Date: 2018-06-22T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: Exploring New Earth should be a thrilling undertaking. Instead, the more the colonists learn about the planet, the more alarmed they become. Alien ruins hint at a species who fought great wars among themselves and disappeared centuries ago. When Connor Gates discovers a hidden bunker, he finds something he never expected. Everything the colonists have learned about New Earth’s previous inhabitants is wrong. Connor must race to unravel the mystery. The colonists must face the possibility that they are not alone and that New Earth was never theirs for the taking. Discovery is the fifth book in t
Publisher: Acoustical Books LLC
Rights: Copyright 2018 Ken Lozito. All rights reserved.

Discovery

First Colony - Book 5

Ken Lozito

Copyright © 2018 by Ken Lozito

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.

Published by Acoustical Books, LLC
www.KenLozito.com

Cover design by Jeff Brown

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ISBN: 978-1-945223-22-8

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Afterword

About the Author

Also by Ken Lozito

1

The engines of a Field Ops transport carrier roared as the pilot increased its power. The carrier was weighed down with two all-terrain vehicles equipped for a lengthy excursion far away from Sanctuary.

Bemused, Connor looked at Noah as the young man glanced out the carrier’s windows, watching New Earth’s latest official settlement becoming smaller as the distance grew between them. He looked as if he couldn’t quite believe he’d been talked into coming on this trip.

Noah’s gaze shifted to Connor and he eyed him suspiciously, reminding Connor of the eighteen-year-old kid he’d met over twelve years earlier. The long hair was gone, along with much of his inexperience. Connor had always liked Noah, and Lenora loved him like a brother.

“I thought you said this was just a short camping trip?” Noah said as he gestured behind them. “When did you get your hands on a pair of N-Class Rovers?”

Connor grinned. “It is. There’ll be a lot of camping involved. I requisitioned them last year after the discovery of the NEIIS capital city, but we only just got them about four months ago. The newer N-Class Rovers have better capacity and range than the models we were using."

Noah’s gaze slid toward the two Rovers. They were sleek at the nose, with three doors on either side of the vehicle. A large storage cabin and mobile lab was located behind the passenger compartment of each six-wheeled vehicle. The armored plating was glossy black, and Noah felt the edges of his lips pull upward. The Rovers were quite impressive. The roof racks already had equipment loaded onto them. “Field service equipment, perimeter deterrents, provisions for two weeks. Is this your idea of relaxing?”

There was a clang as a young man walked toward them, his large pack slamming into the rear corner panel of a Rover. The youth’s eyes widened and he hastily began wiping the area with a sleeve pulled down over his hand—a largely ineffective endeavor. If he’d been paying attention, he would have realized that Connor’s Rovers already had more than a few dents from the many excursions he’d been on.

“No new scratches,” the young man said.

“Good. Otherwise, I would’ve had to send you the bill for having it painted,” Connor said severely.

“He’s kidding, Tommy,” Noah said, and Connor grinned. “Connor, this is Tommy Lockwood. We’ve been working on the multipurpose protection suits you’ll be field-testing.”

Connor shook Lockwood’s hand. He was tall and lean, but the strength in his hands was that of someone who liked to get them dirty.

“Do you know where I can store my bag?” Lockwood asked.

“Go on up ahead and talk to Diaz,” Connor said.

Lockwood thanked him and left.

“What am I field-testing again?” Connor asked.

Noah arched an eyebrow. “The MPS for civilian protection in the field. They’re made from battle mesh that’s flexible and strong. The matrix of the nanofiber can be realigned and used in all kinds of conditions. The foundations for the design are from the Nexstar combat suits, but we took out things that a civilian wouldn’t have use for. Here are the technical specs.” Noah made a snatching motion in front of his PDA’s screen and tossed it toward Connor.

A technical specs brief hovered in the air and Connor used his implants to access it. He skimmed the write-up and then looked at Noah. “This would’ve been a lot more fun if you had made that suit fly.”

“Perhaps we’ll release a flying model next year just for you. We took out the suit jets to save on weight, but you can still jump a fair distance with it and land unharmed,” Noah said.

Connor pressed his lips together in thought. “Low-altitude drop?”

Noah shook his head. “No, of course not. This is for civilian use, and most civilians aren’t doing low-altitude drops.”

Connor feigned disappointment and then grinned. “I was just kidding, Noah. What happened to you? You used to have a sense of humor.”

“Yeah, and you didn’t for a while,” Noah replied. “I still have a sense of humor. Anyway, these suits are prototypes. We need to field-test them in order to get them approved for civilian use. We put them through some paces at Sierra, but the terrain out here near Sanctuary is a bit rougher. Also, if I could get a recommendation from you based on your experience with them, that would secure the necessary support to begin production,” Noah said.

Connor nodded in understanding. He’d heard that Noah had retired from the Colonial Defense Force and was doing research and development work on the civilian side of things for a change. “I’m happy to help you, Noah. You know that. We’ll give those suits a good breaking in. Now, let me introduce you to the other people with us.”

Connor led Noah toward the front of the carrier, leaving the storage area behind. Field Ops had taken measures to install some creature comforts on the carriers, which included a storage area that was separate from where people sat. They even had padded seats now, which made for a much more comfortable ride.

Sitting in the rearmost row by herself was a young woman with long brown hair who glanced up at their approach. She’d been holding a tablet computer and was reading.

“Anna Gray, this is my friend Noah Barker,” Connor said.

Anna looked at Noah. “Yes, hello,” she said and looked away. “I’ve met your wife.”

Noah smiled. “You know Kara. Were you on the lunar base?”

Anna’s shoulders went rigid and she nodded, then abruptly turned away from them and went back to reading her tablet.

Noah gave him a questioning look as Connor led him away toward a trio of men, but before Connor could introduce them, Diaz strode over.

“Noah! It’s so good to see you, my friend,” Diaz said and gave Noah a bear hug.

Connor smiled as Diaz released Noah. “Good you’re here, Diaz, so I can introduce you to the others as well.” The trio of men had stopped talking and were looking over at Connor, Diaz, and Noah. “Hey, guys, I’d like you to meet a couple friends of mine,” Connor said, introducing Noah and Diaz to them. “Alright, from right to left we have Gibson—no first name because he doesn’t like it, so just Gibson. Next to him are Trevor McCrea and John Rollins.”

Diaz eyed Trevor McCrea for a moment, and the dark-skinned man coolly met his gaze. “McCrea, you don’t look Irish.”

Trevor’s dark face split into a grin, showing a healthy set of pearly whites. “That’s funny. I was going to say the same thing about you.”

Diaz let out a hearty laugh and nodded his approval. “What unit were you guys in?”

“Flight mechanic,” McCrea said.

Diaz looked at John Rollins, whose cold gaze wasn’t quite a full-on glare, but it was close enough. “At ease. I was just asking.”

Rollins had a receding hairline, but what was left of his hair grew to meet his shoulders. He was clean-shaven and had a hardened glint in his eyes.

“John, we talked about this,” Connor said.

“Don’t mind Rollins. He’s just pissy because we made him get out of bed early this morning,” Gibson said.

The others laughed, and Rollins looked at Gibson. “Well, who wouldn’t be pissy with your ugly mug the first thing they see?” Rollins said and glanced behind them. “Now, if it was her coming to wake me up, I might be more agreeable.”

Anna ignored them and didn’t look up from her tablet.

Rollins shrugged. “But then again, I might not.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t wake you up this morning,” a woman said from several rows in front of them as she stood up and turned around. Her blue Field Ops uniform clung to her muscular frame. “I know just how to handle someone like you.”

Rollins looked back at her and made a show of shivering. “I believe you do, and I count myself lucky, ma’am.”

He then looked away, settled back into his seat, and closed his eyes.

“Good morning, Donna,” Connor said.

Donna Marten smiled a greeting at Noah. “I’m glad this isn’t a total sausage party. Maybe next time we can have a few more women along to spice things up.”

“Next time I’ll let you pick a few people to come with us,” Connor said.

“Are you still with Field Ops?” Noah asked Donna.

“I never left. Apparently, there’s high demand in Sanctuary for the best Field Ops has to offer, so here I am,” Donna said and gave Diaz a playful slap on his shoulder. “I heard you have four kids now. Is that right?”

Diaz smiled widely. “Number five is on the way. I’m doing my part for the colony.”

“I’m sure Victoria’s doing just a little bit more to contribute to that than you are,” Donna said, and Diaz grinned.

Noah’s eyes widened. “You have five… or you’re gonna have five? Where do you find the time?”

“What are you talking about? You’re married. You make time. There’s always time for some lovin’,” Diaz said.

“Yeah, but five kids,” Noah said in an exasperated tone.

“They multiply with water,” Connor said.

“Or some tequila,” Diaz said with a chuckle. “Did you tell ’em what we’re doing on this trip?”

“Of course I did. We’re going camping,” Connor replied innocently.

Diaz let out another hearty laugh.

“What’s he talking about?” Noah asked, sounding alarmed.

“We’re going to observe some ryklar activity,” Connor said.

Ryklars were spotted, cat-like animals that had two sets of arms—two powerful outer arms with thick black claws and two inner arms that were shorter, meant for holding their prey in place while rending it to pieces with their outer arms.

Noah licked his lips, and his mouth hung open for a moment. “I’m sorry, did you say we’re going to find ryklars?”

“To observe from a safe distance, yes, we are,” Connor said.

“Why would we want to do that?” Noah asked.

“To learn more about them,” Connor said and then held up his hand to stave off Noah’s next question. “I started doing some fieldwork observing ryklars that aren’t under NEIIS influence.”

Noah frowned and squeezed his eyes shut. “NEIIS—New Earth Indigenous Intelligent Species.” He opened his eyes. “Just remembering what NEIIS meant. When did you start watching ryklars in the field?”

“A few months ago. I began looking at the current documented research on ryklars based on what happened last year. I think there’s a lot more to them than we initially thought, so I wanted to document some of their behavior. We know how dangerous they can be, but we don’t know much about what they do with their time. We know they’re pack animals and are capable of complex hunting strategies, but that’s about it,” Connor said.

Noah pursed his lips in thought for a moment. “What have you learned so far?”

“They’re more than mindless predators, that’s for sure. I’ve seen them care for one another, protect one another. They definitely display curiosity about the world around them,” Connor said.

“But they still attack us on sight, right?” Noah asked.

“If we get too close, they’ll posture. But without any NEIIS signal agitating them, they’re likely to leave us alone. Plus, if I study them, I get to leave the office from time to time,” Connor said.

“Lenora told me you enjoy being the mayor,” Noah said.

“I do, but sometimes I still need to get away.”

“You keep curious company nowadays,” Noah said with a slight head-jerk toward the others.

“They were all in the CDF. Some still are, but they come to Sanctuary to recharge their batteries. None of them had to come along today; they chose to. They’re good people. You’ll see that,” Connor said.

A speaker chimed above them. “Mayor Gates, can you please come to the cockpit?”

“I’ll be right there,” Connor said.

The Field Ops pilot preferred to call him by his current official title. Connor had had many titles throughout his life—from a colonel in the NA Alliance military to General of the Colonial Defense Force and now Mayor of Sanctuary. Despite his initial reticence about becoming the mayor of Sanctuary, he’d grown to like the job. He’d been doing the job anyway, and now it was official. Lenora liked to joke with him that if he wasn’t careful, they’d try to make him governor of the entire colony.

Connor entered the cockpit, and the pilot told him that a call was being routed to him from Sierra. Connor sat in the copilot’s seat and put on a headset. A small window appeared on the heads-up display with the words: Connecting call.

“Hi, Connor. Thanks for taking my call,” Dash said as his image appeared over the comlink.

“No problem. What can I do for you? I thought you were at a remote site,” Connor said.

Diaz entered the cockpit and stood behind Connor.

“I am, but the call’s being routed to you through Sierra. Lenora told me where you were heading, and I was hoping you might be able to investigate a location for me. It’s not far from where you’re going anyway, and I thought you might be interested in taking a look at this. I’m going to send over some satellite images now. Just let me know when you get them,” Dash said.

Connor waited for a few moments before the images appeared. When they showed up, he saw a landscape that had distinct lines of foliage, some of which looked to have been there for quite a long time, but others looked artificial. “Wasn’t there a monitoring station deployed here?” Connor asked.

“No, there wasn’t because it didn’t look like an active NEIIS site, but this is the second site I’ve seen that looks like that. What do you think it is?” Dash asked.

“I don’t see anything,” Diaz said.

Connor gestured to the loosely circular shapes on the ground. “These might be impact craters.”

Diaz peered at the image. “Impact craters from what?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Connor said and looked back at Dash’s image. “I think we can fit this in. Have you been to the other site?”

“No, it’s pretty far away, and we’ve just started looking into sites like these. When we did the initial survey, we focused on placing monitoring stations at ruins that had the potential to have working NEIIS technology. Now we’re looking at some of these other places and trying to determine whether or not we need to investigate them as well.”

“I’ll take a look around and let you know if we find anything,” Connor said.

“Thanks, Connor. I really appreciate it. I know you probably have a pretty full itinerary for this trip already,” Dash said.

“Perhaps we’ll see you on the next one,” Connor said.

Dash wished him luck.

Diaz eyed Connor. “I almost didn’t recognize him. How many of these protégés do you have running around?”

Connor smiled. “Dash is a good kid. He’s proven to be quite reliable over the past year, especially at going to investigate some of the more remote NEIIS sites. Plus, he gets to work with the new students from the Research Institute.”

Diaz shook his head and laughed. “So now he gets to babysit as well as explore. Well done.”

“He wanted the job, and babysitting goes with the job. Seriously, he’s come a long way, and he’s got a really good knack for finding things, so this trip might prove to be interesting,” Connor said.

“I don’t know how well this group can handle ‘interesting,’” Diaz said.

Connor understood Diaz’s concern. Some of the others on the transport carrier were trying to escape the experiences they’d had, and Connor still hoped this would be a quiet trip for them.

2

Connor had the Field Ops pilot plot a course to the new coordinates, which required only a slight deviation from their original heading. They were two thousand kilometers northeast of Sanctuary, heading toward the central region of the supercontinent on New Earth. When they arrived at the detour site, the pilot set the carrier down in an open, hilly region, and they unloaded the two Rovers.

“Couldn’t they have dropped us off closer to the target location?” Rollins asked as he watched the carrier fly away from them.

Connor shook his head. “This is the closest landing area we could find nearby.”

“Great,” Rollins replied, sounding none too thrilled about it.

“How far is it to the site?” McCrea asked.

“About a hundred kilometers. It should only take us a couple of hours to get there,” Connor said.

Connor circled both Rovers, checking the storage containers on top to make sure they were secure. Diaz was in the driver’s seat of one of the Rovers, and Connor climbed into the passenger seat. He saw Rollins head toward one of the rear doors.

“Not so fast,” Donna called out to Rollins. “You’re riding with me.”

Rollins frowned and looked at Connor.

“At least this way you get to ride shotgun,” Connor replied.

Muttering to himself, Rollins headed toward Donna’s Rover. Donna gave Connor a firm nod, and he had no doubt that she would keep Rollins in check. As he was thinking about that, Connor noticed that Anna was watching Rollins head toward the other Rover, and Connor called her over to ride with them. Wordlessly, she climbed into the back of the Rover. Noah climbed into the open seat behind Connor and asked Lockwood to go ride in the other Rover.

Diaz took point with their Rover, and Donna Marten followed behind.

“You weren’t kidding when you said you were going to a remote location,” Noah said.

“It’s not as bad as it once was. At least we’ll have communications,” Connor said.

“There are plenty of communication satellites now, so if we had to call for help, we could.”

“Is Kara still stationed at Lunar Base?” Connor asked.

“Not officially, but she’s doing a quick rotation. They built deep-space surveyor drones for investigating the other planets in the star system,” Noah replied.

“I’m glad to hear that project finally got off the ground. I remember that when we were positioning our missile-defense platforms, the scientists were frustrated because they couldn’t do the exploration they wanted to do,” Connor said.

“Actually, they took a page out of your book. They put forth the claim that we needed to investigate these planets to be sure there were no remnants of the Vemus on any of them,” Noah replied.

There’d been no incidents concerning the Vemus since the war, but Connor believed they couldn’t be too careful. The Vemus had tracked them all the way to their current star system. He wouldn’t want to wake up one day fifty years from now and discover that the Vemus had rebuilt their forces on one of the planets right under their very noses.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Connor said.

“You really think they’ll find anything?” Diaz asked.

“You never know.”

“Yeah, but we went through all that cleanup effort—destroyed all the remnant ships. I can’t see how there could be some remnant force holed up on another planet,” Diaz said.

“We should be studying these planets anyway,” Connor said.

“We are,” Noah said, “but we’re going to concentrate on Sagan first since it’s so close to New Earth. It’s even closer than Mars was to Earth. It could support life if it had an atmosphere and water.”

The colony had taken to naming the planets of their new star system after famous scientists throughout history, with the exception of New Earth.

“So what’s so special about the site we’re going to?” Noah asked.

“We’re not exactly sure. It might be a NEIIS site, or what’s left of one, but the satellite images look like there may be something there,” Connor said.

“Why not send a recon drone?” Noah asked.

Anna cleared her throat. “Recon drones are only good for surface-level surveys.”

Noah had forgotten Anna was sitting in the third row of seats and glanced at her in surprise. But Connor knew that even though Anna was usually quiet, she was always paying close attention to what was being said and done around her.

“Do you know if there are any ryklars in the area?” Noah asked.

“We’ll find out. I meant to ask you before, but I’ve heard they’re going to start introducing dogs into the colony at Sierra.”

Noah smiled. “That’s right. They’re introducing the heartier, larger-breed dogs. My name’s at the top of the list, and I’m going to be getting two of them.”

“You’ve been waiting a long time for that. What breeds did they decide on?”

“It’s a variant of the retriever, but they’re a bit bigger than they were back on Earth. Anyway, there are two chocolate Labrador retrievers in my future,” Noah said.

“But no babies,” Diaz said.

“We’re not in any rush. Besides, with your contribution to the colony, we can afford to wait a few years,” Noah said with a smile.

A little over an hour later they reached the outskirts of the location Connor had gotten from Dash. The forest floor hadn’t been nearly as rough as it could have been, so they were able to make it there faster than expected. They climbed out of the Rover and stretched their legs.

Tommy Lockwood walked over to them. “This all looks the same to me. How do you tell anything’s different?”

“There are several differences,” Connor said. “For example, see those trees over there? They’re much shorter than the ones around ’em, which indicates that they’re newer. One group isn’t enough to make much of a difference, but look over there,” Connor said and gestured toward the area around them. There were multiple groupings of shorter foliage, and not just trees.

The New Earth forest was alive with the chirpings of small, wild creatures—everything from the furry variety that liked to race along the tree limbs to those that scurried around the forest floor.

Connor glanced over to the side and saw Rollins squatting down, looking at the ground.

“You’re not the only one who doesn’t get it, Tommy. I’m not sure what we’re looking for, or what we’re supposed to see, for that matter,” Noah said.

Connor peered at the landscape, noting the almost sequential dips along the ground like a wave of sunken depressions. “What I think we’re seeing is that there might’ve been a battle fought here. See how there are multiple rows where the ground slopes downward, but there are no bodies of water that could account for it? Something else had to have caused it.”

Diaz frowned in thought. “You think those shallow slope-things are what, exactly?”

“Craters, or they were a while ago. I don’t think it was a meteor shower. Too many of ‘em. See that strip over there that’s almost in a straight line? I’d say that was caused by bombs from a long time ago. Dash was right. This might have been a NEIIS site,” Connor said.

Noah glanced around. “There’s nothing left. What else could we find here?”

“I don’t know, but why would they fight a battle here in the first place? Let’s split up into a couple of groups and do some scouting. Survey the area a bit.”

They divided into two groups and agreed on a place to meet in one hour. Each group took a Rover with them. The further they explored the site, the more Connor was convinced that it was, in fact, a NEIIS site where they’d fought for some unknown reason. They found broken fragments of NEIIS architecture jutting out of the ground, but it didn’t appear that there was anything left intact. If there’d ever been a city, it had been leveled to almost nothing.

A comlink came from the other team, and Connor answered it.

“Hey, Connor, I think we’ve found something you should see,” Donna said.

“Now Donna,” Diaz said, “you know Connor’s a married man.”

“Shut up, Diaz, and get your ass over here,” Donna replied and closed the comlink.

Connor gave Diaz a look. “Come on, you know she hates that stuff.”

“I know, but it’s been a long morning and we could use a bit of humor in this group,” Diaz said.

“If you’re not careful, she may find an excuse to shoot you,” Connor said.

“She’s still one of the best sharpshooters. She trades off winning competitions with Sean,” Noah said.

“Don’t you mean Colonel Quinn?” Diaz said with mock exasperation.

“Way out here, he’s just Sean,” Noah said.

Diaz drove them to the other team, which took a few minutes, and they found the team’s Rover parked near a small hill. Diaz stopped their Rover and Connor got out. He noticed that the other group all had their hunting rifles in hand. Donna Marten waved them over, and Connor approached her. He didn’t need to tell his team to grab their own hunting rifles, and Diaz said he’d get Connor’s for him.

“Expecting trouble?” Connor asked.

“We saw a small group of ryklars not far away from here. They could just be passing by the area,” Donna said.

They walked around the small hill and Donna gestured toward a steep decline on one side of the hill. There were two small ridges, almost as if there’d once been a short path to a door.

“We detected the metallic alloy the NEIIS liked to use in some type of construction underneath this area right over here,” Lockwood said and gestured to the area in front of them.

Connor cocked his head to the side and peered at the side of the hill. “Well, it looks like we get to do a little bit of excavating. Grab a shovel.”

There were only a couple of shovels so they took turns digging. They didn’t have to dig for long before they found the NEIIS alloy.

“I can speed this along if you let me use some explosives,” Rollins said.

Connor nodded. “Just don’t damage the door.”

Rollins’ permanent scowl lessened as he went about setting a few explosive charges. Connor watched to make sure he set the blast radius to blow away from the NEIIS door.

Noah came up next to Connor. “You bring explosives camping?”

Connor arched an eyebrow at him. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“It’s for excavations,” McCrea said.

Rollins had them stand back before he detonated the explosives he’d planted in the ground. A small burst of dirt blasted away, exposing part of a large, round door.

Connor shook his head in disbelief. They never would have been able to find this based only on the satellite imagery they had.

“Looks like a storage shed,” Lockwood said.

“I think it’s the entrance to a bunker,” Connor replied.

The others went quiet and looked at the round door that was now mostly exposed.

“We know the NEIIS built some of their settlements underground,” Noah said.

Connor nodded. “Let’s see if we can get that door open.”

“If this is like other NEIIS doors, the controls should be on the left,” Lockwood said and walked closer to the door.

“If the NEIIS did fight a battle here, when did they build a bunker?” Diaz asked.

“Bunkers take a lot of time to build. If the NEIIS had been engaged in an ongoing war, it might have been here a while, like what we did in anticipation of the Vemus invasion,” Connor said. He paused for a moment and then said, “This bunker’s still sealed.”

Noah frowned in thought. “What are you saying?”

“That whoever built the bunker never came out this way,” Connor said.

Noah glanced at the door. “I think I’ll give Tommy a hand.”

3

Connor watched Noah and Lockwood for a few moments while they assessed the bunker door. Noah shook his head and began clearing away some earth with his hands.

“What’s the problem?” Diaz asked.

Noah turned toward them. “There’s no access panel and there’s also no power source that I can detect.”

Diaz looked at Connor.

“The other NEIIS sites mostly had power to the doors. This one could be mechanized storage designed to be opened manually only from the inside, which makes sense if this is, in fact, a bunker,” Connor said.

“Can we blow it?” Diaz asked.

“I don’t have any heavy ordnance lying around. Do you?” Connor asked.

He walked over and grabbed one of the shovels and then walked to the top of the hill. Diaz followed him and then Gibson came, both of them carrying shovels. Connor glanced over the edge of the hill and saw Noah and Lockwood below him, working on the door. He walked several paces away from the edge and started digging.

Connor saw Diaz giving him a questioning look. “The door might be more heavily armored than whatever’s on the other side of it. I’m hoping to find the ceiling. Maybe the little bit of thermite we have can burn through it enough so one of us can drop down there and open the door.”

Gibson nodded and started digging, tossing clumps of dirt to the side.

Diaz tossed a few shovelfuls of dirt away and paused. “You don’t want to try the thermite on the door itself?”

“I don’t have that much, and I’m banking on the door being the most heavily armored since this is likely the entrance to an underground facility,” Connor replied.

Diaz sighed. “Let’s hope they don’t build bunkers like we do, because in our bunkers, the doors are very heavily armored, along with the corridor connecting to the door. They’re meant to withstand a beating.”

Connor knew Diaz was right. If this bunker was built to withstand heavy bombs, then the corridor connecting to the door might also be heavily armored, along with the entire underground complex. “Have a little faith,” Connor said.

Diaz snorted. “Oh, I do. And if it were anyone else, I wouldn’t be digging.”

Donna joined them a few minutes later. “I have Rollins and McCrea scouting the area. There might be another way inside.” She looked at the hole they’d dug and cocked her head to the side. “So this is Plan B?”

Just then, Connor’s shovel struck something solid. He shifted the point of the shovel to the side and hit the same solid surface. The terrain wasn’t rocky, so that couldn’t have been it.

“You’ll see,” Connor said.

It took them a few more minutes to clear an open area. The bronze metallic alloy the NEIIS used was pockmarked, and Connor scraped his shovel over it. Parts had become brittle with age.

Diaz looked at Connor. “Did you know it would be like this?”

“At some of the other sites, the highly acidic soil has caused the NEIIS alloy to become brittle over time. We’ve had to deal with it at Sanctuary,” Connor replied.

“It’s still pretty solid,” Diaz said, giving the exposed surface a few tentative pokes with his shovel.

“It would take us a while to chop our way through it, but the high-heat yield from some thermite should be able to do most of the work for us,” Connor said.

Gibson left them to go get the thermite strips from the Rovers and returned with a red case that had a “flammable materials” warning imprinted into it. Gibson looked at Connor, gesturing with the case toward the hole.

“Go ahead,” Connor said and took a few steps away.

Diaz and Donna joined him.

“What was Gibson’s job in the CDF?” Donna asked.

“I’m not sure. He’s a bit on the quiet side,” Connor replied.

“Should he be handling that then?” Donna asked, her voice sounding slightly alarmed.

“If he doesn’t handle it right, he might lose a few fingers and maybe a hand. But there’s little risk of anything happening to us over here,” Connor said.

Donna’s eyes widened. “You can’t be—”

“It’s part of the program. And as I said, there’s very little risk of something happening to us. It’s just a little thermite. Not to worry,” Connor said.

Diaz shook his head. “It’s just a ‘little thermite,’ he says. It burns at over four thousand degrees. Gibson, what did you do in the CDF?”

Gibson had squatted down and was attaching the ready-made clay strips that contained the thermite. “I was a cook.”

Diaz’s gaze swooped toward Connor, who smiled and then grinned. “When did you guys get so uptight?”

Gibson pushed himself up and walked over to them. There was a bright flash of light and then smoke billowed above the hole they’d dug. Gibson glanced at Diaz. “I was also a cook.”

A loud thud came from the hole, and Connor walked toward it.

“That wasn’t funny, Connor,” Diaz said and then asked Gibson what cuisine he liked best. Diaz was a good cook himself and loved food.

Connor peered down into the dark hole. Smoke still curled along the melted edges, and his implants enhanced his vision so he could see the ground below. “It’s a three-meter drop.”

Connor returned to the Rover and drove it around the hill. He tied a rope to the armored bumper and tossed the length of it into the hole. Noah and Lockwood joined them.

“You’re going down first?” Noah asked.

Connor had one foot on the edge of the hole. “Yeah, why not?”

Noah frowned and looked at the others for support. They were used to him being in charge, but they weren’t in the CDF anymore, and being the mayor didn’t count for much out where they were.

“I’ll be fine, and if I do get hurt I’ll tell Lenora you insisted I go first.”

Noah shook his head. “She wouldn’t believe that.”

Connor placed his other foot on the edge and dropped down into the hole, lowering himself to the ground. The air smelled of acrid smoke mixed with the stale air from the enclosed corridor.

“How’s it look down there? Can you open the door?” Diaz asked.

Connor walked over to the bunker door and saw that there were two handles controlling the locking mechanism. He grabbed one with a gloved hand and slowly applied pressure. He then planted his feet and tried to pull the handle down using his weight to give him leverage. There was a moment when he thought he felt it budge, but then the handle snapped off. Connor’s knuckles scraped along the metal door and he swore. He shook his hand out and looked at the other handle. There were too many thick rods that secured the door in place. More than half were corroded with a substance that Connor was sure would make any chance he had at opening the door all but impossible.

“This isn’t going to work. I just broke one of the handles, and the other one doesn’t look like it’s gonna budge,” Connor said.

He heard Diaz say something about Connor getting soft in his old age.

“Come on down here and give it a try if you want,” Connor said.

“On my way,” Diaz said. There was a shuffling of feet at the hole in the ceiling, and Diaz lowered himself through.

Lockwood came next and Noah followed. Next came Anna. She landed solidly on her feet and looked around.

“The rest of us are going to stay up here and look for another way in,” Donna said and then leaned over the hole. “The others aren’t so keen on going down there.”

“Understood,” Connor said.

Anna glanced up at the hole. “I thought we all were coming down.”

“You can climb back up if you need to. We’re just going to have a quick look around,” Connor said.

Lockwood walked over. “I hate dark places like this. You never know what could be lurking in here.”

“The dark doesn’t bother me,” Anna said quickly, and Connor knew it was a lie. She looked at Connor with her pale blue eyes glistening in the dim light as if she suspected that Connor knew she’d been lying, but she was determined to stay, so Connor didn’t press the matter.

“That’s why we’re armed,” Connor said. He leaned his modified CAR-74 hunting rifle against the wall and slung off his backpack, then took out a small recon drone and activated it. He tossed the football-shaped drone into the air and the thrusters ignited. The drone flew ahead of them and out of sight, and he shared the active drone feed with the others. “At least now we won’t be so blind to what’s ahead.”

Connor picked up his hunting rifle and led the way.

Diaz walked next to him. “I see that some things never change.”

Connor arched an eyebrow. “What? The drone?” he asked, and Diaz nodded. “What can I say? They’re useful, and I always carry at least one out in the field.” He glanced back at Noah. “See, I told you this would be fun.”

“Maybe next time you could actually wear the MPS for something like this,” Noah replied.

Connor nodded. “Point taken. Too bad they couldn’t be miniaturized so we could just carry them around with us.”

“You want everything,” Noah replied.

“Is that possible? Can you do that?” Anna asked.

Noah shook his head. “I’m not sure. I mean, we can’t shrink it and make it pocket-sized.” He frowned and glanced at Lockwood. “You know, it’s not a bad idea. If we used nano-robotic flaps, we could have it fold in on itself.”

Lockwood chewed on the side of his lower lip for a second. “You’d still have the weight of it.”

“Wouldn’t you still have the weight of it anyway?” Anna asked.

Lockwood cocked his head to the side and shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s distributed because you’re wearing the actual suit. If we condensed it to the size of a small case, you’d have all that weight concentrated in a smaller object, which might make it cumbersome to carry.”

“Let’s explore this when we get back to Sierra. Thanks for the suggestion, Connor,” Noah said.

They continued onward. Connor had meant what he’d said as a joke but was impressed with Noah and Lockwood as they explored the possibility.

With the exception of Lockwood, they were all veterans of the CDF, so they had the most cutting-edge implants available. Seeing with minimal light wasn’t much of an issue for them. And Connor didn’t hear Lockwood complaining about the dimly lit corridor, so he must also have neural implants that could enhance his vision in the dark. Connor kept the drone feed in the upper right corner of his internal heads-up display. Given how far ahead the drone was from them, Connor knew the underground complex was far more extensive than he’d originally thought. This might take a while.

4

The recon drone scouted ahead and highlighted a place in the corridor that might be of interest to Connor. The angle of the floor was becoming steeper the farther they went.

“You’ve upgraded the recon drones’ capabilities,” Noah said after seeing the updated information from the drone.

“It’s something Dash did for us not too long ago. When the drone comes across known shapes, such as a NEIIS door or something like that, it highlights them for us. Saves time and quickens the exploration of NEIIS sites,” Connor said.

Noah nodded appreciatively. “It’s clever.”

The walls of the corridor changed to smooth stone. Connor glanced at the floor and saw that it was the same. The air was crisp and moist, but there was minimal condensation on the walls. Connor ran his fingers along the stone, and it was cool to the touch and as smooth as he expected it to be. He had no idea how the NEIIS could have done this, given their level of technology. Tunneling this much material couldn’t have been easy. And what had they done with the leftover debris?

They came to the first highlighted area, and there was a door off to the side. It was rounded in the NEIIS fashion and there was a control panel in the middle of it, but there was no power to it. Connor opened the panel and peered inside. The inner workings of the control panel had rotted out.

Diaz banged his fist on the door, which made a dull thud sound. “That sounds pretty solid. We’re not getting through there.”

Connor agreed and they kept going. Diaz complained that he was getting hungry.

“Didn’t you eat a little while ago?” Connor asked.

“I did, but Gibson was just telling me about a new recipe and now I can’t stop thinking about it,” Diaz replied.

Connor had known Diaz for a long time. If he let him, Diaz would keep going on about food until Connor became just as hungry as Diaz was.

“I’m detecting a power source up ahead,” Noah said while holding his PDA out in front of him.

Connor brought up the drone feed and saw that the drone had stopped. It looked like it was in a room with hardly any lighting at all. Even with his implants, he couldn’t enhance the display enough to distinguish anything. They kept going.

“How is it that all of these NEIIS sites still have power?” Diaz asked.

“The NEIIS built a lot of redundancies into the power station at Sanctuary, but we seem to find that only in specialized areas of NEIIS design. One of the engineers at Sanctuary said they thought the NEIIS had built certain places with the intent that they needed them to last a long time,” Connor replied.

“Yeah, but how is the power still on if these places weren’t maintained?” Diaz said.

“Most of the time when we investigate the sites and try to access their systems, they overload and quit working. That’s why we equip our portable generators with the ability to govern the power output so it’s compatible with NEIIS technology. Doesn’t always work that well though,” Connor said.

The recon drones were just ahead, and the ground had finally started to level off. It’d taken them twenty minutes to get there and they’d been going downward at a steady decline. Why would the NEIIS have built something way down there? He glanced behind him and saw that the others were following along, although Lockwood and Anna didn’t look particularly happy about it.

The corridor expanded into an open room. It was circular and had multiple NEIIS consoles throughout. On one side was a long rectangular door made of the bronze alloy the NEIIS preferred to use in their construction.

“Alright, we need to be careful. Don’t touch anything,” Connor said and looked at Noah. “Is there anything broadcasting from here?”

The drone hovered in the air at the rectangular door.

“I don’t detect anything. In fact, I doubt we can even reach the others on the surface,” Noah said, and Connor immediately wished he hadn’t asked. Lockwood and Anna were nervous enough as it was.

Connor accessed the recon drone controls and had it engage its lights. The NEIIS consoles became more distinct, and there was a main console in the center of the room that looked to be the most intact.

Noah went to that console and opened the access panel underneath it. The mesh screen above it was laden with dust, but it was in much better condition than the other screens in the room, which were damaged and had deteriorated long ago.

“This console still has power,” Noah said and closed the panel.

Connor came over to his side and looked at the door. There were no controls on the door itself, so it had to be controlled by the main console. Connor removed his gloves and softly swiped his fingers across the mesh console. There was a soft chime and the mesh began to glow as the console came back online, as if it had been on standby all this time. Connor waited for it to finish starting up and go through its check-in sequence. He glanced at Noah, who was watching his PDA.

“Still no broadcast,” Noah said.

The symbols from the NEIIS language scrolled across the screen going from left to right. The translator in Connor’s PDA immediately began putting known words under the symbols it recognized. Connor had worked with Dash extensively after the events of the previous year involving Maddox. Lieutenant Vince Maddox had cracked when Captain Fletcher had died. The two men had been close friends. Maddox blamed the colony for Fletcher's death, and he tried to use the ryklar purge protocol to send hordes of ryklars to attack colonial settlements. With Dash's help, Connor had been able to stop Maddox. Since then, Connor had made a point to be as familiar with NEIIS systems as he could be, but he knew that Noah, who had been working with NEIIS tech for a long time, understood it much better than he could.

“Excuse me,” Lockwood said. “I want to head back and contact the others. You know, tell them what we found.”

Connor nodded. “Sounds like a good idea,” he said and looked at Anna. “Would you mind going with him? I’d rather no one traveled alone in this place.”

Anna said she would and the two of them made a hasty retreat. Once they were gone, Diaz joined Connor at the console.

“I was wondering how long they’d stay down here,” Diaz said.

Connor glanced at Noah. “You need to be more careful.”

Noah frowned. “I don’t know what you mean. What did I do wrong?”

“Lockwood and Anna were already uncomfortable being down here, and then you say we’re out of contact with the people aboveground?” Connor said.

Noah glanced at the entrance. “I didn’t realize they’d be so bothered by it.”

“Some of the people with us have been through tough times. The key is to remember that they don’t want to be catered to, and they need to be able to maintain their dignity. Just try and remember next time,” Connor said and turned his attention back to the console. “We still have power. Let’s see if we can get this door open.”

“Are you sure?” Diaz asked.

“Yeah, why not?”

“Oh, you know, we have no idea what’s beyond that door,” Diaz said.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve explored a NEIIS site. It’s kinda become my second job recently,” Connor replied.

“Fine,” Diaz said and checked his rifle.

Connor gently tapped the sequence of NEIIS symbols for the door control, and a loud clang followed. Diaz brought his rifle up and aimed it as the door slowly sank into the ground. The aged mechanism squeaked loudly as it pulled the door downward. A gasp of air escaped the room beyond with a great sigh.

Noah glanced at Connor, his mouth slightly agape. The room had been sealed and must’ve been airtight. Connor walked around the main console and held his hunting rifle ready more out of habit than any fear of whatever was inside.

The light from the recon drone pierced the dark room, casting light over thick power cables that ran along the walls. Connor’s gaze followed the cables down to a row of some kind of NEIIS machines he’d never seen before. The machines were composed of angular planes on the bottom with dome-shaped tops. The cables connected to an elevated platform near the wall, but the shadows cast by the drone’s light showed that there was room to walk behind the machines. They were easily ten feet long, and multiple hoses came out of the back, with several running along the edge of the room. Amber lighting along the upper walls started to come on, exposing the farthest reaches of the room that curved out of Connor’s view. The NEIIS machines were evenly spaced.

Connor walked into the room, and Noah and Diaz followed him. Both men were quiet. Noah shared the scanner results from his PDA, which showed that none of the platforms had power. Not even the cables running to them had power. The recon drone hovered in the air ahead of them, and its light showed the beginnings of an extensive cave-in that had buried multiple machines and damaged quite a few others.

Connor took a closer look at one of the machines. Its screen had been protected by an enclosure, which had protected the screen, but without power it would be difficult to figure out what these machines had been used for.

“What do you think these things are?” Diaz asked.

Connor shook his head. “I don’t know—not without prying one open.” His nose suddenly wrinkled and he sneezed. He rubbed his nose and then sneezed again. The sound of it echoed through the room. Maybe he should’ve worn the MPS. At least then they’d have a bioscanner. He glanced back at the open door for a moment and then looked at the recon drone. He engaged the scanners on it and sent it ahead at a slow pace.

“I’ve never seen anything like this at any of the other NEIIS sites I’ve been to,” Noah said.

Connor glanced at the curved tops of the machines. His gaze slid to the power cables and then to the hoses that connected them. His eyes widened. “I know what these things are!”

Diaz had been squatting down to look behind one of the platforms. He immediately stood up and turned toward Connor.

“They’re stasis pods. What do you want to bet that inside is an actual NEIIS,” Connor said.

Diaz backed away from the pod, and Noah shook his head. “They didn’t have the technology to create stasis pods.”

“What else could they be? Look at how they’re spaced. The connections on the back look like individual life support. We need to consult with an engineer at Sierra to confirm, but that’s what these are,” Connor said. He took a few steps and then sent a command to the recon drone to record the scanner data and video feed.

“Why do you think they couldn’t build these things?” Diaz asked Noah.

“Building a box and running power and things needed for life support isn’t that difficult, but putting a life form into stasis is a real challenge. Well, actually it’s also a challenge to bring it out of stasis. It took us over seventy-five years to figure that out, and much of that was because we had a space program,” Noah said.

Diaz looked at Connor.

“Noah’s right about how we developed stasis technology. But I think you’re forgetting something, Noah. We don’t know what led them to do all this. Maybe they had a need to create these. Just because we didn’t develop on the same path doesn’t mean that our path is the only way to access this kind of tech,” Connor said.

Noah regarded Connor for a moment with a thoughtful smile and then snorted. “Boy, Lenora really has done a number on you.”

Diaz let out a hearty laugh, and Connor grinned.

“What can I say? She’s been good for me.”

Noah glanced around and then jutted his chin toward the machines. “I wonder what she’d make of all this.”

“I’m not sure. The ones here don’t have power,” Connor said.

An alert suddenly appeared on Connor’s heads-up display, which immediately showed itself to the others: Power source detected.

A klaxon alarm began to sound, echoing throughout the chamber. Connor brought the drone’s video feed to prominence on his heads-up display and saw that one of the stasis pods still had power. White vapor was billowing out from the bottom.

Connor and the others ran past the dead stasis pods. Once past the cave-in, they found a small part of the room that hadn’t been affected by the cave-in. The mesh screen on top of one of the stasis pods was powered on and NEIIS symbols were streaming by, indicating its status.

“Can you read it?” Connor asked Noah.

Connor thought he knew what the alerts were, but Noah was the real expert.

“It’s being reactivated, but there are multiple errors,” Noah said, still reading the streaming symbols.

Connor looked to where the dome met the platform of the stasis pod and saw a bit of corrosion built up from however long it had been there. He slammed the butt of his rifle on the corrosion to break it apart.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Diaz asked, his voice sounding strained.

“It’s being reactivated and can’t open. Whoever’s inside is going to die if we don’t help,” Connor said.

