back to the Kremlin other than portents of doom.”

“Naturally, we were all disappointed,” Lev said. “But it is our fate to be left with this problem. What do you plan to do about it?”

The minister shrugged. “I’ll pass the data to the politicians. The military as well.”

Lev leaned forward. “Do this distribution at the same moment. Do not give it to your politician friends first, hoping they’ll send it further. Your kind doesn’t like to pass on bad news of any kind. It’s against your nature.”

The minister looked at him sharply. “You step beyond your station. In fact, you make a habit of it. I’m thinking of recommending the removal of your commission.”

“In that case,” Lev said, “let me go further as I have nothing to lose.”

“You’ll lose your pension.”

Lev laughed. It was the careless laugh of a man who’s seen the devil and is no longer impressed by the town bully.

“What good is a pension if I’m not alive to spend it?” he asked. “Minister, we must halt this silly Cold War. We must embrace the Americans, as dishonorable and irritating as they are. We need allies. The Earth must stand united. This enemy is not friendly, they never were and never will be. They’re a different species. A predatory species like our own. There can be no peace between us—other than the peace of the dead.”

“You can’t know these things,” the minister insisted.

“I know these creatures!” Lev said, pointing at the screen. “I know them better than any man alive, having been in their presence for longer than any other.”

The minister stared at him for several long seconds. Lev stared back.

“I will see what can be done,” he said at last.

Lev stood up and exited, wondering what the future might hold for his species.

Chapter 73

Arlington, Virginia

Evening

Yuki and Edwin, both with bandages on their throats, sat across from one another at dinner.

The place was a nice one, with a menu that listed every course and item separately with a dollar price beside it. There were no pennies in the prices, and most of the dollar amounts were double-digit.

“Wow,” Yuki said, “this is quite a change after eating Russian paste for a month.”

“My stomach is rumbling,” Edwin said, “but I’m not sure if that’s hunger or anticipation of the damage this rich food will cause afterward.”

They looked up and smiled at each other. It was a good moment, and Yuki held his gaze for several seconds before they both went back to their menus.

She chose the lamb entrée on a bed of rice, to be preceded by a calamari appetizer and a Caesar salad. Next, she turned her attention to the wine list.

“This is on them, right?” she asked again.

“That’s what Clayworth said. It’s the least they could do, really.”

“Here’s a bottle that costs two hundred and nine dollars,” Yuki said. “I’m getting that.”

“A whole bottle?” asked Edwin. “I’m not sure I’m up for that much drinking.”

“Who cares? We’ll pour it out, then. They owe us after slashing open our throats. I had no idea when they injected that little seed it would grow into something the size of a bullfrog’s tadpole in my neck.”

Edwin chuckled. “I can still feel the nerves throbbing,” he said, rubbing his larynx. “That’s supposed to go away, but right now it feels like I’ve had something amputated.”

Yuki closed the menu and closed her eyes.

“Uh-oh,” Edwin said. “Have I blown it?”

“No. It’s not your fault. We’ve got to get over it, that’s all. We’ve got to let the memories fade a little. I hope this wine helps.”

Dinner came quickly. They ate it with gusto. Yuki really was impressed. Even her memory of fine dining had been exceeded.

“It figures,” she said, “that the best restaurants in the country are right next to our capital.”

“It’s always been that way. Paris, London, Berlin—the seat of power in any nation enjoys the spoils.”

Yuki caught Edwin’s eye then. “Have you forgiven me yet?” she asked suddenly.

Edwin blinked in surprise. “You’ve broken the rules. No one was supposed to bring up our fight.”

“I can do that whenever I want—break the rules, I mean.”

Edwin made a face. “Not fair. Males should have some power in relationships.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

He sighed. “I guess so—yes, I’ve forgiven you. I still think it was wrong, but I can see why you four wanted to do it. Who knows if it means our salvation or our doom? It could mean nothing at all, though—in which case it was morally wrong.”

