Arrokoth.

  It was the shining jewel of science in the Kuiper Belt, and, realistically, in all of the outer rim of the Solar System. Housing roughly four hundred of the best and brightest that humanity had to offer, it was a hub for learning, knowledge, research, and development. The merged stone of the asteroid was coated in a thick red dusting of tholins, so it was also an ample hunting ground for top-notch samples of the material.

  Arrokoth was known as a sort of golden goose on a scientist’s resume. Having worked there nearly ensured that, supposing there was no dishonorable conduct, one could assume a job in their research field at any of the five prestigious Stellar-League institutions and their satellites anywhere in the system. The research that took place on Arrokoth had led to significant advancements in fertilizers, biomechanics, and even the understanding of how life in the universe came to be. Any scientist who was anybody knew about Arrokoth, even if they didn’t have the clearances – yet – to understand what exactly went on there.

  It was said that the strangely-formed rock was formed when two stellar satellites collided with each other in the early days of the Solar System, when many of the planets and planetoids were still molten hot. It was quite a sight; back in the days of the Hubble and James Webb telescopes, it was, at the time, the oldest object spotted in the system. And here, as they hovered above it, just out of range of close range radar, engines silent, signature down, Allister stared down at the magnificent structures of steel alloy and titanium that jutted off of the ancient stone. It was a testament to human kind’s ability to persevere, to humanity’s ingenuity, to the tenacity and headstrong nature of the species. To construct a place of learning upon one of the elder most objects in the system – it seemed there was nothing humanity couldn’t do, then.

  Allister stared at her one-time home and chewed on her thumbnail, lost in thought. She had had friends here, companions. Sergei. Itomi. She shuddered, and pushed the thought aside, her eyes blankly watching the planetoid below from the empty cockpit. From here, she could see the dome of the gardens, the telescope center, and the landing pads.

  A hand planted on her shoulder, making her gasp and flinch. She spun around, eyes wide, and locked her gaze with Yu’s. Yu offered her a small smile, and Allister seemed to settle a bit, before her gaze fell.

  “You okay?” Yu asked.

  She shook her head. “No. I’m not.”

  Yu chewed on her cheek for a minute, before casting an understanding gaze at Allister. “You know, you might consider talking to Shishone. I don’t know too much about his history, but he was there on Ceres, he might have some kind of consolation. I understand you lost someone important to you on MK2.”

  Nodding slowly, Allister said, “I know Shishone was there. You’re right, I… should talk to him.”

  “You should,” she said, squeezing Allister’s shoulder comfortingly. “We have about twenty minutes before we head down there. I can tell him to come in here. If you’d like, of course.”

  Allister looked at her with glossy eyes, and absently nodded. “Yes please.”

  “Okay,” said Yu, who then turned and headed out of the cockpit. Allister turned back to the window, staring out into the reaches beyond. This was, at one time, her home. She couldn’t see it the same anymore. Not after all she’d been through, and all she now knew.

  Within moments, the cockpit door opened again, and in stepped Shishone, his hair matted and greasy, his eyes tired and dark, his posture slouched. The man clearly needed rest. Still, he offered a kind, if weary smile, and said, “Hey Doctor. You doing okay? Yu mentioned you wanted to talk.”

  He made his way to the third, center seat in the cockpit, motioning for Allister to sit as well. She did so in the copilot’s seat, and swiveled to face him. They stared at each other for a minute, both desperately in need of showers and rest. Their mutual gaze was tired, worn.

  For a moment, neither said a word. Shishone could read on Allister that she had been burnt to the wick, and could easily empathize. Eventually, he sighed and said, “You’re not taking any of this well.”

  “How could I?” she snapped, a sneer on her face. “My whole team died, Itomi… she…”

  “I’ve lost people close to me, too.” Shishone sat back, and stared out of the cockpit window, a glaze washing over his eyes as memories flooded back. “And I blamed myself for it too.”

  Allister looked up at him. “On Ceres.”

  He sucked his lips in and nodded. “On Ceres. And I was there for the Battle of Pallas as well. I lost a lot of good men. Good friends, in those battles.”

  “How?” she asked.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  She continued, “How did you deal with it? What kept you going?”