After striking a few more blows, Connor put his rifle down and pulled out his knife. He drove the edge into the seam and worked it back and forth, driving it further in and pulling hard. He wasn’t worried about breaking the knife because it was made of a hardened alloy that wouldn’t break no matter how hard he pulled on it. The stasis pod lid started to open. Diaz pulled out his own knife and used it to pry open the far end. Together, they pushed and the lid finally slid completely open.

Connor and the others backed away and peered inside.

“Now what?” Diaz asked.

5

Connor retrieved his hunting rifle from the floor and took a few steps back. A light flickered from inside the pod, highlighting a dark figure covered in a semitransparent sheath. Diaz and Noah had their rifles pointed at the open stasis pod.

“Really, guys? We’re going to shoot it? Come on, lower your weapons,” Connor said.

Noah lowered his weapon, but Diaz kept his up. There was the sound of gushing liquid being expelled from underneath the stasis pod, and the figure inside started to move.

“Calm down. Did you forget what it was like coming out of stasis? Even if they wanted to cause trouble, they couldn’t. Trust me. Whatever’s in there is going to be weak and disoriented,” Connor said.

Diaz began to lower his weapon.

“Only if it reacts to stasis the same way we do,” Noah said.

Connor gave him a look.

“I can’t help it, okay? It’s how my brain works,” Noah replied.

The seals along the edge of the sheath opened and a retracting arm pulled the sheath off the NEIIS inside.

“I don’t like this,” Diaz said, backing away.

“We can’t just leave it here,” Connor said, but Diaz looked unconvinced. “Fine, wait by the door then.”

Diaz shook his head. “I ain’t leaving, but I ain’t gonna just trust it neither.”

“What do we do?” Noah asked.

Both of them looked at Connor as if he’d ever had first contact with an intelligent species before. Actually, he and the rest of humanity were the aliens on this planet. He had no idea what to do.

“Let’s give it some room,” Connor said.

A breathing mask covered the NEIIS’s face and it struggled to remove it, but the NEIIS couldn’t make its hands reach its face. Connor handed his rifle to Diaz, who looked at him as if he were crazy.

Connor stepped closer to the stasis pod. He could only see the upper torso of the NEIIS. Its skin was brown and almost pebbled, like that of a reptile. Pointy protrusions stemmed from the creature’s shoulders and elbows. It had long arms and large hands with four long fingers. Stubby black claws protruded from the fingers, but they could have just been thick nails at the tips. The NEIIS’s entire face was covered by a dark facemask, and the creature’s body was covered in a viscous paste that seemed to be slathered over the entirety.

“There’s a latch on the side that might release the mask,” Noah said from behind Connor. He was leaning in but at the same time trying to keep his distance, which put him in an awkward position.

The NEIIS’s chest heaved as it tried to draw breath. Connor reached in toward the circular latch on the facemask and unfastened it. He did the same thing with the one on the creature’s chin, and the facemask loosened. Connor reached to the other side of the NEIIS’s face and undid those latches as well. The NEIIS had a breathing tube, so Connor couldn’t just pull it to the side or he’d damage its throat. The tube had to come straight out. Connor lifted the mask up slightly and then pulled. A dark hose connected to the facemask went into the NEIIS’s mouth, and once it cleared the creature’s throat, it let out a garbled sigh. The NEIIS drew in shallow breaths and spat out dark liquid, which dribbled down to its chest. The NEIIS brought its hands to its face and tried to wipe the paste from its eyes. There was a brow line on either side of its head that went toward the back. Its nostrils were at the same level as its eyes, and its wide mouth had frown lines that went toward its powerful neck. The NEIIS coughed and drew in a deep breath. It looked lean and muscular through the skintight clothing it was wearing, and Connor thought the clothes looked like a compression suit. They’d used the same thing on the Ark, which prevented their muscles from becoming atrophied.

The NEIIS’s dark eyes seemed to notice Connor for the first time, and it stopped moving. Connor took a few steps back and allowed it to get a good look at him.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Connor said, knowing there was no chance the NEIIS could understand him. He didn’t even know if the tone of voice he was using would convey his peaceful intentions.

The NEIIS sat up, using one of its arms to prop itself up. It tried to move its legs but still had trouble controlling its limbs. The NEIIS let out a low growl and pulled itself out of the stasis pod. It landed on the floor, hard. More dark liquid came out of its mouth, making the floor slick, and it was hard for the creature to move.

Connor noted a small emblem of three intertwining triangles on the NEIIS’s sleeve. One side of each triangle went through the middle of the others, and the emblem was etched with a golden metallic tint that seemed to reflect the light.

The NEIIS turned over and sat, leaning against the outside of the stasis pod as it began to wipe the mucus off its body. Its movements were getting more controlled, as if whatever drugs had kept the creature in stasis were wearing off. Connor remembered how groggy he’d felt when he came out of stasis, which he’d been in for over two hundred years. He had no idea how long this creature had been in stasis.

Its eyes were dark and became a lighter yellow along the edges. It looked at all three of them and made a grinding sound from inside its mouth. Connor didn’t know if this was how it communicated or if it was just clearing its throat. He was starting to think Diaz’s instinct to run may have been the right idea, but he dismissed the thought almost immediately. They were in it now, and there was no going back.

The NEIIS pushed itself to its feet and swayed for a moment before leaning on the pod, and Connor noted that it was several inches shorter than him. It clutched one of its long arms to its chest and hunched over. The NEIIS glanced behind them at all the destroyed stasis pods and let out a harsh groan. It turned its gaze toward them accusingly. Connor and the others backed away, giving it plenty of room so it didn’t feel cornered.

“What are we supposed to do now? We can’t even talk to this thing,” Diaz said.

“I’m thinking,” Connor said.

He racked his brain, trying to recall the symbols they’d interpreted from the NEIIS console interfaces. Maybe he could find something he could use to communicate with the creature.

The NEIIS grimaced in pain and then let out a loud howl, startling the three colonists.

“That thing is going to attack us,” Diaz said.

Connor reached into his pocket, brought out his PDA, and activated the holodisplay. He brought up the NEIIS translation and inputted the shutdown sequence they’d used on the consoles. A group of symbols appeared, scrolling from left to right, and Connor thrust the display in front of him so the NEIIS could see it.

The NEIIS winced and looked away as if it thought Connor was going to strike it, but it slowly turned back and peered at the symbols, looking as if it recognized them. Connor hoped he was telling the NEIIS to stop, but he couldn’t be sure.

Connor and the others continued to back up, and the NEIIS took a few steps forward while glancing repeatedly at the ruined stasis pods. It walked with a slight hunch as if it was barely keeping its feet under it. In this manner they made it to the control room, and Connor and the others moved to the side, letting it enter the room.

A comlink opened to Connor from Donna Marten.

The NEIIS hissed at him.

“I’m a little busy at the moment,” Connor said.

“Connor, thank god you’re there,” Donna said.

Connor heard the concern in her voice. “Did Lockwood and Anna reach you?”

“Yes, they did, and they’re safe. But—” The signal was cut off for a moment. “Do you copy?”

The NEIIS cocked his head to the side as it continued to watch Connor.

“Say again. I didn’t get the last part,” Connor said.

“There are ryklars in the bunker. They started coming here a little while ago. We tried to fight them off but several made it past us and are inside. We’re coming, but is there anywhere you can fight them off?” Donna asked.

Connor glanced at the others for a second before bringing his gaze back to the NEIIS. The creature turned away from Connor and looked at the entranceway to the corridor beyond. Could it hear the ryklars?

“What’s happening?” Noah asked.

“There are ryklars in the bunker,” Connor said quietly.

Diaz swore, and the NEIIS turned toward him.

Connor took a step forward. “Look at me. Don’t look at him. Look at me.” How could he communicate the danger they were in?

The NEIIS looked at Connor for a moment before taking a step toward the entrance.

“No,” Connor said and held up his PDA, showing the NEIIS language.

The NEIIS glanced at the PDA and then stumbled out of the control room.

6

Connor and the others followed the NEIIS as it stumbled through the corridor, the spikes on its shoulders rubbing against the rough walls. The NEIIS pushed itself onward, scarcely managing to keep its feet underneath it. It stopped and leaned against the wall, extending one of its arms to stay upright while its chest heaved with the labor of breathing.

Connor opened a comlink to the others and told them what they’d found. “Donna, we’re heading toward you. Clear out of the bunker and cover the entrance.”

“Sir, we can help with the ryklars,” Donna replied.

“We can handle the ryklars. I don’t want anyone caught in the crossfire, and I don’t know how the NEIIS is going to react to seeing more of us,” Connor said.

He knew she didn’t like it, but Donna was more than disciplined enough not to belabor her point.

“Understood, sir. We’ll be just outside,” Donna said.

The NEIIS pushed himself away from the wall and continued ahead. Connor and the others followed, keeping several paces behind.

“Is it me, or is the NEIIS moving faster than it was before?” Noah said.

“It isn’t you,” Connor said, confirming Noah’s observation. The NEIIS had been getting stronger with each step, and its long legs enabled it to take long strides.

Several ryklars let out screeches that echoed through the corridor, and the NEIIS stopped in its tracks.

Connor waited. He had the ryklar-deterrent signal ready to broadcast and they were armed, but he held off to give Donna and the others time to escape the bunker. Another ryklar screeched, sounding closer than the last one. He’d seen the ryklars behave like this on a hunt. They used screeches to startle their prey out of hiding. Ryklars were powerful hunters that could sprint with the speed of a cheetah but also cover long distances that would make any endurance runner green with envy.

The corridor opened to the small landing where they’d found the locked door earlier, and the NEIIS headed directly toward it. The corridor beyond angled upward, so they couldn’t see very far ahead, but Connor knew the ryklars were getting close. The NEIIS looked at the control mechanism for the door and pressed its fingers on the panel, but the panel was unresponsive.

The ryklars were closing in on them and let out another barrage of screeches. The NEIIS turned toward the corridor and reared up to its full height. Then its whole body went rigid and it let out a bellow that sounded as if it had multiple vocal cords. The NEIIS’s roar went on for several seconds, washing out the ryklars’ screeches altogether.

“Oh my god,” Noah said quietly. “The NEIIS howl is on the same frequency as the deterrent frequency we use for the ryklars.”

Noah balanced his hunting rifle in one hand and extended his PDA so Connor could see the readout.

The NEIIS went silent again and turned back toward the door. It tore open the control panel, and Connor watched as the NEIIS reached inside, extending its arm past its elbow. The ryklars reached the entrance to the landing and the NEIIS howled again, though not nearly as powerfully as before. Connor engaged the deterrent signal and watched as the spotted predators winced, brought clawed hands up toward their heads, and then scampered back up the corridor and out of sight.

The NEIIS looked at Connor and the others. Connor held his PDA out in front of him so the NEIIS could see what was causing the ryklars to retreat. It wouldn’t last long.

The NEIIS pounded its free hand against the door as it reached further inside the control panel. Connor watched the creature’s muscular back go rigid as it pulled on something inside the wall. The door opened several inches, but the NEIIS continued to jerk on the manual mechanism hidden inside the control panel to open the door.

Connor and the others stepped toward the NEIIS. Diaz and Noah kept their weapons trained on the corridor the ryklars had used for their retreat as a countdown timer appeared on Connor’s heads-up display. The PDA could only broadcast the deterrent frequency at this magnitude for a short amount of time.

The NEIIS pulled on the door, trying to pry it open. Connor stepped toward it and the creature scowled in his direction—at least he thought it was a scowl. The alien then used its whole body to heave on the door, and it grudgingly gave way, opening enough for it to slip through.

“He has the right idea,” Diaz said.

Connor and the others headed toward the door. Connor took a quick look inside and then followed the NEIIS. Noah slipped in behind him and Diaz brought up the rear. Diaz tried to pull the door closed but snatched his hand away as the ryklars screeched again.

The room beyond was a large storage room lined with containers and other dark shapes that Connor didn’t have time to scrutinize. He scanned the area, looking for where the NEIIS had gone, and heard soft grunts as it padded on ahead of them. The room remained dark even after they entered, and Connor’s implants struggled to enhance the little bit of light that streamed in through the doorway. The small group’s ability to see was assisted by the recon drone as it flew into the room overhead, its lights cutting a swath through the darkness; however, its lights also cast shadows all around them.

“Come on. We have to keep moving,” Connor said.

They quickened their pace into the dark storage room, following where he thought the NEIIS had gone. The ryklars screeched from the doorway.

“This just gets better and better,” Diaz said.

Thick layers of dust billowed into the air as they went past storage crates and other NEIIS equipment. Some of the containers were stained by something that had leaked from the inside. There was a rocky wall ahead of them, and rows of equipment extended from either side.

They came to a halt and listened. Connor closed his eyes for a moment, straining to hear where the NEIIS had gone, and then picked a direction. He wasn’t sure where the creature was headed, but he suspected it knew another way out of there. As they followed, Connor realized they were walking amongst the proverbial mother lode of NEIIS equipment. This cache must’ve been meant for their use once they’d come out of stasis.

There was an open area ahead of them and Connor slowed down. He didn’t want to go charging into an open space with ryklars nearby. Across the way, they saw the NEIIS on its knees, breathing heavily outside another door. They took several steps into the open area.

“There’s more equipment over there,” Noah said and gestured toward the side.

Connor saw movement from the corner of his eye and swung his hunting rifle toward it. A ryklar had circled around. Connor pushed Noah out of the way and squeezed the trigger. The modified hunting rifle belched several heavy rounds, taking two ryklars in the chest as they were about to pounce on Noah. Connor and Noah cautiously backed away from the storage crates and headed toward the NEIIS. Connor heard Diaz take a few shots off to the left but couldn’t see any ryklars there. The sound of shuffling, clawed feet snatched Connor’s attention toward the right, where the other equipment was.

Connor swore. It hadn’t taken the ryklars long to recover from the deterrent broadcast, but he couldn’t tell how many there were. He turned toward the NEIIS, who’d regained his feet and was opening the door, but it leapt back from the door and spun to the side as a ryklar charged. The NEIIS had managed to dodge the ryklar’s attack, but then it grabbed the spotted predator from behind and shoved it away, hard. Connor aimed his hunting rifle and squeezed off a few rounds, one of which hit the ryklar in the side, and it howled in pain as it crawled away from them. The NEIIS glanced at Connor and then went through the door.

Connor and the others got close enough to see a long ramp extending upward at a steep incline. The three of them went through the door and then pulled it shut. Ryklars growled from the other side, and Connor knew it would take them a while to get through the thick door.

“Is everyone alright?” Connor asked.

Diaz and Noah said they were, so they kept going.

“Did you see that? That thing went toe-to-toe with a ryklar, unarmed,” Diaz said.

“Yeah, I saw it,” Connor replied.

Connor had come to blows with a ryklar only from within the armored confines of a combat suit, but the NEIIS definitely knew how to engage the ryklars up close.

A shaft of light appeared at the top of the ramp.

“That’s a door to the outside,” Noah said.

They quickened their pace, eager to leave the bunker behind.

7

Connor raced up the steep incline toward the open door. By the time he reached it, his thighs were burning with the effort. Noah was breathing heavily behind him.

“I really need to work in some cardio,” Noah said.

Connor wasn’t breathing all that heavily, but he felt like it had taken much more effort than it should have to reach the top. Shrugging off the thought, he stepped through the door into pale green shrubbery that showed signs of the NEIIS having passed through. He looked ahead and saw the creature standing about fifteen meters away from them, taking in its surroundings. There were ruined buildings nearby, hidden among the overgrowth. The NEIIS’s shoulders rose and fell in shallow breaths.

Connor looked at Noah. “Try and reach the others and tell them where we are.”

Noah nodded.

Diaz shut the bunker door and the sound of it drew the NEIIS’s attention. It looked at Connor’s rifle and then at Connor, who lowered his rifle, making sure the barrel was pointing well away from the NEIIS. The NEIIS looked away from them.

“What’s it doing?” Diaz asked.

“I doubt this is what he expected to find when he woke up,” Connor said.

“How do you know it’s a ‘him’?”

Connor cocked his head to the side and shrugged. He guessed he didn’t know without seeing a female NEIIS. “Leap of faith,” he said.

“Works for me,” Diaz replied.

“The others are on their way,” Noah said.

The NEIIS started walking away from them—first in one direction but then changed its mind.

“What’s the plan here? Are we just going to keep following it?” Noah asked.

Connor walked slowly in the direction the NEIIS had gone. “Yes, we keep following him, but let’s give him some distance so he doesn’t feel threatened.”

“What if I start to feel threatened?” Diaz said, only half-jokingly.

“If he wanted to attack us, he would’ve. Let’s just follow him,” Connor said.

They followed the NEIIS for a short while, and it led them toward partial ruins that had been mostly reclaimed by wildlife. Connor noted that the landscape still showed depressions that bore the signs of a bombardment long ago. He wondered what the NEIIS was looking for. What would he have done if he’d woken from stasis all alone and everything around him was in ruins?

They heard the approach of the Rovers driving up behind them, and the NEIIS stopped in its tracks, turning to look at them. The others climbed out of the Rovers, and Connor gestured for them to come quietly. The others looked at the NEIIS in shock, and the NEIIS kept watching them, its dark eyes suspicious.

“Isn’t this nice,” Rollins said. “It looks as likely to attack us as to eat us.”

McCrea blew out a breath and the NEIIS focused its gaze on him. After a few moments, it backed away.

Connor saw that Anna had stayed near the Rovers. “Can you get the other recon drone?” he asked her.

Anna retrieved the drone and powered it on. Connor then initiated a connection to the drone and had it target the NEIIS in surveillance mode. He sent the recon drone they’d been using in the bunker back to the charging station on the Rover.

“Why the hell do you want to follow it?” Rollins asked.

“You’re such an idiot,” McCrea said.

“Speak for yourself, but I didn’t come out here for this. First the ryklars and now this thing,” Rollins said.

“We have to follow it,” Connor said.

“You may want to follow it, but I want to go back to Sanctuary,” Rollins said.

“Is your tail tucked firmly between your legs then?” Donna asked.

Rollins’ gaze swooped toward her. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Just calm down a minute,” Connor said. “You go wait in the Rover if you want, and I’ll work on getting transport back to Sanctuary. Alright?”

Rollins’ brows pushed over his eyes and he glanced in the direction the NEIIS had gone. “I just need a few minutes. First, we get attacked by ryklars and now that thing is here. What else is gonna happen?”

Gibson came over and guided Rollins away.

“What’s with that guy?” Diaz asked.

McCrea looked at Connor and waited for an answer.

“He doesn’t want to be out here,” Connor said.

“Then why’d he come?” Diaz asked.

“Because I asked him to. Enough about Rollins. He’ll be alright,” Connor said.

McCrea shook his head. “We should send him back to Sanctuary sooner rather than later. He can’t handle this.”

Rollins heard what McCrea said and stalked toward him. “I’ll show you what I can handle.”

Connor stepped between them and glared at Rollins. “You control yourself right now,” he said coldly while glaring at the man. He was ready to subdue him but hoped he wouldn’t have to.

Rollins stopped in his tracks and looked away from Connor.

“Boys, we have an audience,” Donna said, gesturing away from them.

The NEIIS must’ve circled back because he was watching them intently. When the rest of them looked at the NEIIS, he seemed to lose interest and walked away.

“What if we brought it back to Sanctuary with us?” Noah asked.

“How do you propose we do that?” Diaz replied.

Noah shrugged. “I don’t know, but there’s got to be some way to incapacitate it.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Donna said mockingly. “Let’s knock him out and take him with us like a prisoner. Is that your idea of diplomatic relations?”

“Do you have a better idea?” Noah asked, sounding slightly annoyed.

“We’re not taking it prisoner and we’re not going to subdue it,” Connor said finally. He glanced in the direction the NEIIS had gone. “We need help,” he said and glanced at the others. This wasn’t the best group of people to do this, but he couldn’t let this opportunity slip away. “Noah, see if you can reach Sierra so we can get some advice on our situation. Tell them exactly what happened.”

“They’ll want to talk to you,” Noah said.

“That’s good because I’ll want to talk to them, too. Just get it started for me, will you, please?” Connor said.

As Noah went to the Rover, Connor brought up the recon drone’s video feed.

“What do you think it’s looking for?” Donna asked.

“Could be anything, really. If it were me, I’d be looking for more of my own kind or… I don’t know,” Connor admitted.

“If it were me, I’d be looking for food,” Diaz said and then snorted. “I don’t know about you guys, but when I came out of stasis, I was hungry.”

“You’re always hungry, but you’re right that he might be looking for supplies,” Connor said.

Noah called them over to the Rover and informed them that Field Ops was scrambling to find a couple of experts for them to talk to. Diaz took the opportunity to get some food and tossed a ration pack toward Connor. Connor caught the packet and looked at it. He’d wait to see what the experts at Sierra advised, but he had a few ideas of his own on how to communicate with the NEIIS.

8

Nearly fifteen minutes had passed since they’d been told to wait while the Field Ops dispatcher attempted to find an advisor they could consult with. Connor crossed his arms and frowned. His patience was wearing thin, but he knew it wasn’t the dispatcher’s fault.

Connor looked at Noah. “What was her name again?”

“Sandy, I think,” Noah said and tilted his head to the side. “No, that’s it. Her name is Sandy.”

Connor took control of the comlink. “Sandy, I know you’re doing the best you can, but we need someone now. Can you just patch us into the Field Biology Office or something like that?”

Sandy’s reply became garbled for a moment. “Are you still there?”

“We’re still here. Repeat the last,” Connor replied.

“Who am I speaking to?” a man’s voice asked.

“This is Connor Gates. Who is this?”

“The Connor Gates?” the man asked, and his voice sounded excited.

Connor shook his head. “Yes, that Connor Gates.”

He heard Diaz joke about Connor having a fan.

“It’s truly an honor to speak with you, sir. I’m Dr. Eric Young.”

Connor sighed. He’d gotten this reaction before. “Thank you for speaking with us so quickly, Dr. Young. Have you been briefed on our situation?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t. They just said you needed to speak to somebody quickly. I’m here to help you in any way I can,” Dr. Young said.

Connor quickly brought the doctor up to speed. “I’m hoping that someone with your expertise will be able to provide us with some guidance on how best to handle the situation.”

Dr. Young didn’t reply right away, and Connor checked that they were still connected via comlink.

“I’m sorry, Connor. I’m neither from the Field Biology Office nor an expert on NEIIS,” Dr. Young said.

Connor nearly swore and rolled his eyes. “What is your field of study then, Doctor?”

“I’m a psychologist. I’m part of a team that’s on call to help with teams serving in the field. I do crisis management, along with coping strategies for trauma-type situations,” Dr. Young said.

Connor had asked for help and they’d put him through to a damn therapist! He glared at the comms station on the Rover and resisted the urge to punch it. Instead, he shook his head and looked at Noah and Diaz. He heard Donna mutter something from behind them.

“I don’t see how you’re going to be much help to us then. Can you connect me back to the dispatcher?” Connor replied with just a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“Judging by that tone, you probably think I can’t help you at all and I’ve just wasted your time.”

“Well, that depends. Do you know anything about the NEIIS?”

“Not specifically, but I do think I can help you,” Dr. Young said.

Connor just wanted to get this guy off the comlink as quickly as possible so he could talk to somebody who could actually help him and not some glorified therapist. “I don’t have time for this. I’m going to reconnect to Sierra. I appreciate your time—”

“Just a moment if you please, Connor,” Dr. Young said quickly, and Connor lowered his hand from the comlink disconnect button. “The NEIIS that you said just came out of stasis—is he disoriented? Agitated? Showing signs of being unable to identify his surroundings? Has he shown signs of aggression?”

“Well, yeah, but that was because the ryklars attacked. We don’t know how long he’s been in stasis. We’ve been following him but trying to keep our distance. I have a recon drone following him right now,” Connor replied.

“That’s good. That’s really good. If you corner him, he might perceive it as an attack. What you need to do is establish trust. You want to set him at ease so he’ll be open to communicating with you. Opening communications should be your first priority,” Dr. Young said.

Connor pursed his lips in thought. Maybe the therapist could help them. “You’ve got my attention. How do we do that?”

“How do you get anybody to trust you? First, establish that you’re not going to hurt him. Offer him something. Is he hurt? Go back to the basics of what every person needs—food, water, shelter. All these things are highly valued when under stress, and if he’s been in stasis for any length of time, then coming out and seeing that all of his companions are gone and the world he once knew is gone is a pretty good indication that he’s under a lot of stress. The strain may be too much,” Dr. Young said.

“Okay, we could try that, but should we wait until tomorrow? You know, give him some time to acclimate?” Connor said.

“Ordinarily I’d say yes, but this is a special case and we don’t know the behavioral patterns of the NEIIS. Not really. So, in this case, my recommendation would be for you to keep trying to communicate with him right now. However, if he makes it clear that he wants to be left alone, you’ll need to respect that, but don’t go far away,” Dr. Young said.

“Understood, and thank you for your advice,” Connor said and meant it. Dr. Young was making a lot of sense.

“I’m happy to help. I’ll keep myself available should you have any further questions or wish to apprise me of new developments. I’ll also reach out to the other departments you initially wanted to contact. They might have a different perspective. Meanwhile, I’ll leave my comlink on standby,” Dr. Young said.

Connor closed the comlink and called the others back toward the Rover. “They want us to try and communicate with him. Establish trust,” he said and looked at the others. “I’m going to take a small group and try to communicate with him again. I want the rest of you to keep your distance but not too far. I think if we all show up, he’ll perceive that as a threat. Questions?”

“Who has to go with you?” Anna asked.

“I’m taking Diaz and Noah, but is there anyone else who wants to come?”

Connor glanced at Rollins, who gave him a challenging look, and for a moment he thought Rollins was going to volunteer just to be a pain in the ass.

“I’ll go,” McCrea said.

Connor nodded and looked at Anna. The quiet young woman just shook her head. “Alright, four is a nice even number, so we’ll start with that.”

“You should take Anna with you,” Donna said.

“Why?” Connor asked.

“Because of the lot of you, she’s the one with a friendly face. I can’t imagine the NEIIS would perceive her as a threat,” Donna replied.

Connor blew out a breath. Diaz asked Donna what she meant about him not having a friendly face and Connor snorted. “You’re not pretty enough. You’re just going to have to deal with it.” He glanced at the others. He had to admit that Donna had a point. He looked at Anna and asked her to come with them.

“Come on, Anna. We won’t let anything happen to you. Promise,” Diaz said with a smile. “You can ask any one of my daughters how well protected they are, and they’ll tell you that perhaps I’m a little overprotective.”

Anna seemed to regard Diaz for a moment and then looked at Connor. “I’ll come,” she said.

As Anna joined them, Connor heard Rollins mutter something under his breath. “Alright, I need the rest of you to keep an eye out for ryklars in the area. I’d like to avoid any more surprise visits by them.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Lockwood said, “do we shoot the ryklars on sight?”

“Of course not,” Donna said. “Only if they attack us. We use deterrents first and lethal force only as a last resort. Why don’t you stay with me, Lockwood?”

Connor was glad Donna was there with them. He’d always been able to count on her to keep a level head, even back in the days of the first Search and Rescue class.

“This might be a good time to try out the MPS,” Noah said.

Connor pressed his lips together and thought about it for a moment.

“Remember, it’s for civilians, so it shouldn’t look threatening at all. It’s just an extra layer of protection. It can be configured for more protection if things get dangerous, but otherwise it’s meant to be just another layer of clothing,” Noah said.

Connor had said he’d test out the MPS, but he hadn’t thought he’d be doing it while trying to establish first contact with an actual NEIIS. “Alright, I’ll try it out. Did you bring enough for everyone?”

Noah shook his head. “No, I didn’t know there would be this many people with us.”

9

“Remember, this is the lightweight setting,” Noah said.

Connor looked down at the thin material that made up the multipurpose protection suit. It was like wearing a set of coveralls over his regular clothing. He looked at Diaz and Donna, who were also wearing the protection suits. Diaz pinched the material between his fingertips and gave Connor a dubious look. Donna extended her arms out away from her while bringing her shoulders forward, testing how restrictive the suit was.

“Okay,” Noah said after donning his own suit, “you should be seeing a new connection to your implants so you can review the suit’s features, but we’ll go over a couple of them right now.”

The MPS registered itself with Connor’s implants and he was granted full access to a suite of software coded into the nanobots that governed the smart material. A long list of features appeared on Connor’s internal heads-up display.

Connor sighed as he gave up reading the list. “You need to simplify the list of features here. Anyone accessing this is going to be overwhelmed by all this. I’d condense it into groups so the wearer can quickly navigate to what they need.”

Tommy Lockwood stood nearby and was taking notes on his tablet computer.

Noah nodded appreciatively. “Thanks. The interface isn’t quite what we wanted it to be, so I’m grateful for the feedback. I have someone working on it back at our offices in Sierra. On the highest level, this suit is extremely resistant to things like heat and cold. It can realign into a protective shell when it detects an impact or assume a state of readiness when moving at accelerated speeds. It also conforms to your movements so the MPS can provide better protection as it learns your mannerisms. In essence, the more you use it, the better it will be able to do its job, which is ultimately to keep the wearer from harm.”

Donna raised her hand and held it there for a moment, moving all her fingers. “What about protecting our hands? They’re exposed.”

“There’s an option for the sleeves to extend and cover your fingers like a flexible pair of gloves, or it could also become a hardened surface like a gauntlet. There’s even a climber-assist option, but there’s a cost, you know. Each option has a trade-off,” Noah said.

“How is it powered? I don’t see anything like a battery built in,” Connor said.

Noah smiled widely. He’d been waiting for Connor to ask that question just so he could answer it. “The suit is the engine and the battery all in one. Think of it this way. The suit powers itself based on a couple of different things, one of which is movement. Simply using the suit will help replenish power supplies, which it stores in itself.”

“Interesting, but how long can we use it in the field? Everything has to be recharged,” Connor said.

“It does, too, but it can be delayed for weeks at a time. It really depends on what you’re using it for. A recreational user might not have to recharge it for a month, but in other applications, it might last only a week. The beauty of it is that you can recharge the suit off the Rover’s auxiliary power station,” Noah said.

Connor pursed his lips in thought and then selected the option to protect his extremities. Instantly the suit extended to cover his hands and feet. Connor flexed his fingers into a fist and then opened his hand again. The material was really lightweight, but when he banged his fist against the Rover, it was a solid strike that he hardly felt inside the glove. He was impressed.

“What about water? Can we get them wet?” Diaz asked.

“No, if it starts raining or if you fall into a river or something, the MPS will cease to operate. But before that, it’ll trigger an overload, frying the person inside,” Noah replied solemnly.

Diaz’s mouth hung open, but then he grinned.

“Yes, it works just fine in the water, but it doesn’t have an oxygen supply, so you couldn’t go diving with it. The suit isn’t meant for that,” Noah said.

The MPS was a silvery color and not at all inconspicuous. Connor ran a search on how to fix that and had trouble finding the option he wanted. Noah really needed to work on the suit’s interface. “You said you could make them look like our regular clothes. How do we make it do that?”

“There’s a mimic option that will resemble the clothing you already have on, or you can select the mimic-and-augment option, which will make it appear as an accessory to your clothing,” Noah said.

Connor looked down at his chest. The MPS in its current form was basically a jumpsuit. He then looked at Noah doubtfully.

“Watch this,” Noah said.

The MPS changed from a silvery jumpsuit over Noah’s clothing to the jacket and pants that were commonly used in the field. Connor watched as Noah held his hands up and the sleeves extended to form gloves, then retracted.

Connor found the option and enabled the mimic-and-augment option. “I have to admit that this is pretty damn cool. Good job.”

“Are you ladies done with the fashion show? Time to get moving,” Donna said.

Diaz looked at Connor. “I remember when she was just a timid recruit.”

Connor nodded. “They all grow up sooner or later.”

Connor accessed the recon drone they had tracking the NEIIS, who was rummaging near some ruined buildings. Judging by the distance, they could walk there in about twenty minutes.

Connor looked at Donna. “Keep the Rovers about two hundred meters from us just in case.”

“We’ll have your back,” Donna said and directed Gibson and McCrea to the other Rover.

Connor and the others started walking toward the coordinates where the NEIIS had last been observed.

“Where did he go?” Diaz asked after he checked the drone feed.

“He’s on the other side of the small wall. He might’ve found something. He’s been there for a while,” Anna said.

Diaz nodded. “What did you do in the CDF, Anna?”

“I was with logistics and supply. Stationed at Delphi,” Anna said.

“Do you keep in touch with the rest of your platoon?” Diaz asked.

Anna shook her head and went quiet.

“Why not? I still keep in touch with the people from my old platoon. We make it a point to get together every few months.”

Anna quickened her pace and didn’t answer.

Diaz looked at Connor. “Did I say something wrong?” he asked quietly.

“Anna’s platoon was overrun by the Vemus. She was trapped for days before CDF forces finally took them out,” Connor replied just as quietly.

Diaz sighed and shook his head.

“She isn’t the only one with a story like that,” Connor said.

“How do you come back from something like that?”

“Not everyone does, at least not as they were before,” Connor said.

They walked in silence for a few minutes. There wasn’t much to see in the surrounding landscape. Looking at it from satellite pictures, Connor could understand how it would be difficult to determine that a NEIIS city had ever been there. And no one had even ventured a guess or theory that the NEIIS could have built bunkers with stasis pods in them.

“What are you thinking about?” Noah asked.

“Why the NEIIS built stasis pods and bunkers. What would drive them to do that?” Connor said.

“If they’re anything like us, they explored these things to protect themselves. But I understand what you’re saying. We don’t know their motivations. And we also don’t know much of their history. All we’ve uncovered is the aftermath,” Noah said.

Anna looked at Connor. “We also don’t know who the different factions were that made up the NEIIS society.”

“Good point. We don’t know who we’re even trying to communicate with, but it doesn’t change the fact that we have to try to talk to him,” Connor said.

“You know, it seemed like the ryklars were more interested in getting to the NEIIS than to us. We might’ve just been in the way,” Diaz said.

“There was no NEIIS broadcast prodding the ryklars along, so why would they attack him?” Connor said.

“Could be some latent behavioral conditioning on the ryklars’ part,” Noah said.

Connor shrugged. “That sort of behavioral conditioning would have to have transcended generations of ryklars. Unless…”

“Unless what?” Noah asked.

“I almost said unless the ryklars didn’t reproduce, but we know that’s not the case. We know they do reproduce, so how does the newer generation understand what to do when something like the NEIIS signal is broadcast? Could it have been imprinted into their DNA?” Connor asked.

“That’s an interesting question, but I don’t think anyone here can answer it,” Noah said.

“So how can we get the NEIIS to trust us? We need to try to talk to it. I’m thinking maybe we’ll each take a turn to see how he reacts. What do you think?” Connor asked.

“My mother always said never go to a party empty-handed. Let’s offer it some water and food,” Diaz said.

“I was thinking the same thing. So who goes first?” Connor asked.

He watched as his three companions glanced at one another.

“I’ll go first,” Diaz said. “But if that thing attacks me, I’m gonna blame you.”

“I’ll tell Victoria you wanted to go first,” Connor said and smiled.

The NEIIS emerged from the ruins of a small building. He was carrying a few items, but Connor couldn’t tell what they were. He glanced up at them and then just watched. Diaz left his rifle with Connor and walked toward the NEIIS carrying two containers of water. Diaz drank from one and then extended the other one to the NEIIS, though he was still ten meters away. Diaz slowly closed the distance towards the NEIIS, and at first, it hardly reacted at all. But when Diaz was three meters away, the NEIIS took an aggressive stance. Diaz stopped, placed the container of water on the ground in front of him, and slowly backed away. The NEIIS glanced at the bottle but didn’t move to take it.

Noah approached next and got as far as Diaz had, but the NEIIS had the same reaction. Noah tried to offer him a field ration, but it didn’t appear that the NEIIS was hungry.

“Let’s try going together,” Connor said to Anna.

Anna insisted on bringing her hunting rifle, but Connor left his with Diaz. He didn’t think the NEIIS would attack. This time, neither Connor nor Anna brought anything to entice the NEIIS to trust them. They slowly approached the area where the water container and field ration had been placed on the ground and stopped. The NEIIS watched them.

Anna introduced herself. She pointed to her chest and then said her name. Connor did the same and then gestured toward the NEIIS. The NEIIS seem to regard them for a moment. Then, he packed up the items he’d found and backed away from them. He took a few steps and then glanced behind him. Connor took a step forward, and the NEIIS kept going. Anna picked up the water container and field ration. The NEIIS checked one more time to see that Connor was following him, and once he was satisfied, he didn’t check again.

Connor supposed it was better than nothing. At least the NEIIS hadn’t attacked and seemed to tolerate their presence. It was a start. Connor told the others to follow and sent an update to those who were waiting in the Rovers.

10

They followed the NEIIS, who led them on a circuitous route, but ultimately they were heading away from the bunker. Diaz and Noah lagged behind Connor and Anna until Connor waved them closer. He didn’t think it mattered at that point. The NEIIS knew they were there.

As time went on, the NEIIS’s movements became increasingly agitated. Its pace was almost frantic, with abrupt changes in speed and the direction it was going. The NEIIS was determined to find something, but Connor didn’t know what. If he was looking for equipment, it would make sense to return to the bunker because it was the most intact place in the area.

“Sir, I think you need to take the lead in communicating with the NEIIS,” Anna said.

“She’s right. It was the most responsive to you out of all of us,” Noah said.

“It must be my charming personality,” Connor replied dryly.

Noah’s brows pulled together in thought. “I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s—”

A comlink opened to all of them.

“There’s a small group of ryklars tracking your movements,” Donna said.

“Is it the same group as before, or a different one?” Connor asked.

“They seem to have come from the bunker.”

Donna made the drone feeds available to him and Connor accessed them. Six ryklars were just over a thousand meters from their position. Connor checked the route the ryklars had taken to their current position, and it seemed that they were moving in parallel with them. One of them lagged behind the others, and Connor had the drone swing around to get a better look at that ryklar. The creature was limping. Another ryklar stopped and positioned itself next to the wounded one. Connor’s mouth opened in surprise as he saw the injured ryklar lean on the other for support. He’d seen a wide range of behavior from the ryklars, usually an almost insatiable appetite for violence, but this was one of the few times he’d seen genuine compassion. The lead ryklar stopped and raised its bearded, tentacled head toward the sky as if it were tasting the wind. Then it kept moving.

“I see them. They’re pretty far away, but I agree they’re definitely tracking the NEIIS,” Connor said.

“Want us to chase them away?” Donna said.

Connor considered it for a moment but then decided against it. There could be other ryklars nearby beyond what the recon drones were detecting. “We need to stick together, but have the deterrent protocols ready to broadcast.”

Donna said she would and closed the comlink.

“What do we do if the ryklars attack?” Noah asked.

“We’ll defend ourselves if we have to. The real question is, what will he do?” Connor said, gesturing toward the NEIIS.

“He’s still unarmed, and I’ve been unable to get a good look at some of the things he found. They look like handheld devices, but I’m not sure what they’re used for,” Noah said.

Connor nodded and felt like they were on a road to nowhere fast. “I’m going to try to communicate with him again.”

“Do you want me to hang onto your rifle again?” Diaz asked.

“I’ll keep it. It didn’t seem to make much difference before, and with ryklars in the area, I’d rather have my rifle handy,” Connor said.

“I’m not that bad of a shot,” Diaz replied. “Now, if it was Noah here, then there’s a chance you could be shot just as easily as his target.”

Noah grinned. “I’ve improved quite a bit since the last time you saw me shoot. I meet up with Sean on the range quite a bit.”

“Sean’s a natural,” Connor said and remembered the first time he’d seen Sean Quinn shoot a rifle at Search and Rescue training. Those days were a long time in the past. He missed Sean and was starting to think it had been too long since he’d returned to Sierra to visit him, along with Franklin Mallory and even Damon Mills. “Alright, I’m going to head over. Wish me luck.”

Connor quickened his pace and was soon gaining on the NEIIS, who spun at Connor’s approach and narrowed his dark-eyed gaze. The NEIIS’s nostrils were eye-level and looked to be flaring. The grim lines of its mouth almost gave it a permanent scowl.

Connor pointed to his chest and said his name. “I have something to show you,” he said and took out his PDA. Connor closed the distance between them until he was ten feet away from the NEIIS. He enabled the holodisplay on his PDA, which expanded to a large screen. Connor first selected a satellite image of the continent. The NEIIS studied the image for a few moments but didn’t betray any of his thoughts. Connor showed him an image of Sanctuary taken from the archive that showed the NEIIS city prior to human exploration. The NEIIS narrowed his gaze and continued to stare at the image. Connor brought up another image of the large NEIIS city they’d found the year before. He changed the image to a small, three-dimensional rendering that showed all the buildings and the tall megaliths in their current state. The holographic display expanded to fill the space between Connor and the NEIIS. The NEIIS reached out to touch the image and seemed surprised when his hand passed through it.

“It’s just a picture,” Connor said and put his hand into the image, slightly distorting it. “See, it’s not going to hurt you.”

The NEIIS reached his hand out and slowly waved it through one of the monoliths.

“We’ve found other places,” Connor said. He brought up the NEIIS map they’d found on a console at one of the smaller sites. The NEIIS seemed to look at this with some familiarity as his eyes scanned the map.

The NEIIS continued to study the map and glared at Connor when he closed it. Connor then put up an image of a ryklar. Connor pointed away from them to where they’d detected the ryklars and then pointed at the image. The NEIIS repeatedly swiped at the ryklar’s image, and Connor turned it off.

The NEIIS looked at Connor and made some kind of grunt and hissing sound. Connor brought back the ryklar image and the NEIIS seemed to become more agitated. He started to walk away, and Connor called out to him while scrolling through the images. He stopped on the map from the NEIIS console they’d found. The NEIIS had seemed to want to study the map. Connor allowed him to look at the map for a few moments and then turned off the holodisplay. The NEIIS’s angry gaze swooped toward Connor.

An alert appeared on Connor’s internal heads-up display. It was a message from Donna and it said that the ryklars had disappeared.

Time was running out. Connor pointed to his chest and then said his name. He then pointed at the NEIIS. He repeated the gesture and waited.

The ryklars were only a thousand meters away and could conceal their body heat, making them difficult to track. The recon drones were equipped with highly sensitive microphones and could target ryklars based on the sounds they made, but there were limitations, and it was nowhere near as effective as the combat systems on a Hellcat.

