CHAPTER 1

LAYLA WINCED AT THE FINAL BLOW.

She stood against the wall in a corner of the room, arms folded, curiosity and amusement reflected in her gray eyes as she watched the rookie go at it. Aboard the Ark, hovering aimlessly in space, there was very little to do for entertainment but she’d learned fairly quickly that she could find some entertainment in watching Rex drill the rookies aboard the Ark.

Rex, ex-Commander of the Gearhearts, seeing as his rank in the elite military force was a thing of the past following the invasion by Bellum’s forces, stood in the center of the room, watching with a slightly disappointed look on his face as the rookies around him sparred with one another, training in groups of two. Among the sparring soldiers, a couple were Gearhearts, cybernetically enhanced soldiers operating beyond peak human capacity, but these were rookies and so they were incapable of doing much to Rex. The rest were Augmenters, soldiers who donned battlesuits that enhanced them sufficiently enough that they could go toe-to-toe with some Gearhearts. There were five groups in total. In seats lining the walls of the room, higher-rank soldiers watched the training exercise, whispering and chuckling amongst themselves, placing bets on the rookies. There was no money aboard the Ark nor use for it, so the stakes would be rations. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever they wished to put on the line.

One of the rookies, a Gearheart, one of two other Gearhearts aboard the Ark along with Rex, took a wild swing at his sparring partner then, an Augmenter, missed his mark, staggered off balance and the next instant, had his face planted in the ground. In response to this, Rex sighed, shaking his head slightly, strands of his dark brown hair falling in front of his face and over his brown eyes.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Rex spoke calmly and coolly but with the sort of authority that brought immediate silence to the room. He stepped forward and offered a hand to the rookie who’d been faceplanted, helping the boy to his feet. Jace, Layla thought the boy’s name was. Although there was every possibility that Jace was one of the other rookies. She found it pretty hard to remember their names.

Where she stood, she raised one eyebrow, curious to see how Rex would speak to the rookies this time. Last time she’d watched one of the training sessions, only three days ago, he’d gone pretty hard on them and had worsened morale aboard the Ark rather significantly. Hopefully, this would be much less brutal.

“Jace,” Rex spoke, addressing the rookie he’d just helped up, confirming that that indeed was the boy’s name. The rookie in question, a thin yet athletically built, broad-shouldered, seventeen-year-old with hair the color of snow. He had olive skin although Layla, like the others aboard the ship knew fully well it wasn’t regular skin. Most of it was synthetic, layered over cybernetic enhancements that gave Jace enhanced strength and durability. The only thing that made it fairly evident that the boy was enhanced was that he had different-colored eyes: one blue and the other red, and whenever the red eye moved in its socket, a low whirring sound could be heard.

“Do you know why you lost that fight?”

Jace shrugged and looked to the rookie he’d sparred with. A brown-skinned, brown-haired girl who was rather broad and muscular. She had a smug smirk on her face at the moment.

“She’s stronger than me?” Jace suggested. “She’s sporting a heavily enhanced battlesuit, strength and speed advantage’s evident. Not to mention, she’s been training longer than I have.”

“So you think then that if you were up against someone with lesser enhancements that you’d win?” Rex asked, keeping his voice calm and cool.

The higher rank soldiers sniggered then. Jace shrugged in response to Rex’s query. “I would, wouldn’t I?”

“How about someone with no enhancements at all?” Rex asked, his eyes darting in Layla’s direction as he posed the question. “Do you think you’d do a lot better against a regular? Your metal against their flesh and muscle? No battlesuit, no cybernetics…you think you’d win then?”

To this, Jace sniggered. “They wouldn’t stand a chance,” he replied.

“Alright, good,” Rex said, then turned to the other rookies and gestured for them to back up, to give them space. The rookies obliged. Rex turned his attention back to Jace. “Care to put that to the test then?” he asked.

“What?” Jace frowned. “I’m not fighting you, you’re enhanced too.”

“Not me, no.” Rex smiled, shaking his head. “Miss Matthews, if you would be so kind as to please step forward.”