  “The fact that if I didn’t keep pushing, keep going, keep fighting for the mission, then their deaths could’ve meant nothing. The fact that I had people who were counting on me, not just in war, but at home. The fact that I knew, I knew I was strong enough to make their sacrifices worth it – and you are too,” he said. Allister let her sight fall, but Shishone bent down and locked eyes with her. “Hey, hey, look at me. You have to keep going. Even if you are the last human in the whole universe, you have to keep going, if only because of the people who depend and depended on you. Ok? There are always reasons to keep going.”

  Allister watched him for a moment, before rubbing her eyes and her face, and hiding herself behind her hair. “I just don’t understand. Why would Xiao do that?”

  Shishone coughed. “Xiao isn’t right, from what I understand. He’s losing it.”

  “But why?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s a lot I don’t understand right now. But what I do know is that we need to keep pushing. We have to get down there, and we have to let TerraGov know what is happening here. For us, for your friend, for everyone out here. We have to.”

  Shishone reached out and lightly tapped her knee. “We might not know each other very well, but we’re all we’ve got. And that’s… something, at least.”

  She nodded and slumped a bit. “Thank you, Corporal.”

  “Of course. Now go get suited up. There’s one more in the back there, a fresh suit Yu managed to requisition on MK2. It’s white, an old lab suit, so hopefully we can get in without too much struggle.”

  Finally, she looked up to him and smiled slightly, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “Thanks.”

  Then, she stood and shuffled out of the cockpit. Shishone watched her go, a blank expression on his face, and once the door sealed behind her, he turned back and stared out into the reaches of space, thinking of Tay, Penelopi, and home.

  For some reason, his gut felt knotted.

  “Alright, is everyone ready?” Shishone asked over the shortwave.

  Yu, who sat beside him in the copilot’s chair, nodded and gave a thumbs up. Yarns and Allister were in the back of the gunship, amongst the provisions and drop seats.

  Over the radio, Yarns said, “Ready as can be I guess.”

  Then, Allister said, meekly, “Yes. I’m ready.”

  “Okay, hailing Arrokoth now,” Shishone said, flipping the switch on the radio and turning on the friend-or-foe transponder. “Arrokoth flight control, this is Captain Brandon Cullers of the TGGS Harbinger, carrying a special package. Requesting permission to dock at private port zero-three, over?”

  Port zero-three was the private pad of the head science team – Allister’s team – and would set them down close to the telescopic transponder.

  Over the radio, the response came: “TGGS Harbinger, you’re not on our logs. What is your business here?”

  Shishone looked at Yu, who nodded encouragingly. He said, “Arrokoth, we’re here with a specialized package from the Dysnomia Admin Zone, orders of Commander Xiao himself. Object is classified, over.”

  “Transmit orders?”

  “Can’t do that Arrokoth,” Shishone said, starting to sweat a little. “TS.”

  “TS?” came the reply. “We’re on high alert, as you likely know. Let me check something before I clear you.”

  The line went silent, and Shishone turned to Yu, clear panic starting to form in his eyes. “What do we do?” he asked.

  She thought for a moment, idly stroking her hair, before saying, “I have an idea. Sit tight.”

  She pulled out her PDA. On it, she opened her document creator, and drafted, swiftly, a memo from herself, as herself, ordering Arrokoth to accept the Harbinger on behalf of Xiao. She had to move swiftly – she didn’t have the luxury of time, as every minute that ticked by was one more minute of suspicion for Arrokoth flight control.

  After adding the regulation classification markings to the short memo, she went into her correspondent application and beamed the memo to Arrokoth’s flight control tower. Then, she turned to Shishone and explained what she’d done, adding, “Tell them you just contacted me and I sent the memo off. Hurry.”

  He nodded, and activated the radio again. “Arrokoth flight control, this is the Harbinger. I’ve just contacted Director Solarum, she should’ve sent you a memo authorizing us to land on the Commander’s behalf. Did you receive it, over?”

  There was a moment of static, before a reply came. “Copy Harbinger. Memo received and acknowledged. You’re clear to land on the pad. Over.”

  Shishone breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Any small hint of suspicion and they’d be locked out of Arrokoth. Worse, they’d be marked as a target on their F-or-F signature, and their whole cover would be blown. It felt like a boulder had been lifted from his chest and, from the way Yu was finally breathing, it seemed she felt the same.

  “Alright everyone,” she said over the shortwave, “helmets on, we’re going in.”