A comlink opened from Diaz. “We have you covered. We’ll take our cue from you. Diaz out.”

The NEIIS watched him, and Connor returned his gaze. He noted the time and knew they had less than a minute before the ryklars arrived. Ryklars could easily cover a thousand meters inside a minute while moving at top speed, and there wasn’t much overgrowth to get in their way.

The long ridges on either side of the NEIIS’s head seemed to draw forward, and its wide mouth opened as if it were going to say something. Then it jerked back a few feet and took a defensive posture. Behind the NEIIS, six ryklars moved away from the brush. Their spotted backs had given them ample coverage, making them almost indistinguishable from the surrounding forest. The ryklars had circled around to come in behind the NEIIS. They weren’t interested in Connor. It was the NEIIS they wanted, and Connor didn’t understand why.

The bearded tentacles on the ryklars’ faces were all gray. Connor knew that if they were under the influence of the NEIIS broadcast, those tentacles would be crimson.

The NEIIS let out a roar, again sounding as if he had multiple vocal cords. The ryklars stopped their approach but backed away only a few paces. They rocked back and forth on their hind legs while waving all four of their front appendages. Their wild-eyed gazes were all focused on the NEIIS.

The NEIIS brought a small metal device to his mouth. Both of his hands were placed on the side and his fingers pressed the device. Connor watched in shock as the ryklars’ bearded tentacles instantly became bright red. They stomped their feet and growled, and then their harsh growls became screeches as they bumped into one another. After a few moments, they began to attack each other. The frantic claws that were capable of penetrating even the hardened alloys of colonial equipment cut through the ryklars’ skin just as easily.

Connor didn’t know what to do. He didn’t like what he was seeing. It wasn’t natural. He accessed the ryklar-deterrent protocol on his PDA and cranked up the frequency to maximum. He then networked with Noah’s, Diaz’s, and Anna’s PDAs and executed the broadcast, which snatched the attention of both the NEIIS and the remaining ryklars. The bearded tentacles faded from crimson red to a dull orange.

“Go!” Connor shouted. He took a few steps toward the ryklars, waving his arms and shouting for them to leave. There were only three ryklars left alive, including the one with the wounded leg. All three of the ryklars fled into the forest. Connor kept the deterrent signal broadcasting and had the recon drone follow the ryklars until they were far away.

Connor glanced at the three mutilated corpses of the remaining ryklars. He had killed them before in self-defense or in defense of others, but what the NEIIS had done seemed twisted and cruel. Connor turned toward the NEIIS. He was unarmed, so what had Connor expected him to do? The NEIIS had used the only weapon he had, but the results seemed more savage than any amount of damage Connor could have done with his rifle.

The NEIIS pointed to his chest in the same manner Connor had done. “Syloc,” the NEIIS said.

The NEIIS regarded Connor for a moment and then walked away. Connor let him go.

Diaz and the others caught up to Connor.

“What did it say to you?” Diaz asked.

“Syloc,” Connor said. The name sounded foreign on his lips.

“Shouldn’t we follow him?” Noah asked.

Connor glanced at the sky. It was approaching evening and New Earth’s rings were more prevalent in the sky. “No, I think that’s enough for today. We’ll make camp instead.”

“I’ll have a recon drone follow him,” Noah said.

The NEIIS, or Syloc, was on foot and must’ve been exhausted, so Connor doubted he’d be going far. He was likely looking for a place to rest. Connor told Donna to bring in the Rovers. They would camp there for the night. There was a lot to discuss and he wanted to talk to Dr. Young again. The psychologist’s advice had paid off, but Connor wasn’t sure he liked the results. He kept going over the events in his mind, and he couldn’t really fault Syloc for what he’d done.

“That NEIIS is a monster,” Anna said.

“He was defending himself,” Diaz replied.

Anna shook her head. “No, he wasn’t. He was proving a point, establishing dominance. Those weren’t the actions of someone defending themselves.”

It was the most Anna had spoken on this entire trip, and her words weren’t wasted. “I see your point and agree with you, but it may be more complex than that,” Connor said.

“He was defending himself. The NEIIS was unarmed and using the only tool he had,” Diaz said.

“Possibly, but if he could make the ryklars kill each other, why couldn’t he just send them away?” Connor asked.

“We can’t be sure of anything right now. We only pieced together our deterrent signal based on the NEIIS broadcast signals found in the cities. Maybe the device he was using only had the one configuration. There are lots of possible reasons why this ended the way it did, and it may not be simply because the NEIIS was being brutal,” Noah said.

He made a good point, Connor noted to himself. “Let’s just set up camp and then we can have dinner and discuss what happened after we’ve had a few minutes to take it all in.”

By then, Donna and the others in the Rovers had arrived. It wouldn’t take them long to set up camp. Connor needed time to piece the events together in his mind. He suspected they’d be talking around both sides of the argument for most of the evening, but what bothered him was that both sides of the debate were equally valid. The inherent flaw in the argument was their lack of understanding who the NEIIS were and what world they lived in. Until they understood that, Connor couldn’t be sure what Syloc’s motives were.

11

The two Rovers were positioned on either side of their camp fifteen meters apart. Off to the side was a folding table where Diaz and Gibson were preparing dinner. The rest of them had spent some time gathering wood for the fire. They didn’t have to travel far to find dead branches they could use and had even found a fallen tree, which Connor and McCrea made quick work of. Once they had enough wood to last them a good long while, they returned to camp. No one would need to keep the fire going all night because they’d also brought portable heaters.

Connor always found that he was able to relax around a campfire. It had become his tradition at Sanctuary and had caught on with the colonists who lived there. People had been gathering around campfires since early humans and even pre-humans. He was sure Noah could go on at length about the significance of it, but Connor just liked sitting by the fire. It was calming.

Diaz looked over at Connor and rubbed his hands together as they returned to camp. “Tonight, we cook over the open flame,” Diaz said happily.

“What are you serving up?” Connor asked.

Diaz glanced at Gibson. “It’s a surprise, but trust me; you’re gonna love it.”

Connor certainly didn't have what one would call a finicky palate, and he was sure he’d like anything cooked over an open flame. He glanced at the food that was being prepared and saw an arrangement of skewered vegetables and meat. There was even a yellow fruit that grew near Sanctuary. The only part of the meal that wasn’t from New Earth was the meat, which they produced in the vateries. It was more of a preference than a necessity. They could put all the protein they needed into the food they grew, but it wasn’t the same. Sometimes there wasn’t anything that tasted as good as an old-fashioned cheeseburger.

Connor’s mouth had begun to water, and he went to wash up. Noah joined him as Connor began washing his hands and face. The rest of him would have to wait.

“So what did you think of the suits?” Noah asked.

“Honestly, I forgot I was wearing one,” Connor said and glanced down at his clothes. He still had the MPS over his regular clothing.

Noah smiled. “Great, I was hoping you’d say that. We want these things to be as comfortable as they are functional.”

Connor nodded and dried off, then got out of the way so somebody else could use the washbasin.

“There’s something else I need to talk to you about,” Noah said.

“It’ll have to wait. I need to make a few calls before dinner,” Connor said.

He went to the Rover and climbed into the driver’s seat. His first call was to Dr. Young. He gave a brief recounting of the events and told him about the alien’s behavior.

Dr. Young smiled broadly. “It spoke to you? That’s amazing!”

“We don’t even know what ‘Syloc’ means. It’s probably his name, but he could’ve just been mimicking what we were doing,” Connor said.

“But that’s something you can explore tomorrow. You’ll find the significance of it pretty quickly. Have you thought about what else you’d like to learn from him?” Dr. Young asked.

“There’s a lot I’d like to know, but I don’t think talking to him is going to work. I was hoping you’d be able to help with that,” Connor said.

“Establishing trust is crucial when communicating with anyone. That will take time, but the mechanics of what you’re asking will be more difficult. We need to learn more about how they communicate to be able to formulate a question he’ll understand,” Dr. Young said.

“We’re stumbling around in the dark here, doctor,” Connor said.

Dr. Young nodded. “Just be sure you keep documenting all interactions with the NEIIS. That way we can analyze it and be better able to advise you. Keep establishing trust and keep trying to interact with him.”

Connor said he would and closed the call. As he sat in the Rover for a minute, thinking about what they needed to do, the heady aroma of food cooking over the open campfire drifted over to him and made his stomach growl.

A comlink alert from Sierra appeared on the Rover’s HUD. Connor acknowledged the link and Lenora’s beautiful face appeared on the screen. Her auburn hair was tied back and pulled over one shoulder. Her bright blue eyes took him in as she smiled.

“Well, don’t you have all the luck? I wish I was there with you,” Lenora said.

Connor smiled. “I wish you were here, too. Then you could figure out how to talk to this thing,” he said. After a moment, he tactfully added, “Plus, I miss you.”

Lenora smiled in return. It was a smile that reached up to her eyes, and Connor found that his own lips were curving in response. He was likely grinning like an idiot and he just didn’t care.

“I want you to tell me everything. Tell me about the bunker and the stasis pods. Don’t leave anything out,” Lenora said.

Connor told her and uploaded the data from the recon drone so she could look at it firsthand.

“I still have no idea how I’m going to communicate with him,” Connor said.

“You are communicating with him. It just takes time,” Lenora said.

“I did try showing him some of the symbols we deciphered from his language,” Connor said.

Lenora tilted her head to the side in thought. “Well, you’ve got the perfect person there to help you.”

Connor frowned and arched an eyebrow questioningly.

“You’ve got Noah, silly. He’s one of the reasons we were able to decipher so much from the NEIIS computer systems at Sanctuary.”

Connor leaned back in his seat. He must’ve been getting tired. “You’re right. We’ll put our heads together and come up with something.” Lenora nodded and seemed to be waiting for him to say something else. “How did your checkup go?” Connor asked sheepishly. He probably should’ve asked that first, given Lenora’s condition.

Lenora fixed him with a stern look. “Since you’ve made a miraculous discovery, I’ll let that slide. Ashley said everything’s fine.”

A sub-window opened on their video comlink, showing a clear image of the infant inside Lenora’s womb. The baby moved one of its legs and then brought its hand toward its head. Connor heard the rapid heartbeat coming through the Rover speakers and his mouth hung open. A deep ache took hold of his chest. That was his daughter on the screen. Connor looked at Lenora. “That’s her,” he whispered. Lenora nodded and her eyes had become misty. Connor’s throat thickened and he reached his hand toward the screen. “She’s beautiful, just like her mother,” he said, his voice sounding hoarse.

Lenora smiled and grinned, then looked away for a moment. It was a gesture that seemed oddly vulnerable, and Connor longed to be in the room with her.

Lenora looked back at him and sighed. “You’ve got work to do. Please be safe while you do it.”

Connor promised her that he would and told her that he would call the next day. He continued to watch the holoscreen long after the call had ended, closing his eyes and hearing his child’s rapid heartbeat. He had a similar memory locked away from another life years ago. There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t mourn the loss of the son he’d left on Earth. The colony had even established a day of remembrance for all the people they’d left behind who had died at the hands of the Vemus. Connor’s son had been among the last survivors who’d given their lives to change the Ark’s mission. Their sacrifice had given the colonists of New Earth a chance to survive the calamity that had befallen the people back home.

Connor promised himself that he would be a much better father to his unborn child… his daughter. At the very least, he owed that to his son.

He climbed out of the Rover and joined the others, who had already gathered around the campfire. The New Earth sky was a canvas of deep purples, signaling that the night would soon be upon them.

Connor looked at Lockwood. “How’s our friend doing?”

“Looks like he finally found a place to settle for the night. He’s about a kilometer away from our campsite,” Lockwood said.

Diaz handed Connor a plate with two skewers packed with grilled vegetables and meat. He used his fork to get the food off the skewers and took his first bite. There was a taste explosion in his mouth, and he moaned with pleasure. “This is really good. Great job, you guys,” he said and gave Gibson an approving nod.

Even Rollins seemed to be happily eating rather than scowling for a change.

“You guys should open a restaurant,” McCrea said and licked his fingertips as he put his last bite in his mouth.

“This is so good,” Noah said. “I even have the perfect name for your restaurant.”

“Oh yeah? What is it?” Diaz asked.

“DiGib’s Place,” Noah said.

Diaz frowned and glanced at Gibson.

“That’s a terrible name. Stick to what you’re good at, Engineer,” Donna said.

Noah turned toward her. “What would you call it then?”

Donna grinned. “Not that,” she said and didn’t offer another name.

They continued to eat and soon Connor had finished the food on his plate, wishing there was more.

“Did Dr. Young have any more useful suggestions on how to deal with the NEIIS?” Noah asked.

Connor shook his head. “Not really. He said we should keep establishing trust and try to interact with him. I was thinking that maybe we could put a few questions together using what we know of their written language.”

“I can work on that, but what do we want to know?” Noah asked.

“We need to find out what happened to them and if there are any other bunkers with stasis pods. And we need to figure out what Syloc’s intentions are,” Connor said.

Rollins snorted, which drew their attention. “Nothing good’s gonna come from that thing. I’m surprised none of you see that.”

“What do you mean?” Connor asked.

“You guys are all excited that we finally get to meet the NEIIS—the late great civilization that used to live here—and none of you have given any thought to the ramifications of it. They put themselves in stasis. How many of them are there? What do we do if they all start waking up? What if they decide they don’t want us here?” Rollins said with a sneer.

“That’s why we need to learn more about them,” Connor replied.

“That thing might never have awakened if we hadn’t gone poking around these ruins.”

“Or it might have woken up without anyone from the colony being the wiser,” Connor said.

Rollins looked away and rubbed the back of his neck roughly.

“Rollins is right,” Anna said.

Rollins’ gaze swooped toward her. “Well, look who decided to speak up and grace us with her opinion.”

Anna quickly looked away.

“Rollins,” Connor warned.

Rollins threw his hands in the air. “I know. We’re not supposed to do that,” he said and looked at Anna. “I apologize,” he said in an only slightly mocking tone.

“Maybe you’d like to try that with me,” Donna said and stood up. Her lean, powerful muscles had become rigid and her eyes blazed with anger.

“I would,” Rollins said challengingly. “Think you can take me on—”

“That’s enough,” Connor said, moving between them. “This bickering ends now.”

Rollins held up his hands and backed away. “Whatever happened with getting us a transport out of here?”

“Are you in such a rush to go home?” McCrea asked.

“It beats what we’re doing out here. This is supposed to be a voluntary exercise. Well, I’m un-volunteering myself from this exercise,” Rollins said.

Connor clenched his teeth for a moment but refused to let Rollins get under his skin. “You’re right. I did promise to get you transport out of here. How many of you want to go home?” Connor looked around at the others. “It’s okay. I get it. This could be dangerous and none of you signed on for that.”

Connor waited a few moments and Anna raised her hand. Shortly after that, Tommy Lockwood raised his. He glanced at Noah guiltily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was going to be like this. I thought we were just going to be running a few test scenarios out in the field.”

Noah’s brows pulled together and then he nodded. He looked at Connor and shrugged.

“Alright, so three of you want to return to Sanctuary. I’ll put the call in and tomorrow we’ll get a C-cat out here to take you home,” Connor said.

The mood in the camp had shifted from relaxed companionship to a heavy silence where people spoke in hushed tones. Lockwood came over to Noah and apologized; Noah said he understood. Connor suspected there were a couple of others who would’ve liked to go home but decided to stay. He wondered if, when he placed the call to Sanctuary for the pickup, he should request a few Field Ops people to come out and help support them.

“We’ll need to set a watch for tonight and rotate monitoring of the NEIIS amongst all of us,” Connor said.

The others agreed and separated into smaller groups.

Donna came over to Connor and asked to speak to him. They walked to the edge of the camp, away from the others.

“I don’t like him. I don’t like how he speaks to Anna. Why did you bring him?” Donna asked.

“I don’t like how Rollins talks to Anna either, but she also needs to stand up for herself. They’ve both been through a lot. As for why I brought him, I think you know,” Connor said.

Donna shook her head emphatically. “I really don’t.”

“Sometimes a change of scenery is good for people who’ve been through a lot, but given what we’re dealing with now, it may not be the best place for them. That’s why I gave them the option of going home. It’s important that they feel they have some control over their situations,” Connor said.

Donna glanced at Rollins, who had moved to sit by himself. “I don’t know if you’re going to be able to help him.”

“It’s not up to me. It’s up to him.”

“I’ll be glad when he’s gone,” Donna said and left Connor.

Noah came over and asked that they work together on the questions they wanted to ask the NEIIS the next day. They returned to sit by the campfire and got to work. The others came over and offered their own insight before settling to bed.

Later on, Connor accessed the recon drone that was monitoring Syloc. The NEIIS had made a makeshift bed near a partial wall. He hadn’t moved from that spot for a while, and Connor suspected that the NEIIS had finally succumbed to exhaustion. He set the recon drone to threat-monitoring mode, which would alert them if the ryklars were to come back to take another shot at the NEIIS. Connor didn’t think they would, but it couldn’t hurt to be cautious. Their other recon drone had chased the ryklars far away. As far as they knew, there weren’t any other ryklars in the area, and Connor hoped that would last.

12

Because of his ZX-64 military-grade implants from the old NA Alliance military, Connor only required a couple hours’ sleep each night. Colonial scientists had reverse engineered the implants so select CDF soldiers could have the same advantage. They’d even made them more compatible, reducing the risk of harmful side effects, and they didn’t require recycling every year. The implants hadn’t yet been approved for use by the general colonial population because the colonial scientists wanted to study the long-term effects of getting minimal sleep first. Connor had been using a variant of these implants for over ten years and was the only colonist who’d used them that long. He’d never experienced any side effects from using them, but the scientists wouldn’t place the advantages of needing less sleep over the safety of the colonists. Humans had evolved over millions of years requiring a full night’s rest, which wasn’t going to be undone because some bright military research scientists had figured out a way to squeeze every ounce of productivity from soldiers. Connor saw the risk as minimal since he was a long-term user of the implants and always woke up refreshed. Sleeping for only two hours a day was the norm for him, and he could scarcely remember the time when an eight-hour night had been necessary.

Connor had elected to monitor the NEIIS for most of the night, allowing the others to get some rest. He was the only one among them who still had a variant of the ZX-64 implants. He’d intended to wake Diaz for the next stint, but Anna was already awake and offered to keep watch while Connor slept.

Later on, Connor woke to the sounds of people arguing.

“You were supposed to be watching it, and now it’s gone! How hard is it to stay awake?” Rollins said.

Connor pushed himself up off of his sleeping mat. Rollins was glaring at Anna with a sneer, his eyes like red-rimmed knife points. Anna looked at Connor guiltily.

“Lay off. It wasn’t her fault. She was covering for me,” Lockwood said.

Rollins swung his gaze toward the young man, giving him a hasty once-over. “You’re wasting your time, boy. She’s never going to give you the time of day.”

Lockwood’s face reddened.

“What happened?” Connor asked, and as Rollins began to speak, Connor cut him off. “Not you.”

“I was keeping watch and I dozed off,” Anna said.

“How long did you sleep?” Connor asked, and Rollins began muttering about the NEIIS murdering them in their sleep because of that woman. “John, enough already. I know your military record isn’t pristine. No one here is perfect,” he said and looked back at Anna.

“Maybe a half hour or a little bit longer than that,” Anna said.

Connor checked the drone feed, and the area where it had been monitoring the NEIIS was empty. He frowned. “Does anyone know why the recon drone didn’t follow the NEIIS when he woke up?”

Noah rubbed his face, having just awakened. Connor ran a quick diagnostic on the recon drone and all systems were in working order. He double-checked the options and rolled his eyes.

“This is my fault. I set the recon drone to threat-monitoring mode thinking it would monitor the NEIIS and watch for ryklars at the same time,” Connor said.

“By default, the drone would prioritize the threat surveillance over the target it was monitoring,” Noah said.

Connor blew out a breath. “And I didn’t give them equal priority.”

“That doesn’t explain how the NEIIS was able to get away. Are there any ryklars in the area?” Noah asked.

“I checked the logs, and last night was quiet,” Connor said and looked at Anna. “This isn’t your fault. Do you remember seeing the NEIIS last night?”

Anna’s brows pulled together in thought. “He was there. He hadn’t moved.”

Connor nodded. “Alright, so the NEIIS has a forty-five-minute head start. We can track him. Let’s start breaking camp,” he said and looked at Rollins. “About that transport—”

“Look alive, we’ve got company,” Donna said.

She’d been standing by the Rover and gestured with the end of her rifle toward the outside of the camp. Connor and the others looked over and saw the NEIIS standing out in the open, watching them. No one was sure how long he’d been standing there.

Connor walked toward the NEIIS. “Syloc,” he said and gestured toward the NEIIS.

Connor didn’t have his PDA, which was in his backpack, so he couldn’t bring up the questions he and Noah had worked on the night before. The NEIIS looked at Connor and then at the others. Syloc gestured to his chest and then pointed away from them toward some hills nearby. Connor repeated the gesture and Syloc backed away a few steps.

The NEIIS wanted Connor to follow him. He turned toward the others. “Diaz and Noah, you’re with me. The rest of you, please pack up and follow along in the Rovers.”

“What about the C-cat that’s coming to pick us up?” Rollins asked.

“It’ll take them some time. I put the request in last night and I haven’t been given an ETA window. But they’re going to track the Rovers, so if you want to be picked up, you’re going to have to come along,” Connor said.

“Or wait here with one of the Rovers,” Rollins said.

“You’re a piece of work,” Diaz said, glaring at Rollins. “Stop being a pain in the ass and do what the man asked you to do.”

Rollins jutted his chin out, looking mulish. “Or what?”

“I’ll make you,” Diaz said, facing him squarely. His thick muscles bulged against his shirt.

“I don’t have time for this. The Rovers are coming with me,” Connor said.

He looked at Donna and gave her a nod, letting the unspoken request pass between them. If Rollins became more of a nuisance, she had Connor’s permission to stun him.

McCrea went over to Rollins and spoke quietly. “Come on, give it a rest. Just a little while longer.”

Rollins rubbed his balding head and looked at Connor with resignation. Noah grabbed Connor’s backpack and hunting rifle and brought them over to him. Diaz gathered his things and gave Rollins a stone-faced glare before joining Connor. The three of them followed the NEIIS.

13

Connor swung his backpack over his shoulders and quickly adjusted the straps so they were comfortable. He still wore the MPS, as did Noah and Diaz. Noah had told him that they could sleep in them, and Connor had decided to try it out. He never minded sleeping on the ground, and it was only within the past year or so that he’d gotten used to sleeping in the same bed. Nevertheless, during the night he’d actually searched the suit’s long list of options for a comfort setting or anything that might have given him additional padding. When he didn’t find any comfort options, he’d been surprised Noah hadn’t thought to include them. Most civilians liked their creature comforts, but when he mentioned it to Noah, he’d said they’d maybe include it in the next version of the suit.

Syloc walked ahead of them, pausing every so often to look at Connor and the others. When the NEIIS resumed his pace, Noah cleared his throat.

“Have you ever had the feeling that when he looks at you like that, he’s learning more about you than you are him?” Noah said.

“He’s definitely paying attention. I just wonder what he’s thinking,” Connor said.

“When do you plan to ask him those questions we worked on last night?” Diaz asked.

It was the first time Diaz had spoken since he’d nearly lost his temper with Rollins. For as long as Connor had known Diaz, he’d never been quick to anger, but once he got there he tended to stay there for a long time.

“Shouldn’t we try them now?” Noah asked.

“How would he answer us? If he spoke, we wouldn’t understand it. I think we should wait to see where he takes us first. We’re giving him something by coming along, and hopefully he’ll give us something by answering our questions later on,” Connor said.

He quickened his pace, drawing steadily closer to Syloc. At first, the NEIIS increased his own pace, but Connor kept the distance consistent. He wanted the NEIIS to get comfortable with him and the others close by. A few minutes later they heard the quiet approach of the Rovers as the large wheels carved twin paths through the tall grass. Connor turned and waved. The Rovers remained about fifty meters behind them.

Syloc led them toward the shallow foothills nearby. Connor brought up a map on his internal heads-up display and noted their position relative to the bunker. The distance was within the known radius for NEIIS settlements, so he knew they were still within the confines of a NEIIS city.

“This looks to me like an old road,” Diaz said and gestured toward the side and then ahead of them. There were trees alongside with closed cobalt pods weighing down the branches. The pathway they’d taken and the one ahead of them looked like it had been purposefully made, especially since there was no nearby river.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Noah said, his gaze sweeping the area. “I wouldn’t have seen it if you hadn’t pointed it out to me. I don’t know how you guys do that.”

“Spend more time out in the field and you’ll notice all kinds of things,” Diaz replied sagely.

Syloc took a smaller pathway to the left that led away from the old road, turning them toward a grassy hill. Connor glanced at the ground and noted that there was a grouping of bent grass at the bottom of the hill. He looked to where Syloc was walking, and the footprints matched up. Connor made a small gesture toward the footprints for the others to see.

Syloc stopped to search the ground and found a thick metallic rod that was partially buried. He squatted down and yanked on the rod, pulling it upright. There was a small control panel on top. Syloc pressed the button and there was a muted sound from a mechanism within the hill. Something pressed against the bottom of the hill, causing it to swell, and the earth split apart as a metallic door pushed open. A short ramp led to a darkened room below, and Syloc went inside first.

Connor opened a comlink to the Rover. “We’re going inside. Stand by for updates.”

“Roger that, standing by,” Donna replied.

Connor went in next.

“Into the pit we go,” Noah muttered.

Connor reached the bottom of the ramp and immediately recognized his surroundings. This circular building resembled the outpost they’d found near Sanctuary. There were living quarters to the right and a grouping of NEIIS consoles in the outer room. Syloc walked to the center of the work area and examined the main console. The NEIIS console had a round bottom that came up to Connor’s stomach, and it opened to a large, finely-meshed screen that was in remarkably good condition.

Connor glanced at Noah. “Monitor for broadcasts,” he said quietly.

Noah bobbed his head in response.

Connor approached the NEIIS console and stood to the left of the controls. Syloc completed his check of the control panel and then stood up. He brought up one of his thick hands with its four long fingers. They reminded Connor of the ryklars’ main arms, except the NEIIS didn’t have those powerful claws.

Syloc activated the console and Connor watched as it went through its startup sequence. He’d seen this before, and the NEIIS console slowly came to life. NEIIS symbols began scrolling from left to right and the translation appeared on Connor’s internal heads-up display. It was a basic status update followed by a communications error.

Syloc brought up a map that showed part of the continent. There were NEIIS locations marked on the map and Syloc gestured toward one that looked to be offline. The NEIIS looked at Connor.

Connor brought up his PDA and opened the holoscreen. He expanded the screen so it was big enough for Syloc to see and put up the first question. He and Noah had devised these questions and were able to formulate them as such, based on the error prompts they’d received while working with NEIIS computer systems.

“Why were you in stasis?” Connor said.

Syloc read the symbols on the holoscreen and then turned back to the mesh screen and gestured once again to the offline location on the map.

Connor shook his head. “No,” he said and pointed to the question on the holoscreen. He then added the second question. “What happened to you?”

Syloc looked at Connor for a minute and then cleared the map from the NEIIS console screen. The NEIIS navigated the interface and brought up a blank window that he could enter symbols on. A small group of symbols appeared: Broken place.

The translation came through and Connor frowned. He put up another question that said, “Where are the rest of you?”

Syloc read the question and then brought the map back up. He pointed to the same offline location as before.

“I think he’s saying there might be more of his people there,” Diaz said.

Connor looked back at Syloc. “What happened to you? What broke?” He put the questions on the holoscreen utilizing the same symbols Syloc had just used.

Syloc turned away from Connor and began navigating the NEIIS interface again. Connor waited for his reply.

“NEIIS broadcast detected,” Noah said. “He’s sending something out.”

Diaz brought up his rifle and aimed it at the NEIIS. After a moment, Noah did the same.

Connor slightly raised his weapon but didn’t point it at Syloc. He used his implants to ask another question. “What are you doing?”

Syloc looked at them, then his eyes slid toward the weapons now pointed at him. The NEIIS was well aware of what their weapons could do from their fight with the ryklars.

“Lower your weapons,” Connor ordered and did the same.

Syloc watched the exchange.

“He’s still broadcasting, but it’s something I haven’t seen before. I’m not sure what it is,” Noah said.

“I don’t like it. Something isn’t right about this,” Diaz said, his voice sounding tight.

Connor didn’t like it either. Syloc backed away from the console, his gaze darting to each of them.

Connor heard a soft rumble coming from outside that sounded like a thunderstorm.

Noah glanced behind them at the entrance. “Do you hear that?”

The thunder became louder and Connor felt the ground begin to vibrate. Years of dust billowed up from every crevice in the room.

Diaz looked at the entrance. “What the hell is that?”

Syloc bolted for the door, startling them. Connor and the others ran out of the building, following the NEIIS. Connor was the first outside and he didn’t see Syloc anywhere. He glanced at the Rovers and saw Donna pointing up at the hill. Connor spun and ran around the hill. The NEIIS was scrambling to the top as the loud thunder became more intense. Connor glanced around the side of the hill and saw the long legs of the landrunners racing by. A large herd was moving through the area. Connor ran along the base of the hill and glanced up at Syloc. The hill steepened considerably where the landrunners were darting by. The NEIIS flew ahead at an all-out run and leaped into the air, landing on the back of the nearest shaggy, brown-haired landrunner and holding on tight. The landrunner faltered slightly and then regained its footing. The creature let out a long bleat that sounded like a blast from a deep horn. The call was taken up by the other landrunners. They wouldn’t stop running no matter what, and Connor watched Syloc clinging to the landrunner as it quickly faded into the distance.

Connor looked at Noah in shock, unable to believe what he’d just seen. A Rover pulled up behind them and Donna stuck her head out. “Shouldn’t we follow them?”

Connor shook his head. “No, we need to stop the broadcast.”

“But he’ll get away,” Donna said, pressing her point.

“No, he won’t. I know where he’s going,” Connor said.

Noah ran back toward the NEIIS building and said he’d take care of the broadcast.

The last of the landrunners moved past them, and Connor shook his head. So much for building trust.

14

Connor returned to the half-buried NEIIS outpost and found Noah copying the information from the console.

“Take your time. Make sure we’ve got it all,” Connor said.

Noah glanced over at him. “I’m almost done, but I’m surprised you’re not anxious to get out of here.”

“Oh, I don’t want to waste time, but the nice thing about landrunners is that they’re extremely easy to track,” Connor replied.

“I didn’t know you could ride one of those things,” Noah said.

“Why would we? We have Rovers, transport carriers, C-cats… Were you able to confirm that the signal he sent summoned the landrunners?”

Noah packed up his PDA, along with the cable he had connected to the NEIIS components inside the control panel. “I’ll work on it, but that would be one heck of a coincidence,” he replied.

Connor and Noah went back outside and hastened to the nearest Rover. McCrea and Diaz sat in the front. Anna scooted over so Connor and Noah could get in.

“Follow the landrunners’ tracks for now,” Connor said.

“Want me to catch up to them quickly?” McCrea asked.

“No, I have a good idea where he’s going. We’ll have more of a heading shortly,” Connor answered and then was silent for a minute. “How’s Rollins doing?”

“Funny thing,” McCrea said while driving the Rover toward a smoother path that followed alongside the landrunners’ tracks. “Once the landrunners showed up and our friend ran away, Rollins calmed down. I thought Field Ops Captain Marten was going to have to stun him.”

“Too bad she didn’t,” Diaz said and looked back at Connor.

“I know Rollins can be a pain in the ass, but when you’re in the thick of it, he’s a good guy to have with you,” McCrea said.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Diaz replied.

“It’s not surprising he calmed down after the NEIIS ran away,” Connor said.

Noah glanced at him in surprise. “Why is that?”

“Because it confirmed his suspicions. He was skeptical of the NEIIS, and look what happened,” Connor said. He looked behind them and saw the other Rover following. Donna was driving, and they saw Rollins sitting next to her. He might name that Rover the “fun car.”

“Alright, let’s take a look at that map Syloc was so focused on,” Connor said.

Noah brought the map up using his PDA.

“We can’t follow this map. It’s outdated,” Diaz said.

“You’re right. It’s not as accurate,” Connor said and accessed his own PDA using his implants. He made a snatching motion with his fingers to grab a particular program and flung it toward Noah’s screen. “Here, use this.”

Noah accessed the program, and a new map overlaid the NEIIS map. The newer map had the most current landmarks of the area based on their surveys. “That’s pretty clever. Who made this?”

“My favorite protégé,” Connor replied.

Noah snorted in appreciation. “It seems that Dash is a man of many talents.”

“He reminds me a lot of you but with more of Lenora’s free spirit,” Connor said.

“Now I have to meet him. I might even have to recruit him,” Noah said.

“Good luck. Over the past year he’s been earning quite a reputation for exploring NEIIS ruins,” Connor said.

Diaz twisted around and gave Connor an appraising look. “And we’re stuck here with last year’s model,” he said with mock severity and then grinned.

The others joined in and Connor gave him a playful punch on the shoulder. “I’ll give you last year’s model.”

Diaz laughed, and Connor joined in. It was good to be around his old friend again. He looked at the map and the location of the NEIIS site. “Just keep following this path,” Connor said.

“I’ll upload the destination to the Rover’s systems,” Noah said.

“So this signal called all the landrunners in the area and told them to run by?” Diaz asked.

Connor shrugged. “That would be one hell of a dog whistle, but I’m not sure.”

“I remember what symbols he accessed on the console. I can figure out what he did, but it will take a little bit of time,” Noah said.

Noah made his holoscreen smaller so it was in front of just him.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question, sir?” McCrea asked.

Connor’d had a lot of CDF soldiers come to Sanctuary over the past year, and whenever one of them lapsed into a formal address, it usually meant the question was important to them.

“Sure, go ahead,” Connor said.

“Will you ever rejoin the Colonial Defense Force?” McCrea asked.

Connor had initially retired from the CDF because of his exposure to the Vemus Alpha. He’d been unfit for duty, but as time went on it was clear that there were no lasting effects from his exposure.

“I don’t want to say never, but I don’t have any plans to rejoin,” Connor replied.

“What do you think will happen to the CDF?”

Noah stopped what he was doing so he could hear Connor’s answer.

“I think there’s always going to be a need for a military. We need protection—if not from the Vemus then from the next threat. But if you’re asking whether I think the size of the military will change—it might. The reason we had all the support we did was because of the Vemus threat. Now that it’s passed, we’ll need to move on, and the CDF will have to adapt.”

McCrea nodded.

“Honestly, Trevor,” Connor said, using McCrea’s first name, “I doubt I’ll ever be that far from the CDF. I may not be the general or on active duty, but I’m still very much involved.”

McCrea thanked him.

“I guess this is a good time to mention that I’m gonna retire from the CDF,” Diaz said.

“Really?” Connor said, intrigued. “What do you plan to do? Will you rejoin Field Ops?”

Connor had first met Diaz when he’d been a member of Field Operations and Security.

“I suppose I could rejoin Field Ops, but I’ve been thinking of leaving that behind altogether. What I’d like to do is open a restaurant,” Diaz said.

“Well, you’ve always liked to cook for as long as I’ve known you. What does Victoria think about this?” Connor asked.

“Victoria will support me no matter what I do, but I think she secretly wants it.”

“And you can have the girls working there,” Connor said.

Diaz raised his eyebrows. “Maybe. I love my girls, but I wouldn’t want to tie them down to what I’m doing. Kids have got to be free to figure out what they want. Speaking of which, why aren’t you with Lenora right now?”

Connor frowned and felt his face redden slightly. “I’ve been planning this trip for a few weeks, and Lenora said she wanted to visit Ashley, along with a host of other people at Sierra.”

Diaz arched a brow at him. “How far along is she?”

“She’s just about three months,” Connor replied.

Diaz gave him an exasperated look. “And?” he said, drawing out the question.

Connor couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “We’re having a baby girl.”

Diaz laughed heartily and the others congratulated him. “You’re having a daughter. Get ready to pay for any reckless behavior you might’ve participated in when you were younger because”—Diaz paused and held out the palm of his beefy hand, pointing to the center—“that’s where you’ll reside—right in the palm of your baby girl’s hand.”

Connor laughed.

Diaz pointed at him. “You see that, Noah? That’s the daddy grin right there. You’ll get that one day.”

“Yeah, one day, but not anytime soon,” Noah said quickly.

“You act like you have a choice in the matter. Once your wife decides she wants a baby, the wife gets a baby,” Diaz said.

Noah glanced at Connor.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much how it goes,” Connor agreed and laughed at the look of fear on Noah’s face. “But Lenora and I discussed it quite a bit before we decided to go ahead.”

Connor glanced at the Rover’s heads-up display. They still had a long way to go, but he wondered if the landrunners would carry Syloc all the way to his destination.

“Not to change the subject to more serious matters, but can you guys tell me what happened with the NEIIS?” McCrea asked.

Connor went over the chain of events.

“So the translation is ‘broken place,’ and it wanted to go to this location when you asked it about others like him?” McCrea said.

“Yeah, we’re really not sure if that’s an accurate translation,” Connor said.

“What does ‘broken place’ mean anyway? Did he mean the bunker was broken or the world was broken? And it really doesn’t tell us why they went into stasis in the first place,” Diaz said.

“I think they were fighting a war. We saw the telltale signs of it where we found the bunker, and then there’s the fact that they use the ryklars to attack each other. At least that’s what we think, and it was clear that Syloc could command the ryklars to do what he needed them to do. But we still don’t know why they were fighting,” Connor said.

“Or who they were fighting,” Noah added.

“What do you mean by who they were fighting? Wouldn’t they be fighting each other?” Diaz said.

Noah smiled. “That would be an assumption, and when we assume…”

“Yeah, yeah, but I think it’s a safe assumption that they were fighting each other,” Diaz said.

“I agree, unless we find evidence to suggest otherwise,” Connor said.

Diaz shook his head. “I hate it when you do that.”

Connor’s brows pulled together in confusion. “What?”

“You agree and then it’s followed by ‘unless we find evidence to suggest otherwise’—that stuff. It’s bad enough we have to contend with the NEIIS, but if we add yet another player to this planet, I don’t know what I’ll do,” Diaz said.

Connor arched an eyebrow. “You worry too much.”

Diaz’s mouth hung open, and he stared at Connor for a minute.

Noah started laughing and Connor smiled. It wasn’t often he could rob Diaz of his powers of speech, but this was one of those rare, satisfying moments. Connor leaned back in his seat with a wide grin. Diaz shook his head and turned back around.

Connor looked out the window and watched the New Earth landscape go by. He didn’t really believe the NEIIS were fighting someone other than themselves, but this was New Earth and stranger things had happened.

15

They followed the landrunner tracks that had been pounded into the grassy foothills of an unnamed mountain range. It’d taken about an hour to catch up to the large herd, comprised of over four hundred of the creatures. Their path skirted along a wide-open trail that looked to have been used by the landrunners before.

Noah made a high tone of intrigue as if he’d just learned something.

“Care to share your discovery with the rest of us?” Connor asked.

Noah looked away from his holoscreen and smiled. “I was just reading up about landrunners. Did you know that their heart is over two feet wide and weighs over thirty pounds?”

Connor raised his brows. He hadn’t known that.

“It makes sense,” Anna said. “They’d need a powerful heart to move all that blood around. Those legs are about three meters long.”

Noah nodded enthusiastically. “Yup, and it says here their lungs can hold a whopping sixty-six liters of air. They’re the ultimate endurance runners, though they’ve been known to travel through forested regions as well.”

“They move around a lot, so they’re probably just traveling from one feeding area to another. Judging by the trail, they’ve come this way before,” Connor said.

“It looks that way,” Noah said and cocked his head to the side. “But, would they have come this way if the NEIIS hadn’t used that signal?”

“It’s tough to say. We do have evidence of their ability to pre-program, given the signal used to control the ryklars, but it needs to be reinforced with other broadcasts. I’m not sure how long the instructions given in the broadcast actually affect the creatures under their influence,” Connor said.

“Humans have been training animals for thousands of years, but it requires the trainer to be present to reinforce the training. Take dogs for instance,” Noah said with a smile.

Connor knew Noah loved dogs and was more than a little excited to finally be getting one when they returned home. The colony had held off on the integration of animals from Earth until they learned more about their new home, and now that they were committed to staying on New Earth, it was time for some of those projects they’d put off for so long to see the light of day.

“We leverage what dogs do naturally,” Noah continued. “Aside from them being loyal companions, we use their natural abilities—like a keen sense of smell, their instinct to protect, things like that—but we can’t set them on a task that would take a long time to complete. What the NEIIS have done here is actually beyond anything we’ve done with any other life form,” Noah said.

“Not necessarily,” Connor replied. “We’ve used implants in animal brains to control behavior so we could use them for covert operations, but we’ve never engineered a creature like the ryklar.” Connor recalled his days in Special Ops and having to be aware of the many ways to gather intelligence, as well as protecting against others attempting to infiltrate their missions. “Getting back to the landrunners—I don’t think they’re getting instructions constantly, so there isn’t any reinforcement. I think perhaps Syloc just gave them a nudge to move to another feeding ground.”

The terrain became steadily rockier and the herd of landrunners curved outward, following a path that would take them away from the foothills. McCrea brought the Rover to a stop near a large boulder with a hastily etched carving of three intertwining triangles—the same symbol that was on Syloc’s uniform.

“I think this is our stop,” Connor said and climbed out of the Rover. The others followed and Connor went over to the carving, sliding his fingers along the edge. On the ground directly below the carving was the sharp rock that the NEIIS had undoubtedly used. Exploring further, Connor glanced to the side and saw a narrow path a short distance away that went along the cliff’s edge. They couldn’t take the Rovers there. As powerful as the Rovers were, they couldn’t climb the sharp incline of a mountain.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” Diaz said and waved Connor over. He’d been checking the path and gestured ahead.

Connor joined Diaz and peered up the trail, using his implants to enhance his vision. The trail curved out away from them, and at nearly three hundred meters up, Syloc sat, apparently waiting for them.

“Why would he wait for us?” Noah asked.

“He probably needs something from us. Why else would he wait?” Rollins said tersely.

Connor glanced at Rollins and noticed that he was a bit calmer than he had been. “I’m not going to make any assumptions, so I need to know who’s coming with me.”