Yuki squirmed, but she managed not to start arguing with him again. What was the point? Both sides, alien and human, had committed crimes in her opinion. It was up to others now to repair the situation—or to finish it.

“It’s not up to us any longer,” she said. “Let’s try to forget about Europa and start over again.”

Edwin smiled at her words, and she smiled back. He poured the wine.

Chapter 74

Aptos, California

Afternoon

After the surgery on his neck, Sandeep was separated from the rest of the returning crew. He was greeted by a security detail.

Glum and only mildly surprised, he found himself led off into “quarantine.” The others thought this was odd, as none of the rest of them were being put into isolation.

He was slightly more surprised when he was handcuffed and placed aboard a transport bound for Washington D. C. Yes, he’d lost his ship and most of his crew. But what else could he have done?

It dawned on him when he was driven into the mountains south of Maryland that his government must be looking upon the mission as an utter disaster. In retrospect, he had to agree with them. It had been a gross failure.

He became truly concerned when his unsmiling, silent guards placed him an interrogation chamber in a remote underground bunker. He’d recognized the facility on the way in. It was built in the mountains of West Virginia. Operating as a fallout shelter in years past, it now served as a meeting spot for government officials in times of crisis. It was one of those proverbial “undisclosed secure locations” mentioned in news reports.

What concerned him most about the bunker was the knowledge that the facility had also served as a clandestine prison after nine-eleven.

His eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom when the door clanged shut. He blinked and squinted. Who sat across from him, shrouded in shadow?

“Madam Secretary?” he guessed.

“Yes,” Clayworth said. “Imagine finding me down here with you, Sandeep.”

Sandeep smelled something then, something surprising, but familiar. A tiny flame flared, lighting up the Secretary’s face. She held a lighter to her face and lit a cigarette with it.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” he said.

“I haven’t done so for almost thirty years. Do you know what got me started again?”

Sandeep licked his lips and drew in a breath. The smoke made him want to cough, as he wasn’t use to it, but he managed to contain himself.

“I know that the results of the Starfire expedition must be a disappointment—”

“Shut up,” she snapped. “Of course I’m disappointed. You flew out there with our best ship—our only ship—and you returned with nothing.”

“Six of us made it back, that’s something.”

“Six? Ah yes, your Russian comrade. How could I forget him? When in possession of a ship full of valuable technology, a ship that flies with an independent engine of alien-Russian design, what did you do?”

Sandeep squirmed. “I made choices,” he said. “We escaped together, we flew home together. We returned to Earth united after having faced a new enemy.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Listen to yourself, man! At least you should have the balls to admit you’re ball-less!”

Sandeep rankled at her words. “I disagree. I salvaged what I could from both missions for the good of all humanity.”

“Very high-minded of you. Imagine how that’s going over in my private meetings with the President.” Clayworth leaned forward over the steel table between them. “You should have commandeered the ship and flown it here. My department could have been debriefing Burkov and eventually releasing him to the Russians. Better yet, you could have killed that Russian spy and tossed him out of an airlock.”

Sandeep shook his head. “I couldn’t do that. I’m not even sure that my people would have allowed it. We fought together shoulder-to-shoulder against alien beings. That changes how individuals interact afterward.”

Clayworth leaned back, defeated. She puffed on her cigarette. “The defense people were right. The mission should have been all military. Instead, I sent a pack of nerds out there to squander opportunities and die in humorous ways. I should have known this wasn’t destined to be a scientific mission of exploration.”

“What’s done is done,” he said.

Musing, she went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “I wish Clark had been in command. He wouldn’t have screwed this up. Or Colonel Dyson—she could have gotten the job done if she’d lived long enough.”

Sandeep said nothing, as there was a fair chance she was right about her suppositions. He thought back to the voyage. He’d grown to rely on every member of the crew, even Burkov. The ship had been a Russian ship, but everyone on it had become a desperate human by the end of the journey, not Russian or American. He doubted he could get this across to the Secretary, but he felt he had to try.