  With that, Shishone fired up the thrusters, and started their descent. The Harbinger rolled lazily in the inky darkness, its thrusters glowing blue the only sign of it in the black, and slowly it began to fall upon the shining science base on Arrokoth. Gently, the ship descended, creeping closer and closer to the small landing pad atop one of the bulkier parts of the base, where, near it, was a large dome that housed the transponder. Shishone put his helmet on, and Yu did the same, and the ship soon came to a careful landing on the magnetic surface of the pad, which sunk down, much like it did on MK2, and engulfed them in the base.

  Soon, they were in a small hangar area that housed one other ship, a small NRT ship that the science team often used to scuttle around the Kuiper Belt. Shishone left the ship on the pad and parked it, turning off its engines and popping open the back hatch, before he and Yu went into the back.

  There, they met with Yarns and Allister, where they exchanged a readiness check one last time.

  Allister was fidgeting nervously in her seat, and Yarns was pacing. Shishone looked to Yu. She too seemed nervous. It felt like things were coming to a head for all of them. Shishone, feeling the tension in the air, activated his shortwave. Something in his brain, some old piece from when he was an officer, clicked on. Seeing the nerves of the people he considered under his wing, he said, in an attempt to calm them, “Alright everyone. We know the plan. Allister, you fall in behind me, and use your PDA to get us through Arrokoth to the transponder. Yarns, you take rear, and Yu, you stay with the ship. If anything goes wrong, start it up and have it warm for us. In, then out, got it?”

  Allister chimed in, her voice weak from her nerves, and said, “There’s someone I need to see first.”

  Shishone shot her a look of surprise. “Who?”

  “An old friend. He’ll help us, I’m sure of it.”

  “Do we need help?” Yarns asked, looking at both of them through his visor.

  “A better question,” Shishone said, “is do we have time to find more help. We can’t be here for too long. All it would take is one slip up and our cover is blown.”

  Allister frowned and shook her head. “I want to find him.”

  “Do you know where he is?” Shishone asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t. But I can find him.”

  Allister pulled up her PDA and started tapping on it, clearly searching for a signal from her friend. After a second of searching, she said, “Found him. He’s in the recreation room of our dormitories, pretty close to us. I think we can grab him really quick.”

  Shishone stared at her for a moment, thinking about her mental state and their timing. She had been through an incredible amount in the past two months – hell, they all had – and this could be her last chance to see her friend, supposing things went wrong. And, well, any help was better than no help. With a sigh, he shook his head softly, and said, “Alright, we’ll hit the rec room first. Grab your friend. And then we hit the transponder, get a signal off, and run.”

  Something in Allister’s eyes lit up for the first time since Shishone and Yarns had rescued her, some kind of gratitude and life. “Thank you Corporal, thank you so much,” she said.

  He waved his hand. “C’mon. We need to get moving. Yu, stay here, keep the ship on lockdown. Nobody but us gets aboard.”

  “Heard,” she said, heading for the cockpit.

  He nodded, and then waved for Yarns and Allister to follow him, and in a single file line, Shishone up front, Allister in the middle, and Yarns in the back, they slipped off the ship. As they did, Yarns noticed they weren’t taking their rifles, and so the only arms they had were two sidearm pistols, one on Shishone’s hip, one on his own.

  “Is it a good idea to just have pistols?” he asked.

  Shishone turned around and nodded. “Rifles would raise suspicion, moreso than we already have. Bad idea. Let’s just hope that nothing goes wrong.”

  Yarns swallowed his fears. His stomach began to churn. “Okay…”

  They entered the small hanger, and Allister pointed them north, where a door sat in the metal wall. She pressed her PDA to it, and it opened, registering her credentials. Shishone poked his head into the hallway beyond, and found it clear, and so waved them on behind him. They began their way through the halls of the science center, passing doors and labs and guards that were wandering the halls in pairs. That made Shishone’s stomach churn. The presence of guards on Arrokoth was, at least he assumed, unusually high. It seemed there was one or two around every corner.

  Over the shortwave, he asked Allister about this as they made their way to the recreational dayroom. “Are there usually this many security officers here?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’ve never seen it like this before. They must be on some kind of lockdown.”

  He thought back to his brief conversation with the flight tower. This must’ve been what “high alert” meant. Instinctively, he opened and closed his fist repeatedly next to his sidearm. Just in case.

