ASHES OF WAR

ADVENTURES OF THE STARSHIP SATORI BOOK 7

KEVIN MCLAUGHLIN

ROLE OF THE HERO PUBLISHING

Copyright © 2017 by Kevin O. McLaughlin

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

Exclusive free story for fans of Kevin McLaughlin’s science fiction! Learn the story of how John found the alien ship on the moon, launching the adventure which spans the stars and saves all of humanity!

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AUTHOR’S FORWARD

Just a quick note. This novel is a stand-alone book, which can be read even without catching up on the earlier Starship Satori novels. It’s a great place to begin the adventure, if you prefer to do so here.

There are six earlier novels, however: the Adventures of the Starship Satori series. While this book does contain a few spoilers for the final moments of those books, you can choose to read them first, or go back and read them after this one. This book has been crafted to give you an enjoyable reading experience either way.

Thanks for reading!

Kevin McLaughlin

Adventures of the Starship Satori Series

Ad Astra

Stellar Legacy

Deep Waters

No Plan Survives Contact

Liberty

Satori’s Destiny

Books 1-3 Set

Books 4-6 Set

ONE

Johansen’s hands shook as he wrestled with the panel. Righty, tighty, lefty loosey, he reminded himself almost desperately. The old mnemonic played in his mind like a teasing sing-song. The darkness around him pressed in. It felt almost solid, full of menace. Only the small pool of light from his spacesuit's flashlight drove back the pools of shadow.

He needed more light than that if he was going to get out of this place. The others were all dead. Well, he knew some of them were dead, at least. He’d seen Knoxwell torn apart in front of his eyes. Johansen was pretty sure the entire team was gone. Except him. He’d escaped. He was still alive.

The panel pulled free with a scraping noise that set his teeth on edge. There was still air in the place. It was old, bad air, but it carried sound well enough. He had to be more careful. Too much noise and he’d bring disaster down on his head.

Johansen set the panel quietly down on the floor and started working on the delicate electronics inside. The whole operation should have been easy. The power had never been entirely shut down. You don’t just turn off a nuclear reactor, and the solar arrays were covered with lunar dust but still working.

All they needed to do was flip a switch. In theory.

In practice, there had been a lot more damage to the electrical systems than indicated in the Air Force reports. Slashed wires, broken conduits, and who knew what else littered the base. Even this wasn’t a disaster. Caraway had built his complex with an excellent eye toward safety, and the blueprints they had indicated there was a secondary power grid completely independent from the main one.

The team went down several levels, descending dark stairways that led to halls filled with a darkness that seemed to eat away at their light sources. They were halfway down when they noticed that Alexa Rasmussen was missing. Nobody had seen her vanish or heard her call out, and they couldn’t raise her on the radio.

They ascended again, climbing back up the stairs to search for her. They hadn’t found her. Not a hair from her head, nor a single drop of blood.

They’d run into something out of a nightmare instead.

Johansen sweated at the memory, working to block it from his mind. He’d escaped deeper into the dark halls, seeking the place where he could switch over the power to the secondary grid. With light, maybe he could chase the night terrors back into the shadows. Or at least see them coming and have a shot at escape. There was no way he could reach their ship without light, and no way to contact Earth with just his suit’s transmitter.

“Just a few more seconds, and I’ll be done. Then I’m getting out of here,” he muttered under his breath.

Johansen thought about his little girl, waiting for him at home. There was no way he could leave Julia fatherless. His partner might understand, after grieving, but his daughter never would. All she would know is that he went into the depths of space and never came back. He’d told her so many times in the past when she’d been afraid that there were no monsters in space.

He had to see her again, if nothing else to beg her forgiveness and tell her that he was wrong. There absolutely were monsters out here.

The panel sparked as Johansen connected another circuit. Just one more to go… He made the link. There was a hum from the board as power poured through new conduits, flowing out through the base again. The lights in the room around Johansen flickered for a moment, and then slowly began to glow with brighter and brighter illumination. The light chased back the shadows, sent them scurrying away. Within moments the illumination was at about fifty percent of normal. That was about the best the secondary system could manage, but it ought to be more than enough.

He sagged a little with relief. It was time to get the hell out of this place. He should never have come here. Once he returned home to Earth, he swore he would never leave again. He reached back down to the panel to lift it up and place it back over the systems that he’d engaged.

The panel was metal, the back side polished and shiny. Scimitar-like blades flashed in the reflection.

Johansen trembled. He hadn’t chased away the dark. He’d only let it know precisely where he was. He couldn’t turn, didn’t dare turn to face the thing he knew was behind him. He wanted to cry, or wail, or rage. But all he could do was shake, and think about his daughter who would never see him again.

The blades flashed in the reflection.

TWO

Beth scanned her wardrobe, trying to figure out what the hell to wear to a formal military event. It wasn’t like she had a lot of selection. There wasn’t a single cocktail dress in the entire closet. Not one little black dress. She didn’t want one, either. It wasn’t her style.

She was a starship engineer by trade, and most days she wore sensible clothes to work. The sort of outfit that she wouldn’t cry about if it got scorched by a welding torch or cut by a bit of sharp metal. She couldn’t very well wear orange overalls to this event though. It was far too damned important.

She’d be present for the commissioning of a new ship today. An exceptional ship, one that was extremely close to her heart. More than that, she’d heard scuttlebutt that there would be promotions at the event. Dan Wynn - her erstwhile husband, then ex-husband, now… She still wasn’t sure quite what they were again, at this point. More than friends, less than lovers. He’d rejoined the Air Force and been given back his old rank of Major. Word was that they were gearing up to bump him up a notch.

There was one other thing planned for the day as well. She had a hard time thinking about that part, though. It hurt too much. The wound from the loss was still too new and raw.

Beth had one skirt on a hanger. She thought it might fit, but she hadn’t worn it in such a long time she wasn’t certain. It didn’t fit her mood, anyway. Instead, she selected a pair of black trousers, cream blouse, and a jacket that matched the pants. People would be wearing their best for this. She owed it to too many to not do the same.

She only had one pair of dressy shoes. They were sensible leather slip-on things with little heels that would let her run if she needed to, but still looked classy enough for an interview. Or a funeral. That done, she pulled her dark hair back into a ponytail, letting the curls hang in little bunches out the back. She didn’t bother with makeup. She never did, and John would have laughed his head off if she started just for this.

A tear ran down her cheek. Part of her still couldn’t believe he was gone. After all they’d been through, the close calls and near-death experiences, he was the one Beth had thought would always be there. He was solid, unwavering…immortal. Until he wasn’t. She wiped the tear away roughly with the back of her hand.

“Damn you,” she said. “It should have been any of us instead.”

Deciding she was as good as she was going to get, Beth glanced around the tiny apartment. It wasn’t much. No one at the base had elaborate living quarters, except perhaps the general in command of the whole thing. About five hundred square feet gave her room for a bed, a desk with a computer, her wardrobe, a closet sized bathroom and a tiny kitchenette.

It was enough. She spent most of her time out of the room working anyway. Meals were mostly in the dining facility. Beth used the kitchen more for brewing a late night cup of Earl Grey than for actual cooking, although the microwave oven was nice to have around. Having her own bathroom, though? A luxury she didn’t want to live without if she could avoid it.

The place was home, for now at least. Where she would go when the construction was complete on this ship seemed unclear. Beth knew she was going to have work. There was no one alive with more first-hand experience working with interstellar drives than she had. Her experiences were unique, and pretty much everyone involved in aerospace wanted her working for them. For now she was sticking with the US Air Force. It wasn’t for the pay. She could make ten times as much from Lockheed-Martin. But this was where the action was. Where it would likely remain for the next few years, at least. So this was where she had to be.

Beth headed down the hall and hopped a lift. She thought about windows while she shot down five levels to the hangar deck. She missed having windows to let in the sun. Living under a bloody mountain might be an excellent defensive position, but it had some serious downsides, too.

The doors snapped open, breaking into her thoughts. Andrew Wakefield was outside the door. His clothing was even more austere than hers. He’d gone for solid black, broken only by flashes of silver on the suit, tie, and cuffs. No one would wonder at his wearing black. Not today. Andy looked tired. There were circles under his eyes, and Beth wondered if he’d been sleeping enough. His sandy hair was neatly groomed, and he smiled when he saw her. He’d clearly been waiting for her, and he offered an arm as she stepped off the lift.

“Since Dan is busy today, I thought maybe I would stand in?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

She took his arm with a smile. “Always happy to see you, Andy. How’s work?”

“Busy. I don’t think anyone knew how much was involved in running John’s businesses until he wasn’t there doing it anymore,” he said. “I have some massive shoes to fill.”

“You’ll do fine,” she said.

“It’s not every day you get handed controlling interest in a major international company,” Andy said, shaking his head. “I can’t help but wonder why me? There are so many people who could have done this better.”

“He picked you because he loved you,” Beth said. “And because he trusted you to do the right thing.”

“I know. That doesn’t make it any easier.”

They were all dealing with things in their own ways. Beth had gone back to her oldest and truest way of dealing with emotional problems. She’d repressed it all by dumping herself into her work. She smiled wryly at the thought. It wasn’t the healthiest defensive mechanism, but it had worked out OK for her so far.

Andy was having his own crisis, and he’d have to handle it in his own manner. Beth just hoped that she would be able to help him along the way. They’d been through too much together for her to look away now.

“How’s Dan?” he asked, bringing the conversation back around.

“Haven’t seen him much,” she replied. Not without a little pang. That surprised her, even though she supposed it shouldn’t have. They’d been divorced for years, but then life had brought them back together. Now they were apart again, and she missed him.

The hangar was the biggest room in the base, which is why they’d picked it to house the event. The massive space had been designed to accommodate the sub-orbital fighter wing the Air Force created. Intended to battle other Earth nations for control of low earth orbit, the fighters had been suddenly put to an entirely different use when alien ships attacked Earth.

Most of them had been destroyed in the process.

The result was they had a ton of room available, which was a big plus. Half of the hangar had been converted over to the construction of a new ship. Or the rebuild of an old ship. The truth was something in the middle.

Several years ago, an expedition to Luna prospecting for Helium-3 had come across something entirely unexpected. While looking for deep caverns they could expand into a living area, the team had found something more: an ancient alien base, buried underneath hundreds of meters of lunar regolith. They’d come back and explored the place in secret and found more than they dared dream was possible.

Buried in the base was an ancient starship. The ship itself had been severely damaged by battle and time. But the ship’s star drive was intact. Capable of creating a stable wormhole between two points of space, the drive could carry the ship to distant star systems.

The owner of that company had kept the ship a closely guarded secret. He’d recruited friends. Beth had led the effort to rebuild the ruined ship. Dan had flown it. Andy had come along for security. There had been others as well, but John Caraway - the billionaire owner of more corporations than Beth could ever count - had been the link which bound them all together.

Rows of chairs were set up in front of a podium for viewers to sit while others were speaking. There were hundreds of seats, and for a moment Beth despaired at finding anyone she knew. A friendly wave from the front caught her eye, and she smiled in relief and recognition. Dan had saved seats for both herself and Andy next to him in the front row.

She settled in between the two men. “They’ve been tight-lipped about command placements. Any word?” she asked. She’d heard scuttlebutt, but rumor was only worth so much.

“Not that I could count on,” Dan said. He seemed tense, and she understood why. John had given him a shot at returning to the life he loved - flying ships in space. He’d put back on an Air Force uniform again in hopes of keeping that job now that the military was involved, but nothing was guaranteed.

She reached over and took his hand, giving him a little squeeze. They waited that way, both of them hoping for…something. Beth wasn’t sure what she was hoping for. She felt empty, in a way. She’d built the starship Satori from scraps of an ancient alien vessel and human ingenuity. Then she’d been put in charge of rebuilding the ship after it was torn almost to pieces defending the Earth. Now that job was done. Beth wasn’t sure what could possibly be next for her. She didn’t even know what she wanted to happen next.

THREE

Much would depend on what happened over the following half hour. General Hereford entered the hangar to applause and salutes. Beth stood politely with the rest until he asked everyone to be seated again. She’d learned to work with the man after a very rocky start. He was willing to step out of line and take necessary risks when enough was on the line, which was saying something for a general.

She’d stood him down when the moment called for it, but he didn’t seem to hold it against her. If anything she had the feeling that her stunt of bearding the old lion in his den with the Satori had earned Hereford’s respect.

“Friends, you have all worked hard for this moment, and there’s still a long way to go,” Hereford said. “Three months ago, we learned that humanity was not alone in the universe. To our sorrow, the race we met was hostile. They came to Earth with a fleet and plans to annihilate us. Were it not for the efforts of hundreds of our finest men and women, they would have succeeded. As it was, the courage of our people earned us a victory bought with the most costly coin.”

The alien Naga had brought only three ships. That was more than enough, to their way of thinking. Earth had virtually nothing that could stand against them. Missiles were ineffective. The sub-orbital fighters were shot down. Only the Satori had been able to hurt them, and the ship had been severely damaged taking down even one Naga battle cruiser.

The other two ships had retreated and come back hauling huge asteroids, planning to use them as massive kinetic strike weapons. The crew of the Satori teamed up with a strike force made up of every shuttle and ship Earth had, storming aboard the Naga ships. They’d stopped one cruiser cold, winning the battle there. But either asteroid was enough to wipe out all human life on Earth, and the other Naga ship was still coming.

“One man saved us all, in the end. His courage - and not a little luck - got him aboard the enemy vessel in the right place at the right time to cause a malfunction on their ship,” Hereford went on. “Instead of plowing into our world, their kinetic strike rock blew up their own vessel.”

Beth felt her eyes grow watery again. That had been John, the man who had brought them all together aboard the Satori. The person whose vision had made human starflight possible. The hero who had, when the time called for it, laid down his life to save everyone. He’d died aboard the Naga ship when the rock collided with it in a furious detonation.

“Earth did not escape unscathed. Portions of the asteroid broke through our orbit and smashed into the planet below. Tidal waves ruined cities. Earthquakes, firestorms, and more devastated our nation and others. We have rebuilt. But the Naga will come again,” Hereford said. “We were not prepared, last time. Next time we face them, we will be.”

The shipbuilding program had been massive. The Satori returned to Earth, where Beth and a team of the best engineers in the country tore her apart, building her into something new. Heavier, stronger, better armored - and much more deadly - this new ship would be a force much stronger than the old.

In space, the captured ship had been practically disassembled, studied, and put back together again with human components. They could not risk the Naga taking control of the ship remotely through some sort of tech they didn’t understand. The Naga cruiser that the Satori had damaged so badly crashed off the coast of Florida. It had been floated and brought in, where crews were even now rebuilding it, repairing or replacing damaged systems. Once they were done, Earth would have not one interstellar starship, but three.

But that would only be the beginning. Beth had seen data on six more keels which had already been laid by the US, and she’d heard some allied nations were getting help in building their own starships as well. Earth was going into the spaceship building game like there was no tomorrow.

Which made sense, because if the Naga came back with a bigger fleet later today, there really would be no tomorrow.

Hereford went on talking about John’s heroism for a while longer. The first of the new keels completed would be called the United States Starship Caraway in his honor. Beth nodded at the idea. She rather thought John would have liked that - after all, he’d named the Satori after his own departed wife. It was fitting.

“Lieutenant Colonel Wheeler, Major Wynn, step forward please,” Hereford said.

Dan gave Beth a weak smile and stood, walking up to take his place on the stand in front of Hereford. He stood at attention, staring straight ahead.

Wheeler rose from his seat a few feet away from Beth and walked stiffly forward. He’d survived having his fighter all but blown to bits around him, but he’d been laid up healing ever since, and he still moved like he was sore. He made the podium without limping, though.

“Attention to orders! It is my privilege to bestow upon both of you the Silver Star for gallantry and courage under fire in keeping with the best traditions of the United States Air Force. Without you both, this nation and the world itself would have been lost,” Hereford said, pinning a medal to each of their chests. “We are all in your debt, gentlemen.”

“Attention to orders!” he went on. “The President of the United States, acting upon the recommendation of the Secretary of the Air Force - and myself - has placed special trust and confidence in the patriotism, integrity, and abilities of these two men.”

“In view of these unique qualities, and their demonstrated potential to serve in the higher grades, Major Wynn is promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, United States Air Force. Lieutenant Colonel Wheeler is promoted to Colonel,” Hereford said. “Additionally, Wheeler will command the USS Constitution, presently in space, once its construction is completed. Wynn will command the USS Independence, currently in US waters near the coast of Florida, to join Colonel Wheeler in defense of Earth from space once his ship is ready to fly.”

There was cheering and applause. A few people rose to their feet, and then the entire audience rose with a standing ovation for the heroes being honored. Beth smiled but felt a little sad at the same time. Dan had what he wanted. He’d still be in space. Dan might not be piloting a ship around, but he’d have command of one of Earth’s only starships. It had to be just about everything he’d wished for.

But she doubted very much that there would be room for a civilian on board an Air Force starship. They’d have their own people doing the work, their own enlisted and officer crew alike on board those ships. Beth didn’t know what she would be doing next, but she had the feeling she was about to lose even more time with Dan. The thought made her sad.

They came back from the podium, and Dan was beaming. His eyes met hers, and the smile faltered for just a second when he saw her face. She shot him the best grin she could, and his smile returned. This was his day, damn it. She wasn’t going to rain on that parade. They’d make things work, somehow.

Hereford cleared his throat. The room settled down again. They all listened expectantly. This, more than anything else, was the moment they’d been waiting for.

“There is one more order of business to attend,” Hereford said. “The christening of our newest - and oldest - ship in the fleet. The Satori served with distinction, rescuing the Earth from certain destruction. But this new vessel is not precisely the Satori. It will be a very different ship, with a somewhat altered mission.”

“The choice of a name was complicated by the fact that the ship is itself also home to a unique life form, an artificial intelligence that has consistently allied itself with us against terrible enemies, even at great risk to herself,” Hereford said.

“It has always been my privilege and honor,” came a woman’s voice from the newly rebuilt ship.

“The honor has been ours as well, Majel,” Hereford said.

Unique, as far as they knew, Majel had just ‘happened’ when John’s computer system merged with the ancient alien systems. Human technology wasn’t even close to making a true AI. But when melded with the alien hardware, something almost magical had happened. Majel wasn’t just smart. She was alive.

“Because the ship is also Majel’s home - her body - it was decided she should have a say in renaming her,” Hereford said. “She has elected not to.”

Beth’s heart warmed. John had named the ship for his beloved wife, dead many years. He said he’d wanted to take her into space. The idea that her name would continue to live on and reach further into the stars was damned near perfect. She made a mental note to thank Majel for putting forth the idea.

“The USS Satori will leave for space as soon as her crew is assembled. She will have a mixed command team, with both military and civilian members. While we may need her for the defense of our home at times, her primary mission will not be as a weapon of war, but as a vehicle for exploration,” Hereford said. “Folks, there’s a hell of a lot of space. The Satori is the vessel best equipped to go learn what is out there.”

“Which brings me to the last point of the day: announcing her captain,” Hereford said. “Elizabeth Wynn, you’ve been a pain in my ass. I figure if you can do that to me, you’ve got what it takes to make this mission work. You will captain the new Satori on her mission.”

The crowd rose to their feet again, applause roaring in her ears. Beth stood as well, feeling shell-shocked. She looked over at the ship - her ship now - and grinned.

“Damn right I can, sir,” she said. She did her best to demonstrate confidence in her drawled-out words. Inside, she quailed at the idea. She was the last person alive that she would have picked for ship command. How could she ever live up to this?

FOUR

An hour after the ceremony was over, Beth was upstairs in General Hereford’s office. She rapped on the door and was opening it before she heard the words “Enter!” come from inside. Damned if she’d be put off talking to the man now. He had to meet with her.

“Why me?” she asked as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

Hereford sat behind his desk. The office was spartan - a few furnishings, a phone, a computer, and a couple of diplomas on the walls. The General was not given to ostentation, but only a fool mistook him as simple. He grinned at her from under a thinning head of close-cropped white hair. The smile was the sort you’d see on any politician: gentile, gracious, and fake. Unless you looked closely, you’d miss the glimpse of the old wolf baring his teeth just beneath the civilized veneer.

Beth didn’t miss it. She’d been working with Hereford for a while. She genuinely liked the man and thought he liked her. Which was why she didn’t understand why he’d done this to her.

“It’s a shame I’m not a betting man,” Hereford said. “I might have just made a few dollars.”

“I don’t care about - wait, was there a pool on me?” Beth asked.

“Sit.”

“Don’t change the subject, either,” Beth said. “I want to know why…”

“Sit. Down.” The tone Hereford used to cut her off in mid-sentence was not loud, but it was firm. She sat.

“You’re worried about your lack of ship command experience, right?” Hereford said. Beth nodded in mute reply. “How many people do you think we have on Earth who are half as qualified as you are? The number who’ve even been in space are few enough, but I can count the number who’ve been to another star system on one hand.”

“You don’t need the ship captain to have that experience,” Beth protested. She could just as easily be the ship’s engineer again, using her experience with the drive and other star systems to support whoever was commanding.

“We’ve already militarized the other two ships. For political reasons, I need the captain of the Satori to be a civilian. That limits me,” Hereford said. “I can’t use Andrew - he’s too busy getting Caraway’s companies back in order, and we need his Helium-3 production back in business on the moon.”

“There’s Charline,” Beth said. But even as she was speaking the words, she knew it didn’t make sense. Charline had even less leadership experience than she did. The younger woman generally followed Beth’s lead, not the other way around. In her heart, Beth knew she could do a better job.

“She’ll be along too, at least at first,” Hereford said. “She’ll go with you for the shakedown cruise, just out to the moon and back. Make sure Majel is adjusting well to the new ship. We don’t know enough about her to know how she’ll react.”

Beth bristled at the idea. “Majel is crew, General. You have a problem with her?”

He waved her back with a hand. “No. Not at all. But this reconstruction amounts to tossing her into a new body. How would you react, if you were suddenly in my body instead of your own?”

Beth made a face. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

“Then you understand what I’m talking about. Charline is there as support. In case Majel has any unforeseen troubles,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had a lot of long chats with Majel over the last few months. I like her.”

Beth blinked, surprised.

“What, you think I was going to pass up getting to know the AI working under my command?” he said, making a scoffing sound. “We know so damned little about her. How she came into being. What her full capabilities are.”

He shoved himself back from the desk a little. “What I do know is that I trust my instincts about people. My gut says that Majel is OK. That she is an asset. That she’s going to mean a hell of a lot to us all in the long run.”

“Your gut says all that?” Beth asked.

“Yup.”

She settled back in the chair. Hereford didn’t want her along for her command experience. He wanted her along because Majel knew and trusted her. He was worried that the transition might be hard for the AI to handle, so he wanted comfortable people around to help her.

It wouldn’t be that bad. She would have Charline along, after all, and Majel too. A shakedown cruise with the new ship wouldn’t go that sideways. She tried not to think about the shakedown cruise of the original Satori. That hadn’t gone well at all…

With an effort, she yanked her attention back to the General. She couldn’t afford to get distracted, no matter how outright frightening the idea of going back into deep space might be. No - if she was going to be honest with herself, it wasn’t the thought of deep space that bothered her. It was command. The idea of being the person upon whom all the responsibility rested scared the shit out of her. She told him as much.

“Good,” he replied. He was always a little disarming with his frank, no-nonsense responses. “I wish more unit commanders were like you. Scared keeps you breathing, woman. Scared keeps you alive. Your crew, too.”

“All right sir,” she replied. “I’ll babysit your ship for at least this one run. After that, we’ll see. Fair?”

“Fair,” he replied. “I need you to take the ship out to the moon. To Caraway’s old base. Your old base.”

“Why there?” Beth asked, narrowing her eyes.

“I’ve got a team up there engaging in repairs. Need the place up and running ASAP for the H-3 reactors. As the Caraway Industries lawyers pointed out, it was the Air Force’s fault the place was damaged in the first place, so rather than end up in court I just agreed to send a team to fix the mess.”

“So why send me up there?”

“We’ve lost contact with the repair crew,” Hereford said, frowning. “The base is still mostly powered down. It looks like they managed to get backup power active, but there have been no further transmissions from them since.”

“You think the Naga might have had a couple of escape pods or fighters land there?” Beth asked.

“I don’t know what to think. I’m keeping my options open. But I’m sending a full flight of security forces with you just in case. I want you to find out what’s going on up there, and if possible get those repairs back on track.”

Beth chewed her lip. The Naga had brought three ships into Earth’s orbit and launched hundreds of fighters during the battle for the planet. It was certainly possible that a few of them had managed to spot John’s old lunar nest and landed close enough to break in. If they holed out there, they might last a very long time.

But she’d dealt with Naga before. If it was just a few stragglers, she could handle them. The last thing they wanted was any Naga still alive and loose in the solar system. No telling what sort of trouble they could brew up given enough time.