All eyes in the room moved toward Layla then. She saw the higher ranks speak excitedly amongst themselves, knew new bets were being placed. She expected the bulk of those bets would be against her.

She looked to Rex, who was beckoning her forward. She shook her head. “Uh, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“It’s fairly simple, this duel,” Rex spoke. “Not a full out fight. It’s just to see who hits the ground first.”

“You’re joking.” Jace snorted. “I can’t fight her, she could get hurt.”

“Layla?” Rex asked, looking to her invitingly.

With a sigh, Layla moved away from the wall and toward Rex and Jace. “Fine,” she said, her reluctance evident in her tone. “Let’s get this over with.”

Once she’d reached, Rex gave them both nods and then backed away, indicating they could start by flashing a thumbs up. As soon as he did so, Jace had lunged, grunting as he did.

He took a swipe at Layla but Layla was quick, managing to duck beneath the blow, then quickly leaping backward just as Jace attempted to charge her down. She landed roughly, staggering slightly but remaining on her feet. It’d been ages since she’d been in proper combat scenario and what she recalled of combat, she recalled rather vaguely.

But vague memory was all she needed here.

Jace went at her again, this time throwing three rapid blows in quick succession. She knew a single one of those blows would have been enough to knock her out if it hit the right spot, so she was careful, remaining light and quick on her feet, dodging between the blows. With each missed attack, Jace became more aggressive, more determined. He became more reckless.

After only a few minutes, he lunged again. This time, however, she didn’t dodge. Instead, she planted her feet against the ground, shifted slightly. She dodged his strike and then, using his momentum and weight against him, sent him flipping.

A moment later, he hit the ground hard and face first. The other rookies gasped, the higher ranks looked stone-faced.

Layla drew heavy breaths, wiping sweat off her forehead.

She offered Jace a hand to help him up and, with a sheepish look on his face, he accepted. As he got to his feet, he dusted himself off and then muttered: “Thanks.”

She patted him on the back, then looked to Rex who dismissed her with a nod and a look that indicated he was impressed with her. She returned to her position by the wall, watched as Rex addressed all of the rookies now, not just Jace.

“Balance over strength,” Rex said. “It doesn’t matter how hard you can hit or how fast you can move, without balance, your greatest strengths can be used against you. Stop, think, pause…calculate, study your opponent’s movements, memorize their patterns, their flaws, monitor their momentum. All of these give you your best possible chance at victory. If you rush into battle wild, you’re rushing to an early death.

“And look, I know some of you think this is a waste of time. I’ve heard you speak amongst yourselves. You wonder why you’re training for a fight that’s already been lost. But our fight is far from over. We’re still within reach of Bellum’s forces and were they to find us, would we not have to fight for our lives? This ship won’t go on forever. Eventually, we’ll have to make one of two decisions. To go back to Earth, put our lives on the line for what’s left…or to do something a little crazier. Whichever of those happens to be the case, the only way we’ll stand a chance at survival is because of what you’re doing here right now, what you’re learning. All of this matters. It has to. Otherwise, nothing you’ve been through will have meant anything at all.”

He gave the soldiers all a nod then to indicate that he was done and all at once, they straightened, pounding their fists against their chests in salute, before marching out of the room in perfect synchronization, leaving Rex behind with Layla.

As soon as they were gone, Rex turned to Layla, smiling. “So?” He held his hands out wide. “How’d I do this time?”

“Better,” Layla answered, moving to Rex, the two of them plopping down in one of the recently vacated seats. “They’re not going to be spending the rest of the day moping or groaning this time, that’s for sure. But do you believe any of what you said? Or was that just for the morale?”

“What part of that wouldn’t I believe?”

“Dunno.” Layla shrugged. “That we still have something to fight for? That this isn’t over? That we didn’t lose?”

“Do you think we lost?” Rex asked, glancing at Layla, raising one eyebrow over the other.

“Dang died in the attack, he—,”

“We don’t know that he died,” Rex said quickly, cutting her off before she could go any further. “We lost his signal. For all we know, he might have made the jump, might be in some other world now, following through with the mission.”

“Even if that were the case, he’d be alone. The mission was never that. It was supposed to be us, together, taking the fight to Bellum and his forces, putting an end to his madness once and for all.”