  Soon, though, they made it to the dayroom, with little questioning and resistance. Stepping into the room, Shishone looked around and found it to be spacious, set up in a square, with an elevated ring circling the sunken square in the middle with glass. Couches and TV’s and game stations all sat in the center. It was, thankfully, relatively empty, with no more than three people here. One watched TV, one was playing a game, and the other was reading a book on the couch. Allister tapped Shishone’s shoulder and pointed to the man reading the book.

  He was a large man, with a bald head and close beard, stocky and muscled. He wore a white jumpsuit and sat with his feet up on the couch, legs crossed. He looked up at them as they approached, and so did the other two, all eyes on Shishone. As they stood over him, Allister said over the shortwave, “This is Sergei.”

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  Shishone nodded and said, “Sergei?”

  “Who wants to know?” asked the man, casting Shishone a wary glance and shifting uneasily.

  Allister stepped forward and leaned down, activating her helmet’s microphone. “Sergei,” she said softly. “It’s me.”

  The man’s eyes widened and he sat up straight, leaning closer to her. Whispering, he said, “Allister? What the hell? Where have you been?”

  “I can’t explain right now,” she said. “We need you to come with us. Please. It’s urgent.”

  He blinked, clearly lost, and shook his head. “I don’t understand. You’ve been missing for months, how… where were you?”

  Shishone stepped in. “We don’t have time. Will you help us?”

  “Ah, I, yes, I – what’s going on though?”

  “There’s no time,” Allister said, offering him her hand. Shishone watched her, and through her visor, he could barely make out, finally, a hint of joy in her eyes.

  Sergei took her hand and stood with her help, dusting himself off and setting his book down on the table beside the couch. “I’ll help,” he said. “But with what?”

  “We’ll explain on the way,” Shishone said. “C’mon. We need to get to the radio transponder.”

  He turned and motioned for them to follow. He took point, and Sergei and Allister filled the middle, with Yarns in the rear. They hurried out of the dayroom, leaving the other two men staring at each other with confusion and whispers.

  As they walked, Allister and Sergei spoke with each other in hushed tones.

  “What is this about Allister?” he asked, looking around for any eavesdroppers.

  She did the same, and then whispered, “Xiao has lost it. It’s really bad, Sergei. It’s really, really bad.”

  “Where is Itomi?” he asked.

  Allister froze for a moment, her eyes wiping blank and glossy. Thankfully, though, Yarns put a gentle hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze, waking her back to the reality of the situation, and she began moving before too much space was put between them and Shishone. Sergei noticed and cocked his head.

  “Allister?”

  She shuddered. “She… didn’t make it.”

  His eyes widened. “Oh, by God. I see.”

  Allister nodded quietly.

  Sergei watched her for a moment as they turned the corner into another hall. Then, he said, “So what is the plan here?”

  She sighed, and looked around for listeners-in and, satisfied that there were none, despite the patrols they’d been passing, she said, “We’re going to try and get a link to TerraGov for reinforcements. Xiao has bombardment munitions at his command. There’s a lot you don’t know. There’s a lot I didn’t know.”

  “Bombardment?”

  “Plasma warheads.”

  His jaw dropped agape. “P-Plasma? What for?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’d rather not find out though.”

  A serious, grave expression befell his face. “Did he do this to you, Allister? Is he the reason you’ve been missing?”

  She stared at him for a moment, and then slowly nodded. “Yes.”

  His fists clenched into white knuckles. “I see.”

  “Allister,” Shishone said. “We’re coming up on the transponder, right?”

  She looked forward, and then checked her PDA. “Yes, it’s right around this corner,” she said, motioning to the left turn ahead of them. “There’s going to be a security checkpoint before it though, and it’ll probably be staffed. What’s your plan?”

  “You’re my plan,” he said, looking back at her. “Just go with it.”

  Unease crept into her veins like ice, but, feeling helpless, she merely slumped down and continued walking.

  They rounded the corner, and found themselves face to face with a security checkpoint guarding a large set of double sliding doors that led to the transponder. Here, two soldiers in black security armor approached them, and the one in front held her hand out.

  “Stop,” she said, and they did. “Name and business.”

  “Captain Brandon Cullers,” Shishone said, “and I’m here with Doctor McCullinay. We need to send a signal off to the Commander urgently.”

  “One moment,” said the guard, pulling out her PDA. She motioned for Shishone to hold out his hand, and he did so, so that she could check his biometric identity. Her PDA pinged, and on it came up the identity for Brandon Cullers, Captain of the fifteenth special operations squadron. Satisfied, she nodded.