She wasn’t sure the Naga solution was the right one for precisely that reason. If they’d been up there all those months, why hadn’t they done anything? Why hadn’t they caused any problems? What were they up to? It didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t think of anything else that would explain the data.

“I’ll go take a look, sir,” she said. Beth rose and flashed him a little half salute. Civilians didn’t salute, but her role was odd enough that she had adopted the informal gesture anyway. He nodded in acknowledgment. They’d been playing this game for a while.

“Dismissed, then. Your crew is already boarding. You leave within the hour.”

FIVE

Beth strode up the ramp to board the ship. Her ship. She had to keep reminding herself of that because it still didn’t feel real. It felt good to still have a ramp on the Satori, but she missed the old one. On the original ship, the ramp had descended from underneath the nose and led directly to the bridge. This ramp was in the rear and opened into the cargo area instead. Safer, but nowhere near as efficient. Beth tapped her earpiece to activate it.

“Majel, you hearing me?” she asked.

“Loud and clear, Beth,” the AI replied. “Or should I call you captain, now?”

“Beth will do,” she said with a wry smile.

Majel laughed. “You should see the look on your face.”

Beth glanced around and spotted the small camera mounted on the wall. She stuck her tongue out at the camera, which caused Majel to chuckle again.

“How many more crew are we waiting for?” Beth asked.

“You’re the last aboard,” Majel said. “Want me to button up for takeoff?”

“Do it. I’ll stow my bag and be right up to the bridge. Who’s in charge up there right now?”

“Major Ayala,” Majel replied.

Beth frowned. She had only met Luis Ayala once, in a staff meeting over a month ago. He’d struck her as being dour to the point of having a stick up his… The man would not have been her first pick for a second in command, but General Hereford hadn’t given her the option of picking her people. Which was probably for the best, since Beth had no idea who she might have chosen if he had left the decision up to her.

The new Satori had three levels, so they’d installed a lift to help people get from one to the next. But common sense had left plain old ladders in place as well. From hard experience, Beth knew that power failed sometimes. Devices malfunctioned. Ladders tended to stay where you welded them, especially when they were made of good steel. She slung her bag over her shoulder and took the ladder instead of the lift.

The crew quarters were on the mid-deck. Beth found hers without difficulty. Someone had already inserted a placard with Captain Wynn inscribed on it into the slot on her door. Beth winced. She didn’t think it was possible for someone to be less captain-like than her. A fingerprint scan unlocked her door, and she peeked inside. The quarters were smaller than her cabin on the base, but it was still more space than anyone else on the ship had to themselves. With the extra security forces on board, the ship was packed to the seams.

Beth tossed her bag on the bunk and closed the door. She was stalling, and it had to stop. The crew would be waiting for her. This liftoff was a historic moment, after all. The ship’s captain couldn’t hide under her bunk while the Satori took off.

“Tell them I’m on my way, Majel,” Beth said.

“Of course, Beth,” Majel murmured in her ear.

This time she did take the lift, to save time and avoid rumpling her uniform. Everyone wore the same outfit on the ship, a dark blue field uniform. Her last name was sewn over her left breast pocket, and Hereford had come up with some sort of rank insignia for her collar - a single starburst. She’d never heard of such a thing or seen it in use, and she had half a mind to think the General had simply made up the rank.

But that was what they were all doing at this point. They were making things up as they went along, moving into new waters. As an Air Force, as a nation, and even as the human race itself. Everyone on Earth knew the truth about the near calamity of the Naga assault. There wasn’t a government in the world that was feeling secure or sure about what ought to be done next.

The lift doors opened, and Beth stepped out onto a bridge. Gone was the small space with half a dozen chairs. The old Satori’s control center had been cozy, comfortable…and this place was anything but. Beth hadn’t designed this mess, but she was pretty sure whoever put it together had spent far too many hours watching televised science fiction shows.

“Attention on the bridge!” said a tall man standing guard beside the door.

Beth started at the words. Everyone rose from their seats and turned to face her. She flushed a little at the sudden attention. Her hands reached down to straighten the bottom hem of her tunic for what had to be the fiftieth time today. Major Ayala gave her a thin smile, looking like he wished she hadn’t arrived at all, and then stepped forward to offer her his hand.

“Welcome aboard, ma’am,” he said.

She shook his hand. Ayala squeezed her fingers a little harder than he had to. Oh, so it was going to be that sort of day, was it? Beth pressed back - hard. Her fingers were used to turning wrenches, handling rivet guns, and arc-welding thick plates into place. She’d put her grip against some Air Force boy any day. Ayala’s eyes grew wide, and his eyebrows rose. If he thought he was going to intimidate her easily, then he was in for one hell of a surprise.

“Luis, take a seat please,” she said. “Hereford wants us underway as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, Captain,” he replied. He stressed the last word.

Full formal, hmm? She could deal with that. Beth could already tell that Ayala was going to be a problem. The bigger question was whether he was the sort of problem she could easily sort on her own, or whether she was going to shove him out an airlock before they got to Luna. She turned to address the rest of the bridge crew. Aside from the security guard and Ayala, there were six other people on the bridge with her. She knew none of their names. There hadn’t been time for her to do more than give the crew dossiers a quick glance. The new Satori had seventy-six people on board. Beth despaired at the idea of learning each and every one of those names.

“You don’t know me. Most of you are active duty military, and I’m a civilian,” Beth said. “But I’ve logged more hours in space than any of you. I’ve also fought and survived our enemy more times than I can count.”

She took a deep breath before going on. “This first mission is probably going to be a cakewalk. We’ve lost communications with the team on the moon. It’s most likely a failed transmitter or something. But it could also be that a few Naga survived the battle and took refuge there. If that’s the case, then we’re probably in for the fight of our lives. Be ready for anything.”

Then she turned and took her seat. The captain’s chair was smack dab in the middle of everything. She had a console attached to an armrest, but no specific duties to fulfill. Someone else on the bridge took care of everything. That was because she was ultimately responsible for all of it. She heaved a sigh.

“You think it’s the Naga?” Majel asked in her ear.

“Occam’s razor says yes,” Beth whispered, her voice just loud enough that the AI could pick it up. No one else should be able to hear them.

“I concur. My analysis predicts Naga interference on the moon is sixty-seven percent probable to be the cause for the lost communications.”

“What’s the other thirty-three percent?” Beth asked.

“Various possibilities. Including the unknown,” Majel replied.

If there was one thing space was good at turning up, it was the unknown.

“Engines online. Pilot,” Beth began, then realized she didn’t know the man’s name.

“Lieutenant Adam Foster,” Majel whispered in her ear.

“Lieutenant Foster, take us out. Slowly, if you please,” Beth said. She leaned back in her seat and hoped that he was half the pilot Dan had been. The ship had a long tunnel to navigate on its way out of the hangar, and this new ship was a lot bigger than the old one had been. The pilot looked awfully young to be handed this sort of responsibility. They seemed to be graduating from college younger every year these days, and Foster couldn’t have been many years out of school.

“Feeding course suggestions to the pilot’s computer now,” Majel said over the bridge speakers.

“Thanks, Majel,” Foster said. He flashed a grin at a video camera mounted to the upper bulkhead wall.

“You’re always welcome, Adam,” Majel replied.

Beth approved of the kid immediately. Not only was Majel apparently getting along with him, but he also treated the AI…well, like a person. He’d taken the time to look at the camera, looking ‘at’ her as best he could. Most people didn’t bother.

Better yet he had a deft hand with the controls. Whether it was his skill or Majel’s assistance, Beth couldn’t tell for sure. But the result was a smooth departure through the tube. Hangar doors at the far end opened, flashing daylight. The Satori slipped out into the open air.

“Incoming message from General Hereford,” an ensign called out from off to Beth’s left.

“Put him on the speakers,” Beth replied.

“Good luck, Satori,” Hereford’s voice said. “You have clearance for supersonic departure. Give the ship a good shakedown, but bring her back in one piece!”

“No promises, General, but we’ll do our best,” Beth said. “Lieutenant Foster, you heard the General. Feel free to see what our ship can do.”

Foster’s grin turned on her, this time. “Yes, ma’am!”

The ship’s engines thrummed beneath her, and they seemed to streak forward through the sky. Upward - back into space. Right into the thick of the danger that Beth had only recently managed to leave behind.

SIX

Beth heaved a sigh of relief as the ship shot clear of the atmosphere. It was one thing to know that the new design would work out well on paper. It was entirely another to command the ship on her maiden flight. Anything could have gone wrong. She could think of a laundry list of catastrophic failures which would have at the very least put them all back on the ground. Worst case, a bad enough failure could have seen them all reduced to atoms.

The rebuild was a rush job. Designing and constructing the initial Satori structure had been the work of a year. Even with all the experience she’d earned through the first design and the help of the best minds the Air Force could beg, borrow, or steal, Beth hadn’t been absolutely certain the ship would fly until it was actually in the air.

“Entering low Earth orbit now, ma’am,” Foster said.

“Good flying. Nice, smooth trip. Plot us a course to Caraway Base. Feel free to goose the engines a bit,” Beth said. “Let’s see what we can get out of them.”

“Captain, wouldn’t a wormhole jump make more sense?” Ayala said. “We’d arrive there instantly.”

Of all the tech on the ship, the wormhole drive was the bit they understood the least. It was black box stuff. Almost two years after discovering a wrecked alien starship buried beneath the surface of the moon they still had no idea how the main drive functioned. Even the science underlying why the thing worked at all was hotly contested.

The wormhole engine opened up a hole in space between two points. At first, they could only use pre-plotted points saved in the computer system. But over time the Satori’s crew had learned to plot their own jump coordinates, with AI help.

“Majel, what do you think? Are we safe to try a short jump?” Beth asked.

“Negative. I do not have enough data on how the changed mass of the ship will impact jumps,” Majel replied. “Recommend we test long jumps first, ideally with points far from any gravity sources. We don’t want to accidentally end up dropping inside the moon.”

Beth frowned. She was all for playing it safe, but the math shouldn’t have been too complex for the AI to handle. Majel had the data on the new ship’s structure, down to the kilogram. It wasn’t an equation she would want to try her hand at. But this sort of calculation ought to be old hat to Majel. Why was she against a jump? Did the AI know something that Beth didn’t?

“Let’s play it safe then,” Beth said. She’d need to have a chat with Majel about this, but not in front of everyone. “Lieutenant Foster, best speed and course to the base.”

“Yes ma’am,” Foster replied.

The bridge buzzed with quiet activity. So many faces, and Beth didn’t know any of them. She opened her console, intending to go over the personnel files while they were in transit. The more she knew about her people, the more effective she’d be at leading them. John had always known how to get the best out of his teams because he’d always known who they were at heart. She was incredibly cognizant of the size of the shoes she was trying to fill.

“Captain, a moment in private, if you please?” Ayala said. His frosty tone yanked Beth from her work. He’d crossed over to stand beside her seat, and now he wore what she could only call a barely veiled sneer as he looked down at her.

Beth bit back the quick retort that sprang to her lips. She needed to keep her cool. Whatever beef the Major had with her, maybe they could still work through it. She stood.

“Absolutely. After you, Major,” she replied, ushering him from the bridge.

He walked ahead of her to the small meeting room just aft of the bridge. It was just large enough for the table set in the center of the room and the half dozen chairs around it. The space was a multi-purpose room for meetings or planning sessions. It was a private enough place for her to see if she could ferret out whatever Ayala’s beef might be. Beth stepped inside, holding the door for Ayala. He smiled at her without warmth as he stepped past her.

“Have a seat?” she asked, offering a chair.

He shook his head. “I prefer to stand.”

“As you wish,” she replied, sitting down herself. “Now, what’s on your mind?”

“We should have made the jump,” he replied.

“Why? Majel is concerned about the safety. She’s our math whiz. If she says it’s not safe…”

“Why does she think it’s not safe? I’ve run the math on that jump. It ought to work fine,” Ayala replied.

Beth was surprised. Ayala was a gun-toter. He led Air Force security forces, which to her mind plunked him into the ‘me have club, hit things’ category. The math behind one of those jumps was complex. She could do it, but it would take time. Her surprise must have shown on her face. Ayala gave a short, barking laugh.

“Didn’t think I had the math for it?” he asked. “Did you bother to look at my background before you boarded the ship? I saw you looking at crew files back on the bridge, but I thought you might have at least looked up your second in command.”

“I only got the word about this command the same time you did,” Beth said. “I went down to protest the decision to Hereford after the ceremony.”

“Well, one thing we are in agreement on, anyway,” Ayala said. “You should have told me you were going. I’d have protested it alongside you.”

“He didn’t listen, anyway,” Beth said.

At that, the Major did finally stop pacing and settle into a chair. He heaved a sigh, his face the picture of exasperation.

“No, he wouldn’t. Well, we’re stuck with this at least for now,” Ayala said. “We’ll have to make the best of things.”

“I agree. We need to find a way to work together. Whatever threat is out there on the base…” Beth started to say.

“Will be dealt with. By my people,” Ayala said, slashing across her words with his hand for emphasis. “You will stay on the ship and manage your team and the AI. I’ll deal with whatever is waiting for us out there. That’s my job. Leave it to the professional soldiers.”

Beth bristled at his words. She stood, both hands on the table in front of her. “I’ve been in more firefights than most of your men.”

“As a rogue adventurer, running around in a ship that you never told anyone about? Sure, I’ll give you that,” Ayala said. “But that doesn’t make you ready for this command. Hell, that lieutenant out there piloting the ship has more Air Force experience than you do.”

Part of her wanted to agree with him. Hadn’t that been her argument to Hereford, not long ago? She was an engineer. Damned good at fixing things. Excellent at making new shit out of scrap. She knew her way in and out of design. But this sort of thing? That she had survived a few fights by the skin of her teeth was nothing. Other people hadn’t been so lucky. Even so, the job was hers, and Beth had never backed down from a challenge before.

Beth locked gazes with Ayala, ready to argue. But his sneer was gone. Instead, his face was a calm mask. He was certain that he was right. He knew that she was unready. Beth could see it in the constancy of his stare. She looked away before he did. She saw him nod in her peripheral vision.

“Get us safely to the moon,” he said. “Then let the pros handle things from there.”

He stood up and left the room. Beth sat back down, both hands pressed flat to the table top. She was barely an hour into her first command and already her executive officer not only wanted her job, but he was also directly opposing her. The worst part was that she couldn’t say with absolute certainty that he was wrong.

Something Ayala mentioned came back to her. He said he’d done the math and the jump was safe. He’d used her playing it safe as evidence for his cause, further confirmation that she was unready for her position. Beth yanked her tablet from a pocket and called up Ayala’s file. The man had impressive credentials. He’d picked up an MS in Advanced Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Astrodynamics. In terms of academic credentials, he was almost as good on paper as she was. She couldn’t doubt his ability to run the wormhole solution if he’d put his mind to it.

Which begged the question: if the math was sound, why did Majel back away from using the drive? Was there something wrong with the wormhole engine that only she knew about, something Ayala couldn’t account for in his calculations? Or was there a problem with Majel?

“Majel, where is Charline right now?” Beth asked to the empty room.

“Engineering,” Majel replied.

It was time to have a chat with their resident computer expert.

SEVEN

Dan Wynn shrugged his shoulders for the third time in as many minutes. It didn’t make sense to him. After all, he’d served in the Air Force for years before he was injured. Why would the uniform feel scratchy and uncomfortable now?

Regardless the reason why, the damned thing kept itching his neck. It wasn’t helped by the new rank resting heavily on his shoulders. Sure, the promotion was the reward for a job well done. He was given even more work, even greater responsibility. Wasn’t that always the way such things went?

The uniform as good as he could make it - everything crisp, every seam aligned correctly - he grasped the handle of the door and stepped into the central command room. Walking in was a new and enjoyable experience in itself, for all that he still sweated a bit if he stayed on his feet for too long at one clip. He’d relied on a wheelchair for so long that every step was still a thing he relished.

Alien tech had repaired his spinal injury and restored the use of his legs, but it was his hard work over the last six months which had returned most of the old vigor to those limbs. Dan could do more than just walk now. He could run, jump, even climb under Earth’s full gravity.

Now they had that tech under their control. Two Naga vessels had survived more or less intact. All those devices were being torn apart, analyzed, and studied by some of the best minds in the world. Most of the research was happening right in this secret base. The place didn’t even have a name - it was that black. Dan suspected that might change soon, though; the word was out. The world knew they’d been attacked. Every human knew they were not alone in the universe, now. Nor was their first contact the friendly one science fiction authors had hoped for in literature.

The control center was usually a busy place, but today there were even more people scurrying about than usual. Dan’s eyes sharpened immediately. He’d assumed that the summons had been something about his upcoming command. The Independence should be getting ready for first trial flights soon. Looking at the bustle in this room told him something different. The base was entering crisis mode. Something was up.

“Colonel Wynn, good,” General Hereford said. For all of the urgency apparent in the command room, his voice remained calm. “We have a problem.”

“What’s up, sir?” Dan asked.

“Your ship is what’s up. We’ve lost contact with the security personnel on guard.”

Dan blinked. There was a massive contingent of security forces on board the ship. It was off the coast of Florida, surrounded by a flotilla of Navy ships and guarded by the best the US military could supply. Sitting there like it was, the ship represented a tempting target for just about anyone. Sneak aboard and grab one bit of alien tech, and you could sell it somewhere and be set for life. Worse yet, many foreign governments were unhappy with the way the United States had militarized the captured vessels. It wasn’t beyond the pale for some foreign power - China, perhaps - to try a snatch and grab on the ship.

“The Independence is one of the most secure places on Earth. How did we lose contact with it?” Dan asked.

“That’s what you’re going there to find out,” Hereford said. “Radar and sonar were both clear. But something is going on there. The Navy is rounding up a Marine regiment to storm the place, but I’ve asserted Air Force command over the situation. For now, at least. They’re waiting for my field commander to arrive and take charge.”

“Me?”

“You,” Hereford nodded. “I’ve got an F-50 standing by. You up to a little bit of Mach 5?”

“I’ve done worse,” Dan said, giving Hereford a small grin.

“I don’t doubt it. Get in a flight suit, and meet the pilot in the hangar in ten. Get our ship back, Wynn. I don’t care what it costs. We cannot afford to lose either of these ships,” Hereford said. “If - when - the Naga come back, those vessels are the only defense we have.”

“Understood, sir,” Dan said.

“And Dan - it’s not lost on me that we’ve now lost contact with our people at two different key facilities,” Hereford said. “We don’t know that they’re connected, but I wouldn’t rule that out. Be careful out there.”

Dan nodded. “Warn Beth, too?”

“She already knows she’s headed into danger. But I’ll pass it along. If these issues are connected, we’re in a lot more trouble than we thought.”

“I’ll get her back, sir,” Dan said.

“Go.”

He raced from the room toward the flight deck, already trying to think three steps ahead. Who had the power to pull something like this operation off? Some corporations might. A few of them had the resources of a medium-sized nation, complete with their own para-military forces. It wasn’t beyond the pale that one of those might have found a way to sneak aboard. But then to disable the entire security crew? There were over a hundred armed guards on the ship, day and night.

A darker idea crossed Dan’s mind. What if the Naga were involved? There was so much they still didn’t know about the aliens or their technology. They’d figured out how most of the major systems worked well enough to control them, but what actually made the devices operate was still under study. It might take years to reverse engineer the Naga tech.

The mop-up of the surviving Naga in system had been as thorough as they could manage with as few ships as they had to command. Scores of fighters had been accounted for. They’d captured more escape pods than Dan could count. But if any Naga had escaped notice and managed to stay undetected, then they would still represent a significant threat.

It might be humans causing trouble out there. Or it could be something far deadlier. Dan stripped down, yanking off the dress uniform in favor of a flight suit. That the change in clothes made him smile wasn’t lost on him. Being in the field had always suited him more than flying a desk. He raced from the lockers to the main hangar, where the bird he was to ride in was already warming up.

Dan climbed the ladder. Another man sat in the pilot’s chair already. Today, Dan wasn’t going to have it.

“Out,” Dan said, jerking his thumb toward the co-pilot’s seat.

“But, sir, I’m to fly you….”

“I’ve logged more flight hours at high acceleration than you’ve had hours alive. Out of the chair.”

Grumbling, the captain complied. “Hereford will hear about this from me.”

“I’m sure he was expecting me to fly,” Dan said. Well, he wasn’t really sure. But Hereford should know better than to think Dan would just ride along when so much was at stake. They needed speed and skill. He didn’t trust anyone else’s piloting ability as much as he did his own.

The engines were primed. Dan strapped himself down and fired the thrusters, launching the ship up the tube into the night. Once they were airborn he wasted no time climbing to sub-orbital altitude and burning the thrusters for every erg they had. G-forces slammed him back into his seat, making breathing difficult. But Dan couldn’t help feeling that a clock was ticking away on that ship, and every second counted.

EIGHT

Beth retreated the way she had come, returning to the rear of the ship. It was more than a little ironic. Engineering was her home. Her happy place. If there was any station on board this ship that should have been hers, it was back near the engines, making sure the ship ran smoothly.

Dealing with personnel issues? Solving problems with the chain of command? Making the big decisions? That was John’s thing. Or, now that he was gone, maybe Andy’s thing. Beth never wanted any of that.

“But here I am, stuck with it,” she said. Beth had a feeling that John was laughing his damn fool head off in whatever afterlife he was inhabiting. He’d always had a subtle appreciation for irony.

The hallway ended with a locked door. A quick palm print later, and the door slid open to allow her entrance. The engineering section of the new ship was much larger than it had been on the old. Beth found herself on a walkway 10 feet above the main floor. Down below, technicians maintained the alien engine that powered everything aboard the ship. Because the engine was unknown tech, there was little they could do to actually fix anything that went wrong. If the thing broke, they were pretty much out of luck.

Maintenance therefore amounted to monitoring. The engineering team would watch, carefully measuring every possible spectrum of output from the strange devices they tended. If something went wrong, it was usually with the human systems, not the alien ones. Then the engineers would step in to correct what they could.

Beth knew the job well because it had been hers on the original ship. It was enormously frustrating to stare at the thing propelling you through space, the device keeping everyone aboard alive, and to not have the foggiest notion how it worked, whether it was functioning properly, or how to fix it if anything went wrong.

“How’s my ship?” she called out.

Charlene looked up from a computer console, saw her and laughed.

“Near as we can tell, it’s doing great!” Charlene said. “I should have started a pool on how long it would take before you missed your engines enough to come down here. Could have earned some real money!”

“No. Nobody would have bet against you.”

“What’s going on?” Charlene asked. “You need something?”

“Yeah, I need our resident computer expert,” Beth said. “Are you busy? I could use your help with something for a few minutes.”

“I think the boys can spare me for a few minutes,” Charlene said. “I’ll be right up.”

Beth glanced around the room again, her gaze eventually coming to rest on a video camera. Which begged the next question. Where was she going to be able to speak with Charline about Majel - without the AI listening in on the conversation? As heavily tied into the ship’s systems as she was, Majel could monitor virtually everything that happened on board. She didn’t have direct access to some locations, like crew quarters. But Beth was willing to bet that Majel was smart enough to figure out a way to listen even in places where she didn’t have direct ears.

“I suspect you are thinking about me,” the AI’s soft voice in her ear made Beth jump.

“I was, in fact,” Beth said.

“After the conversation you had with the Major, it would be logical for you to wonder about my advice regarding the wormhole drive,” Majel said. “His data is correct. His calculations are accurate, as near as I can tell.”

“Then the drive is safe?” Beth asked. “Why did you say otherwise?”

“The math is sound. But it doesn’t feel right,” Majel replied. “I can’t explain it any other way.”

“Try,” Beth said. But she thought she understood. When you were down there watching the engines, listening to the noises that the drive made, hearing the creak of the ship as pressure shifted… You learned how the ship felt, after a while. What noises and subtle inflections of vibration were right and normal, and which ones were off. It wasn’t something that one could easily measure. It wasn’t about the math. Sometimes, an engineer had to go with her gut.

“I can’t put a proverbial finger on it,” Majel said. “It’s nothing solid. Just a sense that something might not work precisely the way we want. We know that the cloaking device simply won’t work at all, anymore, right?”

The original ship had been able to hide from detection using alien technology built into the main engine to warp space around itself in a manner that completely obscured it from view. While it was cloaked, the ship was effectively invisible. But the device had a specific range. It had been built for the original alien vessel, and without knowing how to adjust its settings they couldn’t adapt it to a new shape. The new ship was so much larger than the original Satori that the cloak only covered a small portion of the ship.

The decision to make the ship bigger had been one of the most contentious. That cloaking device had saved their tails more times than Beth could count. Losing it was a blow. But the additional armor, weapons, crew, and gear that the larger size allowed them made up for it. In theory, at least.