“Who’s to say he’s alone?” Rex asked. “And even if he were, you really think that’d change anything for him? We’ve seen, both of us, just how far he’s willing to go for what he believes is right. Not to mention, he’s got a way with getting everyone’s head clear, focused…wherever he is, strongly doubt he’s all on his own. If I had to guess? Right now, I’d say he’s amassed an army already bound for Bellum’s front door, all ready to kick it in, gung-ho and blasters blazing.”

Layla chuckled. “Sounds like Dang.”

Rex took Layla’s hand in his then, squeezed firmly. “He’s alive,” he said reassuringly. “Trust me. Take more than a braindead monster and some explosion to neutralize someone like him.”

“Yeah, I know,” Layla sighed, nodding to herself. “But what about us?”

“Now that’s a different case entirely,” Rex replied, letting go of Layla’s hand and rising to his feet. Hands at his waist, he turned to face her. “Say, have you spoken to Charles lately? See what he’s been doing?”

A frown spread across Layla’s face then. “No, what’s wrong?”

“Been screwing around with the Drill, moving cables around and whatnot, redirecting power from certain sectors of the Ark. Seems to believe he can get it functional enough to warp us elsewhere.”

“Without the Outpost?” Layla asked, raising one eyebrow over the other. Prior to their emergency evacuation following Bellum’s attack, a second part of the Ark had been sent out for the sole purpose of gathering data. But something had gone wrong with it, and the past month had been spent searching for it, albeit in futility. “Without the Outpost, that Drill doesn’t function as intended, using it could disintegrate everyone aboard the ship.”

“It’s been a month, Layla.” Rex sighed. “The boys are talking amongst themselves, tired of waiting up here, of being on the sidelines. They’d sooner rather return to Earth and throw their lives away trying to do something meaningful against Bellum than just remain up here, floating around the void, waiting for Bellum’s scout ships to find us. If Charles thinks he can make the Drill work, I say maybe we let him try.”

“So you agree with him then?”

“I think that we’re sitting ducks,” Rex corrected. “And Layla, in case you weren’t aware, ducks don’t belong in space. We need to do something and we need to do it quick. At the end of it all, it’s your ship, your crew…it’s your call. I just hope you’ll make the right one. We can return to Earth and go out in a blaze of glory, or we can go with Charles’s crazy idea.”

“You think it’ll work?” Layla asked. “Charles’s idea with the Drill.”

“I don’t know,” Rex admitted. “Sounds to me like a longshot and we’d be betting quite a lot on it, our lives even. But then again, all of Charles’s ideas have been just like that, and I don’t think we’d have gotten anywhere close to this far without him on board. Make of that what you will.”

Layla sighed and shook her head. “You have no intention of making this an easy decision for me, do you?”

Rex smirked. “No, I do n—,” he trailed then, expression suddenly darkening. He turned his neck oddly, diverted his eyes upward.

Layla’s heart dropped a little. “Rex? What’s wrong?”

“Do you feel that?” he asked.

She waited a moment, wondering what was going on. And then she felt the sudden chill run down her spine, producing an involuntary shiver. Suddenly, she felt incredibly cold, almost to her insides. She got to her feet then, exhaled, was surprised to see her breath condense in front of her.

“That’s not good,” she spoke grimly, eyes wide with fear.

As soon as the words left her mouth, the lights in the room—and on the rest of the ship—suddenly turned an ominous red, and a blaring filled the air. Above the blaring came a voice, a robotic one: “WARNING! Heating systems offline! Backup systems starting, ten minutes until critical.”

“The fuck does that mean?” Rex demanded.

“Means the backups will keep us alive ten minutes more. And then we’re popsicles,” Layla replied, making her way out of the room.

“Can you get the systems back up in ten minutes?” Rex queried.

“We’re about to find out.”

***

The maintenance room hummed with the low-frequency thrum of the ship’s systems. Tubes ran along panels and the walls, pulsing light blue, supplying power to the rest of the ship. In sections, she could see where Charles must have diverted some power for his work with the Drill. She wondered what sectors he’d diverted power from, studying the modules and the blinking lights on them. Had his work with the Drill somehow tripped the wires and caused the heaters to go offline?