“Secretary Clayworth,” he said. “I think you’re failing to see the bigger picture.”

She made a scoffing grunt, but he pressed on.

“By the initial parameters of my mission, you would of course be correct in your criticisms. I should have stolen Troika and brought back every secret I could have. What I’ve done instead is bring home knowledge of a new, grim reality. We aren’t alone in the cosmos, and we have to deal with that.”

“We’ve always known that, Sandeep,” Clayworth snapped. “Where did you think all this technology came from in the first place? We knew there had to be a civilization out there somewhere in space.”

“Well, I made contact with them. It went badly. Only the fact they wanted to capture a live specimen at the end allowed us an opportunity to escape. We did it by uniting against a common enemy. Now, if we want the Russians to share their new tech, we have to approach this matter as a shared effort.”

“We’re Homeland Security, not the State Department.”

“I’m well aware of that, but the facts I’ve stated are undeniable. The aliens are real, and they’re alive out there somewhere right now. They built a base in our Solar System, and they are very much aware of us. We can only assume they’ve been spying on us all along. Worse, they have technology we still don’t understand.”

“All the more reason you should have brought it home to your country, not handed it over to the Russians.”

“With all due respect, Madame Secretary, our species could be at the dawn of a new war for survival. We need the Russians on our side. We need a coalition. We must operate as allies.”

She shook her head. “That will never happen. We don’t even have a ship. We might be able to build new engines—but that’s supposition. We’ve got nothing. We’re planet-bound. The United States is hamstrung, and it’s all due to your poor decision-making.”

Sandeep thought about that for a second. “But…as you appointed me to this position, that makes my decisions your fault, does it not?”

“Finally,” she said, tapping her ashes onto the table. They glowed orange and left a dark soot-stain. “Finally, you understand why you’re still alive.”

He nodded. “Because you can’t make a mistake of this magnitude?”

“I would not survive it. But you won’t either, so you won’t mention this to anyone.”

“It is our secret. What do we do next?” Sandeep asked hopefully.

Clayworth looked at him for a long, cold moment. He knew she was appraising him, considering her options. She could still have him suffer a quiet death. It had happened before and it would happen again. Times had changed in America, and not for the better.

She let him sweat for several more seconds, then nodded her head. “All right. This is how we’ll play it. There is only one silver lining to our predicament: we’re in the midst of an election cycle.”

“I see,” Sandeep said, daring to hope.

“You’ll be my sock-puppet,” she went on. “I’ll walk you around the chambers of power. We’ll talk to Senators and State Department officials. They’ll hit the media first, and when the reporters and commentators are in a frenzy for ratings, I’ll trot you out with me to hit the interview circuit. We’ll talk about our new found partnership with the Russians. About thrilling discoveries in space.”

“Has the President approved all this?”

“The release of information? Yes. With the election looming he needs something to divert attention from the economy. This story is tailor-made to grab headlines.”

“I’ll do my best to present the mission in the best possible light.”

“Yes,” she said ominously, “you will.”

Chapter 75

Aptos, California

Afternoon

Jenna was playing in the gentle surf of northern Monterey Bay. Each wave that swept up made Jackie want to rush into the water and pull the girl back—but she didn’t because the child was having such a good time.

“She’s only up to her waist and she’s wearing a vest as big as she is,” Victor Perez said in a reassuring voice. “Stop worrying.”

“I can’t stand the thought of her falling out there and losing sight of her,” Jackie said. “This is the first time I’ve seen a smile on her face since she learned of her father’s death.”

“She’s tough,” Victor said. “She’s been through a lot, and none of it seems to faze her.”

“There’s got to be psychological damage.”

Perez shrugged. “Some bad memories. Best to help her forget them as much as possible.”

“Victor?” Jackie asked, looking at him. “I…I want to try to become her guardian. Permanently, I mean. They gave me custody for this visit because they thought it would be good for her to have a familiar face around. But I’d like to go for more than that.”