  “Sir,” she said with a salute, before turning to Allister, who’s face was obscured by her helmet. “Ma’am. You’re cleared to enter.”

  They stepped aside, and Shishone and Allister both breathed a sigh of relief. He motioned for them to follow, and the four of them stepped passed the security point and up to the doors. Here, Allister scanned her PDA, and they slid open, allowing them into the transponder’s hub.

  The room was large, bulbous, as though they were inside a giant metal cyst on Arrokoth’s surface. Screens lined the walls at the midpoint, and chairs, all filled with people in white jumpsuits, lined the walls before great switchboards and panels and control desks with multiple toggles and buttons on them. Bright white lights lined the bright white walls, and everything here seemed clinically placed and lighted. The chatter in the room died immediately as they entered, and all eyes were on them.

  Someone who Shishone assumed was the head of operations for the transponder approached them, a short man with long gray hair and a portly belly. He looked up at Shishone, then looked to the rest of the group, and said, “And who might you be?”

  “Captain Brandon Cullers,” he said. “I’m here with Doctor McCullinay. We need to use your systems to send a message to Commander Xiao. It’s urgent.”

  The man eyed them with clear suspicion, raising an eyebrow at them. “Doctor. You’ve been missed.”

  She stepped up, catching the eyes of Shishone and Yarns, who watched carefully. “I was away on a specialized research mission,” she lied.

  Pondering that, the man crossed his arms, and then said, “Well, as you likely know, we’re on high alert, so we can’t just let anyone use our systems. But we can take a message for you.”

  Shishone shook his head. “No. We need to send this off ourselves. It’s classified information.”

  Carefully, the man looked Shishone over. “I need to see some paperwork for that.”

  Shishone’s hand hovered near his pistol, clenching and unclenching, and for a moment, he pondered threatening the man. But, reading this, Allister chimed in. “Sir,” she said, “if we can’t get this off to the Commander soon, it could have catastrophic consequences for our research here. Arrokoth’s continuation depends on us getting this message directly to his desk. Please.”

  Shishone eyed her with surprise. Her boldness had caught him off guard, but its effectiveness couldn’t be questioned. Allister had more wit than her demeanor would let on. The man stared at her for a second, and then sighed, and said, “Alright. But please be swift about it. We have a lot of information passing through here and we need all the broadband we can get.”

  She nodded, and looked to Shishone, waving him on. Still sitting in his surprise, he nodded approvingly to her, and they followed her as she followed the foreman to a desk at the far end of the transponder hub. There, he sat them down and said, “Five minutes max.”

  He turned and left, ordering the rest of his crew to get back to work and to stop staring. They did so, and a low murmur returned to the bulb as chatter flowed in and out of the hub. Shishone leaned in to Allister, who sat at the desk, and said, “That was quick thinking.”

  She shrugged. “I know how to get my way around this place.”

  She tapped at the console, pulling up the directory on the holoscreen before her. There were linking options for several locations within the Belt, but she ignored them and instead used her credentials to access restricted linking options, one of which included the TerraGov Relay Station orbiting Neptune. She selected this option, and after doing so, the option to record and transmit a message appeared. Leaning the microphone jutting off the desk toward her helmet, she selected the option to record.

  Quietly, she said, “Direct message for TerraGov Command. Urgent. This is Allister McCullinay, head researcher on Arrokoth. Commander Xiao of the Kuiper Belt has gone rogue. People are dying out here. On MK2, the production facilities are going offline. People are dying. Repeat, people are dying. Requesting emergency assistance and investigation by TerraGov. Please. Message will be set to repeat.”

  She looked at Shishone once she was done recording, and he leaned in. “Sounds good,” he said. “Go ahead and send it.”

  Swallowing, she turned back to the holoscreen, and pressed ‘send’. A small loading bar appeared, jumping from 1%, to 5%, to 20%, and so on… and so on…

  But when it had nearly closed the gap, it froze. For a minute they watched it, waiting with bated breath. “What’s going on?” Shishone asked.

  Allister shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said, watching the screen. “It should send.”

  Sergei leaned in now, with Yarns looking over his shoulder. “What’s happening?”

  She looked at him. “It’s stuck.”