With a sigh, she shook that thought out of her head. She could ask him about it once she’d saved everyone aboard the ship from freezing.

She moved quickly through the room, found the thermal core module and dropped in front of it. She pointed her wrist toward it, the face of her silver watch facing the thermal core. The watch blinked once, then twice, and then it transformed, moving silkily across her hand, its shape shifting and only a few seconds later, it’d transformed into a scavBot.

She wasn’t the biggest fan of nanotech, but she couldn’t deny that it had its uses. As if understanding the situation, the scavBot immediately scanned the thermal core module and cast a holographic projection of it at once, detailing the module’s internals. Highlighted in red in the hologram was a section of the module, the sight of which made Layla feel a little more at ease.

“Help me get this open,” she said to the bot in her hand, which beeped at her and immediately morphed into a suitable enough wrench. She got started immediately, very quickly getting open a panel on the back of the module, revealing the intricate network of pulsing cables within it.

She inhaled deeply, and then got to work.

On a different day, perhaps in the comforts of her lab back on Earth, she could have built an entirely new module from scratch in ten minutes. Now however, aboard the Ark and with a clock ticking toward impending doom, she found her work moved by slowly, her hands moving about rather clumsily, panicky. Still, at the eighth-minute mark, she’d finished with the module and all that was left was a simple restart.

She restarted the module, waited and watched to see how long it would be till it powered back on. It took only a few seconds, after which the blaring alarms atop the ship went quiet. She breathed a sigh of relief and dropped to the ground, backing away from the module, the bot morphing back into a watch around her wrist, beeping gently as it did.

“Thanks buddy,” she said to the bot. “Couldn’t have done that without you.”

The watch made a chirping sound this time.

She took a minute to catch her breath, after which she slid the panel back into place, feeling a lot more comfortable now that warmth had returned to the ship. She made her way in the direction of the maintenance room’s exit.

She was halfway to the exit when Charles suddenly barged in, eyes all frantic.

She froze at the sight of him.

He’d gotten leaner in the month since they’d left Earth behind. His hair was rough now, falling all around his face, his eyes sunken and exhausted-looking. On the lower half of his face, he sported an ill-considered beard. Now, he was clad in his arksuit, like the rest of them were, but with a white coat donned over it.

“Layla!” he said. “We need to—.”

“Are you out of your mind? You tripped the wires and—,”

“Layla, they’re on us,” Charles announced, going straight to the point. “The alarms that went off, ark’s programmed to send out distress signals when the alarms are triggered.”

“Shit,” Layla cursed under her breath. “They picked up on the signals. How close are they?”

In response to her question, the lights suddenly flickered then, the ship rumbling ever so slightly, the grim expression on Charles’s face confirming to her the answer she dreaded.

They were already here.

***

The Ark was not built for battle. Sure, Layla had designed a fairly intelligent weapons targeting system, proton shields and an automated firing system, and it sported some rapid-fire turrets and flares, but all of that was stuff she’d only thrown in as an afterthought. This meant that maneuvering around the enemy ships and returning their fire wasn’t exactly the smoothest thing in the world, and it was made even more annoying by the fact that the weapons systems constantly needed to cooldown, which meant they were going extended periods at a time receiving fire. For now, the photon shield was holding up, but she could see on the monitors in front of her that it wouldn’t be much longer until Bellum’s forces managed to break through the shield.

“How many battle pods does this thing have?” Rex demanded as he barged into the Ark’s command center, walking straight for Layla, staring at the monitors and at the enemy forces highlighted on them as fast-moving red blips. He’d changed from the regular arksuit into a battlesuit fitted perfectly to his form, pulsing lines running along the suit. Standard Gearheart issue.

“Five pods, they can take two each,” Layla answered. “But the weapons system on them are a lot more rudimentary than the Ark’s, targeting’s manual.”

“Good,” Rex growled. “Open up a path to the pods.”