Before anyone else could answer, Rollins said, “I’ll make this easy. I’m staying with the Rovers. Someone needs to be here in case you guys get lost or stranded.”

Connor hadn’t expected Rollins to come, but he also hadn’t expected him to give a valid reason for staying behind. “He’s right, but I need someone else to stay behind with him.”

Connor looked around at the others, his gaze briefly pausing on Donna. She glared at him as if daring him to ask her to stay behind, which he wasn’t about to do. She’d watched over Rollins enough on this trip.

“I’ll stay,” Gibson said finally.

Connor nodded and thanked him. “If you don’t hear from us in about six hours, call for help. Otherwise, the clock resets every time you hear back from us.” There was much better satellite coverage than there’d been the year before, but they still didn’t have global coverage that guaranteed comms over every square kilometer of New Earth. There were some gaps in coverage, but the gaps were only a few hours, which was a marked improvement over what Connor’d had to deal with the year before.

Connor noticed that Anna looked conflicted. She really didn’t want to go with them, but she certainly didn’t want to stay behind with Rollins. She drew in a breath and sighed, then grabbed her backpack. The rest of them retrieved their equipment, along with their fully recharged recon drones, and set off.

“Don’t you want to use the drones now?” Donna asked.

“Not yet. There’s very little chance of an ambush on this narrow trail, and Syloc’s already aware of the recon drones. As long as he stays in sight, I don’t see a need for them,” Connor said.

He performed a quick check of his pack and glanced at the others nearby to make sure they had the right equipment. It was an old habit instilled in him from his time in the military—check your own equipment and then check the equipment around you. He noticed Diaz and Noah doing the same, and after a moment, McCrea and Donna did as well.

“I’ll take point. McCrea, can you bring up the rear?” Connor asked.

McCrea said he would, and they left the Rovers behind.

The narrow path only allowed them to walk single file. A hundred meters along, the ridgeline curved as it followed the mountain, and the NEIIS was sitting on the outer curve. Connor waited as Syloc stood and regarded him for a moment. Even though the NEIIS was over two hundred meters away, Connor’s implants allowed him to see Syloc’s face as if he were standing right in front of him—for all the good it did. The alien’s features seemed to indicate a determination to keep going toward his goal, whatever that was.

Syloc turned around and disappeared around the curve.

“So much for a warm welcome,” Diaz said from where he stood behind Connor.

Connor didn’t reply and kept moving along the path. An occasional breeze whirled around them, and the beads of sweat along his neck instantly cooled against his skin. For the next ninety minutes they followed Syloc in this manner. The NEIIS stayed far enough ahead of them to make any attempt to close the distance without being seen all but impossible. They were still in the lower mountains, hardly above the foothills, but the drop-off from the ridgeline was enough that it could cause significant injury if any of them fell. They didn’t have any climbing gear with them, other than rope, so they divided into two uneven groups. Connor, Diaz, and Anna comprised one group, while Noah, Lockwood, Donna, and McCrea made up the other. They tied the rope around their waists with ten meters of slack between each of them. The path continued to narrow until at certain areas it was little more than the width of a foot. There were plenty of crevices to use as handholds, but Connor was starting to think the track might be a little too dangerous for those without an MPS.

Finally, the path opened up wide enough that they could actually walk three abreast if needed. Connor watched as Syloc continued to move ahead of them, hardly looking back.

Hearing a sudden cry from behind him, Connor spun in time to see Anna slide out of sight. Diaz, who was between Connor and Anna, was caught by surprise and was also pulled off his feet and over the side. Without thinking, Connor dove to the ground and plunged his hunting knife into it, clutching the hilt with both hands to brace himself. Within seconds, the rope jerked against his waist. He felt a brief tug and then his MPS, sensing the impact, absorbed the force. Connor began sliding toward the edge as his knife bit deeper into the rough ground, and then he stopped altogether.

“Don’t move!” Donna shouted, running over.

Connor heard Diaz grunting with effort.

“I’ve almost got a handhold,” Diaz said, his voice sounding thick.

Connor swung his head around and looked down. He was near the edge and could see Diaz struggling to get a fingerhold while Anna dangled beneath him.

“Anna, can you get a foothold?” Donna asked.

“I can’t,” Anna said. She tried to grab onto the side and Connor saw that her knuckles were bloodied. She finally managed to get enough of a fingerhold to pull herself toward the rock face, but when she tried to push up with her feet, she cried out in pain. “I think I twisted my ankle,” she said, her voice sounding strained.

“Just hold still,” Connor said. “We’re going to pull you up.”

Donna positioned herself at Connor’s side and grabbed the lifeline. She looked at him. “We’ll go on three.”

Donna counted down and Connor used the hilt of his knife to pull himself up while Donna pulled at the same time, but Diaz and Anna rose only a little bit. Donna instructed Diaz to hold his position. McCrea and Noah helped Connor get to his feet, and together they pulled Diaz and Anna up over the edge. Diaz had a long cut on his cheek but otherwise didn’t look any worse for wear. Connor brought out the first aid kit and began cleaning the gashes on Anna’s hands. She was shaking, and her breath was coming in gasps.

“You’re alright,” Connor said. “Donna’s gonna check your ankle.”

Donna removed Anna’s boot, and her ankle was already beginning to swell. Connor handed Donna a large packet of medipaste, and she gently rubbed it on Anna’s foot. As Donna applied the salve, it formed a protective shell over Anna’s foot and ankle, creating a rough bottom that matched the rugged tread of her boot. Next, they gave her painkillers.

“We need to get her back to the Rovers. She can manage on that foot, and it’ll give the medipaste time to heal the sprain,” Connor said.

“I don’t want to go back to the Rovers,” Anna said.

“Uh, sir,” Lockwood said, “I could stay behind and wait until she’s ready.” The young man began to take off his MPS, urging Anna to take it.

Anna looked at Lockwood for a moment as he stood ready with the MPS. “Thank you,” she said and slipped her arm into the suit.

While Lockwood helped Anna don the MPS, McCrea approached Connor. “I can stay behind with them, too. When they’re ready, I’ll take them back to the Rover.”

“I appreciate it. We’ll check in with you later, but let us know when you head back to the Rover,” Connor said.

“Won’t she need a medevac?” Noah asked.

“She might not. Over time, the medipaste can help heal the sprain, but she’s exposed out here, so the hardened shell will allow her to get back to the Rover just in case her injury turns out to be worse than what we think it is,” Connor said.

Anna still didn’t look happy about returning to the Rover, but she hadn’t protested any further. Connor glanced over to where Anna had fallen and saw that the ground had just given way. They’d need to be more careful.

They changed up the lifelines so that Connor, Noah, Diaz, and Donna were in one group and the others were left behind. As they headed along the path, Connor noticed Syloc watching them. The NEIIS must’ve doubled back when he realized that something had happened, or he might’ve heard Anna cry out.

“I think it’s time we use our recon drones. I want a better idea of what’s up ahead,” Connor said.

Donna and Noah were carrying the small drones. They sent them both up into the air and the drones flew off ahead. Connor watched as Syloc tracked the path of the drones for a minute, and then the NEIIS turned around and kept going.

16

“Trevor told me he worked on combat shuttles at the lunar base,” Donna said.

The path in front of Connor curved out of sight. “That’s right,” he said and placed his hands against a rock wall, slowly moving around the rocky outcrop. The path was still a meter and a half wide, but he wasn’t taking any chances with the edge. The tracking link on Connor’s internal heads-up display showed that Syloc waited for them about a hundred and thirty meters down the path.

“Did something bad happen to him?” Donna asked.

“Not that I know of. McCrea’s fine. Why do you ask?”

Connor glanced behind Donna and saw Noah and Diaz coming around the outcropping.

“I was just wondering because he seems pretty even keel to me,” Donna replied.

“Not everyone who comes to Sanctuary has some kind of traumatic event in their history,” Connor said and arched an eyebrow toward her.

“I didn’t mean that… Well, maybe I did,” Donna said and continued after a moment. “Rollins and Anna have certainly been through a lot. Gibson doesn’t talk much, so I can’t really get a bead on him. Sometimes I forget he’s even there.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want to talk to you,” Diaz said.

Donna blew a kiss at Diaz. “It couldn’t be that I’m charming and beautiful, unlike you.”

Diaz snickered.

“Actually, I was trying to convince McCrea to transfer to Field Ops at Sanctuary,” Connor said.

“Oh, really,” Donna said, sounding intrigued.

“I think somebody has a crush,” Diaz quipped.

Connor glanced at Donna and saw that her cheeks had reddened slightly, but it was gone in an instant.

“That’s because you married Victoria, and I’ve been heartbroken ever since,” Donna said.

Diaz pinched his lips together and nodded. “I could talk to Vic about it. You could move in and become my second wife. Make it all legit. How’s that sound?”

Donna drew her head up haughtily. “I won’t be playing second fiddle to anybody. I’ll be first and foremost when I choose to marry somebody. Sorry, you just missed out on all this,” she said and gestured in front of her well-formed and taut body.

Diaz grinned and smiled widely. “You were always my favorite of everyone in that first Search and Rescue class.”

Noah cleared his throat. “You told me I was your favorite. Did you lie to me?” he asked with mock severity.

Connor grinned, appreciating the momentary reprieve from what they were doing.

After the brief respite, it took Connor a moment to realize that the ground felt as if it were pushing up against his feet. At first, he thought he might’ve slipped or the ground was giving way, but it was much more subtle than that. He glanced at the others and could see that they had felt the same thing. “Against the wall, now!”

They backed against the wall and Connor glanced at the NEIIS. Syloc was gazing above them and Connor did the same. The ground vibrated beneath their feet, and the vibrations became slightly more intense before they stopped altogether. Connor glanced at the others and saw that they were okay.

Noah brought his PDA out and was bringing up the drone interface.

“I’ve sent one of the drones higher to do a quick survey,” Connor said.

“A survey for what?” Diaz asked.

“Oh, you know, to see if this is an active volcano.”

“Are you serious?”

“We’re ruling it out,” Connor said. He had the drone video feed on his internal heads-up display. It quickly reached a kilometer above them, and its multiple cameras provided a panoramic view of the immediate area. There were none of the telltale signs of a volcano having been in that region. “It doesn’t look like a volcano.”

“You don’t sound very convincing,” Diaz said.

“We should keep moving,” Donna said and gestured toward the NEIIS.

Syloc had continued along the path, but Connor thought he was moving quicker than before.

“I’m not a geologist,” Connor said. “There isn’t a smoking crater at the top of the mountain.”

“We don’t have any seismic monitors in this area. Actually, we don’t have seismic monitors outside a thousand-kilometer range of any colonial settlement,” Noah said.

There was another curve up ahead, and Connor watched as Syloc disappeared from sight. They quickly closed the distance and Connor rounded the curve first. The path opened to a large shelf. Fifty meters away, Syloc stood near an open doorway to a NEIIS installation.

Connor checked the map.

“Another bunker. We didn’t even know about this location before he brought it up on a map,” Noah said.

Connor nodded and walked toward the entrance. Syloc waited there for them until they were ten meters away, then entered the dark corridor. The rest of them reached the entrance, but there was no NEIIS lighting in the bunker.

Connor glanced at Noah, who shook his head. “I’m not detecting any power sources.”

Connor tasked one of their drones to go ahead of them and light the way. This corridor was more primitive than those of the last bunker they’d been in. It seemed that the NEIIS had tunneled through the rock and then only laid down metallic flooring to mark the way.

They heard the NEIIS walking ahead of them, and soon they reached a control room, which was completely dark. Whatever had powered this place was no longer active. The air smelled moldy and felt humid. The mesh screens over the consoles had long since rotted away.

Connor saw that Syloc was manually cranking the bunker door open, and there was no hissing of escaping air. If this bunker had had a hermetic seal, that had been broken long ago. Without any power, and considering the fact that the bunker had been breached at some point, Connor didn’t have much hope of finding any other NEIIS alive. He saw the same realization reflected on the faces of his companions, but no one said anything. They were all quiet, as if to disturb the silence would’ve been offensive in some way.

Syloc went through the door first, and the drone followed, lighting the area. Connor and the others went through next. Two rows of stasis pods lined the sides of the room. Connor did a quick count. There were over fifty pods, and none of them looked as if they had power. The drone scanners confirmed it. They’d entered a graveyard.

Connor watched as Syloc walked from stasis pod to stasis pod and tried to bring them back online.

“These have different markings on them,” Noah said quietly, and gestured toward the nearest pod.

Connor looked over and saw that some of the pods had the markings of four intertwining circles. Syloc ignored them and seemed to pause only at the ones that had the intertwining triangles like the symbol on his uniform.

“I think he’s looking for somebody specific,” Connor said.

Diaz glanced around, wide-eyed. “All of these NEIIS died in stasis?”

“It looks that way,” Connor said.

“Why wouldn’t they have had redundancies to wake them up? If their systems are anything like ours, in the event that the power was suddenly cut off, they would’ve awakened the occupants,” Noah said.

Connor peered at the stasis pods in thought for a minute. “Not necessarily,” he said, and his mouth became a grim line.

The others looked at him, and Noah asked, “Why not?”

“If they came here to weather some kind of calamity, then waking up too early might’ve been a death sentence,” Connor said.

Noah’s mouth hung open and then he blew out a long breath. “Oh my god. They went into stasis knowing there was a chance they might never wake up.”

“We’ll need to confirm that, unless all these pods experienced some kind of severe mechanical failure,” Connor said, but even as he said it, he didn’t believe it.

“A power failure that took out all the pods. That would be…” Diaz said, and his voice trailed off.

They heard a banging noise from the end of the bunker where Syloc had gone. Connor quickened his pace and saw that there was another open door at the end of the chamber. Not wanting to burst through the door, he slowed down and then calmly walked into the room.

Syloc was gripping both hands atop one of the NEIIS consoles. The muscles in his arms shook. Syloc’s face was turned away from them, but the ridges on his head seemed more pronounced. The NEIIS rocked his body back and forth as he turned his dark-eyed gaze toward Connor. Even though the NEIIS were a completely alien race that had evolved on this planet, there was something unmistakably human in the creature’s eyes—pain mixed with a hint of desperation.

Connor stepped away from the others, gesturing toward his chest and then at the main console. “Let me try something,” he said, knowing that Syloc wouldn’t understand him, but it was the same level tone he’d used before.

Syloc took several steps back. Connor went to the control panel and slung off his backpack. Noah handed him a portable power supply, and Connor connected it to the main control board. He then initiated the startup sequence, and the NEIIS console slowly came back on. The mesh screen was gone, so Connor brought up the holoscreen from his PDA. He connected it to the NEIIS console and the information appeared on his screen.

Syloc let out a harsh gasp that was mixed with a grunt. He stepped toward the holoscreen, and Connor gestured for him to stand in place while he backed away. Syloc slowly brought his hand to the holoscreen as if he wasn’t sure whether he could touch it or not. He tapped one of the NEIIS symbols and it was momentarily highlighted, but Syloc pulled his hand away as if he’d touched a hot stove. Connor gave him an encouraging nod. Once Syloc realized the holoscreen could be manipulated, he tapped other symbols. A few moments later, multiple lines of NEIIS code appeared. Connor’s interpreter showed that Syloc was attempting to figure out what had happened to the stasis pods.

“Noah, are you—”

“I’m getting it,” Noah said, confirming that he was recording the information streaming through Connor’s PDA.

Syloc quickly read the NEIIS version of an error log and then changed to another menu before Connor or the others could catch up.

Syloc brought up another map that showed a larger area of the continent than the previous one. NEIIS sites appeared in rapid succession. Syloc highlighted another bunker that was almost at the edge of the map, east of their position. Connor used his internal heads-up display to apply the map overlay he’d done before and determined that the bunker Syloc wanted to go to was over two hundred kilometers away.

Connor looked at the other locations that were much closer.

“What about these?” Connor said and gestured toward a site much closer to their current position.

Syloc blew out a harsh breath that startled some of the others. The NEIIS gestured firmly toward the site he’d originally indicated.

Connor took control of the holoscreen and opened a smaller window so he could communicate with the NEIIS. “It’s too far away. We can’t go there. What if we went here instead?” Connor said. He opened his own map, which showed a track that led back to Sanctuary. “We need more supplies,” he said, but he knew the translator showed a message that indicated a lack of resources.

The NEIIS drew in rapid, shallow breaths and once again let out a grunt that sounded like a partial growl. Connor watched as Syloc looked at the screen and backed away from them. He slammed his hand against the wall and walked out the door.

“Why the hell does he want to go to the bunker that’s farthest away?” Diaz asked.

“Assuming that all these are the locations of other bunkers,” Donna said.

Connor frowned and looked at the doorway the NEIIS had just gone through. They heard another banging sound as the NEIIS struck something else outside the room.

“What is it?” Diaz asked.

“The way he reacted when I suggested we go to Sanctuary. It was almost like it made him angry or like either the suggestion or the place itself had insulted him in some way,” Connor said.

“Well, he did just find all these people dead,” Donna said.

Connor thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. Something about Syloc’s reaction to Sanctuary, in particular, bothered Connor, and he couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. He kept second-guessing himself because he was dealing with an intelligent species and he didn’t want to assume its responses were humanlike. But what else could he do? He had to trust his instincts.

“I’m going to follow him,” Connor said.

“Maybe we should give him a few minutes,” Noah suggested, and the others agreed.

Connor glanced at the open doorway. Was Syloc grieving, or was he just angry because Connor refused to go to another location?

“I want to keep him in sight,” Connor said and headed for the door.

17

The others followed Connor out of the room. It was easy to spot Syloc because the recon drone hovered in the air a short distance away and illuminated the area. The NEIIS went to a gap between the rows of stasis pods and headed toward the wall. The light coming from the recon drone revealed another door. Syloc was trying to remove the control panel so he could crank the door open.

Connor walked over to him and stopped. Syloc turned toward the recon drone and howled at it, taking several swipes trying to reach it. Connor had the drone back away and move toward him. Syloc glanced at Connor and then went back to the door. The sound of rusty hinges echoed through the room as the door squeaked open and Syloc slipped through.

Connor and the others went to the door and saw that there was a corridor beyond that led deeper into the mountain.

Connor looked at Noah. “Do we know anything about the location he wants to go to?”

“I’ll check,” Noah answered.

Donna looked at Connor. “At some point, we need to draw the line, sir.”

Diaz nodded. “We can’t keep going farther away without some backup.”

Connor sighed. “I know.”

“So what will you do if the NEIIS insists on going to this place?” Donna asked.

“If the terrain is anything like it was to get here, it might take him a long time to get there,” Connor said.

He didn’t like the thought of allowing the NEIIS to go off into the world, but the others were right. They needed help. Connor drew in a deep breath. They had two Rovers. He could take one of them and follow Syloc by himself if he had to.

“Hmmm,” Noah said, peering at his PDA in thought. “We actually don’t know much about that area.”

“What do you mean we don’t know much about that area? We should have the data from the Galileo and the more recent satellite survey missions,” Connor said.

“We do, but that area has almost constant cloud cover. It’s never been mapped or surveyed very closely,” Noah said, and made the data available to the rest of them.

Connor looked at the survey data Noah had found. That region of the continent had a weather pattern similar to a temperate rainforest. Cloud cover for the region was estimated as nearly constant, which meant if they wanted to know more about the area, they’d have to do their own reconnaissance.

“We can see if the C-cats that are en route to the Rovers have the fuel to go a bit farther,” Connor said.

Diaz frowned. “I thought the C-cats were just coming to pick up Rollins and Anna and anyone else who wanted to go home.”

“They are, but we can ask the pilot if he’ll take us out there,” Connor said.

Diaz shook his head. “I guess it depends on who the pilot is, but this might be a good time to send another update back to Sierra and get some help out here. A troop carrier has a much longer range than a C-cat anyway.”

Connor heard Syloc make a sound from inside the corridor.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with Diaz. It might be time to call in the cavalry,” Donna said.

“Alright, I get it. I hear you,” Connor said. “Once we get out of here, we’ll call in for some backup with the right equipment,” he said, and this set the others at ease until his next sentence. “But I’m still going to follow along. You guys coming?”

Connor didn’t wait for an answer as he went into the corridor. He knew they’d follow him.

Noah caught up to him first. “Did you notice the other emblems on the stasis pods?”

Connor nodded. “I did.”

“I think this bunker had different factions of NEIIS in it,” Noah said.

“Yeah, it looked like Syloc was primarily concerned with the pods that had the same emblem as the one on his uniform,” Connor replied.

“We really need to understand what the different factions represent. I wish we could access the main data repositories so I could do some cross-referencing, but I can’t do that from here,” Noah said.

“Yeah, but you could do it from the Rovers, couldn’t you?”

“It’s limited, but it would be more useful if I could access that information right now. Perhaps we can get the more robust comms equipment to handle what we’ll need,” Noah said.

The ground suddenly began to shake as another earthquake caught them off guard. The NEIIS that built the bunker hadn’t reinforced the ceilings in the corridor very well. They’d been walking by large rocks ever since they entered. Diaz was shouting for them to get back when the earthquake became much worse.

The way ahead looked clear. Connor grabbed Noah by the arm and pulled him forward. The shouts of the other two were cut off as the ceiling came down in a maelstrom of rocks and dirt. Connor and Noah trotted down the corridor on wobbly legs as the ground shook beneath their feet. Less than a minute later, the earthquake stopped. Rock and dust filled the air, and Connor covered his mouth with his hands. He turned back and saw that the way back to Donna and Diaz was completely blocked off. The layers of rocky debris were tightly packed, and it would take them a while to dig themselves out. He shouted for Diaz and then for Donna. There was no reply. He opened a comlink and gave Noah a nod when it connected.

“We’re all right,” Diaz said between fits of coughing. “Tell Noah his suit works great.”

Noah smiled, happy that the MPS had done some good.

“Are you blocked off? I’m not sure if we can dig our way through this,” Connor said and looked behind him. “The corridor is clear heading away from you guys.”

“No, we’re not. We can go back out the way we came,” Diaz said.

“But we’re not going to do that,” Donna said firmly.

“Tell me something good, Donna,” Connor said.

“I have a sonic wave emitter that can use focused sonic waves to vaporize rock in controlled bursts. It’s actually based on that little stunt you pulled when you modified the sonic blaster, but safer. They’re outfitting certain Field Ops teams with them to help them get to trapped victims faster,” Donna said.

“Brilliant, but be careful because you could start another cave-in,” Connor said.

“This isn’t my first rodeo. We’ll work our way toward you,” Donna replied.

Connor closed the comlink and glanced at Noah. “Well, at least we’re not trapped.”

“Lenora always says you like to look on the bright side of things,” Noah said sarcastically.

“It’s the new me. Come on, the way ahead is clear,” Connor said.

Noah’s brows pulled together. “Shouldn’t we wait for the others?”

Connor started walking away and gestured for Noah to follow. “We will, but up away from here, and we need to find out what Syloc is doing.”

Noah muttered something about telling the others they were moving on and then followed. The corridor expanded into a wide-open space. There were piles of rock throughout almost the entire place, covering much of the equipment the NEIIS had stored there.

“What do you think this is?” Noah asked.

Connor glanced around. “Reminds me of a hangar. See, there’s a wide door at the far end.”

Noah looked at the far end of the NEIIS hangar bay and frowned. “Those vehicles over there look like ground transport, but any fuel source they might’ve had wouldn’t be of much use now.”

“We never found any type of vehicles at the other sites,” Connor said and glanced at the ceiling. Hoisted to the top were several NEIIS aerial vehicles without discernible engines.

Noah glanced up to where Connor was looking. “Are those gliders?”

They had smooth oval pods in the middle, and it looked like the primary and secondary wings had been folded up so the gliders could be stored. Connor peered into the dark room and saw a mammoth ground vehicle on the far end of the chamber. The wheels were twice as big as he was tall.

“I’m going to take a look over there near that big vehicle. It looks like the cave-ins didn’t affect that area as much,” Connor said.

“There’s got to be a control room nearby. I want to go look for that. Any idea where our friend went?” Noah asked.

“I think he’s over by the door,” Connor said. He could really use that recon drone now, but it was buried under tons of rock in the corridor. “Keep the comlink open.”

Noah said he would and walked off, heading toward the other side of the hangar. The hangar doors were partially open and sunlight was spilling in, so Connor headed toward them. He heard Syloc at the far end and realized the NEIIS was likely trying to get them to open farther.

Connor came to the large, ground-based vehicle and noted the turrets on top. There were stubbed barrels on the turrets, and he had no idea what they would fire. As he was wondering about that, he noticed an open hatch beneath the vehicle, and he headed for it. The machine was so large that he barely had to lower his head to walk beneath it. As he passed the enormous tires, he noticed that whatever material the NEIIS used had rotted, and the tires looked as if they would fall apart if the vehicle was ever up and running again.

Connor reached the hatch and stopped to peer up. The interior was dark, but his implants enhanced what little light was coming from the doors so he could see. There was a ladder inside.

Suddenly, a loud banging sound echoed from behind him, where Noah had gone.

“I found a control room and managed to work my way inside. I had to climb over some of this equipment to get to it,” Noah said, his voice coming over comlink.

“Do any of the consoles work?” Connor asked.

“That would be a negative. There’s no power here. I’ll see if I can hook up my portable power supply and get some information off these, but they look like they’re in pretty bad shape,” Noah said.

“Keep me posted,” Connor said.

Turning his attention back to the open hatch, Connor noticed the emblem of the three intertwining triangles as he cinched the straps of his hunting rifle so it hung behind him in preparation for climbing the ladder. After going up about three meters, he reached an open area. Glancing around, he saw a row of lockers lining the walls, and all of them had the very same emblem he’d seen on the outside, except for one. He walked over to it. The locker was bigger than the others, and its emblem looked like a partial claw with a globe beneath it that had channels carved across it. Connor pulled on the handle and opened the locker.

Inside was a faded, dark uniform, and secured by straps to one side was a long metallic staff that was covered in thick layers of dust and dirt. Connor reached out to clean off some of the dirt and saw that the smooth surface was a deep purple color. The end of the staff began to glow and Connor snatched his hand away.

He heard a sharp exhalation behind him, but before he could turn around, a thick hand grabbed the back of his head and shoved his face into the locker. His vision swam and he felt something hard hit the back of his head. Connor sank to the floor and lost consciousness.

18

The first thing he felt when he finally woke was pain constricting across the top of his head into a powerful throb. It was difficult for him to think, as if his brain had turned the consistency of runny eggs whenever he tried to focus his mind. He felt someone shaking his shoulder and calling his name.

“We have to wait to move him because he might have another injury,” Donna said.

“Something plowed right through that door over there, and I’m gonna check it out,” Diaz said.

“Noah,” Donna said, “squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”

Noah swallowed and felt Donna grab one of his hands. He squeezed.

“Oh, thank god,” Donna said, sounding relieved. “Can you open your eyes?”

Noah forced his eyes open and saw Donna hovering over him. Her short blonde hair was dirty and was tucked behind her ears. She gave him a once-over. “Do you remember what happened to you?”

Noah looked around and felt like the world was lopsided but then realized that he was lying on the side of a pile of rocks. It was incredibly uncomfortable, and he was surprised that he couldn’t feel any sharp stones jabbing his back. Then he remembered that he was wearing the MPS and that it must be protecting him, but he didn’t think he could focus his mind enough to use his neural implants. Why hadn’t the suit protected his head?

“The last thing I remember was climbing out of the control room. I was going to look for Connor because he hadn’t replied,” Noah said and winced. “We had an open comlink so we could keep in contact, and he went to look at one of those vehicles over on the other side of the hangar.”

Noah closed his eyes, remembering climbing out of the control room and then feeling something pick him up and toss him as if he weighed nothing. He tried to sit up and Donna told him to take it slowly. Noah finally got his bearings and gestured toward where the control room was located, which looked to be more than ten meters away.

Donna glanced at the control room. “How’d you get way over here?”

“I don’t know. It felt like someone picked me up and threw me all the way here,” Noah said, his voice sounding weak.

Donna frowned. “Can you stand up?”

“My head really hurts,” Noah said.

“That suit of yours saved your life, but for some reason the helmet didn’t form and you banged your head pretty good. I’m going to give you a shot that should alleviate the pain some,” Donna said.

Noah nodded, or at least he tried to, but then he just waited. He felt Donna press a needle to his neck. There was a slight pinch and then the pain was gone. A few seconds later, he felt the pressure in his head finally lessen and it became easier for him to think. He tried to stand up, but Donna told him to wait.

“Give the nanobots a chance to go through your system. The MPS might’ve protected your body from direct harm, but the impact could’ve caused some internal bleeding,” Donna said.

Noah’s eyebrows pinched together in concentration while he tried to feel whether he was bleeding internally and then scolded himself because that wasn’t something he could probably feel. But he honestly didn’t know, and said so.

Donna held her PDA and was checking the nanobots’ progress on a screen he couldn’t see. “Just relax for a moment. If you’re not in any pain, that’s a good sign. Is it easier to concentrate?”

“Yeah, the pain in my head is just a dull ache now,” Noah said.

He watched as Donna continued to monitor her PDA and nod at what he was saying at the same time. After a few minutes, she said, “Alright, it looks like you’re fine, or at least you’re not bleeding internally. You may still have a headache later, and you probably have a concussion. The nanobots will stay active in your body for a full twenty-four hours, which will help with the healing. You’re very lucky.”

Noah climbed to his feet with Donna’s help. “I don’t feel lucky. Where’s Connor?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Donna said.

Noah glanced at the hangar bay doors, which were bent outward at an awkward angle. His eyes followed the path that led to the door, and the large ground vehicle that Connor had gone to look at was gone. Noah tried to reach Connor on the comlink, but there was no reply and no connection, as if he were out of range. Noah and Donna quickly caught up with Diaz at the door.

Diaz looked at Noah and asked if he was alright.

“I’m fine,” Noah said.

Outside the ruined hangar doors was a set of broad tracks from the large ground vehicle that carved a path through the rock and over the ledge. Noah wasn’t sure what elevation they were at, but they were high enough for crisp mountain air to blow in from above them. They walked to the edge and saw that the NEIIS vehicle was nothing more than a pile of scrap at the bottom.

Donna brought out a recon drone and activated it. “We found it on our way to you, which is good because we lost the other one in the cave-in.”

The drone sped down the mountainside toward the NEIIS vehicle, and the interface came on in their heads-up display. They watched as it scanned for signs of life among the wreckage. The drone circled around the debris, doing its utmost to peer in from every angle, but there was no sign of Connor or the NEIIS.

“At least he wasn’t in the wreckage,” Noah said and bowed his head.

“Then where the hell is he, and where is the NEIIS?” Diaz said, sounding as if his patience were waning. He looked at Noah. “You have to remember something… anything.”

Noah swallowed hard and turned away from the ledge. He walked back toward the hangar and looked around, trying to remember what had happened. There was no other way off the mountain, at least not on foot. The bunker was well hidden behind a sheer rock face, so it was no surprise the colonists hadn’t found it before. He wondered how many other NEIIS installations there were like this on the planet.

Noah glanced up at the hangar ceiling and frowned.

“What is it?” Diaz asked, staring up where Noah was looking.

Noah spun and glanced out the hangar doors, his mouth open with the shock of his realization. “They didn’t drive out of here. They flew.”

The others looked up at the ceiling, where only two gliders remained. One was missing.

“Can that thing still fly?” Diaz asked.

Noah peered out of the hangar doors, looking at the sky beyond and trying to see if he could spot the glider in the air. He couldn’t. “Even if they did get it out of here, how far could they fly it?”

“Depends on aerodynamics. If the NEIIS are good at it, then they could fly it for hours,” Donna said.

Diaz shook his head, his lips forming a grim line. “This ain’t right. Connor wouldn’t have left us behind.”

“He didn’t. Syloc kidnapped him,” Noah said.

Donna frowned as if she couldn’t quite believe that such a thing was possible. Diaz glared back through the open hangar doors.

“Are you saying that Syloc, the NEIIS, got the drop on Connor?” Donna asked.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Noah said.

“You think he’s…” Donna said, leaving the question unasked.

“If he’d killed him, we would’ve found his body. But we didn’t, which means Connor’s still alive,” Diaz said.

Donna nodded. “I think you’re right, but I just don’t understand. Why would Syloc do this?”

Diaz shrugged. “Does it matter? That thing took my friend, and I’m going after him.”

The stocky CDF captain started walking back into the hangar, heading toward the corridor. Noah and Donna caught up with him.

“Syloc needs him. That’s why he took Connor,” Noah said.

“Why?” Donna asked.

Noah rubbed his chin for a minute. “It has to be his PDA. Connor used it to try to communicate with him. He also used it to access the NEIIS console that didn’t have any power, so Syloc might’ve seen how useful it was but knew he couldn’t use it himself.”

Donna regarded him for a moment. “Then why didn’t he take you? You’re a heck of a lot more technically savvy than Connor is.”

The fact that the NEIIS had almost killed Noah didn’t speak well of Syloc’s opinion of him. Noah shuddered at the thought of how close to dying he’d come. Had the NEIIS really tried to murder him? Or did he just want him out of the way?

“This isn’t that hard to figure out. Connor was the one who primarily interacted with him,” Diaz said irritably.

“That’s because he was the only one the NEIIS would communicate with,” Noah replied.

They reached the area of the cave-in and Noah saw a smooth tunnel that cut through the rocks. He squatted down on all fours, and the three of them quickly moved through the new tunnel. Every time he heard the slight shifting of rocks he kept thinking that the tunnel was going to collapse and he’d be crushed.

Noah breathed a sigh of relief when he finally crawled out the other end.

“He took Connor because he was in charge,” Donna said. “Think about it. The NEIIS watched us and how we all interacted. There’s no doubt to anyone on the outside that Connor is the leader. Maybe that means more to this NEIIS faction than a subordinate.”

“You might be onto something there. Connor was the one who challenged the NEIIS. He denied Syloc’s request to go to that other site—that’s it! That’s where they’re going!” Noah said.

Diaz stopped and looked at him. “Then that’s where we’re going.”

They continued on through the room filled with stasis pods and were soon at the corridor that would lead them out of there. Noah would’ve liked more time to study the place, but they couldn’t stop for that. He knew Lenora would have had a field day there. Noah felt his stomach twist inside him. How could he tell Lenora what had happened to Connor? They were going to have a baby together. He should have stuck by Connor’s side and watched his back, and then maybe none of this would have happened. Noah clenched his teeth. He’d help make this right. Connor and Lenora were like family to him.

“Does the MPS have a tracker?” Donna asked.

Noah pinched the bridge of his nose. “These are prototypes. I didn’t put one in.”

“You couldn’t have known, and we were just supposed to field-test them,” Donna said.

“If we can get within range of his comlink, I can triangulate his position. We can do that from the Rovers,” Noah said.

Diaz quickened his pace. “Let’s hurry back then.”

19

Connor’s whole body shook violently as if he were being jostled around in a bottle, and he woke to find that his wrists were bound together in front of him. There was the hiss of air escaping the main fuselage of the NEIIS glider, and pinpricks of light pierced through the weak points of the thin outer hull. Connor’s breath came in gasps. He had no idea how this thing was flying.

Feeling a sudden drop, his stomach pushed into his chest and bile crept up into his throat. He swung his head around and saw Syloc sitting at the front, the natural bony protrusions of his shoulders drawn tensely upward.

Connor raised his head high enough to peer through a tiny window in front of him and saw the ground rushing toward them. He watched as Syloc pulled two identical levers on either side of the cockpit. The NEIIS glider swooped back up into the air, and the structural supports groaned under the pressure. It wasn’t a smooth flight, and Connor bounced around inside the cabin.

I’m going to die!

Connor wasn’t averse to risking his life—he’d done it many times throughout his military career—but he felt that the glider would fall apart at any moment. Focus, Connor, he scolded himself. He tried to twist his wrists, testing his bindings, but then he heard a loud bang with an accompanying force that jerked his head back. It sounded as if a piece of the glider had broken off, and he looked around, expecting to see a gaping hole.

“You need to land this thing,” Connor said before he thought better of it. Syloc couldn’t understand him and ignored the fact that he had even spoken.

Connor still had his backpack, and he wondered if he could get his hunting knife out of it. He tried to pump his body to work the backpack loose, but it was no use. The clasp would never come undone unless he opened it. That’s how the backpack was designed, and he should’ve known better than to even try. He glanced around the fuselage for some kind of sharp object that he could use to cut off his bindings. Looking down at his hands, he noted that the bands weren’t rope but were some kind of leather straps that seemed old and worn. Connor frowned. He might be able to work his way out of them. He started pushing one wrist forward and then the other, back and forth. The largely rotted material of the animal hide began to expand and was soon stretched over his beefy palm. He gave his hands another good yank and he was free.

Connor blew out a breath, which froze in his lungs as Syloc shoved the levers forward and the NEIIS glider plunged toward the ground. The wind rushed past the wings and Connor heard several more pieces break off. It was as if the glider were skipping along the air like a rock skimming across a flat lake. The motion was chaotic, and the jarring of the fuselage caused him to bite his cheek. Connor clamped his mouth shut. He needed to find a way out of there. He had to get Syloc to land the glider before they both died.

“You have to pull up,” Connor said, and the NEIIS ignored him again. He glanced to the side and saw the inner walls begin to buckle where the wings were attached. Syloc started to angle their descent. Connor lurched forward, grabbing Syloc by the wrists, and yanked back. The glider groaned in protest as it leveled off. Syloc struggled against Connor, but he wouldn’t let go.

Without warning, there was a loud snap and the glider rolled onto its side. They both froze as they fell toward a grouping of trees with large orange leaves. Hearing the other wing come off with a sickening snap, Connor gritted his teeth and held on tight as the glider crashed. The fuselage became tangled in a web of twisted branches, and the front of the aircraft dipped toward the ground far below.

Connor looked out the back of the glider and saw a nearby tree branch. Without thinking, he pushed away from the pilot’s seat and jumped onto the branch. When he turned, he saw Syloc struggling with the straps that held him in the seat, but the NEIIS was able to free himself and climb out. The glider teetered and then began to slide off the branches that were holding it.

Connor grabbed hold of the branch he was on and extended his hand toward the NEIIS. “Here, take my hand!”

Syloc took one step and leaped into the air, his long arms outstretched as the remains of the glider fell away. The NEIIS’s long fingers gripped Connor’s hand firmly, but with the extra weight Connor’s other hand slipped, and they started to tumble out of the tree. Hitting one branch after another, they plunged toward the ground. Connor flinched, anticipating impact, but the MPS’s protection mode engaged and a hardened case surrounded him. Syloc managed to grab hold of a branch and slow his descent. Connor tried to do the same, but the MPS prevented him from moving. He fell headlong the rest of the way and slammed into the ground. The suit absorbed most of the impact, but Connor was momentarily stunned.

As the suit returned to its normal state, Connor pushed himself to his feet. His equilibrium was off and he kept listing to one side, stumbling into a tree. He braced himself against the tree with one hand, took several deep, steadying breaths, and looked up. Syloc was climbing down toward him.

The left side of Connor’s face ached. He pressed it with his fingertips and felt the bruise under his skin as he backed away from the tree to keep a careful watch on Syloc. The NEIIS had attacked him and tied him up, then stuck him on the glider and… His thoughts came to a halt. Where was he? He tried to open a comlink but his PDA was offline. Connor quickly slung his backpack off and opened it, shoving the contents around as he searched for his PDA. He found his hunting knife, so at least he wasn’t entirely unarmed. He snatched that out of the pack and attached it to his belt.

Syloc landed on the ground a few meters away from him. The NEIIS regarded him for a few moments and then deliberately stuck his hand inside the satchel he was carrying. Slowly withdrawing his hand, Syloc held up Connor’s PDA.

Connor glanced from the PDA to Syloc. The NEIIS had figured out how to power the device off. Connor couldn’t turn it on remotely while it was in that state. “I’m going to need that back if we’re going to communicate,” he said and held out his hand.

Syloc glanced at Connor’s hand and then put the PDA back into his satchel.

So that was how it was going to be, Connor thought.

He gripped the handle of his knife but didn’t pull it from its sheath. He needed that PDA to figure out where the heck he was. He heard several creatures climbing through the branches and glanced upward. Above the treetops was a cloudy gray sky. The air was humid and the ground was damp. Just how far had Syloc flown them before Connor woke up?

Syloc glanced up at the creatures in the tree. They had long arms and were swinging among the dizzying heights. Their skin was a mixture of grays, with pale yellow stripes that ran down their arms and onto their elongated, three-fingered hands. Each finger looked as thick as Connor’s forearm. The lower half of the creature’s body sported two thick tails, and their ears ended in points on either side. The skin above the creatures' snouts was flesh-colored, and their eyes were deep-set on both sides of its face. Having eyes that far apart meant they had a blind spot, but none of that mattered since it looked like over a hundred of the creatures were coming toward them. Connor had only seen them in smaller groups, and they were fiercely territorial. After a few moments, he realized they were surrounded.

Connor looked at Syloc, and the NEIIS turned and ran. A few seconds later, Connor followed.

20

Noah and the others made it back to the Rovers a few hours past the middle of the day.

“Would you look at this?” Diaz groused.

Noah looked up and saw that the others who had gone back to the Rovers had made camp. There were a few tables set up, as well as portable chairs. Anna was sitting in one of the chairs and had her ankle propped up on another. Lockwood waved toward them excitedly, but the smile fled his face when Diaz stomped past him.

“All right, we need to pack this camp up, now,” Diaz said.

Gibson and McCrea stood up, and Rollins stepped out of the Rover. His boots struck the ground with a dull thud.

“Get moving! We have to leave five minutes ago,” Diaz said.

“Why? What happened?” Lockwood asked while folding the chair he’d been sitting on.

“Where’s Connor?” McCrea asked.

“He’s missing,” Noah said. “I’ll explain, but Diaz is right; we need to pack up now.”

Rollins let out a mirthless chuckle and brought his hands to his hips. “Let me guess. Did that NEIIS finally show his true colors?”

Diaz strode toward Rollins, clenching his fists.

Noah cut between them. “Hang on. Just wait a second,” he said and then looked at Rollins. “Something like that.”

The others went about immediately packing up the camp.

“The transport is still a few hours out,” Rollins said.

Noah told the others what happened while they swiftly packed up the camp. He was just as anxious as Diaz to get going. They had a lot of ground to cover, and the NEIIS already had a head start.