“It still works. It just isn’t big enough to cover the hull,” Beth said. “What does that have to do with the wormhole drive?”

“I don’t know,” Majel said. “But this ship is so different. My concern is that we should test the drive carefully before we do anything unusual with it.”

“That makes sense to me,” Beth said carefully. “If you come up with any other suggestions about best practice, please let me know right away?”

“I will,” Majel promised.

Charline arrived on the catwalk, a quizzical expression on her face. “What’s up?”

“With me,” Beth said. “I need someone to vent at about Ayala.”

She proceeded down the hall to her quarters. Once they were both inside, Beth took the earpiece from her ear and shut it off. She motioned for Charline to do likewise. After a moment of hesitation, she complied.

“OK, what is going on? I assume from your actions that whatever it is has to do with Majel? Why the cloak and dagger?” Charline asked.

“Can she hear us right now?” Beth asked.

Charline glanced around the room. “Probably. She can likely up the intake on microphones in the hallway. Hang on.”

Charline pulled her tablet out of her pocket and fiddled with it for a moment. It began emitting a noise like static. She tapped the tablet screen a few times, and the volume rose to an annoying level. It wasn’t painful to hear, but it was loud.

“What the hell is that?” Beth asked.

“White noise. Should block the microphones in the hall. Now, what the hell is all of this about, Beth? Majel has saved all of us more than once. We owe her. What are you so worried about?” Charline said.

“Have you noticed her acting strangely at all?”

“No.”

Charline’s arms were crossed in front of her chest. She was flushed. Her tone was sharp. Beth had pissed her off with this line of inquiry. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea, but she had no idea who else she could turn to.

“She didn’t want to jump from Earth to the moon. She said it wasn’t safe,” Beth said. “When I asked her for more detail, she said something felt wrong.”

“Felt wrong?” Charline asked. Her voice sounded troubled.

“Yeah. Now, I helped build this engine room. I’ve been over everything in there with a micrometer looking for problems. I was as nervous about takeoff as anyone, but Majel seemed genuinely afraid. I’ve never seen her so anxious.”

“You’re right,” Charline said. “That's out of character for her. She’s usually ready to follow whatever orders are needed without problems. She might tell you the math to point out that what you’re about to do is stupid, but she’s never just dug in her heels.”

“Hereford is concerned that since the new ship amounts to a complete rebuild of her body, Majel may take some time to adjust to it,” Beth admitted.

“We have no way to monitor an AI for mental health, either,” Charline said. “Majel is the first. We don’t have a template to analyze any challenges she runs into, let alone treat her.”

Beth was glad Charline was able to see the same problems she did so quickly. It felt good to have her as an ally in this. If anything really was wrong with Majel, she was going to need one. But at the same time, she wished that she’d been wrong. That Charline had been able to explain to her exactly why her fears were unfounded. That she wasn’t doing so meant that there was a very real chance the artificial intelligence tied into every system of the ship was suffering from…something. Anxiety? Body dysmorphia? There was no diagnostic criteria for an AI. No plans of treatment.

“OK, let’s keep an eye on her, and watch. If it looks like she needs help, we’ll do our best to give it to her,” Beth said.

“And if worst comes to worst, we can take her off the computers altogether,” Charline said. “I don’t want to do that, but if we need to, it’s an option.”

“The last option,” Beth said. “I hope it never comes to that.”

They could unhook Majel from the systems, uncouple her from the control of the ship, in a pinch. But doing so would lock her inside the alien computers that ran the star-drive. It would rip her from yet another body, effectively. If that was the source of this problem, it would only make things worse. It had to be saved as a last resort, for Majel's sake.

NINE

Beth returned to the bridge. The moon had grown large on the main screen in her absence. As troublesome as the question about whether or not to use the wormhole drive had been, the ship had made excellent time without it. Something else had changed in her absence. Major Ayala had returned to his occupation of her seat in the center of the bridge. He rose as she entered.

“Status?” Beth asked.

“Closing on Caraway Base now,” he replied.

“Still no word from the engineering team?” Beth asked.

“No, ma’am,” said a man to her right.

Beth struggled to place his face and failed. She could tell from the chevrons in his rank that he was a noncommissioned officer, but she still had a lot of work to do on placing names to faces.

“Sergeant Harris. His duty station is communications,” Majel whispered in her ear. Beth was surprised - and relieved! Surprised, because she had half expected Majel to be angry with her. Relieved, because having Majel’s help with the crew was going to make a huge difference.

Harris was a big man. Not the sort Beth would usually expect to see playing with radios or other technical toys. He was a bruiser. At least two hundred and fifty pounds, and very little of it was fat. The big man had close shaven hair, just the smallest bit of fuzz on his head. His skin was the color of dark chocolate, and his words held just a hint of southern drawl.

“Nothing from the team at all?” Beth asked. “Can we tell if their equipment is still functioning?”

“We are doing a flyby of their shuttle right now. Should know more in just a minute,” Foster said.

Beth took her seat, trying not to fidget. She didn’t think starship captains should do that, somehow. John never had, anyway. She gripped the armrests of her chair in an effort to keep her hands still. There was nothing to do but wait until they had more information. This waiting would always be the hardest part for her. Back in engineering, there was almost always something to do. Some bit of tech that needed tuning up, or a systems check to run.

They might well be flying into a Naga trap, and there was precious little that she could do about it if they were. Without the cloaking device, anyone down there who was watching the skies saw them coming a long while ago.

Beth busied herself with checking out the rest of the bridge crew. Ayala was minding his duty station - a tactical console which managed his security troops and damage control for the Satori. Aside from Harris and Foster, there were still four other faces. She recognized one of them from her quick scan of the personnel files.

Lieutenant Kristin Hall was seated next to Foster in the front of the bridge. She ran the gunnery station. This new ship was much more heavily armed than the old one had been. Her job was to manage the targeting of their offensive array and supervise the use of the defensive systems as well. It was a lot of work for one person. Beth hoped that she would be up to the task.

She didn’t know the name of the man running the scan console, but she was glad they had implemented it. Having a crew member whose sole job it was to analyze the data coming in from their sensors was a blessing. They’d always somehow made it work on the old ship, but that station was going to give her intel that might save all their lives.

“Sergeant Hernandez,” Majel whispered in her ear. “He’s alert enough. Spotting things only a few seconds after I do, generally.”

Beth smiled. Majel was probably the main reason they’d never run into serious issues with scans in the past. Her ability to multitask was unparalleled. But even Majel could push her processing to the breaking point. Human backup for her skills was essential.

“I’m counting on you most of all,” Beth murmured, softly enough that only the AI could hear her.

“Are you sure you can?” Majel replied, her voice curt.

Beth froze, a reply stuck in her throat for a moment. Shit! She was pissed. And rightfully so. If Majel thought she wasn’t trusted anymore, that was bad news.

“Yes. After all we’ve been through? No doubts,” Beth said.

Majel didn’t reply. Beth hoped that what she had said would be enough to quell any worries, but she knew it wouldn’t. You don’t just tell someone you trust them. You need to demonstrate it. She was going to have to find a way to do that for her friend. Somehow.

“Cruising over their shuttle now,” Foster said.

“Still showing power and air in their ship,” Hernandez said. “No heat signatures of a person inside though. It looks like they all went for a walk.”

“Or they’re all dead,” Harris said.

“That’s enough of that!” Ayala barked. “We’re here as a rescue operation. We are absolutely not going to just write these people off until we are certain they’re gone.”

For once, Beth agreed with him. “We’re going to need to get in there. Majel, is the hangar door responding to your signals?”

“Yes. Whatever else happened here, the team managed to get some power online,” Majel replied. “I’m getting sluggish responses from the base computers. The entire place is on the secondary power grid only. But my access codes are still good. Opening the bay doors now.”

“Are we going to fit?” Beth asked. She looked around. “This Satori is a lot bigger than the last one.”

The hangar doors were set into the lunar surface, hidden from view by a crater wall. Beyond them was a long tunnel which led deep under the ground, to a hangar that had been home for the original Satori. The shaft leading to and from the secret level had been plenty large enough for the old ship. But this new one?

“The new ship specifications fit into the launch tunnel with a few meters of clearance on either side,” Majel replied.

“That’s a tight squeeze. You up to it?” Beth asked Foster.

“I’ll do my best, ma’am.”

“Brand new ship, Lieutenant. I don’t want my paint scratched,” Beth said. But she flashed him a smile to lighten the tone as she spoke.

“Bringing her in. Everyone hang on,” Foster replied.

The ship went from the daylight surface into night almost immediately. Lights snapped on outside the ship, illuminating the rough cut rock tunnel ahead of them. The tube looked so damned small! For the hundredth time, Beth wished that Dan were here. He had more piloting experience than anyone else she knew. He’d be able to bring them down there without blowing them up. How many hours did Foster have in the pilot’s seat, anyway?”

“He’ll do fine,” Majel whispered into Beth’s ear. “He’s been nonstop in the simulator for a week now. He has a deft hand with the controls, and he listens to my alerts and suggestions even better than Dan. I wouldn’t let just anyone fly me, you know!”

Beth laughed at that last, which had several of the crew glance her way. She shrugged and returned her attention to the tunnel and their passage down. If this base was ever going to be a home for their ship again, they’d need to widen the tunnel quite a bit.

There was only one rough moment. A proximity alarm blared as the left wing of the ship came too close to one wall. Foster’s fingers flashed over his control panel in an effort to stabilize the ship. Beth could hear Majel’s calm voice giving him data, suggesting course corrections and tweaks to their heading. A moment later the alarm was silent. They were past the worst of it. Beth could see the trickles of sweat beading on Foster’s forehead, though. It had been a near thing. A collision at slow speed wouldn’t have crippled the ship, but it would have been a crappy way to end his first day as pilot.

And then they were through, out of the tunnel and into the hangar itself. The ship slowly settled to the floor, landing gear taking on the ship’s weight with only the smallest bounce.

“Well done, Foster. We’re in. Hope you can get us back out again, now,” Beth said.

“Back out?” Foster asked. He groaned. “Yes, ma’am.”

“First we have to complete the mission, though. I think-“

“I’ve got it from here, Captain,” Ayala said, cutting her off in mid-sentence. “I’ll dispatch security teams to search the station for the missing engineers. With luck, some of the camera systems are still working, and we can find them that way.”

Beth bit back an angry retort. He’d undermined her in front of the crew. He was going to do it again and again until she found a way to stop him. Yelling wasn’t going to fix this problem, though. She needed to find a better way.

“All right, Major. Go see to your people and assign search squads,” Beth said. She fought to keep the hot fury she was feeling out of her words. “We will use the bridge as command and control for your search teams. They’re to coordinate through Sergeant Harris here.”

Ayala’s eyes narrowed. She knew he would rather they coordinate directly through him so that he could feed her information when and how he wanted to. But she wasn’t going to let him play that game out here.

“Yes ma’am,” he said. Then he turned on his heel and stalked from the bridge.

Solving that problem was going to be an even bigger hassle than she’d thought. But she couldn’t let Ayala’s intransigence distract her from the real reason she was out here. Something was amiss with the base, and she needed to find out what.

TEN

Beth tapped a button on her armrest, releasing a display from the arm of her seat. A few presses later and she had an eye in the sky view of the search team. Or as close as she could get, anyway. Majel couldn’t restore a connection to the base’s internal camera system. Worse, she couldn’t tell whether the system was simply malfunctioning, or if the cameras themselves had been destroyed. They were effectively blind except for whatever eyes they actually put on the ground.

She did the best she could with what she had. By using the tracker each of Ayala’s soldiers wore as a positioning system, overlaid onto the floor plans of the base, Beth could get a pretty good idea where each of her people was. The system tagged each of the ten men and women waiting in the outer bay with names. Beth was surprised to see Ayala’s there among them. Was he taking personal command of the first team? She had pegged him as an ‘in the rear with the gear’ sort of guy. She’d have to re-evaluate that now.

“Sensors say you’ve got breathable air out there. Might be a little stale, but you won’t need space-suits,” Beth said over her radio.

“Understood. We will proceed with them for this first sweep anyway. Just in case. Will bring back samples to check for possible contaminants,” Ayala replied.

Because of course he was going to do his own thing, no matter what she told him. He was probably right in doing so, too. The air might be OK to breathe, but who knew what else they might run into out there? Something had happened to the repair crew. Unless they were all goofing off in the rec room, and she doubted that. Even when the place was fully operational the recreational resources of Caraway Base had been a little lacking.

“Go ahead, Major. But watch your backs out there,” she said.

“Roger that,” he replied with a dry chuckle.

The ramp dropped from the aft of the ship, and Ayala’s people moved out like a smooth wave. She had to admire their professionalism. The radio was damned near silent, only a few words exchanged now and again, and only when necessary. There was no idle chatter among the members of the search party, a stark contrast with what she was used to among the old crew.

Ayala’s party made their way across the hangar, into the elevator shaft. The elevator itself had been destroyed, but the shaft would give them a rapid means of reaching other levels. The moon’s low gravity meant that climbing would be easy. A rocket propelled grappling hook later, and the team was making their way up ropes toward the levels above.

“Majel, any luck communicating with the base computers yet?” Beth asked. She hated sitting around. Much as the idea of exploring the base unnerved her, waiting in the ship was perhaps even harder than seeing the ruin of her old home.

“Nothing. I think the local intranet is down. Either the central computer itself is damaged in some way, or too many of the wireless routers are offline,” Majel said. “I can’t tell which without getting eyes on the routers themselves.”

“What about an overall scan of the base with the ship’s scanners?” Foster asked.

“We didn’t do it from space because it won’t work. The same rock which shields the base from radiation blocks most scanning systems,” Beth replied. She clicked the button to transmit out to the team. “Ayala, how’s it going out there? Anything unusual?”

“We’ve reached the next level up. Massive damage here. Signs of a firefight. Must have been quite the spirited defense once the troops got in this deep,” Ayala replied.

It had been. John had sent Beth down to the hangar to prep the Satori for departure at the first sign of trouble. He’d remained behind to help organize the defenders. They’d done their best. It hadn’t been nearly good enough. Beth escaped in the Satori. Everyone else was captured or killed.

“I see long gouges in the metal that don’t make sense,” Ayala went on, when she didn’t reply. “Sending you some video.”

Beth’s screen flickered, and her view of ten red blips making their way down the main hall was replaced with the view from a camera on Ayala’s helmet. The hall was a wreck. Flickering lights cast uncertain illumination on the ruins. Holes pocked the walls where bullets had smacked into the fiberglass panels and shattered them. Then Ayala looked off to his left, and she saw what he was talking about - two long gashes in the fiberglass, like someone had gone after it with a sword, or maybe a chainsaw.

“Any ideas what caused that?” Ayala asked. He reached over to the rent and touched the edges with his gloved hand. The rip was two inches wide, the edges jagged and torn. Something powerful had made those tears.

“None. Far as I know there was nothing on the base that could do that,” Beth replied.

“What, you didn’t have any swords here?” Ayala asked.

“No.”

The camera tracked along the rips, then he glanced back at the floor where another handful of holes had been punched. About the right size for a big sword, they looked like someone had stabbed through the floor panel.

“I don’t like this at all,” Beth said. “Look at how that gash is cutting across the bullet holes. I think the cuts are more recent than the firefight.”

“I think you’re right,” Ayala said. “We’ll finish the sweep of this level and then return to the ship.”

She continued watching the video feed as the major walked past the team’s old meeting room. Ayala peeked inside, and she had a glimpse of the overturned table with its top shattered by bullet-holes. Someone had fought from there, too.

The next room was the xenobiology lab. This was a bigger space. Ayala took four people in with him to clear the room. They swept across with fluid steps. Ayala’s breathing was harsh and rapid over the radio as he raced across the room before calling out, “Clear!”

The rest of the team echoed his words. The place had been smashed. Overturned sample containers littered the floor. Powerful computers, lab equipment, analysis gear that Beth couldn’t even remember the name of, all broken and useless. Someone had worked the place over with incredible thoroughness. She wondered what had happened to the samples they’d once stored there. Did the Air Force have them, now? Or were they still buried in the rubble littering the floor?

It hurt, seeing the place like this. Beth wasn’t sure whether to cry or want to break someone for having done this to her home. A gentle hand fell on her shoulder.

“Andy will get the place fixed up again,” Charline said. “It’ll be as good as new, with a little time and sweat.”

Beth looked up at her friend and smiled. “Thank you.”

She meant the thanks, but inside Beth knew that this place was never going to be home for her again. Too much had happened out there. The memories of seeing her friends fall, one after another. The guilt she felt from her flight with the ship, the last ditch effort to keep it out of the hands of whoever was attacking them, still burned in her heart. Sure, she’d gotten them free again. But then they’d lost John. If they’d all been together from the very beginning of the Naga attack maybe things would have gone differently.

“Nothing here,” Ayala said. “Moving on to Caraway’s office now.”

Beth observed through his camera as Ayala stepped inside. The massive wall-length screen that John had always been so proud of was dark, the glass broken. His desk was destroyed. A real mess. Ayala panned across the room. Something caught Beth’s eye.

“Major, can you swing your camera back over the desk?” she asked.

“What’s left of it, you mean?” he replied. “Sure.”

The view swept back slowly over the ruined hardwood panels. Beth sucked in a sharp breath. There it was - what she thought she’d spotted before.

“You seeing that too?” he said.

“Yes,” she replied.

Most of the desk top remained intact. But there were deep slashes cut into the wood. They looked precisely like the cuts out in the hall. What the hell could have done that? The cuts were half a meter to a meter long, and in some places were an inch or more deep into the hardwood surface.

“Got something else for you,” Ayala said. He leaned in close to the desk. Near one of the cuts was a discoloration on the wood, like a stain.

“What is that?” Beth asked.

“Some sort of residue,” Ayala replied. He grabbed a sliver of wood from the floor and touched the stain. It moved a little when he touched it, like half-dried chewing gum. “I’m getting a sample.”

“Be careful. I’m thinking you don’t want that stuff on you,” Beth said.

“No kidding,” he replied. He carefully eased away a fragment of the goo onto the stick, and then placed the entire thing into a specimen bag, then sealed it.

“I think it’s time to head back,” Ayala said. “We’ve made no contact with the repair team on this level, and we’ll want more personnel to sweep the upper levels. Plus I want to get this sample analyzed on the ship. Maybe give us some clue about what happened here.”

“Agreed,” Beth said. “But full decontamination procedures when you board. We’re not taking any chances. Good call on wearing the suits.”

“Understood and agreed. We’ll be back shortly,” Ayala replied.

Beth leaned back in her chair, thinking hard. What had happened up here, after everyone had left and the lights went out? Was it the Naga, who might even now be hiding out in some upper level, waiting for the right moment to pounce and take the ship? Or had they run into something else? Something new? A shiver ran down her spine at the thought.

ELEVEN

Dan eased himself out of the cockpit slowly, letting the adrenaline fade from his system. It had been a long time since he’d landed a plane on an aircraft carrier, and he’d only done it a few times at all. Landing the F-50 on the ship’s flight deck, at night, in a high wind? It had been an adventure Dan didn’t want to repeat anytime soon. He glanced back at the co-pilot, still in his seat and looking a little green.

“You OK?” Dan asked.

“I will be. Ugh.”

“Sorry about that,” Dan said. He gave the man a wry grin. “Rough landing.”

“You did fine, sir. Not sure I would have made it at all.”

Dan clapped him on the shoulder. “You’d have managed. Go inside and get some coffee. I’m going to go chat with whoever is in charge.”

Flight deck crew met him as soon as he’d stepped clear of the aircraft. “This way, sir! The admiral is waiting for you.”

Dan grimaced. He knew that he’d be dealing with high ranking naval personnel. It made sense that there would be an admiral in charge of a fleet this size. He’d spotted at least twelve ships stationed around the Independence, and there were probably subs nearby that he’d missed in his fly-by. But senior rank meant he’d need to play nicely.

He was ushered into a conference room, where both an admiral and a colonel were waiting for him. Dan wasn’t sure if saluting on board ship was the right move or not, but both men outranked him. He erred on the side of caution and snapped a salute. The admiral stood and returned it.

“Sit down, Colonel,” the admiral said. “Wonderful weather. That was a credible landing you did there.”

“Thanks, sir. Been a while,” Dan said.

“Some coffee to warm you up?”

“Yes, sir. Black, please,” Dan said. He took the offered seat.

The admiral motioned for an aide, who rushed off to fetch a cup. Dan eyed the two men, sitting side by side across the table from him. The admiral’s name tag read Gresham. He was a big black man with a balding pate and curly white hair in a ring just above his ears. He looked no-nonsense in a way that Dan could respect.

The other man’s tag read Martelle. He had well-tanned skin that spoke of spending a lot of time outside. He had short-cropped hair in a high and tight cut, salt and pepper blending across his skull in a scattered pattern. From the look on his face, he wasn't happy at all. Dan couldn’t blame the man. After all, he was being told to put his men under the command of an Air Force officer, and a lower-ranked one at that.

“So you’re the ship’s captain,” Gresham said. It wasn’t a question. Dan had no doubts the admiral had read over his personnel file before he’d arrived.

“Yes, sir. I’m here to help in whatever way I can,” Dan said.

“Here to boss my Marines around, you mean?” Martelle said.

“No.” Dan shook his head. “I don’t think my taking operational control makes any sense at all.”

“That’s uncommonly sensible for a Chair Force officer,” Martelle said with a grunt.

Dan smiled a little at the insult. It wasn’t an uncommon one, and he’d heard it all before. Rivalry between branches of the US military was the norm more than the exception. Some Air Force officers might have taken offense, but Dan knew better. He had little ego wrapped up in his rank. That had been beaten out of him the hard way.

“I don’t know what the deal was that you worked out with General Hereford, but I don’t know your units at all, Colonel. You do. It makes no sense for me to take tactical control of the strike. I assume you are planning an attack?” Dan asked.

“We are,” Gresham said. “Plan is to move in as soon as you arrive and are briefed. We have no idea what we’re going up against, though.”

“If it’s Naga - well, that’s why I’m here,” Dan said. “I’ve fought them before, gentlemen. If they’ve figured out a way to get onto the ship undetected, then they’re probably already working to override the controls we placed over their systems. If they can get the ship running again, we could be in a lot of trouble.”

“I agree with your assessment, which is why we need to engage rapidly,” Gresham replied. “There’s been no indication of an assault. No word from the hundred personnel on board. Not a peep. We got concerned when they didn’t report in. Then more so when we couldn’t raise them.”

“What happened to the team you sent over?” Dan asked. He was sure they’d already tried at least once.

“Something shot the helicopter down,” Colonel Martelle said. “It wasn’t one of the ship’s main guns. Some sort of smaller weapon. But big enough.”

“The Naga have portable cannon,” Dan said. It sounded more and more like it might be some surviving aliens after all. “We need to move fast. How quickly can your men be ready, Colonel?”

“They’re ready now. We have the boarding boats in position. At my word, we can move,” Martelle said.

Dan drummed his fingers on the table. “I think we need to hit them immediately. I can’t help but believe that we're short on time.”

The Satori was on its way to the moon. The Constitution was in orbit but was still mostly disassembled. The Independence wasn’t due for test flights for a while yet - there were still vast areas of the ship which needed repair. But it might fly if it was pushed to do so. The Naga built sturdy vessels. With the Satori away there was little they could do if whoever was aboard decided to run off with the ship. Earth’s attack systems hadn’t been effective against it before. It seemed unlikely they could do much now.

The door burst open. A flushed lieutenant rushed in. “Sir, you’re needed on the bridge, right away!”

“What’s going on?” Gresham asked, rising as he spoke.

Dan held his breath. He had a feeling he already knew the answer.

“It’s the ship, sir. The engines are warming up. They’re getting ready to take off.”

TWELVE

Beth rushed back through the ship to meet Ayala’s team as they returned. She'd ordered the cargo hold to be set up for decontamination. She wasn’t taking any chances, not after they’d run into whatever that residue was. The team’s spacesuits were scoured clean before the green light clicked on the doorway, allowing them to pass.

“Ugh, can’t wait to get this stuff off,” Ayala said as he undid his helmet. “A shower would be nice, too.”

“That can be arranged,” Beth said. “I want to get that sample you found down to the med lab for analysis first, though.”

The ship was too small to have its own science lab. Beth wished that the facility on the base hadn’t been smashed to bits quite so thoroughly. They could have used the machines there to assist in their analysis. But the base lab was wrecked, beyond any reasonable hope of repair. They’d just have to make do with what they had at hand. The Satori’s new medical bay was a steep upgrade from the old ship. Where they’d once had a single bed and roughly the supplies one would expect to see on an ambulance, they now had a lot more.

“Agreed, although I’m not sure it’s going to turn up anything,” Ayala replied. “The stuff was old and pretty dry. For all we know Caraway spilled some coffee during the attack and it grew moldy before it dried out.”