He turned and made his way out of the command room, emerging back onto main deck where the soldiers waited, all of them appearing primed for battle. “We’ve got five pods,” he announced. “Two man each. I ride alone. I want eight of you on the remaining four pods, the rest of you stay on the Ark in case it’s breached.” He pointed immediately to eight soldiers, last of which was Jace. “Let’s go,” he said to them. “We head for the pods.”

Jace’s eyes went wide for a moment, as if surprised he’d been chosen to go along. He blinked hard, shook his head and nodded in Rex’s direction, performing their military salute, the others all following suit. Together, they headed for the battle stations and were halfway there when Layla’s voice came through their integrated comms.

“We’ve got sixteen bogeys,” she announced. “Twenty before, but I’ve managed to get rid of four. You guys are going to be under a lot of heat in those pods.”

“Heat we can take,” Rex responded. And then to his soldiers, he said: “Our mission’s simple. We try to divert fire away from the Ark, have it concentrated on us. Move quick, hit hard, take them down before they get a chance to take us down. You lads all manage to survive this and you can have half my rations for the next month.”

“Hear, hear, captain!” the others roared, their excitement evident in their voices.

Jace partnered with Sydney, the two of them going for a pod together. As they prepared to climb in, Syd shot him a look and grinned. “Feeling ready for this?” she asked. “Technically our first fight…and in space, no less. You know how many Gearhearts’ would have killed for a chance like this?”

“Cosmic wars and space battles.” Jace chuckled. “World’s come a long way from nuclear wars and authoritarian governments.”

“You wanna take the wheels or the guns?” Syd asked, as the pod’s hatch doors slid open for them.

“Wheels,” Jace answered. “Not gonna get a lot of chances to pilot a spacecraft.”

“Let’s move,” Syd said.

They climbed into the pod simultaneously, Jace taking control of the craft, flipping a few switches, glancing around as lights powered on and the consoles blinked into life. Two sticks in front of him were the controls. “Just like playing a video game,” he murmured, grabbing a hold of the sticks.

Next to him, Syd started to fire up the weapons systems, examining the buttons in front of her so she knew what each of them did.

“Cool, we’ve got lasers!”

“They do too,” Jace reminded her, as the pod suddenly fell free from the Ark, the craft ejected into the void of space along with the other battle pods. Almost as soon as they did, photon blasts sailed harmlessly over their pod, Jace’s eyes widening. Immediately, he swerved the sticks, steering the pod away from the Ark and luring the fire away from it.

“They’re getting straight to business, huh?!” Syd roared, in wild excitement. Jace glanced to her to find her eyes were gleaming, lips curled into an insane smile. “Well, let’s give them a taste of their own medicine!”

“Careful,” Rex’s voice came through the comms, cautioning them. “They’ve got better tech and weaponry than us on those pods of theirs. Don’t get cocky.”

Syd rolled her eyes. “Here we go,” she said, and proceeded to unleash a hail of fire in the direction of the enemy pods.

Jace leaned forward in his seat, eyes narrowing with focus as he memorized the enemy positions, scanning their pods for weaknesses. In a matter of seconds, vulnerabilities on their pods were highlighted to him.

“Say,” Jace began, addressing the other soldiers over the comms. “Any of you want to make this fun? I say we keep count, start a leaderboard. Assuming the commander’s up for a fair bit of competition, that is.”

Over the comms, Rex chuckled. “Game on.”

Jace steered the pod forward at once, going full thrust in the direction of the enemy pods. Syd continued to unleash hell, a manic grin on her face as she did. Two enemy pods went down to Syd’s fire, making her scream in excitement.

“Amateurs,” Rex muttered, just before weaving his pod through five enemy pods, all five pods going up in flames the next instant. “Say, Rookie, what’s the leaderboard say now?”

The battle went on another half hour, photon blasts hurtling through space, pods moving side to side and circling around to avoid fire. By the time the half hour elapsed, the enemy pods had been taken care of, and Rex topped the leaderboard with seven pods destroyed, Jace and Syd some distance behind him with four

“That’s that,” Rex said and though Jace couldn’t see him, he knew the commander must have been grinning. “Back to the Ark, fellas.”