  Just then, the lights flickered, and then fell dark. The chatter in the hub died, and an eerie silence befell the place. The four of them looked to each other, then around the room, then back to the screen. The loading bar, still frozen, blinked, and then the holoscreen itself died.

  “What the fuck?” Shishone muttered. “Allister?”

  She looked to him with fear in her eyes. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

  The screens along the wall all blipped black, and the chatter returned to the hub, this time more tense, more worried. People began to whisper to each other, and all eyes started to fall on them. Shishone looked back at them, and then turned to Yarns, and said, “Hand near your pistol. Keep it there.”

  Yarns nodded and placed his hand on his sidearm, feeling the tension in his muscles, his bones.

  Then, the screens all blinked to life in the darkened room, and on them, Commander Xiao stared down at them like an angry giant. He looked tired, with bags under his eyes, dark circles too, and thinning hair. Still, there was a harshness in his dark, almost black eyes, and a stern frown on his face. He wore his Commander’s uniform, with ribbons on his chest and rank on his shoulders.

  Scowling, he said, “I had a feeling you would try something. I’ve been tracking movement across the Belt of one ‘Captain Cullers’. It may shock you to know that he was sent home seven months ago due to psychosis. Your movements haven’t gone unnoticed. But I must say, Allister, your tenacity has surprised me. I didn’t expect you to still be with us.”

  The four of them stared up at Xiao, speechless. Allister stammered, trying to speak, but the words choked up her throat. Shishone sneered, and finally said, “Xiao. What’s going on?”

  “Commander Xiao,” he barked. “I am still in charge of the Belt, and you are all still my subordinates. I demand, command respect.”

  “You killed my squadmates,” Shishone snapped.

  “There is more to this than you know!” Xiao grimaced, and leaned forward on his desk with his palms. “What arrogance! What hubris! To assume you could possibly know what is in the works here.”

  “I don’t care what’s in the works,” Shishone said. “You’re a murderer.”

  “I am an arbiter,” he said. “I am the future, the hope of mankind. I know impossible things, and can make them possible. Much thanks to your research, Doctor.”

  Allister stared up at him, mouth agape. “My research?”

  “Oh yes, Doctor McCullinay. Your research has been instrumental to unlocking secrets of the universe, of life itself! And I will be damned, and so will you all, should I be impeded. I cannot let your message go through. There will be no help coming from TerraGov. It is just us out here now, just you, and me. And I am the one with the power here.”

  Xiao leaned back and grinned. There was a glimmer in his eye, some sparkling wrongness. “Shame it’s come to this. Surrender yourselves. There’s no point in running. I’ve already flagged the Harbinger as foe, and each of your ‘identities’ has been exposed. You’ll find no safe harbor in the Kuiper Belt now, and you have nowhere to go. Surrender, and let come what may. Fighting is pointless now.”

  Shishone sneered. “I’ve had it with this nonsense.”

  He pulled out his pistol, and systematically shot each of the screens on the wall, the gunshots ringing out loudly, echoing through the chamber. The communications workers began to scream and panic, flooding the doors to the chamber in an attempt to escape. Though the screens were shot out, Xiao’s voice continued to flood the room.

  “Useless,” he said. “I hereby sentence you all to death. Fight if you will. It’s useless anyway.”

  “C’mon,” Shishone said, watching the crowd. “We need to go.”

  He helped Allister out of the chair, and pushed her and Yarns to the doors, as he and Sergei followed. They mingled with the crowd, who tried to avoid them, but couldn’t due to the small exit. As they all rushed out into the hallway, the security guards rushed into the room and, lost in the crowd, they narrowly avoided them.

  Out in the hallway once more, Shishone, pistol in hand, called over the shortwave, “Yu! Warm the engines, we need to go!”

  “What happened?” she called back. “The whole base is lighting up on my PDA. What did you do?”

  “I’ll explain later, just start the engines!”

  Then, he turned to the other three, and said, “Allister, you fall in behind us. Yarns, take point with me. Sergei, pull the rear, keep an eye out for anything and anyone. Got it?”

  They all nodded in agreement, and fell out in formation, starting their way through the belly of the Arrokoth Science Station. They broke into a jog, hurrying past several patrols that were rushing to the transponder hub. For a moment, it seemed the distraction would be enough to get them to the ship safely, and off-planet. But then, Xiao’s voice came over the intercoms.