“Ha. John drank his coffee so black that I doubt anything could grow in it,” Beth said. “We’ll know more soon, with any luck.”

“Sure,” Ayala replied.

Beth paused at his noncommittal answer. “What are you thinking, Major?”

“That my team needs a rest, but that I’m putting them back out there again as soon as they’ve had a breather,” he replied. “We need to get the base up and running. We need to scour the rest of it for clues about what happened to the last repair team.”

“Unless we want to relive whatever they experienced, we might want to approach the exploration with a little caution,” Beth said.

“We have the manpower to do both,” Ayala said. “I’ll break my security force into three squads. One can cover our engineering team while they go to work. The other two can scout the base.”

“I want to wait until we have that material analyzed,” Beth said.

Ayala shrugged. He pulled the specimen bag from where he’d stowed it in his space-suit and handed it to her.

“If you want to waste your time messing around with it, go ahead. I’m telling my team to be ready in two hours,” Ayala said. He stared at Beth, hands on his hips, daring her to countermand him.

There it was. He was openly challenging her authority to command the ship. He was as good as telling her that what she wanted didn’t matter, that he was going to do it his way whether she liked it or not. He’d taken a step beyond the insubordination he’d already displayed. Beth opened her mouth to call him out. She was in command here, not him.

“Don’t,” Majel warned in her ear. “He’s alerted security teams to position themselves near engineering and the bridge. If you move against him now, he’ll take the ship and have you locked away faster than you can say ’I told you so.’ Wait for a better time.”

Beth maintained the best poker face she could manage. He’d plotted this out. Nearly half the ship’s crew were Ayala’s hand-picked security teams. They would be loyal to him over all else. She wasn’t even military, so he could argue that as the senior ranked Air Force officer he was the one who ought to be in charge. Beth could imagine the rationale: the situation was clearly more dangerous than originally thought. The repair team was likely dead to some unknown menace. Better to have a career officer in charge than some civilian.

The worst of it was, they might be right to think that way. Maybe Ayala was the better choice to lead this mission. Beth would have been happier back on Earth designing new ships for the fleet. It would have been a hell of a lot less annoying, anyway. She shoved those thoughts away with an effort. She’d taken the command. She would do the job to the best of her ability.

“As you say, we should get moving on the search as quickly as possible,” Beth found herself saying. “If any of the lost repair team are still alive, they could be hurt. Dying, even. The more quickly we can get to them, the better.”

Ayala narrowed his eyes. Beth knew the look. He was trying to read her. She kept her face as bland as she could. No sense spilling to him any more information than she had to. Majel had tipped his hand to her. If she didn’t give him an excuse to seize power, then she would still be in at least nominal command.

“Good. I’ll set up a team rotation then,” Ayala said. “If medical gets anything interesting out of that goop, you’ll let me know?”

“You’ll be the first,” Beth replied. She flashed him a smile that was more like bared teeth. Then she took the specimen bag and retreated down the corridor.

She managed to maintain an outward calm, but inside Beth was seething. Ayala had crossed a line. He might feel like he had valid reasons to take over from her, but he wasn’t the person Hereford had placed in command. She wasn’t going to stand there and let him walk all over her.

Beth reached the medical lab still fuming. The doors parted for her and she stalked inside. The bay was still not especially large. It contained four beds, in two sets of bunks. Equipment and supplies filled most of the rest of the area in a jumbled mess. Beth looked around the place, unable for a moment to tell where one pile of stuff stopped and the next began.

“Injured already?” a heavily accented voice said. “I had heard legends of your ability to pick up wounds, my dear Captain, but this exceeds even my wildest expectations.”

Beth turned toward the voice. She hadn’t noticed the small man until he’d spoken. He was mostly concealed behind a pile of bandages.

“Dr. Saldanha, this place is a mess!” she said.

“That’s what happens when you cram a hospital worth of supplies into a room the size of a very small clinic on four hours notice,” he retorted. But then a smile broke his face like a sunrise, taking all of the harshness away from his tone before. That was like the man. Beth had run into him a few times at the Air Force base on Earth. He sometimes seemed moody and mercurial, but it was just a ruse. The old man had a heart of gold that he let out as often as not.

“You need help getting everything organized?” Beth asked. “I can send some people down to help…”

“No, no people, please. I have two nurses on staff already. I sent them both away. Getting in my way more than helping, they were. Now, how can I help you?”

“Well, I hate to do this, but I’m adding more work for you,” Beth said. “The security team found something strange outside, and I want you to analyze it.”

“Nonsense! This is why I am here. Well, to help patch up scrapes and bumps, yes,” Saldanha said. Then he went on in a conspiratorial whisper. “But I lobbied damned hard for this job. I told them it was this, or I would retire. The General didn’t want me to retire, so he gave me the job.”

“You volunteered?” Beth asked.

“Volunteered? My dear, I fought to be here. To search, to explore, to investigate what lies out there in the black beyond?” he said, smiling. “That is worth more to me than anything else. Yes, give me your sample. I’ll make it my first priority.”

“Thanks, Doctor. I have a hunch…” Beth said.

“Yes?”

“Just a gut feeling. That this is important.” Somehow, that just sounded right. She handed the bag over to the man, who took it from her hands carefully.

“I will work on it immediately,” he said. “And inform you the moment I learn anything at all.”

THIRTEEN

By the time Beth returned to the bridge, Ayala was already there. At least he wasn’t sitting in her seat, this time. He was at his own station, staring at something on the monitor. He had a headset on, so she couldn’t hear what he was listening to, and his own words were pitched low enough that they didn’t carry. She walked up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He jumped a little at the contact. Beth hid a smile at his reaction.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I’ve got twenty security people out there. Ten of them are escorting our engineer team to the auxiliary power station,” Ayala said. “I thought making sure that the lights were going to stay on would be a good first step in making the repairs happen.”

“Makes sense,” Beth said. Of course, she hadn’t authorized the engineering team be sent out at all. He’d gone and done that without even asking her. “I thought we were going to focus on search parties, though?”

“It’ll be difficult to search if the secondary power system cuts out, and we have the personnel to do both,” he replied. “That’s what these teams are doing. Level by level sweep. Five people to a fire team.”

“That’s a lot of ground for two teams to cover,” Beth said.

“Have to start somewhere. I’ve got ten more people here on the ship I can send out after they’ve rested a bit,” he said. “Any results from that sample?”

“Not yet.”

“Keep me informed of the progress of your teams,” she said. Then she returned to her seat and pulled up her own screen. She didn’t trust Ayala to keep her in the loop. She was fairly sure he was intentionally leaving her in the dark on more than a few things. But it wasn’t hard to punch up her own display to track his peoples’ movement.

“Charline is out there with the engineering team,” Majel said in Beth’s ear.

Beth froze. Charline was her friend. She was Majel’s friend, too. That upped the stakes more than a little. There was no way she was going to allow anything to happen to Charline. And it was about time she asserted some actual authority around this place.

“Majel, I’m going to need your help tweaking a few things around here,” Beth said softly.

“By tweaking, you mean..?”

“I think it’s time we made it clear who is actually in charge of this mission. Ayala’s putting lives at risk out there - Charline’s, and others too. It’s time to put an end to it,” Beth said.

“I’m with you,” Majel replied. “What do you need me to do?”

A few whispers later and they had the bare bones of a plan. If only they had the time to implement it. Beth glanced back at her monitor. The engineering team was in place around the main auxiliary power relay. They seemed to be doing something or other there. She tapped into the conversation briefly. The room was badly slashed up, and they’d found something even more disturbing - blood, splashed on the floor and one wall.

It might have been from the initial attack on the base. Some injuries had been sustained on both sides during the fighting. Or the blood might have been from one of the missing repair crew. There was no way to tell without bringing back a sample to check for DNA. They had a bit of the blood bagged and would bring it back to the ship when they finished the repairs.

“Beth, Fireteam Two hasn’t moved for forty-four seconds,” Majel said.

Beth tapped her screen, bringing the dots of the five team members into view. They were on the factory floor, where the base’s big 3D printer was set up. Most of the panels, furniture, and other simple items around the base were manufactured there from fiberglass printed out of lunar silicon. Once the printer spat something out, other machines on the factory floor were used to shape and refine the item or combine it with other printed elements.

Beth had spent a lot of time on that level. Most of the space was one big room, filled with tables and power tools. With the lights only running at half power, the area would be dark. Pools of shadow would fill half of the level. It was not the sort of place she thought any security detail would want to linger. She scrolled back over her video feed, checking the last two minutes. They’d been moving steadily across the space. Then they jerked in place for a moment and froze there. What were they up to?

“When’s their next check-in?” she asked.

“Three more minutes,” Majel replied.

Too long. She wasn’t going to wait.

“Raise them on my comm channel,” she told Majel.

“Patching you through.”

“Team Two, this is Captain Wynn. What is your status?”

There was no response over her radio. “Team Two, respond immediately.”

Still nothing.

“What are you doing, interfering with my security details?” Ayala asked. She’d raised her voice enough on the second attempt to reach them that he’d overheard her.

“Team two isn’t moving, and they’re not responding to my radio signals,” she replied.

Ayala glanced back at his board and tapped the screen. He touched it again, and his eyes grew wide. “Team two, respond.”

Still nothing. The red dots hovered there on her screen. Beth willed them to move, to speak over their radios, even to click a microphone to let her know they were alive. But deep down she knew they were not. Something had happened to them. Those five people were dead. They’d been killed without even the time to pass along a warning. Whatever had struck them had come in fast, deadly, and without notice.

One red dot moved on her screen. It traveled slowly at first, but then picked up speed to about the pace of a fast walk.

“One of them is moving again,” Ayala said. He'd seen the dot move too. “That’s Sergeant Drummas. Sergeant, come in. What’s going on down there?”

Beth watched the dot moving along. Drummas was backtracking the way he’d come, following the same trail the security team had used to get there. Unless she was wrong, he was following precisely the same path.

“Majel, how close is the sergeant’s movement to the team’s progress going out?” Beth asked.

“Precisely the same. Step for step identical,” the AI replied.

“Ayala, that’s not Drummas,” Beth said.

“It’s his tracker,” Ayala said.

“It’s just his tracker. Where are the tracking devices stored?” she asked.

“With the radio headset. In their helmets.”

Beth swallowed hard, shoving aside the image that brought to mind. She’d seen horrible things before. She’d probably see worse in time. “Drummas is dead. They’re all dead. Whatever is out there ate his tracker, and now it’s following their back-trail. Looking for more tasty tidbits is my guess.”

“The tracker is headed directly toward the engineering team,” Majel said.

Whatever was out there had torn through five fighting men so quickly that they hadn’t even been able to use their radios to pass a warning. They must have been killed in seconds. She checked the ten guards stationed as guards out there. There weren’t enough of them, and they were spread far too thin.

“Majel, warn them they’re about to have company. I’m going down to the cargo bay to arm up,” Beth said.

“Where do you think you are going?” Ayala asked.

“Out there. To rescue my people. Who you put in danger through your reckless and unauthorized actions,” she replied.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Captain,” he replied. He crossed his arms over his chest. “You should stay here and leave the combat for the professionals.”

Beth closed the distance between them in two steps. Her hand flashed out, palm taking him in the face. She followed up the strike with a knee to the gut. Ayala dropped to the deck, coughing and gasping for air.

“Professional enough for you?” Beth asked. “Foster, you have the ship until I return. If Ayala gives you shit, either shoot him or brig him. I don’t care which.”

She turned and stormed her way through the door. Nobody made a move to stop her. Beth was at a jog before she hit the cargo deck, moving as rapidly as she could through the ship’s levels. She slid down the ladder rungs into the hold. Ayala’s last ten people were already down there. None of them were in space suits, but they had weapons close at hand.

Beth grabbed a rifle and a web-vest full of ammunition. “Saddle up, people! We’ve got wounded and dead out there, and we’re about to have a whole lot more if we don’t get out there to assist them. Move!”

To their credit, none of them asked a single question. They’d been given orders, and they followed them. Beth kept waiting for Ayala to come through the radio, but there was nothing.

“Majel, how’re we doing on that patch for our friend?” she asked.

“Major Ayala has been cut from the radio net, and I’ve removed his access to the Satori’s systems per your orders,” Majel replied in her ear. “He can’t use the computers, and his voice literally won’t be heard over the radios. The algorithm I used will remove anything he says while the message is translated to digital audio for transmission.”

“Good, thanks,” she replied. She knew her problems with Ayala weren’t over yet. The man would find a way to fight back, she was sure of it. But for now, he was out of her way so that she could save the people stuck outside the ship. That was enough for the moment; dealing with him in a more lasting manner could wait until this crisis was settled.

FOURTEEN

The squad moved down the Satori’s ramp with a practiced ease Beth envied. She was with them, rifle at the ready. But she wondered if she would ever be able to approach going into battle with the cool detachment these men and women displayed. They were like rocks. The idea of her leading them felt like a charade. How it felt to her didn’t matter though. They were following her orders. She was calling the shots. For better or worse.

“Majel, patch me into their squad combat net,” Beth said. She didn’t have a helmet like the others in the squad. That meant no tracking device and no regular radio. But she was still wearing her earpiece.

“Done,” Majel said. “You’re in.”

“Team two was taken out upstairs,” Beth said. She heard a few sharp intakes of breath. They weren’t entirely the rocks they seemed to be. She wondered how many of them had seen real combat. Most of the troops she’d fought alongside against the Naga had been Marines. Even if this security detail had live combat experience, they had seen space combat before. Fighting in the low lunar gravity was going to have implications on everything they did.

“Whatever took out the team is headed for the guards protecting our engineers. They know they have company coming, but they’re too spread out to be effective,” she said. “We need to get in there and support them. Then we’ll see if we can help the injured. Understood?”

“Yes ma’am,” they replied. Then one soldier piped up with a question.

“Ma’am, what are we up against here? Naga?”

“No idea,” she replied. “Might be Naga, but I’ve never seen them take out five men in the space of three breaths. Might be something worse. Welcome to space.”

They didn’t reply. Beth wasn’t sure if that meant they were taking her words, and the threat they were about to face, in stride - or whether they thought she was blowing the danger out of proportion. She hoped it was the former. Whatever they were going up against was deadly. She was pretty sure it had killed all five of the people on the other team, silently and with ruthless speed. Oh, and eaten one of their heads.

She grabbed the rope and began ascending to the upper levels as quickly as she could. The rest of the team shouldered their weapons and took to the ropes as well. Beth kept her eyes locked upward. With their arms slung, they were incredibly vulnerable in the lift shaft. If something was waiting for them in the shadows above, it could be right on top of them before they ever saw it coming.

But nothing attacked. She reached the floor where the engineers were still at work on the auxiliary power grid. The lift doors had already been forced open here. Beth swung her legs over to the floor and grabbed the edge of the doorway. She unslung her rifle as she rounded the corner, already checking the hall for movement. Nothing stirred.

“Majel, where is that thing?” Beth asked.

“The tracker is closing on the first guard now.”

Rifle fire sounded from somewhere up ahead.

“Shit. Move, people!” Beth cried. She took off down the hall at a jog. Three of her security team had reached the level and followed close behind. The rest would have to catch up as quickly as they could. They needed to get in there, now. Another two minutes would be too late.

The gunfire sounded two more times and then stopped. It picked up again, but Beth was sure it was coming from a somewhat different position. She rounded the corner. One more hall and they’d be on top of the power station.

“Tell them we’re coming in!” she said.

“Already done. A lot of confused traffic on their radio,” Majel replied.

She rounded the corner into a scene out of nightmare.

The lights flickered, casting deep shadows with every blink. Their light revealed a spray of blood splashed up across one wall. A body slumped on the floor just below the red mess. No, she corrected herself. It was only most of a body. The person’s arm had been sliced off and cast across the hall to the other side.

“Check his vitals,” she ordered the man immediately behind her. He raced over to find a pulse while another man covered him, but Beth already knew the wounded security guard was dead. There was too much blood everywhere. No one could have survived that. She pressed on down a side hall.

“Halt!” came a voice from ahead.

“Charline?” Beth called, dropping to a crouch.

“Beth? Thank god!”

She brought her people into the power station, where Charline and the rest of her guard detail were covering the terrified engineers. Beth set guards up along the hall outside to watch, but Majel reported that the tracker was moving away again.

“I couldn’t see what it was,” Charline said. “Too much shadow, and it moved too damned fast. It was big, though.”

“Was it the Naga?” Beth asked.

“No,” Charline said, shivering. “Bigger. Bigger than them, bigger than Paul. It cut that man apart without breaking stride, and then it came down the hall at us. We all fired at it, and it ran away.”

“Probably your shooting,” Beth said, flashing her a small smile. Charline had been the best marksman of their old team. Her sharpshooting skills were almost as strong as her computer skills, which was why John had pulled her into the team in the first place. The man hadn’t been stupid about his selection process.

“I hit it. I know I did,” Charline said. “My bullets didn’t stop it.”

“How’s the power?”

“Set for now. It was a mess. Someone from the missing engineering team got it up and running, but barely. We’ve patched their patch, and it should be more stable now,” Charline said.

“Several sections of the base remain underpowered,” Majel said through their earpieces. “I suspect there has been sabotage of the wiring in some parts of the base.”

“Probably our friend out there, whoever he is,” Beth said. “Where is he now?”

“Near where the security team was hit earlier,” Majel said.

Beth pulled her tablet from her pocket and called up the tracking display. A few taps later, and the device was showing her the blinking red icon for the killer. She couldn’t very well go wandering around with a tablet in her hand, though. There was a team of engineers handy. Maybe…?

“Anyone have some duct tape?” she asked.

Three hands raised. Charline’s was one of them. Beth took the roll from her, slung her rifle, and taped the tablet to the inside of her left forearm. She snapped up her rifle again. She could still see the screen while aiming the weapon ahead of her. Good enough.

“All right. Original security team, escort our engineers back to the ship. Lock her down. Set the railguns to cover the elevator shaft,” Beth said. There were only two ways to get into the hangar. One was the elevator. The other was a stairwell that had a coded access panel. She could get through still; even on backup power, the system should still recognize her old access code. But that door was closed for now, and it was reinforced well enough that they’d have plenty of warning before something busted through it.

“My team, with me. We have to check on our people up there. Some of them might still be alive,” Beth said.

“You don’t think any of them are though, do you?” one of her guards asked.

“No. But we owe it to them to try. If they are dead, we can avenge them by killing whatever got them. You with me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They were. She could tell it from the steel in their words. They might have been shocked by the raw savagery of these attacks, but they had her back. They wanted a piece of this thing. Which was more than she could say for herself. All Beth wanted to do was get the ship the hell out of here and come back with a brigade of troops to clean out whatever it was.

But she couldn’t. One thing they’d always done was go back after their people. The one time they’d screwed it up, they had lost Paul. He’d ended up a captive of the Naga, twisted into a monstrous cyborg weapon in their hands. He’d almost killed them more than once. No, she wasn’t going to leave any of her people behind. Not if there was even the smallest chance they were still alive.

Beth took Charline aside quickly before her friend departed for the ship. “Foster is in command right now. I want you to take over when you arrive. Keep things running safely until I get back.”

“Foster? What happened to Ayala?” Charline asked.

“My fist and my knee happened to him,” Beth replied. “He’s going to be lucky if I don’t feed him to whatever this is. Keep an eye on him. Majel locked him out of the ship’s systems, but he might be trouble. More trouble.”

“I will. Be safe out there,” Charline said.

“Hey, it’s me,” Beth said with a shrug.

Charline poked her in the spot on her chest where she’d first been shot, the site still vaguely tender even all this time later. A Naga round had punched right through her. She’d almost died. If it hadn’t been for Dan and Charline, she would have.

“You’re not invincible. Watch yourself, OK? I don’t want to have to patch you up again,” Charline said.

“I’ll do what I can,” Beth said. Like she needed the reminder that she was mortal. She had the scars to prove that, anytime she wanted to look at herself in the mirror. “Let’s go, people! There’s a monster out there to kill.”

FIFTEEN

Dan raced across the deck toward the waiting helicopter, hot on Martelle’s heels. The wind was still whipping across the flat surface of the carrier, rain drenching his clothes before he’d crossed half the distance. He ran on anyway. This assault had to launch now, before the Independence was able to get airborne. If it launched, they’d never be able to stop it before it reached orbit.

If the Naga were behind the attack, who knew what sort of trouble they would get up to before someone could stop them? It had to here there, and then.

Martelle whirled as he climbed aboard the chopper. “Sir, I don’t think you want to be on board for this. It’s going to be a rough flight with a fight at the end.”

“Colonel, I’ve fought the Naga more often than almost anyone alive,” Dan shouted back to be heard over the wind and the helicopter’s engine whine. “You need me.”

Martelle made a face, but then he reached out a hand. Dan took it and swung himself aboard, and the Marine officer slammed the door shut behind him. The space inside was filled with a small crew. All of them were armed - rifles, combat armor, even a lone machine gun. More Marines. Dan knew nearly nothing about them or how they operated. He hadn’t been joking when he’d told Martelle that earlier. He was a flyboy; he’d been in one cockpit or another for his entire time in the service.

One of the Marines handed him a rifle. “You know how to use this, sir?”

Dan checked the safety and ran the weapon through a check. It wasn’t the same model Andy had trained all the Satori’s crew to use, but it was close enough.

“I’ll manage,” Dan replied.

“OK, sir. Here - full combat load of magazines,” the Marine said. He tossed over the vest like it was a feather. Dan caught it, and it almost knocked him over. The thing was heavy! He caught himself before he slipped, and thought he saw the Marine give him a little good-natured grin.

Of course these people were ribbing the Air Force officer who thought flying with them was a smart idea. They figured they were babysitting. Dan shook his head. He’d have to show them something different.

Dan scanned the young man’s uniform for name and rank. “It’ll be good to fight alongside Marines again, Corporal Wills.”

“You fought with Marines before, sir? When?” Wills replied. There was a challenge in his voice.

“Who do you think took this ship in the first place, Wills?” Martelle barked. “The Colonel was with the force that captured her. He led the damned charge that took the bridge. Now stop giving him shit. We’re taking off.”

Dan gave Martelle a nod of thanks as he took a seat and popped on a helmet. The engine whine grew louder as it lifted off from the deck, sailing into the air.

“Wasn’t for you, Wynn,” Martelle’s voice came across through an earpiece in the helmet. “These kids need to respect rank and authority. That means all rank.”

Dan found the button to key his microphone. “Thank you anyway, sir.”

“You’re welcome,” the gruff voice replied. “This is a private channel, just you and I. If you need to talk to everyone in the squad, switch to channel five. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Dan peered out at the sea below them. It was hard to pick out everything against the dark ocean, especially with the rain and waves. He thought that he could see some smaller boats making their way toward the Independence. That would be the Marine invasion force. A few squads were crossing over in helicopters like this one, but the bulk of the force would assault at sea level and storm through the airlock doors.

“All units, be advised that we’re detecting power surges inside the ship. We believe they are preparing to lift off. This must be prevented,” the admiral’s voice said through Dan’s earpiece.

Dan turned his attention back to the ship. How many systems did the attackers have on line? The ship had an impressive point defense system. If that was what they were preparing, this entire invading force might be in trouble. Sure enough, he spotted the snub-nosed turrets sliding forth from the housing systems which protected them while they were offline.

“Martelle, call your people back! They’re getting ready to fire on the boats!” Dan said.

“Are you certain?” Martelle snapped, moving to the window. Then he began giving general orders to the entire net. “All units, evasive action! Prepare to take fire!”

The warning came moments too late. One boat exploded in a blast of flame as a Naga force sphere slammed into it. Then another of the attack ships was struck, and a third. The Naga ship wasn’t content with merely hitting the smaller boats, either. It lashed out at the aircraft carrier. Flames exploded across the deck of the mighty ship.

Then the helicopter next to theirs turned into a fireball.

Their carefully planned invasion was turning into a disaster. Multiple turrets from the Independence were pummeling their vessels, even striking the ships on guard further out. More helicopters and troop boats were being blown to bits every second.

“One of those guns is locking us!” the pilots said over the intercom. “Hang on!”

The helicopter dove toward the ship, wind screaming past as the engines strove to push the bird as fast as it could go. Inside the point defense range, they’d be safe. Close to the ship was the place to be, but it meant diving through all of that fire first.

They almost made it. The round that hit them tore across the left side of the helicopter, ripping away the door, door-gunner, and half of the tail. The impact took Dan’s breath away, jolting him in his seat and cracking the side of his helmet against the opposite door. Stars flashed across his vision. The view out the door spun dizzyingly fast. Out of control and burning, they fell through the night straight toward the Naga ship.

SIXTEEN

The team’s movement was deliberate as they ascended the stairs. None of them spoke, using hand and arm signals to communicate with one another. They’d seen what this thing they were hunting was capable of now. They knew what they were going into. This wasn’t going to be pretty, or easy, or clean. If they ran into the thing, odds were not all of them were coming back.