All of their pods turned around, ready to return to the Ark but just as soon as they did, a dark expression spread across his Jace’s face, his scanners having flashed a warning. As soon as the warning popped up in his HUD, his eyes went wide.

“Scatter!” he yelled, steering their pod sharply to the left just as a supercharged laser beam shot out of nothingness, right at the spot where their pod had been. Other similar beams sprung forth from the void of space, aimed at the other pods. His warning had sufficed, and most of the pods had managed to steer clear of the sudden blasts.

Rex’s though had been caught in it, and Jace watched in horror as the commander’s thrusters were blown off, smoke billowing from the pod’s rear as it spun some distance away from them.

“Shit,” Rex cursed over the comms, just as a whole new horde of enemy pods materialized. More than twenty enemy pods, all armed to the teeth.

“They were cloaked,” Jace said, gritting his teeth.

“That’s not good,” Syd said, her wild smile faded now for a grim, near hopeless expression. “Shit.”

“Don’t stop moving!” Rex ordered, just as the enemy pods fired up their laser cannons again.

At once, Jace and the other soldiers took flight, zipping around as laser beam after laser beam ripped through space, shooting toward them. Jace circled around one beam, spun the pod around and watched as Syd let loose some flares. Four enemy pods went down.

He continued like this, keeping the pod zipping around, making it rather difficult for the enemy pods to get a lock on them, and the others did the same, only attacking from the enemy’s blindside. Soon, there were only ten enemy pods left, and whichever bots or maniacs were piloting these pods knew exactly what they were doing since Jace found it hard to maneuver around them, his pod having a few close brushes.

But while the enemy pods had focused entirely on the mobile battlepods, they’d forgotten entirely about Rex’s crippled ship.

Rex sought to use that.

“Get them in my line of sight,” he said through the comms. “Line them up. I’ll take a shot, make light work of them.”

Jace exchanged looks with Syd. The two of them exchanged nods. “On it,” he responded.

He steered the pod around, went straight at the remaining enemy pods, hurtling right into their midst, eyes focused as he did.

“Uhm, Jace, what are you doing?” Syd asked fearfully.

As he approached, the pods opened fire. He maneuvered around the laser blasts, wove his way through the pods, Syd unleashing flares as they went past. One pod went down, the others spun around, went in pursuit of Jace, just as he’d intended.

As he went on, he continued to dodge enemy fire, careful to not have their thrusters blown up too. And then, he shot right in Rex’s direction, gripping the control sticks firmly as he approached. He shot right past Rex’s crippled ship. The remaining 9 pods followed.

“Yippee-kai-yay, assholes,” Rex growled, and unleashed a powerful laser blast from his ship. The blast shot straight through five of the remaining 9 pods, reducing them to nothing but pieces of scrap metal. The four pods left halted at once then, their attentions drawn from Jace now and toward Rex. Clearly, they were annoyed at having fallen for the trap.

“Uh-oh,” came Rex’s voice.

The enemy pods fired up their cannons but before they’d let blasts loose, Jace and the other soldiers opened fire, blasting the pods apart immediately.

“Relax, commander,” Jace spoke smugly. “We got your back. Oh, and you might also want to take another look at the leaderboard.”

“At ease, rookie,” Rex responded, chuckling. “At ease.”

“I wouldn’t celebrate just yet,” Charles’s voice interrupted the moment over the comms. “We’ve got more incoming, we need the rest of you to return to the Ark, we’re going to get out of here.”

“What do you mean get out of here?”

“They’re sending battlers after us next,” Charles responded. “Those’ve got more ammunition than our pods and the Ark together. We’re still here when they arrive, we’re dead. We’re firing up the Drill.”

“I thought that was dangerous?” Jace asked. “You said there was a 43% chance of success.”

“62% now,” Charles replied. “Lot higher than our chances of survival if we stay to fight.”

“But the commander,” Jace said. “His ship’s grounded. Can you pull him in?”

Silence followed.

“Alright, boys,” Rex said after a moment, with a tone of resignation. “Go on then, get out of here. I’ll keep the battlers busy when they arrive.”

“Not a chance, commander,” said one of the other soldiers. “We’re not leaving a man behind.”