“So you think the NEIIS kidnapped Connor?” Rollins asked.

“Yeah, that’s what we think,” Noah answered. He noticed that whenever Rollins spoke, he drew a few heated glares from some of the others. Rollins was a bitter, angry man who seemed to enjoy taking jabs at almost anyone until they pushed back. Noah remembered that Connor had dealt with him by remaining calm and direct, so Noah decided to try the same approach.

“Since that’s the case, we need to report in and get some help if we’re going to try to rescue him,” Rollins said.

“Well, that’s a great idea. Very gracious of you. Now get your ass in the Rover or I’ll leave you behind,” Diaz said.

Rollins stepped toward Diaz, nostrils flaring. “Go ahead. And going off half-cocked like you are right now, if Connor is in trouble, he’ll be dead for sure.”

The muscles rolled beneath Diaz’s close-cropped hair as he clenched his teeth.

“We need a plan,” Noah said.

“I hate to admit it,” Donna said, “but they’re right. We need to plan our approach.”

“Why can’t we just plan it on the way?” Lockwood asked.

Noah brought out his PDA and engaged the holoscreen. The others gathered around. “We think Syloc is heading toward this area, here, where there’s another bunker, but we don’t know much about the region.”

McCrea let out a low whistle. “That’s a few hundred kilometers away.”

Noah nodded. “That’s right. We can skirt around the mountains here, but it’s all open range on the other side. The Rovers can handle it, but it won’t be a smooth ride.” He looked at Donna. “What do you think?”

Donna had served in Field Ops for over ten years and was the most familiar with the challenges of traversing the New Earth landscape. She peered at the map. “It’s the quickest route, but we won’t know until we’re out there. This is enough to get us started, and we can adjust if necessary.”

“Wonderful,” Diaz said. “Now we have a heading. Let’s get going. Donna and I will be driving the Rovers. Rollins, if you’re coming, you’re riding with me.”

“Oh joy,” Rollins said and headed to the back of the closest Rover.

“Don’t forget. Any more trouble from you and I will personally kick you out of the Rover and leave you stranded out here in the middle of nowhere,” Diaz said.

Rollins gave him an obnoxious bow and climbed inside the Rover.

“Right, then. McCrea, Gibson, and Anna, you’ll ride with me,” Donna said.

Anna frowned and glanced toward the Rover where Rollins sat. “Thank you, but I’ll ride in the other one.”

Donna considered Anna for a moment and shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said and headed toward the Rover she was driving.

Noah saw Lockwood watching Anna go to the Rover. Lockwood looked like he wanted to follow but hesitated. “Come on, Tommy. I want you with me,” Noah said.

Lockwood nodded, grateful to be given a direction, and they headed to the Rover. Diaz was already in the driver’s seat doing a quick systems check. Noah climbed in front and offered to slide over the bench seat so Lockwood could join them. Instead, Lockwood went to the back.

“Geez, I get to ride with the young couple,” Rollins muttered and turned away to look out the window.

Noah was about to say something but Anna glared at Rollins.

“We’re not a couple. We’re friends, so just shut up about it,” Anna said.

Diaz let out a hearty laugh. “Right on. You tell ‘im.”

Diaz’s tone might’ve sounded lighthearted, but Noah saw the hardened glint in his eyes. Rollins wasn’t anyone’s favorite person, but Noah didn’t want to leave the man stranded there either.

Rollins’ eyes widened more from Anna’s response than Diaz’s chiding. Then Rollins chuckled. His laugh wasn’t mocking and it certainly wasn’t friendly, but it matched the bitter man who voiced it. The sound of it was foreign, as if Rollins’ mouth hadn’t quite remembered how to laugh.

Diaz took point in their Rover and Noah uploaded their route to the Rover’s navigation screen.

“You said earlier that we don’t know much about the region the NEIIS took Connor to. Why is that?” Lockwood asked.

“According to the logs from the survey missions, the area has a lot of cloud cover, so we’ve never had a detailed look at the region and haven’t had the chance to explore there,” Noah said.

“Well, dense cloud cover would have to do with a large body of water—and there it is. A large lake nearby,” Lockwood said.

Noah turned around and saw that Lockwood had his own holoscreen up.

Lockwood expanded the satellite image, trying to display the entire body of water. “I’m not sure ‘lake’ is the right word, but it’s certainly big.”

New Earth had one large supercontinent as its primary landmass. There were numerous rivers that ran through it, spidering their way from north to south. A few of these rivers joined into one and emptied into what could only be a great lake.

“Isn’t the current theory that a recent Ice Age affected the continent? Perhaps when the glaciers receded, they left a few lakes in their path,” Anna said.

Noah glanced at her, eyebrows raised.

“I read a lot,” Anna replied.

“It makes sense. Can you put the wind currents on screen?” Noah asked.

Lockwood updated the map to show previously logged wind patterns.

“That would explain the cloud cover. The wind blows across the great lake, grabbing a bunch of moisture and dumping it in the nearby region. This lake is bigger than anything we had back home, which explains the amount of cloud cover in the area,” Noah said.

“But why take Connor to this bunker? What’s so special about it?” Lockwood asked.

“We think it’s specific to the same faction Syloc is a member of. The three triangles,” Noah said.

“What faction is that?”

“Military,” Diaz said.

Lockwood’s eyes widened. “Are you sure? How can you be so sure?”

“We found vehicles that had the same emblem on them. They looked like the NEIIS version of our ground-assault vehicles,” Noah replied.

Lockwood closed his holoscreen and leaned back in his seat.

Noah turned forward and began looking at some of the data he’d managed to retrieve from the bunker. They had hours to go, so he had plenty of time to do some analysis. Since the NEIIS had used the glider, Connor and Syloc would be able to cover the distance to the bunker much quicker than they could over land, even with the Rovers. And even if the glider had only managed to get them part of the way, they still had a significant head start. Diaz increased their speed, which made studying the holoscreen difficult, but they had to close the gap. Connor’s life could depend on it.

21

Connor clutched the hilt of his hunting knife as he raced through the forest. Several of the tree-climbers slithered along the intertwining branches atop the large trees that were akin to the giant sequoias of Earth. Even though he knew running would probably trigger the creatures to pursue, he’d thought they’d give up after running for so long, but he was wrong. They squawked and hissed from the limbs above. Connor heard them on either side as he ran, and he suspected that the creatures were coordinating their hunt.

Syloc darted into view in front of him, and Connor had to follow. The NEIIS had his PDA. He could do some things with his implants alone, but the PDA augmented what he was able to do—most notably the ability to send a message home.

Connor had always kept in top shape, often running or hiking as part of his weekly routine. He settled into a brisk pace, but he could sprint again if he needed to. He glanced above and saw the tree-climbers slithering to the ends of the branches. From there, they used their long arms to reach neighboring branches and pull themselves along. They moved swiftly, and they watched him and Syloc.

Connor blew out a rough breath and increased his pace. He needed to get his PDA back. It was his only way to reach the others. With renewed determination, he gained on Syloc. He was so focused on the NEIIS’s back that he almost missed a tree-climber lunging for him from the side. The animal hissed just before it attacked, and Connor rolled to the left, then got back to his feet and kept moving. He glanced behind and saw that two more tree-climbers had reached the ground and were using their two thick tails to slink toward him. They were about three meters long from head to tail, which didn’t account for the reach of their lengthy arms. Connor had come across these creatures before, but they’d never attacked, probably because he’d always given them a wide berth to avoid their territory. This time, he and Syloc must have crashed right in the middle of it. More than once he longed for his hunting rifle.

Something disturbed the foliage near Syloc, and the NEIIS was pulled down out of sight. Connor angled toward where Syloc had been, but his feet became tangled in thick roots and he tumbled to the ground. Connor had started to push himself up when a proximity alert appeared on his internal heads-up display. He slashed blindly with his hunting knife while he regained his feet. The blade bit into something hard and he heard a tree-climber yelping in pain. Another creature approached on his right, and Connor turned toward it.

“Stay back!”

The tree-climber glared at him with pale yellow eyes. It hissed but didn’t charge—yet. Connor faced it while he backed away, holding the knife out in front of him. Another tree-climber came up next to the first one. It had a deep laceration on its arm. Connor wasn’t sure whether to run away or stand and fight, so he kept backing up while keeping his eyes on them. He felt that if he ran, the action would kick in their prey instinct and they would charge him for sure. But if he kept facing them, perhaps they wouldn’t charge right away.

Syloc roared from off to the side out of view, and Connor heard a tree-climber cry out in pain. The tree-climbers facing Connor darted off toward the noise.

“Aw hell,” Connor said and followed.

He crept along, trying to be as silent as possible while still moving as quickly as he could. Syloc was busy fending off one tree-climber while the two that had been pursuing Connor surrounded the NEIIS. Syloc was unarmed but for a stick he’d grabbed from the forest floor.

One of the tree-climbers lunged toward the NEIIS and Connor watched as Syloc tried to fend it off with the stick, but it snapped in half. The NEIIS grabbed the tree-climber’s arms, holding it at bay. Another tree-climber started to lunge toward Syloc’s back, so Connor stomped on one of its tails and stabbed it in the back with his knife. The tree-climber arched its back in pain and Connor pulled the knife to the side, cutting through muscle and bone. He shoved the wounded animal to the side.

“Enough! Get out of here!” Connor shouted at the tree-climbers.

Syloc glanced at him and then kept his eyes on the hunters.

Connor backed away from the two wounded tree-climbers, and much to his surprise, Syloc did the same, positioning himself next to Connor. The tree-climbers grabbed their wounded companions and retreated into the forest.

Connor and Syloc lost no time in putting some distance between them and the tree-climbers’ territory. Syloc glanced at Connor a few times, his gaze lingering on Connor’s knife. A short while later, Connor stopped.

“Give me my PDA,” Connor said and pointed to the aged leather satchel Syloc was carrying.

Syloc put a hand over it protectively and gestured with his other hand in the direction ahead of them. Connor watched as Syloc began walking. The NEIIS stopped and turned to see if Connor was following, but Connor shook his head. He’d had enough of playing this creature’s games. If he kept following, he was just giving Syloc what he wanted, and Connor wasn’t getting what he required. Connor didn’t need his PDA to know that the direction Syloc wanted to go would lead directly to the bunker. Connor had no idea how far they’d traveled but knew that a glider could cover a lot of ground quickly, even the one they’d flown in. If the bunker was east of their position, then Diaz and the others would be coming from the south. But he’d have to get to higher ground to be sure.

Syloc made an impatient grunt that ended with a string of harsh consonants. The NEIIS pointed to his chest and then in the direction behind him.

“No,” Connor said firmly. He pointed to his chest and then in the opposite direction. “I’m going this way.”

Connor walked away and heard Syloc stomp from behind, letting out an angry, high-pitched growl. Connor turned and saw that the NEIIS had his PDA in his hand. He held it above his head as if to say that he still had what Connor wanted. Connor looked up at the PDA and then back at Syloc. He extended his hand and said, “Give it.”

Looking triumphant, Syloc put the PDA back into his satchel. Without hesitation, Connor turned around and walked away. The creature was toying with him and he’d had enough. If Syloc wanted to play games, then Connor would play. He’d see if Syloc followed him for a change—see who needed whom the most.

A minute later Connor heard the NEIIS let out an angry growl, but this time Connor didn’t turn around. Instead, he kept going. He’d just saved Syloc’s life. The least Syloc could have done was show some appreciation. When the tree-climber had been about to lunge at Syloc, Connor hadn’t thought twice. He looked down at the knife he was still holding and saw the blood on it. Shaking his head in frustration, he wiped the blade on his pants and then sheathed it.

Syloc screeched another call, but Connor kept going. A drone would’ve been useful so he could watch what Syloc was doing, but he didn’t have one. Connor made sure to keep his distance from where he suspected the tree-climber territory was while still heading in a southern direction. For a while, he heard Syloc following behind, but eventually the NEIIS became quiet. After a few minutes, Connor glanced behind him. Syloc was nowhere to be seen. This was another test, and Connor wasn’t taking the bait. He turned back around and kept going south toward where his friends would no doubt be looking for him.

22

Over the next thirty minutes, Connor continued to hike through the woods. He kept his distance from the tree-climber’s territory, preferring to avoid another confrontation. Stopping at a narrow river, he filled his canteen and used his water-purification kit. The water was crisp and refreshing. He also took a few moments to splash some water on his face and neck, then continued on his path to the south. The landscape became hillier, and hills that led to mountain ranges could be quite extensive, going on for many kilometers. Connor knew how far he could travel on foot in a day, but if he had to go the whole way on foot, he’d need more than the few field rations he carried in his pack.

Noah and the others must’ve figured out by now that something had happened to him. They’d piece it together. His internal heads-up display showed that it was just a few hours past the middle of the day. The others should be back to the Rovers by now. Connor expected they’d report his disappearance and then head in his direction. He glanced behind him in the direction of the NEIIS bunker. Noah would be able to piece it together, but how could Connor guarantee that they’d cross paths? If they didn’t, it would be a long walk home.

He looked around the lush forest and saw nowhere to build a signal. C-cats were probably en route, but it would take some time for them to reach the area. Cutting down these gargantuan trees to signal the eyes in the sky wasn’t practical or even possible when all he had was a knife. This was dangerous territory and he was alone, armed with only a single blade—not the most ideal of circumstances in the best of times, but not the worst either. Connor knew how to survive on New Earth.

He looked for a tree branch that was relatively straight. He intended to sharpen it to make a spear, albeit a primitive one at best. He found a branch and made quick work cutting through the offshoots. About ten minutes later he had a sharp point at the end, and Connor looked around for more useful branches. It wouldn’t hurt to carry more than one spear, but the other branches were too scrawny. He sheathed his knife and stood up. Holding the staff above his head with both hands, he used it to help stretch his back as he leaned from side to side.

A loud shriek erupted in the distance behind him. Connor spun and looked for the source. It couldn’t have been more than a hundred meters away. The land angled up to the top of a hill and he scanned along it. A minute later the scream occurred again, and this time he saw Syloc at the top of the hill. Once again, he noted the sound of multiple voice boxes, and Connor doubted that he could ever mimic the cry the NEIIS used to summon the ryklars.

Connor blew out a long breath and cursed, then initiated the combat mode of his implants, which helped with identifying threats. Survival was among the core capabilities of military implants, and he didn’t need the PDA for that. He was able to see clearer and his hearing became much more acute. Connor closed his eyes and listened. Syloc made the ryklar call again, and Connor glared up at him. Then he looked around for a tree with limbs low enough to make climbing possible when the ryklars came.

After a few minutes, he heard the faint echo of a screech from a ryklar scout and Connor knew the pack wasn’t far behind. Judging by the faintness of their cries, they were still a good distance away, but Connor knew they could cover the range quickly. The acoustic analyzer put the ryklars south of Connor’s position.

“Fuck,” Connor said, and swung his gaze up toward Syloc. The NEIIS paused his ryklar call and listened. Then the NEIIS looked at Connor. He had no choice, and Syloc knew it. Connor began to run up the hill toward Syloc. He couldn’t take on a pack of ryklars on foot, alone, with only a spear and a knife. A surge of adrenaline coursed through him. He hadn’t anticipated Syloc summoning ryklars as a way to get him to do what he wanted.

Connor gritted his teeth.

Damn it.

Syloc let out a last ryklar call before turning to run to the west, and Connor was sure this path would take them to the bunker. Connor tried to think of something he could do. He could chance running in another direction and hope to find some kind of shelter, but he dismissed that idea. The ryklars were much too fast. His best bet would be to go where Syloc wanted. Connor’s brow furrowed. At least, that’s what Syloc wanted him to believe. He glared at the NEIIS as he followed to the west.

Then Connor had an idea.

He cut to the right, heading back toward tree-climber territory. Connor yelled to get Syloc’s attention. Several ryklar screeches sounded from just over two hundred meters away.

No time, Connor thought, and ran as fast as he could. He kept screaming as he went, drawing attention to himself. He knew the ryklars were already on their trail no matter what Syloc did at this point. What he needed was the tree-climbers to show themselves, and it didn’t take long for several scouts to make their presence known from high up in the trees. A melon-sized pod whizzed past Connor’s head, striking the ground with a powerful thud. Connor glanced up and saw the tree-climbers hurling more of the pods that grew in the treetops. Connor ducked out of the way as he ran and angled his path closer to the trees. They provided him with some much-needed cover and would also delay the ryklars’ pursuit.

Syloc howled again in the distance. The NEIIS was running parallel to Connor but was farther away from the ryklars than Connor was. He gritted his teeth in frustration. If this was a game, he was losing. Even if the ryklars didn’t kill him, the tree-climbers would. Connor headed deeper into tree-climber territory. He kept pushing, knowing that the ryklars were closing the gap between them. Soon, they would be nipping at his heels.

He heard the cadence of the ryklars' feet on the ground behind him and imagined them preparing to make a final leap to rend his back with their terrible claws. Connor yelled and blindly swung his staff behind him. The tip of the staff smacked a ryklar on its bearded chin, startling it. The ryklar stumbled and went down, taking two of its companions with it.

More tree-climbers hurled a volley of thick pods at him. Connor glanced above and saw that the treetops were full of the creatures. The forest was alive with a cacophony of sound, most coming from above. Ahead of him, he heard a growing thunder, and the ground began to vibrate beneath his feet. A heavy pod struck Connor in the shoulder. His MPS absorbed most of the blow, but he nearly went down, barely managing to get his feet under him again and keep running. He had to keep moving or he was going to die. He knew the ryklars were behind him, but he had no idea how many there were. He couldn’t hear them amidst the torrent of sounds from the other creatures, which was slowly being drowned out by something else. He darted up the hill as fast as he could and the thundering sound became louder. He felt the wind along the back of his neck as a ryklar’s claws barely missed him. Connor reached the top of the hill, cut to the left, and dove behind a giant tree.

A horde of creatures with brown-and-white fur zipped past him in an all-out run. They were easily as tall as Connor. He watched as they dipped their heads, driving their spiraled horns into the ryklars closest to him. The white fur around their eyes gave them a look of wearing masks. Connor quickly lost count of the creatures galloping over the hill; there were hundreds of them. He pressed his back against the tree and wondered where this herd of sepulpods had come from. The New Earth herbivores traveled in large herds for protection and were found throughout the entire continent. The remaining ryklars scrambled to get out of the way of the stampeding herd. Connor watched in awe as the ryklars were driven farther away.

A large pod slammed into the area above Connor’s head and he flinched, then glared up at the tree-climbers. “Oh come on,” he said. The stampeding herd raced by on either side of him. If Connor stepped out from the cover of the tree, he’d get trampled. They moved so fast that he didn’t even think he could hop on top of one. Several more pods flew toward him, and he knew he couldn’t stay there. More tree-climbers joined the ones above him. He looked in front of him as the sepulpods merged. More pods came pelting toward him. The MPS hardened for a moment and the pods bounced off. He was sure it was no coincidence that the pods began to hit with greater impact after that.

An alert appeared on Connor’s internal heads-up display showing that the MPS was down to thirty percent power. Connor quickly spun through the menu of options, looking for the one he needed, and cursed Noah for designing such a horrible interface. He finally found the option he was looking for and watched the MPS change to a black battle mesh. Connor spiked the power to his legs and took a running leap into the air, aiming for one of the sepulpods. He landed on its back and grabbed hold of its spiral-horned head. The creature lurched to the right, slamming into its neighbor and losing its footing. Connor was launched into the air, heading toward the ground face-first. He brought his knees toward his chest and managed to get his feet under him just before he hit the ground.

Once again, he leapt into the air, using the MPS’s augmentation capability as a propellant. A spiraled set of horns clipped his feet, and Connor went careening into a tree. He landed on the ground, hard, and drew himself into a ball. A sepulpod crashed into him and sent him rolling. A few moments later, he stopped. He’d been knocked out of the path of the herd. Connor crawled away and regained his feet, wobbling about until he could right himself. The herd sped by and Connor backed away from it.

The tree-climbers hurled more pods at him, and Connor stumbled backward. One of the pods hit his leg and this time he felt the impact. The MPS flashed a warning on his internal heads-up display: Power level critical. Power-saving mode activated.

Connor had to get out of there. The compass on his heads-up display showed that the only way he could go was right toward the NEIIS bunker. Syloc had won this round, if the NEIIS was even still alive. Connor gritted his teeth and started running.

23

The rugged tread of the heavy-gauge wheels carried the Rover over the rough New Earth terrain as Noah drove. They’d made it past the mountains and were beyond the foothills. After a little bit of coaxing, Diaz finally relented to things like bathroom breaks, although they’d only had one of those. They’d decided to switch up drivers and Noah had taken over, but Diaz still sat in the front next to him, watching the road intently. If he thought Noah was driving too slowly, he urged him to go faster, but Noah didn’t need to be reminded that they were racing against the clock.

Noah had set up a subroutine to periodically check for a comms signal from Connor’s PDA. He’d put it in the upper right corner of the Rover’s heads-up display. The not-too-subtle message appeared in red lettering: No Signal Detected.

“Why can’t we track Connor’s PDA?” Lockwood asked.

“It could be broken or out of range of our sensors. But we’re also getting updates from the satellite feeds, so if Connor’s PDA checks in, we’ll soon know about it,” Noah said.

Diaz heard someone snoring behind them and looked in the rearview mirror. Rollins was slumped against the side door, fast asleep. A Field Ops notification appeared in front of the passenger seat, drawing his attention. Diaz acknowledged it and read the message.

“Search and Rescue teams have been assembled and are en route as well,” Diaz said.

“What happened to the original C-cat that was coming?” Noah asked.

“It was recalled. When this became a rescue mission, they scrambled two more teams to assist,” Diaz said, frowning as he continued to read the update.

“What is it?” Noah asked.

“There’s also a CDF infantry squad traveling with Search and Rescue,” Diaz replied.

“That’s good,” Noah said.

He knew Search and Rescue teams could handle most extreme situations, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a CDF infantry squad. The added firepower would help if they encountered a large group of ryklars.

Diaz closed the message. “Yeah, it’s good, but why didn’t they send combat shuttles or troop carriers?”

“The situation falls under Field Ops’ jurisdiction. This isn’t a military operation; it’s a rescue mission,” Noah said.

“Yeah, but this is Connor we’re talking about. He founded the Colonial Defense Force. You’d think that would get more of a response,” Diaz said.

Noah glanced at Diaz, who was seething with anger. He was fiercely loyal to Connor.

“I’m going to make a few calls,” Diaz said and tapped his personal comlink.

Lockwood leaned forward and spoke quietly so only Noah could hear. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, he’s just trying to get us some more help,” Noah replied.

Diaz swore. “I can’t reach anybody way out here,” he said and glared at the dashboard. “Why didn’t he upgrade the damn communication systems in these things if he intended to take us out so far?”

Lockwood leaned back in his chair and became still. Anna looked like she wanted to say something but decided against it.

“They’re coming. They’ll be here soon,” Noah said.

Diaz sighed and shook his head.

“You forget who we’re dealing with here. Connor can handle himself better than any of us,” Noah said.

Diaz tapped his fist into the palm of his other hand in rapid succession, more as an acknowledgment of the tension he felt than a volcano about to erupt. “I know. I worry about him though. It took him so long to move on and be at peace with everything that’s happened. Remember how he was when he first came out of stasis? Didn’t know where he was. Shanghaied onto the Ark without any choice, leaving everyone behind.”

“I remember. He changed a lot for Lenora,” Noah said.

Diaz nodded. “They’re a pair,” he said and grinned. “He tried so hard to play it off like he wasn’t interested in her, but she had him hook, line, and sinker right from the outset.”

Noah mentioned that Lenora was probably putting in a few calls herself to get support for Connor’s rescue mission. She was like a she-wolf when it came to protecting those she loved.

“He deserves better than this,” Diaz said huskily. “Deserves better than to die because of some failed alien race.”

“He’s not going to die. If it were me, then I’d be dead, but Connor isn’t going to die. He’s a fighter. He always has been, and he always will be,” Noah said.

“Yeah, well go a little bit faster so we can help him,” Diaz said.

They were driving through a grassy tundra and Noah throttled up the Rover’s accelerator even more. A few minutes later, a weather alert appeared.

A comlink opened from the other Rover. “That’s a big storm moving in,” Donna said.

Noah glanced at the weather report: Gusty high winds with a chance of hail. “We see it. I don’t want to get caught out here in it.”

“Agreed. We’ll have to look for a place to wait it out,” Donna said.

Diaz’s eyes flashed. “Are you serious? We can push on.”

“We are pushing on, and at the same time we’ll look for a place to weather the storm,” Donna replied sternly. “Don’t make me come over there and get physical with you.”

Diaz’s mouth hung open and then he smiled. “Alright, thanks for the mental kick.”

“No problem. Victoria told me not to take any crap from you, but I already knew that,” Donna said.

Noah smiled and glanced at the dark clouds to the side of them along the horizon, invading the skies above. He looked at the estimated wind speeds and sighed inwardly. This would delay the Field Ops teams, too. In fact, since the Rovers were on the ground, they’d be able to go farther than the ships Field Ops was using.

Diaz looked at him suspiciously. “You might as well come out and say it.”

“The storm will be too much for that NEIIS glider they’re using,” Noah said.

“Then they’ll put down somewhere, if they haven’t already. Either way, if it slows us down, it’s going to slow them down. Especially since they’re on foot,” Diaz said.

Noah nodded, hoping against hope that the glider had made a safe landing. He knew the MPS would protect Connor to an extent, but it wasn’t designed for continued use. It wasn’t a full-blown combat suit, and now Noah wished he’d made it more like one.

The two Rovers raced across the tundra, trying to outrun the storm. They had no way to warn Connor what was heading for him. Noah was thinking that maybe he’d work on upgrades to implant capabilities so they wouldn’t be so reliant on PDAs. He filed that thought in the back of his mind along with all the rest of the ideas he’d delayed getting to. He just hoped his friend would be alive to reap the benefits of it. New Earth was a beautiful planet, but in many ways it was more dangerous than Earth had ever been. No one realized this more than Connor, but Noah knew that even the strongest person could use a little bit of help.

24

Connor followed Syloc for almost two kilometers, and they were finally well away from tree-climber territory. The herd of spiral-horned sepulpods had turned out to be much bigger than Connor expected. If there were any ryklars in the area left alive, they’d most likely been chased off by the herd, and they’d be hard-pressed to pick up his trail again. And as long as Connor kept following Syloc, the NEIIS wouldn’t repeat that damn call to summon the ryklars. It was as effective as any weapon. If that pack of ryklars showed up again, Connor wouldn’t be able to backtrack to the tree-climber’s territory.

He kept going through what had happened in his mind. Where had the sepulpod herd come from? Had they already been in the area? He’d thought the tree-climbers were just coordinating their efforts to oust an intruder to their territory, but perhaps there was more to it. The tree-climber calls had been taken up by others. Had they, together, provoked the herd of sepulpods into a stampede? He guessed he shouldn’t be too surprised if they had, but he couldn’t help it. New Earth species sometimes demonstrated intelligence beyond that of ordinary animals. The ryklars were clearly used as watchdogs by the NEIIS, but the tree-climbers were something different. They were extremely territorial, and they hadn’t shown any deference to Syloc at all. If they felt threatened, they’d band together to defend what was theirs.

Connor crafted another spear from the broken branches littering the ground. The wood was sturdy and straight.

Syloc’s pace kept him fifty feet in front of Connor, and he kept a close eye on Connor as he went. Syloc had the PDA in his hand and would occasionally poke and prod it. Connor was just waiting for an opportunity to take it back, but he’d have to be patient or it could break in the process. Without the PDA, Connor had no idea how far the bunker was. It could be less than a kilometer away, or it could be over thirty kilometers away, and not knowing frustrated him.

The more Connor watched Syloc and how he handled himself, the more Connor began to suspect that Syloc was some kind of soldier, or at the very least a hunter. The NEIIS worked toward a specific goal, and all his efforts seemed to feed toward it with a tenaciousness that more often than not came with disciplined training.

Connor glanced up at the sky and noticed that the dense cloud cover seemed to be getting darker. He wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light because it was getting toward the end of the day, or if a storm was rolling in. Syloc looked back at him and seemed to take notice of the darkening sky, but then Syloc’s gaze lingered on Connor’s chest. Connor had the MPS in standby mode to conserve power. He recalled that Noah had said the suit could recharge on its own given enough time, but its capability to do so was limited. Syloc must’ve seen what the suit could do. The NEIIS was always watching and learning. Connor brought up the suit’s power meter on his internal heads-up display, and it hadn’t changed since he’d put it on standby. He wondered if it was damaged.

Without warning, what sounded like millions of tiny pebbles began pelting the area around them. It was hailing, and within only a few moments the precipitation had enlarged to golf-ball-size hail. Connor needed to find cover, fast, and he quickened his pace. The forest was no longer as dense as it had been. The trees were shorter and of a different variety. He’d seen some earlier that had thick roots arching over a path. He could weather the storm if he could find another one of those trees.

Rain mixed with the hail and continued to fall as the wind gusted around him. Visibility decreased significantly despite his implants. Connor held one of his hands above his eyes and peered ahead while he ran. He scanned the area, looking for some kind of shelter. The gusty wind roared, at times pushing him to one side, and he almost lost sight of Syloc ahead of him.

The NEIIS suddenly darted off course and Connor followed. He noticed a group of trees whose long, shaggy vines blew in the wind, exposing the thick roots beneath. That was what he needed. Connor raced over to the nearest one and ducked inside. There were enough gaps in the roots to see that Syloc was a short distance away, taking similar shelter. The NEIIS looked at him and then sat down near the base of the tree. Connor did the same but kept Syloc in his field of vision.

The wind howled and rain dripped inside the shelter. Connor knew the MPS could keep him warm, but he didn’t want to enable that feature. He needed to conserve power so he could use its protection when he really needed it. He folded his arms in front of him and brought his knees to his chest to keep his body as warm as possible.

Syloc was holding something, and Connor leaned to the side and peered through the gloom. The cloud cover was so dark that it might as well have been nighttime, but with his enhanced vision, Connor saw the metallic outline of his PDA in Syloc’s hands. The NEIIS was trying to figure out how to use it. Connor silently urged him on since his thick fingertips were almost to the panel that would power it back on. The NEIIS shook it in frustration but then seemed to notice Connor watching, so he twisted his body as if to hide what he was doing. It was as if he hadn’t wanted Connor to see him struggle with the PDA. Perhaps Syloc thought it was a sign of weakness, which Connor could then use against him, but Connor just didn’t want Syloc to break the PDA.

After a few minutes of frustration as Connor tried to see what Sylock was doing, a network connection unexpectedly registered with Connor’s implants. His PDA was powered on! Connor saw a soft, glowing light that was partially blocked by Syloc’s body, and he quickly crafted a message using the coordinates of the NEIIS bunker they were heading to. At the same time, he downloaded the map information to his implants. Connor waited for the message he’d written to upload to the nearest colonial satellite—the only mode of communication they had way out on the fringe. The blinking cursor seemed to mock him for a few moments while the link established, but then a progress bar appeared and the message started to upload.

Syloc growled and slammed his hand on the PDA. Connor gasped as he watched the progress bar on his internal heads-up display. It seemed to have stalled. Syloc jabbed his finger at the PDA.

“You’re gonna break it, you idiot!” Connor shouted.

He stood up and Syloc looked at him. Alerts appeared on Connor’s heads-up display from his PDA—system error messages. The wind howled and momentarily drowned out Syloc’s harsh grunts. Connor grabbed his spear, ran to Syloc’s shelter, and brought the butt of the spear down on Syloc’s hand, causing the NEIIS to drop the PDA. Connor rushed toward it but Syloc tripped him. Connor stumbled and his foot came down on the PDA. He felt something give way under his foot as he quickly tried to step away, but even with the loud wind and rain, he knew he’d broken the PDA. The network connection cut off.

There was a loud groan from outside the shelter, followed by the wild cracking of breaking tree branches, and something large slammed into their refuge. The tree Connor had been taking shelter in had fallen. Both Connor and Syloc backed away from it as far as they could. Some of the tree’s branches were sticking through the exposed roots that covered their small shelter.

Syloc squatted down and grabbed Connor’s PDA off the ground, and Connor inwardly cursed as the NEIIS put the small device back into his satchel. After that, they just stood there, watching each other as the storm raged on around them.

25

The storm blew in earnest for almost ten hours before silence fell, and at some point during the long ordeal, Connor and Syloc had arrived at an unspoken truce. For as long as the storm lasted, they remained at either side of their small shelter. Connor snatched a few minutes’ sleep, only to be awakened by the battering of tree branches slamming into their shelter walls, accompanied by howling winds. At one point in the night, Connor had to enable the heating function of the MPS, but only certain parts of the suit had actually warmed, and Connor realized there were damaged sections along his back. Most of the suit still worked, but he was down to fifteen percent power.

Connor had watched Syloc sleep for a few fleeting hours, and as the storm began to die down, they left the shelter. It was four in the morning, and dawn wouldn’t be upon them for a few hours yet. Connor wondered if any part of his message had gotten out. Syloc hadn’t taken the PDA out of his satchel since the storm began, and Connor had no idea how much damage it had sustained, but he assumed the worst. In the absence of the PDA’s communication capability, his best chance to reach his friends was at the NEIIS bunker. Connor had downloaded the map to his implants, and he could see that this bunker was a little more remote than the others had been, but he still couldn’t pinpoint exactly where they were without his PDA. Given the bunker’s location, Connor wondered if it was an actual bunker or something else.

Before they’d resumed their journey, Syloc had insisted—through the use of strong gestures—that he wanted Connor to lead. The NEIIS didn’t trust him to walk behind anymore. Connor’s implants allowed him to see well in the dark, but he wondered what the visual spectrum was for the NEIIS. He doubted that Syloc had implants of his own, but the NEIIS paid particular attention to where Connor stepped and followed closely.

They walked for several hours and the sky became brighter as a new day began. There was still a heavy cloud cover, and the air was much colder than the previous day.

Connor stopped walking. He needed to use his PDA if they were ever going to find this bunker. He turned toward Syloc and the NEIIS watched him warily. Connor used the end of his spear and drew an octagon on the ground—the same reference he’d seen on the map.

“I’m not sure which way to go,” Connor said and gestured in a couple of different directions ahead of them. “I need my PDA,” he said and gestured toward Syloc’s satchel.

Syloc jabbed a finger in front of him, which was his way of telling Connor to get moving. Connor shook his head, pointed to his drawing, and repeated himself.

Syloc took out the PDA and held it above his head as if he were about to smash it on the ground. Connor watched him for a few moments and backed away.

“Go ahead and do it.”

Syloc cocked his head to one side, and Connor looked at the PDA. He could see a damaged section, which was where the communication transmitter was. He didn’t think Syloc was going to give him the device, so he held up his palm and made a show of gesturing along the side of his hand. “This is how you turn it on,” he said, repeating the gesture and pointing at Syloc.

Syloc glanced at the PDA and then back at Connor. Then he glided one of his thick fingers along the side of the device. The PDA powered on and a connection was established to Connor’s implants. A quick startup diagnostic reported multiple errors. The comlink was broken, and there was no way it could transmit anything. The PDA was now only a handheld computer.

The holoprojector still worked, so Connor turned it on with his implants, and a holoscreen appeared above the PDA. Syloc let out a surprised gasp and looked at Connor suspiciously. Connor pointed to his chest and nodded, hoping the NEIIS would understand that Connor was controlling the PDA. He brought up the map and the PDA gave an estimate of their current position based on the brief time it had been fully functional the day before. Connor arched an eyebrow. They weren’t far from their destination. A small octagonal icon pulsated, and the distance was estimated at two kilometers. Connor opened the translator window.

“This is where we are,” Connor said, and the translator attempted to put NEIIS symbols up that would convey his meaning, but the colonists had only a rudimentary knowledge of the NEIIS language, at best.

Syloc pointed in a direction ahead of them and Connor nodded. “That’s right. That’s where we’re going,” he said and gestured toward his chest, then in the same direction Syloc had pointed. “I will take you there.”

Connor watched as Syloc seemed to consider this for a moment, and then the NEIIS moved to turn off the PDA.

“Wait,” Connor said quickly.

Syloc narrowed his almost serpent-like gaze at him.

“What are you going to do if this bunker is like the others and the stasis pods are all offline?” Connor asked. He knew the translation wouldn’t be very accurate, but it should convey the meaning well enough—stasis pods offline.

Connor watched Syloc read the message for a few moments. Then the NEIIS looked behind them, sniffing the air. Connor didn’t smell anything. He squinted in the same direction but couldn’t see anything either.

Syloc shoved the PDA into his satchel and started running toward the bunker. Connor followed. A few minutes later he heard the ryklars a short distance away. They’d been hunting them, and once the ryklars realized they’d been detected, they stopped trying to hide their presence.

Connor’s PDA was still on, and he had a small map in the upper right corner of his internal heads-up display that marked the path to their destination. Connor quickened his pace so he could take the lead, and Syloc followed. As they ran, Syloc snatched a fallen tree branch from the ground.

An alternative route highlighted a shortcut on Connor’s heads-up display. They’d be running uphill to cut the distance in half, but with the ryklars closing in on them, it was worth the gamble. Connor cut to the left and Syloc followed. Connor’s thighs burned as they ran up the hill, and they were both breathing heavily as they reached the top. Less than a kilometer away was a rocky outcropping that was nearly swallowed up by vegetation. Even from this distance, he could see the distinctive angles of a NEIIS construction. They ran toward it. As they closed in, Connor saw a half-dome of concrete blocks. Vines and moss grew around it, partially covering an emblem on one side, but he could see enough to tell that the emblem was a partial claw with a sphere beneath it. Below and on either side of it were the three intertwining triangles that matched Syloc’s uniform.

The ryklars screeched as they emerged from their cover in the undergrowth. Connor glanced behind them and saw that six ryklars were closing in. The NEIIS building looked like it had a heavy door in the front, and Connor wasn’t sure how they were going to get it open while fending off their attackers. He heard the labored breathing of the ryklars as they got closer, and the bunker was still two hundred meters away.

As they approached the building, Syloc came to a stop, and Connor slowed down. He could still hear the ryklars screeching, but they’d fallen far behind and had stopped chasing them. Instead, they were gathered in a group, refusing to cross some invisible barrier. Connor glanced at the NEIIS, who seemed unsurprised at this. Syloc turned and walked toward the bunker, but Connor watched the ryklars for a few moments longer. The spotted predators shuffled from side to side but wouldn’t come any closer. With the comms systems of his PDA broken, there’d be no way for him to detect a NEIIS broadcast signal. Typically, the broadcast systems they’d encountered before had summoned the ryklars rather than stopped them. Colonial scientists had adapted the frequencies to create a deterrent signal that helped keep the ryklars away. Connor suspected there was something similar being used here, but he couldn’t be sure until they were inside.

He turned toward the NEIIS bunker. This building was different from what he’d encountered at the other bunkers. Its robust entranceway had layers of concrete surrounding the large door. Because of the encroaching plant life, it was difficult for Connor to imagine what it had looked like before, but the entire entrance seemed to have been built for defensive purposes, reminding Connor more of a military installation than any of the other bunkers they’d come across. He had to help Syloc get inside—both to find a way to signal his friends and to see what was here that Syloc wanted so badly.

26

The old concrete bunker entrance looked as strong as the mountain was tall. Thick layers of solid material formed a shallow overhang. Connor glanced at the surrounding area and wondered if there had been other structures nearby at some point.

He didn’t recognize the metallic alloy of the main door. He’d been around enough NEIIS sites to have developed a general understanding of what they’d used to construct their buildings, but Lenora was the real expert. She would have loved to have seen this place. The wide door sealed tightly against the faded gray stone, and the metallic alloy of the door was gunmetal gray instead of the traditional bronze they’d come across at other NEIIS sites. Flaking paint and rusty patches covered the door and surrounding frame, but Connor was sure the signs of aging were only surface deep. He pressed his hand against it, and even though the brittle flakes crunched under his fingertips, the material underneath was solid. Syloc went over to the side of the door and searched for something amidst the shrubs and overgrowth.

While he waited, Connor ran a few more diagnostics but wouldn’t know if he could fix the antenna of his PDA until he held it in his hands. The comlink that was part of his neural implants was limited in range, and he tried to detect any signals in the area, but all was quiet.

Stubby bolts were evenly spaced along the frame of the main door. Above the entrance were two large, enclosed, heavy-duty fans, which had several birds' nests inside them. Connor assumed the fans had been designed to pump air into whatever facility was beyond the entrance. And judging by their size, the facility could be quite extensive. A recon drone would have been useful right about then. He wondered how Syloc would react if he just walked off. Would he even care? Connor had led them there, so what else could Syloc need from him?

Connor walked to a rocky outcropping along the side of the entrance where there were multiple layers of rock he could climb. He jumped up and reached his first handhold, then pulled himself up, working his way toward the top. There was a thick barricade several feet from the edge and Connor couldn’t see over it, but there was a gap in the wall across the length of the entrance, and he walked toward it. The other NEIIS bunkers had been built to withstand the test of time, but this place had been constructed to withstand an attack. He reached the gap and saw that something had penetrated the thick wall long ago. As he peered through the gap, his eyes widened. This place wasn’t a bunker; it was a military compound. Beyond the entrance were the rooftops of many low-lying buildings. He couldn’t see an end to them because they were covered by a wall of mist in the distance, and the mist seemed to be moving toward them. With all the moisture in the air, there must be a large body of water nearby.

A metallic clang sounded from behind him and Connor felt a deep rumbling beneath his feet, which stopped less than a minute later. He heard Syloc calling to him. It sounded like “Con-Con,” as if the NEIIS were trying to pronounce Connor’s name. He stepped toward the edge of the roof and Syloc looked up at him, gesturing toward the door. Connor climbed back down the way he’d come.

There was a meter-wide gap in the door. Connor peered inside and saw amber lighting coming on toward the ceiling. Syloc looked at him almost expectantly.

“Alright, I guess I’m going first,” Connor said.

He walked through the door holding his makeshift spear. The entrance opened onto a path that was easily wide enough to accommodate large vehicles. The corridor angled downward, and Connor noticed a pair of rails along one side. Syloc poked him in the back with the stick he carried. Connor turned and glared at him, but Syloc was watching Connor’s chest. The NEIIS poked him again.

“What the hell? Stop it,” Connor said, and the NEIIS poked him a third time with the end of his spear.