Beth went up the stairs fourth in line. Her rifle was aimed up, tracking each new flight as she climbed. What could this thing be? She’d seen monsters before. Ratlike lizards, genetically engineered by the Naga as bio-weapons. Massive centipedes with jaws a meter long. She supposed there was very little limit to what sort of horror space could throw at them. If there were infinite stars waiting for them, then those stars likely housed an equally infinite array of dangers. But how had this one arrived here?

They’d reached the level where the team had been killed. Officially, they were still using the term ‘lost contact’, but Beth knew better. Those people were dead. The red dot blinking on her tablet still showed the killer’s location. It was on this floor. Not far away - the tracker’s placement showed it at the far side of the main machine workshop.

The team had paused by the door, gathering themselves on the stairwell landing. One had a hand on the doorknob. They looked to Beth for a signal. She was about to order some of these people to their deaths. Beth knew that and wondered which of them would be killed as she glanced from face to face. She would do her best to bring them all back, but that wasn’t always how combat worked. It didn’t matter. This had to be done.

“Go,” she said.

The door flew open. Her soldiers entered, the first two taking sharp corners left and right. The next two went up the middle. Beth followed those two in, the remainder of the team flowing into the room behind them.

It was a big chamber, about the size of a high school gym. They’d built the ceiling a little high, so they could move things around with a small fork-lift if they needed to. The lights didn’t flicker anymore. Charline’s team had done their job on the power station. But not all of the lights were operational, even with full secondary power restored. The absence of lights cast dark pools of shadow in places, darkening a room which had always been a little gloomy even at the best of times.

“Found Drummas,” one of the soldiers ahead of Beth called out. “What’s left of him, anyway.”

Beth reached the spot. She looked down, the flashlight on the barrel of her rifle illuminating the headless body. A patch on his chest with the man’s name was the only way she could identify him, now. She checked her tablet. The thing was still over by the 3D printer. It wasn’t moving.

“Stay sharp!” she called out. “It’s in this room with us.”

She pointed in the direction the tracker said it was. The squad formed up and moved that way, rifles at the ready. If the soldiers were sweating, they were doing an admirable job of not showing it. Some of them covered the way directly ahead as they moved while others aimed their rifles into the shadows above them. Beth didn’t comment. It was a smart precaution. They had no idea what they were up against here, or where it might strike from.

“Got something!” one of the men said.

She stepped forward, skirting between the security detail until she reached the man. He was crouched down beside something on the floor. It took Beth a moment to realize what it was he had found, but she realized it as soon as she looked down at her tracker again. The red blip was right on top of them. The thing on the floor was Drummas’s missing head.

“The tracker’s useless! The thing could be anywhere,” Beth said. “Any of our people still alive here?”

“No, ma’am. They’re all dead,” a woman called out.

“Grab them and let’s go. We don’t leave our dead behind if we can help it. Airman, bag the head,” she told the young man who’d found it. He blanched, but pulled a specimen bag out of his backpack and slid the gross thing inside.

“If you’re not carrying someone, cover those who are. Retreat to the stairwell,” Beth said. She started backing toward the exit herself. It was way past time to go. The thing they were after might be anywhere by now. She had the feeling it was close, though. The hunters had become the hunted.

Gunshots rang out behind her. She whirled, rifle already at her shoulder.

“Shit!” one of the soldiers said. The shooting had stopped, though, and everyone seemed to be in one piece.

She raced to his side. “What’s going on?”

“I picked up Drummas’s feet, ma’am. To get him bagged so we could bring him back,” the man said. He was breathing hard and white as a sheet. “But there was something under him.”

“Under him?” Beth looked down at the body. It lay about where it had been when she’d seen it before. “You sure?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She aimed her rifle at the body. “All right, flip him.”

The man did as she asked. Her flashlight illuminated a patch of greenish gray skin, something moving fast with way too many legs. It darted toward her and she fired on instinct, but the bullets missed. It darted back under Drummas’s body again.

“Oh, my God. That scared the hell out of me,” Beth said with a shaky laugh.

“What was it, ma’am?”

“Lifeform we picked up on an abandoned planet. It’s a baby. Don’t know how it survived, but it must have gotten lose when the labs were wrecked during the attack,” Beth said. She took a deep breath. “It’s harmless, but man oh man, you don’t ever want to meet its mom.”

Something tickled the back of Beth’s brain, memories of running into the twenty foot long centipede-like creature, back on a dusty world. It had limbs like sabers, teeth like daggers, and it was damned near indestructible. They’d barely survived the thing.

“Whoa!” The shout came from a soldier off to her left. “Another one! How many of these little bugs are there, captain?”

Beth froze. She looked down at Drummas’s body again. She could just barely see a little bit of the alien insect sticking out from beneath his arm. The one that had startled her was still there. If her people had just found a second one…

“We only brought one back,” Beth said. “Everyone, drop the bodies. Back away. Get clear, now! We are leaving.”

The radio crackled in her ear, Majel’s voice coming through. “Dr. Saldanha is trying to contact you. He says it is urgent.”

“Put him on,” Beth said. She fished a specimen bag out. If she could catch the little bug, it might be useful.

“Captain, I’ve identified the sample you brought back. It’s blood, but it’s not terrestrial or Naga. Majel’s database confirmed the identity as belonging to an insect life form your team encountered outside the solar system.”

“Thanks, Doctor,” she replied. “I’d more or less come to the same conclusion myself. I’m trying to get you a live sample.”

She slung her rifle and rushed in, snagging the bug in her bag. It tried to dart away, but she scooped it up. It made a loud, high pitched chittering noise as she closed the bag around it. The bug squirmed, trying to get away, but she had it secure.

Beth wasn’t sure how this was even possible. But there was only one logical explanation. Somehow, the bug had not only survived after release. It had thrived and had babies. This wasn’t the bug they’d brought back. This was the next generation. Somewhere out there was the mom - every bit as deadly as the one they’d faced before.

A chill ran down her spine. She was assuming there was only one. How fast did these things grow up? Could there be more than one adult now?

“Back out. Into the stairwell. Move, people,” she said.

They were all rushing backward. Gunshots blazed from one side of the room. There were screams and more shots fired. Flashes of light from the rifles added to the confusion. More screams and shouts. The team was running now, in full retreat. Beth turned to flee as well, running like all the demons of hell were chasing her.

A noise behind her made her stop to look. One of the things descended from the pipes and conduits running along the ceiling. It moved like lightning in physical form, racing along toward her. The airman who’d bagged the head for her earlier stepped in between Beth and the monster, his rifle blazing away. It grabbed him, ignoring the bullets. He screamed as it embraced him with razor sharp talons.

There was nothing she could do for him. She fired anyway, wildly trying to put bullets into the thing. It vanished back into the shadows on the ceiling, carrying its prey along with it. Beth turned back to the stairwell, where two soldiers were waiting for her. Their eyes were wide with fear, but their rifles were ready. Whoever else had survived the attack had already retreated down the stairs toward the ship.

“Come on!” they shouted. “Run for it!”

She ran.

SEVENTEEN

They kept up the same pace down the stairs, all but running away from the thing they’d met in the darkness above. Beth went last, her rifle still aimed back the way they’d come. She couldn’t shake the image of that airman dying to save her. There had been no time to tell him to stop and there was nothing she could have done to keep him alive, but it hurt all the same.

“Majel, warm up the ship’s engines. We’re getting out of here as soon as the teams are all in,” she said.

“Understood,” the AI replied.

This was enough. It was more than enough. They needed heavy weapons to face this monster. They’d get out and come back with an entire army if that was what it took. Walk through this place one floor at a time until they’d tracked it down and killed it. But her people had done all they could without backup. They had already lost too many crew members trying to fight these things.

It still hadn’t pursued them by the time they reached the floor where they’d entered the stairs. Her team was waiting by the elevator shaft, getting ready to rappel down to the ship. They’d fared better than she had hoped. Eight security guards awaited her. They’d only lost two. She’d been afraid it had been much worse than that, and there was no way to tell during the confusion of battle.

“Don’t wait,” she shouted down the hall. “Move! We’re leaving. I’ve got the corridor covered. Go!”

“But-“

“Move! That’s an order,” she said.

Beth positioned herself next to the elevator shaft and waited. Her weapon was trained down the hallway, aimed at the dark stairwell. Any moment now the thing might come streaking out of the shadows there and race toward them. She might be able to scare it off with a few well-placed shots. Delay it long enough for her people to escape. It was the best she could hope for.

She heard the team descending the ropes. The last one tapped her on the shoulder as he grabbed on and started sliding down. “You’re next, ma’am!”

Beth stood to grab the rope.

A flash of movement caught her eye.

The insect stormed from the stairwell, shrieking its fury as soon as it spotted her. Beth fired without thinking, without aiming. Her bullets sprayed across the hall, sparking from the walls and the monster’s carapace. It kept coming.

“No!” she shouted. The rope was in her hand. She slid her legs off the edge, still firing as she swung out into open space. One hand held her rifle while the other held the rope as she half slid, half fell down the shaft. Only the low gravity saved her, but even so Beth could feel her palm burning from the friction. The monster hit the edge of the shaft and came down after her.

She let go of the rope, shifting both hands back to her rifle as she fired one burst after another into the thing. More bullets poured up from below. Her team was shooting as well. Beth hit the ground hard, her legs folding beneath her. Then she was rolling across the floor, rising back up to her feet, and they were running again.

The ship was dead ahead. Just a few more meters and they’d be inside. The monster hit the floor of the elevator shaft and paused for only a moment before giving chase. It would be on them in seconds.

The sonic boom of the railgun round picked Beth up and threw her a dozen feet. More rounds pulsed, the sound deafening. The destruction the shots wreaked on the wall around the shaft was enormous. Each shot was a magnetically propelled chunk of iron, accelerated to massive speed. They smashed with the force of an explosive missile, blasting shrapnel meters in every direction. Beth kept her head down until the fire had stopped, then tried to lift her head.

Everything hurt. Her ears were ringing with a high-pitching whining sound, and she felt dizzy. Beth wondered if she’d been concussed from the fall, or even from the sonic booms themselves. Her people were on the ground all around her, thrown down by the blasts. At least one had been hit by something. He lay bleeding, clutching a wounded leg. She staggered to his side.

“Come on! We need to get to the ship!” Beth shouted. She couldn’t hear her own words and doubted that he could either. But she grabbed his arm, helping him to his feet. She slung one of his arms over her shoulder. He was saying something to her, but she just shook her head. Beth could no more hear him than he could understand her. She hoped the effect was temporary, but dying was a bigger problem.

Beth glanced over her shoulder, looking for the insect. It was nowhere to be seen. The thing was gone. She couldn’t tell if it had been blown to bits or retreated, but there were no chunks of monster bug laying around, so she figured it must have gotten away somehow.

The ramp was down. It was just ahead of them. More security forces were waiting there, weapons at the ready. Some were beckoning Beth onward, encouraging her to move faster. She pumped her legs as hard as she could. Just another meter.

Beth made the ramp. Two medics took the man she was half-carrying and loaded him onto a stretcher. Another grabbed her by the shoulder and shouted something at her. Beth shook her head, pointing to her ears. He nodded and pointed up toward the ship. She couldn’t agree more. It was time to get aboard. But not before her people did.

She looked around, checking to ensure everyone had made it up. They all had. Beth took the ramp slowly, feeling waves of dizziness wash over her again. But she’d made it. They were back, safe. Behind her, the ramp was rising. More people with guns kept their weapons trained on the gap until it had well and truly closed.

“Majel, I can’t hear anything,” Beth said. “I’m hoping you can hear me?”

The tablet still taped to her wrist buzzed. She glanced down at it. The screen was cracked, but the display still worked. Words were printed there.

I can hear you. The ship is ready for takeoff, but there’s a problem.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. The ringing sound was beginning to recede a little. She could hear her own words again, although they sounded dull, like she was hearing them through cotton.

We closed the hangar doors on entry. But something has cut the power to them. I can’t get them to open again.

The something had to be the bug. Had it just gotten lucky? Had it noticed that there was power flowing through a conduit and slashed at it, damaging the power relay? Or had it heard the motors grinding open the hangar doors when they came in, and then sliding them shut again, and damaged the moving parts in some way? She had to think it had acted out of some sort of instinct. Either that, or it was a hell of a lot smarter than they’d given it credit for before.

Beth had no doubt the monster was to blame for the doors malfunction. The thing was easily big and strong enough to slice through delicate machinery with those deadly blades it used for legs.

However it had done the job, they weren’t going to be exiting the base the way they’d gotten in.

Beth found her vision weaving in front of her. Doctor Saldanha was by her side before she could fall to the deck. He scooped her rifle away and placed it against the wall, and took the wiggling specimen bag, handing it to one of his nurses. Then he took Beth by the shoulder and brought her to a seat, where he checked her over quickly for injuries. He said something, but she shook her head. She still couldn’t make out the words. He tapped his ear, and she nodded.

He fished inside an aid bag and pulled out a small syringe, then mimed that she should lean her head to one side. Beth complied, and then jerked as he inserted a needle behind her ear.

“Ow!” she said, pulling away.

He tapped his other ear and again mimed leaning over.

“Ugh, really?” she said. But she did as he asked. She needed her hearing back. The crisis wasn’t over, and if he could get back into fighting shape more rapidly, she’d take the needle sticks. The second one still hurt just as much as the first.

He flashed five fingers to her, then raced off to see to another patient. Five what? Five hours? Five minutes? Was that how long it would take for the medication to work?

Beth heard a buzzing sound in her ears. She wasn’t sure what the hell it was. What had he injected her with, anyway? Her tablet buzzed again.

He hit you with nanites to speed the healing process. Your hearing should return in a few minutes.

“You know I hate those things,” Beth groaned. But she could already hear her voice more clearly, so they were working.

Without them, every one of you out there would have suffered permanent hearing damage.

“Good call on the guns, though,” Beth said. It was likely the only thing that had saved them. Half the team or more would have died mere meters from safety if the ship hadn’t fired its main guns when it did.

Beth rose to her feet. The world still tipped a little, but she was steady enough to walk. A quick glance told her that the medical teams had the injured team members well in hand. Her place was on the bridge. Still wobbly, Beth started off down the hall in that direction.

EIGHTEEN

The bridge was noisy chaos when Beth arrived. Her ears were still ringing a little, and she swore that she could feel the nanites crawling around inside them. She hated the idea of having little robots working away inside her. A dose of military grade nanites had saved her life, once. Beth knew these ones would get her hearing back in working order quickly. But that didn’t mean she had to enjoy the experience.

“We wait for the captain,” Foster said.

“Call Earth right now, Lieutenant, or I will make sure your next posting is…” Ayala replied.

“Is where?” Beth cut in. “Wherever he ends up, I think it will likely be better than this place.”

Foster gave a shaky laugh. “No doubt. Glad you’re OK, ma’am. Good to have you back.”

“We need to contact Earth. We have a problem,” Ayala said.

“I’d say we have several problems. The biggest of which is that thing out there,” Charline muttered.

She’d never run into the insects. Charline had been in space at the time, orbiting the planet on the Satori and risking her life to hack a Naga satellite. All she had were the second-hand accounts from the crew who had been on the ground, but those stories had been scary enough.

Beth waved her hand in a slashing motion. Time to cut through the nonsense. “The doors won’t open. I heard. It’s OK. We jump out of the hangar. I’ve done it before - a straight jump right from the floor. The wormhole may tear the place up a little bit, but we’ll get clear. Jump out of the system, then jump back.”

“We can’t jump,” Majel said.

Beth stopped speaking at her words and looked at Charline, who shrugged.

“That was what I suggested too, and she told me the same thing,” Charline said.

“Majel, why can’t we jump?” Beth asked slowly.

“Because we are deep inside a gravity well, and I do not have enough data on how this ship will jump to ensure that we don’t all end up inside a solid object,” Majel said.

Beth chewed on that thought for a moment. It was more of the same sort of thing Majel had been saying before. The computer was scared of jumping, or that’s what it sounded like. Which was astounding and marvelous all by itself, but wasn’t particularly useful when they were trapped at the bottom of a base overrun by deadly monsters. She didn’t know how long it took for the things to mature, but there was a batch of young ones up and about. They would grow up sooner or later, and then the problems would only multiply.

“What about cutting our way out, using the wormhole to slice apart the hangar doors?” Foster asked. When everyone in the room looked at him, he flushed and ducked his head. “I read the reports. That you used the wormhole drive as a weapon before. Would it work here?”

“No,” Majel replied before anyone else could speak. “There’s always a risk that the ship will slip into a wormhole when it’s made. We can’t use the drive at all until we run more tests on how it will work with this ship.”

“What about the railguns?” Charline asked. “Could we use them to blast through?”

“Only if we wanted to bring the entire place down on our heads,” Ayala replied. “It was risky enough firing them in here, where there is heavy structural support for the walls and ceiling. Out there in the tunnel? We’d probably end up crushed.”

“Ayala is right,” Beth said. She spared him a small smile, the irony of her agreeing with him not lost on either of them. “The railguns won’t work.”

“Can we use the wormhole without Majel’s support?” he asked.

There was a long moment of silence. The absence of Majel speaking out about the notion was weighty in the suddenly quiet room. If the AI was truly frightened of the idea, Beth had to squash it fast. The last thing they needed was Majel deciding to do something to ensure they couldn’t fire up the wormhole device without her. Beth was pretty sure that she could make it work, in a pinch. But she was loath to do that to Majel if there was any other way.

“I think that’s a bad idea, given the situation,” Beth said. “If Majel is worried about using it, then she has good reason to be. We ought to trust her instincts regarding her ‘body’, and find another way to deal with this. We need to contact Earth.”

“Which was what I was saying when you came in,” Ayala said with a sigh.

“I can connect us to the base transmitter. It’s functioning again, now that the auxiliary power is fully operational again,” Majel said.

“Do it. Ayala and I will take the call from the conference room,” Beth said. “If you’ll come with me, Major?”

Beth stepped away from the bridge, already knowing the man would follow her out. He had way too much on the line to back away now. He’d laid out his chips on the table, and she’d roasted him for it. Now the bigger question was what he would do during this call. Would he tell Hereford that she’d hit him?

She didn’t think so. Ayala was too proud to go telling his superior officer that he let a non-military woman get the drop on him. But he’d wanted this call, which might mean he had something planned. A bit of information that would convince the general to hand command over to him, perhaps? Something that would shift the balance of power away from her?

Beth held the door for him. He passed her with a nod and took a seat at the table. She closed the door and walked to the opposite side, still standing, and placed both her palms flat on the surface. It was time to find out if she could still work with this man, or if he’d become an enemy. She couldn’t afford to let him run around loose if the latter was the case. There was too much at stake.

Ayala rubbed his jaw. “You’ve got a strong arm.”

“I weld plates onto starships for a living,” she replied.

“You also did a good job out there with the men. I wouldn’t have expected expert tactical command from an engineer,” he said.

Beth sighed, running her hands through her hair. “Expert? I lost two people out there. If I’d been a little more expert, maybe I would have brought them all home.”

“You need to get over that and fast. You’re going to lose people in combat,” he pointed out.

“I’ve done it before. I don’t know that it gets easier with time,” Beth said.

“It doesn’t.”

“Good to know. Major - that shit you pulled before…”

He held up both palms in her direction in a gesture of surrender. “I was wrong. I apologize. I saw a hostile, dangerous situation. And a captain who was a civilian, inexperienced in combat. I wanted to make sure my people lived through this. I’ve had crappy civilians get men killed more times than I can count.”

Beth blinked, surprised. She’d expected hostility. Or some sort of subversive verbal sparring. Instead, he was open and apologetic. Was he for real, or was this another trick? She slid into a seat.

“What changed your mind?” she asked.

“I couldn’t speak over the radio, but I listened to all of the exchanges. You took command out there. You gave pretty much the same orders I would have, and you looked out for my - our - people well,” Ayala said. “Plus, when you were knocked senseless by the railguns you didn’t go running back to the ship. You made sure all of your people got safely there.”

“That’s just what anyone would have done,” Beth said.

“No. Trust me, it's not. I’ve seen veterans freak out and bolt when facing odds nowhere near as dangerous as you just did. That took guts.”

Beth leaned back in her seat, trying to assimilate this information. She couldn’t quite match the old Major with this new man. His attitude seemed entirely different. Had that been it, all along? He’d just felt like she was a threat to the ship, the mission, and the people he commanded? All it had taken was her almost dying to change his mind about her?

“You tried to take over command of my ship,” she said.

“You hit me in the face,” he replied with a wry grin. “Oh, and the knee to the solar plexus hurt, too.”

Beth chuckled at the memory. “I’m not always the best at keeping my temper.”

“So I see. I’ll try to remember that next time. Assuming there is a next time,” Ayala said. He paused, then went on. “Do you still want me as your second in command?”

Beth chewed on that one for a moment, letting the man stew. In the end, there wasn’t much choice. He had more field experience than her, but he was probably the only one on the ship who did. She had direct experience dealing with this particular monster in the past, but he’d been in more firefights than she had. If they ended up in another fight, his experience would be invaluable. If she could trust him. If he wouldn’t try something again.

“All right,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Yes. But if you try anything like that again…”

“You’ll space me?” he said. But there was the twinkle of a smile in his eyes.

“Better believe it,” she growled.

“Oh, I do. Shall we call Earth?”

Beth slid her chair over to sit alongside him. She’d watch him like a hawk. But they had a much better chance of surviving this mess and bringing their people home safely if they worked together.

“Majel, raise General Hereford on the radio,” Beth said.

NINETEEN

The helicopter skipped across the smooth metal of the spaceship’s top. Once, twice, it bounced. Each impact slammed Dan back into his seat. His ears were ringing. He could taste blood in his mouth, and stars flashed in front of his eyes. What remained of the tail cracked off entirely. Dan watched it go spinning away into the night.

Then they slammed down a third time, harder than the other impacts. The helicopter crashed into something and stopped moving. The force of the impact was hard enough that Dan thought he might have blacked out for a moment. He woke to the smell of something burning and opened his eyes. All around him was smoke. The smashed bird was in ruins. Marines were shouting all around him.

He still had his rifle. Shifting the weapon to his left hand, he undid the buckles holding him in place with the other. The plan had been blown to hell. Literally, in this case. Explosions from outside punctuated the air, telling him the battle was still raging. He thought it was more likely to be a massacre than a battle. Those boats had no defense against cannon designed to blast missiles moving at thousands of miles per hour. They were sitting ducks.

Dan stood and went to the open side of the helicopter. Someone moaned on the floor beside him. He stopped and checked the man - it was Martelle! He was bleeding from his forehead, which might mean concussion or worse. It wasn’t a great idea to move him, but there was no choice. The cockpit of the helicopter was awash with flames, and they were spreading.

“I’ve got you, Colonel,” Dan said. He slid an arm under the man’s shoulders and helped him to his feet. Staggering under the extra load, still dizzy from the impacts, Dan made his way to the open door and got clear.

More men were moving through the night around him, all hurrying away from the vehicle. A few moments later it exploded - something inside had finally heated up to the point where it just went off. Missiles, grenades, whatever it was didn’t matter. The force of the blast slapped Dan in the back like an enormous hand, tossing him to the deck in front of him.

There was more blood. He’d cut his own head on something, and it washed over his vision for a moment before he wiped it away. Dan didn’t think his ears were ever going to stop ringing. He stood up unsteadily. From this vantage point Dan had a clear view around the ship, the sloping hull dropping away on all sides. Fires dotted the ocean in every direction that he could see, the remains of the landing boats. In the distance the carrier’s deck still burned. Help wasn’t coming from that vector.

“We have to move,” Dan said. He looked around. Only three other Marines had made it off the helicopter.

“Yeah? You got any ideas on how we do that, sir?” Wills said.

“Same way we did it last time. We force an airlock,” Dan said.

“I think we need to wait for the Colonel to come to,” another Marine said.

“In a few minutes whoever is inside this thing is going to take off, and we do not want to be outside when that happens,” Dan said.

“I’m fine,” Martelle grumbled. The Marine colonel was clearly not fine. Blood still ran down the side of his head. But he forced himself to his feet anyway. “Wynn is right. Where’s the nearest airlock?”

“This way,” Dan said. He started toward the bow of the ship.

All at once the vessel began rumbling beneath their feet. The rumbling picked up in volume, vibrating the metal plating.

“What the hell is that?” Wills asked.

“They’re getting ready to take off, jackass,” Martelle said. “Move it!”

They double-timed to the airlock, following Dan’s lead. He kept his rifle up and ready as he ran. There was no way to know how many adversaries they faced. It might be a handful, or it could be dozens. If they’d seen the helicopter crash, they might send someone to check for survivors.