  “Attention all security personnel. Be on alert for fugitives. Corporal Joshua Shishone, Doctor Allister McCullinay, Corporal Taylor Yarns, going under names of Brandon Cullers and Lucas Jenkins. This message will repeat.”

  “Shit!” Shishone cried. “C’mon! We have to move!”

  They broke into a sprint, hurrying through the halls. The hangar was about a click away – not far under normal circumstances, but now, it felt like miles. As they ran, they passed a four way hallway junction, where three security personnel were rushing toward them. The personnel froze, and one pulled out a PDA and looked at them, as they stared back.

  “Right there!” the guard cried. “Stop! You’re under arrest!”

  Shishone, without even thinking, raised his weapon and started firing, laying down a suppression to let the others slip away. The guards cursed and ducked, before haphazardly raising their own pistols and firing back. Thankfully, however, Yarns had ushered Allister and Sergei down the hall, and Shishone followed. Before he could get away, however, a bullet hit his pauldron, and nearly knocked him down. He tripped over himself as he spun to get away, barely staying on his feet, before sprinting to catch up to them.

  Allister was crying. “We’re gonna die!” she said as they ran.

  “Not today we’re not,” Shishone said, giving her a light shove as he caught up. “Keep going!”

  Sirens and klaxons wailed through the hall as they ran, and large blast doors began to segregate the halls into segments. “Go, go!” Shishone shouted. “Don’t get caught in the doors!”

  Before them, large bulkhead doors began to close like teeth. Shishone rushed up to them, and hurried the other three through them, just barely before they closed behind him. They were close to the hangar now, half a click away.

  “Go!”

  Soon they came upon another four way junction, where they hooked a left, security guards flooding the other pathways. Sergei, who was falling behind a bit, looked back at them as another set of blast doors closed behind them, cutting them off from the guards.

  “You aren’t going to make it out of here, not like this,” he said, slowing to a halt.

  Shishone turned to him and shouted, “We need to move!”

  Sergei shook his head. “No, you need to move. This is my home, and I will not leave it. I will see you off.”

  Allister shot him a desperate, angry look. “Sergei, c’mon. We need to go.”

  “No. You need to go. Give me your weapons. I will make sure you get out of here.”

  “Can you even shoot?” Shishone asked, panting.

  Sergei nodded. “Back in New Hungary, all men of fighting age are required to join the militia for two years. I can shoot.”

  Shishone cursed, and looked at Yarns. There was no time to really argue. They had to keep moving. The deafening sirens continued to wail, and Xiao’s message continued to repeat. Soon, the halls would be absolutely inundated with guards, and their hope at escape would be lost.

  “Shit. Fine. Yarns, give him your pistol.”

  Yarns stammered, about to protest, but Shishone shot him an angry grimace. “Don’t argue. Give it to him.”

  Hanging his head, Yarns pulled his pistol out and handed it to Sergei, who took it and nodded to Shishone. Then, he turned to Allister, and placed a hand on her shoulder. She stared at him with tears in her eyes and a pained expression.

  “Don’t do this,” she pleaded.

  He frowned. “Go, Doctor. Find out what’s going on, and put an end to this. For Itomi.”

  She opened her mouth, as if to speak, but said nothing, and simply nodded.

  “Good. Now go! I’ll cover the rear!”

  With that, they broke out into another sprint, heading down the halls and toward the hangar. Yu came over the shortwave, her voice shrill.

  “Shishone? What’s going on?”

  “Xiao is onto us,” he said, breathing heavily. “Is the ship ready to go?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Just waiting for you. Hurry. I don’t know how long we have until they breach the hangar.”

  “We’re on the way.”

  Soon, they were on the approach to the hangar doors. Sergei stopped short of them, heavy, thunderous footsteps echoing behind them. The security guards would be there in moments. Allister turned back to him, reaching out, but Shishone grabbed her arm and yanked her forward.

  “Let’s go!”

  Sergei looked to her and offered a calming smile. “Go, Allister. I’ll make sure your ship can take off. Get out of here, now. And… make it worth it. For me. For Itomi.”

  Allister began to break, sobbing violently. “No, no!”

  “Come on!” Shishone barked, yanking her along. She struggled, protested, but was far weaker than Shishone, especially with the powered armor he was in, and so he continued to drag her to the door as she screamed out for Sergei.

  He watched them go, ensuring they made it through the doors, before turning around and raising the pistol. “Come, you dogs,” he muttered as the roaring footsteps grew louder. “Come face your master.”