He eyed her seriously for a moment, then nodded. “You’re asking for my help, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. She wasn’t at all surprised that he’d figured it out so quickly. Most men she’d known in her life barely knew what she was talking about much less what she was thinking. Victor Perez was different. He was always listening and tracking. He was very empathetic. Sometimes he seemed to know her mood before she did. It had been a little disconcerting at first, but it had become endearing after she’d gotten used to it.

Victor wasn’t slow on the uptake. He stepped forward, put his arms around her waist, and she let him. They’d only made love once, one lonely night in the radiation module aboard Troika. The entire thing hadn’t gone well. Sex in null-G was for acrobats, or people who’d really studied the process carefully.

Jackie stiffened at his touch, but then put her hands on his shoulders. Together, they watched Jenna play in the surf, running back and forth along the shore. She was racing away from the waves now on the wet sands, letting the water chase her while she shrieked in delight.

Her eyes left Jenna and went up to the top of the cliffs above her house. She knew there were men up there, watching them. They were always there. They couldn’t let people like these three have a break. The agents tried to be discreet—but they were always watching.

“What do you know about kids?” she asked Victor, still staring up at the cliffs.

“Nothing, really. But I can learn.”

She smiled, squinting in the sun and watching Jenna again. She believed him.

That night, many hours later, she lay in her bed beside Victor. He didn’t snore in his sleep. In fact, he woke up every time she moved, making her feel guilty.

She had trouble sleeping. Jenna was in the other room, comatose after a day on the beach. Jackie knew she’d have to call Clark in the morning, but that might end someday if they played their cards right. Clark seemed to be losing interest in the girl now that they’d lost Starfire forever.

Another half-hour passed but sleep still didn’t come. She looked out the window. Above the sea a full moon loomed. She stared at it thoughtfully.

Who was out there? Who, besides the government men on the cliffs, was watching her right now?

Each question brought another into her consciousness in a seemingly endless chain. Would she ever meet those aliens again? If she did, would it be far out in space, or right here on Earth? Would the next encounter end in peace, or war?

Jackie tried to relax, but it took a long time for sleep to quiet her worried mind.

The End

From the Authors: Thanks Reader! I hope you enjoyed STARFIRE. If you liked the book and want to see this story become a series, please put up some stars and a review to support it. For those of you looking forward to other books, MACHINE WORLD is next!

-the Authors

More SF Books by B. V. Larson:

UNDYING MERCENARIES SERIES:

Steel World

Dust World

Tech World

STAR FORCE SERIES:

(In chronological order)

Swarm

Extinction

Rebellion

Conquest

Army of One (Novella published in Planetary Assault)

Battle Station

Empire

Annihilation

Storm Assault

The Dead Sun

Outcast

Exile

IMPERIUM SERIES:

Mech Zero: The Dominant

Mech 1: The Parent

Mech 2: The Savant

Mech 3: The Empress

The Black Ship (Novella published in Five by Five)

OTHER SF BOOKS:

Element-X

Technomancer

The Bone Triangle

Z-World

Velocity

Visit BVLarson.com for more information.

Table of Contents

- Title
- Copyright
- SF Books by B. V. Larson
- Chapter 0
- 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
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31
- Chapter 32
- Chapter 33
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 35
- Chapter 36
- Chapter 37
- Chapter 38
- Chapter 39
- Chapter 40
- Chapter 41
- Chapter 42
- Chapter 43
- Chapter 44
- Chapter 45
- Chapter 46
- Chapter 47
- Chapter 48
- Chapter 49
- Chapter 50
- Chapter 51
- Chapter 52
- Chapter 53
- Chapter 54
- Chapter 55
- Chapter 56
- Chapter 57
- Chapter 58
- Chapter 59
- Chapter 60
- Chapter 61
- Chapter 62
- Chapter 63
- Chapter 64
- Chapter 65
- Chapter 66
- Chapter 67
- Chapter 68
- Chapter 69
- Chapter 70
- Chapter 71
- Chapter 72
- Chapter 73
- Chapter 74
- Chapter 75