Syloc just watched him with a neutral expression, and Connor frowned in thought. Though the MPS was in standby, it still should’ve reacted to being poked and prodded. The NEIIS was testing the reaction of his suit, and the knowledge of it was reflected in Syloc’s gaze. Now the NEIIS knew that Connor wasn’t as invulnerable to harm as it had appeared.

A noise at the end of the corridor drew the attention of both of them. More amber lighting came on in the room beyond. Connor couldn’t detect a NEIIS broadcast and still wondered why the ryklars hadn’t come near the place.

They continued on, this time walking side by side. Connor had no interest in being poked by Syloc and kept his spear ready to retaliate should the NEIIS try again.

They entered a room, which had multiple consoles in working condition. Large windows made up almost the entire wall on the far side of the room, but a wall of fog blocked their view of what was beyond. Several ramps ran down to doors that led outside.

Syloc went to one of the consoles and activated it. Less than a minute later the entire room became dark, as if something had cut off the power. Syloc brought out the PDA and pointed at the console.

Connor’s brows pulled together. The NEIIS thought his PDA could power the console. He shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. I don’t have a portable power generator.”

Connor drew the symbols for an error message they’d received when trying to access a broken system. Syloc seemed to understand because he put Connor’s PDA back into his satchel. The NEIIS walked to one of the doors and waited there for a few moments. The top of the door reached the floor level where Connor stood. He walked toward Syloc while looking out the window, trying to see what was beyond.

Syloc open the door and walked outside. Connor followed him. His implants were in combat mode and were scanning for any threats. If he’d had a combat suit, its optical systems could easily have penetrated the dense fog.

Connor heard faint birdsong from the different species that inhabited the area. They sounded far away, but then he thought he heard heavy footfalls from somewhere in the mist. The door slammed shut behind him and Connor spun. Syloc was nowhere to be found. He tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Connor looked around to see where Syloc had gone. He backed away from the door so he could look through the large window above. A moment later the NEIIS came into view and watched him. That son of a bitch knew something was out there and had lured Connor out as bait. Connor glared at him and then peered out into the mists, trying to see what was out there. He couldn’t stay where he was, so he crept away from the door, clutching his spear and wondering what kind of creature would be hiding in the fog.

Connor clenched his teeth. He’d had enough of being used like this, and he brought his MPS out of standby. He needed whatever edge he could muster to face his unseen foe. It must be something deadly—something even the ryklars were afraid to face, unless the NEIIS had some other way to control their watchdogs.

He’d tried to establish trust with Syloc, but all he’d gotten in return was abuse. So, that was it. He would focus on finding a way to reach his friends.

Connor glanced back the way he’d come to see that the mists had already nearly swallowed up the building he’d just left. After a moment’s hesitation, he realized he couldn’t leave Syloc to his own designs. Either the NEIIS needed something from this place, or there could be more of Syloc’s own faction inside—perhaps a NEIIS military group—and he couldn’t just walk away from that. He had to investigate. If there were more NEIIS in stasis, Syloc would want to awaken them. Connor couldn’t let that happen, not without a proper assessment and a few CDF platoons to control the situation. All he had to do was survive whatever the hell was out there with him. Connor remembered from his view on top of the entrance that the facility was extensive. There must be more buildings on the other side, maybe some kind of control room. The power had been cut off, but perhaps there were other areas that still had power. If there were, he could access the NEIIS system and send a signal out to his friends.

The billowing fog surrounded Connor as he headed off into it.

27

There’d been a few times Noah had been in situations where he wasn’t sure whether he would live or die—for instance, fighting the Vemus fleets in space and battling them on the ground in a last-ditch effort to stop them from killing everyone at Sanctuary. But he’d thought his days of white-knuckled anxiety were over and that his constant stress was gone. He was wrong. It was just a storm, he kept telling himself—a really, really bad storm.

Lockwood had almost panicked but calmed down when Anna began talking to him. She’d been anxious and had probably started talking to Lockwood as a way to distract herself from the storm as much as to help him. Rollins either glared out the window or feigned sleep.

Riding in the Rover through a hellish storm most of the night was enough to set everyone on edge, especially when they realized that Diaz and Donna intended to keep going. The howling wind and the near constant pelting with everything the storm whipped up made Noah wonder whether Connor had been caught out in it. At least they had the Rovers, which were designed for rugged terrain. The scanning suite negated the zero-degree visibility that someone out in the storm would experience. Scanner data was piped into the Rover’s computer systems, which put a three-dimensional view of the terrain on the vehicle’s heads-up display. They had to drive slower to allow the Rover’s systems to cope with all the data coming from the scanners for a sustained period of time. Diaz had pointed out that since they had to slow down anyway, they might as well keep going. Diaz kept saying they’d just go one more kilometer and see if the storm let up. Ten hours later, the gale had finally blown itself out.

They’d put the Rovers into a special driving mode meant for high winds, which kept the vehicles closer to the ground. The lower profile helped reduce the risk of the high winds blowing the Rovers over.

The severe storm had limited the recon drones’ operational range because of the expenditure of energy required to keep them nearby. They were able to use them in short bursts, but they’d lost a couple of drones to flying bits of debris from the storm.

The sun had come up less than an hour earlier, but it was hard to tell because this region was so cloudy. The sky was a dull gray, and the temperature was quite a bit cooler following the storm.

“Have the Search and Rescue teams checked in?” Lockwood asked.

“Not yet. We know they put down last night to weather the storm,” Noah replied.

“The pilots should’ve known better than to fly in it,” Rollins said.

The ships carrying the Search and Rescue teams had sustained some damage during the storm and had to put down while repairs were being made.

“Yeah,” Noah agreed. He’d expected the pilots to fly above the storm. One of the troop carriers had made it above the storm, but the other ship hadn’t. Since they hadn’t had any word from Connor, the intact troop carrier circled back to assist the damaged one with repairs. “They’ll be able to make up the time quickly once they get underway,” Noah said.

“Let’s hope so,” Rollins said.

Noah glanced at Diaz to see if the CDF captain was going to respond to Rollins, but he didn’t. It was Rollins who’d suggested that they put the Rovers in severe weather mode, and he’d been unusually quiet ever since.

“I still can’t believe how bad the storms were last night,” Lockwood said. What they’d encountered were several storms stacked on top of one another, moving through the area.

Noah glanced at Diaz. “You all right? You need me to take over?”

Diaz shook his head. “I’m fine, but thanks.”

“I keep wondering if Connor and the NEIIS were forced to land somewhere, how would we even know if we were driving right past them?” Lockwood asked.

“It’s a good question. I’d hope we’d be able to find pieces of the glider, but if they did set down, Connor will find some way to signal us. In the absence of that, he’d know we’d be heading to the bunker location,” Noah said.

“Assuming, of course, that he’s not hurt,” Lockwood said.

“Or worse, but he was wearing the MPS. Even if they did crash, he’d stand a much better chance of surviving the crash in that suit than he would’ve if he hadn’t been wearing it,” Noah replied.

“The suit can handle an impact like that?” Anna asked.

“Yes, it should. I’m not saying it would be comfortable, but he’d survive the impact. It also depends on…” Noah began but stopped himself.

“Depends on what?” Anna asked.

Noah didn’t want to paint a bleak picture with words. “It just depends. Ultimately the suit will give Connor protection. I don’t want to speculate on the different type of crash situations unless we find evidence of the glider.”

“He’s alive,” Diaz said.

“I know,” Noah replied.

“But the suit wasn’t designed for this kind of sustained use. These were prototypes meant for testing,” Lockwood said.

“Field testing. The suit was ready for field testing. It can recharge over time, but without a power supply like we have on the Rover, it’s limited,” Noah said.

“Assuming, of course, that it hasn’t sustained any damage,” Rollins said and then hurriedly added, “I’m just saying, is all. That the suit could’ve been damaged.”

“No, you’re right. But even if the suit did get damaged, it could still function and provide some protection,” Noah said.

“The sooner we get there, the better,” Diaz said.

Noah agreed, but even with the fact that they’d been able to close some of the distance during the storm, it had still thrown them off course just enough to add some time to their trip.

Noah glanced to the upper right corner of the Rover’s heads-up display. The channel he’d dedicated to monitoring Connor’s PDA had flickered momentarily, switching from red to amber.

“Are you seeing this?” Diaz asked.

Noah brought up the comlink interface. “It’s a data transmission. It’s partial,” he said and peered at the raw data files.

“What is it?” Diaz asked.

“It’s from Connor,” Noah said, sounding relieved. “It’s a set of coordinates. It looks like there was more to the message, but it was cut off.”

Noah inputted the coordinates on the map. They were near the bunker. He glanced around at the others. Diaz was nodding to himself, and Lockwood and Anna were smiling. Even Rollins had a grim look of determination.

“I’ll send an update back to Field Ops and they’ll circulate it,” Noah said.

He sighed in relief. While he didn’t believe Connor was necessarily safe, he was happy to have confirmation that he was alive. Diaz increased the speed of the Rover and Noah was jostled to the side. “Right, I know. Go, go,” Noah said.

Why had the message been cut off? What had happened to Connor’s PDA? The message had been relayed from the communication satellites they had orbiting the planet, and the timestamp was several hours old. The map on the heads-up display updated with an estimated time to reach their destination. They were still over an hour away, but considering the way Diaz was driving, perhaps they’d get there a little bit sooner than the computer thought they could. At least they knew Connor was alive, and they needed to hurry to be sure he stayed that way.

28

Connor crept along the wall, heading away from the door. He kept his movements small, trying to be as quiet as possible. Syloc wouldn’t have tricked him into coming out here if there wasn’t something dangerous lurking in the mists, and Connor knew better than to charge out blindly. Syloc believed something was guarding the area, and he was using Connor as bait. He couldn’t do anything about Syloc, who was safely locked away in a processing center near the entrance. What Syloc wanted was to get farther into the complex. If it weren’t for the ryklars, Connor wouldn’t have believed that any watchdog the NEIIS had in this place would still be here. But the ryklars followed instructions that’d been embedded into the NEIIS broadcasts, even though there must have been many generations since the last NEIIS walked New Earth. Given that the NEIIS had achieved that with the ryklars, then whatever was guarding this place was likely still here, but what could it be? And why keep the ryklars out of here?

Connor stopped, peered out into the mists, and drew in a deep breath. The air was cold and humid. His implants augmented his vision, allowing him to see in the dark or to see objects in the distance, but he was still reliant on combat armor for infrared or acoustical resonance. The MPS he wore didn’t have those capabilities. If there were ryklars nearby, he wouldn’t be able to hear their heartbeats to help him locate them.

Connor closed his eyes and increased the sensitivity of his hearing. Nanobots in his eardrums made themselves more sensitive to sound waves and temporarily extended his eardrums, essentially giving him the ability to hear as well as a dog. His brain implant interface helped him filter out sounds, allowing him to make his hearing much sharper; however, this enhanced hearing required Connor to focus entirely on that, and he couldn’t walk around like that for long. He slowed his breathing and took in all the sounds around him, filtering out the small rodents and birds. A soft breeze blew through large-leafed foliage, which rustled against each other. Connor ignored it and cocked his head to the side. A low-frequency hum that he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been filtering out all the other sounds was now discernible. There was an active machine out in the mists. He created a special filter so he could focus on it later. Next, Connor filtered out the machine hum and was able to hear the distinct, controlled footfalls of a creature roaming the mists.

Connor held his breath and focused on the soft thumping of the patrolling creature. It was stalking toward the area where Syloc had locked him out. Connor turned his head, angling back toward the mists. Other creatures were out there whose distant movements were even more difficult to detect. Connor opened his eyes but couldn’t see anything through the haze. It was likely that these creatures didn’t rely on sight to hunt their prey. And if they had a keen sense of smell, they would have already found him, which left just one other sense for Connor to worry about.

Connor leaned over and picked up a few rocks. He recorded the filter he’d used to find the creatures and configured the nanobots in his ears to monitor for them independently. Subtle indicators of sound appeared like ripples on his heads-up display. His implants attempted to guess the distance the creatures were from him, and Connor knew the accuracy would increase the longer he was out there. He stuffed a couple of the rocks into his pocket. He needed to get the creatures to give themselves away so he could avoid them. Connor glanced at the rock in his hand and decided to hold onto it for the time being.

He crept away from the wall. Recalling his glimpse of this place from the rooftop, he remembered that there were multiple buildings throughout the complex. Without recon drones, he had no way of knowing the layout, but there was something out there that still had power. Connor accessed his sound filter for the machine hum. It was a constant, low-frequency wavelength, and a pathway to it appeared on his heads-up display.

Connor crept toward it, threading his way through the overgrowth. Each step he took was followed by a long pause, so his progress was slow. He varied the length of his pauses to throw off the creatures that were hunting him. To anyone who hadn’t been trained, it would appear that he was hardly making any progress at all, but Connor knew how to hunt. In his previous life, he’d hunted rogue terrorist groups who operated in all kinds of environments. Even though he’d been focused on building the Colonial Defense Force for the past ten years, his old skills were still there, waiting for him to use them again. His old friend Wil Reisman had often remarked that Connor was a survivor. Truth be told, Connor was a fighter, but he’d need to be both to stay alive here with only a knife and a spear.

Connor could only see a few feet in front of him. His implants showed that the creature was now behind him, with possibly two more predators farther out in front of him but not along his path to the machine. He crouched close to the ground and paused for several minutes between each painstakingly slow step forward. He kept his breath slow and even. Each reach of his hand, each push forward, was controlled and purposeful. He peered ahead, pausing to look at a dark shape in the fog. It wasn’t a trick of the light. The dark shape was a small NEIIS building. Connor moved toward it, and the creature that was investigating the doorway ambled away from it. Connor listened for the other creatures. He had to trust that the filters he’d put in place would give him enough warning to react, but they couldn’t account for a creature that wasn’t moving.

Connor reached the wall. It was damp, and beads of water coursed along its slimy surface. With his back against the wall, Connor circled around the small, round building that reminded him of the NEIIS outpost they’d found the year before. Once he’d gone halfway around, he stopped, then slowly sank to the ground on his stomach and crawled forward. He was two meters from the outpost when a red sound wave became visible on his heads-up display.

Connor froze. The source of it was right behind him. He held his breath and waited. There was a thump and the sound of a frog croaking off to the side, then another thump. This one was coming toward him. The creature must’ve heard him.

The breath burned in Connor’s lungs because he’d been holding it for so long. He couldn’t risk turning around, but the creature was heading toward him and it sounded big. He didn’t need augmented hearing to detect its footfalls. Connor glanced at the rock in his hand and flung it to the side. The rock bounced off a nearby building, and the creature behind him bolted off after the sound, its heavy footfalls audible on the wet ground. Connor quickly moved ahead several meters and then stopped. He waited and listened. The creature was still off to the side, investigating where he’d thrown the rock. Connor pulled another rock from his pocket and lobbed it even farther away. The creature followed it, and several others were stalking toward that area now. Connor crawled forward, hoping the creatures that were on the move wouldn’t be able to hear him.

He had no idea what they looked like, and he refused to let his fear make them into monsters in the dark. He tossed another rock behind him, back toward the building he’d come from. He regained his feet, deciding it would be better to run if he had to since the creatures already suspected his presence. He moved at a quicker pace than before, and ahead of him was a faint glow that he thought might be a trick of the sunlight in the mists, but it was where he’d detected the power source.

Connor checked the power meter for the MPS, concerned that some parts were unresponsive. He suppressed the suit’s alerts from his heads-up display in an attempt to mitigate some of those issues. Then, turning his attention back to the predators, he realized he couldn’t throw another rock because that trick would only work so many times before the creatures grasped that he was toying with them and traced the tossed rocks to their source.

Feeling as prepared as possible, Connor closed in on the glowing light and saw that it was a NEIIS console out in the open. It had a translucent protective case over the mesh screen, which was where the light was coming from. Connor peered down and recognized only a handful of the NEIIS symbols. He’d need his PDA to do a full translation, but he recognized the symbol that pertained to the rkylars—three separate claws with a circle connecting them through the middle. This must be the broadcast used to keep the ryklars out of there, but it was different than what they’d encountered at other NEIIS sites. Connor looked for a way to open the case but couldn’t find one. A red sound wave appeared on the front of his heads-up display. The creature was only five meters away. Connor’s eyes widened.

The billowing fog swirled away from a large figure, and Connor didn’t dare move a muscle. The creature hadn’t detected him yet; otherwise, it would’ve charged. It stalked forward out of the gloom, moving on all fours, with thick, muscular legs and a broad, armored head. The creature’s breath drove the mist away from its mouth like a smoking volcano that was about to erupt. It had armor plating along the ridge of its back. The armor looked like a shell, and Connor could just barely see the gray skin beneath the plates where its legs met its body. Inside its wide mouth were several rows of teeth, all angled inward like those of a shark, which were meant for ripping its prey apart. The creature headed straight for the console, and Connor stood rooted in place. He held his spear in his left hand, and his right hand rested on the console. The creature’s nostrils flared as it tried to sniff him out. Its eyes were milky white, confirming Connor’s theory that they couldn’t see well. He had another rock in his pocket—his last one—but he didn’t want to chance trying to reach for it.

Connor tore his eyes away from the creature and noticed that the control panel to the console was near his thighs. The creature blew out a harsh breath and gave a slight growl, which sounded deep and terrifying.

Several more sound waves announced the presence of two more creatures coming up behind him. The distance on his heads-up display showed that they were seven meters away and moving closer. They had him surrounded. He gritted his teeth, trying to think. He had to do something.

The creature in front of him walked around the console less than two meters away. It cocked its head, listening to sounds away from them. The creature’s breath smelled like rotting garbage, and Connor had to keep himself from gagging. His heartbeat sounded so loud in his chest that he was afraid the creatures would hear it. He slowly leaned over and reached toward the control panel door. The creature swung its head toward him and he got a full blast of putrid breath, though it was more than six feet away. He clutched his spear with his other hand, ready to brace it on the ground if the creature charged, but it was only six feet long and wouldn’t stop the beast.

A New Earth falcon squawked as it flew right over Connor’s head. The creature swung its head, following the bird, and took several steps toward it. Connor pulled on the handle of the control panel, and the panel’s hinges squeaked loudly as he reached inside and yanked out the power cable. The creature swung its massive body around and roared as the console went dark and the low-level hum of the broadcast signal stopped.

Come on, Connor thought.

The creature charged. Connor let go of the spear and dove out of the way. His makeshift spear snapped as the creature charged past where he’d been a moment before. The other creatures roared and Connor slowly backed away. They wanted him to run. They still weren’t sure where he was. Instead, he pulled out his hunting knife. Forty-five centimeters of hardened battle steel with a razor-sharp edge was all he had for protection now. Connor took another step back and paused.

One of the creatures was off to his left, closer than any of the others. It lumbered toward him, and its armored shoulder was just one meter away. A deep growl rumbled at the base of its throat, but its growl suddenly ceased and the creature swung its head around to listen for something behind it. Connor drove his knife deep into the gray skin and yanked downward, cutting through sinew and bone. The creature jerked away from him and spun around. Its armored plating struck Connor’s wrist, and he let go of the knife. He backed away and waited to see if the beast would attack. The other creatures closed in, but they seemed distracted by something else. Then Connor heard it—a high-pitched screech coming from the entranceway. He never thought he’d be so happy to hear a ryklar in all his life. Connor pulled out his last rock and threw it at one of the creatures farther away. The rock bounced off its armored flank, and the creature instinctively lashed out at another of its kind. The two creatures growled at one another, and Connor used the distraction to back even farther away. The creatures didn’t hear him, so he turned around and ran.

29

Connor hastened away from the NEIIS watchdogs, which were fighting the ryklars, and he gritted his teeth as he went. He’d dropped his knife, and his wrist ached from where the creature’s carapace had slammed into it. Their roars echoed from behind him, but Connor didn’t have time to think about which of them would triumph over the other. He needed to get away, and he ran toward where he expected the main complex to be. The thick fog obstructed his view as he threaded his way through the overgrowth. He doubted the NEIIS had ever foreseen that their vast courtyard would reach such a state.

Connor slowed down, and his implants connected to his PDA. He frowned, realizing he had to be within thirty meters of it. Syloc must’ve been sneaking through the area as well. Connor enabled the tracking feature of his PDA and saw that it was just up ahead. He headed for it.

A large shape loomed before him in the swirling fog and Connor halted. As the fog began to clear, he realized he’d reached the other side of the complex and was now facing a wall. He glanced down at the ground and saw his PDA lying there. He listened for Syloc, but there was no sign of the NEIIS. Connor retrieved his device and gave it a quick once-over. One whole side of it was crushed and bent. He was lucky it was still partially working.

A red wavelength appeared off to the side on his internal heads-up display. One of the watchdogs was coming toward him, and Connor bolted ahead, following the path. If Syloc had come this way, there had to be a door nearby. The loud thumping of the creature pursuing him sounded so close that it was as if it were nipping at Connor’s heels. He pushed on at an all-out run and reached a small bridge that covered a deep ravine. He grabbed the railings and pulled himself onto the bridge, darting ahead. The bridge vibrated slightly under Connor’s feet as he pounded on, but then it shook violently as something heavy jumped onto it from behind him. Connor didn’t look back. A door was just up ahead. It was slightly ajar, and Connor ran right for it. He yanked it fully open and made it through only moments before the watchdog slammed into the doorway, which was much too small for it to fit through. Connor turned around and saw its milky white eyes glaring in his direction. Rows of teeth snapped, and as a wave of putrid breath reached Connor’s nose, he backed away. The creature snarled and then howled in frustration.

Connor glanced behind him and saw another door a short distance away down the corridor. He couldn’t quite catch his breath, and his shoulders rose and fell rapidly as he walked toward it and recognized the NEIIS door controls. They were similar to the ones used in the ruins at Sanctuary. The corridor went quiet, and he glanced back at the way he’d come in. The creature was no longer there. Connor really hoped there wasn’t another way inside. He thought about returning to close the door but decided against it. He’d had enough of that foul stench to last a lifetime.

Connor used the door controls to open the door. It still had power, and there was an amber light illuminating the ceiling. The lighting was chemical based, a phosphorescent/luminescent composition that glowed when activated. He entered an area where there were multiple rooms off to the side, and he took his time listening to see if there was anything else nearby. The NEIIS had gone to a lot of effort to secure the place, and they wouldn’t have bothered if there wasn’t something valuable hidden there. Connor had been to plenty of military installations back in his NA Alliance days, and the ones guarding something important always had active defenses that were lethal when employed.

Along the walls, he kept seeing the same three intertwining triangles that matched Syloc’s uniform. There were other emblems as well, but they were always smaller.

Connor kept going, and his muffled footsteps seemed to echo, disturbing the solitude of the place. He felt as if he were walking amid the dystopian ruins of the NEIIS civilization. The other cities he’d been to and the excavations he’d worked on with Lenora had all seemed abandoned in comparison to this place, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint what the difference was.

He walked by rooms that had tables and looked like offices of some type. He stopped in the doorway of one of the living quarters and looked inside. There was a platform that hardly looked big enough to sit on. There were hooks along one side and the remnants of several straps on the other. Connor glanced at a pad and saw that there were indentations for NEIIS feet to slip into. There was a raised desk on the other side of the room, and a thick layer of dust covered almost everything.

Connor tried to imagine what this room might have been like with someone like Syloc living there. And then it hit him. He finally understood what bothered him about this place. It reminded him of a graveyard because there were still remnants of the NEIIS actually having lived here. The other NEIIS sites he’d been to almost seemed as if the NEIIS had abandoned them. There’d either been evidence of them packing up, or the area had been destroyed by something. Ryklars had ransacked a number of NEIIS locations. But if the signal had been active here and the watchdogs were protecting the entrance, the ryklars couldn’t have gotten inside. Could this place have been a safe haven for the NEIIS? One of their last?

Connor left the NEIIS living quarters and kept going. He needed to find a control room with a working console. Hopefully, there’d be another way for him to broadcast the signal to Diaz and the others. He also needed to find a weapon, and he thought there must be an armory here somewhere. Syloc would be searching for the same thing, but Connor didn’t know what a NEIIS weapon would look like. What did they use?

He glanced along the walls, scanned the different emblems, and followed the intertwining triangles. The corridor led to an open area where there were different ways he could go. There was a main wall across from him that displayed the remnants of a now faded but once colorful patchwork of emblems. Connor accessed his PDA, enabled its pattern-recognition software, and set it to analyze the wall in front of him. It would do a detailed analysis of the wall much more quickly than Connor could; however, the limiting factor was that it was based on human recognition and not NEIIS.

After a few moments, the analysis finished and a re-creation of the pattern appeared over the image of the wall on his heads-up display. This showed the various NEIIS emblems he’d seen before, and all were equal in size. Above them was a glowing half circle, and Connor assumed that the lines drawn underneath it were light rays of a sort. He stored the image in his PDA and moved on.

Off to the right was a plain-looking corridor that seemed almost spartan compared to the others. Connor chose that corridor, hoping that if there was an armory in this direction, it would be there. He didn’t have to go far before he found a wide set of doors on one side. The corridor kept going, but Connor stopped to open the door and peer inside. There were racks of equipment along the walls and in the aisles, arranged in an orderly fashion throughout the room. He walked through the door to take a closer look and saw NEIIS-style uniforms like the one Syloc had been wearing along one side of the room. There were racks of weapons in the aisles. Connor walked closer to examine them. They were longer than any human-sized rifle, and the handles were built for the NEIIS, who had larger hands. Connor picked one up. It was heavy and bulky. There were two handles for him to hold, and it looked like there was a barrel at either end of the NEIIS weapon. He couldn’t detect any power source, so he assumed the weapon was mechanical. Connor placed it back on the rack. He didn’t think it would still work after all this time.

He spent the next few minutes walking around the large room, looking for something useful. He didn’t want to carry anything around that he didn’t know how to use, and he wasn’t convinced the weapons were in good working order anyway. Unused weapons would decay over time, and these had been left untouched for over two hundred years, predating the recent ice age. Connor headed back toward the door and spotted a smaller rack off to the side. Metallic rods a little over a meter in length hung from the rack. They appeared well preserved, so he grabbed one off the rack. There was a button on the side. Connor held the rod away from him and pressed the button. A sharp point came out of the end. He saw that the other end had a similar button and the same thing happened. He would’ve preferred his AR-71 or his modified CAR-74, but This was better than having no weapon at all. The rod was pretty thick because it had been built more for the longer fingers of the NEIIS than human hands, but it would suffice. He needed to keep moving.

Connor left the room and continued to follow the corridor. He found several more armories but didn’t explore them. He eventually found a hermetically sealed room with a control console outside. The layout was the same as the other bunkers’, and the console had power. Connor walked up to it and brought up the NEIIS interface. Instead of searching for a way to open the door, Connor navigated the interface and brought up the inventory of stasis pods. NEIIS symbols trailed across the screen, and the translator on his PDA went to work.

Connor’s brow furrowed and he read the information again. This bunker did have stasis pods, but instead of a few dozen there were thousands of them. He looked at the door. It was armored like the other ones they’d found. Was the translator right? If he opened that door, would he find thousands of NEIIS stasis pods in the room beyond? The other bunkers contained pods that had either been destroyed or were out of power, and the NEIIS in them were all dead. This place still had power, so there was a good chance the NEIIS were alive, but the only way to find out for sure was to open the door.

Connor searched the NEIIS console for the broadcast signal control systems and couldn’t find them. In fact, it didn’t seem like this console was connected to anything but what was beyond the door. The NEIIS had made it a closed system. Connor shook his head. He could leave and continue searching, or he could confirm what was on the other side of that door.

30

Noah stood away from the Rovers and looked up into the forest canopy. He arched his back, stretching muscles that were stiff from sitting for so long. Broad New Earth equivalents of Terran sequoia trees grew in abundance, reaching far into the sky and branching thickly to offer scaffolding for the New Earth creatures that lived there. They’d stopped every few hours so they could stretch their legs and take care of any bodily functions that required attention. Noah had just relieved himself well away from the others. His lower back was sore from bouncing along in the Rover as they trekked toward the bunker where Connor was—or at least where he’d been a few hours earlier.

Their journey was starting to take its toll, as they’d all begun this jaunt thinking they were going on a short camping trip. The days were starting to blur together in Noah’s mind. The others had taken the opportunity to walk around and stretch their legs, and Noah had no doubt that Diaz had a timer counting down so he could get them all moving as quickly as possible.

Noah saw Donna and McCrea standing together a short way from the Rovers and walked over to them.

Donna gave him a friendly nod and then gestured toward the ground. “A pretty big herd moved through the area recently,” she said.

Noah looked at the ground. It appeared to have been chewed up, and the low-lying plants had been trampled. “Looks more like there was a stampede through here.”

McCrea frowned and then nodded. “You know what? I think he’s right.”

“What started the stampede, and what creatures could do this?” Noah asked.

Donna squatted down and took a closer look at the tracks, then glanced around, and Noah could tell she was accessing her PDA. “Sepulpods roam in large herds. They’d have great enough numbers to do something like this, but I’m not sure what set them off.”

“Ryklars?” McCrea asked.

Donna shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s hard to be sure. Other predators hunt in the area. Even pack hunters usually try and pick off stragglers along the outskirts of the herd,” she said, wiping the dirt off her hands onto her pants. “It’s actually a lot harder to start a stampede than you’d think. But if enough predators were in the area, that could do it.”

McCrea glanced up to the canopy above. “I’d be surprised if there weren’t tree-climbers in this area.”

“If we leave them alone, they’ll leave us alone,” Noah said. He recalled his first encounter with tree-climbers. It had been almost another lifetime ago, when Connor had recruited him to train with the first Search and Rescue platoon.

Donna caught his eye and smiled. “Lightning Platoon.”

Noah smiled and nodded.

“What’s Lightning Platoon?” McCrea asked.

“It was the first Search and Rescue platoon Connor trained. Both Donna and I were in the first class,” Noah said.

Donna eyed Noah suspiciously. “Did Connor ever make you do the survival training?”

“I think being trapped in the NEIIS ruins with a bunch of ryklars was survival training enough. Don’t you?” Noah asked.

Donna arched an eyebrow at him. “I suppose.”

“You didn’t finish?” McCrea asked.

Noah shook his head and laughed. “Priorities shifted. The Colonial Defense Force was formed shortly after that.”

Diaz called out to Noah from one of the Rovers. Noah glanced over, and Diaz was waving him over toward him. They walked back to the armored Rovers.

“You’ve got an incoming message. Looks like all data and no video,” Diaz said.

Noah used his implants to retrieve the message. It was from Lenora and contained a sizable data attachment. “It’s an updated version of the NEIIS interpreter program. It includes the latest findings and should help speed up the analysis of the data I retrieved from the console at the bunker.”

“Latest findings?” Diaz asked.

Noah nodded and used his implants to unpack the data into his PDA so he could use the new program. “It’s based on Dash Dewitt’s latest findings. He’s done a lot of fieldwork and has become an expert in the NEIIS language, or at least the language they use in their computer systems.”

“If he’s such an expert, is he on his way here with the troop carrier?” Donna asked.

Noah finished reading the message from Lenora and shook his head. “No, he’s off-world.”

“I thought this kid was an archaeologist,” Donna said.

Diaz looked at the Rover and then back at Noah with raised brows. “We need to get going.”

Noah shrugged. He didn’t know why Dash was off-world. “Give me a few minutes to see if the updated interpreter can help us out.” He didn’t want to do any more data analysis while inside a moving Rover. The very thought of it made his motion sickness creep right back into the pit of his stomach.

“You’ve got five minutes, and don’t ever say I’m unreasonable,” Diaz said.

Noah rolled his shoulders and stretched out his neck. “Alright, let’s see what this thing can tell us,” he said and brought up his holoscreen.

Diaz went and rounded up the others. Then he and McCrea did a quick inspection of the Rovers.

Noah did a brief check for a signal from Connor’s PDA but came up empty. He’d hoped they’d detect it as they got closer to the bunker. He brought up the new interpreter and cycled the data he’d taken from the NEIIS console through it. Donna moved over to his side and watched.

“They keep referencing some of these other emblems,” Donna said.

Noah nodded. “Looks like they refer to different NEIIS factions. The log data is fragmented, but it looks like these are briefings about the other factions.”

Rollins walked over and looked at Noah’s holoscreen. “Can you read it?”

“A little bit. The new interpreter helps, but it’s hard to be sure. It’s like starting a book randomly in the middle and trying to figure out what’s going on,” Noah said.

“That thing,” Rollins said, jabbing his thumb in the direction of the bunker, “is only worried about itself. It already betrayed Connor once. If you ask me, that thing had a mission and is following its own orders, which don’t include interacting with us. We’re just the means to an end.”

Noah glanced at Donna, who seemed to agree with Rollins. “Let’s just worry about getting Connor back and then we can figure out what to do about Syloc.”

Diaz joined them. “Are we ready to go? Did you learn something new?”

“It’s gonna take some time—I know, I know, we need to get going,” Noah said.

“Hold up a minute,” Rollins said. “What’s our plan? Just show up at the bunker and search for Connor?”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Diaz said.

“Yeah, this isn’t just about Connor anymore,” Rollins said.

Diaz glared at him. “We all know you don’t want to be here.”

Rollins rolled his eyes. “You’re right; I don’t want to be here, but I’m not going to let the fact that you’re going off half-cocked get me killed.”

Noah hadn’t been watching the exchange. Instead, he was looking at the data the new interpreter was spitting out. Noah had an analysis engine running that was designed to search for patterns as a way to quickly sift through all the data and get to the usable information. It was a trick he’d learned from Wil Reisman, one of the original members of the Ghost Platoon. He’d been their intelligence officer.

Several people raised their voices, and Noah looked up to see Diaz and Rollins grappling with each other. Donna stood off to the side with a stunner in her hand. Noah took out his own stunner and set it to the lowest setting so it wouldn’t knock them out. He darted in and Donna did the same, and they each jabbed the ends of their stunners onto the backs of the two combatants. An electrical charge coursed through the two hotheaded men and their bodies jerked for a few moments before collapsing to the ground.

Noah loomed over them and glared. “You guys about done yet? Because we don’t have time for this shit.”

Diaz looked up at him wide-eyed, his mouth agape.

“You need to calm down,” Noah said to Diaz. Rollins looked like he was going to chime in, and Noah swung his gaze toward him. “I only want to hear from you if you have something intelligent to say. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut.” Noah straightened up and glanced at the others, who all looked mildly surprised.

Donna grinned. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Noah felt the edges of his mouth pull upward. Gibson and McCrea helped Diaz and Rollins to their feet.

“I found something. This bunker isn’t like the others,” Noah said, and he glanced at Rollins. “We need a plan.”

31

Connor had picked up more than a few tricks over the years from his late old friend Wil Reisman. Wil had a knack for intelligence gathering that included accessing secure systems. Very few organizations designed an entirely closed system that had no access to or from the outside, and he spent a little bit of time hunting for any hidden external connections that he could use to send a broadcast. Something as simple as a status update to a log system could be used, but he couldn’t find anything. The NEIIS system required that someone physically be at the control console to get the status of the stasis pods, which meant that the NEIIS had actually designed a closed system. This confirmed his suspicion that Syloc’s faction was some type of military. There were no back doors to an external communication system. The NEIIS had built this console with two purposes in mind: control the door and monitor the stasis pods that must lie beyond.

He wasn’t sure how adept the NEIIS were at security. Once he was inside the bunker, he’d been able to walk wherever he wanted. There were no automated defenses inside, or if there once had been, they were no longer operational. The NEIIS focused their security efforts at the perimeter by using the watchdogs, which either lived for hundreds of years or had been conditioned to train their offspring to guard this place.

Connor sighed and stepped away from the console, then glanced behind him at the open doorway he’d used to enter the room. He’d have to backtrack and find some other way to reach the others. Connor walked toward the door and hovered there for a few minutes with his hand on the doorframe, thinking, but his thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of gears squeaking near the edges of the large metallic door behind him. He spun around and hastened to the console. A hand-driven, mechanical crank sounded from off to the side, and Connor’s eyes widened. Someone was opening the door from the inside.

The wide door squeaked loudly as it was withdrawn into the wall, and Connor peered into the vast open space. Dim amber phosphorescent lighting lit the cavernous room beyond. He saw numerous rows of stasis pods that stretched far off into the distance. Large cables that almost covered the entire floor were connected to each pod. Connor looked up and saw that there was another level above him. As he contemplated the glow of stasis pods on the second level, he realized he couldn’t begin to guess how many thousands of NEIIS were there. All of the pods nearby were marked with the emblem of the three intertwining triangles.

The cranking of the door stopped, and Syloc stepped into the doorway. The NEIIS halted when he saw Connor. The thick ridges on the sides of his head drew forward, and Syloc’s dark-eyed gaze narrowed. Connor noticed that there were several dark splotches on his torso and arms, and Connor realized that the NEIIS hadn’t gotten through the courtyard unscathed. He watched as Syloc noticed Connor’s PDA hanging on his belt. Syloc took a step forward, and Connor came around the console and stood directly in his path.

Syloc pointed to his chest and then at the console.

Connor shook his head. “I can’t let you do that.”

Syloc stepped closer, and Connor brought up his weapon. Syloc’s gaze flicked to the metallic quarterstaff, and then the NEIIS paced from side to side. He kept thumping his chest and gesturing toward the console, but he didn’t look at Connor. It was almost as if the NEIIS was debating something with himself, but Connor kept a careful watch on him. The NEIIS had used up all of his chances, and Connor was no longer willing to trust him.

How had Syloc entered the chamber? Connor wondered if this was the only control console. It couldn’t be. If the NEIIS had been concerned about securing the stasis pods, they wouldn’t have created a single point of failure. There had to be other control rooms like this, but how many were there? Connor considered bringing up the holoscreen to try to communicate with Syloc again. It was true that the NEIIS had used him as bait, tricking him into going out into the mist to draw off the watchdogs without any warning. Yet if Connor was in Syloc’s position where he had limited communication capability with an alien species, would he have done any differently?

Syloc came to a halt and gestured toward Connor’s PDA. Connor looked down at it, considering. He wouldn’t have knowingly put anyone else’s life in danger, but perhaps it wasn’t that simple with Syloc. They hadn’t been able to do a medical exam on the NEIIS, so there was no way for Connor to know whether there’d been any degradation as a result of his prolonged stasis period. It’d taken humanity a long time to perfect stasis technology, which they’d used to send over three hundred thousand colonists to New Earth—a journey that took two hundred years. The fact that all the colonists came out of stasis without any significant issues could be attributed to human ingenuity. Connor had seen the stasis pods the NEIIS had built, and given their level of technology, it was a miracle that any of them were still operating.

Connor was once again faced with the fact that they didn’t know why the NEIIS had gone to such lengths to survive. They knew there were different factions, which were inherent in any intelligent species. The NEIIS must’ve been desperate, but why? Connor knew that frame of mind well. He’d lived with it for years as they prepared for the Vemus invasion force. The Vemus had wrecked humanity’s home and then traveled across the void to find the colony, and Connor had driven himself tirelessly to prepare for that. Everyone in the colony had been desperate to survive, and they had barely survived their war with the Vemus. As Connor watched Syloc struggle to try and save his own species, Connor found that he had a lot of empathy for the NEIIS. If there was someone standing in Connor’s way when the fate of all humanity was at stake, he would do whatever it took to ensure their survival.

Connor decided he had to set his pride aside, but he still couldn’t allow the aliens inside the stasis pods to be awakened until they could do a proper assessment of the situation. Connor knew Syloc wouldn’t accept those conditions, but he had to try.

Connor gestured toward his PDA and then to an area toward the far side of the room away from the control console. Connor watched as Syloc’s gaze flicked to the console and then to the area Connor had indicated. Connor lowered his weapon and repeated the gesture. Syloc seemed to consider this for a few moments and then took several steps toward the side of the room.

Connor stepped away from the console, and Syloc spun, cutting to the right. Connor brought down his quarterstaff, but Syloc’s momentum knocked him back. Connor tripped, and both he and the NEIIS went down. Syloc scrambled toward the console as Connor regained his feet. Connor tucked his shoulder and rammed into the NEIIS, pushing him away. He then pressed the button at the end of his staff, and the sharply pointed blade snapped out. He turned toward the console and slammed the end of the staff into it. The sharp edge cut through the mesh screen and into the innards of the console. Connor brought it back up and down repeatedly, bludgeoning the console until it was beyond repair.

Syloc howled in rage and came at him. Connor drove the butt of his staff forward and rammed Syloc in the chest, then stepped forward and kicked out with his front leg. The NEIIS staggered back into the wall, hard. Syloc’s hand went to his chest as if he were surprised that Connor had struck him.

After recovering for a moment, the NEIIS feigned a charge toward Connor but cut to the side at the last moment and headed back into the room with the stasis pods. Connor was momentarily confused as he watched the NEIIS flee into the bunker, but he had no choice. He had to stop Syloc.

32

Connor chased Syloc into the stasis pod chamber. The NEIIS had longer limbs and a smaller torso, which enabled him to run faster than Connor. The MPS had less than four percent power and couldn’t help him. Connor gritted his teeth and kept running. Syloc increased his speed, and Connor quickly fell behind.

The dimly lit chamber was enormous. It was a significant bunker, and this NEIIS faction could have been depending on it to restart their society.

Connor’s implants were in combat mode, and they worked to keep Syloc’s movements highlighted on his internal heads-up display. Connor didn’t want to kill Syloc; he just needed to stop him. As Connor ran, he wondered how big the bunker actually was. It seemed to just keep on going. Syloc was almost a hundred meters ahead of Connor when he darted to the side and ran past rows of stasis pods. Connor changed course, hoping to quickly close the distance.

Connor watched Syloc stop beside a stasis pod for a few moments and then move on to the next. He repeated this action a few times, allowing Connor to catch up to him. The NEIIS glanced at Connor as he approached the first pod and then moved on. A white vapor blew out from the bottom of the pod and the NEIIS mesh screen flickered, showing a row of symbols. The stasis pod enclosure opened and began to pull back. The same thing happened with the next pod.

These pods looked substantially bigger than the ones he’d seen upon entering the chamber. Connor ran to the third stasis pod and speared the end of his weapon into the control panel for the pod. The pod immediately went dark, stalling the revival process. Connor darted to the fourth pod and did the same, but he was too late for the fifth. There was no way for him to stop all the pods from being activated. He ran behind the rows of stasis pods, pausing briefly to cut the control panels before moving on.