  Shishone, standing in the doorway, the last to enter after Yarns and Allister, turned back to Sergei and locked eyes with the man one last time. Then, he offered a salute of grace and appreciation, before turning and locking the door behind them, leaving them in the hangar without him.

  Allister turned around and started slamming her fist against Shishone’s armor, cursing him. “We can’t leave him!” she cried. “We can’t! We just can’t!”

  “We have to,” Shishone said, grabbing her wrists. “Don’t let his sacrifice mean nothing.”

  She stared up at him with glossy, teary eyes, and he offered her a stern, if comforting glare. “Come on.”

  Yu came rushing out of the ship, meeting them. The ship’s engines were rumbling on idle, ready for takeoff. “We need to go,” she said.

  Shishone grunted, and took off toward the ship, the others in tow. From behind the doors, he could hear the pop pop pop of gunfire, and it made him sick to his stomach. Sergei seemed like a good man. He wouldn’t soon be forgotten.

  Rushing up the ramp and stepping into the cockpit, Shishone sat at the controls and called out on the shortwave for a headcount. The rest of them all checked back in, affirming that they were aboard, and so he raised the back hatch and sealed and pressurized the Harbinger, before really firing up her engines.

  “How are we gonna get out of here?” Yarns asked. “There’s no way the flight tower is going to raise the platform.”

  Shishone cursed; Yarns was right. “Yu, can you force their hand?”

  “Maybe,” she called back. Within moments, she was in the cockpit, sitting in the copilot’s chair and reaching out to the flight tower.

  “Arrokoth flight control, this is the Yu Solarum, Director of Communications for the Kuiper Belt. Requesting immediate takeoff.”

  The flight tower was silent.

  “Arrokoth flight control, do you copy?”

  Still silent.

  She cursed. “Dammit! Shishone, what do we do?”

  He thought for a moment, pondering their options. He could, theoretically, fire one of the wingboard missiles at the airlock hatch and blast their way out. Doing so would potentially depressurize parts of Arrokoth, though, and people would surely die. Innocent people. He couldn’t do that, he decided, it was too risky. Yet there seemed no other way out.

  He couldn’t do it… but, he realized, he could bluff.

  “Arrokoth flight control,” he said into the radio. “This is Corporal Shishone. You have two options. Either release us, or I fire one of our cruise missiles into the airlock and we depressurize the facility and make our own hole. Over.”

  Still, there was silence. He was starting to sweat. “Arrokoth flight control –”

  “Permission to depart granted,” came a grim voice. “Don’t come back.”

  The line went dead, and the platform began to ascend. As it did, the doors to the hangar opened, and security guards began to flood the room, all aiming their weapons at the ship. Some began to fire upon it, but thankfully, its armor held as they rose. The plinking sound of ricocheting bullets filled the inside of the cabin, making them all flinch, but thankfully, soon enough they were through the upper airlock hatch and into the pressurization chamber. The airlock sealed behind them, and the room depressurized, before they were finally spat out into space like ejected trash.

  Shishone fired up the throttle and the ship roared to life, making for a harsh break from the platform and a rough ascent. The whole ordeal had left them all with certain trauam. Still, they had made it, and were soon flying away at full speed.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, removing his helmet and checking the radar. Undoubtedly the Administration would be scrambling all sorts of gunships to track them down, but it seemed they had a small window to escape, and he’d be damned if he wouldn’t take it.

  Yu did the same, leaning back in her chair and setting her helmet on her lap and taking a breath. They looked at each other, the tension between them palpable, before Yu started to laugh quietly, tears in her eyes.

  “My father really has lost his mind,” she said, her laughing growing louder.

  “To Weywot?” Shishone said.

  He watched her as her chuckled turned into a guffaw, which turned into raucous laughter, mixed with painful tears. “He’s gone,” she said. “He’s completely gone.”

  He grit his teeth and reached over, grabbing her arm roughly and shaking her back to reality. Her laughter stopped, and she shot him a deranged, pained look.

  He said, “Where do we go now? Weywot?”

  She swallowed, shaking, but nodded. “Weywot. We stick to the plan.”

  “Okay.”

  He gripped the throttle and stick, and pulled them up, setting a course for the water mining facility on Weywot. What would happen then, he was uncertain. But maybe it would at least buy them some time.

  He hoped, at least.