But no one intercepted them, and they made the airlock safely. The engine rumbling had turned into a roar. All at once the ship lurched. Dan had a sense of movement. Sure enough, he looked over the side and saw the ocean dropping away beneath them. They were rocketing skyward, accelerating rapidly. The air turned into a steady wind, picking up as the ship continued to ascend faster.

“Not much time!” Dan shouted over the roar. They could still breathe - for now. But whether the ship accelerated to a speed where the wind killed them, or maintained a sedate pace until it was too thin to breathe was academic. If they didn’t move, they were going to die.

The palm lock they’d installed on all the airlocks was still lit up. It was a human system, not entirely interfaced with the Naga machines. It was possible that it might still work, and as captain his palm print should already have been keyed in. Dan crossed his fingers mentally and laid his hand on the screen.

The outer doors slid open.

“Move!” Martelle shouted. “Take the hall! Security points in both directions, soon as we’re in. Go!”

The Marines did as he bid, rushing into the airlock space. Dan and Martelle stepped inside as well, and then Dan placed his palm on the inner lock screen. The door behind them snapped shut, cutting off the roar of the howling winds outside. There was a pause for a few dreadful moments where Dan worried that it had been a trap after all, that the system wasn’t going to work, and they’d end up stuck between these doors.

Then a green light blinked on, showing that the pressure had equalized, and the inner door slid open as well.

The Marines spilled out into the hallways beyond. They moved with brutal purpose, silent and deadly as they set about their movement into the ship with practiced ease. Dan knew they had to be frightened. He certainly was. But none of the men showed it.

He spared a glance over his shoulder, looking out through the airlock window. Clouds were rushing past outside. Another minute or so and they’d be in space. Aboard a Naga vessel under the control of some party who definitely meant them harm. Yes, there was excellent reason to be afraid.

TWENTY

Hereford’s face looked grim on the viewscreeen. The call was complicated by the short lag between locations. The moon was far enough away that there was about a one and a half second transmission time between when the signal left one side and when it arrived at the other. It made for maddening conversations if you weren’t very careful with how you spoke. Hereford had simply sat still, listening, while Beth and Ayala filled him in on the situation. The look on his face had grown increasingly grim as they’d briefed him.

Ayala left out the part about Beth slugging him. She’d left out his insubordination in return. They were going to need to work together to get through this crisis, which meant leaving some of the difficulties they’d had so far behind. For the moment, at least. Once the current mess was over, it was hard to say what they’d do next.

“You’re going to have to figure this out for yourselves. For the moment, at least. We are having issues on our end, too,” Hereford said.

“What’s going on?” Beth asked.

“Problems with the main engines on the Constitution. We're having difficulties integrating them with the new computer control systems. Nothing serious, but it means a delay of at least a week,” Hereford replied. “The Independence is another story. We’ve lost contact with the crew.”

“All of them?” Beth asked, aghast. How was that possible?

“We suspect possible Naga involvement. We were worried they might have hit both the moon and the Independence at the same time; the timing was suspect. The good news is, your report shows us otherwise.”

“Shit. You need us back there?” Beth asked. They’d blast their way out if they had to. Or risk the wormhole jump. Something, anything; if Earth was in danger from the Naga again, they might need the Satori.

“Negative. Colonel Wynn is there to take charge and resolve the problem. I have every confidence he’ll manage it. He’s got a regiment of Marines at his back. Long story short though, I don’t know when those ships will be ready to head your way. And we don’t have any other ships. Everything Earth had, we threw at the Naga during their assault.”

Beth knew that wasn’t quite true. There were a few fighters remaining, as well. Those might be needed back on Earth if the Naga were after the Independence, though. Beth remembered that desperate final attack on the Naga battleships. Earth had thrown every ship, every shuttle, every fighter, and almost every rocket or missile they had which was capable of reaching high orbit. She’d been hoping one of the converted ships might be able to get them in time to assist. The Naga cruisers were large enough to carry a massive number of ground troops. Enough to storm this base and ferret the monster out wherever it hid. Now even that hope was dashed.

“When can you get out to us?” Ayala asked.

“Days? A week? Maybe longer. I don’t know, so I can’t give you a good estimate,” Hereford said.

“You want us to try to jump out?” the major asked.

“If Majel says that it’s too risky, then she probably has good reason,” Hereford said. “No, you have two options. Sit tight, and hope the thing doesn’t come after you. Or go hunt the monster down.”

“I don’t think we can count on it staying peacefully far away,” Beth said. “Worse, I don’t know how long we have until those little ones grow up into much bigger problems.”

“Then you know what you have to do,” Hereford said. “I know you don’t have as many troops as you’d like for this mission. But you’re just going to have to hunt the thing down, and kill it.”

“Easier said than done,” Beth said with a hollow chuckle.

There was a sudden babble of voices in the background, Earth-side. Something was going on there, and it didn’t sound good. Beth hoped that Dan was OK, but she had confidence in him. She knew the man. He’d solve whatever problem they were having.

“Got to go see what that’s about. Best of luck. Keep me updated, and good hunting,” Hereford said. Then he closed the connection, his image winking out. The screen went black.

Beth leaned back in her chair. This wasn’t the news she was hoping for. She wanted the cavalry to come in and rescue them. She wanted a Marine combat division or whatever Marines had. Drop enough troops into this place, and that thing would be good as dead. With what they had on hand? The outcome was much more in question.

“Well, we’ve been given our marching orders,” Ayala said.

“We have. The bigger question is, what are we going to do about it?” Beth asked.

“You should stay here. You know the ship, you know the base. From the bridge, you can coordinate our search and best lead the strike teams,” Ayala said.

“Still trying to keep me out of harm’s way?”

“No, just suggesting how we best use your skills,” he replied. “You’re the ship’s captain. You shouldn’t be out where that thing can kill you. If it takes both of us out…”

“Then we have Charline take over. Or Foster. Or someone else,” she replied.

“Yeah, but I think all our odds are better if one of us is in charge,” Ayala said.

He wasn’t wrong. Charline would be a poor pick to run things for a variety of reasons, but most of all because she’d never had to run large groups of people before. She knew how to shoot, and she knew how to manage computer systems. People were something else altogether. Foster might be a decent kid, but he was still a kid not two years out of the Academy. He didn’t have the experience for something like this either.

Beth hated the idea of staying back where it was safe while her people went out and risked themselves, but there wasn’t much choice. She thought for long moments for another way. There ought to be some reason to keep Ayala behind while Beth went out with the teams. But she’d do her best work from where she could coordinate all of the teams and not worry about whether something was about to eat her.

Or was that just her fear talking? Was she simply too scared to go back outside the ship? Did Ayala’s suggestions make sense because they were the best move, or because they were the easy way out? Beth didn’t know the answer, and that bothered her more than she wanted to admit. She drummed her fingers on the table another moment before replying.

“All right. Get your people rested, first. I don’t think the thing is likely to assault the ship anytime soon. We scared it pretty well with the railguns,” Beth said. “We’ll keep a watch from the bridge, but get most of the crew some sleep and food.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ayala said. “Majel, any ideas on how to hunt the thing down?”

That surprised Beth. Partly because Ayala was bothering to ask Majel at all. Most of the crew wasn’t used to the idea of having an AI crew-member who they could ask things. Ayala did more than just ask, though. He took the time to look directly at one of Majel’s cameras like Foster had at the launch. He’d been watching, then. He’d seen how the AI had responded favorably to Foster’s method, and now he was doing the same. Whether it was out of respect and courtesy or simply a desire to work optimally with the AI, Beth couldn’t say. But it didn’t matter all that much in the end. Ayala was demonstrating that Majel’s contributions mattered to him, and that was going to help them all out.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” she replied. “While you were talking with General Hereford I’ve been monitoring the tracking devices on the fallen soldiers above in the base.”

Beth grimaced. She’d hated leaving them behind. The smaller bugs had to be eating them, and that was no fate for a fallen soldier. She wanted them brought back to the ship and laid properly to rest. But there’d been no choice at the time. They had to flee or die. Ayala saw her face and flashed her a sympathetic smile.

“The tracking devices have moved,” Majel went on to say.

“What do you mean, moved?” Beth said.

The screen they’d used to speak with Hereford flashed in front of them, displaying a schematic of the base. Specifically, the level of the base with the 3D printer, where they’d been attacked.

“This was immediately after you fled the level,” Majel said.

Then the screen updated. One of the red blips showing a tracking device moved. It went from the floor over to the stairwell. At first Beth thought they’d been wrong, and one of the soldiers had survived. But she knew that hadn’t been the case. Her soldiers had checked all of the fallen. None of them had lived through the attack.

The blip traveled up the stairs instead of down. It ascended two levels and then veered off down a main hall. Once it reached a room at the end of the corridor, it stopped moving.

“Where is that?” Ayala asked.

“Hydroponics,” Beth replied. “Growing green stuff, plenty of water. I should have figured. When we first met these creatures, it was in an underground cavern dotted with pools of water. The hydroponics lab would feel comforting to them.”

“All of the bodies were moved down to that spot,” Majel said. She fast forwarded through the video, showing two more blips moving down at the same time. Was the creature carrying more than one of them? Or were there more than one of the monsters already full grown?

“Can you get video feed from any of those halls?” Beth asked.

“No, the cameras are all out of order,” Majel said. “Likely smashed by the things. There’s no video from the hydroponics room, either.”

Beth watched the feed as the last two bodies also went down together. She felt a sinking feeling in her gut. Those had looked like they were moving at the same time, from opposite ends of the first room.

“I think we have two of the things,” she said.

“Two?” Ayala asked.

“Majel, replay the last two minutes,” Beth said.

Majel complied, and Beth pointed at the screen. “See there? Both bodies are moving.”

“And they’re too far apart for it to be just one of them. Could it be the little ones, like the one you brought back? Enough of them together might be able to carry someone.”

“Maybe,” Beth said. “But I wouldn’t count on it.”

TWENTY-ONE

Beth slept fitfully for only a few hours before she hauled herself out of bed, giving it up as a bad effort. There was too much to do. She could sleep after this was all over. She hauled herself down to the galley instead, grabbing coffee and a sandwich from the cooks there and sat down at a table. A few other crew were downing a quick meal as well. Most of them huddled in a group around a single table.

She sipped coffee, trying vainly to put what they were about to do out of her mind. One of the things was bad enough. Two of them, though? She didn’t see how they could overcome two of the monsters. And if there were two, who said there couldn’t be more than that? It was borrowing trouble to worry about more than two - after all, they only had evidence of two, and it was inconclusive at best. Maybe Ayala was right, and the bodies had all been moved by the smaller, larval insects.

That would imply things were going well and everything was going to smoothly follow their plans. In Beth’s experience, that pretty much never happened when it came to space. She’d learned to always expect something to go sideways, because something almost always did.

“Ma’am?”

Beth looked up at the voice, startled. She set down the mug she’d been sipping from. The man standing in front of her was a young airman. He was walking with crutches, and one of his legs was heavily bandaged. More gauze covered his left hand, and he moved with the stiffness that implied pain. She recognized him almost immediately. It was the soldier she’d hauled from the deck up onto the ramp.

“Yes? Did you need something?” she asked.

He flushed, looked away for a second, and then back at her. “Yes, ma’am. I mean, no, ma’am. I just wanted to thank you,” he said.

“Thank me?” she asked. She’d led them all into a battle that they couldn’t win, against a monster that had killed two of their people outright. Beth didn’t think there was very much she’d done right in the engagement, no matter what Ayala said.

“For saving me, ma’am,” he said. “The others were all running. You stopped and brought me in. You held the rear guard against that thing, too. Shot at it while the rest of us were running for our lives down the elevator shaft.”

Beth blinked. She had done that. It hadn’t seemed like courage at the time. It was just what needed doing. That was how she’d always done things. Whatever it was that needed to happen, that’s what she had done.

“None of us had the courage to stand and face that thing like you did, ma’am,” he said. “But we won’t let you down. I wanted you to know. The others and I…we talked. I won’t be going out on this mission. Because of my leg. But the others are honored to be on this ship, and they won’t fail you. That was all, ma’am.”

Then he snapped her a salute. She returned it, clumsily. Was she supposed to salute? Did civilians salute, if they commanded regular troops? She had no idea what the protocols were supposed to be. Hell, they were making up the rules as they went along out there, anyway. There was probably nothing in the old Air Force manuals about how to deal with bug-eyed alien monsters, no matter what the conspiracy theorists might think.

The soldier limped away on his crutches, leaving Beth alone with her coffee to think. There had to be more she could do for these people. She was sending them out into harm’s way. There ought to be some way to help even the balance of power.

The new Satori had a workshop. It wasn’t a full-fledged machine shop, but it was close. The place had enough tools to fabricate most of the things they might need to do on the fly repairs to the ship. It might have something that could help her give these men a leg up in the coming fight, too. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d made something that had turned out to be critically useful to the team.

On the way down, she passed by the armory where a sleepy sergeant was cleaning weapons and getting them ready for the coming battle. She told him that she was checking two out. He sputtered for a minute, especially after she told him which weapons she was taking, but Beth just gave him a look that said she wasn’t in the mood, and he relented pretty quickly.

Sometimes it was good, being the captain.

No one was in the workshop when Beth arrived. She cracked her knuckles, smiling a little. With the place all to herself, she could experiment a little and see what might work. The first thing she did was assess the weapon. It was a P-35 bullpup style rifle, using caseless ammunition. Similar to the weapons they’d used on her early missions, which was helpful. The gun felt natural in her hands. This model was a bit different. It had an under-mounted grenade launcher. Not all of the weapons aboard did. Only about a quarter of them carried the extra tool. You could load up to three small grenades into the magazine and fire them one after another, like a pump action shotgun. It made the rifle a little more unwieldy, but the extra firepower might be critical.

That was the place to start, then. Beth worked at the ammunition for the launcher. It was one of their best bets for damaging the thing. Regular bullets didn’t hurt it much, but explosions at least scared it off. Working carefully, she built some new rounds for the launcher. Using slices of a high-density alloy they usually used to help shield the ship from radiation, she crafted what amounted to big darts. Packed inside a regular grenade, the things would serve like an armor-piercing bullet. The missile would hit the target, and then if it worked right the core would continue through the insect’s armor and blow clean through it.

It was a good start, but there was a limit to how many of the things she’d be able to make. Time was short. Setting the handful she’d crafted aside, Beth picked up the other weapon. There was only one Naga rifle on board the ship. They’d captured a few hundred of the things from the enemy battleships, but most of them were being disassembled and studied back on Earth, as part of the initiative to learn how the alien technology worked.

Beth had managed to get one of the things aboard the ship, though. The weapon fired pellets of energy. Depending on the setting, they could be softball sized and hit like a bean bag, stunning the target. Or they could strike like an armor piercing round and punch through even heavy armor. Beth played with the settings and figured out how to crank it up to an even finer density than the usual maximum. She wasn’t about to test the thing on the ship, but if she was right the rifle should fire a ball of energy about the size of a grain of sand, with all the kinetic energy of the larger balls, packed into the tiniest package the muzzle could release.

If she fired it on the Satori, it would probably go through whatever she shot it at, and then through the bulkhead behind it. Potentially through whatever was on the other side of that as well. Beth wasn’t sure how many shots she would have with the thing before it fried. It wasn’t designed for that sort of intense focused output. It might fire once. It might get off a dozen shots, or even more before it quit. But it was one more tool in their arsenal.

Her watch beeped. It was time. The men would be assembling in the cargo bay. Ayala would be getting them ready to go back out there and hunt the thing - or things - down. She scooped the grenades she’d altered into a bag and slung the rifles over her shoulder. It wasn’t much, but perhaps it would help. Satchel over her shoulder, she climbed down the ladder toward where her people were preparing for the fight of their lives.

TWENTY-TWO

The cargo bay was full of noise and people by the time Beth arrived. She did a rough head count. It looked like every able-bodied soldier remaining on the ship was gathered there. She counted nineteen troops, which should be everyone. Plus Ayala, of course. Beth still had misgivings about him leaving the mission, but she had to admit that there weren't a lot of other options.

She was surprised to see Charlene there, though. Her friend was wearing the same black uniform as the soldiers. She also wore a set of body armor protecting her torso and had so many magazines of ammunition strapped to her that Beth couldn't see how she was able to move at all.

"Are you going out, too?" Beth asked.

Charlene shrugged. "I'm still one of the best shooters on the ship. If we want to maximize our odds of taking this thing out, I should be along for the ride."

It made sense. That didn't mean Beth had to like it. Putting her friend in harm's way was the last thing she wanted to do. If it were up to her, none of them would be going out there. Beth had a bad feeling that this mission was going to go sideways in a hurry. But there wasn't anything else to be done for it. If they didn't go after the monster, sooner or later the monster was going to go after them.

"Be careful out there, then," Beth said. Even as she said the words, she thought they were lame. Of course, she would be careful. They would all be as careful as they could be. Given the circumstances, caution probably wasn't going to help all that much.

"No well wishes for me?" Ayala asked.

Beth flushed. "I'm here to wish you all well. I've also got a few things which might help you out."

"Oh? What's that?" Ayala said.

Beth swung the satchel off her shoulder and opened it to reveal the contents. She fished one of the grenades out and held it up for his inspection.

"Armor piercing rounds," Beth said. "The only thing that took out the first one we found was heavy weaponry. It was scared of flash bang grenades, but it took more than that to finish it off. Your weapons might hurt it. But I don't know if there are enough to do the job by themselves."

"I'll take any advantage we can get," he replied. He took the handful of grenades from Beth, pocketing two of them. The others, he passed to Charlene. "Put them to good use. You really are our best shot, so make these count."

"One other thing," Beth said. She set down the human rifle against the wall, and then un-slung the Naga rifle from her shoulder. "I've tinkered with the settings. The weapon will fire an extremely high density, high energy force pellet. It should be enough to punch through their armor."

"How reliable is it?" Ayala asked. He looked at the weapon dubiously, and Beth realized that he had never carried one of the Naga weapons. She was used to them. She'd fired them in combat before. But to him, the gun looked more like some science-fiction toy than a rifle.

"Not as reliable as I would like," Beth had to admit. She'd done what she could, but the possibility of a misfire or malfunction remained a very real thing. "It should get off at least one shot. Maybe ten. Maybe more. It's an untested modification though, so no guarantees."

"No offense meant to the engineer, but I think we will pass on the untested weapon," Ayala said. He gave the rifle back to Beth. "Not that I doubt it will work. I'm sure it will. But as you just said, we can't count on it. Which means it could malfunction at precisely the wrong time."

"I understand," Beth said. And she did. It was disappointing nonetheless. She thought the adjustment was a good one and wished there had been a way to adequately test it.

"All right then! Time to move out," Ayala said.

Around the room, soldiers picked up their gear. They latched on helmets, readied weapons, and formed up near the ramp. From there they would descend into the hangar outside. No spacesuits this time. Just weapons, armor, and ammunition. This wasn't an exploratory mission anymore. These men were going to war.

"I'll stand by on the bridge to help coordinate movement," Beth said.

One more time she looked over each of the soldiers as they made their final preparations. They were her people, and she wanted to protect them. But her place was in here, on the ship. The last thing they needed was for both her and Ayala to go haring off and getting themselves hurt or killed.

Keep telling yourself that, Beth thought. Maybe it’ll make you feel a little better about hiding in here and letting others take the risk. Had John stayed behind where it was safe while others took chances at his orders? No, he’d been on the front lines every time. Whether it was leading a rescue mission or engaging in diplomacy with alien races, John stepped forward and did whatever needed to be done.

And now he’s dead, and maybe that’s why, she thought.

Beth shoved away her doubts. There wasn’t time for it. She’d made her decision, and now they would have to run with whatever happened as a result. It was too late to back down now. The ramp was already lowering, opening the hold up to the hangar. A stale scent washed over her as the outside air mixed with the ship’s air in the hold. Her people raced down, taking overwatch positions so that more could descend. Once they were all down on the hangar floor, the ramp slowly slid up again until the ship was once more buttoned up.

Twenty-one people outside the ship. Against whatever was waiting for them up there. They would head to the elevator shaft and begin their ascent again, some of the men watching from the base while others climbed to secure a beachhead eight floors up. That was where the hydroponics lab was. Where they hoped to find the alien.

Beth waited until the door had cycled the air pressure back to the ship’s normal level and then pressed her palm to the panel. It slid open, allowing her to exit the cargo bay into the rest of the ship. She left the rifles on the bay floor and ascended back to her post on the bridge. Charline knew the base layout almost as well as Beth, but Beth had designed half of the place. If her knowledge could give the team even a small advantage, she wanted to be where she could help them.

She walked slowly at first, then picked up the pace. A feeling of urgency hit her like a hammer, and she was jogging by the time she reached the ladders, then climbing as fast as her arms could carry her up. The team might not make contact for minutes yet, or they could be attacked any second. Beth raced to the bridge, hoping that she would get there before the alien insects went after them.

TWENTY-THREE

The bridge was utterly silent. Beth swore that the crew was even breathing quietly. Majel projected the red dots showing the security team’s beacons on the main screen so that the entire bridge crew could watch the assault group's progress through the base.

There had been no contact in the elevator shaft, and nothing waiting for them on the floor, either. Once men were positioned for security, the others climbed to join them and then fanned out into the hall, covering both directions of travel. The hydroponics room was off to one side, down toward the end of the corridor, but the entire level was a mash of labs, storage rooms, and equipment. Ducts and pipes ran through the whole place. The water filtration system was on that floor, and the main CO2 scrubbers as well. Take out too much of the machinery there, and the entire base would be without air soon enough.

Which might not be the worst idea in the world. Beth didn’t think the insects would enjoy the base half as much once they depleted all the oxygen. But then they might manage to survive off the O2 produced by the greenery on that level anyway. They knew little enough about how the creatures lived in their adult state.

“We’re proceeding down the hall,” Ayala said over the radio.

“Understood,” Beth replied. She tapped the screen attached to her chair, calling up the feed from Ayala’s helmet-mounted camera. “Watch the flanks. Lots of small conduits running along that floor. They might be able to use them to get behind you.”

“Shit. Can Majel close them off somehow?” Ayala said.

“Negative,” Majel replied. “The aliens have been busy up here. Most electrical systems are down. I’m surprised any of the lights are still working.”

Most of them weren’t. The lighting was poor at best. Each soldier had a flashlight attached to their rifle and those cast beams of white light into the pools of shadow which occupied far too much of the level.

“All right. We go in fast, hit them hard,” Ayala said.

The security force started down the hall like a wave of red on their screen. They were moving forward at a good pace. Not too fast, not too slow. But they were bypassing a dozen doors along the way. That wasn’t good room-clearing protocol. They ought to be clearing each of those as they went by. If Ayala was hoping to surprise the bugs, Beth thought it was probably already too late for that. He was choosing speed over caution.

She opened her mouth to warn him and closed it again. The last thing he needed was for someone to be second-guessing his commands when he was the one out there in the field. Beth grimaced as the team passed yet another closed door. That one led to the main stairwell. Anything could be hiding in there, and they wouldn’t know it until the doors crashed open, spilling twelve foot long centipedes at them.

At last they reached the hydroponics room. The set of double doors were closed, and there was no sign they’d been opened recently. In fact, judging by the rust Beth saw through Ayala’s camera, they hadn’t been opened in months. So how were the bugs getting in and out?

“Majel, this is where the aliens carried the bodies of our crew, right?” Beth asked.

“Affirmative.”

“Those doors haven’t been opened in a while. How did they get in and out of there?”

“Unknown. The tracer path appeared to travel through the doors. Checking schematics for clues,” Majel said.

Beth checked them at the same time, her memory of the complex floor a little rusty. The space just overhead was solid rock. There was no easy crawlway through there. But below the floor?

“Aha,” Beth said. She activated her radio. “Major, there’s a water main right under your feet. It looks like that’s how the insects have been moving in and out of the room. They’re not using the corridors. They’re swimming through the pipes.”

“Understood. They can’t break through it out here, can they?” he asked.

“The pipes are just fiberglass, and so is the floor panel,” Beth said.

“So that’s a yes. The door’s stuck. We’re going to have to blow it open,” Ayala said. He was attaching an explosive to the center of the double doors.

She heard him telling the men something about watching where they stepped. Ayala was looking down a lot himself. The flooring was only an inch of fiberglass. The pipe was right beneath that floor panel. She watched, half expecting a two-foot saber of a claw to come stabbing up from below.

But nothing did, and then the troops were backing away from the door. A moment later there was a flash and a booming noise. The soldiers didn’t wait for the dust to settle. They were moving in, closing the gap to the doorway. Beth saw two men shoulder into the door ahead of Ayala, pushing both doors open. Then they were pouring into the room beyond.

Unlike the hall, the lights in this chamber were mostly untouched. They cast a yellow glow over a room filled with untended greenery. About the size of a basketball court, the space was dominated by a series of waist high vats. Each was about two meters in diameter. Each was covered with a lush growth of green vines and plants which spilled over the edges and ran along the floor in a tangled mess between them.