Connor passed another pod whose door was already open and saw a large figure inside beginning to move. An exterior panel opened on the side, and Connor saw a long, spiraled shaft that had an orb on the end. It was similar to the weapons he’d seen in the armory, but this was in pristine condition. The NEIIS had set up the stasis pods so that when the occupants were brought out of stasis, they could be quickly armed.

Connor was reaching toward the NEIIS weapon when he saw a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision. He tried to turn and bring up his weapon, but he was too late. A sharp point was driven into his side, and the MPS barely managed to absorb the blow. Pain blossomed on his side, but he didn’t think the weapon had penetrated the suit. Connor stumbled and pushed himself off another stasis pod, trying to find his assailant. It had to have been Syloc, but he couldn’t see him. He scanned the area and moved his way back around another stasis pod. In the midst of the darkened stasis pods, there were quite a few whose enclosures were now open, and large shapes were struggling to climb out. Connor felt his stomach sink into his feet.

He heard the approach of rapid footsteps behind him and sank to one knee while swinging around and thrusting the speared end of his staff outward. Syloc howled in pain as the point was buried deep in his leg. Connor pulled the tip out and held his weapon up threateningly while Syloc scrambled backward away from him. Connor closed in on the NEIIS and then felt a mighty blow slam his body, propelling it forward, past Syloc. Connor crashed into a stasis pod and tumbled over to the other side. His MPS flashed a warning before going offline altogether. Connor caught the brunt of the blow and felt pain along his back and ribs.

He rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up off the floor. He didn’t know what had hit him, but it had been big and immensely strong. Connor scrambled back, putting several rows of stasis pods between him and whatever had attacked him. Then he circled around a pod, peering into the gloom. Syloc was on his feet, favoring his injured leg. Next to him were two other NEIIS, both significantly taller than Syloc. He saw their details with his enhanced vision. They were NEIIS, but they looked slightly different. Aside from being larger than Syloc, their armored protrusions at the shoulders were more pronounced, and the claws at the ends of their long fingers reminded Connor of ryklar claws, which could rend through the battle-alloy steel. The group of NEIIS peered in his direction, and Connor withdrew. Using the stasis pod as cover, he tried to breathe as quietly as possible. He didn’t know how many NEIIS Syloc had managed to bring out of stasis, but if they were all the size of the two he was looking at right then, Connor knew he was outmatched. He took another look in Syloc’s direction and his gaze widened with the realization that the NEIIS had not only genetically altered the species of New Earth, they’d also enhanced themselves.

Connor backed away from the edge of the stasis pod and circled behind it. He had to do something, and he tried to force an idea from his brain. He couldn’t stop them from being brought out of stasis one at a time, so he had to find the main power line for this row. He crept away, putting some distance between him and Syloc, as well as the others. They would be hunting him soon.

Connor took a closer look at the side of a stasis pod where the weapons storage container was located but couldn’t see a way to open it, and he heard Syloc making a muffled noise to the other NEIIS as they headed in his direction. Crouching, Connor slipped around the back of the stasis pod and moved farther away from them.

He’d disabled the other stasis pods by breaking the internal components, bringing down the systems that controlled them, and he needed to find a way to do the same thing but on a larger scale. He clenched his teeth, realizing that he didn’t have anything he could use. But as Connor glared in the direction of the NEIIS that were heading his way, years of military training kicked in, and his mind slipped back to old principles that had been drilled into him. Instead of concentrating on what he didn’t have, he needed to use what he did have. Connor glanced down at his PDA and a plan began to take shape in his mind. He looked at the multitude of hoses that extended out the back of the stasis pods and coiled along the floor. If the stasis pods were all controlled in a closed system that was monitored by a small number of consoles, they had to be networked somehow. If he could sever that connection, perhaps he could cut off this section of stasis pods. That would prevent Syloc from jury-rigging the revival protocols to affect multiple pods at once.

Connor shoved his hand into the group of hoses and power lines that went into the backs of the pods. He’d seen NEIIS computer systems before and knew that the smaller, spiral-bound cords were what the NEIIS used for their data connections, but merely yanking them out of the backs of the pods wouldn’t accomplish what he needed. He had to trace the data lines back to the main line and sever them. Those wires would carry a small charge of electricity that he could trace using his implants.

He focused on one of the spiraled lines and enabled the tracing protocol in his implants. The data line went to the floor, and Connor was immediately thankful that the NEIIS hadn’t thought to bury them all. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to trace this one.

He followed the highlighted line to a space in the middle of two rows of pods. Cutting the data connection would prevent them from being managed by the control consoles nearby. Beside the data line was a thick, heavy-gauge power connection. If Connor stuck the tip of his weapon in there, he’d be electrocuted. He marked the location on his internal heads-up display and backed away. He had what he needed. He could lay the trap, but it required him to allow the NEIIS to get closer to him than he liked.

He didn’t think a simple rock-toss would be enough to fool his pursuers for long, and he didn’t have anything to throw anyway. He needed to find another control room. Connor looked around, searching for a door along the wall. He even risked sticking his head up so he could peer all around, and then he found it. Several hundred meters away was a wide metallic door. He wasn’t sure if he could make it there without getting caught, but he’d have to try.

Connor moved ten meters away from the location he’d marked, brought up his PDA, and waited for the NEIIS to get closer. They didn’t stagger their approach or spread themselves out to cover multiple rows of stasis pods. There were four of them, including Syloc, and all of them held the long weapons he’d seen on the racks. The orbs at the ends opened, revealing hollow shafts. Connor expected that more NEIIS had come out of stasis by then and didn’t know where the others were, but he hoped they weren’t engaged in reviving even more of these enhanced soldiers.

Connor activated the holoprojector on his PDA and placed a three-dimensional image of himself out in the middle of the aisle between two rows of stasis pods. The two NEIIS in the front growled savagely as they brought up their weapons. Twin red lightning bolts burst from the ends of their rods, but the bolts passed through the hologram and went into the grouping of heavy cords beyond. Sparks geysered up as they hit the main power line, and all the stasis pods in that area went dark. Connor cut off the holoprojection, killing the only light source in the area. He backed away and shuffled over a few rows, then ran for the door. The NEIIS howled in frustration behind him, but they hadn’t started chasing him yet, and the longer they delayed the greater chance he had to get away.

Connor raced toward the far end of the chamber, quickly shifting between rows since the NEIIS weren’t close behind him. He heard several loud growls in the distance and then heard that strange call Syloc used to summon the ryklars. It was different, but it still seemed as if he had multiple voices coming out of one mouth. Connor doubted that Syloc would call the ryklars to this location, if they could even hear him. The last he’d seen, the ryklars were fighting the NEIIS watchdogs out in the courtyard. He hoped they hadn’t made their way inside yet.

As Connor ran, he had the sneaking suspicion that the NEIIS were arguing. He didn’t want to get ahead of himself, but he did feel the edges of his lips curving upward at the thought.

A few minutes later, he made it to the door he’d identified in the distance. Working quickly, he opened the manual override for the door and found the crank inside, then glanced behind him. Once he started cranking the door open, the noise would give away his location, but he had no choice. He had to get through that door. Connor grasped the handle and forced the crank to move. The massive hinges squeaked loudly, echoing throughout the chamber. Connor cranked as fast as he could and the door inched open. When it was wide enough for him to slip through, Connor stopped cranking and glanced behind him, seeing that two of the large NEIIS were barreling toward him. Connor plunged the tip of his quarterstaff into the hand crank and then pushed to the side, snapping the handle off.

He slipped through the narrow doorway, bolted straight for the NEIIS control console he’d hoped would be there, brought it online, and accessed the door controls. He heard the NEIIS approaching the door, and Connor gave the command to close the door just as one of the NEIIS’s thick arms pushed through the narrow doorway. The NEIIS was stuck on the other side, but the door wouldn’t close. Connor pressed the button at the other end of his quarterstaff and his remaining spear point jutted out. He immediately stabbed it into the NEIIS’s hand. The big NEIIS snatched it away in pain. Next, Connor shoved the sharp spear tip through the opening and felt it push into flesh. He jerked the spear point to the side, and the NEIIS cried out.

Hearing the high-pitched sound of the NEIIS weapon charging, Connor dove to the side as a red lightning bolt hit the floor and then ricocheted away. White-hot pain lanced across Connor’s middle, causing him to grit his teeth and groan. Despite the pain, Connor forced himself to his feet and pushed the door closed. The locking mechanism engaged as the big NEIIS pounded on the door. The heavy door was meant to protect the occupants inside, but right now it was the only thing that stood between Connor and the NEIIS who wanted to kill him.

He looked down at the mesh material of the singed MPS and winced at the pain in his side as he began to pull it off. His skin was severely burned. His nanobots would converge on the area to begin healing, but there were limits to what they could do and Connor suspected he’d surpassed them.

Connor limped back to the NEIIS console, knowing the broken hand crank would only slow them down for a short while. The console was part of the closed system with no outside access. He retrieved the status of the stasis pods, but he couldn’t control them. A few alerts showed on the screen, noting the stasis pods that were now offline. He could revive them all, but he couldn’t shut them all down. And even with what he knew so far, he wasn’t sure that killing thousands of NEIIS was the right choice. What he needed was to prevent them from coming out of stasis.

There was an open doorway behind him that led to a dark corridor, and he wondered if there could be some sort of data archive there. He gripped the metallic quarterstaff and glanced at the control console. He’d destroyed the other one to prevent Syloc from accessing it, but what if this was the only other console left?

Syloc was currently only separated from him by a door, and the dull thumping on that door had stopped. Connor sighed and shook his head. Gritting his teeth, he squatted down and forced the maintenance access point open. He reached inside and yanked out the control interface for the NEIIS console, and it powered down. He stuffed the components into his pocket. The console was now disabled but could still be repaired. He’d only bought himself some time.

The nanobots were numbing the pain, but Connor limited their effect so he could still move. Healing protocols for severe injuries required that the patient remain still, and the nanobots were trying to ensure that happened, but he overrode the safety protocols and left the small control room. He needed to find another console so he could reach the others.

33

Noah hardly noticed the rocking of the Rover because he was so focused on the NEIIS data on his internal heads-up display. With the updated translator, he’d been able to glean more information from the NEIIS archive he’d retrieved from the previous bunker. The NEIIS had been attempting to weather some kind of calamity, but it wasn’t clear what that was. The archive included several historical accounts of the different factions that comprised the NEIIS society, and Noah had been so enthralled with what he was learning that he was surprised when the Rovers finally stopped. He shook his head as if to wake himself up and looked at Diaz.

“Where are we?” Noah asked.

“We’re near the bunker entrance,” Diaz replied.

Noah blinked several times to moisten his dry eyes and gazed out upon gray skies and the remnants of a dense morning fog. Looking to the upper right corner of the Rover’s HUD, he noted that there was still no communication signal from Connor.

“You’ve been at it for the last hour. Please tell me you’ve learned something,” Diaz said.

Noah swallowed hard and began to speak but was immediately distracted by an alert for a ryklar broadcast signal. He peered at the alert, noting that it was a very weak signal, nowhere near strong enough to summon any ryklars. He frowned in thought and then put the live signal on the Rover’s speakers.

“This is Connor Gates. Noah, Diaz, somebody. Are you receiving this…Over.” Connor’s voice sounded garbled over the weak signal.

Noah’s eyes widened, and Diaz’s mouth hung open.

“How is he broadcasting? His PDA comlink is still showing as offline,” Lockwood said.

“He must have found another way. Probably a NEIIS console,” Noah answered. He brought up the Rover’s communication systems and configured a comms channel to send a response on the same frequency Connor was using. “This is Noah. It’s really good to hear your voice, Connor. What’s your status?”

Diaz patched in the other Rover so they could listen.

“I’m alive. My PDA is only partially working, but I knew you guys would be monitoring for ryklar broadcasts,” Connor replied.

Noah couldn’t tell if it was the poor connection or if Connor’s voice sounded strained.

“Tell us where you are. We’ll come to you,” Diaz said.

“I’m inside the bunker. Syloc has brought other NEIIS out of stasis, but they’re not like Syloc. They’ve been genetically modified—enhanced.” Connor’s voice cut out.

“Does this bunker only have the NEIIS from the intertwining triangle faction?” Noah asked.

Diaz glared at him. He just wanted Connor’s location.

“They’re the only ones I’ve seen here,” Connor replied.

Noah thought he heard a commotion in the background. “Are the ryklars in the bunker?”

“Yeah, they are. I’ve been avoiding them,” Connor replied, and this time there was no mistaking the strain in Connor’s voice.

“Are you wounded?” Noah asked.

There was a banging sound over the comms signal.

“No, I’m fine,” Connor replied.

Noah looked at Diaz and shook his head. He didn’t believe Connor. “You said Syloc brought other NEIIS out of stasis. How many are there now, and how many pods are there in the bunker?”

“There are about ten or fifteen NEIIS now, but I’ve stalled his efforts to open more. As for how many stasis pods—there are thousands of them here. And as far as I can tell, all of them have power. Most of the ones I’ve seen aren’t like the ones we found before. Each pod has its own weapons cache. This is a fighting force,” Connor said.

Noah winced and closed his eyes for a moment.

“What is it?” Diaz asked.

“The different NEIIS factions were at war with one another, and this bunker is actually a stronghold for one of their military factions,” Noah said.

“So what if they’re military?” Diaz said and then shook his head. “Never mind. I don’t care. Connor, what’s your position? We’ll come to you. I don’t care how many of these things are in our way.”

There were a few moments of silence before Connor’s reply came. “Thanks, Diaz. I know you would, but what else did you learn, Noah? Because I’m starting to get a bad feeling here.”

Noah licked his lips and pressed them together. “The other factions banded together to fight this one. They were a dominant force…”

“And they need to be stopped,” Connor said, his voice sounding grim.

Noah glanced at the others, but they were all stunned into silence. “I don’t know what we should do about them. I don’t know what the right call is. I just know that the other NEIIS banded together to fight Syloc’s faction. There’s more, but I haven’t been able to get to it all yet. This could just be the equivalent of their own propaganda.”

“Which we haven’t seen at any of the other NEIIS sites because they were abandoned. This is the first active NEIIS site we’ve ever come across,” Connor said.

“What if we just waited? Why do we need to do anything?” Anna asked.

“For Chrissake, are you serious?” Rollins said with a sneer. “We can’t just sit back here and do nothing. That thing is in there, waking up more of his own kind. You heard the general—they put their weapons with the stasis pods so they could be ready to fight when they came out.”

“What would you do then? Blow them all up?” Anna replied, her voice rising.

“Hold on a minute,” Noah said. “Connor, you said you were able to stop them from bringing the other NEIIS out of stasis. How?”

“It’s only temporary. I disabled the control console for a closed system that’s meant to monitor the stasis pods. I looked for a way to lock out the system, but I couldn’t do it,” Connor said.

Noah felt his brows pull together as he tried to think of a solution. “If it’s a closed system, it would have a designated power source. Possibly even a separate power station altogether.”

“And if you cut the power to the closed system, it would prevent Syloc from bringing all the NEIIS out of stasis at once, but if we’re wrong we could cut the power to the entire bunker, killing thousands of NEIIS,” Connor said.

Noah rubbed his forehead, feeling the pressure building as his shoulders tensed.

“I want you to do it,” Connor said. “I want you to find the power source and shut it down.”

“But what if we can’t find the right connection to sever? We’d be killing thousands of them. And these might be the last of them,” Noah replied.

“But if we’re right and this faction is as bad as we think it is, it’ll be CDF soldiers who’ll have to deal with the problem. We just finished fighting a war, and I don’t want us to have to fight another one,” Connor said.

Noah glanced at the others, and no one spoke up in protest. Noah shook his head. He wanted more time, but it didn’t look like he was going to get it.

“I can disable the power station,” Rollins said.

Noah glanced at him. “You know how NEIIS power stations work?”

“I was on the demolition team at Sanctuary when we were considering whether to put our own reactor there. I just need to find it and set a few charges,” Rollins said.

“You just happen to have heavy ordnance with you?” Noah asked, unconvinced.

Rollins smiled. “Don’t need them. Connor brought light ordnance that I can link together.” He moved both of his hands upward, mimicking an explosion.

“We just need to figure out where the lines are for the closed system,” Noah said.

“I can help with that,” Lockwood said.

Noah glanced at the young man.

“I can do it. You have the new translator, and I know how to identify an isolated system. And if I get into trouble, you’ll walk me through it,” Lockwood said.

Several loud screeches sounded from Connor’s signal, and they heard Connor grunt as if he were pulling himself up over something.

“Tell us where you are so we can come get you,” Noah said.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll get out of here. You focus on stopping—” Connor’s voice cut out.

The others began to speak, and Noah told them all to be quiet. “The others are already on their way,” Noah lied. “I’m in the Rover alone. We have recon drones scouting the area. How badly wounded are you?”

There was a heavy moment where there was just the sound of static before Connor answered. “It’s pretty bad,” he admitted, and there was a catch to his voice as if he’d experienced a sudden stabbing pain. “I’m not sure if I’m going to make it.”

Noah leaned forward and put a choke hold on his rising emotions. “Well, tell us where you are and we’ll bring a first-aid kit,” Noah said.

Connor coughed. “I don’t think a first-aid kit is gonna do it. The NEIIS have some kind of energy weapon, and part of the MPS is burned into my chest.”

Noah’s mouth went dry, and he felt his heart pounding. He called out to Connor but didn’t get a reply. There was a rise in static before the weak signal went offline.

“Can you isolate the signal?” Diaz asked.

Noah brought up the signal logs and tried to isolate the source. “It’s at the northwest side of the complex.”

Diaz nodded and climbed out of the Rover.

“Where are you going?” Noah asked.

“I’m going to get Connor. You guys take care of that power station. I don’t care if you cut the power to every fucking stasis pod in this place. Just get it done,” Diaz said and headed for the other Rover.

Noah shifted over to the driver’s seat, closed the door, and glanced behind him. “Get those charges ready,” he said to Rollins.

Noah glanced at the other Rover, longing to go with them and help rescue his friend. He’d never heard Connor in so much pain. Instead, he fed the drones’ data into the Rover’s systems, which were scanning for a power source. A target location appeared on the Rover’s HUD, so he put the Rover in drive and headed for it. The other Rover headed in a different direction, and Noah could only hope they’d reach Connor in time.

34

Connor fled the third NEIIS console he’d found after identifying the sounds of NEIIS in the corridors. They’d managed to open the door he’d locked. He realized he’d been lucky to find a different console with access to external systems, and it had been good to hear Noah’s voice. He knew they would come for him, but first they had to stop the NEIIS from being brought out of stasis. His injuries were worse than he’d thought, but if the others were to focus only on rescuing him, the whole situation could spiral beyond their control.

Connor tried to run down the corridor but kept favoring his injured side. He couldn’t increase the pain inhibitors because he needed to stay alert, but he was so damn tired of running. The events over the past few days were finally catching up with him.

He reached the end of the corridor, which only had one turn that led back to the bunker area. He saw a ramp a short distance away that led to the second floor. There weren’t that many rooms, and it wouldn’t take the NEIIS long to make a sweep of the area. By now, Syloc must’ve figured out that Connor had disabled the control console for the stasis pods. And unless Syloc was able to find another console, he’d be looking for Connor.

The NEIIS in the area weren’t trying to be quiet as Connor limped down the hallway, going as fast as he could. He’d told Noah he wasn’t sure if he was going to make it, but the moment he’d said it a fiery rage had ignited in him. He wanted the others to focus on taking out the power station, but he also didn’t want to die. He kept thinking about Lenora and their child—his daughter. She didn’t even have a name yet. His only connection to her so far was the recorded heartbeat from Lenora’s medical exam—his daughter’s heartbeat. Connor gritted his teeth and pushed forward with renewed vigor.

I’m not going to die down here.

There was a small door at the end of the corridor, and he used the controls to open it. There were rows of stasis pods nearby, and red lights flashed from the floor below. Connor made his way to the edge of the landing for a better look. He heard ryklars screeching their battle cries from below, and glancing down, he saw them ransacking the stasis pods, one after another. Several NEIIS were using their weapons to mow them down. The ryklars came at them with almost reckless abandon. Connor wondered why they didn’t use the call Syloc had used to control the ryklars, and then he realized that he couldn’t see Syloc anywhere.

Connor looked away from the battle. He had no idea how the NEIIS war had started. He just wanted to escape and prevent the colony from being pulled into the conflict. As he searched for a way out, he moved away from the fighting as fast as he could. The ryklars seemed as focused on the stasis pods as they were on the NEIIS and their weapons. The creatures threw themselves at the NEIIS as if they didn’t care whether they lived or died.

Connor searched along the wall, looking for another doorway, but he couldn’t find any. Ahead of him, he saw pale sunlight coming from above. He hopped along as he tried to run and limp at the same time, using his staff to help him balance. His staff knocked against a stasis pod, and Connor heard several NEIIS respond in the distance. He glanced behind him and saw that they were on the second level with him. They’d heard him and were heading toward him.

Connor hastened toward the light and saw that it was coming from a ventilation shaft. A ramp led up inside it, and he glanced upward. The maintenance ramp spiraled around the long shaft. He should’ve guessed they’d need to cycle the air inside the bunker, but this bunker had been sealed. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to figure it out. Somehow the ventilation shaft had become active. Cool, humid air greeted him as he began his ascent. He glanced up as he dragged himself along and saw that several parts of the ramp had broken off. He’d have to climb. The NEIIS would reach the ventilation shaft at any moment.

35

Energy, whether it came from human technology or NEIIS technology, always generated heat. The reconnaissance drones highlighted a trail of energy amid the buildings of the compound, and Noah followed that path as best he could outside the compound. According to his clock, they were nearing the middle of the day, which meant the thick early morning fog had already thinned as much as it would for the entire day. Visibility still sucked, but between the reconnaissance drones and the Rover’s scanners, he was able to find a steep path to an open courtyard inside the compound. The rugged Rover had no issues climbing or descending the overgrowth that provided the traction for Noah to get them inside. He heard the occasional complaint from Rollins, who felt a tad vindicated that his initial suspicions of Syloc had been right all along. But Noah didn’t see it that way. Rollins was closed-minded.

The reconnaissance drone was just up ahead, showing the greatest concentration of energy right below it.

“Wouldn’t the power station be located inside the main building?” Lockwood asked.

Noah brought the Rover to a stop and looked around. “Not necessarily. They used geothermal power that came from taps at Sanctuary. Those were located well below the actual settlement. If this power station is similar to that one, it wouldn’t be safe to keep it near the bunker.”

Rollins stepped out of the vehicle and Noah did the same. He circled around to the back to retrieve their weapons. They had CAR-74s and sonic hand blasters.

Rollins looked at the hand blaster with disdain. “What good is that gonna be?”

“You don’t have to take it. Better to have it and not need it though,” Noah said. He looked at Lockwood. “Just cover his back and help him out down there.”

Lockwood nodded. “I will.”

Rollins walked toward the hatch and called out over his shoulder. “Come on, lover-boy. Let’s go blow some shit up,” he said and grinned.

They walked beneath the drone and found a hatch that was partially covered with overgrowth. They tied the ends of ropes to the Rover, and then Rollins and Lockwood dropped into the hole.

Noah watched them go and looked at Anna, whose gaze lingered on the hole. “Are you all right?” he asked and then felt foolish. “You know what I mean—nothing’s all right about this—but are you?”

Anna glanced at him. “I’m fine,” she said and looked around. “Is it always so foggy here?”

“I doubt we’ll get much more visibility,” Noah said.

They walked over to the hatch.

“Touchdown. It’s about a fifty-foot drop,” Rollins said.

“Acknowledged,” Noah replied.

Noah set the reconnaissance drones to patrol mode. He hadn’t heard from Diaz but knew it would take them longer to reach where Connor was. He hoped Connor was alright. He didn’t want to be the one to bring Lenora bad news, not after everything that’d happened.

Noah checked his weapon, and the CAR-74 registered full power. He would’ve preferred his AR-71. At least that rifle could change its ammo type to one that was deadlier.

Noah looked around the courtyard and saw the vague outline of some buildings about twenty meters away. If things were different, he knew that both Lenora and Connor would’ve had a field day there. They liked studying NEIIS ruins together, although Noah had had enough of them to last a lifetime. He’d rather work toward the future than preoccupy himself with the past.

He noticed Anna peering into the gloom, her shoulders tight. She always seemed on edge. Whatever Connor had intended for her on this trip, he doubted it would help her recovery.

Rollins reactivated the comlink. “Found the power station. There are at least six mains that come together here. Lockwood thinks he’s narrowed it down to the one we want, but there’s a risk.”

Noah frowned. “What’s the risk?”

“There’s a chance that blowing one of the main lines will start a cascade effect that may spread to the others,” Rollins said.

Noah closed his eyes and shook his head. He remembered dealing with something like this with the power station at Sanctuary. The old power systems weren’t adept at handling overloads. Blowing one of the mains could overload the entire system and bring it down.

“Understood,” Noah said.

“I wasn’t asking for permission. I was just letting you know,” Rollins replied.

Noah shook his head. He didn’t really like the man any better than Diaz did.

Anna looked at him and raised her finger to her lips, urging him to be quiet. Noah walked over to her and peered in the direction she was looking.

“I think there’s something out there,” Anna whispered.

Noah quickly checked the drone feeds and didn’t see that any ryklars had been detected in their area. There was a loud boom from beneath their feet, and all the New Earth creatures around them seemed to go quiet all at once. Smoke rose from the hatch.

Noah opened a comlink to both Rollins and Lockwood. He called out to them, asking what their status was. There was no reply. Noah moved for the hatch, but Anna grabbed his arm and pulled him back toward the Rover.

“Something’s coming,” she whispered harshly. “Something big.”

They moved to the side of the Rover. Noah couldn’t see anything out in the fog. He sent an updated trajectory for the drones to return to them.

“Noah,” Lockwood said, his voice coming over the comlink. “Rollins has been hurt.”

“What happened? Are you all right?” Noah asked while trying to keep his voice as quiet as possible.

“We detonated the charges, and the overload caused a backlash. Rollins knocked me out of the way,” Lockwood said.

“Are you able to get to the ropes?” Noah asked.

“I can’t lift him. My leg is hurt. I can’t move him without help,” Lockwood said.

Noah blew out a breath. “I’ll be right there.”

Noah looked toward the hatch and saw two large creatures heading toward them through the fog. Anna stifled a gasp.

“Bring a medical kit. Rollins is bleeding, and I can’t stop it,” Lockwood said.

Noah didn’t reply. His gaze was locked on the two deadly creatures approaching them. The beasts moved on all fours with thick, muscular legs and broad, armored heads. The armored plating covered their backs in thick, crimson layers. A small animal scampered from cover and scurried away from the two predators. One of the beasts darted off after it. The remaining beast cocked its head to the side, and Noah saw that its eyes were almost entirely white.

Lockwood asked if he’d received the message, and Noah muted his comlink, but the creature swung its head toward the Rover. A savage growl rumbled deep in its massive chest.

Noah looked at Anna, whose eyes were bulging with terror. “Anna,” Noah whispered, and she looked at him. “I’m going to distract it. I want you to take the medical kit and go to the hatch.”

Anna’s chin trembled, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “They’re back... they’re back…” she muttered.

The creature puffed out a loud breath and Noah glanced at it from behind the Rover. It was almost to the hatch. The other beast roared, and there was a squeal of terror as the fleeing animal died. He looked back at Anna and remembered what Connor had told him about what she’d been through during the Vemus War. He put his arm around her shoulders. “There aren’t any Vemus here. I won’t let these creatures hurt you, but I need your help.”

Anna looked at him and shivered.

“Anna, please. Lockwood and Rollins need your help. I’ll distract these things, and when I do, I need you to go to the hatch and climb down. Can you do that for me?” Noah asked.

Anna looked at him, and Noah wasn’t sure if she was going to slip into full-on panic. Noah hardened his gaze. “He’d do it for you.”

Anna’s gaze softened in understanding. Lockwood had repeatedly tried to impress her. He’d likely volunteered to help Rollins just to get her attention.

“I didn’t ask him to,” she said.

“I know,” Noah said. He slowly stood up and reached inside the rear door of the Rover for the medical kit, which he handed to Anna. Her gaze lingered on it for a moment before she took it.

“What are you going to do?”

Noah smiled and tried to put as much confidence as he could into it. “I’m going to give those things something to chase. You stay here, and when you hear them leave, get to that hatch.”

Anna nodded and moved to the edge of the Rover’s rear bumper while Noah edged to the other side and crouched alongside the vehicle. The creature stood over the hatch about three meters from the Rover’s front bumper. A tickle formed in his throat and he fought an almost overwhelming urge to cough. The itching in his throat spread down to his chest as thick, stringy mucus seemed to form from nothing. Still fighting the urge, he brought up the controls for one of the recon drones. Only a few moments away, it flew toward them.

The creature lowered its snout to the ground, its white eyes fierce with unfocused fury. It tilted its head to the side and listened.

Noah’s eyes began to water, and he coughed. He clamped his mouth shut, trying to hold it in, but it was too late. His coughing fits were something of a running joke with his wife because once he started, he just couldn’t stop, and now it might cost him his life.

The creature stomped toward the Rover. Noah saw the drone fly into range and triggered its proximity alarm. The creature swung its armored head toward the drone, exposing gray skin beneath the plates. Noah aimed his rifle and squeezed the trigger.

Several lethal 4.1mm darts tore into the creature’s neck at two thousand meters per second, exposing pink muscle. The creature staggered away from the hatch and Noah kept firing his weapon, but the high-density darts ricocheted off the armored plating. Its roar became a whimper as Noah corrected and aimed his shots at the soft gray underbelly. The creature quivered and sank to the ground.

Anna raced from the other side of the Rover and quickly grabbed one of the ropes the others had used to climb down the shaft. She disappeared into the hole.

Noah’s sigh of relief caught in his throat as the other creature approached, snarling. A wide mouth sporting several rows of teeth came toward him as if the creature had just emerged from his worst nightmare. Noah dove to the side, and the creature tried to follow him but ended up ramming its head into the front of the Rover. The force of the blow knocked the Rover into Noah’s path and he bounced off of it. Noah tumbled to the ground and dropped his rifle. He scrambled to his feet, and the creature quickly righted itself as it tried to find him. Noah engaged the proximity alarm from the drone again and the creature spun toward it, but it seemed to change its mind and turned back in Noah’s direction. He felt the blood drain from his face. It was ignoring the alarm. His hunting rifle lay only four meters away, but it might as well have been a hundred. He didn’t have a chance at getting it. The creature charged toward him. Noah ran around the Rover and pulled out his sonic hand blaster.

The creature bolted around the corner, its massive shoulders brushing against the armored Rover, which tipped almost onto its side and then slammed back down on all six tires. Noah ran toward the hatch, hoping he could reach it before the creature got him, but he tripped over the rough terrain and went down. The creature pounded toward him and was over him in seconds. Instinctively, Noah brought his sonic hand blaster up and fired. A sonic wave burst forth and caught the creature by surprise, forcing its head to twist to the side. The creature tumbled past him, and Noah came to his feet, looking at the hand blaster in shock. The creature staggered a short distance away, shaking its head roughly as if it were disoriented. Then Noah understood. These creatures relied on superior hearing, and he saw blood draining from the creature’s ears. The sonic blaster was more effective than his hunting rifle had been. The creature couldn’t seem to get its bearings.

Noah ran to the Rover and flung open the driver’s side door. He climbed into the seat, slammed the shifter into gear, raised the accelerator to maximum, and rammed the Rover into the creature. There was a sickening crunch as the armored bumper plowed into it. Noah put the Rover in reverse, went back five meters, and then hit the creature again. The predator stopped moving and Noah blew out a long breath. His hands shook even as he gripped the steering wheel. Then he promised himself that he was never going to leave Sierra again.

A comlink opened and he answered it.

“Noah, are you okay?” Anna asked.

“I’m in one piece,” Noah said between gasps. He leaned back in the seat and just sat there for a moment, letting his breathing return to normal.

“Are those things still up there?” Anna asked.

“No, they’re gone. Give me a minute and I’ll lower the ropes back down,” Noah said.

He drove the Rover back toward the hatch and then climbed out. He retrieved his rifle and came around to the front of the Rover. The creature’s blood covered most of it. Noah gathered the rope, which was still attached to the bumper, and lowered it down the hole.

He returned to the driver’s seat and waited. Anna and Lockwood tied a harness around Rollins, and Noah backed the Rover up to raise him. Noah removed the harness from Rollins and tossed it back down the hole. Rollins was unconscious.

Noah drove the Rover back to the hatch so the rope would reach Lockwood and Anna, then hoisted them up together.

Lockwood had a healing pack wrapped around his foot, going up to his calf muscle. He glanced at the front of the Rover where parts of the armored plating had been bent inward from its impact with the creature. The young man blew out a whistle. “Nice demolition work. We should add that to the MPS test,” Lockwood said.

Noah smiled tiredly. He had the drones on a tighter patrol nearby so they would be warned if there were any more predators about. “I suspect we’re going to be modifying them a lot. Maybe build different classes of them based on usage.”

None of them were medics, and Noah did the best he could to check Rollins’ injuries. It appeared that the impact of the blast had just knocked him out. There was a puncture wound on his abdomen, which Anna had put a healing pack on to staunch the bleeding and help it heal. She then gave Rollins an injection of healing nanobots, which would check the rest of his body. It was as much of a field dressing as they could make. They carefully loaded Rollins into the back of the Rover and secured him in his seat.

Anna helped Lockwood to his feet.

“I didn’t get a chance before, but I wanted to thank you for coming down to get me,” Lockwood said.

Anna smiled. “You’d do the same for me.”

Noah climbed into the driver’s seat while Anna and Lockwood got into the Rover. There’d still been no word from Diaz or any of the others. Noah put the Rover in gear and headed to Connor’s location.

36

Sweat poured off Connor’s brow, getting into his eyes and stinging them. He was more than halfway up the ventilation shaft. The muscles in his legs burned with the effort, and his shoulders ached from leaning on the quarterstaff. He had to be careful where he stepped because the maintenance ramp had weakened. Oxidation had eroded the support structure of the ramp over time, and parts of it had fallen away, leaving open support struts spaced less than a meter apart. He hugged the wall and carefully stepped from one to the other.

The conditions that were slowing Connor down also affected the NEIIS, but they were quickly closing the distance to him, and he stayed as close to the wall of the ventilation shaft as he could so he wasn’t an easy target. He didn’t know how much of a charge their weapons contained, considering how long they’d been stored.

He caught a glimpse of Syloc looking up at him from below. Syloc must’ve figured out that Connor had removed pieces of the control console for the stasis pods. They were adversaries now and well on their way to becoming enemies. Syloc worked toward his goals with a singular purpose, and his pursuit of Connor was in line with that purpose. Connor had what Syloc needed to bring all the other NEIIS out of stasis, but Connor wasn’t about to give it up, and he had no intention of destroying it either.

Connor couldn’t tell how many other NEIIS were with Syloc. He reached another gap in the ramp and leaped to the other side, but the ramp gave way under his feet and started to dip downward. Connor threw himself forward, grabbing onto the edge of the broken ramp and pulling himself to safety. He crawled forward and regained his feet, then turned around. One of the NEIIS sprinted up the ramp after him. The nearly seven-foot-tall alien stopped at the edge of the ramp and aimed his weapon at Connor. Connor jerked backward, flinching, but the weapon never fired. The NEIIS fumbled with it and glared up at him. Growling with frustration, the NEIIS flung its weapon aside and jumped toward him. Connor quickly stepped forward and thrust out his quarterstaff, striking the NEIIS in the chest. The NEIIS howled as it fell down the long shaft to its death. Connor spun around and moved as fast as he could up the ventilation ramp. Hand-to-hand combat wasn’t his best option at this point.

Several loud screeches echoed from the base of the shaft, and Connor realized the ryklars had found them. He kept going, knowing he was near his goal. He could see the sky above and hear sounds from the outside. With the exit so close, Connor felt a surge of renewed vigor.

The top of the shaft was completely open to the outside, and moisture gathered on the walls and the ramp, making them slick. Connor reached the top and exited the shaft with little difficulty despite its condition. He sucked in a breath of fresh air, gratified to have his feet on solid ground again. He was surrounded by the foliage that had overgrown most of the buildings in the area. Much of the mist had dissipated, and the data on his internal heads-up display showed that he could see up to one hundred meters beyond the overgrowth he was currently standing in. He hoped none of those watchdogs were in the area.

Connor walked away from the ventilation shaft and stopped. The visibility that had seemed hopeful a moment before now gave him no place to hide. The nearest cover was too far away for him to get to in time, and it seemed the NEIIS would catch up to him any second. He clenched his teeth and turned back around, focusing his hard gaze on the top of the ventilation shaft as he waited for the NEIIS. He wouldn’t let them run him down like an animal. If all the layers that made Connor who he was were stripped away, at his core he would always be a soldier. He looked down at his clothes, which were torn and stained with dried blood and dirt.

The NEIIS reached the top of the shaft. Syloc climbed out first and was followed by three other NEIIS, all of whom stood over a foot taller than Connor.

Syloc regarded Connor for a moment while the others panned out to either side but didn’t come any closer. None of them aimed their weapons at him, and he couldn’t tell whether they had any power.

Connor heard the screeching of ryklars echoing from inside the shaft, sounding much closer this time. The NEIIS seemed unconcerned about the ryklars and continued to watch Connor.

Syloc took several steps toward Connor and extended his hand.

Connor knew what Syloc wanted. He planted the end of the quarterstaff in the ground in front of him and shook his head. Syloc should understand what that meant by now.

“If you want it, you’re going to have to take it from me,” Connor said.

Syloc raised his weapon and aimed it at Connor. The orb at the end snapped open, revealing a hollow stub at the end that glowed red. Then it fizzled and went out.

Connor smiled. “It doesn’t hold the charge. That’s what happens when it sits unused for who knows how long,” he said through clenched teeth.

Syloc scowled and stomped toward him, but Connor sidestepped and jabbed his fist into Syloc’s face. Connor grasped his staff with both hands and pushed the NEIIS away from him. Another NEIIS struck Connor from behind, and he was knocked to the ground.

Connor lashed out blindly with the sharp point of his staff, feeling it stick into something hard, but the NEIIS at the other end grabbed onto the staff and whirled him into the air. Connor held onto the staff and somehow landed on his feet, staggering. The jarring impact sent waves of pain through his body.

A NEIIS soldier grabbed Connor from behind while another snatched the staff out of his hands. He heard Syloc say something in the NEIIS language, and the soldier let him go. The other soldier stepped aside and Syloc came toward Connor. Syloc moved to grab him, but Connor seized Syloc’s wrist and bent his arm back toward him, then shoved him away. The pain in Connor’s side made him sway and he nearly lost his balance.

Syloc stumbled. A NEIIS soldier seized Connor’s neck from behind and forced him to his knees. Connor struggled to get up but was held in place by the powerful NEIIS.

Several ryklars pulled themselves over the edge of the ventilation shaft and ran toward them. The spotted coats on their backs had large blotches on them. Connor watched as Syloc turned toward them and howled. He recognized the ryklar call as the creatures stopped in their tracks, their wild gazes becoming subdued. Two of the NEIIS soldiers began beating the New Earth predators. The ryklars couldn’t defend themselves and whimpered with each blow. This was what the NEIIS were—malicious and cruel. Connor had killed ryklars before but always in self-defense. He never sought to maim or torture them.

“Stop!” Connor shouted.

Syloc and the others all ignored him. He tried to free himself, but the NEIIS soldier held him firmly in place. Connor watched as Syloc drew in another breath to begin the ryklar call again. Without thinking, he snatched his PDA from his belt and hurled it at Syloc. The PDA sped through the air and struck Syloc right in the throat, causing the NEIIS to let out a harsh, guttural cough as if he was struggling to breathe and couldn’t. The ryklars remained stunned for a few moments, but then the effects of the call wore off. The NEIIS that held Connor shoved him down and raced to help the other soldiers. The two remaining ryklars surged to their feet and threw themselves against the NEIIS.

From somewhere beyond the chaos in front of him, Connor heard several shots fired from CAR-74 hunting rifles. The NEIIS soldiers went down and Connor watched as the ryklars turned to slash their claws into Syloc with powerful swipes. They ripped the skin from his bones, exposing pinkish material beneath. Strips of flesh flapped back in waves like flags rippling in a high wind.

Syloc was dead before his body sank to the ground.

Connor regained his feet. The two wounded ryklars spun around, looking for more NEIIS, but there weren’t any. Connor knew his friends were out there somewhere, so he shouted, “Don’t shoot! Hold your fire!”

The spotted predators looked at Connor with something akin to intelligence in their eyes. Had they realized he was the one who’d thwarted Syloc’s call? The two ryklars were less than a meter away from him. One of the ryklars hissed at him and stepped forward, but the other ryklar blocked it. As if on cue, the two creatures turned and ran off, leaving Connor standing among the carnage.

He released the breath he’d been holding and watched them go with a mixture of stunned silence and relief. He didn’t know why they’d left him alive, but he was grateful. He looked down at Syloc’s mutilated body and felt bile creeping up his throat. That unrecognizable hunk of flesh could just as easily have been him. Connor sank to his knees, his strength leaving him. He lay back on the ground and stared up at the sky.

A few moments later, Diaz was with him. “Just what in the hell were you thinking? Those things could have killed you,” Diaz said.

Donna came to his other side. She had a medical kit with her, but her eyes widened as she looked at Connor’s wounds.

Connor wished he could say it looked worse than it felt, but he’d have been lying. He slowly blinked his eyes, fighting the urge to close them.

“Just lie still and we’ll get you patched up,” Donna said.

Connor felt something puncture his arm. A few minutes later his exhaustion lessened and so did the pain.

Diaz looked at him and shook his head. “Do you ever do anything the easy way?”

Connor swallowed. “There’s an easy way?”

Diaz grinned. “Well, you can’t be hurt too bad if you’re making jokes.” He turned toward Donna. “How bad are his injuries?”

“I’m still getting a status,” Donna said and glared at Connor. “I don’t know how you were still standing.”

“I took control of the nanobots in my system and overrode some of their protocols,” Connor said.