“That’s an order, Steve,” Rex’s voice came again, firm and fierce this time. “Get out of here. Now.”

More silence followed.

And then one after the other, the other pods started to fly toward the Ark, zipping past Jace and Syd. But Jace remained there, a hesitant expression on his face as he stared at Rex’s pod. The thrusters were cooked and in any other situation, attempting to move the pod would have been near impossible. But they were in space, the pod was essentially weightless here. All he needed was momentum, some propulsion.

“Jace, you heard me. Get out of here.”

Jace rose to his feet then, glancing to Syd. “Take the wheel, get to the Ark.”

“Woah, what the hell are you doing?”

“Layla, are you there?” Jace queried. “Ms. Matthews?”

“I’m here,” Layla’s voice came, low, almost empty. “What is it?”

“How long would you estimate I’d be able to last out in space? Outside of containment.”

There was some silence. Back on the Ark, Layla exchanged looks with Charles, who was standing next to her at the controls, looking just as grim as she did. The soldiers were returning now, all looking just as grim and confused as they emerged from their pods back onto the Ark.

“The hell’s the rookie trying to pull?” one demanded.

“By my calculations, Jace, in conditions like that, you’d have about three minutes before you freeze over. Five minutes at the max.”

“That’s good enough,” Jace responded. “I’m ejecting. I’m going to give the commander’s ship a push.”

“Like hell you are,” Rex spoke. “You heard my orders, goddamnit! Get the hell out—,”

“Disconnecting from comms now,” Jace said, pushing against his left ear and disabling his comms, muting the commander’s retorts. He glanced to Syd. “Get me to Rex.”

Despite her evident reluctance, Syd obliged, steering them closer to Rex’s pod, at which point Jace ejected from theirs. As soon as he ejected, his HUD went a little haywire, and a timer in the upper right corner of his field of view showed how much time he had left. Layla had been bang on with her calculations.

Four minutes and twenty seconds.

He activated the propellers in his feet, had to immediately dial down the propulsion force after sailing past Rex’s ship. It took him a half minute to get used to steering himself in space, at which point he flew to the rear of Rex’s pod and grabbed on with both hands. He looked in the direction of the Ark.

It was coming closer.

“Thank you, Layla,” he said. “Charles, prep up the drill now. On our way.”

“Godspeed, Jace.”

Jace activated the propellers again and just as he’d expected, they started to move, getting closer to the nearing Ark. The timer continued to tick down as layers of frost started to spread across his body, his HUD blinking at him.

But he continued nonetheless, gritting his teeth as he continued to get closer and closer to the Ark.

“Wait,” Syd said, back on the Ark now, watching along with everyone else. “How’s he going to get back in? The pods latch on, they don’t fly all the way in. There’ll be no way for him to get inside.”

No one answered.

With a minute to spare, Jace got the pod back to the Ark—a hissing sound coming as the pod reattached to the Ark.

He reactivated his comms then. “Commander’s back aboard.”

“Jace,” Layla’s voice came through the comms.

“I know, I know, no need to sound all grim,” Jace said, turning around. From where he hovered, he could see the Earth in all of its glory, the golden glow of the sun bathing him. “But no better place to go out than here, right? I mean look at the view…understand why I couldn’t let the commander have this to himself?”

“Will he make it if he’s holding on to the ship when the Drill is used?” he heard Layla ask.

There was some hesitation before Charles responded. “I don’t know.” And then after a few seconds, “There’s a chance it could work…but there’s also a pretty high risk of the two Ds.”

Disintegration or Displacement, Jace thought.

“Jace,” Layla called again.

“Yeah, yeah, I heard the crazy scientist,” Jace said, sighing as he moved to the top of the Ark, grabbing on to it. “Alright, I’m holding on. Here’s to hoping it’s not disintegration.”

“Alright,” Charles said, drawing a deep breath as he grabbed onto the lever for firing up the Drill. “Here we go.”

He pulled the lever all the way down.

The entire ship pulsed with startling blue light, the same light engulfing Jace, forming an aura around him, wisps of it floating from his skin.

It was beautiful, he thought.

And then came the white light.

Then nothing.