The place was a jungle. Anything could be hiding in there.

“Ayala, the young are likely in those vats,” Beth said. “They seemed to be mostly aquatic when we ran into them before.”

“Right,” he whispered. “I don’t like this at all. Too many places to hide. Too much dead space in this room for something to stay out of sight.”

“Got a flamethrower?” she asked.

“Back on the ship. I wasn't expecting this much overgrowth in here.”

Shadows flickered in the rear of the room. Was that just the air shifting, or was something moving back there? Beth couldn’t tell from the video feed. Two-thirds of the security team were inside the room, fanning out in pairs. She flicked between their camera views on her small screen, looking for…something. She wasn’t sure what. Some sign of what the monsters were up to in there.

It had to be a nest. That was the only answer that made any sense. The one larval alien must have found its way into a water pipe and eventually gotten out in this room. There had been plenty of water and food. It had grown, somehow reproduced.

“Got something here, sir!” a woman called out.

Beth switched her view to that soldier’s camera. She’d found a skeleton. The bones of a human. Beth tapped the screen, zooming in on one of the fragments of cloth clinging to the bones. It was gray, not black. Not one of their people, then.

“Guess we’ve found what happened to the original repair team,” Ayala said. He leaned forward and searched through the bones for an identity tag, but found nothing. Barely any bits of fabric remained at all. Even the bones looked dented, like they’d been gnawed.

“We’ll have to get positive ID with dental records later,” Ayala said. “Stay alert, folks! Whatever did this probably didn’t go far!”

He’d no sooner said the words than gunfire erupted in a burst of light and sound.

TWENTY-FOUR

Dan struggled to get his bearings as they made their way carefully but swiftly down the hall away from the airlock. He’d been aboard this ship a number of times, but it was a large space filled with many halls and corridors. It would be easy to get lost, and they didn’t have time for that. He needed to regain control of the vessel as swiftly as possible.

Two Marines led the way. The third enlisted soldier walked behind, covering their rear. Martelle and Dan went between the two groups, trying to watch everything around them as best they could.

“Got something, sir!” one of the men ahead called softly. His buddy moved forward a few more feet and took a knee, rifle aimed ahead, but the man who had spoken crouched down next to something on the floor.

Dan realized it was a body. A woman in military uniform, pistol still holstered in the belt at her side. She had to be one of the security teams the Air Force had guarding the ship.

“Is she…?” Dan asked.

“Dead, sir,” the Marine replied. He stood, and Dan caught a glimpse of his name tag: Nunez. He was a sergeant.

“What happened to her?” Martelle asked. He knelt next to the woman, looking her over.

“Don’t know, sir. No sign of injury. She wasn’t shot. Just collapsed,” Nunez said.

“Look at her eyes. They’re bloodshot. She’s been in vacuum,” Dan said.

“On Earth? How?” Martelle asked.

“It’s a closed system. You can pump air out as easily as in. Just like the airlocks,” Dan said. He glanced at the air ventilation vent nearby. That had to be the answer. Someone had taken the ship, reset the environmental controls, and sucked the air from the entire ship. “That’s why there was no call for help. They never had a chance. Even if they knew what was happening, there was no air to carry the sound of their voices to their radios.”

“Shitty way to die,” Nunez said, standing up.

“There aren’t too many good ways to die,” Martelle replied. He unbelted the guard’s pistol belt and stood back up. “Up to us to get the people who did this to her.”

Dan noticed that the Marine colonel was unarmed. He looked at the rifle in his hand. While he was loathe to be parted from a weapon, he was also conscious that Martelle was probably a better shot than him.

“Martelle,” he said.

“Yes?”

“You’re probably better than I am with this thing. Trade you?” Dan asked.

Martelle stared at him appraisingly. “You’re likely right. I’m obliged.”

He took the weapon and passed the pistol belt to Dan, who belted it around his waist. Dan gave the vest he was wearing over as well. If Martelle was carrying the rifle, it made sense for him to wear the ammunition too. The pistol had a couple of magazines of reloads, but he’d need to be sparing with his shooting.

“Where to now, Wynn?” Martelle asked.

“The bridge,” Dan said.

“You certain?” Martelle asked. “I’d hate to have to split our force, but we can’t afford to choose wrong here.”

“I’m sure,” Dan said. He hadn’t been before. In a pinch, the ship could be steered from engineering. But he was nearly sure that the only place someone could control the environmental systems so completely was from the bridge. There were safety locks to prevent just the sort of event that had killed all the people aboard, and they could only be disengaged from the bridge. The method of the attack also left little doubt who was responsible.

“I’m pretty sure it’s the Naga, not humans,” Dan said. “Either they brought a supercomputer in with them to crack our security protocols…”

“Or they’re a Naga that knew about a back door around them,” Martelle said. “I thought the idea was to replace everything Naga aboard the ship to prevent just this sort of thing?”

“That’s what we were doing. It just wasn’t complete yet,” Dan said.

“Bridge it is, then,” Martelle said.

They made their way forward. The bridge was toward the nose of the ship. Not precisely in the very bow - it was placed back several rooms so that there was a lot of armor between the front of the ship and the nerve center. Dan directed them down one hall and then another, slowly moving out into the main corridors.

Along the way they passed more downed crew. None of them were still alive. The attack had slaughtered everyone aboard. With each body Dan’s mental death toll grew. He knew that even more men and women had died outside, gunned down in their boarding boats by the ship’s guns. Others had likely perished in the flames on the aircraft carrier. The beings responsible for this - Dan was more certain than ever it was the Naga - had a huge bill to account for.

At last they reached the main hall. It ran down the spine of the ship, a fast track between the bridge and engine rooms, allowing easy travel. It would be the fastest and most direct route to get to their destination, but it was also the most obvious.

“Be careful,” Dan said as Wills stepped out into the hall. “If they know we’re here, this is where they’ll try to stop us.”

Wills glanced back at Dan as he spoke. “I think we’re clear.”

Then there was a sharp snapping sound, and the Marine’s eyes went wide before he slumped to the ground, bleeding from a small hole in his head.

More snapping sounds issued from the hall. Dan saw tiny pellets of force ping off the deck and walls. Nunez dove backward, barely avoiding the rattling fire. Whoever was firing the guns ceased shooting as soon as they were all back out of sight. Dan cursed under his breath. This far into the bow, there were few ways around the main hall. This was a perfect choke-point, the ideal place to stage a defense.

How had Wills failed to see their attackers? The man lay still on the deck. There was no doubt in Dan’s mind he was dead. The shot had gone clean through his head. Carefully, he moved to the edge of the hall.

“What are you doing?” Martelle hissed.

Dan peeked out, darting only a quick look before pulling his head back. There was nothing out there. The hallway was empty.

“Nothing there,” Dan said, mystified.

“There sure as hell is someone out there!” Nunez said.

Dan peeked out again, lingering a moment longer this time. At first he saw nothing. Then as he watched, a pair of turrets rose from the floor and brought their snub nosed barrels into alignment with his face.

He darted back just in time to avoid the shots, which rang off the corridor walls a few meters behind him.

“Gun defenses,” Dan said. He’d never even heard about these things being placed. They must have been old Naga weapons, leftover and not spotted by their engineering crews. How many lingering bits of tech like this were left for them to discover? There was still far too much about the ship that they didn’t understand. And today, what they didn’t know might kill them all, or even doom the human race entirely if the Naga managed to get this ship into orbit where they could find another rock to drop on the planet.

TWENTY-FIVE

The flashes from the gunfire were bright on Beth’s screen. She watched as Ayala panned his vision over to his right, where the action was taking place. The shooting stopped as quickly as it had begun, leaving only a smoky silence in the room.

“What the hell was that?” Ayala shouted.

“Bagged a bug, sir!” came the reply. “I got one of the little ones!”

Beth let out her breath in a rush. Just one of the juveniles. The airman held up the corpse of the thing he’d shot, waving it around in the air like a trophy. Around him, some of the other men were chuckling. It was like the gunshots had broken the tension. They’d met the enemy, and killed it.

Except she knew that wasn’t the case. The little ones were pretty harmless. The big ones were something else altogether. Where had it gone? Had the Satori’s railgun salvo injured it? Had the thing curled up in some dark corner to die?

“Another one!” shouted one of the men. This time Ayala panned his vision around quickly enough for Beth to see one of the young insects dart away from the cover of some brush, rushing up a set of vines toward the top of one of the vats.

Bullets struck the thing and broke it apart. They were killing the insect’s young. Something niggled at the back of Beth's mind.

“Ayala, get your people out of there,” Beth said over the radio. “Those things are incredibly protective of their offspring.”

“What?” he asked, unable to hear her over yet another burst of gunfire. The men were moving through the room now, rustling shrubbery with their rifles to stir out the bugs and then shooting them. They were spreading out as they swept through the chamber.

When the attack came, it was without warning or mercy.

Six of the vats exploded. Shards of fiberglass flew across the room like they’d been hurled from grenades. Thousands of gallons of water washed across the floor all at once. Those nearest the broken vats were swept off their feet by the oncoming waves.

But it was what came after the water that killed.

They rose from the broken shells of the vats. It wasn’t one adult or two. Six of the things rushed from the shattered pools. They struck like lightning. Gunfire erupted everywhere. Flashes of light, blasts of sound. And screams. Beth could hear lots of screaming. She flinched, then clicked to activate the radio.

“Ayala, pull them back! Now!”

She heard him echo the orders, saw the troops attempting to retreat across the broken ground. Some of them were simply too far away. Those, the monsters cut apart. They never had a chance. Those closest to the doors managed to back away. Beth saw a flash of Charline standing there, calmly firing round after round into the things. She emptied a magazine, discarded it, and loaded another. Then went back to shooting.

Grenades flashed through the air. One of them caught a centipede, blowing off some of its legs. It writhed and flopped over on its side, swirling around in circles like it had gone crazy from the injury. Two men fell to slashes from its claws even as it was dying from the wounds their guns and explosives had inflicted.

“Pull back!” Ayala shouted again. He had his rifle to his shoulder, firing aimed shots one after another. Other men were not being so cautious, spraying the room with gunfire in an effort to keep the nightmares away.

It didn’t work. Ignoring the bullets, the five remaining bugs rushed in, each grabbing one man with its claws and slashing him to ribbons. They were about to move on to the next when something struck one of the things, hard enough to knock it over. It flopped there feebly for a few seconds, and Beth got a glimpse of the massive wound.

“New grenades work,” Charline said over the radio.

That was two of the things down, but half their fighting force had fallen, and there were still four more remaining. Ayala held the door, lobbing grenade after grenade into the room. Nothing else seemed to be slowing them down enough to matter. Two of his own people died in the explosions, but the covering fire allowed many more to escape out into the hall.

“Captain, where can we go?” Ayala said. “We need a defensible spot. Where?”

He was right. They’d never make it back to the ship, not with so many of the things chasing them. They needed some breathing room, at least. There was only one spot in that hall where they might have even a few moments peace.

“Cryo-storage,” Beth said. “Across the hall, two doors down.”

“Charline, lead them there!” Ayala ordered. She rushed off while he and his men continued firing every grenade they had remaining into the burning shell of a room.

Dozens of missiles were spent. The conflagration was enormous. For a few moments Beth had a hope that maybe they’d done it after all. Maybe the detonations had been enough to finish the aliens off, or at least stun them into incapacitation.

Then another scream sounded. Ayala whirled, the video from his feet spinning madly as he turned toward the new threat. Two of the bugs were out in the hall. They’d cut off the team’s retreat to the ship, and now they were slashing their way through the remaining men.

Screams. Shouts. More confused gunfire and yelling. Blood splashed on the wall. Beth couldn’t tell what was happening anymore. The entire battle had been reduced to complete chaos. Then her view through Ayala’s camera turned into the frozen storage room. More men were piling in around him.

“Shut the door!” Ayala shouted.

“There’s still men…” someone tried to say. Ayala shoved him aside and threw his shoulder into the vault door. It slid closed easily, and Charline placed her handprint on the inside locking mechanism. Heavy bolts slid into place, bracing the door. Just in time - Beth could hear the screeching of the bugs’ claws against the outer wall even through the massive shielding.

The pounding continued a few more moments and then abated.

“What is this place?” Ayala asked. His breath was pluming in front of him.

“It’s a storage vault. For frozen stuff. A vault of carefully stored seeds and trimmings from a ton of Earth plants,” Beth said. “John’s way of preserving things, if things on Earth ever went truly sideways.”

“The man did think of everything, eh?” Ayala said. Every exhalation created a cloud of freezing vapor in front of his face.

“All ruined now,” Charline said. “When the power went out, the freezers must have shut off.”

“Seems cold enough in here now,” a man replied.

“Power’s back on,” Charline replied.

“How cold is it going to get?” Ayala asked.

Beth remembered. She’d built the room, after all. Another of John’s little ideas, slotted into some spare space on his base. She’d thought it was crazy at the time, but now it had saved the lives of what was left of her security detail, along with Charline. Of course, now it might kill them, too.

“It’ll drop to about negative one hundred and fifty degrees,” Beth said. Her voice was like ice. “Probably a little warmer than that right now, because the door was open.”

“Fahrenheit?” Ayala asked.

“Celsius,” Beth replied.

Ayala was a smart man. He knew what that meant. “How long do we have?”

His voice was already beginning to shake as tremors shook his body, a desperate attempt of his muscles to overcome a temperature which was already dropping to deadly levels.

“A few minutes,” Beth said. In that small slice of time, everyone in that room would be dead if they stayed. But if they left, the monsters outside would tear them to bits in even less time than that.

TWENTY-SIX

Her people had only a few minutes. Charline was smart. Maybe she could eventually override the computer systems governing the cooling unit and shut it down, but even she couldn’t do it while freezing to death in the time frame she had left. None of the team was going to survive unless Beth did something quickly.

“We’re going to chance it with the bugs,” Ayala said, shivering. “May take one out with us.”

“No! Stay in place,” Beth replied. “I’m on my way. Stay put. That’s an order.”

Then she flipped the channel off. “Majel, have Saldanha meet me at the rear ramp in fifteen seconds. Tell him to bring the bug in a bag.”

“Understood,” Majel said.

Beth ran. She didn’t have time to let the others know what she was doing. There were too few seconds left until it would be too late to save those people. She knew what needed to be done, and took off like all the demons in hell were chasing her. Flying down the hall, she almost bumped into a crew member headed for the bridge. She dodged aside and kept running.

No time for the lifts. Beth hit the ladder and slid down the thing with practiced ease, using her feet on the edges to slow her descent. The modified Naga rifle was still there where she’d left it. Beth snatched it up. There was no telling how many shots she would get with the thing. She would need to make every one count.

“I’ve got it,” Saldanha said, huffing as he ran into the room. “What are you about?”

“No time,” Beth said. She grabbed the bag from him and slapped the hatch release. The door banged down onto the metal floor beneath the ship. The alien larva wriggled in the bag as she slung it over her shoulder. Beth wasn’t even entirely sure why she’d brought the thing with her, but she had the rough working of a plan.

When they’d first met these creatures, her friend Andy had used one of the larvae to lure the mother insect into combat with a troop of Naga. The results had been spectacular. If she could do something similar here, Beth might be able to rescue her people. Of course, there was no helpful platoon of heavily armed Naga waiting to lead the monsters toward, but she’d cross that bridge when she got there.

Beth glanced at the elevator shaft with its ascending ropes. She didn’t have time to climb them, even in the moon’s lower gravity. Instead she dashed to the access panel next to the stairwell, hoping her palm print would still open the door. There was a brief pause as the computer tried to register her identity, then the panel flashed green and the door popped open.

She left it slightly ajar and began the long sprint up the stairs. With her weight reduced, Beth was able to take the steps five at a time, springing up half a flight with each step. It was hard work, and taking the corners in the stairwell meant caution. If she twisted an ankle at this pace, she’d never make it to the correct floor in time.

The run seemed to take forever. She panted, trying to catch her breath as she climbed higher through the base. John always had insisted on far too many levels in this place, and if anything could be proof positive Beth had been right in that assertion, it was this run.

“Majel, how’s the team?” Beth asked over her earpiece.

“They’ve gathered in one place for warmth. I’m monitoring them through the base camera system. Several seem to have lost consciousness, but I am still reading vital signs from all of them,” Majel replied. “Beth, you should know that the odds of you beating the three or four remaining insects by yourself are roughly three thousand, seven-hundred and twenty to one.”

Beth had reached the right landing at last. She placed her palm on the panel. It flashed green. She heard the door click as the locks disengaged.

“Never tell me the odds,” Beth said aloud. Then she lifted her leg and kicked the door open hard. She dashed out into the hall.

She exited the quiet stairwell into a scene out of hell. Smoke filled the corridor, and flames from the grenades were still burning in the hydroponics room a short distance away. It took her a few moments to orient herself.

“There!” she said, coughing. “I see the ice locker. No sign of the bugs, though.”

“Behind you,” Majel warned.

Beth whirled, already bringing the rifle up to her shoulder. One of the enormous insects was rearing on its hind legs. Sword-like claws flashed only feet away from Beth’s face. She fell backward with a cry and pulled the trigger on the rifle.

The weapon slammed into her shoulder. She wasn’t used to the Naga rifles having much kick. Usually they propelled their small pellets of force without much recoil. This time, she was lucky that she’d already fallen to her back. The force would have tossed her there anyway if she’d been standing without bracing well.

But the shot had the desired effect. Beth landed her round squarely in the middle of the creature’s mandibles. The round it fired was tiny, barely the size of the tip of a needle. All of the force the rifle could muster was focused on that small point. It punched through the front of the monster, shattering the plates of its exoskeleton and sending them tearing through it like bits of shrapnel.

The insect collapsed in a heap, dead before it hit the floor. Beth backed away from it in a rush. Even its death throes could be deadly. One swipe from one of those twitching claws could kill her just as easily as when it was alive.

She saw movement through the smoke. Two more of the things, bearing down on her. One of them raced along the wall, hammering into the plates with its spiked claws for purchase. The other ran along the hall floor. Both of them would be on her in moments.

There was more movement from the other side, a third one rushing her from the other direction. No time to kill them all. She only had time to fire one shot. The other monsters would kill her, even if she somehow managed to land the round on the moving target. She pushed herself back to her feet and readied her rifle against the aliens’ charge.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Beth unslung the bag from her back, holding it out in the air in front of her. With the muzzle of her weapon, she jabbed at the larva contained inside the pack. It made a high-pitched squealing noise.

All three of the insects stopped in their tracks.

“Oh, you know what this is, do you?” Beth said. “Good.”

She shook the bag again, making the small creature squeak again. Beth felt the tiniest pang of remorse for tormenting the little monster. It wasn’t at fault for being what it was. But her people were in danger. She needed to get the monsters blocking their path to freedom away from there so they could get out. It might already be too late. There was only one way forward. She had to lead the adults away from the freezer.

“Majel, as soon as I get them out of the hall, tell the others to exit the freezer,” Beth said.

The detente couldn’t last. One of the insects scuttled closer a few feet. Beth jabbed the larva again, and it stopped in its tracks. Sooner or later they’d decide it was worth the risk, rush her, and it would all be over. Better to take a chance than that.

“You want it? Come get me!” Beth shouted. Then she turned and ran toward the stairwell.

The scuttling behind her told Beth that they were in hot pursuit. She bounded down the stairs whole flights at a time, cursing the same light gravity that had helped her ascend and now made her feel like she was floating to each level instead of falling to it. The insects were fast. Beth could practically feel them breathing down her neck.

She shouldered the pack again and whirled in place. Sure enough, one of the monsters was lunging down on her from above. Beth fired wildly, winging the creature. It shrieked and fell to the steps with a crash, fouling the charge of one of the other insects. Beth shot again, and then once more. The one she’d hit finally went still.

The other two were still after her, though. She ran, vaulting the rail and dropping two full flights to evade them. The impact jarred her knees despite the weak gravity, but she’d gained a little distance. Only a few more flights to go.

But once she reached the bottom, Beth realized she was going to need to dash across a very open space between the door and the ship. There was no cover. She’d be in the open, on a straight run, and the insects were a lot faster than she could be.

“Majel,” Beth panted as she ran. “Railguns?”

“Primed and ready. Targeting the door,” the AI replied.

If she could get clear in time, the railguns might finish the things off. Beth sprinted for all she was worth, pouring every bit of energy she had left into the run. Sweat streamed down her face. The echoes from the things claws as they came after her sounded like a million of the things were in pursuit. They were going to catch her. Beth was certain that any second they would be on her, tearing her apart, cutting her down.

Then she was at the door. She hit it in a rush, glad she’d left it ajar before. Her shoulder slammed into the metal, and it swung wide. Beth turned with it, cutting hard to her left along the wall.

Three seconds after she had exited the door, a pair of railgun rounds impacted it. They shrieked in at hypersonic speeds, the booms from their passage blasting air out of their way. The sonic booms threw Beth from her feet first. She went sailing through the air, landing roughly ten feet further away.

That likely saved her. The rounds struck with massive concussions. Rock, steel, and more flew in every direction. The blast threw bits of debris in every direction. Some of it rained down on Beth’s head and back, pummeling her already bruised body.

She groaned and rolled over. Among the bits scattered around the hangar from the blast Beth saw little shards of carapace. She smiled, despite the pain she felt in every muscle and bone. The railgun had done the trick. She’d killed them.

“Are you all right?” Majel’s voice said in her ear.

The other ear was ringing, but the earpiece Beth wore in her right ear must have helped shield her from the sound. Majel’s voice sounded a little funny, but Beth could hear the words.

“Sore, but alive. How are the crew upstairs?” Beth asked.

“They’re out. You got there in time. They have some severe hypothermia cases and a lot of frost bite, but the doctor is preparing the medical bay to treat them as soon as they arrive,” Majel said. “You did it.”

She had. Beth shook her head slowly. Moving it any faster hurt too much. The pain wasn’t entirely a bad thing, after all. Was it Andy who’d told her that pain was the body’s way of telling you that you were still alive? Or maybe that was John. She wasn’t sure, but she understood the words only too well. She got to her feet in a less than graceful manner. The world was tilting around her a little.

“How about medical crew for the captain?” Beth snapped into the radio.

“On its way, ma’am,” Foster said over the radio. “They’ll be right out.”

The bag wiggled, still slung over Beth’s shoulder. She frowned. They would need to figure out what to do with this thing. She was pretty sure the rest of the young had burned to death in the fire upstairs. They’d need to search the entire base to be sure none had escaped. Even one of those things loose could begin this nightmare all over again. But that still left figuring out what to do with this one. She didn’t feel like murdering it. Perhaps there was a way it could be studied safely, or even returned to its world.

There was a sudden movement in the corner of Beth’s vision. For a second she thought it was one of the medical teams, already coming toward her. But it was too fast to be human.

She knew what it was even before she turned her head.

One of the alien insects scurried over the piles of rubble left by the railgun rounds. It spotted Beth and began racing in her direction. Beth raised her rifle and squeezed the trigger to fire.

Nothing happened.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Dan peeked out a second time and almost lost his head. The guns were still active, still scanning for movement or heat or whatever they keyed off. They fired as soon as he poked his nose past the edge of the hall. Shots pinged off the wall inches away as he darted back just in time.

“How are we going to get past those?” he growled. He was fresh out of ideas.

“This one’s our job, son,” Martelle said.

“You? With what?” Dan asked.

Martelle barked a short laugh. “We’re Marines, Wynn. You’re a flyboy. Fast moving things in the air and space are your thing, but storming impregnable fortresses filled with bad guys is our bread and butter. We’ve got this.”

He stood, rifle at the ready, and nodded to Nunez. “You packing?”

“Sir, the orders were no grenades to be brought,” Nunez said.

“And you brought them anyway,” Martelle said. “I know you better than that. Give.”

Nunez flashed the colonel an abashed grin and twisted his shoulders, sliding a small pack from his back. “Aye, sir.”

He knelt down and fished around in the pack, pulling out two hand grenades. He held them out to Martelle.

“That all? I figured you for a six-pack man,” Martelle said.

Nunez grumbled and rooted around a little more, finally producing four more of the small explosives. Martelle took two and handed them to the third Marine. “Carlos, be ready. Toss one in time with us, then the second.”

“Soon as the second explosives go off, we move. If those things are still active, we shoot them down. Got me?” Martelle asked.

“Yes, sir,” both Marines replied.

“What do you want me to do?” Dan asked.

“Don’t get dead,” Martelle replied. He yanked a pin from his first grenade and tossed it on the floor. “Throw!”

All three men tossed their grenades down the hall in unison. Dan noted that Nunez got fancy and banked his throw off the far wall. He wasn’t sure what that was going to do, precisely, but the throw had been carefully aimed. As soon as the grenades were in the air, the men were already pulling the pins from the next set. They threw them just as the first ones exploded.