“You blocked your pain receptors. You could’ve died, and you probably made things much worse,” Donna said.

Connor gave her a weak smile. “Don’t tell Lenora.”

37

As it turned out, Donna didn’t have to tell Lenora anything. She had traveled with the Search and Rescue team, which had finally reached them just a little while before. She would have flown one of Sanctuary’s C-cats herself if Search and Rescue hadn’t allowed her to join them.

Connor was sitting by the Rover, trying to get comfortable. Between the healing packs and the nanobots, his skin felt itchy all over. His muscles ached and he was thirsty. Corporal Heidi Fowler of Search and Rescue was examining his injuries. Connor let her do her job, but he couldn’t help looking at Lenora while at the same time wanting to avoid her gaze. She was giving him that familiar, accusatory look that said, “How could you put yourself in danger like this again?”

Connor looked at Corporal Fowler. “So, am I gonna live?”

If Lenora had suddenly developed the power to shoot lightning bolts from her eyes, Connor would’ve been toast.

“Seriously, how bad is it?” Connor asked.

“You’re stable. The internal bleeding has stopped, but the severe burns will need to be treated at Sierra. Aside from multiple lacerations, broken bones, and possibly a concussion for good measure, I’d say you were very lucky, sir. We just need to get you to proper medical treatment,” Corporal Fowler replied.

He noticed that the corporal was addressing Lenora as much as she was him. When the medic finally went to check on the others, Lenora just watched Connor. Her expression blazed with fury and concern all wrapped up in one swirling mass that resided in her beautiful, blue-eyed gaze.

“Are you okay?” Connor asked.

Lenora’s hand fidgeted into a fist, and for a moment Connor thought she was going to hit him. “Am I okay? Really, this is what you ask me? Am I—” She hugged in exasperation. “I almost lost you again, you idiot.” Her eyes became misty, and Connor’s chest tightened. He held his hand out to her and pulled her into a firm embrace. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said.

Connor breathed in the scent of her hair. “I’m okay.”

Lenora pulled away from him and wiped her eyes. “I know. I know what happened. Noah and Diaz and the others filled me in. I know this isn’t your fault, and I’m not mad at you. I just couldn’t bear to lose you.”

Connor smiled. His facial muscles were just about the only things that didn’t hurt. “You won’t. I’m not that easy to kill.”

Lenora narrowed her gaze. Apparently she wasn’t ready for that just yet.

Connor moved as if to stand.

“You need to sit still. They’re going to bring a stretcher and lift you onto the carrier,” Lenora said.

“Like hell they are,” Connor said and rose stubbornly to his feet.

The pain medication must’ve been working because he hardly swayed on his feet at all. Diaz and Noah saw that he was standing and came over, along with the others.

The CDF squad had sent several combat drones into the bunker to do a quick sweep of the area.

“All the stasis pods are offline,” Noah said.

“Understood,” Connor said.

He looked at all of them, knowing what was on their minds. They’d just killed thousands of NEIIS who’d been in stasis—at least the ones the ryklars hadn’t destroyed.

“It had to be done,” Connor said.

Noah nodded and took a deep breath. “Maybe, but…”

“I don’t like it either. The whole thing disgusts me,” Connor said.

“What’s going to happen to us?” Lockwood asked.

“They’ll take us back to Sierra and we’ll be debriefed,” Noah said.

“I don’t think there’s anything in the colonial charter that covers this kind of situation,” Diaz said.

“You don’t think they’ll hold us accountable for all this?” Lockwood asked.

“No,” Connor said. If anyone was held accountable, it would be him, but he didn’t say it. “It was a survival situation, at least in the beginning. Then,” he said and paused for a moment, “I made a decision.”

Noah shook his head. “There’s no way I’m going to let anyone pin this whole thing on you.”

“I told you to do it,” Connor replied.

Noah returned his gaze. “The days of me obeying orders without question are long gone. I trusted you, and it was the right call. The situation with Syloc was out of control.”

Connor glanced at the others and saw mutual agreement among them. Noah had told them what happened—from blowing the main power lines to the NEIIS watchdogs that guarded the area.

“I can’t believe you snuck past those things,” Noah said.

“I didn’t have much of a choice. Syloc tricked me,” Connor said.

“Yeah, but how’d you get past them? How’d you even know they were there?” Noah asked.

Connor glanced around and saw that they were all eagerly awaiting his response. Then he grinned. “I guess I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“Now you have to tell us,” Diaz said.

“Judicious use of my nanites and implants,” Connor said.

Noah thought about it for a moment and then frowned. “But you didn’t have your PDA at the time. So what did you do?”

“I filtered out the noise and heard those things roaming the courtyard area. There was no visibility, and I figured out that they relied on their hearing to hunt their prey,” Connor said.

“Yeah, and they don’t like sonic blasters that much,” Noah said.

Connor almost couldn’t imagine Noah killing two of the NEIIS watchdogs. “If you keep this up, I’ll have to bring you on more of these camping trips to protect me.”

Noah shook his head. “No way. I’m going back to my lab at Sierra, and I’m never coming back out here again. Salvage runs off-planet might be safer.”

“I still don’t know what happens next or… about the NEIIS,” Lockwood said.

“There’re probably more bunkers out there,” Connor said.

This drew more than a few somber expressions from the others.

“Yes, but they can send other teams to go find them,” Lenora said.

There were other factions of NEIIS, and it would be difficult for them to determine what their intentions were until they actually interacted with them. Were there more strongholds like the one they’d found here with genetically enhanced NEIIS equipped to go to war?

The Search and Rescue captain came over and informed them that they would be leaving soon. The CDF was finishing its initial sweep and would be leaving the area, too.

Noah looked at Connor. “Shouldn’t someone stay here and do a more thorough check of this place?”

Connor nodded. “We will,” he said and saw Lenora watching him. “Someone will be back with a team equipped to do the analysis.”

They loaded the Rovers onto the troop carrier. With Lenora’s assistance, Connor walked up the loading ramp and managed to make it to one of the seats, which he immediately reclined, leaning back into it with a sigh. Noah sat nearby and kept looking at him.

“Your MPS saved my life, but there are a couple of things that could be improved,” Connor said.

“I figured you’d say something like that,” Noah said and leaned back in his chair.

Lenora sat next to Connor and told him to go to sleep. The flight back to Sierra would take hours, and Connor was already drifting off. The last thing he remembered before sleep overtook him was the look on Syloc’s face as the ryklars finally took their revenge.

38

Connor spent the next several days recovering at the Sierra Medical Center, which was currently run by Dr. Ashley Quinn. He knew his injuries had been severe, but he hadn’t fully comprehended the extent to which he’d been hurt. Things like broken bones could be mended in a matter of hours—the same with lacerations and internal bleeding. But severe burns could be tricky to heal. The fact that the NEIIS energy weapon had burned pieces of the MPS into Connor’s skin presented unique challenges. Essentially, the things that made the suit material effective for protecting people also made it difficult for doctors to remove it. They’d put Connor into a medically induced coma because the pain would be too much for anyone to deal with. Then powered the individual pieces of the suit and removed layers of Connor’s skin, which had to be quickly regrown. Most of the skin along his torso from the top of his chest down to his right side and around to his lower back had to be completely regenerated. He’d walked onto the troop carrier because he was numb to the pain, but by the time he’d reached Sierra, he could barely move.

Lenora snoozed on the bed next to him, but she quickly woke when Ashley came into the room.

“And how is my favorite patient today?” Ashley asked.

“Still itchy, but it’s not as bad as yesterday,” Connor replied.

Ashley nodded. “To be expected with the amount of your skin that had to be regenerated. Essentially, we had to remove both the infected and the partially healed skin, only to start all over once you arrived at Sierra. And now I need you to remove your shirt so I can have a look.”

Connor took off his shirt and looked down at his muscled chest. The new skin was still very pink and didn’t yet match his skin tone.

Ashley leaned in and peered at his chest and ribs. “You’re making excellent progress. I’m so glad Lenora was here to make sure you stayed in bed,” she said and winked at Lenora. “I know your chest looks a bit like a patchwork quilt right now, but over the next several weeks it’ll grow to resemble the rest of your body. You won’t even have any scarring.”

“Thanks for putting me back together,” Connor said.

“I’d say it was a pleasure, but I wish I didn’t have to do it quite so often in your case,” Ashley said.

Connor smiled. “I can’t make any promises.”

Lenora thanked Ashley as well.

“As soon as you get dressed, you’re free to go,” Ashley said.

Connor snorted. “Technically, not really free. They want to see us at your old stomping grounds.”

Ashley had served as the colonial governor after her husband, Tobias, had died during the Vemus War. She’d stepped down from office when his term was up, and a new governor was voted in.

“We’ll see you soon,” Lenora said, and Ashley left.

Connor arched an eyebrow at her. “We will?”

“Yes, she’s coming to look at the medical center being built at Sanctuary.”

Connor quickly dressed and they left the hospital. There was a lot of construction going on at Sierra as the city rose from the ashes. It had been almost a year since he’d been there, and Sierra was already well on its way to once again being the major metropolis it had been before the Vemus War.

“You’d think that if they wanted to meet with me, they would’ve sent us a ride,” Connor said.

Lenora grinned. “They did, along with our own military escort,” she said and gestured to the left.

There was a pair of cars waiting for them with the CDF golden sunburst emblem on the doors. The rear door of one of the vehicles opened and Sean Quinn stepped out. The CDF soldiers stood at attention and snapped a salute at Sean.

Lenora leaned in toward Connor. “You still miss it. I can tell.”

Connor smiled. “I’ll always miss it, but I’m happy to see him.”

Colonel Sean Quinn had come a long way from the rebellious youth he’d first met ten years before.

“I see they pulled out all the stops for my escort,” Connor said as Sean came closer.

Sean grinned and gave Lenora a quick hug. “I just drew the short straw is all.”

They followed Sean to the car and climbed inside. “Leave it to you to find an actual NEIIS alive. I almost couldn’t believe the report.”

“I was just as surprised as you were. Have they told the rest of the colony?” Connor asked.

“Not yet. They’re still coming up with a way to deal with it,” Sean said.

“Deal with it,” Connor repeated. “That’s one way to put it.”

“Oh, you know we’re just getting started,” Sean said.

“I thought you were being deployed to the lunar base,” Connor said.

“I was, but my orders changed. I’ll be commanding the Vigilant II for its shakedown cruise,” Sean answered.

The lunar base shipyards had been processing almost all the salvage collected throughout the star system. The Vigilant II was a heavy cruiser that had been rebuilt as part of the CDF space fleet.

“Congratulations. The ship couldn’t ask for a better commander,” Connor said.

“Thanks. This is something General Hayes has instituted among the officers, or at least a select group of senior officers. But it will be nice to have a change of scenery. I look forward to the challenge, to be honest,” Sean said.

When Connor had led the CDF, Sean served under him and had taken everything Connor had thrown at him. Connor expected that Sean would succeed Nathan Hayes as General of the CDF one day, and he couldn’t be prouder of him. He just wished Sean’s father, Tobias, was alive to see it.

A half-hour later they pulled into the offices of the governor of the colony. Sean assured Connor that this was going to be an informal meeting, but Connor had been to a number of informal meetings and knew they could have long-lasting consequences.

They went inside the building and one of the governor’s aides led them to a waiting area. Noah and Diaz were already there. Shortly after they walked in, Dash arrived with a CDF captain.

“Glenn Webb. It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” the CDF captain said.

Connor shook his hand and looked at Dash. “The next time you ask me to check out a NEIIS site for you, I might have to decline.”

Dash grinned. “We haven’t found bunkers at any of the other sites or anything that indicates the NEIIS could even create stasis pods.”

“Where have you been? Or should I say, what ‘other sites’?” Connor asked.

Dash shared a quick glance with Captain Webb. “You’re not gonna believe what we found off-world.”

Before Dash could continue, they were all ushered to the upper level, where the governor’s meeting room was. Connor glanced at Lenora, who whispered that she would tell him about it later. They entered the room, and there was a large, oval table made from a type of wood that was similar to the maple found on Earth.

An older woman stood up and walked around the table. She had curly brown hair and moved with an air of confidence. “Hello. I don’t think we’ve been introduced yet. I’m Dana Wolf,” the governor said to Connor. She then turned and greeted all of them.

“If we could all sit down, please, then we can go through the introductions,” a dark-skinned man said.

Connor took the seat directly across from the governor, and Lenora sat to his right. The others sat in open seats on either side of him, and Connor felt as if there was an invisible dividing line that ran through the middle of the polished table.

General Nathan Hayes walked in and quickly greeted Connor before going to sit at the other side of the conference table.

“I hope you’re feeling much better and are recovering from your injuries. Dr. Quinn kept me apprised of your condition,” Governor Wolf said.

“Thank you, Governor. I am feeling much better now,” Connor said.

“Good, I’m glad to hear that. I believe you know some of the people already here,” Governor Wolf said and gestured toward Nathan and Sean.

Connor nodded.

Governor Wolf made a quick introduction of her advisory team and stopped when she came to a short man with disheveled hair and a neatly trimmed beard.

The furry edges of the man’s face lifted into a knowing smile. “I’m Dr. Young. We’ve spoken over comlink.”

Connor recognized the sound of his voice. “It’s good to finally meet you in person.”

“Okay, that about does it for introductions. Bob, why don’t you take us to the next agenda item?” Governor Wolf said.

Bob Mullins was one of Governor Wolf’s advisors. “Mr. Gates, we’ve heard the testimonies of the other people involved in the events that occurred over the past few days. While some of the testimonies were rather unique, there are a few things we’d like you to confirm.”

Connor smiled inwardly. He had a couple of good guesses at who among them had given Mullins a memorable testimony. Connor could only imagine how someone like Rollins would react to being questioned by the likes of this guy. “I’ll answer any question you have for me.”

“Just so we’re on the same page, why don’t you take us through what happened and then we can go from there,” Mullins said.

For the next half hour, Connor recounted the events from when they first discovered the stasis pods to interacting with Syloc. He then moved on to how Syloc had incapacitated Noah and kidnapped Connor in order to gain access to the NEIIS stronghold.

A different advisor raised his hand. He was a bit pudgy, but he spoke in a deep baritone. “Kurt Johnson, Mr. Gates. You believe the NEIIS with the symbol of three intertwining triangles represented a military faction?”

“Yes, that’s correct. The NEIIS bunker inside the stronghold was definitely a military compound. The NEIIS in stasis were soldiers,” Connor said.

Johnson nodded. “Yeah, we saw in the other testimonies that the NEIIS had weapons containers that were part of the actual pod. Any idea why they did that?”

Connor hated these types of questions. “Why does anyone keep a weapon close by? I think those reasons are self-explanatory.”

“Fair enough. When the NEIIS known as Syloc began to exhibit unstable behavior, why didn’t you bring him back here?” Johnson asked.

“I was trying to establish trust with the NEIIS. This was based on Dr. Young’s recommendation, which I agreed with. As for the unstable behavior, there’s really no precedent for what happend. I have some personal experience with coming out of stasis and being disoriented because of it,” Connor said.

He heard Lenora snort softly next to him. She’d been on the Ark when Connor had come out of stasis. It hadn’t been pleasant. His statement drew several chuckles from the people who knew Connor best.

“Excuse me,” Dr. Young said, addressing Johnson. “The NEIIS had already responded to Connor in particular. When dealing with any person who’s been through a traumatic event, establishing trust and not restricting their movements helps open up communication. I’ve reviewed all the testimony as well and can find no fault with how Connor or any of the others who were with him handled the situation.”

Johnson glanced at Governor Wolf and shrugged.

Mullins continued. “Well, considering what happened next, something obviously went wrong. If everything had been going smoothly, we wouldn’t be where we are right now with thousands of dead bodies belonging to an intelligent alien species. So while I appreciate that the advice given was sound and these people attempted to follow it to the best of their ability, I’m still left wondering if perhaps things could have been handled differently and if those differences would’ve changed the outcome. Let me be clear. I’m not trying to blame anyone here. I’m just raising the question because we might have to deal with a situation like this again.”

“Fact,” Diaz said, “the NEIIS took advantage of us and used Connor to get what he wanted. When we wouldn’t give him what he wanted, he took it by force. That’s who we’re dealing with here.”

“Another fact,” Noah added, “is that the NEIIS exhibited a clear disdain for the rest of us who were there. Syloc only responded to Connor, and we believe that was because Connor was clearly the leader.”

Mullins looked at Connor.

“I took the lead in dealing with Syloc because of just what they said. He would primarily respond to me. I understand that it was a fragile situation given the circumstances. The NEIIS woke up and his entire world was gone,” Connor said.

“And yet you made the decision to prevent the rest of the NEIIS from coming out of stasis by removing crucial components from the NEIIS control console and ordering the people with you to take out the power station, all while knowing such action would take the stasis pods offline and murder thousands of NEIIS,” Mullins said.

Connor leveled his gaze at the man. “Have you been to the site? Did you see the stasis pods?”

“I’ve seen the reconnaissance photos of the site,” Mullins replied.

“Those were soldiers from a faction we don’t know much about other than that all the other NEIIS factions joined together to stop them. They attacked me as soon as they came out of stasis,” Connor said.

“You’re referring to the data archive that was taken by Mr. Barker,” Mullins said.

“That’s right,” Connor said.

Mullins turned toward Noah. “Why did you blow the power station? Even in your own testimony, you said you weren’t sure whether it was the right thing to do.”

“I made my own decision,” Noah replied.

“Yes, but there’s a history here. You used to serve under Mr. Gates while in the CDF, so there’s an established pattern with him as your commanding officer. Did that have anything to do with the decision to blow the power station?” Mullins asked.

“No,” Noah answered.

Mullins stared at Noah for a moment, waiting to see if he had anything else to add.

Connor looked at Governor Wolf. “I didn’t want any of this to happen, but it appears that you’re more concerned with how these events will be perceived rather than the events themselves. We’ve had to live with certain things the NEIIS have done to this planet. Take the ryklars. The NEIIS controlled them with ultrahigh-frequency signals and may have wrestled each other for control of them. Automated signals at NEIIS cities were configured to have ryklars converge on them to kill every living thing inside. There’s plenty of evidence to support that the NEIIS were not innocent. They fought wars amongst themselves, and these wars were ultimately what cost them their lives.”

“Mr. Gates,” Governor Wolf said patiently, “we’re not accusing you of anything. But when word of this gets out to the masses, these questions will be raised to this office.”

“We’re trying to get a handle on the situation,” Johnson said.

Connor drew in a deep breath. “I understand. The NEIIS in that stronghold were malicious and cruel.”

“That may not be entirely accurate,” a woman said, speaking up for the first time. “I’m Diane Crawford, Mr. Gates. I study behavioral sciences among different ethnicities. What you witnessed may have been behaviors that were perfectly natural to the NEIIS. They used the ryklars as tools—engineered them, if you will. So if you kick a chair because you’re angry, nobody thinks anything about it.”

Connor felt his jaw clench. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. If I kick a dog, the perception would be that I’m cruel. Now, if I take a dog and make it into a lethal killing machine—a tool if you will—and then I kick that tool, it’s okay then?” Connor paused for a moment. “No, that will never be okay. I don’t care who you are. It will never be okay to torture another living creature, even the ryklars.”

“I’m not condoning their actions. I’m merely saying that to the NEIIS, it isn’t cruel. I happen to agree with you, but we also have to recognize the fact that the NEIIS civilization could be significantly different than anything we’ve ever encountered before. They have their own hierarchy and set of social customs,” Dr. Crawford said.

The others were silent, and Connor quelled his rising temper. He’d seen how Syloc and the other NEIIS treated the ryklars. There was no mistaking what they thought of those creatures.

“There must be other bunkers out there,” Lenora said. “There were some that still had power, so there might be others as well. Will there be a team dedicated to looking for them?”

“We’re putting together a committee for that very purpose,” Governor Wolf said.

“Who’ll be on the committee?” Lenora asked.

“We’re reviewing candidates from multiple academic disciplines,” Governor Wolf said and looked at Connor. “I understand that this isn’t easy for you. There are differing opinions in this room about how this situation was handled, but that’s not a slight on anybody here. This is a very sensitive issue. We have to consider all sides of the argument before making a decision. I’d like to avoid a situation that has irreversible consequences, or we’ll never know who those NEIIS were.”

“Governor,” Dr. Young said before Connor could respond. “This was a survival situation. Their lives were in danger and definitely threatened. I plan to submit my own report on this, but on a high level, I don’t see how this could have ended any differently even given what we now know. People have a right to defend themselves, and I for one believe that the actions taken by these people had the colony’s best interests at heart. Most of them were former military. They’re conditioned to protect all of us. That’s one of the foundations of the CDF motto.”

Governor Wolf nodded in understanding. “Thank you, Dr. Young. I look forward to reviewing your report.”

Connor’s thoughts raced. His actions had played a significant part in the deaths of thousands of NEIIS. Even if Noah and the others hadn’t disabled the power station, Connor had lured the ryklars into the bunker. He hadn’t had time to consider the implications of his actions. They’d needed to control when and how the NEIIS came out of stasis in order to avoid further conflict. The NEIIS awakened by Syloc had all deferred to him, and Connor didn’t understand why.

Noah cleared his throat, and the governor nodded for him to speak. “This committee you’re putting together. Will it be open for anyone to join?”

Mullins leaned forward. “Like the governor said before, we’re putting together a pool of candidates.”

“You have several experts right here at this table,” Connor said.

Mullins regarded him for a moment. “I would have expected that you would want to return to Sanctuary and continue your retirement from colonial affairs. You are still the mayor.”

Apparently they didn’t want his help, Connor thought. “Fair enough,” he said.

“I’d like to move to the next agenda item, which has to do with Mr. DeWitt,” Johnson said.

Dash leaned forward and waited.

“We have the reports of the team that went to planet Sagan, but for those of you who are not aware of the mission, please give a quick review,” Mullins said.

Connor watched as Dash exchanged glances with Captain Webb, who nodded for Dash to speak.

“The salvage team found evidence of NEIIS ruins on Sagan. I was asked to go there with a salvage team to validate the claim. There were several NEIIS buildings on the planet’s surface,” Dash said.

Connor’s eyes widened. He’d had no idea Dash had even gone off-world, much less to investigate possible NEIIS buildings on another planet.

“A NEIIS settlement on Sagan?” Mullins asked.

Dash frowned. “Not exactly. The buildings, or parts of the buildings, were there. We don’t know how they got there.”

“The current theory is that the NEIIS couldn’t travel into space, so how could there be NEIIS buildings on Sagan? It’s located inside the Goldilocks zone but doesn’t have an atmosphere,” Mullins said.

“Sir, I was asked to validate that the buildings found on Sagan were of NEIIS design, and I can tell you they are. Once my report goes under peer review, there’ll be a consensus on the matter. But I’m not sure how those buildings got there,” Dash said.

Mullins tilted his head to the side. “Weren’t they built there?”

Dash shook his head. “I don’t think so. We didn’t find an actual settlement there, only the buildings themselves.”

“Ah yes, I see it here in your report,” Mullins said, gesturing to the small holoscreen in front of him. “All evidence is gone.”

Dash nodded. “Unfortunately, the site was located near an active volcanic region. The eruption destroyed the site. We collected some samples and have the scanner data that still needs to be analyzed.”

Captain Webb cleared his throat. “He’s being modest. Dash saved the lives of the salvage team at that site, including my own.”

A flush crept across Dash’s face, and he looked at Connor.

Mullins nodded. “Impressive. Thank you, Captain Webb.” He leaned back in his chair and pinched his lips together. “Dr. Bishop, Mr. DeWitt has been your student for a couple of years now. I’d be curious as to your thoughts on his preliminary findings.”

“He’s quickly becoming an authority on the NEIIS, and if he says the buildings are NEIIS-based then that’s exactly what they are,” Lenora said.

“So how do we figure out how those buildings got there? According to the report, there are four”—Mullins paused and looked at Dash—“and a half buildings. How do you have half a building?”

Dash held up his hands. “That’s what was there. It’s like somebody sliced the building in half and then tossed it on the planet.”

“Were there any construction materials or anything like that?” Mullins asked.

“We didn’t find anything, but we also didn’t have a lot of time. The site was unstable, and we were lucky to escape with our lives, to be honest, sir,” Dash said.

Connor was still trying to come to grips with the fact that there were NEIIS buildings on another planet. Questions started tumbling around in his brain, but he kept them to himself.

“I wonder if this has anything to do with the NEIIS reference to a calamity they were working to avoid or were afraid of,” Noah said.

Mullins glanced at Governor Wolf for a moment. “I’m not familiar with this. What calamity?”

“Translation of the NEIIS data archives is ongoing, but there have been some references to something they were dealing with,” Lenora began. “It appears in conjunction with the data from different factions. I’m sorry for being vague, but until we get a better understanding, I don’t want to speculate on what it could mean.”

“Can you show us an example?” Mullins asked.

Lenora activated her PDA and showed them a glowing emblem with a few wavy lines underneath it. Connor recognized it from the data Noah had extracted from one of the bunkers. Lenora showed other images where the emblem appeared above a faction reference and also alongside it.

“Interesting but hardly conclusive,” Mullins said.

“How do you propose to figure out how the NEIIS buildings ended up on another planet?” Johnson asked.

Lenora looked at Dash and nodded encouragingly.

“I’d want to bring in other experts to assist with the peer review—environmental scientists, geologists, a theoretical physicist, etcetera. Nothing like this has been found anywhere else on the planet. The ruins were only found because the salvage teams were recovering parts of Phoenix Station that had crashed onto the planet,” Dash said.

“Please continue with your research. Given the current events that have transpired, I think it will be extremely important that we understand as much as we can,” Governor Wolf said to Dash.

The meeting ended shortly after that and Connor stood outside the governor’s office building with Diaz, Noah, Dash, Sean, and Lenora.

“Anyone else think that whole thing was strange?” Diaz asked.

“I agree,” Connor said. “I kept thinking they were looking for someone to pin this whole thing on, and then they changed tactics.”

“Well, one thing is for sure,” Lenora said. “They don’t want you on that committee.”

Connor glanced at the others, who nodded in agreement. “You think I’m purposefully being excluded?”

“I think they want somebody easier to control,” Noah said.

Lenora grinned. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“It can’t be that,” Connor began, and Noah arched an eyebrow at him. “Well, it can’t be only that.”

“I’ve noticed some changes recently,” Sean said. “Governor Wolf’s campaign was all about change and growth, and we’ve seen some of that reflected in the CDF. But there’ve also been some promotions in the ranks that could be construed as politically motivated.” Sean spoke quietly and looked at Connor. “You don’t seem surprised to hear that.”

Connor shrugged. “That stuff used to happen in the NA Alliance military all the time. It’s just how the game is sometimes played, but I’m a little concerned about what it means.”

“What do you mean?” Lenora asked.

“Governments want people they can trust leading the military, and I’d bet they’re of the opinion that I may have too much influence over the CDF. Judging by the ‘informal meeting,’ I get the feeling that we were being dismissed. We happened to be involved in these events but now they want to handle it themselves, which is fine, but I have doubts about their capability of doing so,” Connor said.

Sean looked around to be sure they weren’t being overheard. “I’d be careful. You never know who could be listening in.”

“Well, committee or not, we can always do our own investigation,” Connor said.

“That’s true, but if you run into trouble it might be difficult to get support, especially if they view your efforts as being in conflict with an official investigation,” Sean said.

Connor smiled. “You’re starting to sound like a career military man.”

Sean grinned. “I was taught by the best.”

They started walking away from the building.

“What do we do now?” Dash asked.

“I’d like to hear more about what happened to you, for one. And I’d really like to go home to think about all of this and take it from there,” Connor said.

“I need to go,” Sean said, “but I’ll be around for another week before deployment, and I’ll swing by Sanctuary before I leave.” He frowned for a moment and then his eyes widened. “Oh, I almost forgot,” he continued and smiled at Connor and Lenora. “Congratulations to both of you. If you’re looking for baby name suggestions, Seana is a good name.” He grinned and walked away.

Connor chuckled. He hadn’t thought about what to name his daughter. He glanced at Lenora.

“I should get going, too. Lockwood is waiting for me at the lab,” Noah said. “Oh, not sure if you’ve heard about this yet, but Anna Gray is joining the team. She said she could help with our organizational struggles.”

Noah gave Lenora a hug and then left.

Connor glanced at Diaz. “Aren’t you going home to Victoria and the kids?”

“Of course. Actually, she’s packing our things. We’re relocating to Sanctuary,” Diaz said.

Connor smiled. “We’ll be lucky to have you.”

“There’s a shortage of Field Ops there, and I’ve also just about convinced Gibson to open a restaurant. Also,” Diaz said and glanced around, “I think you’ll need my help.”

Connor frowned. “With what?”

“With what,” Diaz repeated with a snort. “With whatever it is you’re planning to do.”

Connor glanced at Lenora and then back at Diaz. “I wasn’t planning to do anything.”

“Right,” Diaz said, sounding unconvinced.

39

For Noah’s service in the Vemus War, he’d been given resources to start his own research laboratory. He’d been involved in so many different things for the colony that he’d developed an excellent foundation to work in many fields of scientific research. The MPS was one of the first projects he’d begun that wasn’t related to the Vemus War or rebuilding the colony. Most of the other projects he’d been involved with over the years had been improving on technology that was already well established. Originally, colonial efforts had been primarily focused on military applications, and studying New Earth had been given a lower priority. But things had changed over the years, and when the chance came to him to start his own research laboratory, both he and his wife leapt at the opportunity.

He’d designed the MPS to be used by civilians, and now all he could think about was how to adapt the suit for use in more rugged environments. New Earth, for all its splendor, was just as harsh as it was beautiful.

He looked away from the holoscreen where he had a stack trace running, which was filtered to search for specific events in the lab’s computer systems. He glanced around his office. It was a comfortable and quiet place where he could work alone, but he also had the option of working in one of the more collaborative stations with the other engineers. There was no shortage of building space where his lab was located on the outskirts of Sierra, so the same option was given to any engineer or designer who was part of his research lab.

Over the past few weeks, he’d chosen to all but lock himself in his office. The other scientists at the lab gave him the space he needed, along with well-intentioned offers of support. But Noah didn’t know what he needed. He kept thinking about the NEIIS, trying to make sense of what they’d done to their world, but there were too many gaps in their knowledge.

A personal notification appeared on his holoscreen, informing him that Kara had returned to the lab. He couldn’t remember where she’d gone but knew she wouldn’t like that he’d spent almost the entire day in his office again. She was worried about him. He’d been restless. The investigation into the NEIIS stronghold was still ongoing. Most of the stasis pods held enhanced soldiers, but not all of them.

Over the past few weeks, he’d kept going back over what had happened, trying to find something he could have done differently. If he’d stayed with Connor in that bunker, perhaps Syloc never would’ve made it to the stronghold, and all those NEIIS would still be alive today.

News of those events had circulated throughout the colony. To the governor’s credit, their reports hadn’t specified any wrongdoing by anyone involved; however, that in no way inhibited wide speculation on the part of the colonists. Some colonists conveyed their outrage with the actions Noah had been a part of, while others inquired about his well-being. He suspected Connor and the others were receiving similar treatment. These things were troubling, but Noah was fairly well equipped to deal with the criticism being thrown around. Lockwood and Anna, however, were quite young to be dealing with it. He tried to shield them from the brunt of it as best he could.

With all the attention coming his way, Noah had decided to do some checking of his own computer systems and had found something to rouse his suspicions that he was being monitored.

The door to his office opened, and Kara walked in. Her long dark hair was tied back, and she smiled at him. “Have you been in here all day?”

“I wasn’t planning on it. Actually, I’ve been thinking about... a lot of stuff,” Noah said.

“Tommy asked me to tell you that he’s made those improvements to the MPS interface you asked for,” Kara said.

Noah pursed his lips and nodded. “Good,” he said and glanced at his holoscreen.

“Noah,” Kara said in that tone she used when she wanted his full attention, “I know it’s only been a few weeks, and now that the report is out, it must seem like it’s happening all over again. But all this attention will die down. You have to remember that.”

She put her hand on his shoulder and rubbed it tenderly.

“I know, and interestingly enough it hasn’t affected people’s interest in the MPS. If anything, it was a validation of how effective they could be. We haven’t even finalized production of them and people are lining up,” Noah said.

Kara smiled and clapped her hands. “That’s great news. I’m so happy. All our hard work is paying off.” She paused for a moment and arched an eyebrow at him. “Geez, take a moment and be happy about what you’ve accomplished.”

“I am. Believe me, I am. But it wasn’t enough,” Noah said.

“No one who wore the MPS died. It did its job and exceeded its use parameters. The suits weren’t meant to be taken into battle,” Kara said.

Noah’s brows rose. “You’re right, but they could be. I didn’t design them for that, but I’ve been working on a couple of things in here.”

He expanded the size of his holoscreen and brought up some of the MPS design concepts he’d been working on.

Kara peered at the different versions of the suits on the holoscreen. “You’ve weaponized some of them. Civilians don’t have a need for that.”

“I wasn’t thinking of civilians when I was working on them,” Noah said, his brow furrowed.

Kara crossed her arms in front of her chest and regarded Noah for a moment. “I thought you weren’t consulting with the CDF anymore.”

Noah sighed. “I wasn’t thinking of them either, at least not really, and after what I just found… here, let me show you.”

Noah brought up a command window that displayed the status of the trace he’d been running. “Someone is trying to spy on what we’re doing.”

Kara looked at the trace he’d been running on their computer systems and frowned. “Do you know who’s doing this?”

“Not yet. They’ve covered their tracks pretty well—buried them in public systems accessible by anyone. I have a few guesses though, none of which I like to think about.”

“Have you told anyone else about this?”

“You’re the first, and I’ve only just found this today, but it’s got me thinking. Who else could they be watching, and why would they be watching us?”

“Well, now that you’ve identified it, you can put a filter in there to see what kind of information they’re after,” Kara said.

Noah smiled. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. I don’t want to alert them that I know what they’re doing, especially since I don’t know who they are yet. But I thought it might be time for us to take a little trip.”

Kara arched an eyebrow. “A trip? To where?”

“Well, we were already talking about establishing a research lab at Delphi, but I also want to start one at Sanctuary. They have a tech base now to accommodate the population growth they’ve been seeing, and I think more and more people will be relocating to Sanctuary. Diaz and his family moved there last week,” Noah said.

Kara frowned in thought. “You want to leave Sierra?”

Noah shook his head. “No, of course not, but I don’t want to be limited to working just here. I know things are quiet now, but this is New Earth, and things are never quiet for very long.”

40

Cleared of any wrongdoing.

Connor read the official statement from Governor Wolf, available through the colonial newsfeed network. He tried not to read too much into the language but couldn’t help it. He doubted that Dana Wolf had written the actual statement and said so to Lenora.

“Who do you think wrote it?”

“Probably someone on her senior staff. Mullins or Johnson. Probably Johnson. He’s a slippery one,” Connor said.

His wounds had all healed, and there wasn’t any scarring, just as Ashley had assured him. They were walking outside, and it was a beautiful, clear day. A tender breeze tugged at the ends of Lenora’s long, silky hair.

“Where are we going?” Lenora asked.

“I wanted to show you something I’ve been working on,” Connor said.

They walked along a path away from the populated areas of Sanctuary. Lenora arched an eyebrow at him. “Away from prying eyes?”

She’d asked the question as a joke, but Connor bobbed his head to the side for a moment.

“I heard from Noah this morning. He and Kara are coming to visit next week,” Lenora said.

“I spoke to him, too. This is going to be more than visiting. He’s looking to start a field lab here.”

“Oh, is that what this place we’re going to is going to be?” Lenora asked.

“It could be. I’m going to show it to Noah when he arrives, but this is one of my side projects,” Connor said.

They continued on and eventually came to a few prefab warehouse units that had recently been constructed.

“You’ve been busy. When did you have time to do all this?” Lenora asked.

“I had help.”

He walked over to the main door, sending his credentials via his implants to unlock it. Inside, there were work benches and designated areas in various stages of installation. “I’ve been coming here for a few hours each day since we got back from Sierra.”

Lenora looked around and saw several CDF weapons containers locked away. She turned toward him. “What’s going on?”

“We keep exploring farther away from colonial cities, which has the risk of waiting for a delayed response from Field Ops or even CDF ground forces. We need to be better equipped for those types of things,” Connor said.

“I agree with you, but military assault rifles? And are those combat suit containers? Where did those come from?” Lenora asked.

“Sean made them available on permanent loan. I also allocated some industrial printer resources to makes parts for smaller printers that are going to be moved here. We’ll use them for creating what we need.”

Lenora’s eyebrows pulled together. “And what is it you think we need?”

Connor pressed his lips together for a moment. “I’m tired of not being prepared to deal with what’s out there. This is twice now we’ve gotten caught with our pants down.”

“You couldn’t have known what would happen,” Lenora said.

“If it weren’t for field-testing Noah’s MPS, I wouldn’t be alive. That’s too close for comfort,” Connor said and drew in a deep breath. “Look at it this way. We’re still going to continue with our work regardless of what this new committee in Sierra is doing.”

“Of course,” Lenora agreed.

“And I’m going to see to it that we’re better equipped for what we need to do. Also, this committee is going to attempt to become the go-between for anything NEIIS related,” Connor said.

“They’ll try, but it will be hard for them to really enforce anything,” Lenora replied.

Connor nodded. “But they could still make things difficult. Sierra used to have the monopoly on equipment and resources, which is why I’m working toward making Sanctuary more independent.”

“I know, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s these things that worry me,” Lenora said and gestured toward the weapons crates. “What’s next? Are you going to create an offshoot of the CDF here?”

Connor shook his head. “No, I’m going to see to it that the Field Ops station here gets a much-needed upgrade of the equipment they use, and maybe we’ll build some new things as well. Here’s what worries me. We’ve been reactionary to these events. First, it was a latent ryklar broadcast signal at the city sites that put us in danger, and now we’ve found actual NEIIS in stasis pods. There have got to be more bunkers out there, which are the key to understanding what happened to this world.” He stopped for a few seconds and looked at Lenora, trying to figure out what she was thinking.

“We know the NEIIS fought each other, and then there was the recent ice age," Lenora said. "Though it was quick compared to global timescales, even we would struggle to survive the ice age that impacted this world. The bunkers could have been created as a way for the NEIIS to survive it.”

Connor nodded. “Agreed. It seems like the most logical scenario.”

Lenora waited for him to continue.

“Unless there’s something else we haven’t discovered yet.”

Lenora smiled. “There it is, at last. The great unknown. The threat lurking in the shadows.”

Connor regarded her for a moment. “You think I’m overreacting?”

Lenora shook her head. “No, I agree that we need to keep going out into the field and learn all we can about the NEIIS. I’ve always said that.”

Connor tried to hide his relief. He’d thought she’d think he was being an alarmist.

Lenora wasn’t fooled. “Did I surprise you?”

“A little bit,” Connor admitted.

“What else then?”

“Well, Dash’s journey to Sagan for one. He was adamant about what he saw there,” Connor said.

“I’m not sure what to think about that. They’re sending another scientific team to study the planet. I don’t have a reasonable explanation for how those buildings ended up there,” Lenora said.

“Me either. People wage war for all kinds of reasons—competing ideologies, resources, history of conflict—but I want to know why the NEIIS fought each other. And what led them to do what they did to the ryklars? Even the berwolves weren’t immune from their influence. Why were they able to do all those things but weren’t able to leave the planet?” Connor said.

Lenora shrugged. “Our own history follows a similar path. Scientists were experimenting for hundreds of years before we ever conceived of a space program. But it does seem that the NEIIS developed certain technologies over others.”

“Yeah, and I want to understand the need that drove the NEIIS to do those things. I think if we can do that, everything else about New Earth will become clear,” Connor said.

“And you think we need the things hidden in this warehouse to answer those questions?” Lenora asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why hide them out here?”

“I had an interesting chat with Noah a few days ago. He’s found evidence of someone spying on his work,” Connor said.

Lenora frowned. “Who would be spying on him?”

“He hasn’t been able to confirm that, but I wouldn’t put it past someone like Mullins or Johnson,” Connor answered.

“From the governor’s office? But why?”

“I don’t know, to be honest. I feel like any speculation on that would be premature. But someone feels they need to keep an eye on us,” Connor said.

Lenora smiled. “It’s just you and me here, and I know you have an opinion.”

“It was what Sean said a few weeks ago that got me thinking. He said something about the governor’s office trying to influence the promotion of senior officers in the CDF. That kind of activity isn’t unheard of, but it could be a power grab so they can increase their influence. If that’s what they’re doing, they’re worried about maintaining control of the colony. I keep wondering what Tobias would’ve done if he were alive,” Connor said.

“I doubt he would’ve spied on anyone, but I see your point. I just don’t know what it means.”

Connor had been thinking about it almost as much as he’d been thinking about the NEIIS. Noah had given him a way to check the computer systems in his mayoral offices for hidden subroutines of data exfiltration, but he hadn’t found anything.

“Neither do I. I just want to be better equipped to deal with what we’re going to find out there because I don’t care what the committee decides to do; I’m still going to look for more bunkers. We need to find the bunkers of the other NEIIS factions,” Connor said.

“And here I thought I was going to have to convince you to go,” Lenora said.

Connor frowned and then smiled. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I may have a few sites in mind that we should go check out. We could hold off for a little while so we can take some of this new equipment you want to build first,” Lenora said.

“We won’t have to wait as long as you think. Like I said, I had help, and there are a few more people I can bring into the fold,” Connor said.

“Alright, so what do you want to work on first?” Lenora asked and pushed up her sleeves.

Connor smiled. He hadn’t been sure how Lenora would react to his little side project. He hadn’t liked keeping it a secret from her, but it had been necessary.

There was no rush for them to go back out into the field. They could take it slowly and be better prepared. Connor just hoped that the division starting to form among the colonial centers wouldn’t devolve into a full-on break. They were stronger if they stuck together. He didn’t want to lose faith in that, and he hoped the colonial officials in Sierra remembered that as well.

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About the Author

Ken Lozito is the author of multiple science fiction and fantasy series. I’ve been reading both genres for a long time. Books were my way to escape everyday life of a teenager to my current ripe old(?) age. What started out as a love of stories has turned into a full-blown passion for writing them. My ultimate intent for writing stories is to provide fun escapism for readers. I write stories that I would like to read and I hope you enjoy them as well.

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First Colony - Discovery

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