Then the second round of explosions rocked the hall. Without pausing, the three men dashed around the corner, rifles already blazing bullets into the space where the guns had been.

Carlos went down right away, taken out by a bullet. His body slammed into the wall, and he crawled back toward shelter - wounded, but not dead. Dan snatched up his rifle from where it had fallen and joined the other two in the hall, blasting at the final gun with a burst of rounds from the weapon.

“Clear!” Nunez shouted.

“Check ‘em, make sure,” Martelle said. “I’ll see to Carlos.”

Dan went with Martelle, who was already pulling first aid materials from a pouch at his waist. The Marine colonel knelt beside his man. Carlos was bleeding from his shoulder, blood already soaking his uniform. His face was pale, his teeth clenched, but he was conscious. If they could stop the bleeding and get him some help, he might be OK.

“Hang in there, son,” Martelle said. “It went right through. Torn tissue, nothing vital. Hang on.”

He injected a syringe full of something into the kid’s shoulder, and the wounded Marine relaxed immediately. Painkillers, Dan figured. Then he took a second, larger syringe and squirted something from it into the wound on the front and back side of the man’s injury. The Marine grimaced and ground his teeth together, but didn’t cry out.

“Plas-seal. Will close the wound, keep him from bleeding out,” Martelle explained when he saw Dan’s look. “It’ll keep him alive until we come back for him and get him to a doc.”

“I’ll be fine, sir,” Carlos said.

“I know you will. We’ll be right back after we clean up this Air Force mess for them,” Martelle said. He stood back up and grabbed his rifle from where he’d leaned it on the wall.

Dan looked at the weapon he was carrying. “Mind if I borrow this a bit?” he asked Carlos.

“If you promise to take good care of her,” Carlos said with a grin. “Leave me the pistol? Just in case of close encounters.”

“You got it,” Dan said. He undid the belt and laid it in the kid’s lap. Then he moved to follow Martelle and Nunez. They were already making their way down the hall. Toward the bridge, and whoever was orchestrating this mess.

“The bridge entrance is a choke point,” Dan said as they jogged down the hall. No sense trying to play things slow anymore. Even if they’d been undetected before, the enemy knew they were aboard for sure thanks to the explosions. “We had to force the door with explosives last time.”

“Think you can do the palm print trick another time?” Martelle asked.

“It’s worth a shot,” Dan said.

They reached the final door with no further opposition, which surprised Dan more than a little. He figured they would at least have guards waiting outside to alert those within. Had he guessed wrong, and they were in engineering after all? If they had to go back down the entire length of the ship to find the enemy, they had a long hike ahead of them. But no, the guns had been placed to block access to the bridge. This had to be where they were.

Dan held his hand directly above the sensor plate. “Ready?” he mouthed.

Both men gave him a sharp nod.

“Careful shots,” Dan whispered. “We damage the wrong thing in here, we could crash anywhere. Take out a whole city.”

“Better than the world, but we’ll do what we can,” Martelle said. “Do it.”

Dan dropped his hand onto the scanner. It flickered, checking his print, and then flashed green. Some days, it was good to be logged as the captain of the vessel, even if that ship was being absconded with.

The doors snapped open, and the Marines wasted no time rushing in, rifles up at the ready. A bolt of energy sizzled over Dan’s head as he came around the corner.

But the room was empty. Or at least, almost empty. Another bolt from a Naga rifle snapped past him. Was there only one of them? The Marines advanced, using consoles as cover. But if there was only one Naga, maybe there was another way.

“Surrender!” Dan shouted. “Drop your weapon and surrender, and you won’t be harmed!”

“Wynn?” the Naga shouted back. It was a Naga voice. His name was only barely recognizable spoken through the reptilian snout.

“Yes, it’s me. Who are you?” Dan shouted back.

“Garul!” the Naga said.

Dan sucked in a breath. The Naga who’d held him captive. The one who’d tortured him - and then perhaps inadvertently given him back his legs. Part of him wanted to see the lizard die slowly. Part of him wanted to thank him. He shoved aside the conflict for the moment. Regardless what he wanted, duty was clear.

“Surrender, and you will be treated with honor,” Dan shouted. “Otherwise we will kill you.”

“Wynn, Garul trust,” the Naga replied in broken English.

Dan was impressed. Garul probably had a translation assistant - the Naga used small slug-like alien life-forms with telepathic translation abilities. Garul had worn one when they’d met before. He likely still had one. But speaking wasn’t part of their abilities. Garul must have learned at least a few words of English all on his own.

“Then throw down your weapon!” Martelle called out.

The Naga threw his rifle over the console. It clattered on the floor when it landed. Then he slowly stood, hands interlaced on top of his head. Some types of body language seemed to be universal.

“Zip-tie him,” Martelle said. “Watch his claws.”

The Marine colonel held his rifle aimed at the Naga’s face while Nunez brought his hands behind him and cuffed him. Then Nunez shoved Garul off toward a corner of the bridge.

“Take a seat, lizard,” Nunez said. Garul hissed but did as he was bid.

One Naga had done all of this. It hadn’t been a team or a huge fighting force. Just one enemy. Dan’s head whirled with the possibilities. One being had almost gotten this ship back into space. Once there, he could have destroyed Earth, wiped out humanity utterly. They were so vulnerable out here. There was so much they needed to do if they ever wanted to be truly safe again.

Dan took a seat at the pilot’s console and tapped the controls. They still responded as they ought. Garul might have figured out how to fly the ship, even with the new human controls, and used some sort of back-door to activate the ship’s systems through the old Naga controls. But the human-built controls weren’t locked out. Dan could bring them back in.

“I’m contacting Hereford,” Dan said. He stepped to the communications console. It was already active, which saved him a step. “He’s going to want to know we’ve got the ship secure. And about our guest,”

TWENTY-NINE

The rifle clicked when Beth pulled the trigger, but no force pellet blazed from its muzzle. Whether it had been damaged when the railguns struck or simply gave out from her modifications didn’t matter. It wasn’t working. Beth had nothing left to defend herself with against the monster rushing her.

“Drop,” Majel said in her ear.

Beth dropped, rolling as she fell. A round from the ship sailed past her and smashed into the wall near where the insect had been. But the thing was already elsewhere! It raced up along the wall, claws stabbing in to pin it in place. It wasn’t as fast there as on the ground, but it was still moving too rapidly for the guns to track it. Two more rounds obliterated part of the wall and shook the entire hangar, but neither of them seemed to even slow the alien.

“Cease fire!” Beth shouted. If they kept it up the entire place might come down on top of them. The rounds stopped. Majel must have realized the same thing and warned the crew to stop shooting.

Beth was back on her feet. The Satori was so close - so inviting, sitting there with the back ramp already down. Two medics were standing there on the ramp, beckoning to her. There was no way she was going to get that far, though. It was simply too great a distance to run. The monster would be on top of her before she got halfway there.

Worse, it might be able to climb the ramp into the ship and wreak untold havoc there. Unprepared, the crew would be slaughtered. They might take it down. Eventually. But at what cost?

“Majel, raise the ramp,” Beth said.

“But-“

“Do it now!” Beth cut in, running sideways, keeping some distance between herself and the monstrous insect. Her gun was toast, the railguns weren’t working. There had to be some other way to kill this thing! She wasn’t ready to give up. Not now.

The bug was still running along the wall, almost directly across from her. It was chasing her, hunting her. She could feel the malevolence in those eyes. She’d done the one thing no one should ever do to a mother: she’d threatened its child. She wondered if she could toss the bag, maybe use the small distraction to run for the ship? But no, she’d ordered the ramp raised. There simply wasn’t time to escape.

But maybe she could finish this another way.

“Majel, can you spin up the wormhole drive?” Beth asked.

“I can’t jump the ship! It’s too risky!” Majel said. She sounded almost panicked.

“I don’t need you to jump the ship,” Beth said. She was almost around to the Satori’s nose, where the wormhole drive was housed. “Just fire it up.”

“I - the risk,” Majel said. Her voice shook. Beth could hear the stress in every word. But she had to convince the AI to act now, or they were doomed.

“If you don’t, I am going to die,” Beth said, her voice iron.

“When?” Majel said.

“Now!”

The insect was scuttling down the wall straight at her. It tore across the deck plates. Beth unslung the pack from her shoulder and shifted it to her right hand. She held the strap like a sling, whirling it around. Then with her best throw, she pitched it skyward. With the low gravity, she could manage a powerful throw. It lifted up into the air in a long arc.

The insect spotted the package. It stopped in its tracks, claws digging into the deck plates for traction. Then the front two-thirds of its body reared upward. It caught the bag with a grace and delicate touch that Beth wouldn’t have imagined the creatures possible of managing. The insect hung there in mid-air for a brief moment, like it was cradling the small bundle in relief.

“I’m sorry,” Beth whispered.

Then the wormhole drive engaged. The device opened a portal between two places, a rip in space that carried whatever was on the one side across to the other. Wherever Majel had targeted the other end of the wormhole, it had to have been in space. The vacuum on the other side of the wormhole began sucking the air out of the room. The entire hangar turned into a torrent of wind, a tornado in place as the air swept up and out through the hole.

The monstrous insect was pulled through instantly. Beth lost her footing, pushed over by the force of the air moving. She couldn’t get a breath. The wind was blowing too strong. Beth rolled onto her belly, fingernails digging at the deck plates in an effort to hold on. Foot by foot, she was dragged slowly toward the yawning portal.

Until it vanished. Beth lay there on the deck, the air suddenly still around her. Majel had shut off the wormhole just in time. Another moment or two and Beth felt like she would have lost her grip, gone soaring off after the giant bug to wherever Majel had sent her. She sucked in a deep breath, the air still thin but already improving.

“That was a considerable risk,” Majel’s voice said in her ear.

“Yeah, but it worked,” Beth replied with a chuckle. She rolled over on her back. Everything hurt. Her whole body was exhausted. Moving at all was an effort she didn’t want to commit to. “I need a vacation.”

“Well, if you decide you want to stay on as captain, you’ll have to put in for leave,” Majel said.

“Heard about that, did you?” Beth asked. She wasn’t surprised.

“Not much that I can’t find out,” Majel said. “Why did you not want to be my captain?”

She sounded hurt. Beth winced. She might have known Majel would take things that way. After all, John was dead. Andy was off working on establishing himself as the leader of John’s company. Charline would be off doing something else soon - her appointment to the Satori was temporary. Dan was captain of another ship.

The original Satori’s crew - Majel’s only family, as much as an AI could have one - were either dead or scattered to the winds. Beth had been offered the chance to stay with her, but instead of being overjoyed, she had almost declined. Had tried to decline. She could see how that might hurt the AI’s feelings. Beth considered her next words carefully.

“You know how you’re nervous about the wormhole drive?” Beth asked.

“I’m not really…well, I suppose I am, at that,” Majel said. “Yes?”

“It’s similar. You’re in a new ship. It’s not what you’re familiar with. It’s not your old ‘body’. It’s something new, radically different, and more than a little scary. I get that,” Beth said. “For me, this command is a lot like that. Hereford asked me to do something that I’m not sure I know how to do well.”

“You’ve managed so far,” Majel said.

Beth wondered at that. If she hadn’t been out there, if Ayala had been in command? Would any of them have survived? Somehow Beth had a feeling she knew the answer. Majel was right. Damn it. She was actually good at this, much as the idea might scare the hell out of her.

“And there’s one other thing,” Majel said.

“Oh?” Beth asked.

“I got over my fear. I managed to activate the wormhole drive anyway. For you,” Majel said. “Can you do the same?”

Beth winced. Majel was right. The two situations were even more alike than she’d thought when she made the comparison. Given that, there was only one response she could reasonably give.

“Yeah, Majel. For you, I can do this.”

THIRTY

The bruises still hurt three days later, but Beth felt like the results had been worth the pain. None of the people trapped in the freezer had died from their exposure to the cold. Doctor Saldanha and his staff had worked tirelessly on a few to stabilize them, but even the worst was out of the woods. They’d need more treatment back on Earth, which was the Satori’s next stop.

“Charline, you sure you’re going to be all right?” Beth asked. The two women and Ayala were seated around the conference table on board the ship.

“Sure. We’ve seen no sign of any more bugs. Majel has most of the camera system back on line again, so we’re pretty sure you nailed the last of them,” Charline said. “If one crops up, we’ll deal with it, but I think the base is clean now.”

“I’m leaving behind half a dozen troops to help guard the engineering team. Just in case,” Ayala said.

“That’s appreciated, but I’m not thinking they’ll be necessary,” Charline said. “We’ll get this place up and running again quick as we can. Then Andy can get the mining turned back on.”

“Ideally before the lack of Helium-3 shuts off the lights back on Earth,” Beth murmured. They were too reliant on a single source of energy. That needed to change. The Naga tech might give them the answers they needed, if they could unravel its mysteries in time.

“You figure out what you’re doing yet?” Charline asked Beth.

“I’m staying on as captain,” Beth replied. She observed Ayala's reaction. His eyebrows rose, but he didn’t say anything.

“Good. You can do this,” Charline said as she stood. “You were Hereford’s first pick, you know. You’d be my first pick, too. Take care of yourself!”

Beth stood as well to give the other woman a hug. “You too. I’ll swing by when I can.”

Charline gave Ayala a nod and a small shrug, then stepped out of the room. She’d meet the rest of her team outside and continue their work to re-establish human settlement at John’s old base. Thanks to the infestation there was a lot more damage to repair than they’d initially thought there would be.

“Staying, then?” Ayala said, after Charline had left.

“Yes,” Beth replied.

“No questions?” Ayala said.

“Only one. Whether you’ll be staying too.”

The Major barked a short laugh. “I think after your success here, Hereford will give you just about anything you demand in return for staying on as captain of the Satori. He’ll transfer me out like that,” he said, snapping his fingers.

Beth had gone over this conversation a good many times in her head. She still wasn’t quite sure how she wanted it to end, though. He was a problem. She needed to solve that, one way or another.

“Do you want to go, Major?” Beth asked.

“Do I get a say in the matter?” Ayala replied. There was no bitterness in his voice, which was a point in his favor.

“Maybe. Your attitude toward me compromised this mission. You put lives at risk, yours and mine included. You might have lost us the ship,” Beth said.

“I know. And you’re right. I was wrong, Captain. I was trying to do the best job I could for the mission. I didn’t trust you to do the same,” Ayala said. He shrugged, looking down at the tabletop in front of him. “I screwed up.”

“Don’t do it again,” Beth said.

“What?” he asked, looking up at her.

Beth flashed her teeth at him. She’d made her decision, for now at least. Ayala had screwed up because he hadn’t trusted the civilian to do the right thing. Now he knew better. But he brought out the best in her. She’d had to bring her A-game to deal with him. He was smart, cunning, crafty, and a deadly opponent. Beth wanted those traits on her side.

“You screwed up. You ever do anything like that again - you countermand my orders, or question my authority?” Beth said. “I’ll space you. Right there.”

She stood up and paced a few feet. He remained silent while she collected her thoughts. When she turned back, he was listening intently. All that sharp intellect that Beth admired about the man was focused on her. It would do.

“But I want you out there because except for your insubordination, you’re the right man for this job. You’re smart. You adapt. You don’t give up easily,” Beth said. “The bigger question is: can you let go of the bullshit? Because if you can’t, then tell me now. I’ll drop you off on Earth, and you can find someone else to bother.”

“If you can work with me, then I want you on board. Because where we are going, everything wants to kill us,” Beth said. “The universe is a deadly place, and we have to be just as sharp as we can if we’re going to make it out there.”

Ayala stared into her eyes. Beth wasn’t sure what it was he looked for there, but whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him. He nodded a little.

“You know, I wasn’t sure about the whole ‘Space Force’ thing Hereford is on about,” Ayala said. “But I think he might have something after all.”

“Space Force?” Beth asked.

“He didn’t tell you? He’s working with the Pentagon brass to spin up a new military branch. Out of the Air Force, mostly, but it’ll include elements of the other services as well. And a few carefully selected civilians will be placed into posts as well,” Ayala said, nodding at her.

It made sense. Threats from space were probably the biggest danger Earth faced. It wasn’t about sea or land battles, or even the air. Having a viable Space Force might be the only thing which could keep the Earth spinning.

“Why the change of heart?” Beth asked.

“Because you’re right. We need our best out there, facing the threats ahead. Not just the best Air Force officers. The best, period. All of our best,” Ayala said. “Anything less, and I don’t think we will survive.”

Even if they put everything they had into the venture, Beth still wasn’t confident it would be enough. Other races had been out there for a long time. She knew history well enough to recall what happened on Earth when a technologically inferior culture ran into a more advanced one. It tended to end badly for the low-tech side.

“Agreed,” Beth said. Because there were always exceptions. Beth wasn’t about to give up before they’d done everything they could to keep their world alive.

“You know, Captain,” Ayala said. “You were Hereford’s first pick for this job. You weren’t mine.”

“I gathered that from our first conversation,” Beth said. Then she considered his words. “Weren’t?”

“Hereford picked the right woman for the job,” Ayala said. He rose from his seat and offered her his hand.

She accepted the handclasp. Neither of them smiled. They weren’t friends, Beth realized, and might never be. But they were allies, and saw in each other a means to help defend everything they held most dear. For now, that was enough.

AUTHOR’S COMMENTS

Thank you so much for joining me on this, the next adventure of the (new) Satori and her crew. There’s been a lot of time and effort poured into making this book the very best possible experience for you. I truly hope you’ve enjoyed the ride - hang on, because there’s more to come.

The Satori will return. “Embers of War” is right around the corner, and will be followed - no shock - by the “Flames of War”.

The new, tight focus on only a few crew members was by reader request. I polled people on my fan list (you can join, too: https://BookHip.com/LTGAQZ) which characters they loved most. One of those characters died a hero’s death at the end of the last series. The other three favorites all play pivotal roles in the books ahead. As you’ve seen, there’s universe out there waiting for them, and it’s going to take everything Beth, Dan, and Majel have at their disposal to keep humanity alive.

What about Andy and Charline? Their story isn’t done yet either, but their story is heading down a different road. Look to hear more from them in their own books.

As always, thank you SO much for reading! I love hearing from people who’ve enjoyed my books, so please don’t hesitate to use the contact information at the end of this book to reach out if you’re so inclined.

And now, I’ve got something special lined up: a sneak preview of the first chapter from Embers of War!

EMBERS OF WAR (BOOK 8): CHAPTER 1

HERE’S A SNEAK PEEK FROM THE EXCITING NEXT VOLUME IN THE SATORI’S WAR SERIES!

Dan looked around the empty bridge of the ship which would be his. Someday soon, it would be his command. For now, it was still a work in progress. Now that it was in orbit, Hereford ordered them to keep it there. Rather than bringing it back down to Earth where it might be vulnerable to attack, they would finish the repairs in orbit and launch from there.

The crew was only a skeleton at this point, but more would arrive soon enough. They would go over the Independence with a fine toothed comb, making sure that nothing remained of the old Naga command protocols. By the time they were complete, no one would be able to steal the ship away again.

An insistent beeping noise broke into Dan’s concentration. Again. He glanced around, looking for whatever was making the sound. It wasn’t an alarm. It was something else, some sort of system alert.

There was no one else there to find the alert and shut the damned system off. Dan stood from his seat and wandered over to the navigation station first. If their course was off even a little bit, the ship could re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up, or worse survive the descent and smash into a city.

But nothing was wrong with the nav console. It wasn’t anything on scan, either. No nearby ships except for the shuttle which had just departed, headed down Earth-side. It carried Colonel Martelle, his remaining Marines, and the Naga prisoner who’d attempted to abscond with the ship. Hereford would have a field day with that one.

In a way, Dan almost felt bad. Garul was the Naga who’d captured him, once. He’d interrogated Dan, tortured him…and healed him from the wounds he’d given during the torture. That healing process had also rejuvenated the injury to Dan’s spine, repairing the damage which had prevented him from walking. Earth tech couldn’t restore the use of his legs, but one short stint with the Naga had done the trick.

Now Garul was the one captured. He was a prisoner, not dead - that was something, anyway. If he hadn’t heard Dan’s voice and been willing to surrender? Well, the Marines were good at what they did. Garul would probably not have survived the encounter. Dan had mixed feelings about the entire thing. Did he owe a debt to the being who’d given him his legs back, even if it was an accident?

The beeping was coming from the communications console. Dan walked over and sat down at the station, looking over the logs. The system had been on when he first arrived, he recalled. Had Garul been doing something with it, working on something that Dan missed in his haste to call Earth?

It was an incoming message alert. Dan tapped the console key and activated the receiver, then put it on the bridge speakers.

The hissing sounds of Naga speech filled the room, jolting Dan upright in his seat. The message went on and on. It almost sounded like it was repeating itself.

Checking the logs, Dan found his own outgoing call to Hereford - and another message. The ship’s Naga communications array had been accessed shortly before he and Martelle had captured the bridge.

Garul had phoned home.

This call - whoever it was - had to be the response. Dan swore under his breath. Even retaking the ship wasn’t enough. No wonder Garul had given up so easily. He’d already gotten a message out. He knew that the rest of the Naga would receive it and respond. Now they were.

But Dan couldn’t understand Naga speech. He couldn’t decode what they were saying. There was only one being in the system who understood the Naga language fluently, and he was on his way to a cell on Earth.

Reluctantly, Dan tapped the communications console again. He turned off the hissing Naga voices, recording the message for later. Then he contacted Earth again.

“Get me General Hereford immediately,” Dan said into the microphone. “He needs to turn that shuttle around and send it back to the Independence.”

“The shuttle that just left, sir?” came the reply.

“Yes. Just get Hereford right away. There’s no time to waste,” Dan said.

“Aye, sir.”

This couldn’t wait, because the Naga wouldn’t wait. Whether they’d held off on sending another invasion to Earth out of worry or fear or simply been distracted by other concerns, no one knew. But now they had a distress beacon from one of their commanders, telling them he was alive and in need of help, Dan was sure.

He didn’t know Naga culture all that well, but they were not so dissimilar from humans. They would almost certainly come unless Garul replied. They’d come in force, to rescue their people. Earth had barely survived the first assault. There was no way they could weather a second.

Read the rest of the story today! Grab your copy at: http://mybook.to/satori8

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OTHER BOOKS BY KEVIN MCLAUGHLIN

The Ragnarok Saga (Military SF)

Accord of Fire - Free prequel short story, available only to email list fans!

Book 1 - Accord of Honor

Book 2 - Accord of Mars

Book 3 - Accord of Valor

Book 4 - Ghost Wing

Book 5 - Ghost Squadron

Book 6 - Ghost Fleet (2018)

Valhalla Online Series (A Ragnarok Saga Story)

Book 1 - Valhalla Online

Book 2 - Raiding Jotunheim

Book 3 - Vengeance Over Vanaheim

Book 4 - Hel Hath No Fury (November 2018)

Lost Planet Warriors (Military SF with light romance)

Book 1 - Desperate Times

Book 2 - Desperate Measures

Dire Straits - Free short story for email list fans!

Adventures of the Starship Satori (Space Opera blended with military SF)

Finding Satori - prequel short story, available only to email list fans!

Book 1 - Ad Astra: Book 2 - Stellar Legacy

Book 3 - Deep Waters

Book 4 - No Plan Survives Contact

Book 5 - Liberty

Book 6 - Satori’s Destiny

Book 7 - Ashes of War

Book 8 - Embers of War

Book 9 - Dust and Iron (May 2018)

Blackwell Magic Series (Urban Fantasy)

Book 1 - By Darkness Revealed

Book 2 - Ashes Ascendant

Book 3 - Dead In Winter

Book 4 - Claws That Catch

Book 5 - Darkness Awakes

Book 6 - Spellbinding Entanglements

By A Whisker (short story)

The Raven and the Rose - Free novelette for email list fans!

Dead Brittania Series:

Dead Brittania (short prequel story)

Book 1 - King of the Dead

Book 2 - Queen of Demons

Raven’s Heart Series (Urban Fantasy)

Book 1 - Stolen Light

Book 2 - Webs in the Dark

Book 3 - Shades of Moonlight

Other Titles:

Over the Moon (SF romance)

Midnight Visitors (Steampunk Cat short story)

Demon Ex Machina (Steampunk Cat short story)

The Coffee Break Novelist (help for writers!)

You Must Write (Heinlein’s rules for writers)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

USA Today bestselling author Kevin McLaughlin has written more than three dozen science fiction and fantasy novels, along with more short stories than he can easily count. Kevin can be found most days in downtown Boston, working on the next novel. His bestselling Blackwell Magic fantasy series, Accord science fiction series, Valhalla Online LitRPG series, and the fan-favorite Starship Satori series are ongoing.

I love hearing from readers!

www.kevinomclaughlin.com

kevins.studio@gmail.com